One of my major pet peeves is bogus e-mail spam. They are the body of factually inaccurate e-mails in circulation which broadly fall into the categories of funny, sappy or alarmist.
There are few people that find these things as annoying as I do, except, perhaps, those poor souls accused of writing the stuff.
I want people to know that I take care with my writing, and try to keep my standards high. But most of this "humour" on the Internet is just plain stupid. [...] One of the more embarrassing items making the internet/e-mail rounds is a sappy load of shit called "The Paradox of Our Time." The main problem I have with it is that as true as some of the expressed sentiments may be, who really gives a shit? Certainly not me.
George Carlin
Spotting this stuff is in fact very easy. Unless there is a link to an authentic source, it is almost guaranteed the information you get is inaccurate.
Typical inaccuracies include:
- writing attributed to wrong author (Andy Rooney did NOT write In Praise of Older Women - in fact he said he doesn't even like older women; George Carlin did NOT write Hurricane Rules and would probably like a piece of the person who did)
- factual inaccuracies mixed in with truth (Kevin Carter did NOT write that suicide note - warning: horrible photo)
- just totally made up crap (no there is nobody placing needles infected with HIV in phone booths nor is there some serial killer slashing women's ankles at gas stations).
If it sounds unbelievable it is most likely bogus.
There's one other class of similar e-mail which involve some bizarre photo. Even photos can be faked so don't be so gullible. Nevertheless, even fake photos can be quite interesting. There are some great ones here.
If you ever get such an e-mail, please do not forward it to me before confirming its authenticity or you will get one of my faoming at the mouth e-mails back with the contents of this blog entry!
You can check at one of these two sites:
http://www.snopes.com/
http://www.truthorfiction.com/
Or simply Google for it.
Labels: advice, net, rants
or.."Cell Phones Don't an Advanced Civilization Make"
A Reaction to London...
Scenario One:
There is a zen koan about The Thief Who Became A Disciple. A monk when asked to testify against a man who stole from him, said he gave freely thus there was no theft. The thief was touched and became his disciple.
Now what if he hadn't been a thief but a murderer? He would have killed the teacher before gaining the teaching. He would have killed his chance to receive compassion.
Scenario Two:
Let's say there's a planet where everyone believes and lives by principles of non-violence. Then a space-ship lands with some criminal cast-offs from some other civilization which is much more aggressive. Once the rogues cotton on to the fact that they can pretty much steal, abuse and kill anyone they want with only the threat of a message of love, they go on a rampage. The natives are completely at a loss as to how to contain this and remain true to their principals.
At this point, wouldn't you want Captain Kirk to show up with some phasers and take the bad guys out... or at least take them away? Or if Kirk didn't show up but you found yourself an advisor to the natives, might you tell them they need to fight back and lock the baddies up for their own safety?
Scenario Three:
You are generally a pacifist or at least are opposed to the killing of another human for any reason as this is not the action of an advanced civilization. Then one day you find that there are some people willing to fly a plane into the building where you work or leave bombs around your city. Or perhaps you find some other country invading your own and people you know are getting killed "accidentally."
Is it possible... is it just possible that eventually you say to yourself that the enlightened future you thought was here, the one they promised you on Star Trek when you were a kid and the one the koans said could be found within each of us... that actually it's not here for everyone and it's not even here for a critical mass and that as long as there's a large number of people willing to stab you while you sleep, you'll have to put off your ideals. Is it just possible you finally say, "Do whatever you have to do... just hunt the bastards down and kill them"?
Looking in the mirror, you say to yourself, "This is the dark ages... just with better gadgets." Then you wonder if you'd have been closer to the ideal if you were born 100 years later or would it all be too late as we become another statistic for Fermi's Paradox ... not that anyone will be keeping tabs... except perhaps God... twisted bugger.
Labels: rants, world
I have a peeve about SETI. SETI searches the airwaves for a call from ET. Although most scientists agree that odds are in favour of intelligent life out there, as yet we haven't found evidence of it.
As it happens, we humans don't bother sending a signal out ourselves. This is because of (1) the energy and thus cost involved and (2) the payback would take several thousand years so why bother.
Well if you believe they're out there, then why be a freeloader? If ET has the same attitude, we'll never get a call through! I suggest making a bit of effort on this front and perhaps it will result in a bit of good karma on the SETI front. Let's make the first call. At the very least, it may mean the universe will echo with our voices after we're all long gone.
I suspect the SETI folks might feel the same way but they probably have barely enough money to do anything but listen. So what do you say Bill? Care to shout at the universe? Think of all the markets without Internet Explorer...
Technorati Tags: setiLabels: rants
If you'd told us the truth, we would've told you to shove that red pill right up your ass.
Cypher, The Matrix
What if I told you that you had the choice between (Red Pill) learning that the matrix, which underlies our modern way of life, is an illusion or (Blue Pill) carrying on enjoying the illusion? Well this is about the Red Pill. You can choose to take it or not. But the fact is that the Red Pill lies around every corner and as time passes, more and more Morpheuses will appear in different guises. Some will whisper, some will make offhanded comments and some will shout so loud you will confidently discard their rantings as insanity.
But their voices will slowly grow... over months, maybe years - I cannot say. But here is one account of the Red Pill.
I should start by saying I'm not too thrilled I took the Red Pill. Nobody else offered the Red Pill with a warning. Nobody said "this will unsettle you and change your world view - and not really for the better." However I am different. I am considerate. Here I am giving you the opportunity now to turn around.
No? OK but don't say I didn't warn you.
Please note that I'm generally an optimist. I love science fiction films which depict our high tech future. From Star Trek to The Fifth Element, this view of our civilisation's outlook has become part of the collective imagination and fuels the inspirations of yours truly. I want it to become real... and I believe one day it may yet be. But not yet - and may not for another 100, 300, or even 500 years. Nonsense! you say. With the present growth of technology it is but a few years off. But that is simply not the case for the immediate future holds a new dark age. It is the age when 6 billion people try to survive as their main source of energy runs out: Oil.
Of course we all know that oil is a finite resource. But most people are under the assumption that we won't run out for hundreds of years by which time we will be driving around in flying saucers powered by Mr. Fusion. Unfortunately it's not 200 years off. It's not even 50 years off. But whether it's 2 years off or 10 years off, we are already starting to run out.
Yeah yeah no big deal, you say. Technology will save us: we'll just drive different types of cars. We'll build nuclear power stations. We'll have solar panels and windmills. We'll even have more oil: as the price of oil goes up, it will become economical to suck more of the dregs from existing wells. We'll adapt.
Yes we will adapt for sure: I'm not suggesting that Skynet is going to become self-aware at 2:14 am Eastern Standard Time on August 29 and start a nuclear war. Change will be gradual. But the fact is that you cannot fly a jumbo jet on solar power and hydrogen cells in cars don't create energy: they simply store it. You still have to get the energy from somewhere. It will take a very long time to build enough nuclear stations to power the needs of the planet. Oh and then we'll have another major problem but that's another story. In the meantime, things could get ugly.
Few people consider how dependant we are on oil: yes it runs our cars. But it also runs almost every vehicle that transports our food and goods. Look around you. Everything you're looking at got there with the help of oil. It even grows our food: it powers the machines that carry out planting, irrigation, feeding and harvesting. Oils and gas are even used as raw materials in the production of fertilizers and pesticides. Know what plastic is made out of? Oil.
The few Americans who are even aware that there is a gathering global-energy predicament usually misunderstand the core of the argument. That argument states that we don't have to run out of oil to start having severe problems with industrial civilization and its dependent systems. We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion.
The Long Emergency
The population of the earth has increased by over 1 billion since I was born. By the time I die, at least another billion will be added. Presently, most of those people live in poverty - thank God. If they were all as wealthy as Americans, if they all used fridges, TVs and drove SUVs, we could be pretty confident that not only would oil supplies be depleted promptly, but that even the most fervent naysayers would have to concede that global warming was on its way to fry us. Energy consumption is tied to wealth and oil depletion is tied to energy consumption. Let them eat cake but please keep them from modern appliances.
Of course we don't want people to be poor - just poor enough to make us nice things cheap and leave us the remaining oil reserves. Unfortunately, places like India and China seem unwilling to cooperate. They each have roughly a billion people and are growing both in terms of numbers and prosperity. China has huge energy needs and no Kyoto protocol is going to stop them from claiming the wealth that we have been flaunting for generations. Who will stop them? They have a taste for it and will grow as will India and many others. Didn't you hear? The Asian Dragons are back and they are breathing fire. Several billion people want more.
So consumption is not only growing, it's skyrocketing. And supply? Well it's not skyrocketing. It's flattening out and is preparing for a sharp decline. When? Well those inclined to call it generally say 2007 is the peak. Some say as far out as 2015. Either way it's now - it's this generation. It's not just something you can leave your grandkids to worry about.
Easter Island
Lets say I put you on Easter Island and there are two tribes: yours with your friends and family and the other tribe at the opposite end of the island. The others aren't exactly your enemy but they're rather strange and can sometimes be aggressive. They are certainly unpredictable. OK so everthing is going along swimmingly: there's lots of fish and lots of fruit and both villages have lots of babies. Unfortunately, one day it becomes clear to you that the resources of the island won't support everybody. You've reached the tipping point. Your choice is to carry on with the status quo and eventually watch your children become malnourished and die or you can go over and slaughter the other tribe and thereby live comfortably on the island's bounty. Bear in mind that they also understand that resources are running out and may choose to kill you too. So what do you do?
Personally I think if you had the ability to kill the others with some manufactured disease then that would be best: it would just look like they died of natural causes and nobody would get upset at the slaughter. But a more humane solution might simply be to take over their territory, take their resources and subject them to living off scant supplies under your military rule. Some sneaky in-between measure might be to simply instigate them to fight with each other and cause their infrastructure to break down so they are unable to harvest and distribute their resources. Or you could take the direct approach. There are probably lots of ways you could legitimize moving into their village and killing them off. Whatever works.
Sounds horrible? Well ask around and find out how many people are really willing to give up the cheap electricity to power 24/7 broadband and cheap oil to power their SUVs. Are people going to be happy about not running their heating in winter nor aircon in summer? Please! Anyway the average person is not going to have to make that call. For the most part the masses have already proven they're too stupid to be decisive. The choices will be made for them.
As oil supplies run out, we're going to need to find more. We're going to have to rip up some nice places and of course move in to take over others. It's unpleasant but when people start to see their lives changing, they will be willing to pay the price to protect it.
Oil will disappear from some places sooner than others. Those who can't pay - notably the third world net importers - will suffer first. and yes they will suffer. People will die, but some people will survive and learn to live a different way. But it won't be the glorious future they dreamed of for their children - nor will ours.
The decline won't be rapid. There will be signs that first appear to be just noise: a bit of volatility in the market. But slowly these temporary turns for the worse become permanent changes: Oil at $58/barrel? It should come back down... maybe. OK so what if it doesn't? Demand is rather price insensitive at these levels so we adapt. The price of everything dependant on oil goes up... and well that's basically everything. So I pay more for gas and buy less video games... OK so then there's an economic downturn. It will turn up again. And so it does, but the turn is dampened by the ever rising price of energy... And so it goes. It's a descending spiral. International trade slows, there is growing unemployment, rising crime. Slowly, more and more parts of the US look like Flint Michigan.
When the day comes that it is too expensive to run the garbage trucks that take the waste of millions out of the city every day, you'll know you had better head for the hills. In fact, you might consider planning ahead on that one.
So where's that great future I believe in? It's out there, I'm just not going to get to see it. I thought I'd get a glimpse of it but now I think all I will glimpse is the coming of the new dark age.
This is, of course, a bit of a bummer. I can't enjoy stuff quite the way I used to. Like when National Geographic shows some fantastic documentary about how NASA plans to one day colonize the moon and even Mars, all I can think of is: You guys are in for a BIG surprise! You better think of another way of getting there besides blowing up thousands of pounds of fossil fuels because, lemme tell you baby, that stuff ain't gonna come cheap and by they time you have figured out how to get your ass to Mars, there may be none left.
I really hope that the future of interstellar relations, flying cars and 3D video phone is somewhere out there. There are many ways this planet can be destroyed and many more ways the human species can just make it uninhabitable for themselves but leave a lot of other creatures in peace. But I still have this belief that, while we're in for a rough ride, whether it's 100 years or 1000 years of darkness, we will emerge on the other side and realize the collective imagination of a lost civilization. A civilisation who's matrix gave way because too many opted for the Blue Pill.
Technorati Tags: rant, peak oil, futureLabels: rants
The markets have been messy lately. First there was the outlook revision of General Motors. On 16 March S&P changed GM's rating from BBB- stable to negative flagging a potential move to non-investment grade; Moody's followed with a downgrade to one notch above junk. The credit warning resulted in spreads widening on GM and in turn funds everwhere began selling their Emerging Market positions. Whether this was because they had margin calls to meet or because suddenly GM paying 10% looked better than getting 5% on some scary Indonesian asset doesn't really matter. The correlation of the markets was evidenced. It's a house of cards.
Next came the prediction of Goldman Sach's analyst Arjun Murti who said oil would go to $105. Is Murti being an alarmist? Actually it strikes me he may be somewhat conservative in his views. He thinks oil will his $105 by 2007 then reduce back to $30 over the following years.
This seems hardly likely if demand is increasing and production is unable to keep up. Perhaps it's actually going to $150. But why stop there? If anything, the price of oil looks set to rise until the well is dry.
On the bright side, perhaps the sun setting on the fossil fuel industry means we will not succeed in transforming the Earth's climate into one that resembles Venus.
So is it possible to hedge your oil exposure (being both a direct and indirect consumer of oil and its derivatives) by going long oil stocks? Perhaps, but it will be a rough ride. That means exposing yourself to the house of cards. You may lose out twice.
Tags: oil, markets, emerging markets, volatility
Labels: finance, rants
This morning I realised that I have way more ear wax when I'm in Singapore than when I'm in Canada. Gross but true.
Not 5 minutes later, while surfing for something else altogether, I came across this:
Wet, sticky earwax is more common in hot, moist environments.
I find this weird cyber serendipity happening to me a lot lately. The force is with me. But why?
Being able to find stuff easily - or without even looking for it at all - is just good Net Karma - or Narma for short. I believe I've earned my good Narma through years of contributing interesting but useless factoids to the collective intelligence of the internet as well as using appropriate subject headings for my e-mails along with other form of good e-mail netiquette (even though nobody remembers what this means anymore).
Also, perhaps I have reached the tipping point of my involvement in cyberculture through my blogs, mefi, flickr and 43things amongst others. I have thus come to the attention of the cybergods who smile on me and throw scraps of data my way like prasad. Then of course there's my Wikipedia contributions although I'm very sure that writing Amazon Reviews are generally bad for Narma and will land you in digital purgatory.
Oh and one must not forget all the good Narma earned by appropriate use of technorati tags!
So what else can earn you Good Narma?
Tags: rant, narma, karma, net culture, amazon, netiquette
Labels: net, rants
I'm back in
Singapore having spent the last two weeks in Toronto. Although it was around zero Celsius for my entire trip, thanks to modern heating I was never cold. However I'm now sitting at my desk and my extremities are turning blue due to over zealous air conditioning. Time to go run my hands under warm water... again.
It's a sunny day today... I can tell because when I was outside this morning, I could look straight up and detect a powder blue backdrop to the haze. But as I'm not in the habit of walking around staring at the zenith, the day looks altogether overcast. Staring across to the horizon, through several kilometers of smoke, everything is dull and grey.
I forgot about this global warming thing the whole time I was in
Canada. For a while, I joined the blissful ignorance of those in temperate climes. Well let me tell you people: you're in for a BIG surprise! The planet is already going up in smoke. It's just happening to some of us sooner than others.
PS:
Signs You've Been Here Too LongLabels: personal, rants
Economists have not always found it easy to explain why self-interested people would freely share scarce, privately owned resources.
I find it amazing that this question is being asked. Perhaps it is because the question is posed wrongly. It should be, Why do people freely share their creations? Because people create. We love to create. The desire to create can outweighed any compensation you may get for that creation. You want to give your creation life by sharing it with others. And if they take your creation and build on it, then the birth has been successful and your baby will have a life of its own.
People don't ask why painters paint pictures that will never be sold or write books that will never be published. But cross the line to technology and they fail to see the same creative energy at work. We understand the proliferation of blogs and websites as something arty. Why not the plethora of freeware and open source programs? Why are such creations explained away in terms of personal gain? "... writing open-source software increases the authors' prestige among their peers or gains them experience that might help them in the job market..."
Creating software is a precise form of art that may capture the creator's imagination as much as any poem or drawing. If you are paid to do what you love then that's great. But either way, if you are an artist, whether analog or digital, create you must.
Labels: rants
Google is my doctor, but for anything of concern, I always get a second opinion because Google is a bit of a quack.
For instance I recently asked Dr. Google about a small mouth ulcer on the inside of my lip. It's been there 3 weeks and appears set to stay. I searched on lump, translucent, purplish, hard, clear, mouth, ulcer, blister, canker... Google's diagnosis? Mouth Cancer. It was pretty clear-cut. For other complaints I've tended to be given a range of diagnoses from terminal to embarrassing but benign. In this case there seemed to be no options. I’d have to have part of my face removed and reconstruction surgery with bits of my arm.
So I went off to my dentist as recommended. He spent less than 30 seconds examining my sore, and then charged me $50 for his diagnosis: blocked saliva gland.
It turns out that if the mouth sore tends to wax and wane in size (as mine does) it's unlikely to be cancer as that's a one-way growth story.
And the cure? It seams the treatment largely involves some form of self-mutilation (you can lance it and if it still doesn't clear up, a deeper incision may do the trick). Of course the dentist is willing to do the dirty work for another $100 or so but there's no guarantees it won't come back.
I've now attacked it with a variety of pins, razors and tweezers to no avail. My efforts tend to result in blood, a small infection, then a remission of about a day before it's back.
I think I need to google for a supplier of special implements for auto-surgery.
Anyway, that's my contribution to Google the quack on the subject of benign mouth conditions (along with suitably gross picture). The moral of the story is, don't panic before you get a second opinion as Google is a bit of an alarmist.
Labels: health, medicine, net, rants
I’m feeling grumpy. I just through a wobbly over the e-mail because my job is to stop people from being stupid and they’re being unusually stupid today. Plus I had to have one of those “difficult” conversations with someone on an HR thingy and I hate that.
I am also sore – but it’s a good sore. It’s DOMS - delayed onset muscle soreness. In other words, I went to the gym yesterday and had a good hard workout on the weights. When it comes to weight training, I’m a true believer in no pain no gain. I only do it once a week (1 set per body part to muscle failure) because my body needs that long to recover between workouts. If I have a good workout, 18-36 hours later I’m feeling it.
I also go 2-3 times a week for cardio training. These are 20 minute high intensity interval sessions. It’s kind of a heart blaster. Plus it releases a bunch of happy brain chemicals which is nice as I’m pretty viceless here.
I’m not trying to build the world’s best body – I just don’t have the genes for it. Plus that would require some pretty austere dieting which I couldn’t bear. People might think that body builders can eat anything they want. Actually those guys are probably more careful than most. You can’t get a six pack with more than 8% body fat... and for that you have to really watch what you eat.
No my goal is to (a) have enough muscle mass so I can eat like a human being without my ass swelling up to the size of my sofa and (b) ensure I maintain muscle mass and bone mass as I age so I don’t turn into some decrepit old shriveled thing by the time I’m 60. I have genes on both sides of the family to go either way with scenario (a) having threatened me most this life. I’m now about 10lbs from where I’d like to be which is probably how most women would describe themselves.
As there’s not a lot to do in Singapore besides eating, it’s rather torturous to have my kind of metabolism but what can you do? I should mention I’m kind of a diet fitness guru... well at least in my own mind and to a very small circle of friends. I wrote a fairly detailed
e-book on weight loss last year which I’m convinced will one day be discovered and hailed as the next Atkins... OK maybe not, but I’m pretty confident I have THE formula by which anyone can get fit... but it requires a kind of insane dedication that few have.
I was once quite fat. Now I’m relatively fit. I slipped a bit and am currently not quite as svelte as I was about a year ago. But the point is that I have a healthy routine and feel pretty good which seems to be rare around here. Everyone seems to eat crap, never workout, get sick all the time and are either fat fat or thin fat in that soft doughy kind of way.
Just for the record, I'm not a body fascist. I just think people should take care of themselves better. I'll take a healthy "fit fat" body (like
Oprah) over a sickly skinny one (
Lara Flynn Boyle) any day.
Anyway all this positive talk about healthy things has left me less grumpy. Perhaps next time I’m about to do a wobbly I should drop and do 10 pushups before reacting.
Labels: rants
I watched the mentalist show "Marc Salem's Mind Games" yesterday. It was enjoyable but there were a few cheesy tricks which destroyed the illusion for me. I'm about to expose some of them so if you don't want to spoil the show for yourself, don't read this.
Salem doesn't come under attack from the usual ESP debunkers because he states clearly that he is not doing magic or anything supernatural. He does, however, emphasize that he is using established psychological techniques. The inference is that his performance is based on being unusually skillful and that, while he may not be supernatural, he most likely is superhuman. That is the unifying illusion. If you don't buy into that you may not enjoy this show as much as the critics.
Unfortunately, those "psychological techniques" (which I suppose could mean anything you want) didn't come into play much... most of his act involve creating an illusion by using slight of hand to switch papers and misdirect attention.
The show starts with Salem getting the audience to give him a two digit number for which he then provides a kind of "Gnomon magic square." It is a great opener to get the audience to believe he has a fantastic mind. However, this is not mentalism nor even an amazing display of mathematical ability. For the purpose of the act he could have simply memorized the all the magic squares under 100. Even that might sound impressive but I did the calc and I'm sad to report that the number of squares you need to memorize for this result is only one...!
There are different ways to do this but they all amount to basically the same thing:
| n-18 | 3 | 2 | 13 | | 5 | 10 | n-23 | 8 | | 9 | 6 | 7 | n-22 | | 4 | n-29 | 14 | 1 | |
Where n = the number you are solving for (ie the number given).
This was done too fast for me to analyze on the spot - the simplicity of it was only apparent later. So for the opening I was still on board. I wanted to take the trip... but it wasn't to be.
The trick which tipped me off was when he wrote something on a piece of paper, then asked the audience for various bits of info and then showed the paper showing he'd predicted the audience's suggestions. Problem is, while he was asking the questions, it looked like he was scribbling the answers down with his thumb... there was probably a pencil led or the like stuck on his thumb and thus he was dictating. Very cheesy.
After that it was very hard to suspend disbelief.
For another similar trick he "wrote something down" on a sheet of paper but from my angle it looked like nothing was written down at all... that the pen didn't work. Yet later, after the info was provided, the writing was there.... another thumb dictation?
So how about the other tricks?
No Pulse?
I was hoping he really did have the ability to control his pulse - this would have been quite cool. He seemed to be able to start and stop it at will. The Yogis who have this power require considerable concentration. Could Salem really do this while chatting to an audience? No. This is a simple and fun trick exposed on the net which I'm sure could be woven into a decent pick up routine: Hide a rubber ball under your armpit and use it to apply pressure to your brachial artery. It's that simple. You have pulse on demand.
Several of the tricks were built around this idea.
There were a few others which didn't really astound. One woman's watch suddenly showed the wrong time... but I'm quite sure that I saw him switch the time before he showed it to the audience ... He stated the actual timed while waving the watch around so quickly that I don't think the audience could have verified anything before he handed it over for closer inspection by the audience volunteer.
Another trick involved 9 people in the audience each providing a digit in three 3 digit numbers. They were added up and the answer written down. Then he played a pre-prepared tape which showed he'd predicted the answer before the show. But it would have been a simple matter to have switched the paper with the numbers supplied by the audience before they were added up as they were not called out. There was no verification afterwards that the numbers were in fact the same as those supplied. Duh.
What I could not figure out is how he was able to know what objects were being held or what was written down on some cards while blindfolded. Given the other trickery I have to assume that he didn't actually tape quarters to his eyes but perhaps pieces of glass and that he wasn't as blind as he appeared. The reason I assumed he could see and he wasn't being intuitive is because, when I supplied a book, he told the audience what was written on the cover - something I had never really registered. To me I had provided a music book yet he read "Preparation for theory exam" and never commented that in fact it had to do with music - something difficult to tell from the cover.
Initially I assumed there was an earphone hidden in his blindfold and that an assistant somewhere was telling him what the objects were. But I couldn't see an assistant. Perhaps he had palmed some kind of camera...? This one keeps me stumped.
What seemed potentially genuine was his ability to spot a person lying. For that alone the show may be worth watching. I just wished he'd dropped some of the other party tricks because it detracted from what was possibly a fascinating display of talent.
OK who am I kidding? He blew it for me. I guess this is why I'm disappointed: given how fake the other stuff was, I'm left with a serious doubt as his "amazing" skill at reading non-verbal communication. I would like to believe... but if he could spot what was written on a 5x3 card while supposedly blindfolded, why should we assume he can't do it on a 12"x14" card just because he has turned his back?
Lets ask ourselves: what is more likely - that this guy has an amazingly well developed ability to spot lying and that only 95% of his act was trickery... or that the the act was 100% illusion?
Occam's Razor: Given a choice between two explanations, choose the simplest.
The Santa Clause Principle: Sorry but there is still no Santa Clause.
Labels: rants
