Men claim to be cleverer than women

Two male academics in the UK claim to have proof that men (of the age 14) have on average 5 more IQ points then women and that "the difference grows when the highest IQ levels are considered."

There were twice as many men with IQ scores of 125, for example, a level said to correspond with people getting first-class degrees.

At scores of 155, associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman.

IQ has always been a disputed measure of someone's intelligence. The IQ test they used claims to measure based on "general cognitive ability - spatial and verbal ability." Interestingly they go on to say:

.. . there is evidence that at the same level of IQ, women are able to achieve more than men . ..

Personally who cares what someone's IQ is, how much are they able to achieve? If a woman scores lower on an artificial IQ test, but can do more then a man with a higher IQ from the same test, then the woman is smarter in my opinion.

Time Travel

Generally I find progress a good thing. From time to time I do find myself longing for the way things used to be. Here are some of the resources I have found invaluable for a little time travel.

• OldVersion.com - Keeps an archive of older versions of freeware and shareware applications. They keep expanding their library too.
• Wayback Machine - Provived by Archive.org and keeps an archive of the different revisions of web pages. Fairly complete, although fairly slow. Check out my original home page.
• Abandonware is the idea that when the copyright owner of a piece of software is unable to be found and the software cannot be obtained elsewhere, then it becomes free. This is most often applied to games, but some Abandonware sites have other applications too. There was some possible legislation recently to legalize Abandonware. Now it kind of exists in a grey zone.
• Old DOS Shareware / Freeware / Public Domain software can occasionally be found too on some of the big file archives.

If you literally want to travel in time then check out these sites:

• NOVA on Time Travel
• How Stuff Works (fun site) on How Time Travel Will Work.
• The Time Travel Fund - Invest $10 now and eventually it the future it will be enough to pay for time travel!
• Wikipedia on Time Travel

So what other time travel resources - either physically or nostalgically - do you use or recommend?

Tags: [Time travel] [retro] [software]

Pamelia Kurstin plays the Theremin

Dawn and I are planning to go hear Pamelia Kurstin play the Theremin in Boise (with more information) at the 3 Shapes Aikido Dojo. The Theremin was the first electronic instrument, invented in 1917, and is played without touching it. Check-out some Theremin samples (large variety in quality).

Tags: [Live] [theremin] [music] [concert] in [Boise], [Idaho]

Picking Flowers

I was trying to look up the exact quote "Pick a flower on earth and you move the farthest star," which I thought was James C. Maxwell. Turns out it was Paul Dirac. Not sure why I had them confused! It is still one of my favorite physic's quotes. Found the reference in the online version of the book Newtonian Physics by Benjamin Crowell (under the section heading for 10.4 Vector Addition of Gravitational Forces). I love physics!

More on the Swan Falls Dam

I originally and erroneously reported that the Swan Falls Dam no longer was used for power generation. Steve Jung emailed me to let me know it has been in full use as a electric generating power plant since it was built in 1901. Depending on inflows it has the capability of generating 12 mws. It is still owned and operated by Idaho Power Company.

He emailed me again with the following details:

About 10 years ago the turbines at Swan Falls were upgraded to a more efficient turbines. The old part where the outdated turbines were have been made into a museum, and the new turbines are in a added powerhouse on the dam. Generation has always been produced at the Swan Falls dam, but perhaps the confusion lies in the fact that an "old" part of the dam where the outdated generators were no longer produce power.

More information:

• Idaho Power's hydroelectic generation
• Swan Falls in CJ Strike specifically

Turns out Steve used to work at the Swan Falls Dam as an operator back in the 1970's. I stand corrected. Thanks Steve!

Tags: [dam] [hydroelectric] [Idaho]

Johnny Applebot's Resurrection

Back in April I posted Death of a Toy about the fleeting momemnts before my son's Johnny Applebot toy passed away. Today I got an email from Bart Feliciano. He was the original designer of Johnny Applebot. I got his permission to share what he wrote with everyone.

I designed Johnny Applebot when I worked at Trendmasters.

Just a comment on the original design.

Originally I designed this toy specifically to elicit emotional response like what you describe.

After the suits got through with it it was reduced to the canned voice responses that you saw in the finished product.

The original design had 2 eyebrows to allow it to emote better, but the number of motors required to support 2 eyebrows independantly proved too expensive. It would have been much more emotive though.

I'm glad to see it got even one reaction along the lines of my original intent even after the realities of production and an unimaginitive product manager got done with it.

The Johnny Applebot was a lot of fun when my son first got it. Pretty exciting to meet the designer of it, even if it was just via email.

Tags: [technology] [toys] [robots] [Design]

Bush's "Brain disease sparks concern"

This is another case of an unfortunate juxtaposition of headlines and photographs in a news paper. President Bush is coming to visit Nampa, Idaho, the city I live. That made the headline, but Bush's picture was placed right beside a headline of "Brain disease sparks concern." See the results for yourself.

It doesn't help that Bush as a goofy look on his face.

The little dark area between his eyes is a spot on the lens of my digital camera.

Tags: [Bush] [Brain disease] [newspaper] [Headlines]

Lost and Found

A while back Dawn pointed out that the problem everyone has with weight loss is metal. When we "loose" things we go out looking for them to get them back. Like we loose our keys, or loose a job. We have a feeling of loss and want to feel the void left behind. So when we loose weight we either find it again, or replace it with new weight. The alternative is to shed pounds.

I was at a local pizza place and they had this sign up, which you may have seen a similar one before. It read "I lost 40 LBS in 2 months" followed by an 800 number. Well, someone else attached a second sign that read "I found 15 of them" with their number attached. I thought that was too funny!

3 Shapes Aikido

Dawn and I just attended our first Aikido class at the 3 Shapes Dojo in Boise. We had a great time and learned a lot. We are taking advantage of their beginner special and hope to join the dojo after our trial month is up.

Aikido is a great martial art. It is one I have been interested in learning for close to 20 years now (hard to believe it has been that long!) A lot of people discouraged me from learning it by saying it had a very long learning curve and took a life time to get any good at it. After attending a brief introduction a while back we decided to look into joining a local dojo. 3 Shapes also offers classes for young children, so our two boys will be joining too.

I am sure I will be blogging more about Aikido and 3 Shapes as a learn more. Until then here are some great resources for you to learn more about Aikido:

• The Aikido FAQ
• Aikido Online
• Aikido Web
• Aikido.com
• Aikido Today Magazine
• Akido World
• International Aikido Federation
• United States Aikido Federation

Looks like I have some reading to do to!

Double Habanero Pizza

Our local Flying Pie Pizza offers a Double Habanero pizza only during the month of August, when the peppers are their hottest. For anyone who doesn't know, a habanero is the worlds hottest pepper and is roughly 50 times hotter then a Jalapeño.

We ordered one for lunch at work today. Had them add Jalapeño's and then I added crushed Cayenne peppers. It was quite a spicy pizza. You really feel it. Luckily they serve it with ice cream. Very helpful.

They require you to sign a waiver if you take it out of the restaurant, and if you eat it there they watch you closely. I might suggest putting a biohazard sticker on it.

If you are in Boise during August I recommend checking it out if you like hot (and I mean very, very hot) food. I also recommend having a strong heart and updating your life and health insurance.

Tags: [Habanero] [Pizza] is a [Spicy] [Food]

DNA is not Destiny

Wired has an article about the epigenome. . .

The more we learn about the human genome, the less DNA looks like destiny. As scientists discover more about the "epigenome," a layer of biochemical reactions that turns genes on and off, they're finding that it plays a big part in health and heredity.

The article goes on to say that the epigenome can actually be influenced by the environment. While we cannot change our DNA we have a large amount of control over our epigenome, which is more important in who we are. Is that an empowering thought or what?

Tags: [Life] [DNA] [Genome] [Destiny]

Mixing Topics

This is something I have "gone to guns" on before, but now I want to take a more thoughtful approach. I was reading Dan Miser's blog and noticed his post about Robert Scoble. Dan is upset that Scoble posts about political topics in his personal blog. It is Dan's opinion that Scoble's blog is a technical blog and it his Scoble's responsibility to only post technical posts. Either that or provide post categories so that readers can subscribe to only the topics they are interested in.

Like I said, I've "gone to guns" (a Top Gun reference) on this issue before. I was on a programming mailing list and the moderator posted a heated controversial message to the list along with graphic pictures and a call to action. The list turned into a flame war for a while - everyone felt like they had been spammed since they subscribed to the list for programming topics and they received an email about politics, especially with graphic pictures.

So is Mr. Scoble posting about politics (aka poliblogging) in his blog different?

I actually started this blog because I wanted to have a different venue for blog posts that don't fit on www.bsdg.org. I felt that I have am agreement with my readers on that blog - I agree to post on topics related to software development and they agree to read my blog. I'll admit that I am not perfect. I've discovered that I also believe that readers of my blog are also subscribing to my voice. They want to hear what I have to say. Now this may be my ego stepping in, but I discovered that in a lot of the blogs I read I also enjoy hearing the poster's voice, even when off topic.

So where is the line? Did Scoble cross it in talking about politics? Furthermore did Dan cross it in complaining about Scoble talking about politics? It would appear to me that Dan has a technical blog. His post topics are .NET, ADO.NET/BDP, DataSnap and ObjectSpaces, which covers most of his posts, except the one about Scoble. So, does Dan hold Scoble to a higher standard then he holds himself? Using Dan's logic would we all now unsubscribe from his blog? I'll keep subscribing to Dan's blog for now. How about you?

I think Joe White is a good example of doing this well. The stated subject of his blog is Life, .NET, and Cats, and his post categories include .NET, Delphi (BorCon2004), Extreme Programming, Ruby, Projects (DGrok, Diff, SharpLayout) and then Personal which includes Ooo pretty (Adult ADD), Writing, the dreaded Politics, and even some Religion for good measure. I notice no categories about cats though, interesting. Now I may not like cats, and I have gotten into some interesting discussions about Religion with him, but I subscribe to his blog because I like his voice and now he is my friend (I actually met him briefly at BorCon2004).

I believe that when you subscribe to a blog you subscribe to a voice. Sometimes it is chorus of many voices, other times it is one voice. It is also a relationship, which goes both ways. You leave comments and visit their blog, they share posts with you. As with any friend sometimes you disagree with what they say or how they say it. If you decide the signal to noise ratio is not to your liking you move on, or you may decide that your friendship and relationship is worth putting up with their quirks.

Tags: [Weblog] [Tags] [Politics] [Blog]

Anyone Familiar with Panda?

I know they have been around as an anti-virus company for a while, but I am curious if anyone has used Panda, specifically their Panda Platinum Internet Security 2005. I found a really good deal on it too. People are always aking for me to refer them to a similar product. I'd like to be able to recommended a low cost one.

WordPerfect on the Cheap

Miss WordPerfect too? This site passes my sniff test, but shop at your own risk: Corel WordPeftect Office 12 (OEM) for $9.99. You can also download a trail to see if you like the latest version. I will let you know.

Feature I Miss from WordPerfect

Of course the first feature that any serious WordPerfect user misses when working with Word is reveal codes. That goes without saying. And anyone who says you don't need reveal codes with Word has never done any serious formating.

Another innovative feature of WordPerfect is the Make It Fit feature introduced in WordPerfect 6 (if I remember correctly). With that feature it will automatically format your document to fit in the desired number of pages. You set the options and ranges for how it can make it fit. This is a great option for cleaning up that elusive quarter page at the end of your paper, or to condense a document down to a single page to be used as a handout. If you are in school then it is a great way to meet the page requirements of a paper too, although if your font size and spacing gets too big your teacher might catch on.

WordPerfect is now on version 12. Unfortunately I am forced to use Word at work. Maybe I will pick up the home suite for $89. . .

Video Games and the Decay of Society

The Economist.com has an column Video gaming | Chasing the dream which compares the video games of today to the rock and roll of the 1950s.

Like rock and roll in the 1950s, games have been accepted by the young and largely rejected by the old. Once the young are old, and the old are dead, games will be regarded as just another medium and the debate will have moved on. Critics of gaming do not just have the facts against them; they have history against them, too. "Thirty years from now, we'll be arguing about holograms, or something,"” says Mr Williams.

First of all, I really enjoy video games. I always have. I may not play them as often now as I once did, but I still find them very entertaining. I think this column raises some really valid points.

When I was in kindergartenen (about 1978) I remember my teacher, Mrs. Earnest, would always complain that we were unable to maintain our attention span because our brains had been warped by the TV. As I am sure anyone who has dealt with 5 year olds can confirm, they tend to be a little rowdy and don't sit still for long. So was she right? Were our brains really rotted by television? Well, I didn't have a TV at home until I was in 3rd grade (a great decision by my parents) and I was just as restless as the rest of the class. So my verdict is she was just blaming an outside source to make up for the fact she was unable to maintain the level of control on the class she wanted.

I have pointed out in the past that when new technology, specifically for entertainment or to make life easier, comes along, the established (or older) generation rejects it, while the new generations embrace it. Video Games are the latest innovation disputed along generational lines.

My opinion is that video games, just like its predecessors - TV, the Internet, Compute Bulletinen Board Systems, Comic Books, Rock and Roll, Books and Cave Paintingts are neither good nor bad. They are neutral. The decay of society results from the undisciplined over indulgence of these advances as well as the use of these mediums to deliver degrading messages. Of course the flip side is that the blaming of these outside advances and elements for our failings (especially as the older generation) only exasperates the situation.

There may be some aspects of society that are in decay, but on a whole society is improving. They sky is not falling, but you still don't want to be hit by too many acorns.

Tags: [Video Games] [Culture] [Generations] [Society]

Boise boys with big guns keep Fallujah safe

This article is about my brother Dan with the 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division in Fallujah, Iraq. He is driving the tank pictured at the bottom.

“These tanks mostly serve as a deterrent, making insurgents feel incapable of opposing us,” exclaimed the 25-year-old tank crewman, who currently serves with 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division. “Tanks give us the ability to provide (ground infantry personnel) excellent security and surveillance capabilities.”

Tags: [Boise] [Iraq] [Tanks]

Rascal Flats in Iraq

This just in from my brother Dan in Iraq:

Here are some pics of Rascal Flatts who came out to give us a concert. Before the show we took them for tank rides and let them shoot some machineguns. We got VIP front row seats. It was a really good show.

Tags: [Rascal Flats] [Iraq] [machine guns]