Holographic Discs!!!

Wow!  Holographic Discs!  It sounds so exotic and new and high tech!  But really, the technology has been around for decades.  But only recently did GE make a breakthrough in holographic technology that would allow CDs to carry enough information for about 100 DVDs.  This technology, once made market viable, will bring about the obsoletion of Blu-ray, a technology that is still gaining momentum.  It's a testament to how fast the technology market moves.  Not only are we gaining new technology at an amazing rate, that rate is actually increasing!  Why can it store so much more than a regular disc?  Well normal CDs and DVDs only store information on one layer.  They have a metal layer on their surface that hold all the information.  This new holographic technology forgoes the metal layer and instead uses the full disc to store information.  This disc is much cheaper per gigabyte of storage than even Blu-ray.  Blu-ray debuted on the market at around $1 per GB, and is now down to around 50 cents/GB.  Currently, the GE disc disc is around 10 cents per GB, a fifth of the cost of Blu-ray.  So we have the obsoletion of Blu-ray on the horizon.  Even for someone growing up completely in the computer age that has never lived in a house sans computer, this seems to be moving fast.  I can only imagine the disorienting effect this might have on older people not used to things developing this fast.  For example, my mother is still getting used to having a separate box for cable instead of just having a TV.  I imagine many baby boomers are in the same boat as my mom.  But just because a lot of people can't keep up doesn't mean it's a bad thing.  On the contrary, things like this make me optimistic towards the future of humanity.

An Atheist "Testimony"

I used to be Christian.  Basically I didn't have any epiphanies or "getting it" or anything, it was a long slow process from belief to atheism. I guess what first made me question faith was the fact that if I was brought up in India I would almost definitely be Hindu and if brought up in Iran I would almost definitely be Muslim, etc. I noticed that all religions are so very very similar in the way they operate. I had always looked at other religions (Islam, Greek, Hinduism) and always thought how silly they sounded talking about these things that obviously never happened, like "all lightning bolts come from Zeus", or Muhammad's horse flying from Mecca to Jerusalem. It was always obvious to me that those things never happened; that it was a product of primitive men either completely fabricating stories or explaining things that they didn't understand.

I really like the example of the Greeks. They were a very intelligent and rational people (for the most part), but they thought that oracles would tell them the future of battles and things. Despite the fact (that we know) that their oracles never really told them anything, they believed in them for so long. And once you accept that, it's easy to make the jump from Greek oracles to Christian prayer. I never doubted prayer at all! I understood that we prayed for things and God would either give them to us or not. But if you compare that to the oracles, it's the same thing. Theres no other possible answer other than yes or no. Either a thing will happen or it won't. And I know many of you believe, just as I used to believe, that you've had prayers answered or had God speak to you through circumstance and all this, but if you look at it for a moment through the eyes of a nonbeliever, isn't it obvious that things happen basically randomly? Sometimes good things happen and sometimes bad things happen. There is no pattern of correspondence between prayer and events. But it's easy for our minds to fabricate them, just like the Greeks.  Since I've quit asking God to "bless" my food, I have found that my rate of illness has stayed exactly the same.  If there were any actual benefit to praying about food, or life, or anything, you would expect Christians, on average, to have better health or easier lives, or to win the lottery more often.  I know that "thou shalt not test the Lord thy God", but if we look at the raw data from Christians actually praying for things, there is no evidence of these prayers coming true more often than the normal rate of occurance.

That's what originally made me question my faith, and I think that once you start to look at everything from the outside and start to question the things you've "known" since you were a child, the curtain falls. From there I found it easy to show myself that there is no greater being, that man is the product of a wonderful and complex evolution from absolutely nothing. And it's in my atheism that I've found a world so much more rich and beautiful than anything the primitive stories can give me. I traded a burning bush for the Cat's Eye Nebula, and I wouldn't trade back for anything.

Who cares about dogs?

The news coverage over the Obama family's dog is ridiculous. It makes absolutely no difference to anyone living outside the White House. Don't we have more important things to worry about? I mean, Christ, PIRATES are back! Shiver my timbers! We have the scourge of the seven seas roving about and here we are talking about dogs. It's no wonder the American public is so ill-informed. We spend all of our time reading tabloids and watching "Celebrity-watch!". Shouldn't we be weighing our opinion on the new taxes? The federal deficit? Global warming? AIDS? Terrorism? North Korea's nuclear ambitions? Who cares about a dog?! I mean, to quote Jay-Z, I got 99 problems but a bitch aint one. There are plenty of problems we need to deal with today, and instead of cooing over puppies, getting upset over the latest celebrity insult, or following the latest fashion trends, we should be educating ourselves in order to let America compete on a global scale in the future. There's going to be a wakeup call in the future, and I'm going to be sitting here saying "I told you so."

Disc Golf

Disc Golf is a wonderful sport. It's cheap to play, easy to learn and can be loads of fun with groups or alone.

Disc golf, I daresay, is one of the cheapest sports to play ever. The startup cost is very minimal, and courses are all free to use. The equipment you need to buy is simple: a disc. A disc is like a frisbee except it's about half the size and more dense so it flies farther. Discs come in different flavors like golf clubs. There are drivers, putters, approach discs (like golfing "irons"). Discs can be found at most retail stores like Wal-Mart and also at sporting goods stores. A professional quality disc will run you around $15! These discs will last a very long time (as long as you don't lose them). And that's the only monetary investment needed to disc golf! Awesome! Now you have to find a place to play. On the PDGA (professional disc golf association) website, there is a course finder that finds disc golf courses near you. In La Crosse, there is an excellent course at Pettibone Park as well as a smaller course on Rolling Oaks Dr. in Onalaska. Additionally, there is a course in Winona. These courses are free to use and there are no tee times. You just drive up and start disc golfing. As you can see, even if you aren't sure you'll like disc golfing, a $15 commitment isn't much, so everyone should go try it!

Now that you have a disc and you're at a course, what do you do? Well first I will give you the layout of each course and the object of the game. The course simply consists of a tee (which is usually a rectangular concrete slab), and a basket. The basket is what you throw your disc into. It consists of a metal basket about four feet off the ground and about three feet in diameter mounted on a pole. There are chains hanging down from the top of the pole so that you can throw the disc into the chains and it will fall into the basket. (The picture at the top of the blog shows a basket). There are two main kinds of disc golf courses: wooded and open. Open courses are mostly brush-free and will only have a few trees between you and the hole, but the distance is generally longer. The focus is more on power and distance. On wooded courses, the fairway is narrower and there is more brush and trees in your way, but the distance to the basket is generally shorter. These courses focus more on accuracy and finesse. As a side note, the Pettibone Park course has each: the front nine is open, and the back nine is wooded.

Disc golf is played and scored similarly to normal golf. Your score is the number of throws you had on a particular hole. Each hole has a par value, just like golf. So you want the lowest score possible. You start out by driving towards the basket from the tee. You can take a running start, but at the point of release, your feet must be behind the front of the tee area. Now you go up and find where your disc landed. This spot is called the lie. You can now take another drive from your lie, using the same rules as your first drive. At the time of release, your feet cannot be in front of the lie. Once you are within 30 feet of the basket, you must putt. A putt simply means that you cannot move your feet. You must throw the disc from the lie without a running start. Your disc must come to a rest on the ground or in the basket before you can move forward from your lie (so there are no diving tosses). Once your disc is successfully in the basket, tally your score and move onto the next hole. Those are the basic rules of disc golf!

A lot of people are turned off by normal golf because of all the meta-rules like dress and etiquette. For the most part, these rules do not apply to disc golf. There is absolutely no dress code for disc golf. I've seen people in polo shirts and I've seen people shirtless. Come as you are. The etiquette rules can sometimes apply, like letting people play through if you're a beginner, but people are much more laid back about disc golf etiquette. The best thing about disc golf is that it's easy to enjoy by yourself if you want a nice quiet walk through the park, and it's also fun in groups so you can talk while you play. Disc golf is a great sport and everyone should try and play at least once!

What happened to Adam Smith?

Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner wants to revolutionize the U.S. financial system by making sweeping increases to governmental power. I'm not going to sensationalize this like most of the media (and claim that capitalism is dead), but I'll admit: this is getting pretty ridiculous.

If you haven't read about it, Geithner's plan for the U.S. financial system is one that includes regulation of risk for financial institutions including banks, insurance companies (like AIG) and hedge funds. This is a huge change from before, where the government would stay completely out of how much risk companies are allowed to take on.

I know everyone is pissed about the AIG bonuses and all, and pissed that "oh my gawd, these people drove the company into the ground and now are getting bonuses!". I'd like everyone to remember that it was THE U.S. CONGRESS that drove these corporations into the ground by forcing them to take on risky investments. The answer here is not to regulate them by not allowing them to take on any risk. This is not how our economy works. But no one seems to care about that. As one of my good friends put it, "we already have a system check for risk. It's called business failure." If a business makes bad decisions, they FAIL. They shouldn't be getting bailed out (that's a whole separate issue). And taking control of them is not going to help anything. Congress (and the government in general) makes just as many mistakes (read: many many more) as businesspeople, and businesspeople actually have something to lose if they make too many poor decisions.

So please people, call up your representitive and tell him to vote down Geithner's plan to socialize the financial district.

Cheney at his best: "Country is less safe"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/us/politics/16cheney.html?hp

Good news citizens of America! Although he is no longer in office, we still have Dick Cheney telling us things we already know. Apparently America is going to be less safe and more vulnerable to terrorist attacks now that we've stopped torturing prisoners, given them fair trials, stopped trampling on the rights of American citizens, and stopped attacking sovereign countries. No shit, sherlock. It's as if Cheney actually thinks that just because it makes the country more safe it's automatically a good thing. Other things Cheney would probably support: death penalty for disorderly conduct, instituting a police state to crack down on "terrorist cells", and penalizing "thoughtcrimes" (pro reference to 1984). I don't think he understands that it's a continuum, not black and white. These things would certainly make the country safer, but how far are we willing to go? Don't we have standards? The price of a free society is that it isn't as safe. If you want to be in a place where terrorism isn't a problem, move to North Korea. And I think it's amazing how many people actually buy into the whole "good citizens have nothing to fear" idea. There are plenty of documented (and likely many many more undocumented) cases where, through the Patriot Act, innocent citizens were imprisoned without being charged. And how hard is it for people to imagine a government worker tapping someone's house and using it for blackmail or for less sinister things. I would bet my bottom dollar that that happens... just because you work for the government doesn't make you immune to corruption (usually the opposite actually). The bottom line is that citizens have rights, and just because something makes us safer doesn't mean its good.

/end rant

The three best bands you don't listen to

A lot of these bands are actually quite popular, but their popularity is limited to different continents, different music scenes, or different decades from today's average listener. You've probably heard of most of these bands, but I challenge you to go back, listen to their music critically, and decide again how good they are. If you do listen to these bands, I applaud your musical taste!

1) The Smashing Pumpkins - This band was wildly popular in the 90's, in the same grunge scene as Nirvana and Pearl Jam. But I'm of the opinion that, even at the height of their popularity, the Smashing Pumpkins were underrated. I sincerely beleive they are one of the best musical acts of the 20th century. The most common criticism I hear about them is that the lyrics are too angsty, which I don't understand at all. Sure, they're fairly dark ("Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage") but then again, lyricist and frontman Billy Corgan had a shitty life, so he's entitled to write dark lyrics. That, in addition to the fact that I care more about musicality than lyrics, is how I come to the decision about their greatness. Their guitar layering combined with the alternating gravel and beauty of Corgan's voice gives the Smashing Pumpkins a feeling about them that isn't easily imitated.

2)Coheed and Cambria - This is a band a lot of people haven't heard of, but they're very popular within certain circles in the U.S. I went to one of their shows last summer and it was by far the best live show I've ever seen. Their absolute shredding of guitar solos makes you nearly weep that you can't play like them. It is the quintessential "rock show" pioneered by Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. But their live music isn't the only reason they are so good. Their four albums follow the storyline of a comic book series (The Amory Wars), written by the bands singer/guitarist/frontman Claudio Sanchez. This gives the music a more personal feeling because you know that they're talking about characters that you can have feelings about, rather than abstract concepts. And in regards to their actual music, they push the boundaries of rock, which is something I love. They don't follow the strict form of today's music. They write music that has the emotion they're trying to convey, without regard to whether the structure of it will be easy to swallow for the mainstream.

3) Muse - My personal favorite band, Muse has become wildly popular in continents not named North America. Muse is... well Muse is many things. They, like Coheed and Cambria, push the boundaries of music in whichever direction suits them. Matt Bellamy's skill at simultaneously playing guitar and singing is miraculous for his age and experience. With their distortion and excellent playing, it's sometimes easy to forget that only three people are playing (Guitar, Bass, Drumkit). The things Bellamy does with his guitar are (I've heard from actual guitarists) frankly amazing (especially for live shows). The music of Muse isn't music. It paints vivid pictures of alien civilizations, supermassive black holes (an excellent song) and a myriad of other scenes. When Bellamy puts down his guitar and plays the grand piano, he releases a torrent of musicality that is nearly unparalleled in today's rock scene. Another great thing about muse is that, unlike most of today's music world, their rhythm section plays with... BALLS. They rock out while Bellamy makes his magic happen, and the combined effect is more than sound. It's emotion. It's difficult not to just get completely caught up in the emotion of their playing.

Go listen to these bands right now.