devolute.net

Tanya lost an eye in a car accident and was supplied by a pretty realistic looking prosthetic replacement. It seems, however, that she’d like to make the best of a bad situation and ‘upgrade’ that eye. She has put out a call on her blog for engineers to build her an eye with a digital camera that can provide augmented reality. There are a few possiblities; a ‘Terminator’-like display readout perhaps, or maybe just the ability to document her day with a genuine photographic memory. She seems to be gathering quite a bit of interest and I would imagine those with the skill-set to work with these sort of devices would always welcome a guinea pig. The devleopment could turn out to be very interesting.

Something about these pictures that I recently stumbled across excites me.

Chris Morris at CERN

We have a machine here that, some say, can generate a black hole and destroy the earth and we have the greatest minds in British Comedy: Chris Morris, Simon ‘League Against Tedium’ Munnery and Kevin ‘I’m in pretty much everything worth watching’ Eldon. All in the same room tunnel! I can only presume something amazing is going to happen.

All joking aside, the CERN podcast with these people is very interesting if a lot of the physics usually overwhelms you (as it does me).

Listen (and view) the Munnery / Eldon CERN podcast
Listen to the Chris Morris CERN podcast

Bowie once didn’t sing; “Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, I’m evolved from a funkee monkey“. So fascinated have I been by the battles in US schools over the teaching of evolutionary theory that I never thought that we in the United Kingdom would be quite as sceptical of Mr. Darwins ideas. However, only 48% of us believe Darwins selected evolution theory to be correct and 40% of us think intelligent design should be taught in schools. If this is in Religious Education or Biology lessons the article doesn’t say. That’s the question which concerns me most.

The real cause of grief in the US isn’t; “Is the christian fundamentalists’ ideas on creationism correct”, but; “should I oppose the teaching of science in our childrens science lessons as my faith doesn’t recognise it as valid”. Fortunately this question isn’t being raised (yet!) as the division between scientific education and religion, or perhaps more importantly; the division between church and government, is perhaps a little more reasonable in the UK than it is in the US. Your thoughts, gentlemen please!

> View BBC news article

“If somebody told you that Intelligent Design Theory could have anti-Christian implications, you might get exasperated, and understandably so, given the political leanings of the theory’s proponents. But, in fact, the harder you look at Intelligent Design, the less genuinely Christian it feels.”

The ID argument which seems to be raging quite fiercely in the US at the moment is one that I often find very interesting. This article at therevealer.org is a good one. It takes a somewhat less frequently seen approach and reminds us again that not all christians are creationists! I’ll be reading those comments just as soon as I get this exam out of the way. grrrrr…

It’s a hard time for Pastafarians at Christmas who must be asking WWFSMD? Bless ‘em.