30 posts with category “Culture”

Kirk Cameron, and stealing video from abcnews.com

Last weekend Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort debated some smug atheists over the existence of God. Kirk’s and Ray’s claim was, to paraphrase, that they could prove, 100%, scientifically, the existence of God, without invoking faith or the Bible. The atheists were to prove, not that God doesn’t exist, but that Kirk and Ray can’t prove otherwise. The debate took place on Saturday night and was taped to be streamed on abcnews.com the following Wednesday and Thursday, with select portions being televised on an episode of Nightline.

Here’s Slate on the subject:

First, I grew excited at this promise, then began to wonder why no theologian, philosopher, or sitcom star in recorded history had done it before—Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Tina Yothers, whoever—and realized I was in for a letdown. Comfort’s cadences were not even those of a preacher but of an infomercial host, and the God Squad had but three arguments on behalf of the big guy: All things have makers; the human conscience is evidence of a higher moral power; if you read the Gospel, then Christ will be revealed to you. For reasons too stupid to type, this was not an airtight case, and the atheists made quick work of it in tones of juvenile sarcasm.

They also threw in the first mover argument, which technically differs from the watchmaker argument. The content of the debate is of almost no interest, of course, as it closely parallels countless conversations that have taken place before it. But its being presented by ABC is significant, even unprecedented by recent standards of network television. Which isn’t to say that religion and God are never mentioned on TV, but that when they are, they are dismissed as irreconcilable, deeply personal things that don’t invite inspection beyond that of the effects they have on people’s behavior. They are approached as moral and cultural issues — never as metaphysical ones. And the idea that a large-ish portion of the American public might see people earnestly discussing the nature of infinity and causality, even if ineptly, only hours after Ugly Betty, fascinated me, despite my confidence that none of it would be illuminating, and that it was a ratings stunt.

I didn’t see the “distilled” version on Nightline, and the YouTube videos were removed before I could watch or save them, but I hear they did a pretty bad job with the material. At the moment, the entire debate is still available at the story’s ABC page, but, knowing that they probably won’t last, and with a tendency toward obsessive archivism and a disdain for ABC’s intractable flash player, I collected them myself. Altogether they’re about 97 minutes. If you’re short on time and have to be choosy, watch the “Mocking Darwin” segment, which contains the most lolz, and a guided, pictorial tour of an understanding of evolution so profoundly misinformed that even Lamarck is rolling his eyes. And he’s dead. As I watch this debate, I keep expecting Kirk to break character. Then I think, Ray must have some dangerously compromising photos of him.

From the Columbia Journalism Review:

We could go on, but why? Nightline felt no responsibility to take the issue seriously enough to include, say, a scientist or a theologian in the debate, so other than pointing out the dumbing down of the national conversation, we’ll just leave it at saying that we expect more of Nightline, and the American people deserve better than being forced to endure half-baked publicity stunts dressed up as news.

Thrown in at the end are some recent discussions Bill O’Reilly has had with Kirk Cameron and Richard Dawkins, in which Bill presents his own fucked version of an anthropic argument, expressing amazement that we could have “lucked out” by having such a habitable planet land on us, and plenty more frustratingly nebulous reasoning for your teeth-gnashing pleasure.

The videos were recorded using a years-old tool that I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. CamStudio records the activity in a selected portion of your screen, and spits out an .avi. Its current version is from 2003, but, thanks to its open-sourceness, is still being developed. It gives you the option to use different recording codecs and to tweak their parameters, but the only way I was able to get results was with enormous files, approaching 1GB for 15 minutes of 320×240 video. Which is a pain in the ass, but it works.

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That drunk Russian space pig thing

Pervye na Lune

Click the image for the full photo montage.

I first encountered this last year on WFMU’s blog, and despite being curious of its origins, the internet has trained me to accept content without context. Funny pictures, drunk pig, pass it on. Neither the WFMU post, nor the blog they got it from even ask where this came from. But who cares — find it, blog about it, Digg it, make a YTMND about it, a YouTube spinoff, and move on to the next meme.

But there’s something clearly artistic about these images. They’re too perfect. And they depict such a caricatured past that you suspect they may have been taken recently. And, as noted in the comments that I didn’t bother to read until today, they were.

First on the Moon poster

They’re stills from a 2005 Russian mockumentary called Pervye na lune, or First on the Moon, which actually looks good, its premise approaching what you might have expected if you speculated enough about the intent of those photos. From the film’s official site, as translated by Google:

You can argue long, the Americans were on the Moon or not, but there are facts that prove convincingly : Soviet scientists were able to run the first aircraft into space as early as March 1938. Information more than convincing, and at this time Russian cosmonauts ahead of the Americans …

It’s not on Netflix yet, but I hear it’s on Karagarga, the invite-only avant-garde film torrent tracker, which means it may soon make it to art torrents or gpod. There are also several copies on eBay, but I can’t be sure they have subtitles, or are even compatible with American DVD players.

Read more about it:

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NASA’s mixtape for aliens

Mathematical definitions

I am kind of a science geek, but really this is about being a sociology geek.

In 1977, NASA launched two “intrepid” Voyager spacecrafts. Their primary purpose was to photograph distant planets from ranges never before achieved. It succeeded beautifully, but of more interest to me is the secondary purpose of this mission.

After passing Pluto (or Neptune?), what’s left to do with the most distant object we’ve sent into space? Obviously, propel it to a speed of one million miles per day and hope it reaches some alien society. But what do you send to an alien society?

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Vinyl

In reading about iTunes and why it’s a disease, I was reminded that mp3 compression is an abomination of sound quality. Inspired, and looking for a place to get tickets for The Grog Shop‘s Minus Story show, I bought Destroyer’s This Night on CD at Music Saves, a tiny and tidy little record store next to The Beachland Ballroom (15801 Waterloo Rd., (216) 481-1875). Small as it is, their vinyl selection includes The Unicorns and Panda Bear, which is enough to suggest how perfectly suited they are for me. How it took me so long to hear about this place is a mystery.

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