p e n g u i n d e v i l

Well, some news browsing over lunch led me to some “news” stories that bear repeating. From my main news source again, Slashdot, there was a sad piece of information from my younger days… Gary Gygax has passed away (if you don’t know who he is, don’t bother looking him up, you probably won’t want to know who he is…). A pivotal influence over many of my teen years, and those of a good number of folks I knew. Its not a shock or a tragic accident, but I still felt the urge to bring it up.

Also and more sad and tragic, a legislator in Florida, recoiling from the state requiring the teaching of, of all things, the theory of evolution, is pressing for a bill that would allow teachers to have the “right and freedom to present scientific information pertaining to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution.” Basically, to be able to teach whatever they want. Of course, it shouldn’t allow that, since I believe that “scientific” is generally held to mean investigating through evidence and reasoning, both of which are missing from creationist dogma.

Read here: Will the battle on science and evolution move to the Florida Legislature?.

Sure, there may be some issues with the evolution theory, but the concept is quite undeniable… After all, many creatures have been observed to change in accordance with their environment in recent memory (flu virus, anyone?)… The truth is hardly deniable, regardless of its stature as a “scientific theory”, as opposed to a “stupid theory” like these “(ahem) intelligent design (amen)” fans keep wasting everyone’s time with…

Hmm.. I suppose every teacher should be able to teach every subject exclusively in accordance with whatever personal beliefs they have, or have made up. Personally, if I am going to live in a fantasy land, I’ll make it up myself (or borrow it from Gygax) and won’t be concerned with what the courts and the public schools say about it… And I certainly won’t try and force it on school children. But on the positive side, I like to take i.d. as a sign that the christian creationists have finally come somewhat to grips with reality. After all this time of saying that Adam and Eve and the garden where true stories (even though they were just taken from the Babylonian myths anyway), the i.d. factions among them have basically agreed that those stories aren’t true after all (or maybe they are trying to pull another fast one on us non-believers, like Jehovah did with those dinosaur bones).

And, then finally (as my lunch break should be over now) from the Sunday Herald, this tidbit on how email is for old folks and too formal… “For most South Koreans, email is fit only for addressing the elderly, or for business and formal missives.”…

Read here: Why e-mail is so old-fashioned.

Sure, e-mail may be for old people now, but I must challenge the “too formal” claim. E-mail is way too informal, to say nothing of the crud that gets texted. I already have a hard time with how sloppy and informal e-mail is (in a hundred years will capitalization just be a forgotten theory?), the thought that people are going to get worse and lazier…

While I see the truth behind their points, I think (of course, speaking as an old person) that those are some sad truths. But I guess that society always changes and moves forward (technologically at least) and those of us who have already grown up tend to like to keep things that way that they were. Like Still listening to classic rock radio now, 30 years after the fact…