but... I want what he has...

My brother drove the bike 800 miles already!!! I've driven it no more than 50 miles when I go home on weekends which is around once a month.

Ok, I'm done being the 10 year old brat who wants everything his brother has. Here's the picture all of my friends have seen, me on a 1993 Yamaha XJ600 Seca II.

The Transparent Factory

I'm relying on essential #3, atleast I won't talk about hobo's. Promise :)

Volkswagen announced this week that they will stop selling this car in the US starting february. It's called the VW Phaeton.

I'm sure it's a decent car considering it's a $60-90k Volkswagen competing with luxury cars from the likes of BMW, Mercedes, Audi... It looks like the old passat, which for that amount of money is a rip-off to say the least. There is a silver lining though.

Almost nothing about this car deserves notice, apart from the way it's built.

You could call it a sales and marketing gimmick, and it probably was, but there is some inherent honesty and incorruptibility in building such a big transparent assembly facility, quite literally, to assemble the car. The Transparent Factory is in Dresden, Germany. The walls in the factory are made up of glass. Anybody is welcome to visit, and car buyers get to see their car being built. Not a bad work environment either, I might add.

Like this small part of the plant, every other part has glass for walls, and plenty of nature for viewing pleasure. Sure VW didn't show as much transparency in the design process. And, the car will still be sold in Europe, where the sales are much better than here in North America.

Transparency in a mundane process you say? Nobody except maybe the car buyer wants to actually see how his car is made? I could say the same thing about something you'd like seen made in front of you. Medicine, Shoes? I'm not saying we need to build more glass buildings, but something along the lines of more transparency in any process even if as a way of marketing... is a great idea.

I am a self-proclaimed motoring dunderhead on weekdays, and a motorhead on some weekends. Those are the technical terms... It's been a satisfying religion to follow, to say the least. The new Top Gear season will get plenty of coverage on this blog, as soon as I get around to it...

Motoring - n. the act of driving an automobile
dunderhead - n. A stupid person; a dolt.
motorhead - n. a motor vehicle or cycle enthusiast; also, an enthusiast for working on motor vehicles; a mechanic

WSJ

I subscribed to online version of The Wall Street Journal mainly because they do provide the best context with business and economic news, only The Economist does a better job regularly, which is why they're more expensive. It's not the best thing for investors if you're looking for market forecasts, there's Barron's or IBD for that.

This is splitting hairs, and I'm pretty sure the WSJ is considered right wing by most on the left anyway, but this is the sort of bias that is most easily detected. The bias in their stories is almost a non-issue, or atleast I'd like to think so. So, here's splitting hairs...


LET GO of the Elliot Spitzer story! notice how every other story has a time associated with it, the Elliot Spitzer story, which is atleast 12hrs old, does not. It's not even that important a story, except that it is the first time Elliot Spitzer, NY's attorney general, has proved fallible. More people reading about it, isn't going to change anything.

Temper Tantrum

I read The Da Vinci Code. I realize I'm one of the last ones to do so. It took me about a week of on-off reading. I missed Diwali Night because of it... I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction. I hate fiction.

I hate fiction.

I HATE FICTION.

Professors

This article can do wonders for any professor's end-of-semester teaching evaluations. But, if ungrateful brats like me aren't willing to change, what's the realistic probability of a professor willing to change?

Quote from article, "Don't play favorites, yet don't deny students extra credit or a second chance on a paper or test. Don't "get sidetracked by boring crap." Don't refer to yourself in the third person. Don't ever call on students. Don't be "mean," "hateful," or "ambiguous." Don't take attendance. Don't be "high on Viagra and full of yourself." Don't be "distractingly spastic." Very important: Don't talk about stuff in class and then put other stuff on the test. Most important: Don't give low grades. Do show slides. Do offer easy assignments. Do crack jokes and "provide a fun teaching atmosphere." Do show up at your office hours. Do give A's on all group projects. Do walk your dog around campus. Do resemble a celebrity of some sort. Finally, try your best to be "awesome.'"

Is that really too much to ask? I guess the students paying fees doesn't change anything does it... The second one is the one I require in most classes. Last but not least... damn you engineering!

Quote from article, "Not that you asked, but language departments appear to have the hottest professors. They also have the best dancers."

If professors started a website for notorious students, I'd represent the students who don't show up to class very well.

BBC News

Here is a BBC news article saying:

"There have even been rumours that he has lost the trust of the president and might be forced to resign. Nobody will be surprised that Mr Cheney is fighting back."

I've been regurgitating too much news lately, here and elsewhere.

Constantine

The cat in the movie, is named duck.

That's what I call hypocritical Bullshit.

Time to ridicule Kansas, again!

To all my friends saying, "wait, I've been doing that for 4 years, you don't have to tell me." I do, STFU and read, and you can make more fun of Kansas, either that, or you'll say it's not even worth it. In the later case, you're obligated to make fun of Kansas atleast 10 times about this. :)

It's going to be hard to compete with 300,000 blog entires about Kansas and Intelligent design about this news, go read it if you haven't heard. Regardless...

First off, a Vatican minister said this about Intelligent Design "The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim." He also (same speech) "backed" evolution, last week:

Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly.

So, The school board in Kansas is more fundamentalist than the Vatican, which really sets a new bar for being christian in Kansas. This is the first thing that needs to be made fun of.

Secondly, Intelligent Design simply is not science and should not be taught in biology class. Intelligent Design's main concepts/beliefs are Irreducible complexity, Specified complexity, Fine-tuned universe, Co-evolution and Ecosystems which all try to disprove evolution, more than prove an alternate theory. There is no credible scientific evidence to support any of those 4 concepts/beliefs. And the Kansas school board is using those ID beliefs regardless to cast doubt on evolution.

Evolution is a theory and has it's unknowns, but using Intelligent design (which belongs in a comparative religion or philosophy class) to 'prove' those unknowns, by changing the definition of science (that's all/least they could do), also needs to be made fun of.

And lastly, In 1999 the school board decided to do something similar. I took biology I/II during 1999/2000 in a Kansas HS within one of the two districts (kansas city, lawrence) which voted democratic. Our biology teacher didn't teach us anything about intelligent design then (it didn't exist like it does now), he only didn't test us over evolution, which he did teach. All of that crap got overturned in 2001 (school board re-election after enough ridicule), but now it's back. It used to be called creationism, now it's Intelligent Design, it was belief then, and still is, but is now being portrayed as science.

Both times teachers in Kansas lost the right to use the NEA and NSTA's science curriculum. I'm leaving out how in school board hearings leading up to this, scientists didn't show up, and what exact changes the school board made.

Let the ridiculing and making fun of Kansas commence! Electing more sane people back into the school board... hopefully. Here are some bumper stickers...



I'm getting myself a "Fine... I evolved" T-shirt, and my favorites so far, a "Evolution, it's not a belief" and "If we outlaw the teaching of evolution, only outlaws will evolve!" bumper stickers.
Honorable mention: http://www.venganza.org/
Quite funny, worth a read...

Umm...

Thankyou for that poignant analysis, but, I do mean to ridicule, with the result of change, in either the school board or the education standards. Why do I choose humor over actually debating science? because either way, I'd accomplish the same amount. Humor is a bit more entertaining. Science, I shall leave upto the real scientists and scientific media outlets. I don't need to tell you what happened in Dover, this last week, is just what happened in Kansas in 2000. And I'll be grossly disappointed if it doesn't happen again in Kansas. I also partly choose humor because as a resident of Kansas, it's a defense mechanism of putting up against the fundamentalists. I have a lot more to say about this, but in another post.

Going back to the KS school board standards... the changed definition of science leaves room for explanations other than natural explanations (supernatural), by changing natural to adequate, which is why KS teachers cannot use the NSTA's curriculum, and teaching materials:

Quote (Page 10):

Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observations, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.

Quote (Page 9):

Science studies natural phenomena by formulating explanations that can be tested against the natural world.

As I've implied in my original post, ID is not science and cannot be tested against the natural world (I know about the CSC), like parts of evolution have been, teaching ID regardless in biology class, brings such fundamentalism into the classroom, which nobody in their right minds would tolerate. The subject matter of ID isn't even close to becoming the subject matter of a class in any university. The least ID should try to be is an internationally debated theory first, much less internationally accepted. The thought of teaching such an unscientific theory which hasn't been properly researched (more than a handful of papers/books) is like asking to introduce insanity into schools. I can't even find the right words to explain my outrage.

Here is something else that the school board added about science/religion:

Quote (page 9):

"Some scientific concepts and theories may differ from the teachings of a student's religious community or their cultural beliefs. Compelling student belief is inconsistent with the goal of education. Nothing in science or in any other field of knowledge shall be taught dogmatically. "

I believe the dogma should be condemned both ways, I expect nothing less, than for you to refute almost everything I've said. The last thing I will say is that Religion requires faith above all else, and science requires time above all else. You seem to have a lot of unquestionable faith in your religion, try to have some patience too when it comes to science. Changing the definition of science, will get fundamentalists no where. I will NEVER, yes never, believe in any part of ID, partly because I'm a Hindu, and partly because ID really is trying to put words in god's mouth (the atheist front, is only a small part of the big picture)... it will never work. Believing or not believing the cardinal for head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, is your choice. The alternative seems to be Pat Robertson...

Ridicule and humor, just a defense mechanism against such monotheistic fundamentalism...

The answer to your question, is this. And the fact that fundamentalists have been so successful beyond their wildest when it comes to politics, that now they want to see what else they can reshape. Never before has an admittedly fallible scientific theory met such scrutiny from impatient fundamentalists. Hence the ridiculing of fundamentalists...

I'm waiting for my "Evolution, it's not a belief" T-shirt.

A guy just trying to tell his story...

This is a poster for 50 Cent's new movie, Get rich or die tryin'. It has a gun in his left hand, and a microphone in his right. Nothing particularly wrong with that, just an artistic statement, a good one at that,until I read that posters in LA and Philadelphia were actually taken down.

The protestors against the poster say 'the message could be rob to get rich', hmm... remind me again what the message of movies like The Italian Job, Oceans Eleven, Oceans Twelve, and The usual suspects is? I swear utopia itself would be protested in this country if it didn't have laws. Protesting just seems like too much fun...

The poster says "Get rich or die tryin'" which implies (besides the goal, which is to get rich) there is a trade-off between the left side (gun) and the right side (microphone), what's on the left side is easier to do, but you might die while trying to get rich, and what's on the right side is much harder to do, but your chances of dying are greatly reduced. Obvious, no? Not obvious enough for some people.

The poster is only trying to reflect on the real trade-offs in real life, let the guy advertise his movie.

There are literally only a couple of modern day rap songs I like, 50 cent's songs aren't among them, and offcourse the 'classic' rap like outkast sounds ok. Apart from that, most rap is crap, along with hiphop. Hiphop is a fad, that will die it's rightful death very soon, as soon as people realize, 'what exactly have we built up here?' I respect what Diddy does for comedy def jam and the like, but what he's singing, can't be music.