The Solar System in Perspective

If the diameter of the sun is our unit for length, the orbits come out something like this (someone check my math):

distance	diameter	planet
0	1.000	Sun
39	0.004	Mercury
72	0.009	Venus
100	0.009	Earth
153	0.005	Mars
520	0.102	Jupiter
956	0.086 (0.179)	Saturn (rings)
1919	0.037	Neptune
3008	0.036	Uranus

This means, if you wanted to build a scale model of the Solar System with Sun as a 1m diameter beach ball in the middle of your lounge, Mercury would be a 4mm speck 39m away! Jupiter would look good as a 10cm striped ball half a click away while the Oort cloud, at the outer reaches, is at 5000km... which would put the final touches of your model about an eighth (45deg) of the way around the Earth from your lounge.

I'm bringing this up because of a movie circulating the internets that appears to show a planet-sized comet impacting the Sun and spraying the solar system with gobs of Sun-stuff. Hopefully these figures will give a wee bit of perspective. Space is big, really big!

Wikipedia on CMEs

Women, Learning, and TV.

Shakespeare used to write stuff like I'll stop your mouth with a kiss. Which just goes to show that the Bard knew absolutely nothing about women. There is no force on this Earth that can stop a woman talking when she is in full flow. Actually planting one on her at that time is a good way to get your lips chewed off. The closest I've managed is

Darling epitome of beauty and affection, your worshipper does beg of you an insignificant sign of your pleasure. If it is convenient for you, and when you can get around to it, it would greatly help this lowly worshipper to appreciate your lovelyness if you would generously pause your delightful monologue long enough for me to get some sleep sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.

After which the woman has been known to laugh so hard that she loses track of what she was saying.

I didn't get much sleep.

In the Mail 1: Learning

Soon I'll be starting back at University. My courses for this coming semester have been confirmed:

Edprofst 715 - Information Literacy and Learning (30points) starting on Monday 1st March as online class
LawPubl 744 - Human Rights in Education Law and Policy (30pts) starting on Monday 12th April as one week block course at city campus

I'm not sure what a block course is exactly.

Having come from physical sciences, I'm a bit bemused by the full time workload in social science. Full time, in p-science, meant that you sweated your butt off in a 60 hour week (and thanked mill-owner fer privilege). The education courses are structured to be just as tight if you also throw in a full time teaching career. As a result, things feel a little easy-going. That said, I found last semester a bit tight towards the end.

The two papers above, together, are a full time course. The block course is held in one week only, so I'm guessing that it will be really intense that week, but the rest of the time it will be like part-time study.

In the Mail 2: TV

I've been trying to watch TV On Demand (TVNZ) only to discover that the player will not, um, play. It tells me the stream is loading and just sits there. Investigating, I discovered that firefox users are expected to install the WMP plugin. Since this is available only with windows I decided to complain - pointing out the increasing market shore of gnu/linux in NZ. I got this reply:

Almost all of our shows that are shown in a wmv format are also
available in flash which works sweet on GNK/Linux (which I'm sure you
already know). The only exception to this is for our live streaming
where we use a windows format as it's much cheaper than flash streaming
(however we are looking to change this in the next 6 months).

Well, it was the flash player I was having trouble with. Windows Media Video (wmv) has been favoured because it supports DRM - I'm guessing that royalties to TVNZ are lower if they use it with. DRM, but the same otherwise.

The TV program owners will be worried about people conveniently copying the shows using plugins like flash-got. Which is silly really: all the shows have long been available via PirateBay.

It is usually possible to bypass a flash player by viewing the source code and extracting the address of the playlist (it is a .smil file, in this case) then loading that into a specialist player like VLC or Totem. But I cannot even do that - they've done something so that the attempt produces a blank stream. I'd have to pick apart the smil file for the individual video segments to troubleshoot that.

However, I figured out what this was, even if TVNZ Webmasters did not get it. Firefox users often take advantage of a plugin called AdBlockPlus. This can block the ads from doubleclick.net which play between chapters on each show, and at the beginning. As a result, the player gets confused and won't play at all. To watch TV On Demand with firefox, right-click on the ABP icon (top right of firefox, next to the google search box) and select disable on this page only. Now you will see the ads as well as the show.

BTW: the last email also had one of those thingies at the end pointing out that the content is intended only for me to read. Like I'm supposed to keep it a secret. These passages have dubious legal weight, but, insofar as there is anything to them at all, I like to put the following at the end of my emails:

Disclaimer:
By sending an email to ANY of my email addresses you are agreeing that:

1. I am by definition, "the intended recipient"
2. All information in the email is mine to do with as I see fit and make such financial profit, political mileage, or good joke as it lends itself to. In particular, I may post it to the internet.
3. I will take the contents as representing the views of your company.
4. This overrides any disclaimer or statement of confidentiality that may be included on your message.

Though there are occasionally good reasons to show discretion in your use of received emails.

A Discourse on Nature and God

I've been tangled in a poetry contest of words with a theist on the Wordlovers forum. The last one pricked me to some effort, so I figured I'd reproduce it for a wider awedience here :)

My antagonist, who shall remain anonymous, has dominated the forum with praises to God on high type poetry. But when someone else wrote a poem praising natural selection, wow - look out!

I wrote in defence, and there was a to and fro. That's the internet all right. Look:

Simon, do you know the purpose served
To make the human conscience crooked, curved?

Theist, do *you* know Gods purpose served
To make the Human conscience crooked, curved?
Whatever Purpose or design you propose,
There is a flowering garden of others:
Rows upon rows.

Harken close:
For whatever of nature makes
No whit of design or purpose takes
It is only a particular theist deign
That God, with Divine Purpose, does reign.

And in this presupposed order
The theist misleads himself to bother
So blinkered, selects only that which suits his fancy
Pushing all else from prejudicial border.

Where's the font and origin, distaste
For imperfection come from? Why the waste
Of your dissatisfaction with the ill?

The Problem of Evil, proposed of old
Leaves the "All-Good-All-Mighty" school of theists cold
For the Enlightened there is Just satisfaction,
Said imperfections are expected:
Natural Selection, in action.

Do we distaste imperfection? No!
When we suck a random confection
And it comes out sour...
We call that, in our conceit, "imperfection"
Yet another may count the taste a virtue
If it is sweet, then it is not desired
So which is well and which is flawed?
It is of us, by our societies, rewired.

But still we argue yet we agree:
A human *can* rank appropriately
What is fine and what is finer,
And so we put to judge The Designer,
And by His efforts we ascertain
What sort of "He", does now reign.

If signs of design in Nature are taken
As signs of the Designer, and not mistaken, 
Then signs of poor design must *by the same token*
Be signs of a poor designer ...

But, the theist protest
Our knowledge is incomplete at best
What we see as designers ill
Could be due to our ignorance of divine will

This is true - and yet:

What of that we judge as good?
By the same argument we should
Distrust that part as well,
And *nothing* of Gods and Nature tell.

In truth, if we can judge at all
Deities must stand or fall
By virtue of the *human* mind
Judging the Virtue of all Their kind.

Why should Man be free, and why free will
To choose the good and beautiful and not
The leavings of his instinct? Piffle! Rot!
If you imagine urging toward perfection
Is something Man invented, or selection.

That confluence of emergent behaviour we call Will
Is a phenomenon under study still
But that we choose the beautiful before the ill
That is something understood from the first

When called, ones decisions to account -
Asked, perforce, to tally this or that amount -
And consequence brought forth to surmount -
Would *anyone* claim they chose:
For the *worst*?

The learned jury is still out, divided
What manner of thing is will, and where resideth?

It is a conceit, a deceit, and nothing more.
And with that and a mop, we can clean the floor.

It is a curious modern fad that theist claim
That complexity in the World, to a Designer, acclaim
Yet we teach our engineers and architects highest value
In the very economy and simplicity their designs do gain.

Surely it is the simplicity in physical Law
That theists for their arguments should draw
That evidence for their transcendent God
Should be baked of that basic material raw.

And what more simple and elegant should be clue
Than that Darwin's Natural Selection be true
How clever and subtle that Christian God
To have created Evolution, that well
From which, all Life, He drew.

What more elegant lesson to teach
Examining shells washed up on a beach
That from the apparent imperfect clues
That all life's connected, from each to each.

Piffle? Rot? The universe cares not a jot!
It is Man decides the where foul and fair does lie.
Or why else does beauty, likewise fair *and* foul
Decay likewise and likewise, die?

Piffle? Rot? The steam from a pipkin pot!
All this of do you know of whys and know not
This bethinks an Allmighty Being Who, in His Will
hide only where we know naught?

What? A God who exists only where we've had but glances?
What? A God ever retreating as our learning advances?
There is more spirituality in a blocked sewer!
Better be a plumber and take your chances.

It is the theist claims a Design so rated
That an all-powerful, perfect, Creator created
All powerful, all knowing, all Good...
The theist thesis remains unsubstantiated.

Of course, you don't *have* to prove or even *make* your case or any.
One can always just accept that there are other points of view
And just stick to your own, or many.

Accepting and respecting the various expressions of belief
Here as *poetry* scribbled on the walls and floor -
And as the Muse moves us so we scribble
And scribble some more.

The Moving Finger scribbles; and, having scrit,
  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to backspace half a Line,
  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

You may also want to consider how you'd feel
If someone were here to praise -
Separately or together -
The Wiccan Triple Goddess, 
Allah, Baal, The Purple Spaghetti Monster,
Or whatever... 
The self same way you have Praised *your* God.
Will you see it as beautiful poetry, or clever,
Or as a challenge to the One True God? Both?

Neither?

Oh Praise Great Goddess that in your Wisdoms
Did Create Nature in Pure Perfection
That even in the Flaws You Wrought
We see withall reflected: 
Your Natural Selection.

And thank you Goddess that from your bosom
You created such things as Theists and Atheists chosen
For such entertainment they make
That our Faith in the One True Goddess a-bouys.

Oh boy - the comments from this one! If anyones interested, I can let youse know what happens next.