Posts by D. H. McKee

Science: Be Very Afraid

It was the MMR story that finally made me crack. My friends had always seemed perfectly rational: now, suddenly, they were swallowing media hysteria, hook, line and sinker. All sensible scientific evidence was twisted to promote fear and panic. I tried to reason with them, but they turned upon me: I was another scientist trying to kill their baby.
Many of these people were hardline extremists, humanities graduates, who treated my reasoned arguments about evidence as if I was some religious zealot, a purveyor of scientism, a fool to be pitied. The time had clearly come to mount a massive counter-attack.
Science, you see, is the optimum belief system: because we have the error bar, the greatest invention of mankind, a pictorial representation of the glorious undogmatic uncertainty in our results, which science is happy to confront and work with. Show me a politician's speech, or a religious text, or a news article, with an error bar next to it?

Good Reading

Finished the following books in Cuba. Jack Kerouac – Desolation Angels Virgilio Piñera – René’s Flesh Nothing to do but...

Cuba #5

Pretty much finished Kerouac’s Desolation Angels this afternoon. I’m in the lobby bar, drinking and reading. It’s been pretty nice...

Cuba #4

Lobby Bar – we’ve just returned from almost getting killed in a boating accident on the Jungle Tour. There are...

Cuba #3

Phil and I are sitting in the lobby bar, waiting for the bus to take us on the “Jungle Tour”...

Cuba #2

The food in Cuba is uninspired. This is the second resort I’ve been to and the food hasn’t improved, despite...

Cuba #1

I’m sitting in the lobby bar at Mélia Cayo Coco with Phil, drinking cervézas and smoking cigarillos. This is the...

Books I’m taking on Vacation

Going to do some reading while down in parts sunny. Picked up a couple of titles from Gabriella at Moody...

Shopping Cart Sculpture

Found this the other day while biking around downtown Waterloo. Looks like someone snuck in at night and setup a...

Happy No Pants Day

No Pants Day is a day where everyone, be they students, respectable businessmen, or cherished community leaders, leave their pants behind. Usually this means wearing thick, appropriately modest boxer shorts, but bloomers, slips, briefs, and boxer-briefs all work as well.
Yeah, that's it. But from the core idea comes so much more. When large groups of people parade around in public without their pants, amazing things are bound to happen. At the very least, you'll take your drab, wretched life a little less seriously, at least for one day.
No Pants Day is always on the first Friday of May, which is May the 2nd in 2003.
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