Quotulatiousness

January 4, 2010

Sony’s latest consumer mis-step

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:44

Dark Water Muse treated himself to a new bit of electronic kit over the holidays, a Sony Reader Touch. He wasn’t best pleased by the purchase:

The Sony Reader is an all but useless device, certainly at its current price point. Especially if you already happen to own a portable electronic device capable of rendering common document and media file formats — got a smart phone? Got a netbook or laptop? Then you’re already living the dream that is merely Sony’s Reader Touch nightmare.

DWM gives the Sony Reader Touch negative 1 out of 10. Truly impressively bad, particularly when measured on a scale of +1 to +10.

How does DWM compute negative one? Read on.

Only the newly arrived on H. G. Wells’ Time Machine could find utility in a Sony Reader. Or if you’re too proud to admit you fucked up by buying one in the first place and prefer to go to your grave, Sony Reader over your heart (trust DWM when he says, any friends you might still have after becoming a Sony Reader Touch owner, or surviving relatives, want to see it buried with you too), rather than get your money back.

DWM returned his Sony Reader Touch after making extra special efforts to try and modify his relationship to reading text with it. He wanted the Sony Reader to work. He was willing to tolerate “a little” deficit in the reading experience, if only to avoid having to slaughter one more tree to feed his hunger for crime novels. But, feeling disappointed and defeated, DWM sent his Sony Reader Touch back to from whence it had come (extruded from that great product anus behind so many retail consumer products).

I’ve got a couple of dozen books on my iPhone, but I consider them to be “emergency” reading . . . for those times when I don’t have internet access. It’s great that the iPhone can work as a small ebook display, but the key word here is “small”.

December 23, 2009

iPhone fans “suffering from Stockholm Syndrome”

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:16

I think it’d be safe to say that Victor Keegan‘s inbox will be overflowing with anguished defences of the iconic iPhone after this article:

The iPhone isn’t perfect
With most examples of new technology, the owner’s desire to be seen at the cutting edge blinds them to admit any faults

When hostages defend their kidnappers, it is known as “Stockholm syndrome”. Something similar happens to iPhone users, according to the Danish analyst Strand Consult, when they fall so in love with the device that it blinds them to its defects such as a poor camera, lousy battery life for heavy users and no Bluetooth facility that can transmit photos.

This provoked a predictably outraged response from iPhonistas, but the truth is that a kind of Stockholm syndrome happens not just with iPhones but with most examples of new technology where the owners’ desire to be seen at the cutting edge irrationally blinds them to admit any faults.

There are lots of things you could call the iPhone, but “perfect” certainly isn’t one of them. I’m very happy with my iPhone, but the camera isn’t as good as the one I had on my old Treo 600 (introduced in 2003) and the battery life is quite significantly worse. I don’t use Bluetooth, so that deficiency isn’t important to me.

December 15, 2009

Jack Ruby rides again

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:56

Ezra Levant points out the contrast between media reaction to a silly Tory joke image in 2008 (a puffin pooping on Liberal leader Stephane Dion) and this:

Liberal shoot PM

Image from the Liberal Party’s website.

December 11, 2009

Changes coming to England’s over-generous libel laws?

Filed under: Britain, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:19

For the aggrieved, suing in London has been the way to go, due to English laws which strongly favour the plaintiff. This may change, as the laws are being reviewed:

England has long been a mecca for aggrieved people from around the world who want to sue for libel. Russian oligarchs, Saudi businessmen, multinational corporations, American celebrities — all have made their way to London’s courts, where jurisdiction is easy to obtain and libel laws are heavily weighted in favor of complainants.

Embarrassed by London’s reputation as “a town called sue” and by unusually stinging criticisms in American courts and legislatures, British lawmakers are seriously considering rewriting England’s 19th-century libel laws.

A member of the House of Lords is preparing a bill that would, among other things, require foreigners to demonstrate that they have suffered actual harm in England before they can sue here.

December 10, 2009

QotD: Peer review

Filed under: Quotations, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:22

Too often these days when people want to use a scientific study to bolster a political position, they utter the phrase, “It was peer reviewed” like a magical spell to shut off any criticism of a paper’s findings.

Worse, the concept of “peer review” is increasingly being treated in the popular discourse as synonymous with “the findings were reproduced and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

This is never what peer review was intended to accomplish. Peer review functions largely to catch trivial mistakes and to filter out the loons. It does not confirm or refute a paper’s findings. Indeed, many scientific frauds have passed easily through peer review because the scammers knew what information the reviewers needed to see.

Peer review is the process by which scientists, knowledgeable in the field a paper is published in, look over the paper and some of the supporting data and information to make sure that no obvious errors have been made by the experimenters. The most common cause of peer review failure arises when the peer reviewer believes that the experimenters either did not properly configure their instrumentation, follow the proper procedures or sufficiently document that they did so.

Effective peer review requires that the reviewers have a deep familiarity with the instruments, protocols and procedures used by the experimenters. A chemist familiar with the use of a gas-chromatograph can tell from a description whether the instrument was properly calibrated, configured and used in a particular circumstance. On the other hand, a particle physicist who never uses gas-chromatographs could not verify it was used properly.

Shannon Love, “No One Peer-Reviews Scientific Software”, Chicago Boyz, 2009-11-28

December 4, 2009

Don’t bother your pretty little heads about all this “science” stuff

Filed under: Environment, Humour, Science — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:20

The non-scientists among us (that’s you and you and you and . . .) should just take a pill, sit back, and stop trying to understand the science:

And history repeats itself with climate change. We tell you people of the imminent dangers from the earth warming, and what do you do? You mock us. You question our motives. People who can’t even convert Fahrenheit to Celsius try and tell us we did the science wrong. Now emails have leaked from the Climate Research Unit that apparently show that scientists were fixing the data and trying to suppress the scientific research of dissenters, and you people demand answers from us. I have one thing to say to that. How dare you!

You do not understand the first thing about climate research. Man-made global warming is settled science. Disaster is imminent. We know this. It is a fact. We don’t waste time on studies that say otherwise, the same way we don’t waste time on studies that assert that the earth is flat. We are very smart people, and when we say something is so, you should just accept it.

So you think what is in those emails is important? Well, what exactly do you know? Do you see the white lab coats we wear? That color symbolizes pure science. Were someone like you to wear one, within five minutes it would be stained with neon orange powdered cheese and wet with drool from you trying to comprehend the data sets people like me look at every day.

November 26, 2009

Dragon Age: Origins . . . not all that original

Filed under: Gaming, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:29

Darkwatermuse tries Dragon Age: Origins, and is not overwhelmed with joy and mirth:

Dragon Age: Origins enjoyment mileage will depend greatly on each gamer’s experience and familiarity with the RPG genre as well as any recent history of head injuries known to have affected their memory.

If I wasn’t familiar with the long history of RPG D&D styled games I might find myself in agreement with the more cynical rankings the game has received. Scores of 4/5 and 8.5/10 are justified only if you’ve never actually installed or played any of the game’s predecessors or have been paid handsomely through a complex financing network connected to the game’s publisher’s marketing department.

[. . .]

DWM’s biggest annoyance? Being confined to these cartoon landscapes which are clearly represented as hexes somewhere in the bowels of the game’s engine but which are not rendered in the visual 3d world we’re forced to navigate through during endless hours of click-double-clicking either the left — no, try the right one this time — button.

Christ on a dungeon ration biscuit! Whose idea was it to leave the last 15% of the game’s coding to the dyslexic?

DWM asks the question few before dared to ask, is it necessary for me to have to endure the chronic sense of shame evoked when I click on part of the screen I can only then discover can’t actually be moved to? More fool me. Again. Excuse me for having failed to recognize that empty terrain is actually harder than a young adolescent dragon’s pecker during the bumpy bus ride to school.

There’s much more . . . I had to force myself not to quote the entire review. Very reminiscent of a Yahtzee game review, with less yellow-background animation (who, interestingly enough, has also reviewed DA:O recently).

Damning with not-so-faint damns

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:11

A clearly impartial and unbiased advance review of James Cameron’s Avatar, due for release in December:

Budgeted at a reported $237m (£143m), Avatar is Cameron’s first dramatic feature since the record-breaking Titanic, back in 1997. The film is a science-fiction fantasy set on a verdant planet called Pandora and following the adventures of a US Marine played by Sam Worthington. Cameron shot the film on his own patented “fusion digital 3D camera system” and experts argue that the results take 3D techniques to a whole new level. [. . .]

The reviewer, however, begs to differ, describing the film as “alienating” and “weird”. Moreover, he/she argues that its pioneering visual technology is liable to induce nausea in the viewer. “The problem is with cutting in between 3D focus points and perspective,” the mystery critic writes. “The mind cannot adjust to it without a buffer — thus, Avatar is literally vomit inducing.”

Even the review’s praise comes with a sting in the tail. “There are some beautiful moments [in the film],” it concedes. “But overall it’s a horrible piece of shit.”

November 11, 2009

Why would he do this?

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 18:05

My best guess is for two reasons: 1) He can. 2) It drives the opposition batshit insane:

The president who campaigned for a more “open government” and “full disclosure” will not unseal his medical records, his school records, his birth records or his passport records. He will not release his Harvard records, his Columbia College records, or his Occidental College records — he will not even release his Columbia College thesis. All his legislative records from the Illinois State Senate are missing and he claims his scheduling records during those State Senate years are lost as well. In addition, no one can find his school records for the elite K-12 college prep school, Punahou School, he attended in Hawaii.

The whacky public image of the “Birthers” continues to do much damage to more rational criticism of Barack Obama’s administration. Whether there is “fire” to go along with all the breathlessly described “smoke”, it’s taking lots of attention away from the actual policies and actions of the current president, and tarring-by-association those who do criticize. That’s enough of a political win that Obama would be very foolish to do anything to calm them down by releasing these documents.

Reasons to avoid seeing Disney’s Christmas Carol

Filed under: Economics, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:11

Jim Carrey seems to be channelling his inner Friedrich Engels here:

Talking with the Chicago Tribune to promote A Christmas Carol a few days before the film’s release, Carrey released the following burst of political flatulence:

“I was thinking about it this morning, how this story ties into everything we’re going through,” says Carrey, who, thanks to the technology, plays Scrooge as well as the three ghosts haunting him. “Every construct we’ve built in American life is falling apart. Why? Because of personal greed and ambition. Capitalism without regulation can’t protect us against personal greed…”

Making certain that many people reading the interview will resolutely avoid seeing the film, Carrey describes the protagonist as follows:

“Scrooge is the ultimate example of self-loathing,” Carrey says, noting that, after playing the title character in Ron Howard’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” he was merely “going to the source” in fleshing out Scrooge. “Beware the unloved, I always say,” Carrey continues. “They’re the ones that end up being the mean guys. It comes from that deep, spiritual acid reflux within them. With Scrooge it infects his whole being.”

Whereas Dickens presented a reasonably nuanced view of the issues the story brings up, and did so with an appropriate narrative tone, Carrey makes the latest film version sound like a ham-fisted socialist diatribe, hardly a strategy for drawing middle American families in great numbers.

November 7, 2009

Watch for those dreaded ellipses

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 20:04

Patterico does some reconstructive surgery on Glenn Greenwald’s less-than-totally-honest practice of partial quoting:

Greenwald’s implication is clear: right-wing blogger Patterico shouldn’t have recommended Allahpundit’s coverage — and right-wing blogger Glenn Reynolds shouldn’t have linked Patterico’s recommendation of Allahpundit.

If only those right-wing bloggers had warned their readers to be skeptical and avoid jumping to conclusions . . .

But wait! What’s that little ellipsis in Greenwald’s quotation of my post? Why, I do believe that’s an indication that he left something out of my quote! Let’s just look at that whole quote to see what Greenwald chose to omit, shall we? I’ll put the part Greenwald omitted in bold type:

Whenever there is breaking news, it’s good to keep a few things in mind:

* Don’t jump to conclusions.

* Don’t be afraid to discuss relevant topics even if they seem politically incorrect.

* Always follow Allahpundit.

Hmmm. So Greenwald omits the part of my quote where I explicitly warn readers, as the very first thing I say, that they should not jump to conclusions in breaking news situations. And then Greenwald implies that my recommendation of Allahpundit was a poor one because Allahpundit jumped to invalid conclusions.

November 6, 2009

Contrarian opinion on the iPhone

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

You can’t accuse Flora Graham an Apple fangirl:

To quote a few of her sharper lines:

* Say What?
Call quality on the iPhone is pathetic, and it’s mostly because of the tiny speaker. It has to be aligned with your ear canal with the accuracy of a laser-guided ninja doing cataract surgery, or else the volume cuts down to nothing as the sound waves bounce uselessly around your ear shells.

* Dropped Calls and Data Gaps
If, like Will Smith in Enemy of the State, you’re trying to avoid the eagle eye of Big Brother, the iPhone. could be for you. It drops calls, fails to connect and doesn’t even ring sometimes — not for everyone, but more often than any other phone we’re currently using.

* You Can’t Answer If it Doesn’t Ring
Perhaps the worst of the iPhone’s problems is its ability to sit there stealthily and ignore incoming calls. With no ring or vibrate to clue you in, your friends and family are redirected to voicemail . . . or just treated to silence. If you’re in a two-iPhone family, it can be a case of the deaf leading the mute.

* The iPhone Might Burn Your Face Off
According to our ultra-sciencey test, it is extremely unlikely that the iPhone will burn your face off… Nevertheless, pressing a large, flat surface to your cheek is always going to be sweaty . . . Thus the current trend for people to walk down the street with their phones on hands-free, yelling into the mike at the bottom while they hold the rest of the phone away from their faces.

However, she does still acknowledge the real reason I still love my iPhone (even acknowledging much of her criticism):

If the iPhone is inaudible, unconnected, on fire and out of battery, why is the thing so popular? The fact is, although the iPhone is the worst phone in the world, it’s the best handheld computer there is.

November 5, 2009

How unpopular do you have to be to have fans do this?

Filed under: Football — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:42

ESPN reports that Kansas City Chiefs fans really don’t like Chiefs running back Larry Johnson:

Embattled Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson is 75 yards from becoming the team’s all-time leading rusher.

And some Chiefs fans have a problem with that.

An online petition started by Chiefs fans asks general manager Scott Pioli to deactivate Johnson and keep him on the sideline so he cannot pass Priest Holmes for the team rushing record, or join the team’s Ring of Honor at Arrowhead Stadium.

Holmes holds the Chiefs’ rushing record with 6,070 yards; Johnson currently has 5,996 yards.

“While we are thankful for his service, we feel that Larry has been a black eye on the organization and has no business being mentioned” among the team’s all-time greats, the petition reads.

July 28, 2009

Did James Lileks like The Watchmen?

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:23

One quote from a fascinating take-down:

. . . it’s a sign of the movie that leaving in the giant squid would have made it less ridiculous.

Haven’t seen the movie myself, although Victor said he liked it.

July 21, 2009

How to respond to a Hugo list kvetch

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 16:34

John Scalzi is in fine form:

What makes this an error is the tangential fact Mr. Roberts is a science fiction author himself. Here’s something that we in the kvetching industry like to call a “pro tip”: If you take the time to squat and pinch off a steaming ass-loaf of condescension onto the heads of the people most committed to the genre of literature you happen to write in, you may find they will remember that fact when they see your books in the stores. As in “oh, here’s the book of that guy who thinks my taste in literature sucks.” How motivated does that make the average science fiction fan to buy a book? Well, you know: How motivated would it make you?

Now, I assume Mr. Roberts didn’t intend to come across as arrogant and hectoring to his primary audience, because very few people so willfully attempt to ankle-shoot their own career, even the ones with an academic aerie such as Mr. Roberts possesses. I suspect he believed he was being stern but fair. However, I also suspect that science fiction fandom, not in fact being comprised of students who have to sit for a lecture in order to graduate, may have its own opinions on the matter. In the real world, people don’t like being told, while being gently and paternalistically patted on the head, that they’re goddamned idiots. Especially from someone who then turns around and hopes to sell them a book.

The short form of this is to say that it’s one thing to believe a book on the Hugo shortlist (or, as is the case of Mr. Roberts, all the books on the shortlist) is or are mediocre. It’s another thing entirely as a writer to criticize a reader (and someone you’d presumably like to make your reader) for his or her taste in books. The first of these is perfectly valid; taste is subjective. The second of these makes you look like a jerk to the people upon whom you presumably hope to build your career.

Which is of course perfectly fine, if that’s what you intend to do. I’d just make sure that it is, in fact, what you intend to do.

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