A while ago, I posted an item about the word “Darwinism” and how I thought it had some bad connotations. This week, there was a column in the New York Times called “Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live” (free registration required). It has a similar theme but obviously more professionally written and better researched. In particular, one paragraph echoes some of the ideas in my original post.

Science has marched on. But evolution can seem uniquely stuck on its founder. We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism. “Darwinism” implies an ideology adhering to one man’s dictates, like Marxism. And “isms” (capitalism, Catholicism, racism) are not science. “Darwinism” implies that biological scientists “believe in” Darwin’s “theory.” It’s as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.

Needless to say, I agree. I have no further comment on the matter. I only wanted to bask in self-congratulation. Thank you.

Got the statement from my corporate credit card. It made me feel good.

ONE BILLION DOLLARS…

Of course I’d get fired and probably shot if I used it, but it’s nice to know it’s there in case of emergency. Emergency luxury yacht purchases, that is…

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One of the effects of living in an apartment is that you spend a lot of time in the elevator. Of course, most of the time, you’re just in there by yourself, staring at the wall. Or, if there’s someone else in there with you, it’s an awkward experience at best. As George Carlin put it, “there’s nothing to do in an elevator except not look at the other guy.” But, once in a while, the elevator will be the site of a bizarre happenstance.

This morning, I was leaving to go to work. As I stood waiting for the elevator, I noticed that it was taking longer than usual to arrive at my floor. Oh well, I thought, it’s not like I’m in a hurry to get to work.

The elevator eventually arrived, and the door slid open. Standing in the middle of the elevator was a puppy. Just a puppy. With nobody else inside. He was a small little white dog, a terrier of some sort, and wearing a red knit sweater. Not able to help myself, I let out a high-pitched “Awwww…”

When I stepped into the elevator, I saw that the little guy (let’s call him “Buddy,” because what else do you call a dog you don’t know?) was feeling scared, because his limbs were all shaking. I didn’t know what to do, it’s not really wise to try to confront a frightened animal. So I ignored him. There’s nothing to do in an elevator except not look at the dog.

Pretty soon the elevator stopped at another floor. A lady came in with another dog. Apparently this woman knew Buddy, because she started to talk to him and bending down like she was going to pick him up. “Where’s your mommy? Where’s your mommy?” Buddy’s nervousness increased from this woman’s overexuberance, and increased further as the other dog started growling (obviously jealous of the attention that Buddy was receiving). I tried to remember whether I had ever had a rabies shot.

Fortunately, we reached the ground floor before the fur started flying. Buddy’s owner (“mommy”) was waiting. Apparently she and Buddy were about to come up the elevator when she ran into someone in the lobby and started to have a chat. Buddy had hopped into the elevator on his own before realizing that she had stayed behind. Poor Buddy. Poor, poor Buddy.

N.B.: I don’t normally post personal items on this blog, so this will be thinly disguised as a technology review article.

I’m moving into my own apartment soon, and I’m pretty excited about it. In preparation, I’ve been shopping for some furniture, as well as thinking about how I’m going to arrange the furniture in the limited space that I have. When I was at IKEA, I saw booths set up where people were using some custom software to design their furniture layouts, and I thought it would be a good idea to try to do some “interior design” of my apartment using some 3D software to better visualize the space.

I had heard good things about Google SketchUp, so I thought I would give that a shot. SketchUp is a pretty generic 3D modeling tool, but it seems like most people use it to create architectural designs. After watching some of the video tutorials on the site, and some experimentation with the interface, I was able to whip up something pretty quickly.

Voila:

This is the living room.

I’m considering maybe putting another shelf next to the TV for additional storage of books, DVDs, or whatever. On the other hand, it’s good to have some empty space so that it’s not too cluttered. There’s also a pretty large storage closet in the apartment, so anything that doesn’t need to always be conveniently available, I can just put in the closet.

Here’s the bedroom.

The bedroom seemed small to me when I first looked at the floorplan and at the empty apartment, but now I’ve seen it in 3D with the furniture models, it’s not so bad.

So in conclusion: Google SketchUp is pretty good. Pretty, pretty good. 9/10

My buddy made an interesting post about the perception of “straight acting” in the gay community. It just goes to show how every group has its own prejudices.

One thing I want to comment on, his comparison between “straight acting” and “banana”:

This is analogous to referring to an Asian person as a “banana” (which doesn’t seem to carry the same negative connotations).

This isn’t quite accurate. The term “banana” is not as neutral as my friend makes it out to be. Personally, I don’t take offense at being called a banana, but the whole concept of an Asian person acting white can be the cause of some friction. My banana status is ambiguous enough that sometimes I’ve been able to listen in at conversations between parents of more full-fledged bananas, and I can tell, it’s really something that they have strong feelings about. They sincerely wish that their kids were “more Chinese.” In my own family, there’s never been outright unhappiness about the issue, but I can occasionally sense an air of passive disapproval. (We don’t call it “banana” in Cantonese, there’s another term for it that I won’t even attempt a translation of… it’s some shit about bamboo or something.)

And I can only guess what FOBs think about bananas. I wouldn’t know, because I stay away from those people as much as I can…

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Those who know me know that I don’t like The Da Vinci Code. I’ve always maintained that I find the subject matter interesting, but the ridiculous plot and poor writing completely cancel that out. After recently seeing the movie, I have been able to better crystallize my criticisms of the story; i.e. it’s much easier to see the crap when it’s all condensed together in a short time frame.

One major annoyance that I had with the plot was the abundance of deus ex machina moments. These are moments in a story where the characters seem to be in a hopeless situation, but then something completely unexpected or unrealistic comes along to bail them out of it. This kind of plot device is okay if used in moderation, but it happens way too many times in Da Vinci Code. To wit:

(Spoilers ahead… although the spoilers basically amount to: they don’t die.)

• Robert and Sophie are trapped in an armoured truck. A villain is pointing a gun at them. Instead of just shooting them, the villain decides to close the door of the truck, right onto a bullet shell casing that Robert had just happened to kick into the doorway. The door bounces back and the villain comically bangs his head on it. Yes, yes, I know in the book some explanation is given as to why he pushed the shell casing into the doorway… but really, I’m not going to go and read it again.

• Robert and Sophie are standing in some church. A villain is pointing a gun at them. Suddenly, a dove flies by and distracts the villain, who then proceeds to forget how to shoot a gun. He fires and misses. A dove flies by! What is this, a John Woo movie?

• Ian McKellan is sitting in his house. A villain (Silas the crazy monk) is pointing a gun at him. He grabs his crutches and swings. Incredibly, Silas, who we have just seen killing a nun with a single, well-timed and ruthless strike, fails to react fast enough to shoot Ian McKellan at point blank range. I would expect Jackie Chan to be able to pull a move like that off, but Ian McKellan? And this isn’t Gandalf Ian McKellan. Or Magneto Ian McKellan. It’s crippled scholar Ian McKellan!

And that’s all I have to say about that.

During my recent trip to Cuba, I had the opportunity to observe the mysterious culture of the British people… actually, it’s more like, I had the opportunity to be completely confused by what they were talking about.

I was sitting on a catamaran at the time, on a boat tour around some of the coral reefs near the island. A small boat is the perfect place for eavesdropping, as you can’t help but overhear conversations in such a small space. Most of the other tourists on the boat were British, and one particular retirement-age couple were talking to the captain of the boat, a local Cuban man. They said to him, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like baba skins?”

Baba skins?? Some sort of English culinary item? Like potato skins? I don’t care how delicious it is, but I wouldn’t want anyone telling me I look like a plate of food.

”I’m not familiar with him. I like Rowan Atkinson, though, he is also British,” said the boat captain.

Okay, so it must be a British comedian or entertainer of some sort, as yet unknown in North America. Maybe “Baba Skins” is a goofy stage name, like Carrot Top. (Still thinking food, here.)

The British couple tried to clarify. “He was in that Jennifer Lopez movie… Maid In Manhattan.”

Hmm… haven’t seen that one.

”He was also in that cartoon… what was it called? Roger Rabbit!”

Ah! BOB HOSKINS! Amazingly, the boat captain actually agreed: “Oh, yes, I do look like him!”

The funny thing is, he didn’t even look like Bob Hoskins… he looked more like Phil Collins.

You hear a lot of news reporters and journalists on TV and radio referring to website URLs these days. I have noticed, not without ire, that many of them make the mistake of saying “backslash” when they really mean “slash”, e.g. “Visit our site at http-colon-backslash-backslash www-dot-ctv-dot-ca backslash news.”

I can only imagine the media personality in her youth, back in the 80’s, perhaps working a lowly office job before she got her first reporter gig, running into an unpleasant DOS geek system administrator:

Pre-media personality: “Can you help me with this? I saved the file to C colon slash documents, but I can’t open it anymore…”

DOS geek system administrator: “It’s backslash, you idiot! C colon backslash! Don’t you know how to use a computer?!”

The emotional trauma of being yelled at by a scruffy, heavy-set man has undoubtedly stayed with our media personality all these years, and now she subconsciously overcompensates every time she sees a slash. That is, until this happens:

Media personality: “Can you help me with this? I want to put up a link for http-colon-backslash-backslash microsoft dot com backslash windows to this story I did on software obsolescence…”

Web geek system administrator: “It’s slash, you idiot! Don’t you know how to use the Internet?!”

Emotional Trauma 2.0