Response to Jeff Durbin's "The Irrefutable Proof of God"

I'm in a FaceBook theists/atheist group and someone posted this Jeff Durbin video. He is their pastor and they think highly of him.

Now, just to be clear, this is not irrefutable proof of god - I was expecting more, but I got a a detailed description from a presuppositional apologetics point of view.

If you don't know what that is, it goes like this. Without God, you can't know anything. He is the basis for logic, induction and reason in general. If you're coming at life with an atheistic, naturalistic world view, then what do you have for a foundation of logic? Induction is simply the view that the world will continue to behave as it has behaved in the past. Why does it do that? What reason do you have for that with a naturalistic, materialistic point of view. You don't. So, your view doesn't make any sense.

I don't quite know who is convinced by these kinds of arguments. Say we discover a new planet. It's orbiting a star 50 light years from here. What is the planet made of? I have a theory that it's made of green cheese. The green cheese theory makes sense. Without it, you don't know what the planet is made of, and don't you want certainty? So, you should believe in the green cheese theory. Not convinced? I know how you feel. I felt that way through the entire video.

Durbin is right and I don't know why I can trust in induction. People have been trusting in induction much longer than either Judaism or Christianity were around. They had their own gods who made it make sense to them, but they are now dismissed as silly superstition. The current Christian god is, of course, different, and the bible says we are made in His image and he is logical and that makes us logical etc.. etc... But yes, I don't know. I am comfortable saying that I don't know lots of things, like the basis for beauty, morality, or logic, or induction and so on. I have theories, but I don't have certainty like he does. I don't consider this a bad thing.

I guess I can see people who want to make sense of the world, who are scared of not knowing, fall into his way of thinking. Of course, certainty FEELS better than uncertainty, but sometimes, reality isn't comfortable.

The facts are: there is either a God or there isn't. If there isn't, then not having a basis for morality or beauty or logic are simply consequences of reality. Boo hoo if we don't have a basis. This, in no way, makes his worldview superior to mine, just that he has certainty, not that he is correct. Like the green cheese theory, it's either correct or it isn't. If I'm certain of the green cheese theory, what does that say?

Finding Centre - meditation classes, Wellington

I've been taking a meditation class on Sundays at 12:30PM on Courtney place.

The name of the business is "Finding Centre", and the instructor does guided, moving meditation (although movement is secondary to the meditation itself). I have been quite amazed at how much the movement adds to the meditation, and I've able to settle deeper into the meditation when I've been moving. This is different from the extra relaxation after vigorous exercise or yoga, since the movement in these classes is non-strenuous and extremely gentle.

I am a meditation novice and have barely had a chase to establish a daily practice. This Sunday class, however, has really worked for me. I know enough from some of the research and talks from Matthieu Ricard to know that meditation has a lot of heath benefits, and they can be achieved quite quickly. Not only that, but a brief foray has given me some very interesting insights with very few classes.

I've learned about myself and my need to impress people ("are people noticing me?", "Do they find me impressive?") while meditating and was able to examine this quirk dispassionately. Presumably this had been there for years without me noticing. I also realized that while sitting there and hearing a noise, the immediate reaction is to form an image of what is making the noise, or naming the noise. I don't know why we need to, since even without naming the sound, we know what it is an "understand" it with no more inner dialog.

In a recent talk, Sam Harris (author of "Waking Up") discussed the same point. He says that if anyone else could hear our thoughts out loud, we would sound like we're crazy. Also, he arrives at a talk and sees that there is already water on the table, and in his head, he says "Oh look, they've put water out for me.". Who is he talking to?

I got a strong feeling in my last meditation class that understanding this inner dialog and possibly eliminating it may well be key to a better life. I don't know why. I have no idea if it's true, but I'll be working on it for the next while to see if I can remove it. I'll report back here. :)

Also, I enjoy that this class is a guided meditation. I have done meditation where you "count your breath" and work in silence, but I find I get more out of guided meditation where the teacher talks. I don't know why, but I have found it more productive. Also, there are often a useful set of steps that the teacher works through that might represent years of effort from other students and teachers, work that you might take months or years to discover on your own. I noticed this on a meditation retreat in June with Richard Miller, who was kind enough to invite me to the morning and evening meditation sessions during a training retreat in Montana.

My disappointment in ways of generating electricity...

Back in my university years, I was quite amazed in electrical engineering classes at how easy it is to convert electricity to mechanical energy and vice versa. A magnetic field and a few wires moving around in almost any configuration, and you've got current flowing. This was amazing to me.

Then, I started looking at all the different ways we generate electricity. They are pretty disappointing, sorry, but nuclear energy - you think Star Trek and an anti-matter generator or the naquida reactor from Stargate, but just a bit less advanced. Somehow, we are taming the atom! This is exciting. Nope, all we do is boil water. It's the same as with coal and oil, all you do is heat some water up and pass it through a turbine and that spins some wires in a magnetic field (see paragraph 1).

What? You mean to tell me that you'd just boiling water? How iron age! How pedestrian!

There are exceptions to boiling water, and all but one use a turning turbine (see paragraph one) to produce electricity. Hydro-electric (you have to create an artificial lake and I don't like the damage), wind-turbines (I don't like the horizontal turbine's bird strike problem - vertical is ok, but not as efficient), tidal (again, it damages the environment, and lots of fish get chewed up in the mechanisms).

Then, there's solar. Solar panels directly convert the sun's energy into electricity. That's exciting. Guess what? Solar thermal (where they use mirrors to gather heat) is more efficient and cost-effective. Guess what? They boil water!

I don't know why, but the excitement just goes out of me when I hear that. It is really like the Roman empire decided to generate electricity by building a hollow, bronze statue of a cow with a turbine where the horns are.

Alvin Plantinga on the irrationality of evolutionary materialism

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/is-atheism-irrational/

A friend of mine blogged this interview with Plantinga on facebook recently. I thought - what the heck - I'm an atheist, and a material evolutionist, let's take a look.

I took a few minutes and posted a response. Comments are welcome.

"No one thinks there is good evidence for the proposition that there are an even number of stars; but also, no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism."

The even stars versus odd stars is an interesting analogy, i.e. it's either even or odd. However, we KNOW that even and odd are about 50% probable (and changing all the time). Is that the case with God? Clearly, people on the theistic side think the changes are 100% for God (or close) and similarly on the atheistic side thinking there is no God. If it was always just a 50/50 shot, then belief would be completely different in both camps. Clearly, no one equates belief in God to the number of stars being an even number.

On Bertrand Russell's Cosmic Teapot:

"Clearly we have a great deal of evidence against teapotism. For example, as far as we know, the only way a teapot could have gotten into orbit around the sun would be if some country with sufficiently developed space-shot capabilities had shot this pot into orbit. etc..."

He is arguing to the letter of the letter of Russell's point and not to the spirit. Bertrand Russell could just have easily said, "an asteroid in the shape of a teapot" or something similar. The point is, there is no reason to think that it's there unless you have evidence. So, he misses that point, and I think deliberately.

When asked to come up with a good reason for God, Plantinga says: 

"One presently rather popular argument: fine-tuning. Scientists tell us that there are many properties our universe displays such that if they were even slightly different from what they are in fact, life, or at least our kind of life, would not be possible."

The fine tuning argument is something that gets WAY too much press. If you were examining the universe and were trying to figure out the kind of God created it, you'd get a God that really, really loves vast empty blackness with 100% of the universe instantly deadly to humans (100% rounded to a very large number of decimal places). At least Plantinga has the honesty to say, "or at least our kind of life, would not be possible" which completely negates the fine tuning argument anyway.

Discussing the imperfection of the universe leading the concept of an imperfect God, he says: "
"Think about it: The first being of the universe, perfect in goodness, power and knowledge, creates free creatures. These free creatures turn their backs on him, rebel against him and get involved in sin and evil. Rather than treat them as some ancient potentate might — e.g., having them boiled in oil — God responds by sending his son into the world to suffer and die so that human beings might once more be in a right relationship to God. God himself undergoes the enormous suffering involved in seeing his son mocked, ridiculed, beaten and crucified. And all this for the sake of these sinful creatures."

I find this Plantinga argument bizarre. I don't get how it makes any sense at all. God sacrifices his son and goes through pain and suffering and death to maintain a correct relationship with humans? WHA? Can't He think of a way that doesn't involve human sacrifice? It makes no sense. Saying it produces the best possible world is even more strange. I maintain a relationship with someone by talking to them, exchanging ideas, having a rapport. Surely, that would be better than crucifixion?

On the explanatory power of God being replaced by the explanatory power of science:

I like his discussion of the explanatory power of theism, and how not needing God to explain the universe isn't an argument against His existence. Fair point. He could, if he wished, not take part in the universe at all in any way, and have no influence. This does, however, eliminate things like design and the beauty of the universe as possible arguments for God, but fair enough. I think Nagel's "I don't want there to be a God" is a ridiculous argument, on the order of "I don't want it to be true, so I choose not to believe it".

On materialism: "It’s by virtue of its material, neurophysiological properties that a belief causes the action. It’s in virtue of those electrical signals sent via efferent nerves to the relevant muscles, that the belief about the beer in the fridge causes me to go to the fridge. It is not by virtue of the content (there is a beer in the fridge) the belief has."

His argument on the content of belief as an argument against materialism is a non sequitur. Even if he were right, and beliefs due to evolution were only about 50% likely to be true (I have no idea where he pulls this number from), then it's a consequence of materialism and not a statement about its validity.

I don't quite know either, how a completely opposite belief could have "the same neurophisiolgical properties", it would have the same content. I don't know how he separates them. It's like saying "2+5 =7, but numbers can't be material, or if we used another number with the same properties as 5, we'd end up with a different answer. So, the content of 5 doesn't matter."

Clearly, neurophisiological properties carry content, for belief and for various other thoughts. They aren't somehow completely interchangeable. He talks like material content makes no different, like a rock can just roll uphill instead of down, or there's no conservation of momentum.

If material doesn't just ignore content, then evolution follows just fine, and beliefs roughly align with reality and is a useful adaptation.

God and the Fine Tuning Argument

One of the more difficult arguments to argue against in the theist arsenal is the "fine tuning" argument, i.e. there are 20+ physical constants in the universe, and if any of them were off by even a small amount, then "life wouldn't be possible". I've most recently read this argument in a book called "God: The Evidence: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World" by Patrick Glynn, which I saw recommended somewhere and decided to buy.

It's a difficult read, since Glynn makes incorrect and blanket statements throughout when presenting the fine tuning argument, or, as he calls it, the Anthropic principle (which it actually isn't). The Anthropic Principle basically says that "of course we find ourselves in a universe that is compatible with human life, otherwise, how could we be observing it?", which is true.

Say we have a dartboard laying in the desert that is 1km by 1km square and a dart is dropped from 100km up. The dart's final resting point (assume it hits the dartboard) will be, essentially random. We can we say about where it landed? If you're a theist, you say "what are the chances that the dart ended up in this EXACT location? The changes much be billions, trillions to one!", which is true. However, you could say the same thing no matter where the dart hit. Without another dart, you can't say if someone was aiming or not. We just don't know. The same is true of the fine-tuned universe.

Glynn's presentation of the fine-tuning argument is awful. He makes statements like "the death of materialism", that one of the constants being different by even a small amount (strong force, weak force, gravity, or the relations between them etc...), then "life wouldn't be possible". He also generalizes this to say that the universe was created specifically to produce "human life", which is pretty silly. The vast majority of life is not human at all, so it's a weird statement to make. Clearly, it's not specific to humans at all, but humans can survive.

Also, I think he'd be much more honest to say that if these constants were different, then life as we know it wouldn't be possible. I can agree with that, but life wouldn't be possible? I am hardly an expert on life, but one thing that seems clear is that life is very adaptable and I couldn't count it out if gravity were slightly different. Maybe stars would have shorter or longer life-spans, or not form at all, but what does that say about what other types of life might be possible? Since we don't have any data points except our universe, and, in fact, our own planet, we have very little to say about this. We just don't know what type of life would be possible (if any is) if the 20+ constants were to be different. Maybe there is a large subset of the tunings that could produce some kind of life - we just don't know. To say otherwise, is at worst, a lie, at best, incompetent.

Not only that, but since we can't look at another universe, we have no idea if the constants can even BE different from what they are. Have we looked at millions of universes and seen that the constants vary in each and every one? No - we haven't. We don't know. It's an unknown that the fine tuning argument fails to address. We are, essentially, looking at one data point and fitting it to a curve. Something I can say to both sides of the argument, if you're making conclusions, you're probably wrong.

Now, let me put that argument aside, give ground and say that the fine-tuning argument is 100% correct. There WAS an intelligent force that shaped the constants and made them what they are. How do we conclude that the universe was made just for us, that human life is special and the tuning is what it is because God wanted humans to exist? I find this a very strange thing to say, considering that the universe is, essentially 100% lethal to humans (rounded to the nearest billion decimal places say). Only a very small portion of, one, tiny planet that we know of will support our type of life. A typical location in the universe is a hard vacuum that will kill humans instantly. It's not a friendly place for humans at all. Surely, this wasn't made for us. If we were to imagine a species that it WAS made for, I think something that could at least survive in a hard vacuum would be more likely. A space creature of some kind. If they said that their God made the universe just for them, we would have a hard time arguing that one.

So, a theist will argue their one data point, fitting the curve that they want to fit it to (NOTE: any curve fits a one-point data set), AND, the worst thing is that atheists often take this seriously. I've seen Daniel Dennett "call it a draw" in a debate against Dinesh D'Souza over the argument, and pysicist Lee Smolin suggest that universes evolve like any other life form and there may be an infinite number of them, and we just happen to find ourselves in that supports our type of life. Really? These concessions sounds like a couple of things: 1) like you are making shit up just because you are loyal to your atheistic position, think the argument has weight and are creating something equally ridiculous to counter it and 2) intellectually lazy and incompetent. The thing is, they are as scientific as science-fiction.

Where is the problem with saying "I don't know" or, better yet, "We don't know"? After all, it's the honest answer. We don't know. At best, we can show why the theistic argument is silly. BUT, this doesn't give us licence to make up stupid theories that sound scientific but are as pseudo-scientific as Intelligent Design. We can muse and even present these things in pop-science books, but to present them as scientific theories is dishonest. You need evidence for real, scientific theories and until we can see multiple universes, I think that's in short supply. Stop it. Stop it now!
 

Who is to blame for the dead in Mazar-e-Sharif?

A few days ago, in the northern Afganistan town of Mazar-i-Sharif, an angry mob attacked a UN compound killing at least 9 people, some reports say as many as 12. This was a response to Pastor Terry Jones burning a Qur'an (Islam's holy book/bible) in Gainsville Florida on March 20th.

Jones had threatened to burn a Qur'an for some time, but delayed after an appeal by General David Patraeus, leader for the US forces in Afghanistan.

Who is to blame for this horrible action? I say the responsibility for these crimes rests solely on those who committed them.

Does Jones shoulder any of the blame? While I agree that Jones is a nut-case, with more than a few delusions, I say that he does NOT. I agree with Sam Harris in this blog post, that anyone suggesting that Jones be punished is off the rails. Does a free country remove freedoms from its people in response to the irrational and illegal and threatening actions from some loonies in another country?

Would we have punished Harriet Beecher Stowe for writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin" because it may have led to the American Civil War and the over 600,000 dead? The freedoms we enjoy today were earned through the deaths of many who fought for them. Should the deaths of more people remove those freedoms? That is an insult to the people who died.

Nanowrimo 2010 - here it comes again!

I am very excited about this year's National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) and another chance to write a first draft.

I can't believe that I have never thought of this before, but this year is a superhero novel. This will be my ninth first draft and I am determined to finish the 50,000 words even if I nearly missed my first four days at a management training course in Sydney and I'm behind by 6-7000 words.

I have been reading superhero novels running in the months leading up to November, and really liked "Soon, I will be Invincible" by Austin Grossman and "Karma Girl" by Jennifer Estep, but didn't like "Leaper" by Geoffrey Wood or "Hot Mama" also by Jennifer Estep.

I have also bought two other superhero novels from the Whitcoulls on-line e-book store to put on my Kobo e-book reader. I just bought "From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain" by Minister Faust about a psychologist to the world's best superhero team, and "Masked" by Lou Anders (Editor), an anthology of superhero fiction.

My novel features The Wingman, a superhero whose powers allow him to be second best at everything. He has a mimicking power that allows him to copy abilities, including super abilities from those around him. However, he let his team down years ago and they were slaughtered by a team of villains. Now, he's a pariah to the world, including other superheroes. Worse, this has spilled into his own mind and he doubts his own value.

At the beginning of the novel, the Wingman finds evidence for a serial killer who is killing aliens who live on earth. With his only remaining superhero friend, Raymond Taylor, aka "the General", leader of The Famous Five, they begin tracking down who is responsible.

SpecFicNZ Blogging Week – Day 3, the Bible

The Bible is the greatest work of speculative fiction ever written. Greater than the Iliad or the Odyssey, greater than the Epic of Gilgamesh or any of Shakespeare's plays.

There are Gods, prophets, magicians, miracles, conflict, betrayal, love, good Samaritans, villians and so much more.

As a source for ideas, there aren't any better places than the Bible.

SpecFicNZ Blogging Week – Day 2, superhero novels

I have recently read "Soon, I will be INVINCIBLE!" by Austin Grossman, a fun jaunt into superhero novels. I enjoyed it enough that I decided that it would be my genre for November's Nanowrimo novel.

If any genre defies Specfic boundaries and bleeds between sci-fi, fantasy and horror, it's superhero novels. A woman in a high tech battle suit teams up with an alien gladiator to fight a villain using an ancient Babylonian artifact to kill the Prime Minister of Uruguay for his own evil plans. What a lovely combination!

I think I'll enjoy November - I have never written in that genre and I am a huge comic book fan. There is so much material to choose from and so many directions it can go. I can do almost pure fantasy or pure sci-fi or a combination, introduce vampires or werewolves, have sorcerers turning the streets of New York into a replica of ancient Greece and have it all observed by an immortal alien sent to earth to observe, but who feels the need to interfere.

Indeed - very fun November. I think I'm excited enough to do the Kiwiwriters Prep-challenges in the archive before November.

SpecFicNZ Blogging Week – Day 1, the term "Spec Fic"

I've had this conversation with a friend of mine already. "Spec fic" or "speculative fiction" is a term being used to include "science fiction", "fantasy" and "horror".

Why is anyone using this term? I don't know. It's like using "Violence Fiction" to describe "War", "Spy" and "Detective" genres.

However, it's "specficNZ blogging week", so I thought that I'd contribute.

I think the term "speculative fiction" is lame. I like any of the other terms better. Firstly, if you say you're writing "speculative fiction", people are bound to ask "Are you writing science fiction, horror or fantasy?". It's the kind of term that nose in the air, hoity-toity science fiction writers would use to describe their work. "Oh no, I don't write science fiction, I don't have ray guns and googly eyed little green men, my work is speculative fiction, you know, stuff that could really happen."

This does remind me of the trailer for "Gentlemen Broncos" though. Doctor Ronald Chevalier (played by Jemaine Clement) says, "I'm assuming you love to write fantasy fiction, but the character names in your stories are suffering. Need thou not be afraid. We can add 'onius', 'ainous' or 'anious' to just about anything and it becomes magical."

I can hear Dr. Chevalier using the term "Speculative Fiction" instead of "Fantasy Fiction" and it would fit right in with the poncy tone he uses.

Mr. Spock goes to Church

Una had a big birthday in July and we had a fancy dress party with "Legends" theme.

Once Una suggested the idea of Mr. Spock, there was no going back. All the costume places around town have suitable outfits (they have the blue, red and golden outfits and have for decades). I settled on The Costume Company on Willis Street.

I bought some ears on line that look just like these ones.

On the day, I decided to try and fix up my eyebrows, nothing too fancy. Una was going as Elisabeth Taylor and had arranged to have a professional makeup artist come around to make sure she looked suitably glam. When Claudine arrived, I asked her for some eyebrow work, but she said that she didn't have any gear for it, but knew someone in town who had just taught a movie special-effects makeup course and would still have all of their gear out and on the table.

Meet Church Haley, willing to do Spock eyebrows in the hour (literally). He did an absolutely amazing job and if you need something like that done, I can highly recommend him. He saw my little rubber Spock ears and said "I can do the ears for you to if you like." and then "Do you mind if I cut them up and make them better?" - could I say no to that?

Results below:

Why women take their clothes off

Due to an interesting mistake on Facebook, one of my posts was confused with the title of this post.

So, an interesting exercise is to come up with reasons why women take their clothes off:

1. when they take a shower
2. when they change (shopping, gym, spilled something on their clothes, going out for the evening etc...)
3. when they have sex
4. sometimes when they go to the doctors
5. when they get a massage
6. when they want to go streaking
7. just for the hell of it
8. when they are actors and are acting out any of the above...

Thanks for the great idea Graham.

Why do women still change their names when they get married?

I posted the following article by Catherine Deveny on facebook and had the most emotional and largest number of comments ever on my facebook wall. Deveny received a huge response and posted a follow-up article a week later.

I agree, the original article is inflammatory, but this doesn't dismiss the points she made.

The question, "Why do women still change to their husband's name when they get married?"
Gets the answer: "It's easier."

Of course, it's true. There are so many problems that just go away when you change your name. From children having the same last name (most people want this), to no more questions at immigration or customs or health insurance or schools or wherever. These hassles go away when everyone in the family has the same last name.

The thing is, if "it is easier" were the complete answer, then men would be changing their names to their wife's last name just as often. BUT THEY DON'T. This is Deveny's entire focus, which almost everyone talks around. This was also true on my facebook wall by the way.

There are only a small number of options on the table in our culture (the West in general). I don't have numbers for New Zealand, but in the US, around 90% of women who get married take their husband's name. Of the remainder, the vast majority keep their names (this is apparently in decline), some hyphenate the two names together and some tiny fraction create a new name with their husband.

What percentage of men take their wife's last name? The funny thing is that it's so new and rare, that it's never been studied and no one actually knows the number. There is no doubt that it's rare, but exact numbers are elusive. Here is an interesting article about men adopting their wife's last name and the backlash of doing so.

Of my friends on facebook, one knew 5 (holy crap Batman! 5!) men who had adopted their wife's last name. Interestingly enough, a few of them did it because "It was easier." All were European, which is no surprise, since Europe is far more liberal than the US, Canada or New Zealand.

If we were seeing "It was easier" equally from men and women, it would make perfect sense, but when 90% of the women are changing their names and almost no men are, "it's easier" just doesn't cut it. Clearly, there are strong social pressures.

The simple answer seems to be that we live in a patriarchal society and not an egalitarian one. The custom of women taking the man's name after marriage is completely one sided in favor of the man, with all the sacrifices coming from the woman. The social pressure is incredibly strong, with most people having a strong opinions, especially the men who mostly wouldn't even consider changing their names.

I know that as a man, I have absolutely no interest in changing my name to my wife's last name. It's not that it's a bad name, but I've owned my name for a long time and it is unique on-line. I never expected my wife to take my last name either and we didn't even have the discussion when we got married.

But, if you want a real egalitarian society, there are only a few options:

1) everyone keeps their name
2) someone in the couple volunteers to change their name
3) failing 2, flip a coin to decide

In the case of 1) and when a couple has children, 2) and 3) apply to the children as well, so either you flip a coin for the children, or someone in the couple volunteers.

If you want everyone in the family to have the same name, then only 2 or 3 work.

I think that all the other options, like hyphenated names or made up names are ultimately failures. Hyphenated only works in the first generation and fails in the 2nd generation with grandchildren having four part names and great grandchildren with eight part names, which is just silly. Made up names is the worst of all possible worlds, since not just one member of the couple loses their name, but both do, and find themselves unattached to their family history, which is the best part of having a name.

SoCNoC - just caught up!

I finally caught up on SoCNoC after lagging behind for the last few weeks. After losing a day early on, I've struggled a bit to focus and at least keep my lag down to one day only.

It's funny, I keep imagining that I'll wake up early and spend a few hours catching up, but in the end, it's always after the TV shows are done and it's 10 o'clock and I write until 12:30.

Still, caught up is caught up and by day 21, here I am at 33414 total and over 3200 words written today.

I can't say that my story is working out that well, but I have managed to pull all the 5 different threads together into one. I consider that alone an accomplishment. It's the first time that I've had so many separate threads before. I kept it very simple and just cycled through them, bringing them closer and closer together, merging first two, then three and four and finally five. Very satisfying.

SoCNoC - halfway mark

I hit the halfway point with SoCNoC (Southern Cross Novel Challenge) last night. That means I've written 25k words so far in June and am just one day behind the expected pace.

Here's how I got there:

day date total today
1 01/06/10 1694 1694
2 02/06/10 3615 1921
3 03/06/10 5352 1737
4 04/06/10 6197 845
5 05/06/10 6829 632
6 06/06/10 8861 2032
7 07/06/10 9741 880
8 08/06/10 11597 1856
9 09/06/10 13342 1745
10 10/06/10 15736 2394
11 11/06/10 16755 1019
12 12/06/10 19205 2450
13 13/06/10 20068 863
14 14/06/10 21301 1233
15 15/06/10 23511 2210
16 16/06/10 25096 1585


Not exactly stellar, but despite being a little lazy, I've managed to stay only one day behind every day. I keep telling myself that I'll catch up on a weekend day. Maybe this weekend. :(

Good luck to all the other SocNoCers and HalfNoCers out there - I hope you're having a great June.

English weirdness - plurals

I quite often get into discussions about the weirdness of English. Things like "fluff" rhyming with "enough" and "threw" rhyming with "through", "taut" and "thought" etc...

Other oddities are words that can't possibly be pronounced without context. Examples:
1. minute
2. tear
3. bass
4. sewer

I got into a similar discussion on the weekend. This time, it was English plurals. Because English is a mish-mash of different languages, happy to borrow from almost any other language ("English is to language what Microsoft is to computing" from "Xenophobe's guide to the English"), it has lots of ways of pluralizing words. I claimed that there are at least a dozen ways of pluralizing in English. The smart (smart-ass?) people I was with said, "Oh? That sounds like a lot. Come on then, give them to us." Another request was for me to have all the examples on my blog - so, this is it. NOTE: There are possibly even more than a dozen here, but I quite often group them together.

straight s:
1. car->cars

es:
2. dish->dishes

ies:
3. cherry->cherries

irregulars - I will count them as 1
4. dwarf->dwarves , hoof->hooves, similarly rooves, leaves, elves

5. deer, moose, fish etc.. (some odder ones are species and series which don't change either)
6. ox, brother, child-> oxen, brethren, children
7. foot->feet, goose->geese, similarly teeth, mice, lice, men, women etc...
8. formula->formulae, indices, matrices, vertices
9. axis->axes, crisis->crises
10. criterion->criteria, phenomenon->phenomena
11. datum->data (similarly media, medium, millennia, memoranda)

Some other odd ones out:
12. alumni, cacti, fungi

even more odd
13. beau->beaux, or bureaux, chateaux

So there you go Ed. ;-)

4th annual SoCNoC continues...

I've had this story in my head since November's Nanowrimo. I've mulled it over and talked about it with some friends and read a book that had some similar ideas between then and now.

Strangely enough, for such a fully formed story idea, it's been slow going. I'm at 11,597 words so far, which is a full day behind yesterday's required pace (13,333), let alone today's (15,000). Probably the slowest I've had in the first 9 days of any novel writing month, since I always tend to hover around the slightly ahead mark (last year was a little wonky, since I had a house move, but that's exceptional and only later in the month).

Oh? You want to hear about the story?

I have five, count 'em, five threads all with the same main character happening at the same time. The settings are a soldier in a war, the member of an Antarctic expedition, a monk in training, a software developer in Montreal and finally, a businessman working with a scientist. Eventually, they begin to meet each other. The question is, why are there duplicates? Who made them? What is their purpose?

4th Annual SoCNoC starting tomorrow!

SoCNoC, to those who don't know, is "The Southern Cross Novel Challenge", which is to some of you, a difficult, challenging, novel writing competition where competitors write 50,000 words in one, 30 day month. To others like myself, it's a giddy, beautiful, roller coaster ride of excitement and fun. Not that I would ever imply that these things can't overlap!

I'm sure that there are people reading this saying, "What Travis? Another novel writing month? I thought you did one in November?!"

Indeed, November is a novel writing month, but that's "National Novel Writing Month" or Nanowrimo, is a completely different beast. SoCNoC is set up for people in the southern hemisphere, where the weather cooperates during June to keep people indoors and writing (true for the last three weeks!).

SoCNoC is special to me since it is, at least partially, my creation. This is a photo of the original Kiwiwriters crew dreaming up something that would let us do writing challenges all year round:


I'm not in the photo, since I was taking it, but that's my old place, I swear it is. Left to right, it's Andy, Chris, Jane and Kerryn. Andy came up with the name "SoCNoC", which is one of his many, brilliant contributions. Kerryn is still the energy that keeps the site going.

Although I haven't done a thorough check, I believe I am the only person to have completed every single SoCNoC (three so far), and I plan to finish this one as well. I have an idea lined up and I'm ready to go. Tomorrow is the day.

I'll see you all in the writing trenches!

The Cuba Street Garret

I am a stoic guy. I don't often get excited. About anything. When I first saw the Cuba Street Garret, I got excited.

What is the Garret you ask? It is a space in Wellington where writers can rent a small space, free of distraction and sit down to write.

It isn't just that there are private offices for writing or that it's a lovely space with lots of natural light and style that makes you want to take a clean, fresh breath. It's not that it's free from distractions like children or television or traffic noises. It's not that it's free from spouses asking for you to take out the garbage or do the dishes. That is just the start of the excitement.

This is a space that collect authors! This is people who write and publish. The idea of exchanging information with these people is intoxicating to me. The information doesn't have to be about writing either. It usually isn't, but doesn't matter and you always learn something new and go away feeling better.

In the interest of supporting something I find worthwhile, I am happy to talk about the Garret and get as many authors interested as possible. Come by, see what it has to offer. Contact me any time and I'll be happy to show you around. If you feel even 10% as excited as I do, you'll be happy you did.

Thanks to Douglas Wilkins, for first showing me around and thanks to Martin Haughey for taking the photos.

Evolution versus Creation debates

"evolution" is one of my google alerts. Along with "The Evolution of Special Effects" and "The Evolution of Tom Cruise" I see scientific articles/blogs on evolution along with blog posters taking pot shots at evolutionary theory.

One that I took note of was a Jewish Blog called Chabad, which had a short piece on evolution followed by various people agreeing or disagreeing with the original blog entry.

In my mind, the article had nothing to do with evolution and the facts of the theory, but of how morally speaking, believing in God is better than believing in evolution.

I don't actually know if this is true or not. I have no idea (in general, I think truth is superior to delusion). The thing is, does that have anything to do with whether evolution is correct or not? The big, bright, shiny word that springs to mind is "irrelevant".

What if believing the laws of motion allowed you to launch missiles into third world countries? Oh wait! It does! We shouldn't believe in them! My reaction in a posted comment said pretty much that. What does the morality of the question have to do with evolution?

The funniest thing about the blog is that as I tried to post corrections to people's misconceptions, the moderator seemed to get annoyed with me and started disallowing my posts. That was after quoting me incorrectly and then removing the comment when I corrected him.

I guess with a moderated blog, you can allow and disallow whomever you like and colour the responses in a certain light. As obvious as that is, I hadn't considered it before and thought that moderation was more about filtering out bad language and abusive comments.

I have rarely worried about evolution dissenters before, after all, what does scientific illiteracy really matter? These people still use computers, cell phones and cars, all of which were produced through the same science that produced evolution. No one seems to notice that and by posting on line, they are nearly self refuting.