On Cell Phone Obsession

Nowadays practically everyone owns a cell phone, myself included. In many situations, cell phones come in very handy and make things more convenient. Some people use their phones to store numbers, e-mail addresses, and other information. Meeting up with people is also much easier, since there is a way to keep in constant contact.
Despite the obvious conveniences, I believe that a great many people are relying on their cell phones too much. To own a cell phone and use it as necessary is one thing. To have to constantly be on the phone, or sending messages, or playing games on the phone, et cetera is another thing. There are some instances in which it is rude to answer the phone (e.g. movie theatre, dinner table). As a matter of fact, I committed the major faux pas of answering my cell phone at the table in the first week of owning one. Since then I have learned proper etiquette, and it is an offense that I will not commit twice.
But there are plenty of people that will answer the phone in any situation, and it is getting out of hand. One of the things that I find both hilarious and disturbing is a situation that arises on the subway. Underground there is no reception, and therefore no one talking on cell phones (except for the crazy guy in the helmet using the fake pink phone with bubble gum inside). But the minute the train is outside, more than half of the people on the subway race to grab their phones and call someone. I see it as funny, but also pathetic.
There are court officers inside courtrooms that stand around playing crude video games on cell phones. There are people that answer cell phones on a date at the dinner table. People are using blackberries during holiday meals. And people that cannot drive too well to begin with are using cell phones while driving, making their driving abilities even worse (if that is possible).
My point is cell phones are not being used only when needed. They are being used just for the sake of using them. A scene that would make a nice photograph is not done any justice by being preserved in a blurry, low-quality camera phone. Text messaging has become a major form of communication, and the abbreviations used have probably made this illiterate society even more illiterate.
So if you own a cell phone (which you probably do), do yourself a favor and use it sparingly. Humans have survived for 35,000 years without them. Chances are that you will also live if you go for 10 minutes without using one.

On Unnecessary Censorship

When at home, there are several forms of entertainment I use to keep myself occupied. I analyze chess openings, read books, surf the net, watch a DVD, or watch television. It has been known for a long time that watching a televised R rated film is a bad idea. All of the profanities, along with other scenes, are eliminated and this ruins the movie. I've learned to accept that, and simply not watch certain films on TV. But lately I've noticed something more disturbing. The networks and basic channels are ruining simple PG-13 films with censorship as well.
There are certain words that everyone can see being censored. Extreme profanity and nudity should not be easily accessible to a child flipping through the channels. But when the words "I give you the finger" are changed to "I give you the flipper" I think the stations have gone overboard. To the best of my knowledge the word "finger" is still acceptable to the FCC (...for now). When stations eliminate content that can be aired, it annoys me.
It has come to the point where any sexual inuendo, any genital-related slang (those not considered profanity), and anything that can be construed as an "obscene" gesture have been eliminated. When the line "Come on, I wanna lay ya" in Grumpier Old Men becomes "Come on, I wanna sway ya" things are out of hand. There are plenty of other examples, but creating a list does not get to the heart of the matter.
The heart of the matter is this: when stations censor things of their own volition without waiting for the FCC to ban such things, it paves the road to more restrictions. When a python kills its prey, it wraps itself tightly around the body. Whenever the prey exhales, the snake immediately senses it and wraps itself tighter (constricting the lungs and preventing any decent amount of inhalation). Eventually the prey gets no air and dies.
This is the trend I see on television. Every time the stations censor something else, they are exhaling. They are letting out precious air that should be contained. This can allow the FCC to strengthen its grip, and never let that air back in. If this continues then, in time, all of the shows will be similar to Pleasantville. These stations need to enlarge the holes in the screen that they use when screening content.

1984 and 2006: A Comparison

Orwell wrote a very prophetic novel in 1949, and that prophesy is becoming more true by the day. The novel 1984 is one of the most famous negative utopia novels written. In my opinion, Orwell's vision is now becoming a reality. He simply got the year wrong.
After the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center a bill was passed. The bill is known as The Patriot Act, and it is anything but patriotic. The bill is extremely long, but in summary it states that the Constitutional rights are insignificant as long as they are violated to keep people safe.
In 1984 the term doublespeak was used. It was where certain places or things were given an ironic name (e.g. The Ministry of Peace was used for war). The Patriot Act is also a form of doublespeak. And after all of these freedoms are taken away, the government buildings change the name of french fries to "freedom" fries. Irony plays a major role in doublespeak and doublethink (actually convincing yourself of something you know to be untrue). If this is not ironic enough, remember that all of this is being done "so that the terrorists don't threaten to take away our freedoms and our way of life."
In addition to doublespeak, we have been at a constant state of war for the past five years. I believe this will continue for many years to come. In 1984 there was something known simply as the book. It was the book of the brotherhood and explained why the society was set up as such. A constant state of war was necessary (in order to keep the standard of living constant and consume surplus goods). In our current situation, I believe that it is necessary in order to have people believe in a constant danger. The government claims to be constantly diffusing the danger, and is therefore doing an excellent job. This is almost like admiring Big Brother.
So we enter a war with Iraq after being attacked by people from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. The government said that we had to enter the war because Iraq was holding "weapons of mass destruction." Because the full conversion to a nightmarish society has not occurred yet, reporters were able to find out that no such weapons existed. The government knew it had to stay at war, so the reason changed. Now we are at war with Iraq to bring them democracy. It was always our goal to bring them democracy. Oceania was always at war with Eurasia. It was never at war with Eastasia.
The Party in 1984 is also very similar to the Republican party here. The members of the Republican party care about other members of the party, and want to see the party continue to hold power. "The Party is not concerned with perpetuating blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same."
Although this is a comparison between the present time and 1984, there is also a similarity to Huxley's Brave New World that I would like to point out. In Huxley's book, the people were brainwashed and kept from thinking by the repitition of phrases such as "A gram is better than a damn." We have a similar problem. Throwing out phrases like "Freedom isn't free," "We will never forget," and the constant playing of God Bless America deteriorate an active mind. When I complained about the bag checks on subways, someone actually responded "Freedom isn't free." Despite the fact that it doesn't even make sense in that context, it goes to show that these brainwashing slogans are not being thrown out there in vain.
But getting back to 1984, we now have laws that prevent crime before it occurs. This is eerily similar to the thought police. In Texas, cops are entering bars and arresting people under the influence at the bar! This is done to prevent drunk driving (even though there is no way of knowing whether or not the person was going to drive). There is also talk of placing cameras on the subway cars. The pretext they are using for this is that it will prevent scratchiti. Since the people do not really have a say, I think it is very possible that Big Brother will be watching.
Preventing crime, by making things that may lead to crime illegal, opens up a huge can of worms. Socialists believe that the presence of crime in a society shows some flaw in the societal structure. This could not be farther from the truth. If you ever find yourself in a society where there is no crime, get the hell out! A society that is controlled and locked down to the point where there is no crime is a society of slaves. Although in doublespeak "Slavery is freedom."
And let us not forget the Ministry of Truth that distorts the past. Suddenly, evolution has never occurred. We were all created by intelligent design. The president also never set up illegal wire taps or checked the public library records to see what books people read. These are things that are glimpsed for a moment, and then forgotten by most. I was simply blessed (or perhaps cursed) with an excellent memory.
If there is no blog next week, you will know that they have taken me to The Ministry of Love. The only reason for them to not bother is simply because they don't have to. I have no power to stop the wheels from turning that have been set in motion. People reading this will not be able to change anything. That is the main reason why I am probably safe to write this. Hunting me down would be too much of a hassle and accomplish nothing. But in case I'm wrong, it has been a pleasure venting to all of you.

On Unscientific Science

Many philosophers have prided themselves on spinning verbal webs that will snare any debating opponent. By bewitching their readers with fancy language, many philosophers have become famous and acclaimed. Very few were philosophers in the true sense of the word (i.e. lovers of knowledge). But throughout history a few true philosophers have made themselves known, and one of the greatest of these is Karl Popper.
Popper's philosophy revolves mostly around science, although he had other valuable thoughts as well. He did not conduct experiments, nor did he theorize or formulate laws. Rather, he thought about how science should be conducted and, furthermore, what makes something scientific.
His greatest achievement was the notion of falsificationism. The claim is that if something cannot be falsified, then it is not science. This does not mean that the statement is false. It means that there is at least one hypothetical result of an experiment that could prove the statement false, or a way to show mathematical inconsistencies in scientific equations (if there are any for the theory in question).
For example, the speed of light in a vacuum is 2.99792458 x 10^8 m/s. We have equipment that could test this and show it to be so. If this speed were incorrect, our equipment would show some other value. And even today it is possible to envision a way in which this could be incorrect. Our technology may not be advanced enough to detect if the speed were actually 2.9979245800000001 x 10^8 m/s. But enough of that. This is, after all, the weekly rant.

There are certain theories and concepts today that are complete and utter hogwash, yet they have been accepted in the scientific community. This should not be. The first of these I must attack is the Big Bang "theory." The Big Bang claims that all matter and all of spacetime was once condensed into a tight bundle of infinite density no larger than the head of a pin. "Something" happened to trigger an explosion that spewed forth matter into the universe. This matter had a temperature of billions of degrees and eventually cooled down. From the start there are already holes in the theory. There is no explanation for the explosion, and now things are cooling down without any other matter having existed to transfer the heat to. Isn't that a major violation of the laws of thermodynamics? Or do they want us to believe that black body radiation was super efficient back then? But anyway, the matter cools and forms all of the stuff we see today, and things are still moving apart.
Now I cannot say that this theory is not falsifiable. It is. Some cosmologists have actually figured out how long the celestial bodies we see today would take to form, and the rate of expansion that must have occurred, and what the density of the universe would be today if the Big Bang did actually occur (side note: the density of the universe is represented by the symbol omega and should be equal to 1 according to the Big Bang model).
When all of this was solved, the "scientists" worked diligently to obtain a number for omega. They were clearly hoping for it to be somewhere near 1 and therefore lend support to the Big Bang. But this is not what was found. Omega was only .2 and in some cases .02. Well this was way off, and you would think that the Big Bang could be written off as having been falsified. But NOOO! These cosmologists would never hear of such a thing. To them there was only one explanation. There must be some other matter out there that they cannot see, and not only that but it must be there in quantities much larger than the matter we do see. And so the many brilliant minds gathered around to come up with the idea of "dark matter."
Dark matter is matter that cannot be seen, cannot be shown to exist, has not one shred of experimental evidence to support its existence, and cannot be described by anyone. I don't think Popper would consider this notion scientific. When the existence of Sasquatch and the Lochness Monster have more evidence to support them in the form of sketchy photographs, something is amiss. In essence, dark matter is nothing more than a fictional story told by cosmologists in a desperate need to cling to the Big Bang. It was created so that omega equals one.
As if this post were not long enough already, I have a bone to pick with another "theory." String theory is very fashionable right now. String theory claims that all of matter is composed of tiny little vibrating strings, and that the vibration patterns of the strings determine the form of the matter. The strings are too small to be seen, and there is no experiment to show any support for their existence. The vibration patterns that can determine the transmutation of matter should be able to have a mathematical description, but that is being "worked on." So these string theorists have no experiments, no equations, no evidence whatsoever. But these strings exist, and we are just going to have to take their word for it. This is not science. It is the antithesis of science. But it gets even better.
Sub-atomic physicists have shown that if matter really were composed of these strings, then there would have to be 11 dimensions! Right now we only know of four (the three spatial dimensions and time). So the string theorists had to think hard. How do we get eleven dimensions? Then one of them came up with a "brilliant" idea. Perhaps the other dimensions are curled up in space and so tiny that we cannot see them. In a curl could be a Calabi-Yau shape (a six dimensional shape). That would give them the dimensions needed (even though I thought that 6+4=10 and not 11, but what do I know?).
Now Calabi-Yau geometry has existed for a long time. It is a true branch of mathematics and although the shapes cannot be drawn, they do exist in the mathematical realm. When it was discovered that these shapes are needed for string theory, the string theorists started working on Calabi-Yau geometry. Despite the fact that string theory is pure fantasy, I must admit that the string theorists have discovered many things about six dimensional shapes.
The problem was that every time something was discovered in six dimensional geometry, the string theorists would claim it as a victory for themselves! They believed, and still do to this day, that working on Calabi-Yau geometry and finding new aspects of it supports string theory. Ha! It obviously does not, but these people have no logic.
In closing, I just want to reiterate: If something cannot be falsified, it is not science. There are many "theories" out there to be wary of. Just because some idea is popular it doesn't mean that it is true. It is time for people to stop making things up, and start performing experiments again. Empirical data is still a very useful tool. Long live true science!

On Popular Music

I have a large CD collection and, for the most part, this is the only music I listen to. However, from the mere act of going outside, entering stores, or sitting in someone else's car, I hear the songs that are being played on the radio.
After hearing so many of these songs, I have come to a conclusion: they all sound the same. Of course there is some variation depending on the genre. But there are maybe three musical categories heard, and the songs in each particular category sound the same. The worst of them all is what is now classified as punk. All of these "punk" bands have a lead singer with the same exact voice, and play the same three chords.
But the bands are not the main culprit. The fault lies with the people. If people did not listen to these stations and buy the albums of these horrid bands, then this complete lack of talent combined with a whiney voice would no longer be heard. The reason why people do listen to these stations and purchase these albums is simple: people are stupid. There are always exceptions, but the human race as a whole is completely and totally devoid of any type of logic, reason, or thought.
Knowing this about people, a reason for this music emerging as the most favoured can be given. Simple minds gravitate toward simple things. A complex musical composition with notes making rapid jumps of a full octave or more would be intolerable to a simpleton. An undeveloped mind cannot follow and appreciate complexity in anything, including music. Therefore, monotony emerges as the victor. All songs will sound the same, and even within an individual song, the same line will just be repeated over and over again ad nauseum.
The masses have shown what they desire. They desire pure monotony. They don't wish to hear anything new, or complex. It is much less work for the mind to hear the same thing over, and over, and over, and over...