blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2009-01-23 09:13 pm
blamebrampton) wrote2009-01-23 09:13 pm
Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhh, again, with added rambling.
Guess what the temperature is? Yeah, add a bit.
Am still woefully behind on comments because I would like to reply sensibly. The cool change is slated for Sunday, expect replies, and a collation of the penis post results! Part two of Single Wizard's is with my brilliant beta, expect derangement.
I nearly leapt from my desk to strangle someone this afternoon when my idiot co-worker (there is always one) declared that although it was hot here, the record lows in the US showed that global warming was a myth. Instead, I held myself back and politely asked him why the top 10 hottest years on record had all occurred in the last 11 years.
'Yeah, but that's just in Australia.'
'No,' I replied. 'That's globally. Remember that many countries have experienced record highs and record lows in the same years over the last decades.'
'Well, I still think it's exaggerated.'
I sighed. 'Would you mind explaining where all the glaciers are hiding, then? Because I'd quite like them back.'
Talking with most journalists about science reminds me why I believe that journalists should have to pass a certified test before they are allowed to talk about science. There was the one a few years back who talked about the need to include his paragraphs on creationism in a story on evolutionary biology 'for balance'. I argued that it was a science story, and therefore religion was out of place. I argued that he hadn't included quotes from satisfied drug users in his recent story about the link between marijuana use and schizophrenia. I was ignored. The editor in chief said: 'What are you? American? Fuck that.' There was applause. (If you are even now saying But Creationism is real! go to footnote 1.)
Many journos also fail the logic test. It's not always their fault, schools are rubbish these days and the kids are taught that Wikipedia is a resource. (Not the kids I train, of course. They are taught that the very W word will make me froth with rage unless it is provided in the context of 'And then I went to find verification for all the assertions.')
Today a lovely cookery writer, who had been lead astray by Wiki and then gone a little further astray herself, wrote that powdered cocoa comes from chocolate liquor and that its separation was the first step in the chocolate-making process.
'I'm just going to tidy that up because there are a few factual errors there,' I muttered kindly.
'No, that's right. I checked it.'
'But chocolate contains cocoa. If you remove it to make cocoa powder, you end up with cocoa and cocoa butter, not chocolate. It's a separate process, cocoa butter is often added to other chocolate liquor to make some chocolates, and sometimes cocoa is used to make milk chocolate, but you're talking about the process to make cocoa powder, and you can't go from that to making chocolate as your next step.'
'But it was on the internet!'
'So is dwarf porn, it's still not right.'
I sometimes worry that the internet has taught people not to think. 'I checked the footnotes, the article they linked to said the same thing.' is the most common defence I receive from writers and subs who have used Wikipedia as a reference. They do not distinguish between a publicity article from the British potato marketing board and a scholarly article from a leading agricultural researcher that has passed a stringent peer review.
When I was a young girl, I remember crying at the realisation that I would die without learning everything I could. Apparently, some people missed that moment. I should be grateful, it means I can charge a high hourly rate and work with fun people aside from the one idiot. But some days I despair and consider going back to books.
In unrelated but slightly amusing news, I was walking home today thinking that I really must call my mother. Some 10 metres away a car hooted and I heard my name called(2). It was her, and we had a quick catch up. Prior to this, I have not seen her in a year (this is quite normal, we like each other but lead separate, busy lives). I walked the rest of the way home thinking 'I really must buy a winning lottery ticket and secure a record-breaking book deal.' One never knows ...
1. Creationism is not science. However, as a friend of mine who is a devout Christian and a geologist says: 'The god that I believe in is certainly capable of setting in motion a universe that could evolve following the laws that are suggested by the evidence before us. I can cope with metaphors that are more complex than the ones Jews in the desert thousands of years ago used.'
My heathen little heart says that if your faith is threatened by good science, then it's your faith, not the science, that is the problem and you ought to be spending more time worrying about what you are learning in church and less time worrying about what the kids are learning at school.
2. 'How did you know it was me?' I asked, given that I was on the other side of the road with my back to her.
'Who else has hair that long and a red parasol?' she replied.
'Five year olds!'
'You're slightly taller.'
We're clearly related ;-)
Am still woefully behind on comments because I would like to reply sensibly. The cool change is slated for Sunday, expect replies, and a collation of the penis post results! Part two of Single Wizard's is with my brilliant beta, expect derangement.
I nearly leapt from my desk to strangle someone this afternoon when my idiot co-worker (there is always one) declared that although it was hot here, the record lows in the US showed that global warming was a myth. Instead, I held myself back and politely asked him why the top 10 hottest years on record had all occurred in the last 11 years.
'Yeah, but that's just in Australia.'
'No,' I replied. 'That's globally. Remember that many countries have experienced record highs and record lows in the same years over the last decades.'
'Well, I still think it's exaggerated.'
I sighed. 'Would you mind explaining where all the glaciers are hiding, then? Because I'd quite like them back.'
Talking with most journalists about science reminds me why I believe that journalists should have to pass a certified test before they are allowed to talk about science. There was the one a few years back who talked about the need to include his paragraphs on creationism in a story on evolutionary biology 'for balance'. I argued that it was a science story, and therefore religion was out of place. I argued that he hadn't included quotes from satisfied drug users in his recent story about the link between marijuana use and schizophrenia. I was ignored. The editor in chief said: 'What are you? American? Fuck that.' There was applause. (If you are even now saying But Creationism is real! go to footnote 1.)
Many journos also fail the logic test. It's not always their fault, schools are rubbish these days and the kids are taught that Wikipedia is a resource. (Not the kids I train, of course. They are taught that the very W word will make me froth with rage unless it is provided in the context of 'And then I went to find verification for all the assertions.')
Today a lovely cookery writer, who had been lead astray by Wiki and then gone a little further astray herself, wrote that powdered cocoa comes from chocolate liquor and that its separation was the first step in the chocolate-making process.
'I'm just going to tidy that up because there are a few factual errors there,' I muttered kindly.
'No, that's right. I checked it.'
'But chocolate contains cocoa. If you remove it to make cocoa powder, you end up with cocoa and cocoa butter, not chocolate. It's a separate process, cocoa butter is often added to other chocolate liquor to make some chocolates, and sometimes cocoa is used to make milk chocolate, but you're talking about the process to make cocoa powder, and you can't go from that to making chocolate as your next step.'
'But it was on the internet!'
'So is dwarf porn, it's still not right.'
I sometimes worry that the internet has taught people not to think. 'I checked the footnotes, the article they linked to said the same thing.' is the most common defence I receive from writers and subs who have used Wikipedia as a reference. They do not distinguish between a publicity article from the British potato marketing board and a scholarly article from a leading agricultural researcher that has passed a stringent peer review.
When I was a young girl, I remember crying at the realisation that I would die without learning everything I could. Apparently, some people missed that moment. I should be grateful, it means I can charge a high hourly rate and work with fun people aside from the one idiot. But some days I despair and consider going back to books.
In unrelated but slightly amusing news, I was walking home today thinking that I really must call my mother. Some 10 metres away a car hooted and I heard my name called(2). It was her, and we had a quick catch up. Prior to this, I have not seen her in a year (this is quite normal, we like each other but lead separate, busy lives). I walked the rest of the way home thinking 'I really must buy a winning lottery ticket and secure a record-breaking book deal.' One never knows ...
1. Creationism is not science. However, as a friend of mine who is a devout Christian and a geologist says: 'The god that I believe in is certainly capable of setting in motion a universe that could evolve following the laws that are suggested by the evidence before us. I can cope with metaphors that are more complex than the ones Jews in the desert thousands of years ago used.'
My heathen little heart says that if your faith is threatened by good science, then it's your faith, not the science, that is the problem and you ought to be spending more time worrying about what you are learning in church and less time worrying about what the kids are learning at school.
2. 'How did you know it was me?' I asked, given that I was on the other side of the road with my back to her.
'Who else has hair that long and a red parasol?' she replied.
'Five year olds!'
'You're slightly taller.'
We're clearly related ;-)
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