Why your vote matters

It happens every four years at about this time: some people (and I won't name names here) start proudly announcing the fact that they don't see any point in voting. Why? Well, a variety of reasons, generally including several of these points:

1. No candidate has exactly what I'm looking for. I don't respect any of them, and I conscientiously refuse to vote for someone whom I don't respect.
2. The two candidates both suck. I won't vote for the lesser of two evils.
3. If I refuse to vote, then maybe politicians will get the message that they should offer better candidates, because there aren't any that I can get behind now.
   
4. One person's vote is so inconsequential that I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning on election day than I have of personally affecting the outcome of the election.

I'm going to hit each of these points in turn.

1. No candidate has exactly what I'm looking for. I don't respect any of them, and I conscientiously refuse to vote for someone whom I don't respect.

As Donald Rumsfeld might have said, "You go to the polls with the candidates you have, not the candidates you might want or wish to have." Let's say you've decided to sit out every election until you finally encounter the candidate who's a left-handed green-eyed atheist libertarian who will institute the flat tax and can sing classical opera. I can guarantee you that you, my friend, will be sitting out every election of your entire life.

But let's say a candidate finally comes along who's a right-handed green-eyed agnostic libertarian who will institute some kinds of tax reforms (not the exact ones you want) and plays the tuba. And let's say the other guy in the race is George W. Bush. Are you really telling me that you're going to sit out on principle because you only like southpaws?

There are a lot of people in the world who could be running for president, but only a few of them are. The stronger you make your qualifications that are required to get your vote, the more you are guaranteed to be disenfranchised from the process. Which brings me to...

2. The two candidates both suck. I won't vote for the lesser of two evils.

Oh, I see. Then you won't mind if the greater of two evils wins. Suppose you've been kidnapped and imprisoned by a sadistic dictator, and he gives a choice between being punched once in the face or being slowly and painfully flayed alive for four hours. Would you say "Ah, who cares? Both things are evil, so either way I'll get hurt. Pick whichever one you want." I don't know about you, but in that situation I'd be saying "Punch me in the face, please!"

In the first place, I don't buy the fact that both candidates are evil. Like committing to a lifelong relationship with a person of the opposite sex (or same, if that's your thing), I guarantee that you will never find a person who is without flaws. When confronted with these flaws, you can either say "Sorry, imperfect match detected; no votes for you" or you can take the bad with the good and pick the person who is clearly the best available, warts and all.

In the second place, even if both candidates represent a net dislike for you, that still doesn't mean that your choice is irrelevant. Again, do you want to get punched once or flayed for hours? Easy choice: pick the outcome which is best for me.

3. If I refuse to vote, or write in "Mickey Mouse" on my ballot, then maybe politicians will get the message that they should offer better candidates, because there aren't any that I can get behind now.

Yes, of course they will. And then everybody will magically receive a million dollars and a pony from the sky.

Look, I hate to say this, but a vote is not a treatise on the state of our nation. If you want to send a message, start a blog. A friend of mine likes to say that voting has very low bandwidth: each person gets to transmit only one bit every four years. There's not a lot to resolve there about what your vote "means."

Most people in this country don't vote most of the time. There are countless reasons why somebody might not vote. Maybe all the candidates are too liberal. Maybe all the candidates are too conservative. Maybe the voter only supports left-handed green-eyed atheist libertarian candidates who will institute the flat tax and can sing classical opera. Or maybe the voters just couldn't muster the energy to get off their lazy asses and transmit their one bit this year.

When you're looking at election results, do you hear those messages? No. The ONLY information transmitted in the election is: "X voters voted, one candidate won by Y percentage points." That's it. Maybe you get more information out of news coverage and interviews, but that is true regardless of whether people vote or not.

If the greater of two evils wins, what's the strongest message that got sent? "Most people prefer this candidate to the other one. He must have done something right." Then, guess what happens four years later? Both candidates try to be more like the guy who won. Over time, the landscape drifts in the direction that people push it. Not voting, and even voting for somebody that you already know isn't going to win, rarely has an effect other than that of bolstering the person who wins.

I'm talking to YOU, Ralph Nader and entourage.

4. One person's vote is so inconsequential that I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning on election day than I have of personally affecting the outcome of the election.

Sure. This one is true. But there's a significant fallacy involved.

Clearly there is little chance that the margin of victory will be a single vote, so the chance that YOUR vote is going to make the difference is very, very remote. Conceivably if you just stayed home on election day and didn't mention it, your influence on the election would be pretty much invisible.

But that's not all that people do when they announce "I'm not voting because my vote doesn't matter." They're not only choosing not to vote; they're also proclaiming that not voting is a better option. In doing so, they are, to some extent, influencing others who might agree with their own positions to do the same. And by convincing like minds to also not vote, this is spreading a "don't vote" meme across a broad population. The act of not voting may not influence the outcome, but the meme certainly does.

This isn't an academic issue; the use of memes that say "do vote" or "don't vote" has been used very effectively by special interest groups. For instance, one of the reasons that the religious right has been so successful at gaining disproportionate influence in government is that they have organized communication channels, mailing lists and church announcements and such, which mobilize their congregants to vote. This is a big message that DJ Groethe of the Center for Inquiry drove home for me once, showing materials such as Mind Siege, which end-times crackpot Tim LaHaye uses to frighten fundamentalists into voting (and also sending money). The basic message is that if YOU PERSONALLY don't take action IN THIS ELECTION, then the fags will make gay marriage mandatory for everyone and the evilutionists will jail all dissenters.

Strictly speaking, this isn't the truth. But the effect that this message has is very real. And likewise, sending the inverse message to people -- that voting is stupid and a waste of time -- ALSO has a genuine effect on overall turnout. Memes have a ripple effect. Maybe your vote won't sway the election, and maybe your message about not voting won't sway the election either. But people who are persuaded not to vote also have this tendency of replicating the meme and encouraging other people not to vote.

So, in fact, I choose to believe that my attitude about voting -- in addition to my vote -- makes a difference. It's a straight up Prisoner's Dilemma decision: "cooperate" and vote for the best alternative you can locate, even if it's inconvenient, or "defect" and stay home. Though your vote may not count, everyone who agrees with you and stays home will practically translate to one half of a vote for whoever they believe to be the worst candidate.

On the other hand, few things delight me more than hearing somebody say "I voted for Bush twice, but I don't think I'm voting in this election." Sure, I'd prefer that they decide to vote for Obama (or even Clinton) instead, but given that this is a semi-rare event, I want to encourage them to continue "protesting" the Republican by not voting for him. "Go, dude!" I say. "Keep registering that protest and not voting! Refuse to vote Republican because there's not a crazy enough apocalyptic dominionist left in the bunch! That'll show those jerks who's boss! And if necessary, I hope you continue to not vote for as long as it takes, even if it's your whole life, until you get exactly what you want."

So in conclusion, don't just vote: convince those with whom you agree to vote. And make sure that the people with whom you disagree are good and surly about their candidates this year.

Inspiring candidates

Slow updating this blog, but I thought this video was funny.



10,000 more years in Iraq! Yaaaaaay!

Leisure time

If you'll take a look at the green bar to your right, you'll notice I've updated my reading list. I hadn't changed the list since before I graduated, so I figured I should clear out some of the school books, which I'm not really reading anymore. For posterity, the list right now says:

What I'm reading right now (or trying to)

• Wizard's First Rule (on recommendation from my cousin)
• American Theocracy (gift from a journalism professor at UT)
• Pro Apache Struts with Ajax
• The Ancestor's Tale
• Collapse

What I recently finished reading

• The Conscience of a Liberal
• The Mythical Man-Month
• Managing Software Requirements
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Note that just because I say I'm currently reading something doesn't always mean that I'm reading it particularly actively. Collapse, for instance, has been in my bathroom for probably about two years.

Nice to be out of school, that's what I say. Also I'm playing a crapload of World o' Warcraft. My priest Kazimus is now doing regular guild raids at level 70, and I'm starting to move my warrior up the ladder. Yay free time!

What's for dinner?

My wife is a really good cook, and she often writes these long posts where she describes what she made or plans to make for dinner.

I don't cook very often, and I describe myself as a "one hit wonder" in the kitchen. Well, I have a few things I know how to make well; the main breakfast staple is quesadillas, especially when Hatch green chiles are available, and I usually put a fried egg on mine. Ben just likes plain quesadillas with nothing but cheese.

That's not my specialty, though. The one dinner dish I know how to make really well is lasagna. I made one for Ginny last night when she came home from her camping trip. So for a change, I'm writing the dinner post. Ginny took a picture of it, but she didn't send me the image yet so I don't have a visual for you. I should also mention that my best friend's dad used to call me "Garfield," so he would probably find it funny that that's my main dish.

My mom taught me how to make lasagna when I was in college, and over the years Ginny has been suggesting ingredients to add to the mix. At base, I have always used these items which have not changed, except for tweaks to the amount:

• One package of lasagna noodles
• One and a half cans of Hunt's spaghetti sauce
• One container of ricotta cheese
• Three cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
• About a teaspoon of parmesan
• One egg
• Salt and pepper
  

Then there are variable ingredients for the inside; last night I used:

• A pound of ground beef
  
• Some mushrooms
• A quarter of a red onion
• A few leaves of fresh spinach
• Some unfrozen artichoke hearts

So anyway, you chop up all the vegetables together in a big (i.e., deep) frying pan and sauté them in either olive oil or grape seed oil. There should be approximately equal amounts of each vegetable, so use the quarter of an onion to compare with the other things. Set the vegetables aside, start the pot boiling for the noodles, and crumble up and brown the meat in the big pan. Pour in the spaghetti sauce and mix it in with the beef, then add the sautéd vegetables and mix them in too.

While the noodles are cooking (about 12-14 minutes) put half the mozzarella in with the other two cheeses and an egg. Add some salt and pepper, mix them up.

Smear the bottom of the pan with a little of the sauce and stuff. Put in a layer of noodles. Then put on a bunch of sauce and stuff, and smush on some of the cheese mixture. Add more noodles. I use four layers of noodles and three layers of sauce stuff and cheese stuff. I use all the cheese on the inside, but I leave a little sauce to pour on top at the end.

On the last layer, put on the extra sauce and then cover it with the rest of the mozzarella cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 375 for 30 minutes with foil, then take off the foil and do 15 more minutes. Throw in some garlic bread during the last ten minutes.

So that's my own happy homemaker post. I don't do this very often because it takes me about an hour to get the thing ready (I'm a slow vegetable chopper) and another half hour to clean up the mess. Besides that, I also got a bottle of Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon and a prepackaged Caesar salad, and I used some cherry crumb cobbler that was in the freezer.

Ginny was happy. My doctor hates me. :)

Sweeney Todd

It's kind of hard to categorize this movie. There aren't very many musical horror/comedies; the only other one I can think of is Little Shop of Horrors. LSOH is more comedy than horror, while Sweeney Todd definitely leans much more in the horror direction. Plus, most things that Tim Burton does cannot be categorized with anything else.

I didn't know the source material going in; never saw or read the play, and never heard any of the music except when a friend sang a few lines from "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd." That was years ago and it wasn't even in the movie.

Anyway, I think I liked it. It was at least effective horror, in the sense that it creeped out and disgusted me, so I can't say I really ENJOYED watching it, but I appreciated the art direction. It also had very effective comedy moments, especially every scene that featured Sacha Baron Cohen. People who like seeing Alan Rickman as a villain will probably like his role here, although since he plays a contemptible pedophile, people who think Alan Rickman is sexy will probably not like the role.

Johnny Depp did an excellent job, and completely personified the "Magnificent Bastard" entry in TV tropes. One thing I've always liked about Johnny Depp is the way he plunges into a role. Whatever weird stuff you throw at him, he always plays it to the hilt. This movie is no different. Probably my favorite number was when Helena Bonham Carter sings her glurgy fantasy about how she hopes that they will live by the sea someday, and even in her fantasies Johnny Depp sports this completely deadpan expression, with a slight sneer that indicates that this is a guy who does not intend to enjoy himself ever again in his life.

I like Tim Burton's style, and the grim and hideous vision of London that he cooks up is very impressive. I can definitely tell that a lot of it is CGI, but the non-computerized sets fit in very well with the sweeping pans that are made over a city that doesn't really exist except in Burton's twisted animation.

And the blood... all I can say is that it reminded me strongly of the black knight in Monty Python. After a certain amount, it goes beyond yucky and just becomes silly. I think that's not a criticism, because Burton probably meant it that way.

Ten things I've done that you probably haven't

One of those blog meme thingies; I got wind of it thanks to Martin.

1. Completed a master's degree program while also working full time
2. Visited a live studio taping of Sesame Street
3. Skied on a Double Black Diamond hill
4. Drew a salary for teaching a class in which all but one student was older than me
   
5. Starred as comic relief in an amateur (but professionally directed) performance of The Mikado
   
6. Argued for atheism while in kindergarten
   
7. Attempted to sabotage an Amway meeting
8. Actually engaged in conversation with Jehovah's Witnesses for the better part of an hour
9. Launched an internet audio show before podcasts were hip
10. Conceived a child right around 9/11/01

I am now a fan of the Sarah Connor Chronicles

And it's only taken one episode.

I mean, they already had me with "It's a TV series based on Terminator"... so already I know this is going to involve time travel, gunplay, explosions, and evil robots. Now to that, add Summer Glau, who played River Tam on Firefly. Hey, we all know that they could just make a movie called "River Tam Beats Up Everyone" and it would be great. But beating up everyone while nude? I'm so sticking with the entire season. :)

Also, this show seems to have taken the very wise approach of wiping out the completely lousy Terminator 3 from the chronology, so, bonus.

Fictional atheist strawmen, part 2

I wanted to highlight this post by PZ Myers, mainly because it so neatly dovetails with what I was saying a month ago about The Reaping. I also did a TV episode about fictional atheist strawmen, which you can watch here.

In talking about the movie I Am Legend, PZ highlights a similar major problem with movie atheists, which is that the only time they are portrayed in a positive light is when they are a kind of "failed biblical Job", put through all kinds of awful tribulations until they finally crack and declare that there is no God. Even though this turns them into a sort of sympathetic figure, the fiction in the rest of the story always proves them wrong. As I said regarding a similar character in The Reaping, very few people really come to atheism that way.

The Daily Show returns, for real

In other political news you may have missed, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will air their first new episodes this Monday night. However, since the strike still hasn't ended, they're doing it with no writers. This isn't optimal, of course, but I've seen Jon Stewart do interviews. I still think that an ad libbed Daily Show is better than none at all.

Also, Stewart will be a guest character on The Simpsons this Sunday.

Congratulations to Obama and Huckabee

So, in case you haven't heard yet:

Obama 38%, Edwards 30%, Clinton 29%, Richardson 2%, Biden 1%, Dodd 1%.
vs.
Huckabee 34%, Romney 25%, Thompson 13% McCain 13%, Paul 10%, Giuliani 3%

I'm cheerful about last night's outcome. Before leaving work yesterday, I was chatting with a coworker who leans somewhat more liberal than most Texans, but she likes Ron Paul and hates Clinton. I told her that since Ron Paul didn't have a prayer (and I was right) I hoped Hillary wouldn't be the nominee so that would guarantee that she'd vote Democratic for president.

My favorite candidate, Edwards, didn't win, but he came in second and Clinton came in third. I think Obama is a solid candidate who might pull it off in November, and I know many people who love him. I disagree with a few of his positions, but on the whole I think he can win and I believe the mood of the country is with him.

On the other side, I'm delighted that Mike Huckabee won. Not because I want him as president, but because out of all the candidates, I think he has just about the least chance of being elected.

This isn't a case of sunny optimism, of the same variety some of us applied when we thought "George Bush will never be (re)elected, he's too dumb." Nope -- this is a very divisive nomination. The religious Republicans like Huckabee, but they're the only ones. Many other Republicans HATE him. He's not part of the "old boys' club" like Giuliani or Thompson; and he's got some distressingly quasi-liberal views on law enforcement, social programs, and immigration.

Now, the religious right may have a strong influence on Republican politics, but I don't believe for a minute that they can win an election by themselves without support from the huge political cash machine.

I can picture three things happening in the event of Huckabee continuing to win states:

1. Republicans eventually grit their teeth and fall in line, with the full force of the Republican noise machine finally backing him. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh will, as Rush said before, continue carry the water for people he doesn't really believe deserve it.
2. Float a third party candidate they can support. I don't know who the hell it would be at this point (Gingrich?) but either way I think that would be AWESOME and guarantee an Obama victory.
3. Largely not vote. Sure, the fundamentalists will turn out in droves, which will give Huckabee pretty big final numbers. But not enough, that's my guess.

Giuliani sat this one out, and time will tell whether that was a good move. He's skipping Iowa and New Hampshire, and going straight to Florida. It's possible he'll win Florida, but I think his pathetic 3% showing in Iowa is really going to hurt him. Maybe coming in third with double digits would have left him still viable, but it's hard not to see him as completely hopeless now. Which is great, considering how much everybody hates Giuliani and all.

I think McCain has the best shot at winning the general election, but Huckabee just creamed him 2-1.

Pitfalls of a skeptical kid

Quite an eventful Christmas this year. Caitlin and Samantha have come to visit for the entire vacation period. Keryn is engaged. I've met most of the family of my future brother-in-law. They seem like nice folks.

One distant non-relation is a little girl who is 5, exactly Ben's age. She is my sister's fiance's brother's girlfriend's daughter. ("So what does that make us?" "Absolutely nothing... which is what YOU are about to become!") The two kids got along great. Ben's been missing two front teeth since some unfortunate horseplay when he was 5. This girl has lost a tooth in the natural way, which is a hopeful sign because it means that Ben's disfigurement won't stand out for much longer.

They got in the following conversation:

Girl: "The tooth fairy brought me five dollars!"
Ben (confidently): "But the tooth fairy isn't real!"
Girl (taken aback): "She is too! Or else who brought me five dollars?"

Ben didn't answer that one, although I like to think that he knows the real answer and just chose to let it drop. (He does know, after all, that parents bring Christmas presents.)

We made a conscious decision when he was born not to teach him to believe in made-up things like Santa and the tooth fairy. That was a tough decision, but he's just now coming to the age where our decision can ruin the fun for other parents.

Ginny and I had a couple of talks with him. I tried to explain to him that we felt it was the right decision not to pretend that imaginary things are real, because we didn't want to lie to him. But at the same time I struggled to justify why it's okay for other parents to lie to THEIR kids.

At one point he asked "So other parents tell their kids Santa is real to make them happy?" And I said "Yes, that's right." And he said "But I'm happy." Good kid. :)

Ginny had the immediate concern that Ben would blab about Santa to his best friend, who came over on Christmas morning to have breakfast with us after the presents were opened. She said "You CANNOT tell Calvin Santa is real. No, not even if he asks what Santa brought you. You can just say 'I got this and this,' and you don't have to lie about who brought it. You just don't say."

I told him it that this is just a game that some parents play. It's a secret. Since you know the secret, you get to share the game with the rest of us adults. So don't tell anyone the secret, or you'll spoil the game for other kids.

Obama on the Rise

I'm mainly posting this for the benefit of my sister-in-law Lynn, who I know is a huge Obama supporter. This is a remarkably positive article about Barack Obama by Matt Taibbi, who is usually incredibly cynical regarding both sides. Yes, he throws in a healthy dose of skepticism in describing the "well-oiled political machine" that Obama actually has at his command. But the ending is pretty upbeat, at least for Taibbi:

"So maybe it's OK to let the grandiose things that an Obama presidency could represent overwhelm the less-stirring reality -- i.e., Obama as more or less a typical middle-of-the-road Democrat with a lot of money and a well-run campaign. Maybe it's OK because it's not always about the candidates; sometimes it's about us, what we want and what we want to believe. And if Barack Obama can carry that burden for us, why not let him? Seriously, why not? The happy ending doesn't always have to ring false."

Disclosure: My ranking is Edwards, Obama, Clinton. Maybe stick Chris Dodd in before Clinton due to his recent filibuster stunt, which I thought was pretty awesome. One the whole, I'd rather have Edwards in office due to the fact that he's selling himself more on his positions on the issues than on his personality; I feel that he has stronger positions on economics and the environment than Obama does.

But that doesn't mean I'd have any qualms about voting for Obama; I think he's a solid and charismatic candidate, and that may matter more in this race. For that matter, based on the current front runners, I feel pretty confident that whichever Republican wins is going to be a complete train wreck in one way or another. Hillary Clinton may not be my ideal candidate, but compared to Huckabee, Romney, or Giuliani? No contest.

I've been waiting two years to say this...

I
Am
The

Master

- Russell Wain Glasser, B.S., M.S.E.

Zero hour

Fall 2007 semester (Class weekend Schedule)
August 17-18, 2007
September 14-15, 2007
October 12-13, 2007
November 9-10, 2007
December 6-7, 2007
---> *** Graduation December 7 *** <---

Two final exams tomorrow.

(Cracks knuckles)

(Cracks neck)

Let's rock.

The Reaping: another awful anti-skeptic movie

I just watched The Reaping, another tedious horror movie that goes something like this:

Act 1, scene 1

Skeptic: "Hi, I'm an atheist and I think supernatural stuff is all bunk!"
Believer: "An atheist, eh? Why, you must have had some tragic experience in your life that made you mad at God."
Skeptic: "Why yes, as a matter of fact I did!"

Act 1, scene 2

Messenger: "Hey skeptic, some weird supernatural events are happening in this out-of-the-way location, and I think you should check it out."
Skeptic: "Supernatural events? Nonsense! There is a perfectly logical scientific explanation! Therefore, I will drop everything else in my life and go check it out."
Messenger: "I thought you'd say that. Car's ready, let's go."

Act 2

(Obviously supernatural events happen.)
Skeptic: "Nonsense, there is a perfectly rational scientific explanation for all of this. Give me a minute and I'll make some up."

Act 3

Skeptic: "Holy cow, it turns out that these events were supernatural all along! I have certainly learned many things and grown as a person. So much for my vaunted 'scientific method.'"


In this case, the skeptic is Hillary Swank, eventually revealed by the exposition to be a former preacher who lost her faith in God when religious whackjobs in some third world country killed her family. Now she apparently gives lectures on why there are no miracles and no God.

As I mentioned when I talked about Evan Almighty, these kinds of movies really work hard to undermine skepticism by establishing a fictional world where the magic stuff is real. The skeptic winds up looking like a fool by clinging on to "rational explanations" long after a real person, employing the observation and deduction skills possessed by a warthog, would have recognized the existence of magic. None of this applies in the real world, though; the takeaway message of the movie is "Don't be so skeptical of magic!" when it should qualify that with "...if you're a person who lives in a fictional magical universe."

You understand, of course, that I'm not complaining because a fictional story has fictional elements in it. I'm complaining about the really bad way that the skeptical main character is portrayed, in that she is confronted with an unprecedented level of real, concrete evidence... which she blithely ignores right up until the very end.

And "ignore the evidence" seems to be the only thing that Hillary Swank ever does in her capacity as a skeptic. For somebody with such a supposedly scientific mind, she certainly doesn't bother doing any of the obvious tests that I, who am not a scientist, think of immediately. For instance, the first thing she goes to investigate is a river that has turned red like blood. (The plot of this movie involves a recreation of the ten Biblical Plagues, in order.) Naturally, she starts pontificating on the possible reasons why the river could have turned blood-red. At this point I said to Ginny: "Surely the very FIRST thing that she should do when she gets there is run some kind of test to verify whether that stuff is actually blood or not. I sure do hope that occurs to her."

Guess what she doesn't do.

Oh, she has it tested for SOMETHING, but it's not whether it matches the chemical composition of blood. After she's been in the little town fooling around for several days, some other character refers to all the dead fish in the blood river, and she snaps at the guy "Look, those fish all died because the pH balance of that water is off the charts!" So apparently, she took the time to analyze the pH balance of the stuff, but never bothered to take a little extra effort to find out if it is actually, you know, blood. (Spoiler: It's blood.)

It gets worse. When the requisite priest starts yammering about the original Biblical plagues, Hillary Swank again begins ranting about how there's a simple scientific explanation for all ten plagues. You see, first this uncommon species of algae grew in the rivers, turning them red, and then all the fish died because of the algae, which caused some disease that killed the livestock and attracted frogs and locusts, and so on, in this hilariously elaborate Rube Goldberg sequence that handily explains all ten plagues.

This explanation struck me as so patently ridiculous that it could only be dreamed up by some nitwit in Hollywood, but it turns out I'm wrong. Since I googled some stuff to see if I got her "theory" correct, I found this page at Answers In Genesis arguing against a very similar explanation written by one Greta Hort in 1957. So I guess SOMEBODY really took this stuff seriously.

It's not that this stuff with the algae and the diseases and the frogs couldn't have happened in Egypt, or even been a very common occurrence. It's just that I'm floored by the absolute cocksure way that Hillary Swank declares that This Is How It Really Happened. Much simpler explanation: it's just a story. It's loosely based on things the authors had real experience with, or on local legends. There is no need for a scientific explanation, until such time as any evidence is presented to show that it happened at all.

This whole idea that you can just make up a "logical, scientific explanation" by ad libbing stuff off the top of your head, without taking any data or evidence into account, is what bugs me about this and many other movies in the way they portray skeptics. It's quite similar to cargo cult science, because it's clearly somebody who has no idea what science is, writing a script showing what sciency people sound like.

Similarly, the whole "I'm an atheist because something terrible happened to me and now I'm mad at God" angle is a theistic fantasy of how an atheist talks. Theists ALWAYS seem to jump to the assumption that this is how people become atheists. It's the default explanation. Yet among all the atheists I know, not one has ever told me that their story was anything remotely like that.

The Daily Show is back!! Well, kind of...

The Daily Show writers, who probably have nothing else to do, are producing their own mini-Daily Show, live from the picket lines, on YouTube.

Alyx Vance may be one of the best game characters ever

If you're a gamer, chances are pretty good that you are at least aware of Half-Life 2 and the recent expansions, dubbed Episodes 1 and 2. Since I finished playing Portal, probably about five times now, I've been exploring the other aspects that the Half-Life Orange Box has to offer.

Man, what a great collection of games. I liked the original Half-Life a lot, and HL2 was even better, but this is simply a triumph of great story combined with great action. In these last few days, my perception of Valve has jumped up from "A really great game company" to "Nearly Blizzard-like in their ability to consistently do everything right."

One of the major contributors to this perception is the character of Alyx Vance, an NPC (that's "Non-Player Character" for you non-gamers, although you folks probably stopped reading before the end of the previous paragraph) who stays at your side throughout most of the game. Alyx was a fun character in the first HL2 story, but she has really gotten a chance to shine in the expansions. With her specifically in mind, I present:

Seven surefire ways to make an NPC that every gamer will love!

1. Make her female. Because -- go on, it's okay, you can acknowledge it -- most gamers are male.

2. Make her kick ass. The damsel in distress is SO fifty years ago. Today's great female characters should be created in the mold of Buffy Summers, Sarah Connor, Ripley, and Hermione Granger. They aren't sitting around waiting for some man to come along and sweep them away; they can blow away armies of ant-lions on their own very well, thank you. And she does look so very stylish when she's kicking zombies in the face.

3. Make her spend a lot of time with you. Most 3D shooters are all about solo play in an environment where everything is either dead or wants you to die. Ever since Wolfenstein 3D, there has always been a distinct feeling of loneliness as you slog through level after level and don't see a single living thing that isn't evil. Having a buddy who is right alongside you nailing enemies can cause a huge difference to the mood of the game. That's why I always liked playing networked games in cooperative mode much more than I like Deathmatches.

4. Make her talkative. As a corollary to the previous point, if she's going to be around a lot, she'd better be talking because you're not going to. Having a NPC say "Wow, nice shot!" can be a tremendous ego booster, while having her occasionally say "Look out, I hear something" can make her feel like a vital trusted companion. If you're a real roleplayer (code word for "dork") then you can always talk back to her yourself and pretend she's responding to you. Not that I would ever do that. Nope. Not me.

5. Make her actually help you. If there are any in-game hints to give, it makes so much more sense to deliver them through the always-present NPC than a disembodied narration. Whether she's shooting something that just came up behind you, or suggesting "I think we should go this way" or yelling "Look out, grenade!" you need to appreciate having a friend in the game. But more than that, Alyx gets special abilities that set her apart from the player, like climbing to places you can't reach, and hacking through security systems. In the early levels of Episodes 1 and 2, she gets a gun and you don't, so you're relying on her for basic protection. Later, as you're strolling through hordes of zombies, it's just so comforting to see the laser targeting line which means Alyx has your back with her sniper rifle. And there had better be at least a few occasions where it's obvious you would be dead without her intervention.

6. Don't let her hinder you. NPC's are generally very hard to write into action games, because they get in the way and aren't supposed to die. The "Opposing Force" Half-Life 1 expansion was really bad about this. Along the way, you keep picking up small squads of soldiers who are vital to your survival. The difficulty in these sections is generally cranked up, so if you blow away your own squad with an errant rocket, you're really up a creek. NPC's in the recent HL episodes seem pretty near indestructible. You can't shoot them yourself, and the monsters don't finish them off for a fairly long time. Yes, it's cheating for a game designer to give a character near-invulnerability. But remember that the NPC is there for the purposes of story and atmosphere, and NOT as an additional obstacle to keep you from getting through the game. Nothing's worse than when you've just come to the end of a five-minute firefight, you're feeling pretty good about yourself, and then from fifty feet away you hear "Argh..." Alyx has died, game over.

7. Let her get in trouble, but only after you've established point #2. I don't really care about the data card that we've been carrying to who-remembers-where throughout the entire game. It's a MacGuffin -- supposedly important to the characters, but irrelevant to my understanding of the plot. On the other hand, I care a lot about Alyx, because her character has been established so well. So if she just took a fall while heroically protecting my life, you bet I'm not going to take a break from the game until I'm sure she's okay.

And then, Pinky, we will try to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

I just wanted to mention that I'm fooling around ideas for promoting this blog better. I signed up for Google Analytics yesterday and I'm having some fun looking at the information I'm getting -- about 60 unique readers each day. At one point, I had hacked up my own invisible statistics reader for the blog, but it was in dire need of a rewrite, and I decided Google Analytics would be a good way to not reinvent the wheel.

In addition, my recent Master's work with Digg reminded me that I should start making it easier to recommend posts here, so I've added that little "Digg this" link that you see in the upper right corner. I wouldn't be so crass as to Digg my own posts, but I'm not above begging. So if you're a regular reader and you have a Digg account, I'd be greatly obliged if you'd skim some of your favorite recent posts and hit the button.

No, not THIS post. This post sucks. I notice that the anti-9/11 conspiracy post is popular, but that's partly because it's recent.

The button's not too annoying, is it? Let me know.

Gaming goodness

I had class this weekend, which means that only one weekend and two classes are left in total. My adviser finally got back to me to let me know that my thesis is interesting and well done, and only a few minor changes are necessary before submission. So on the whole it looks like somewhat smooth sailing from here on out, and therefore I treated myself on Friday evening to The Half-Life Orange Box.

I have not bought a game in several months, and part of the reason behind this purchase is that I had heard so many outstanding reviews that I couldn't stand to do without it any longer. This package contains Half-Life 2 (which I've played) and two mini-expansions (which I haven't) as well as some multi-player stuff that I don't much care about. And finally, there's Portal:



Many reviews have been written about Portal, but it's not the professional reviews that did it for me; it was Lore Sjoberg, a very funny guy who writes "The thing about Portal is this: it’s very funny. ...As a puzzle game, Portal runs way too short. As a comedy, it’s perfect." And it was "Yahtzee" Croshaw, whose great review of the Orange Box deserves to be watched and heard in full.



Yahtzee's a hilarious reviewer, and anyone who likes games will have a great time watching all of his regular weekly videos. He's also a very sardonic and pitiless reviewer, which is why it was especially meaningful when he said: "Lastly, there's Portal, and if you're a regular reviewer you'll understand how insane these words feel coming out of my mouth, but I can't think of any criticism for it. I'm serious. This is the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force-feedback codpiece. ...Absolutely sublime from start to finish, and I will jam forks into my eyes if I ever use those words to describe anything else ever again."

Well, "sublime" is a very good description of the game. It is not only fun gaming, it also has brilliant writing, and it is alternately extremely funny and very, very, creepy and unnerving. Fun, amusing, and scary. Those are pretty much my three gold standard criteria for good games, and this hit them all exactly right.

Ben loved it too (and the scary parts were partly derived from uncertainty and the ability to read, so they weren't too scary for him). When you play the game, some puzzles require you to jump from a great height into a portal on the floor, so that you'll build up a lot of momentum before you shoot out of a wall going in a different direction. As we played together, we both started saying "Wheeeeee!" every time we jumped. Well, a minute later, the computerized trainer voice also said "Wheeeeee!" along with us.

Ben cracked up and kept laughing for several minutes. The afterwards, he wanted to know how the computer knew what we were saying. I had a hard time convincing him that it was a coincidence.

The writer's strike explained

I hate the fact that there's a writer's strike; it means that I won't be seeing new episodes of The Daily Show for a while, and Boston Legal will probably go into reruns soon. My friend Possum Momma is also affected by it directly.

Joss Whedon, whose work I dearly love in all incarnations, (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, most of Toy Story) has written a great essay that explains why the strike is good and necessary. Everything Joss says must be right by definition, for he is Joss.

Also, this video is one of the most clear and concise explanations of the strike that I've heard so far:


I'm a fan of writers. With a very few exceptions, I despise reality shows and think they are a cheap, lazy way to get around the need to write compelling content. I mean, user-generated content is great and all; I like blogs (obviously) and message boards. But give me a good, solid novel any day, or a well-written non-fiction account. Give me a TV show that's smart and/or funny, as long as it's well written. There's only so much schadenfreude I can derive from watching Simon Cowell brutally crush the egos of young idiots who mistakenly believe they can sing. (This is one of the "few exceptions." The first few episodes of American Idol are loads of fun. After the field of contestants has been narrowed down to people who supposedly have "talent," not so much.)

In other news, and speaking of Mr. Whedon, a friend recently notified me that he has a new show in the works. With Eliza "Faith" Dushku. Be of good cheer.