Sometimes Right is Wrong (UPDATED)

Yesterday I picked up the phone and called the number of this fellow who is hosting a DaVinci Code protest. I won’t mention his name, just that I found him on a web site that is trying to organize protests against the DaVinci Code nationwide. I had decided that if I want to brave the Friday night crowd to see it, I should do so in full view of the protestors as a sort of anti-protest.
He answered the phone. I asked him about the protest and he told me at what theater nearby he would be and what time. I thanked him and told him I might be bringing several friends that night to see the film. There was a pause and he said curiously, “to see the film?”

This started a nice ten-minute dialog between us. He stated his point: his religion is under attack, and that his film is a toll to discredit his belief. I reminded him that the movie is fiction, and that parts that are based on reality have some adherents, what about those people who have a different view on Christianity that his beliefs. I talked about the persecution of the Gnostics by mainline Christianity because they believed different. I challenged him that his battle was more an attack on non-Christians and part of the larger “war on Christianity” which, to my eyes, is designed to limit my free expression of ideas contrary to the fundamentalist Christians.

It is funny, because it seems that Christianity has more power in the US than in years past. We have a President that often speaks in religious terms; we have faith-based organizations getting precedence for Federal support. Show me the war?

I remember when the wonderful film by Martin Scorsese, The Last Temptation of Christ, was attacked and fundamentalist boycotted it. That boycott was very successful. To this day Blockbuster video will not carry the title. The movie presented a view that many Christians outside the fundamentalists could see merit, that for a savior to die for man’s sins he would have to understand the temptations man must fight. Yet there was protest after protest, until some theaters and video outlets outright banned the movie. The religious right then launched a boycott against the Kevin Smith film Dogma. Eventually no distributor in America would carry it. A Canadian company eventually picked it up.

In this “war on Christianity,” most of the battles have the religious right on the offensive. How many boycotts are aimed at them? Do you see pickets outside of churches? Or outside showings of The Passion of the Christ? What are reported as strikes against Christianity are such nonsense as department stores that ask their employees to say “Happy Holidays” to customers. Seeing that there are many Americans who are not Christians (Jews, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Voodooists, atheists), it seems like a good plan. Other offenses that may smack of religious intolerance are either struck down by the court, or in cases like where the Ten Commandments are not allowed to be displayed in a court room (unless, let us note, it is part of other historical documents) as not to highlight one religion above any other. The argument by the religious right is that there is a war on Christianity because the law is not elevating the stature of Christianity above other religion.

My point to the gentleman was that if there is a sense of religious intolerance from non-Christians it is because it is being mirrored back to them. Frankly, by getting movies partially banned or otherwise restricting the availability of movies, books and music based on their belief just makes those inconvenienced by these actions less tolerant.

The conversation ended on a sour note. He told me the reason why they are opposed to the showing of the film is that people will not realize it is not real (as even the author admits it is fictionalized with some part simply made up to make the story work). I told him I do not believe people to be that stupid. Films, even documentaries or docudramas based on real life must be taken with a grain of salt. Anytime someone is telling a story, either an orally or through film or books, you are getting the view of the storyteller. Bias is expected.

I used the example of James Cameron’s Titanic. It was film based on an actual event replicated in astonishing detail, but how many people believe the main storyline played out by Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet was real?

UPDATE: Check out this blog entry which I wholly agree with.

Why Ask Why?

Intelligent design should not be taught as a science. Now, I am not trying to destroy religion, as some creationists believe, which led to the formulation of intelligent design. I believe matters of faith are personal things. That is something for you to decide. Conversely, it is also something that you should not force on other people.

However, I am not here to argue faith, or the existence or non-existence of deities. I am here to argue my statement that intelligent design is not a science.

The latest battleground for this argument is in Pennsylvania where the Dover Area School District has called for statements of evolution’s doubt to scoff at it. One of the main arguments to evolution is that there is not enough proof in the evolutionary evidence (the so-called missing links) to prove evolution therefore you should doubt evolution. If there is doubt then that theory should be looked at as being invalid, because there should be no doubt in truth. Luckily here comes intelligent design: 100-percent doubt free!

This is putting the scientific method ass backwards. Scientific method requires us to doubt a theory, in fact scientists do not go out to prove a theory, they try to test it to see if they can disprove it. If something disproves the theory they found out why, and either adjust the theory or throw it out. It is called scientific skepticism. Now, I will agree that there are numerous holes in the evolutionary evidence, mainly because fossil evidence hundreds of millions of years old is hard to come by, but nothing we do have as evidence disproves the theory. Without testing a theory there is no validity.

Intelligent design takes it the other way. Their “theory” (actually it is a hypothesis) is that life is so complex it could never of happened by chance, therefore something intelligent had to design it. There is no way to test this, which is why it is not a theory. In fact, nothing can disprove it because of the logic. Ancient fossils? The intelligent designer made them for a purpose!

What I find dangerous about intelligent design being taught as a valid science is that it takes the most important ingredient of science and disposes of it: asking why. With the standards of intelligent design the answer is always “because that is the way it is.” That is a mentality that keeps us stagnant. The need to know, to question and to explore the unknown is what makes us unique creatures on this planet. When these questions are denied we come to a standstill. All of the advances we have today are because someone asked, “Why is it…”

If everyone accepted lightning as something caused by a god we would not have electricity because the steps to get us there would never have been taken. If we never wondered why are the stars in the sky, and accepted them as angels or ice crystals or whatever faith at the time decreed them, we would never have explored the moon, or Mars or the outer planets.

Again, science and faith are not mutually exclusive, but to deny us the ability to ask “why” is the road to nowhere.

HDCP

Some called me paranoid, some called me insane. However, for once in my life I have proved the masses wrong… ah… sweet vindication…

A few weeks ago I wrote about why I am not buying an HDTV in the near future. Now, these sets are getting hot (and the picture quality is amazing), but I warned you about standards needing to be in place. Well, it appears that the first Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players coming out will be the first to shoot down older TVs. They will include High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), designed to protect the content providers from illicit digital copying.

So, you got your $2000+ HDTV and finally you are going to get your HD-DVD. Chances are it won’t work. If your TV is non-HDCP (as most are right now), the HD-DVD player is programmed to downconvert the high-def picture to standard definition, as good looking as your current DVD picture, but no better. Are there any solutions except buying a new HDTV to replace your slightly less new HDTV? None yet. I doubt the HDCP license will be granted to a box to convert HDCP-protected content to non-protected for use on your set. That would negate the effectiveness of using HDCP.

Again, the industry is screwing the consumer. While I do not begrudge the content holders attempts to protect their work (which has proven ineffective in the past, but that’s another story), all this should have been worked out before the first HDTV ever came off the line!

Killing innovation

What is with Internet Explorer? I personally don’t use it, but one of my tasks this week is to get RPG Radio’s website off the ground. It is the home for podcast my company Pivot Entertainment is producing. So I do a simple logo as PNG file with transparency an overlay it against the background. Viewed on FireFox and Opera it looks good. Viewed on Internet Explorer… it looks messed up. The areas that are supposed to be transparent are not; the area is white.

I find it disturbing that so many people still use Internet Explorer. It was the best when it hit the street in 1999. Killed Netscape that was standing still in innovation. Then when Microsoft won, they stopped innovating. PNG is a good example: the format was release in 2000. After five years the best Microsoft can do is implement it to say they do… but they don’t bother to make it work properly? PNG & JPEG2000 are the next generation graphics formats, made to replace the aging GIF and JPEG images. They create images that are much better than the older formats and are smaller as well. This means better-looking web images that load faster. What up Microsoft?

Microsoft has a history of killing competition by making an awesome product and giving it away cheap. When the product has no competition it becomes stagnant until it trails the competition but remains the standard because it was so entrenched in the market place. When they do have competition they go back and update to keep the competition at bay, then its back to sitting on their hands. MS-DOS was stagnant until DR-DOS came to compete; Microsoft Office has stood still for years after killing WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, but now they are making Office 12 more innovative because of the competition from the free OpenOffice suite. Now they have previewed the new Internet Explorer with everything that FireFox has had for a year.

At least then it will make my PNG file look right. Five years too late.

Podcast Kills Radio Part 2

The other day I wrote about the death of broadcast radio. A friend asked me the other day, “I can see why this is good for the radio shows, but is it good for the musicians?” I say: OH YES!

The iTunes music store is an example of how the distance between indie musician and the major label artist is shrinking. iTunes takes no advertising and they have a staff that chooses these featured artists. In a move that must make the middle managers at the major labels enter a confused stupor, they actually pick music that they feel is good, not pushed (or in Sony’s case, payola promoted) by the majors. iTunes has a nice mix between major and indie artists. Listen to the iTunes New Music Tuesday podcast. It’s features an indie artist every week. I think it is wonderful.

Of course the big music industry doesn’t like it. They are beginning to feel a loss of control over their industry. For years they have restricted access to end caps, in store advertising and magazine ads. They can pay the big bucks, which drives the price for this access out of the range of an indie. Plus they have the contacts to get their artists on Letterman or Leno.

However, they can’t control iTunes, and with over half a billion-song sales already that is a threat to them. If iTunes decided to feature more independents or even start their own label it is getting to the point where it will hurt the majors. Life sucks, don’t it major labels?

They are beginning to fight back. Recently two labels announced plans to try and renegotiate their contracts to provide music to iTunes. They want control of the pricing structure to make more money on their hot hits but almost give away back catalog (which publishers of this older music should be up in arms about). I think this is the first shot in a greater battle for the future of the music industry with the consumers and artists who will be the true winners or losers.

Thoughts on September 11th

I just spent a nice evening watching films on INHD and IFC. Being that today is the fourth anniversary of the attacks on the Untied States by al-Queda they followed the theme. The first was a very well done documentary on United Airlines Flight 93. It focused on the people on the flight and the events. It featured cell phone recordings made on that day plus reenactments. Most surprising was hearing from the families what they heard on the flight recorder of the final minutes of the flight (this is still not released publicly due to criminal investigations). Very touching.

IFC has a great doc called WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions. This one covers the biased media coverage of 9/11 and the war. Excellent work showing that there is not a liberal controlled media. Quite the opposite, in fact.

As I watched I realized that we were scheduled to see some grand parade to the Pentagon with the “Mission Accomplished” President riding the waves of patriotism to repair his image. Guess Katrina changed that, instead revealing more of this man’s incompetence as a leader.

Please, Americans: Think. He sat in a school stunned for ten minutes while the attacks happened. He attacked a country not involved in the attacks because Iraq had WMDs and were ready to use them… except they didn’t. He declared mission accomplished and now more soldiers have died in Iraq since then than before. He degraded a former soldier’s military record to serve his own political ends… even though he accuses his detractors of not honoring the military. He laughs at a mother who lost her son in his war… then says he “needs to get on with his own life.” He claims that the fact we haven’t caught Osama bin Laden is okay because he is no longer a threat… meanwhile Madrid and London are bombed by them. He claims we are winning the “war on terror” when the number of terrorist attacks have increased dramatically since the beginning of the war. He refuses to intervene when energy companies rape the consumer, such as the fake energy crises in California several years back… those companies owned by his friends. He puts a guy whose experience in disaster management was learned running an Arabian horse show. Then when his appointment’s incompetence leads to excess deaths after Hurricane Katrina he blames the mayor and governor for not asking for help (not his fault again). He blames the CIA, led by Tenant, for botching the WMD thing then after he gives Tenant the Presidential Medal of Freedom… maybe for taking the blame for Bush. Bush also uses the 9/11 card to remind us all of the tragedy to gain support for his plans even though most of the wives of the 9/11 victims asked him not to do that and resent him every time he does.

Everyone WAKE THE HELL UP. HE IS THE WORST PRESIDENT SINCE WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT!

And for the Republicans who will call me a traitor for using my First Amendment rights let me just say to you: He has you fooled. He is using you like a chump. If you have a problem with this, go ahead, close your eyes and attack me in this blog’s comments… it’s a lot easier to be angry than to think.

Alas Broadcast Radio…

I am going to make a bold prediction: within ten years broadcast radio is dead.

Digital music players, iPods and the like, are swarming in to replace the old standard. Already people drive to work and back listening to a selection of hundreds to thousands of their favorite songs without commercials or talk or crushing the audio to make it sound louder.

Now, with the not-even one-year-old concept of Podcasting (which, despite its name is not limited to the iPod) is here to put the whammy on news/talk radio. Now shows can be downloaded automatically to your digital player through free subscriptions. Weekly I listen to movie reviews from Ebert and Roeper, news programs from ABC radio, radio dramas, public radio shows like On the Media and more. I just synch my iPod in the morning and there it is, ready to listen at my convenience.

While there are some limitations, such as the shows not being live eliminate on-air callers and live events such as sports are impossible as well, this is the future. This Week in Tech has taken the idea of having live callers on air by playing MP3 questions recorded and e-mail to the show.

I predict in a year almost all of NPR’s output will be available (I want my Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me). They have put their toes in the water with Science Friday and soon they will jump. The BBC is taking the plunge and announced that most of their radio shows will be podcasted in the near future. With ABC on board expect the other networks to compete. So, go buy an iPod or Muvo or whatever, the future is coming like a wave.