Been a while and I’m sorry for not saying anything. According to ANSI, True doesn’t have to be one, but just non-zero. It very much usually is (i.e. !!5==1) but it isn’t guaranteed and there are situations where it isn’t, especially in minimal implementations for odd embedded-aimed CPUs where it’s an advantage hardware wise to use something other then 1. Thus, true in one case could be 2 in one case and 1 in another, making 2^1==3 => True – not a correct logical xor situation as both are True by logic. Thus, the logic operators, which isn’t doing bitwise but actually logical comarison. But the logical xor (what one would expect to be ^^) wasn’t implemented. Not sure why, possibly because it was at the time rarely implemented in hardware so it would have boiled down to logical and/or anyhow, might as well give the programmer a shot at how he/she/it wants it implemented.

I’m glad to hear it wasn’t just me that had feelings about it. I just mentioned it because it was honestly my first thought. Many of the ideas would make great geek shirts/slogans though. I doubt it matters in the scheme of things, just one of those slight cringe moments due to associating || so hard with “or”.

The 5,000,000 count is low – I hardly EVER hit your bablog web site where the counter hits, but instead I read the email version (each and every one!), which won’t be reflected in the count. I also follow links from the email, which again won’t reflect in the count.

Your success is even bigger than than 5,000,000 suggests!

Kevin

I did.

- Jack

heh, j/k congratulations 5,000,000! ;^)

So what’s your technique? Pavlovian maybe? Give the mice a nice “doomed” photoshop of a mouse every once and a while and they’ll keep coming back.. lol

Have you ever stepped back and read your loquacious diatribes from an objective point of view? You’d be surprised to see that many of your writings actually turn out to be verbal forms of the “Rorschach inkblot test” .. heh

Sincerely,

mike j.

GAry 7

We’re you watching History Channel yesterday? They used that quote.

Good show on how the Big Bang theory came into being raher than the theory itself. I already have read about it endlessly, but it was the only thing worth watching at 35,000 feet.

A lot of the graphics on these shows are sloppy, though. There was one point where they talked about Venus, but the CGI was clearly of Mars, and they keep depicting the BB as a literal explosion (complete with BOOM! sound).

Church /= State

> “All I ask is that people keep thinking.”

I just got back from a two week work trip in the middle of nowhere (rural New England), so I’m on a thinking hiatus today. Is it fitting that it’s a Sunday, America’s tradition day of superstition? Maybe I’ll do something really brainless like watch football or play Guitar Hero or something.

Unfortunately, all three aspects of life – and understanding & participating in the cosmos – are inextricable.

Politics blights both religion and science whilst both scientists and the religious seek to have their views accounted for within the political sphere.

Again, there are balances and areas where input from each is useful and necessary and where it is harmful or superflous.

Ethical or religious input in politics is good and necesary where it dermands compassion, inclusion and equality; eg. the Rev. Martin Luther King or the abolition of slavery or concepts of social justice and everyone having the right to worship as they choose – or not if they choose that.

Ethical or religious input in politics is harmful and unnecesary where it dictates cruelty, exclusion and ignorance as in enforcing creationism / ID as science, imposing one religion at the expense of all others, forbidding people the right to choose euthanasia or abortion or discriminating against folks based on sexual orientation or politico-religious views (eg. Islamic laws on Muslims imposed by force, Christian supremacy and 10 Commandments-prayers shoved in everyone elses faces.Or with Israeli immigration & infrastructure restricted to Jews only and NOT non-Jews esp. Palestineans, etc ..)

Scientific input in politics is good and necessary where it enables us to fight serious global problems such as the greenhouse global warming or drives exporation and peaceful expansion, such as NASA’s work, the HST and the Apolo Moon landings. It is also necesary in education for building our future and this includes debunking politics in the guise of religion imposing “creationism” at schools etc ..

Scientific input in politics is harmful and unnecesary where it creates problems or dangers if allowed unchecked by compassion; eg. nuclear
M(utually) A(ssured) D(estruction)~ness , the potential for cloning and “Frankenfood” GM disasters and the sort of ‘science’ practiced by the Nazis and the US (eg. using Hiroshima as test bed for nuclear apocalypse, useof “agent Orange” in Vietnam and Depleted Uranium shells in Iraq etc…)

Politics is generally unhelpful _everywhere_ but, unfortunately, again an aspect of life that can not easily ( if at all) be avoided.

In answer to GK’s :

“Please keep us posted on the conference re: Science and Religion. I hope it’s not held to bash one or the other. I hope it’s an authentic attempt to really delineate the place of each in our democratic society.”

Galileo sorta did that 500 (~ish?) years ago, mate with his line :

“The Church tells us how to go to Heaven NOT how the heavens go.”

Or something very similar quoting off top of cranium …

In My Humble Opinion Naturally :

In essence, science tells us facts or at least ever improving theories and understandings about nature, the cosmos, the what and how of things whereas religion (or philosophy or metaphysics if y’prefer) gives us ethical guidelines and a spiritual / supernatural (again, if you choose to think spiritual supernatural~wise) perspective that may not not make sense in scientific terms and which may be outside of scientific purview and testing. (ie. non-reproducible results, non-verifiable theories.) But may at a .. deeper ( …or okay _different_ ) level still make sense to folks on an emotional or spiritual /belief level. Or the why and this is ethical / unethical~ness of things.

Where they conflict in matters of fact – (eg. geological timeline versus 6,000 yr old Earth, Human genetic relationship with chimps etc ..) science is 99.99999999999999999999999999999999 % of the time correct.

Where they clash on ethics, it is equally valid to say the vast majority of the time, science should cede way to respecting ethics / religion although this is complicated by the conflicting religions and religious interpretations. (Eg. destructive or painful or dangerous testing on human or animal subjects, say conducting sexual experiments on breeding broher-sister, mother-son or the Nazi Dr Menegle’s twin’s experiments.)

I think, however, there is a place for both aspects of life and they need not conflcit

(Basically, turn off everything in State that belongs to Church.)

Wow. Quite an accomplishment, even if SiteMeter is inaccurate. Great work, Phil! SiteMeter is usually on the conservative side (I know — not your favorite word, or mine). Your best results would come from your server’s stats, and would probably indicate that you hit 5 M some time ago.

Congratulations!

Please keep us posted on the conference re: Science and Religion. I hope it’s not held to bash one or the other. I hope it’s an authentic attempt to really delineate the place of each in our democratic society.

Looking forward to reading your posts.

What do I win?

Thanks for all the debunking and skepticism.

And thanks for leading me to this: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2335#more-2335

I love it when people are exposed for being full of hot air.

4,999,236

I’ve come here for a couple of years for not just the Bad Astronomy but for you coverage of any and all Bad Science.

Keep On Debunkin’

(Oh, if only I can hit when it’s 4,999,334!)

J/P=?

With Phil and PZ together in the same place, it’s only fitting that today’s Astronomy Picture has placed cephalopods in the heavens:
A beautiful blue ion tail has become visible in deep telescopic images of Comet Holmes. Pointing generally…

4,998,217