Monthly Archives: August 2011

If an idea’s proponents’ grasping at ever more implausible straws is an indication of how badly that idea is faring in the court of public opinion, it seems that global warming alarmism is not doing so well. Set aside the predictable, feeble speculations about the existence or severity of Hurricane Irene being due to global warming. I have seen, in about one week’s time, three more examples of how desperate the global warming alarmists are becoming.

First, we’re told that, according to a paper recently published by the Climate Institute in Australia, “loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.” So, even though there is skepticism about whether global warming — or, as it is euphemistically called, “climate change” — is a real phenomenon and, on top of that, skepticism about whether global warming causes weather events of increasing severity, the authors of this paper try to further their environmentalist agenda by means of an additional layer of speculation: the hypothesis that increasing rates of mental illness in Australia are due to the increasing frequency of severe weather events.

Second, Al Gore argues that those who are now skeptical about global warming are the moral equivalent of those who, in earlier generations, were racists. “I think it’s the same where the moral component is concerned,” he said. Gore seems to be forgetting that it is the racists and the global warming alarmists — not the global warming skeptics — who must bear the onus of proof. Both the racists and the global warming alarmists are arguing for the existence of something: in the case of the racists, a connection between skin color and a characteristic that would justify discrimination; in the case of the global warming alarmists, both the existence of the phenomenon itself and its connection to human activity. Because Gore seeks to avoid addressing the merits of the skeptics’ position altogether, and instead assumes his audience will join him in smearing them by associating them with racists, this is a classic example of what Ayn Rand called “the argument from intimidation.”

Finally there’s this story, in which we are told that a NASA-linked scientist co-wrote an academic paper speculating that, were we to come into contact with an alien species, the (obviously superior) aliens might feel compelled to wipe us out due to our (obviously) suicidal and dangerous overconsumption of fossil fuels. Yes, it was just an academic paper, and being linked to NASA in some capacity does not mean that one cannot speak his mind. Nor does it mean that NASA endorses the views expressed in the paper. Still, I find it disturbing that someone who has worked with NASA spends time and energy considering the arbitrary. The existence of any sentient alien species is arbitrary, as there is no evidence (that I know of) in support of it. Further speculation about what such an alien species might think or do about us and our consumption of fossil fuels is something I will call “arbitrary squared”. Scary.

This last story is even more interesting because what these scientists have done, in effect, is use an arbitrary fantasy about aliens in order to resurrect the old, discredited Malthusian idea that the growth of civilization will be our downfall. According to the Guardian U.K., the argument in the paper was that overconsumption of fossil fuels, and the concomitant change in atmospheric composition, would alert alien life forms that our civilization is in a rapid growth phase. This rapid growth, they say, could be perceived by the aliens as a threat. The solution is, of course, to curb the rate of growth of our civilization. (Well, unless you’re Paul Krugman.) Same conclusion reached by Thomas Malthus, but with an even less plausible — in fact totally arbitrary — argument for it. Malthus’s original predictions haven’t come true; the fact that you are reading this blog post refutes them. But what these scientists have done is make the same argument in the context of an arbitrary story, with the result that no one can refute it. True, we can’t refute it. But we can refuse to consider it, and we can judge those who expect us to do so.

I wonder what they’ll come up with next.

I did a short Q & A on privacy and social media for the Summer 2011 issue of Chapman Magazine. You can find it here, just click on the issue with “A Roaring 20″ on the cover, and use the online reader to flip to page 10. Enjoy!

I, like so many others, was saddened to learn today about Steve Jobs’ resignation as CEO of Apple. I figured the best way to pay tribute for all that he’s done is to reread and share the review I wrote after getting my first iMac — apparently back in 2002. Yes, I still have this iMac in my garage. I couldn’t part with it! I published the review on epinions.com, and you can still find it there, too.

Fashion, Function, and Fun — All in one!
Written: May 24 ’02

Product Rating: (5/5)
Ease of Use: (5/5)
Quality of Tech Support: (5/5)

Pros: Stable, Fast, Beautiful Hardware Design and Beautiful Interface, Compact, Quiet

Cons: None that I can think of!

The Bottom Line: Buy it! You’ll love it! Easy to use, stable, quiet, nice to look at, compact and easy to move, fast, powerful.

coalette’s Full Review: Apple iMac 15 in. (M8535LL/B) Mac Desktop

The iMac 800MHz is the fourth computer I’ve owned, and the first Macintosh I’ve owned. I truly love it.

My interest in the Apple brand started when I saw my friend’s system and discussed it with him. He raved about the ease of use and stability of Mac systems. At the time I was pretty happy with my HP, so I figured that maybe the next time I needed a new computer I would try a Mac, but I was in no hurry.

Then I saw the first ever (in my knowledge) 4-page advertising pullout in Vogue magazine dedicated to a computer — the new iMac. The iMac had already been out for a couple of months, but again, I was in no real hurry. Then I saw the pullout ad. The first page showed a side-profile of the computer, with no identifying text. If you did not know what it was, there is no way this photo would tell you. I immediately thought of those old cartoons satirizing Frank Sinatra — they showed him in side profile and he nearly disappeared behind his microphone stand! Well, from the side the new iMac’s flat screen monitor nearly disappears, making the identification of the object difficult. Then of course you open the pullout and see the computer and its beautiful design. I was hooked.

I first encountered the machine in person at a campus technology open house. The staff there allowed me to lift the computer to see how heavy it was and I won’t say that it’s light, but I will say that it’s much easier to lift this entire computer than it is to lift the monitor of a regular computer. And I was just as impressed with its good looks as I had been when I saw it in Vogue. (Apparently you can’t always say as much for the human models, LOL!)

The final stimulus was my seeing the price of the computer increase by $100 (probably due to the amazing demand for it). Apple increased the price on its web-site one day, so I immediately placed an order, at the old price, from another vendor. The computer came in about 2 weeks after that, and then my love affair with the new iMac began in earnest.

The set-up. Incredibly easy. If you are familiar with computers, you can have it up and running in a matter of minutes — really! The first thing you will notice after set-up is how quiet is it. My old HP made a huge racket compared to this. The only time I find the iMac noisy is when it is reading a CD. Otherwise, it does not bother me. With my HP, I had gotten to the point where I preferred to work with the computer turned off, just so I could concentrate. Not so with the iMac.

Another advantage is the economy of space! The whole computer has a much smaller footprint than did my HP monitor alone. (Footprint, I learned recently, is the amount of desktop space the computer takes up. ) The iMac’s footprint is a circle with a diameter of 10.6 inches. This is all the desktop space you will need for your iMac — and remember that this includes both the computer itself AND the monitor! The only thing I need to have under my desk now is the optional Harman Kardon subwoofer (which, by the way, provides excellent sound along with the Apple pro speakers).

Ease of use — yes, it’s true. Let me give you an eloquent example. In our home we have a cable modem, and I decided that I wanted to take advantage of the high bandwidth. Apple has the Airport, which allows you to hook it up to the cable modem in one room of your home, and take advantage of the bandwidth on an Apple computer in another room, _without_ running any wires. All you need to do is install a card, called an “airport card”, into your iMac, make sure the accompanying software is installed, and you’re ready to go. Well, the person who helps us with our computers gave me a big list of instructions that she said I would have to enter into the iMac, in order to use the cable modem — IP addresses, preferences, settings, etc., etc. This is what would have to be done to a PC that one wanted to share the cable modem. But not with the iMac. All I did was start the Airport assistant software, tell it which Airport network I wanted to join, and tell it to pick the IP address, settings, etc., _automatically_. In seconds I was up and running!

Stability. I have had the iMac for months and only one time has the computer frozen up on me. And I think this is only because I have not upgraded the RAM from the included 256MB. I plan to do this, but not until the price decreases a bit. Besides, right now, as I type this, I am running Palm Desktop software, Entourage, and Internet Explorer, and am having no trouble. It takes a LOT to crash this puppy! My HP came with Windows 98 and was a nightmare until Windows XP was installed on it. With Windows 98, the HP actually had the property that, if I didn’t restart it for a few days, the clock display would run slow (and the computer would start “grinding” for every operation — what a pain). XP improved the HP quite a bit, but there still were some glitches. Mac OSX is more stable even than Windows XP (and I was not terribly unhappy with Windows XP — although I did have 384MB on that machine and have only 256 on this one).

Transferring Windows files to the iMac — this has been no problem so far. All I do is I e-mail the old files I want to transfer, as an attachment, from my old computer to this one. Another thing you can do is copy the files onto a zip disk and then open them right into the Mac, using a Zip USB drive, or copy them onto a CD-ROM. The other day my husband wanted to e-mail a file to someone, and the cable modem was down (I can easily switch from airport to dial-up on my iMac), so I had him copy the file from his Dell desktop to a zip disk, and my iMac read it and attached it to an e-mail, again in a matter of seconds. So if you’re thinking of transferring to Mac from windows, and are worried about transferring your MS Office documents, don’t. It’s a piece of cake!

Miscellany — iTunes, the music storing and playing program that comes with the iMac, is incredibly easy to use. And I even got an iPod about a week ago so I could carry my music around with me — again, a snap to hook up and transfer the music. The adjustable screen position is wonderful — between that and the ease of moving the entire unit, you should definitely be able to find a comfortable, ergonomically correct position. Oh, and did I mention the Apple pro keyboard? I love the easy touch on it — and my husband does, too — So much so that he had me buy a couple for his two PC’s (yes, the Apple pro keyboards will work on a PC with Windows XP and an available USB port). And installing the Airport card and/or extra memory is a snap. The bottom panel comes off easily and the things you need to get to are right there. With IBM “tower” type machines, I used to call computers “recalcitrant Lego” — because the inside looked like a mess of Lego chips, and it was always difficult to get to the place you needed to (e.g., to install extra memory).

Well, I think I’ve about covered it all. One final thing I can say — no regrets! I would buy this iMac all over again, no question!

Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 1799
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor speed: 701-800
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: SuperDisk
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50

Dear Mr. Letterman,

I do not normally watch your show. I don’t watch much television and, anyway, I gather you and I disagree on most political issues. But I watched last night because I wanted to see how you would react to the jihadist threat made against you last week. And now I am writing to congratulate you and thank you.

I would say that what you did went above and beyond the call of duty, except that I don’t believe in duty as a moral concept. I do, of course, believe that what you did was the morally right thing to do. It was right, not only (or primarily) because it benefited everyone you care about, your country (including me), perhaps the entire Western world, but also because it was the right thing to do for you, personally. My presumption is that you, as someone who believes in the principle of free speech, would rather speak out against the threat of jihadists who would silence us, than live in a world that has submitted to their totalitarian ideology. That is what would happen, eventually, if people were routinely silenced by threats like the one you received.

Doing what is right is not always easy, and that is particularly true when it comes to standing up to this enemy. What you did yesterday took courage, and it benefited millions of people (including me). So what comes to my mind as I am writing this post is the corny sort of birthday card that says, “…and all I got you was this lousy birthday card.” You deserve a medal of some kind for what you did but, because I don’t know you, and because I have no power to award medals of any significance, all I can give you is this (hopefully not-so-lousy) blog post.

With gratitude,

Amy Peikoff

UPDATE to readers who missed his show last night: Amy Nasir included links to videos of his monologue and top-ten list from last night’s show, below, in a comment to this post.