Danger, Will Robinson
You gotta hear this:
I’m lucky; I don’t get robot calls on my flip phone. Maybe that’s an unintended benefit of refusing to get a smartphone. In any case, I do get robot calls at the Book Corner. I know immediately I’m getting a robot call because I interrupt and the caller doesn’t fumble for a moment trying to figure out what the heck I’m saying, as a human would. Invariably I hang up, often with a two-word send-off.
Stop Calling Me!
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Robot calls (or robo-calls) come in a range of high-tech-iness. The most basic robo-calls come from schools or police departments, standardized messages warning receivers of some impending news, like a weather emergency. A more advanced robo-call utilizes something called personalized audio messaging, which is what you’re hearing in the above track.
Why, for pity’s sake, anybody would listen to a robo-call that isn’t about a tornado or a mass jail break is beyond me. It’s as senseless as reading an entire email sent from somebody whose niece is a wealthy princess and is being held captive in some central African hellhole.
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Oh, Wow!
I don’t know if you caught this but last week headlines screamed that scientists have concluded that the universe may be nothing more than a hologram. In fact, some news outlets went way beyond “may be” and simply trumpeted the “fact” that everything is, in reality, a geeky picture.
OMG! George Lucas Was Right!
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It all sounds so scientific and far out. Funny thing is, mostly left-leaning media seem to have glommed onto the “story.” (The links above are from Huffington Post and Raw Story.) I suppose that’s because left-leaning readers and viewers have a little bit of scientific knowledge. They know, for instance, what a hologram is and are somewhat aware that cutting edge cosmology concerns itself with incredibly counter-intuitive hypotheses. Not even the most imaginative science fiction author could have conjured string theory or an infinite number of universes.
Right-leaning readers seem stuck trying to figure out if the world is six- or seven-thousand years old and if humans rode dinosaurs.
Telling them all of existence is merely a mathematical representation encoded on a boundary of space would be like trying to tell a bandicoot all about modern advances in neurosurgery.
… The Color Of The Laser Beam Must Be Adjusted To….
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In this case, those who are planning a summer visit to the Creation Museum are just a tad better off than those who proudly display the Stephen Hawking book, A Brief History of Time, on their coffee tables (albeit unread). A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Add to that the fact that headline writers are notorious drama queens and next thing you know, everybody who’s anybody “knows” the universe is a hologram.
There not only is no proof that existence is a picture, there’s no actual evidence of it either. The mathematicians who released the paper that started all the hubbub essentially were just playing around with numbers. This piece in Doubtful News dumps a bucket of cold water on the idea.
The author of the debunking piece, Nathan Miller, concludes, “It’s this sort of result-hyping that leads to a disillusioned public.”
Just a little something to think about when you think you know all you need about GMOs or childhood vaccinations.
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…With Some Black Guys And Some Blow!
With a mere nine days left until the birthday of he who died for our right to bear arms, it’s time for The Pencil’s annual rip-off of The Family Guy‘s vid, “All I Really Want for Christmas.
Yellowcake and a ball, indeed!
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That’s all for today. Peace, love and soul.
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I have bought Hawking’s book at least twice and have started it at least 3 times, Each time I read it sentence by sentence making sure I understand; around chapter 3 I get dizzy, fall down and stop reading. It is the coolest title ever though.