Richard Dawkins gave a talk a TED 2005, titled “Queerer then we can suppose: the strangeness of science” here are some of the thing I took away from the talk.

The real world, is not as real as one might think, that we fell is real is just what our model of the world together with the sensory inputs (sight, smell etc). Things much smaller or much larger then our self. For example our notion of solid matter, is really a notion in our mind, when you get down on the atomic scale, solid matter, for ex a rock, consists mostly of empty space.

We have the same trouble with really unprovable things, for example the jump from organic matter to live, how this is done is not jet fully understood, but even if it was a unlikely events say 1 in a 100 billion (100 000 000 000) life would still not be really uncommon. Because there is a estimated 100 billion billion (100 000 000 000 000 000 000) planets in the universe, there fore life cued exist on a billion planets. And many scientists to day think that life is for more probable then 1 in 1^11.

Dawkins talk is closely related with David Deutschs talk about knowledge and resources.This is the second in my series on interesting TED talks.

Anchor Our Special Ale 2007

This years brew of Anchor’s special ale, greets the eye with a deep clear mahogany body topped by a light brown head, witch lances nicely.

The nose is greeted by spices, Christmas ones are most prominent, cinnamon the most so. Roasted coffee hides in the back.

The taste buds are treated to the same spices as the nos, but not to the same degree. The malt is fare more friendly now, adding flavors of roasted coffee. The spices retreat even more but are still there, the hops steps up to fill the emptiness, adding a lite bitterness towards the end. The finish is dry and dominated by roasted coffee and light bitterness.

The mouthfeel is kind of light, for a winter ale, just below average, i think.

Overall good beer, a bit to special for some, but I like it.

More good comics from xkcd:

e to the pi times i

I have never been totally satisfied by the explanations for why e to the ix gives a sinusoidal wave.

Matrix Transform

In fact, draw all your rotational matrices sideways. Your professors will love it! And then they’ll go home and shrink.

Exercise

I haven’t had the patience for RPGs in a long time.

Hallucinations

And the possibility of lucid dreaming just makes it that much more fascinating.

Regular Expressions

Wait, forgot to escape a space. Wheeeeee[taptaptap]eeeeee.

Letting Go

At least I never gave her the root password.

Peter Seibel has writen a exelent Lisp tutorial, and has asked for help getting it on top of googles search results.

So if you are the least curious on lisp go to peters Common Lisp tutorial.

It is also available as a dead tree book

Blogged about this a year a go on another platform an though it is fitting to repost it do day.

It is now 10 11 years since Carl Sagan tragically left us, but he lives on in hes work and the thousands of people he inspired to take up astronomy in particular and science in general. Carl is deeply missed as he left a cap proving hard to fill, he is still the number one when it comes to fascinating and intriguing the general public about science.

A nice tribune video made by kasranov on youtube called: ‘Vision’ - A Tribute to Carl Sagan

Joel has made a collection of the posts about Carl Sagan to day, as he did last year, go read his post for more info.

I have several drafts laing around featuring Carl Sagan,but they are not really done as of now.

David Deutsch: What is our place in the cosmos?

David argues that the brain contains the tools we need, to solve any problem: knowledge, reason and creativity. A very interesting talk, but then I have become used to that from TED.

This is the first in, what I think is going to be a long series, on interesting TED talks.

Jämtlands Heaven

A nice locking beer deep brown/red almost black colored body with a light brown head.

The nose pickup roasted malt and light hops, flowery.

Taste of malt, roasted and chocolate flavors, followed by herbal bitterness of the hops, and at the very end, lingering dry bitterness with hints of roasted coffee.

A bit aggressive, but, jet fairly well balanced.

A nice beer, to bad its no longer available at any of my local systembolaget shops, I think this beer deserves shelf space.

A solid 4

Old but still good

http://www.spapo.com/s292.html

With the hops shortage we will probably see a increase in beer prices, the sunday mirror trows out the number 4 £ per paint. But that don’t sound that expensive to me, thats around that we here in Sweden pay to day. And then i remember that I live in the most taxed country in the world, that has besides the 25% general goods tax we pay, we also pay ½ £ to 1 £ (based on alcohol concentration) in additional alcohol tax. I don’t want to thing about how high the price can get if the brewery and suppliers start raising the price do to increased raw material prices.

From the Sunday Mirror, via Knut.