In case you were wondering, the long rant was inspired by reading an article about James Randi scoffing at claims of a seven thousand dollar audio cable being "danceable". Specifically, the claims made by a review of the cable were for all intents and purposes supernatural. While better audio quality is probable, neither Randi nor anyone else looking rationally at the situation find it likely that the cable has some special power to make you want to get up and dance that is lacking in the $80 (and also overpriced) equivalent.
In any case, for an example of Randi at work, observe the following video. Below the video I will post some reactions with time stamps matching the video.
1:21: "That seemed to be the right one."
I don't know about you, but her explanation of how she made the choice isn't particularly satisfying. It's barely an explanation.
I'll admit as a writer of sorts that very often we pick words that "seemed to be the right one", but then again writing is a subjective art. The profession of healing people would, I hope, entail slightly more precision. Doctors may as "what seems to be the problem", but they at least poke you painfully in places, or X-ray you based on what you said, rather than just pulling remedies out of a hat.
1:42: The Muscle Test
That test seems far from scientific already. Is she really just pushing down on the arm? I would have thought that strength is a somewhat quantifiable measure. The love machine at the local pizza parlor qualified me as "Flaming Hot" with my right hand, "Eligible Bachelor" with me left, and "Prince Charming Himself" when I cheated and used both.
1:58: Testing testing....
And lo and behold, her arm isn't limp! It's a miracle! Get the Pope on the line! I don't know why just get him on the line we need to talk to him! No I don't speak Latin, maybe she has a crystal for that too!
If I sound unimpressed, it's because I am. Maybe I'm not giving her enough benefit of the doubt, but I'd rather prefer to be the one pushing on the arm myself. That, or use a machine to measure it. She was "Snores in bed" before, but with that crystal she's obviously upgraded a "Whoa Mama!" level of romance.
2:35: Randi has it in the bag
This is why Randi rocks. My test is too obvious. His is too awesome, yet should be so obvious.
Actually, it's interesting. He's a magician, how much do you want to bet that the crystal isn't even in the bag anymore, even though it looks like he put it in there?
That might cause the woman to call foul on the test though, so maybe he'll be honest.
4:22 If chance alone...
I'm going to bet alarm bells started ringing in the woman's head when Randi said, "If chance alone were operating here..."
5:00 Rats!
He was honest, but oh the hilarity of using rat poison.
5:17 ZOMG NUDE CRYSTAL
Obviously the crystal had to be naked, because that would explain why one out of five times the rat poison worked.
I hope you all enjoyed watching that debunking as much as I did.
Showing posts with label common sense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label common sense. Show all posts
20071004
20070605
Rant: Yarr
So the IFPI posted their 10 Inconvenient Truths about file sharing.
I'm not one to generally stand in defense of the music and video swapping that goes on, it is on the dark-side of the greyscale concerning legality, but the arguments made were so ridiculously stupid I couldn't believe it. What happened to all of the valid criticisms?
Here are their 10 "Inconvenient Truths".
Pretty conclusive, right? Right guys? They tried so hard, they really did. Don't they at least get a "Good Effort" ribbon?
1. CNN has ads. Slashdot has ads. In fact, the website the article was found had ads. It's standard practice on the web these days. However much I dislike the ads, they don't cost me money and are critical to allowing such websites to function without charging anyone for the "free music".
2. AllOfMp3.com was legal until the laws changed. Additionally, the closing of said site does little to dissuade people who have never heard of it, use P2P file sharing services, or don't know where "Russia" is on a map. This only makes sense insofar as destroying a distributor "inconveniences" the people who used to go there.
3. Organized Crime gangs and Terrorists also drive cars, breathe air, and work day-jobs. Stop affirming the consequent and understand that doing evil things makes a person evil but not everything an evil person does is bad.
4. We also don't care if our Crest toothpaste is made in Taiwan or Quebec. Crest is the brand that everyone recognizes, parent companies and distributors are not noticed. You'd think the marketers would know something about that.
5. This is a point, and I'll accept that it is true. However, there are several availible counterpoints: You weren't supporting underground artists in the first place, file sharing has been a major boon for underground artists, and artists make most of their money from concerts anyways.
6. Could it possibly be that the responsible ISPs are advertising such reputable websites and services such as eMusic and iTunes? Just because it's music on the internet doesn't mean it's pirated.
7. Firstly, since when is the economy the yardstick for everything? Civil Rights and Women's Liberation didn't create jobs, didn't generate tax revenue, and the protests often directly impeded the economy. Should these movements have dispered for the sake of the almighty dollar? Anti-copyright may not be as morally important as Civil Rights or Women's Lib, but attacking it for not helping the economy is silly.
Secondly, I understand that a weakened recording industry might mean a decrease in the jobs and tax revenue from said industry. This will affect many people directly and indirectly. However, those who believe said industry is cheating them and the artists they represent will not cry upon hearing this.
8. I don't think I've ever heard someone argue that it's the homeless guy on the street or the mother just making it through each day pirating the music. Most people I know point to high schoolers and college students who simply don't have the money to spend on oodles of CDs in lieu of important items like books, food, and school supplies. So as it isn't poverty that is to blame, we must ask what the cause is.
Generally, as this is economics, we must consider supply and demand. The RIAA and similar organizations have basically positted that demand hasn't changed, but has found a seperate and illegal channel for its supply. The anti-copyright movement posits that the demand has shrunk in lieu of the crap the industry is producing and that, if anything, file sharing has been slowing that by introducing people to bands they never would have listened to before. They also posit that, if anything, copyright and DRM only hinder the process by which file sharing does this.
Whoever is right, stating that poverty isn't the cause is like stating "The answer is not 3" when the question was "Should I use 'their' or 'there' in this sentence?".
9. "Wrong" and "Illegal" are not the same thing. They may often go hand in hand, but not always. As it stands, it is illegal, and the anti-copyright movement says it shouldn't be. As "Wrong" is obviously being used in the "Illegal" sense, you're not telling people anything they already don't know.
10. Point 1: There are more methods of file sharing than P2P networks (See The Pirate Bay, torrents, irc and other methods many of which you've already mentioned).
Point 2: While "unknown" bands being shared more frequently than known ones would be solid proof of the "hotbed"s of P2P, it would not exclude "popular" bands from being shared with appreciable frequency. The question isn't whether "popular" bands are still shared more than "unknown" bands, but rather is the ratio of "popular" to "unknown" far greater in such a situation than what appears in store sales?
All in all, I don't think any of the best arguments against file sharing were brought up. The anti-copyright movement has to convince the RIAA that file sharing isn't evil; this is something that current trends within the movement hinder more than help. File sharing is illegal, and a lot of the anti-copyright movement sits around laughing at the RIAA more than they do anything to rectify the illegality of their situation. File sharing does hurt sales when people download music they would otherwise have bought and never pay. File sharing often spreads viruses and misattributes music to the wrong author.
There's a lot more that's wrong with file sharing, but ultimately very little of it was brought up in the "10 Inconvenient Truths". For stealing the name of a documentary reknowned for making it crystal clear exactly how we're screwing up our planet, this was a very poor job of damning file sharing.
I'm not one to generally stand in defense of the music and video swapping that goes on, it is on the dark-side of the greyscale concerning legality, but the arguments made were so ridiculously stupid I couldn't believe it. What happened to all of the valid criticisms?
Here are their 10 "Inconvenient Truths".
1. Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment "free music" rhetoric.
2. AllOfMP3.com, the well-known Russian web site, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.
3. Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money.
4. Illegal file-sharers don’t care whether the copyright-infringing work they distribute is from a major or independent label.
5. Reduced revenues for record companies mean less money available to take a risk on "underground" artists and more inclination to invest in "bankers" like American Idol stars.
6. ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale.
7. The anti-copyright movement does not create jobs, exports, tax revenues and economic growth–it largely consists of people pontificating on a commercial world about which they know little.
8. Piracy is not caused by poverty. Professor Zhang of Nanjing University found the Chinese citizens who bought pirate products were mainly middle- or higher-income earners.
9. Most people know it is wrong to file-share copyright infringing material but won't stop till the law makes them, according to a recent study by the Australian anti-piracy group MIPI.
10. P2P networks are not hotbeds for discovering new music. It is popular music that is illegally file-shared most frequently.
Pretty conclusive, right? Right guys? They tried so hard, they really did. Don't they at least get a "Good Effort" ribbon?
1. CNN has ads. Slashdot has ads. In fact, the website the article was found had ads. It's standard practice on the web these days. However much I dislike the ads, they don't cost me money and are critical to allowing such websites to function without charging anyone for the "free music".
2. AllOfMp3.com was legal until the laws changed. Additionally, the closing of said site does little to dissuade people who have never heard of it, use P2P file sharing services, or don't know where "Russia" is on a map. This only makes sense insofar as destroying a distributor "inconveniences" the people who used to go there.
3. Organized Crime gangs and Terrorists also drive cars, breathe air, and work day-jobs. Stop affirming the consequent and understand that doing evil things makes a person evil but not everything an evil person does is bad.
4. We also don't care if our Crest toothpaste is made in Taiwan or Quebec. Crest is the brand that everyone recognizes, parent companies and distributors are not noticed. You'd think the marketers would know something about that.
5. This is a point, and I'll accept that it is true. However, there are several availible counterpoints: You weren't supporting underground artists in the first place, file sharing has been a major boon for underground artists, and artists make most of their money from concerts anyways.
6. Could it possibly be that the responsible ISPs are advertising such reputable websites and services such as eMusic and iTunes? Just because it's music on the internet doesn't mean it's pirated.
7. Firstly, since when is the economy the yardstick for everything? Civil Rights and Women's Liberation didn't create jobs, didn't generate tax revenue, and the protests often directly impeded the economy. Should these movements have dispered for the sake of the almighty dollar? Anti-copyright may not be as morally important as Civil Rights or Women's Lib, but attacking it for not helping the economy is silly.
Secondly, I understand that a weakened recording industry might mean a decrease in the jobs and tax revenue from said industry. This will affect many people directly and indirectly. However, those who believe said industry is cheating them and the artists they represent will not cry upon hearing this.
8. I don't think I've ever heard someone argue that it's the homeless guy on the street or the mother just making it through each day pirating the music. Most people I know point to high schoolers and college students who simply don't have the money to spend on oodles of CDs in lieu of important items like books, food, and school supplies. So as it isn't poverty that is to blame, we must ask what the cause is.
Generally, as this is economics, we must consider supply and demand. The RIAA and similar organizations have basically positted that demand hasn't changed, but has found a seperate and illegal channel for its supply. The anti-copyright movement posits that the demand has shrunk in lieu of the crap the industry is producing and that, if anything, file sharing has been slowing that by introducing people to bands they never would have listened to before. They also posit that, if anything, copyright and DRM only hinder the process by which file sharing does this.
Whoever is right, stating that poverty isn't the cause is like stating "The answer is not 3" when the question was "Should I use 'their' or 'there' in this sentence?".
9. "Wrong" and "Illegal" are not the same thing. They may often go hand in hand, but not always. As it stands, it is illegal, and the anti-copyright movement says it shouldn't be. As "Wrong" is obviously being used in the "Illegal" sense, you're not telling people anything they already don't know.
10. Point 1: There are more methods of file sharing than P2P networks (See The Pirate Bay, torrents, irc and other methods many of which you've already mentioned).
Point 2: While "unknown" bands being shared more frequently than known ones would be solid proof of the "hotbed"s of P2P, it would not exclude "popular" bands from being shared with appreciable frequency. The question isn't whether "popular" bands are still shared more than "unknown" bands, but rather is the ratio of "popular" to "unknown" far greater in such a situation than what appears in store sales?
All in all, I don't think any of the best arguments against file sharing were brought up. The anti-copyright movement has to convince the RIAA that file sharing isn't evil; this is something that current trends within the movement hinder more than help. File sharing is illegal, and a lot of the anti-copyright movement sits around laughing at the RIAA more than they do anything to rectify the illegality of their situation. File sharing does hurt sales when people download music they would otherwise have bought and never pay. File sharing often spreads viruses and misattributes music to the wrong author.
There's a lot more that's wrong with file sharing, but ultimately very little of it was brought up in the "10 Inconvenient Truths". For stealing the name of a documentary reknowned for making it crystal clear exactly how we're screwing up our planet, this was a very poor job of damning file sharing.
20060807
Post-Post Modernism
The more I've observed people my age and teenagerish, the more I've come to the conclusion that ways of thinking are changing. There's a general discontent with how the world is ordered, and it only grows with age.
Post Modernism will be with us for a while yet, but I doubt that it will remain long enough to bother people 50 years from now. By then, it will be defined as a minor bump on the road between the end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of controlled anarchy.
What irks the youth of today are the continuing mixed messages we get. There are two sets of schools of thought competing for our allegience. The first set is made of the much derided relativistic schools. The second set is filled by the empirical schools. Both bombard us with their dogma, and the number of "bites" they are getting is diminishing.
The movement that is ever so subtlely beginning is one that rejects both "there are no absolutes" and "everything is absolute". In many ways it's a "common sense" movement. It goes without saying that there are absolutes and there are grey areas. Ultimately what will preserve Post Modernism for a while is the entrenchment of empiricism in established institutes, but when it has served its purpose in destroying empricism's credibility it will fade.
Right now the movement's in a celluar state, just fertilized and beginning to develop. Exactly what it will look like at birth, adulthood, and seniority are beyond anyone's ability to predict. However, some trends are clear. Young adults are rejecting institutions for their inefficiency and insincerity, yet find that anarchy is inefficient as well. Some bridging of the two will occur, assuming the second coming doesn't happen first.
That's all I can write for now. There's a large thunderstorm and I think it may knock out power just long enough to erase what I've written.
Post Modernism will be with us for a while yet, but I doubt that it will remain long enough to bother people 50 years from now. By then, it will be defined as a minor bump on the road between the end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of controlled anarchy.
What irks the youth of today are the continuing mixed messages we get. There are two sets of schools of thought competing for our allegience. The first set is made of the much derided relativistic schools. The second set is filled by the empirical schools. Both bombard us with their dogma, and the number of "bites" they are getting is diminishing.
The movement that is ever so subtlely beginning is one that rejects both "there are no absolutes" and "everything is absolute". In many ways it's a "common sense" movement. It goes without saying that there are absolutes and there are grey areas. Ultimately what will preserve Post Modernism for a while is the entrenchment of empiricism in established institutes, but when it has served its purpose in destroying empricism's credibility it will fade.
Right now the movement's in a celluar state, just fertilized and beginning to develop. Exactly what it will look like at birth, adulthood, and seniority are beyond anyone's ability to predict. However, some trends are clear. Young adults are rejecting institutions for their inefficiency and insincerity, yet find that anarchy is inefficient as well. Some bridging of the two will occur, assuming the second coming doesn't happen first.
That's all I can write for now. There's a large thunderstorm and I think it may knock out power just long enough to erase what I've written.
Labels:
common sense,
dogma,
opinion,
Post Modernism,
rant
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
