The New Season of Chuck

It's fall and the new television season is beginning—slowly. Hulu has been trying to speed things up a bit by hosting sneak peaks at returning shows. So far the pickings have been slim but they just put up the first new episode of one of my favorite shows from last year, Chuck. It started a bit slowly as the first half of the episode was essentially a recap of the show's premise for newbies. But things picked up quickly and packed plenty of action and character development for all the characters. 

Google Evil? It's More (And Less) Likely Than You Think

Slashdot reports on a mistake by Google which resulted in an entire domain being blacklisted by Firefox which uses Google's list of bad website for its anti-phishing filter. The top comment by on the website encapsulated an increasingly common reaction towards Google:

"In my mind giving this power to Google is the most objectionable thing related to the company. I know somebody who has had his legitimate business ruined because Google mistakenly added his site to this list. Why? Because it was hosted on the same physical server as a truly objectionable web site.

People need to stop childishly sneering at Windows users and take their focus away from Microsoft. The terrible Goliath is clearly Google now. Even when it's not being evil it causes trouble just by being *clumsy*."

Whether or not you agree with this sentiment, there is still an undeniable kernel of truth to it. Google is now more powerful than Microsoft, the traditional big, evil boogyman of the computer industry. While Microsoft flails about trying to convince people that it is still relevant which weird ads, Google has quietly built an advertising and software empire which affects all of our lives. People instinctively use Google to search for information so much that the word has become a verb in popular culture. The ads on almost every website on the Internet are powered by Google. I personally use Google every day. I'm typing this blog post in Google's Chrome web browser and it will be posted on Google's Blogger website. And when I'm not at my computer, I still access Google on my cellphone. Clearly, Google is no longer the little company started by two graduate students at Stanford running on a computer made of Lego.

Because of this power, when Google makes a mistake, it affects people heavily. A couple of months ago, Google decided that I was a spammer and now I have to solve a CAPTCHA every time that I want to post something on my blog. Some of the twisted, mangled words that make up the CAPTCHAs can be surprisingly difficult to recognize. This can be discouraging at times and as a result, I'm posting a lot less these days. On the hand, spam blogs are a very real problem and Google would be doing a poor job if it didn't try to do something to stop them from proliferating.

As Google continues to grow larger and more powerful, it is natural that people will grow to distrust it. And the consequences of mistakes at Google will become more serious. I doubt if Google will ever be as "evil" as Microsoft whose hardball tactics are notorious in the software industry and which has been fighting off federal anti-trust and patent infringment suits for almost a decade. But Google's actions whether good or evil now have a very direct effect on people and often that effect can be felt directly in the pocketbook. With all this at stake, it's natural that people are going to get upset at Google even as they continue to use its seach engine and software every day—just like Microsoft.

Fox News Goes Into Reruns

Normally, I hate to bring up politics on the Internet because the arguments get so obnoxious and interminable. You never manage to convince anyone of anything. arguments degenerate into shouting matches and pretty soon Godwin's Law must be invoked. But I just couldn't resist this Daily Kos video which captures perfectly how talking points are recycled over and over again by political pundits. If this were from The Daily Show, it would be part of a hilariously funny segment. But instead it's by a partison website and instead is a devastating bit of political propaganda.

PC Caught Using iPhone

So much for truth in advertising. Crunchgear catches John Hodgman, "PC" from Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads using an iPhone.

Chicago Pictures

It was a beautiful day today in downtown Chicago so I took a little walk....I noticed the coolest decorative sculptures along the Roosevelt Street bridge between Clinton and Canal Streets. They look old and yet I've never seen them despite having grown up in this town. I really need to get out more.

An elephant, a tricerotops and a t-rex standing on a globe set on a pedestal of books.


Zooming in a bit.


A bit more and now the shortcomings of my crappy camera phone are really becoming evident.


A compass, or an astrolabe, or whatever this thingy is called.


Similar to the first one with dolphins replacing the dinosaurs and elephant.


Another close up.


The corner of Roosevelt and Canal.

The LHC Explained

After last night's amusing rap video, here's another one that describes exactly what happens in the Large Hadron Collider in excruciating detail.

The LHC Turns On Today

I noticed that the news are reporting on the Large Hadron Collider which was turned on today. Naturally, the focused on the silly fear mongering that it might destroy the world by creating black holes. So in honor of this auspicious occasion, here's a little rap video that explains what the LHC really does:


CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Pluto Debate Continues to Continue

Astrobiology Magazine has an interesting article on the continuing debate over the status of Pluto. Mark Sykes of the Planetary Science Institute debated the always charismatic Neil deGrasse Tyson recently on the IAU's decision to "demote" Pluto from planet status to dwarf planet status. This is an issue which can provoke a lot of passion when lay people, let alone scientists, debate it.

One of the most interesting things about the article is that as our knowledge of the planets has grown, the community of people which studies them has grown as well.

"When I first started in this business, a large fraction of planetary scientists were astronomers who had cut their teeth on Earth-based telescopes," Sykes said. "Since then, we've been flooded with data coming back from close flybys, orbiters, landers and rovers. Most of the planetary science questions being asked today are geophysical and geological. Planetary science is merging with terrestrial science to become real comparative planetology. Only a small fraction of the planetary science community belongs to the IAU anymore."

That's a pretty surprising thing to a lay person like myself. Most of the people who study planets these days aren't necessarily astronomers, they are geologists, physicists, chemists and all sorts of other flavors of scientist. No wonder it's so hard for people to agree on these things.

It's interesting thing to see the sausage being made as scientists debate an issue in public. While Pluto's status is a thorny issue, it's a fairly easy to understand issue. It's not obscure or difficult to understand like dark matter or dark energy. Everyone has heard of Pluto and seen pictures of Pluto and knows a lot of the facts that are being argued over in this debate. Perhaps this is why it's so compelling.

"It's good for people to know that debate in science is the norm," Sykes said. "Science is dynamic. Science is argumentative. Science is continual testing and challenging. Science is not about something everyone has to memorize because some organization has given it its blessing."

IO9 Says Goodbye to Battlestar Galactica—Listen to Ron Moore Lecture

IO9, the scifi blog for people who kinda, sorta like scifi has a couple of posts on BSG which feature videos of Ron Moore talking about the creative process of creating the show. (Didya know that the idea for the Cylon religion came from a network suit?)

http://io9.com/5033030/bsgs-producer-discusses-corporate-religion

A second post shows behind the scenes videos from the final episodes of BSG.

http://io9.com/5032614/a-glimpse-inside-the-filming-of-battlestars-final-episodes

Buffy the Vampire Slayer—The Animated Series

I was a huge fan of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and was disappointed to hear that the planned animated series never happened. Here's the pilot to that show.