http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:24:09 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We lost a hero this week. Dr. Stephen Schneider died unexpectedly on July 19. In addition to much influential work in climatology, Schneider was a talented communicator and a great public speaker - he's been compared to Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Stephen Jay Gould, and even Carl Sagan in that regard. ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=239 Because I promised I'd blog about this one... This year, I've taken up cycle touring, trying to get enough exercise and experience in to consider a run to Vancouver next year. So far all I've managed to get in are weekend jaunts, which in general I quite enjoy. Last weekend, a ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=214 Over the past year or so, certain events in the politics of the developed West (particularly the passage of health care reform and the recent police brutality against G20 protests in Toronto) have made me wonder about the progressive political movement and how it has changed over history. At this ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=212 I am a skeptical apatheist, strict materialist, and avid follower of  the likes of P. Z. Myers and James Randi. I also believe in the effectiveness of acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine. I admitted it. Then, I thought ‘Now what?’. It took me a while to reconcile these positions. The first ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=205 Hello everybody. Brian's such an awesome individual, he's invited me post on this blog. He's been extremely busy and Internet-compromised over the past few months, which is why he couldn't take the time to write me an intro post. I don't hold it against him, so I figured I'd do ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=203 Everyone knows the basic frames behind liberal-conservative stereotyping: the liberal positions are full of wishy-washy flipflopping and the conservative ones are hypocritical. I'd always assumed that this was an exaggeration on a kernel of truth (due, for instance, to message discipline - if a liberal group values freedom of expression ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=199 To all science-people (thanks for the heads-up, Steve!): Time variation of a fundamental dimensionless constant is a must-read example of... something. It's certainly eye-opening. To all non-science-people: To all anti-science people (should any stumble upon this): Let me spell it out for you - the previous link was meant as satire. Though, ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=194 Definition 1: Godwin's Law As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. Definition 2: Unnamed (longstanding tradition re: Godwin's Law) After a Nazi or Hitler comparison is made, the thread is over. He who has made such a comparison has just lost. Definition 3: Quirke's ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=187 This is my obligatory post on the CRU hack, which the denialist blogocave is referring to as "Climategate" while the pushback refers to it as "SwiftHack". It grew out of a comment I did over at ClimateSight. If you aren't aware of the CRU hack, there's an app for that. There's ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=179 With a title like Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives, how could I resist? I dove right in, expecting an interesting discussion on the subject and hoping it'd be more substantive and useful than Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. I'll ... http://leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=175