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So does John have an Asian guy pitching ideas to him? I wasn't expecting a joke about that Time cover. And there was that whole extended bit about Hollywood whitewashing a few weeks back. Parodying TED probably doesn't do much because the choir John's preaching to already doesn't take the talks seriously. Also, it's nice to be reminded that BD Wong exists. Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 15:19 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 14:16
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:It sure was!
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May 9, 2016 14:28
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It took me a while to realize the butt-to-butt guy in the Ted talks is the guy from the Sonic commercials.
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May 9, 2016 16:28
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Grinning Goblin posted:I don't think morning talk shows are nearly at the level of smugness or bizarre neo-televangelist style that TED talks are at. My favorite TED talk is the one about how to tie your shoes.
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May 9, 2016 17:55
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the only good TED talk is the gwar one
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May 9, 2016 18:00
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:the only good TED talk is the gwar one Nope, this one is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0
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May 9, 2016 19:26
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Father Ray Mukada represent, yo.
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May 9, 2016 21:40
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Pretty sure Roker was making sardonic commentary on this very subject, John. Don't yell at Al Roker you limey twit, he's a national treasure t
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May 9, 2016 21:55
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Echo Chamber posted:So does John have an Asian guy pitching ideas to him? I wasn't expecting a joke about that Time cover. And there was that whole extended bit about Hollywood whitewashing a few weeks back. I was sure John was going to use the "Hitler man of the Year" time cover. Poor BD Wong so typecast despite all his work.
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May 9, 2016 22:30
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sbaldrick posted:I was sure John was going to use the "Hitler man of the Year" time cover. That's what I told my wife was about to happen--she was about to see Hitler: Time's Man of the Year cover. Then, it wasn't. That's a swing and a miss, Mr. Oliver.
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May 9, 2016 23:06
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Maybe they felt that the "Hitler: Man of the Year" cover was too easy. I mean everybody already knows that one. The thing about TED talks is that there are some decent ones out there, and they generally do a good job of vetting their presenters (the really stupid/crazy ones you've seen are probably TEDx talks - which are independently organized and unrelated to TED aside from the use of the name and often have no vetting process at all aside from "did they sign up?"), but the thing is that even people with strong scientific credentials that actually do serious work in their field can still also be the kind of people that love to talk bullshit and oversell the significance of their results. I mean hell, Dr. Oz is an actual M.D. but that doesn't stop him from peddling bullshit snake oil weight loss products that at BEST are placebos and could potentially be much worse than that.
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May 9, 2016 23:41
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Echo Chamber posted:
He's been killing it as the bad guy in this season of Gotham.
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May 10, 2016 00:26
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pwn posted:Pretty sure Roker was making sardonic commentary on this very subject, John. Don't yell at Al Roker you limey twit, he's a national treasure t roker is really cool and good
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May 10, 2016 00:29
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The Cheshire Cat posted:the thing is that even people with strong scientific credentials that actually do serious work in their field can still also be the kind of people that love to talk bullshit and oversell the significance of their results Yeah, this is a really important thing that a lot of young, well-educated people seem to have a tough time grasping: scientists are people with all our attendant needs and flaws and inadequacies. They have bank accounts and mortgages. They have emotions and obsessions. They have personality defects. Sometimes they grandstand. Sometimes their ambitions are beyond their ability or knowledge. Sometimes they lie. They can even be tricked. In fact, really smart, well-educated people who are tricked often have some of the most difficult minds to change, because they're very good at rationalizing why the wrong things they think are right.
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May 10, 2016 00:59
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:the only good TED talk is the gwar one
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May 10, 2016 02:22
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You can tell John is getting serious when he calls somebody a "loving arsehole"
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May 10, 2016 10:28
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If you enjoyed the discussion about scientific reporting and accuracy then you could do a lot worse than get involved with your local skeptics group where we talk about this poo poo all the time.
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May 10, 2016 12:59
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thehustler posted:If you enjoyed the discussion about scientific reporting and accuracy then you could do a lot worse than get involved with your local skeptics group where we talk about this poo poo all the time. I have to admit, I'm not convinced that would be much fun. 
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May 11, 2016 00:01
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thehustler posted:If you enjoyed the discussion about scientific reporting and accuracy then you could do a lot worse than get involved with your local skeptics group where we talk about this poo poo all the time. Yeah, but then you have to meet the kind of people who get involved in any sort of organized skepticism. And that can be kind of a crapshoot.
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May 11, 2016 02:11
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thehustler posted:If you enjoyed the discussion about scientific reporting and accuracy then you could do a lot worse than get involved with your local skeptics group where we talk about this poo poo all the time. I'm really not sure you could do much worse.
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May 11, 2016 02:30
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I'm about as anti-pseudoscience as the next goon, but I did notice there's a weird strand of the pro-science crowd that gets really angry at any form of popular science. Like, they hate the "I loving love science" Facebook page because REASONS and some of them even hate NDT and Bill Nye too because they're popular science communicators loved by normals. These people are the types who are big on geek gatekeeping; I'll avoid the obvious comparison.
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May 11, 2016 02:34
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I don't like NDT because his public persona seems kind of douchey VS Sagan, who he's frequently compared with
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May 11, 2016 03:58
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Echo Chamber posted:I'm about as anti-pseudoscience as the next goon, but I did notice there's a weird strand of the pro-science crowd that gets really angry at any form of popular science. Like, they hate the "I loving love science" Facebook page because REASONS and some of them even hate NDT and Bill Nye too because they're popular science communicators loved by normals. These people are the types who are big on geek gatekeeping; I'll avoid the obvious comparison. To be fair, the IFLS facebook page isn't much different from the morning panel shows a lot of the time. They're just as guilty of breathlessly repeating press releases in a misleading fashion.
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May 11, 2016 05:07
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Echo Chamber posted:I'm about as anti-pseudoscience as the next goon, but I did notice there's a weird strand of the pro-science crowd that gets really angry at any form of popular science. Like, they hate the "I loving love science" Facebook page because REASONS and some of them even hate NDT and Bill Nye too because they're popular science communicators loved by normals. These people are the types who are big on geek gatekeeping; I'll avoid the obvious comparison. IFLS is terrible because it's supposed to be about how science is cool and interesting, but instead was taken over and is now just pseudo-science clickbait with things like monsters. It cheapens what science is. It's basically what happened to TLC, the History Channel, etc. The problem with a lot of popular science in general is that even if it's not straight up making things up, it totally overblows real results. It's good for research to get attention, but not when that attention is essentially a game of telephone and what a person hears from a supposedly reputable source like a magazine or reporter is not even related to the real study anymore. When you have a really big study that you want to get attention then in addition to getting it published, you may put out press releases. Those can get picked up and people will take a single line of it to mean something entirely different in their written article in a "popular science" type magazine, which then gets picked up by a regular news outlet, which then gets distorted even more by some morning news person. Then you have people calling you to talk about something your name is on that has nothing to do with work you may have spent years on. It can get a little frustrating.
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May 11, 2016 06:25
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Somebody I thought I respected shared that article about red wine and exercise earlier today.
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May 11, 2016 06:42
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The people who link IFLS pages on Facebook generally will say things like "Exactly people, this is why science is important" along with linking the article which tends to be nonsense clickbait about some bunk study that doesn't really prove anything because the rear end in a top hat linking the page didn't read anything beyond the headline. Bonus points because those same assholes also managed to link LWT's segment about why easy to swallow and inaccurate "pop science" bullshit is harmful. At best, things like morning talk shows and IFLS will generate some marginal amount of interest in any given subject, but at worst they are perpetuating fantasies and the people who are eating up that bullshit start repeating it without actually understanding anything about what is going on. Then you have other assholes who tend to try to quiz them on their knowledge and they are left with either admitting that they don't know or just bullshitting some more. So whenever you have some rear end in a top hat creationist saying that "science is just another religion that requires the same amount of faith", you have morning talk shows and dumb click bait articles to blame, because at this point they aren't entirely wrong given how some people treat something that is labeled as "science".
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May 11, 2016 07:14
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Zombies' Downfall posted:I don't like NDT because his public persona seems kind of douchey VS Sagan, who he's frequently compared with He's no Carl Sagan in personality, no. He's definitely got more of an everyman tone. As science gets more complex and theoretical though, isn't that the ideal spokesperson?
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May 11, 2016 08:19
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thehustler posted:If you enjoyed the discussion about scientific reporting and accuracy then you could do a lot worse than get involved with your local skeptics group where we talk about this poo poo all the time. The reactions to this post have been very skeptical.
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May 11, 2016 10:46
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Maybe I have more discerning friends, because the few IFLS links I tend to see are usually debunking the pseudo-science that you pick up on clickbait articles talking about one of these meaningless studies. Hell, I've seen more than a few IFLS articles spend time debunking anti-GMO, anti-vaccine, and pro-Dr. Oz nonsense. I'm not saying the other stuff doesn't exist. I just don't see it in my timeline.
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May 11, 2016 13:57
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thehustler posted:If you enjoyed the discussion about scientific reporting and accuracy then you could do a lot worse than get involved with your local skeptics group where we talk about this poo poo all the time. I tried looking into my local skeptics group once and they were much more about bashing religious people than anything else. I wish I lived in Ottawa. Echo Chamber posted:I'm about as anti-pseudoscience as the next goon, but I did notice there's a weird strand of the pro-science crowd that gets really angry at any form of popular science. Like, they hate the "I loving love science" Facebook page because REASONS and some of them even hate NDT and Bill Nye too because they're popular science communicators loved by normals. NDT and Bill Nye are both great people and educators themselves, but much of their fanbase are the kind of people that just share every random thing their idols say, or are false quoted to say, because it makes them feel smart. These are the people that believe and re-share anything with the words "a new scientific study" in them. It's like a religion for them; they show no signs of actual skepticism, even when calling themselves skeptics. I like to call them "Sciencists". Frankly, even people who are smart and skeptical can also be obnoxious when their goal in everything they share is to try to push "SEE HOW SMART I AM BECAUSE I GOT THIS MATH JOKE!" sort of crap all the time. Sometimes it isn't even so much that they're wrong, as that it's clear their whole goal is to try to look smart. Also, NDT has this weird halo effect where he's always doing things outside his realm of expertise, and for some reason people listen. Have you ever heard his podcast? He's.. not particularly smart when the conversation is about anything other than physics and astronomy.
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May 11, 2016 15:11
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Echo Chamber posted:I'm about as anti-pseudoscience as the next goon, but I did notice there's a weird strand of the pro-science crowd that gets really angry at any form of popular science. Like, they hate the "I loving love science" Facebook page because REASONS and some of them even hate NDT and Bill Nye too because they're popular science communicators loved by normals. These people are the types who are big on geek gatekeeping; I'll avoid the obvious comparison. this lines up with academics who refuse to engage with the public and break free from their disciplinary jargon. the excuse is that these popular commentators get things wrong or aren't as intelligent as people think (I mean see NDT talk about anything aside from astophysics, yeesh). But for disciplines deemed less necessary to society these days (most things in the humanities) I think that inclination is dying off because disciplinary boundaries are mostly dumb, anyway.
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May 11, 2016 15:38
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I don't listen to StarTalk or directly follow the IFLScience page, but I recognize them as the unofficial cultural and political support system for the public's understanding of science, against all the anti-science and pseudo science rhetoric out there. IFLS can get sloppy at times with its sensationalism, but I have science friends who seriously equate it with anti-GMO and anti-vax and whatnot. (When in reality, I get the "geeks who hate Big Bang Theory" vibe from its haters.) I guess this kind of backlash is inevitable because it's a field traditionally occupied by nerds who are quite territorial.
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May 11, 2016 15:54
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Ali Aces posted:Also, NDT has this weird halo effect where he's always doing things outside his realm of expertise, and for some reason people listen. Have you ever heard his podcast? He's.. not particularly smart when the conversation is about anything other than physics and astronomy.
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May 12, 2016 08:15
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Woebin posted:Maybe I've just made lucky choices in which StarTalk episodes to listen to, but I've generally gotten the impression that NDT is aware that his field is what he's best at and usually has guests who know better on other subjects. Yeah, the specific ep I was thinking of was with Kristen Schall talking about her Sexy Sex book which I realized after posting was like 6 years ago. The show's likely developed some since then.
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May 13, 2016 08:45
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Today I learned that 911 is a legitimate joke. I also learned that Duran Duran once covered Public Enemy's 911 Is A Joke.
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May 16, 2016 06:47
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Now is a good time for my PSA about 911 and phones. No matter where you live, but especially if you live in an apartment building, spend the ten bucks to by a landline phone. Even if you don't have service, almost all states require 911 access to be free for any phone plugged into a jack. Also, they are easily identifiable for locations. If you live alone and start choking on food or can't talk, just pick up the phone, dial 911 and start breaking dishes. That is the code for I can't talk and need help now. The point is for 10 bucks, you can avoid a lot of the pitfalls you saw on that segment.
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May 17, 2016 05:17
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Interesting topic but the "if dominos can know where I am 911 should" is a bit like "if we can put a man on the moon we should be able to..." That they lambasted a few weeks ago. The dominos app works because you are using an app to send them data derived from multiple sources such as a predefined address in your account profile, or granted access to the location services on the phone which gets sent over the Internet to dominos using your phone's data plan. 911 doesn't go over a phone's data plan. It's a phone call and no cell phone network uses location as a piece of metadata that gets attached to the act of a phone call. I'm not saying that something shouldn't be done to bring the two systems closer together in terms of functional similarity, but right now their operational similarity is miles apart and shouldn't be expected to simply work the same way. Replacing (or enhancing) 911 with an app or mobile website is a major undertaking since there's 5000 different systems in the country that will all need to expect this kind of connection. Right now cell towers simply direct 911 calls to the closest 911 service center. With an app/data approach those connections are going to have to go to a central routing facility first to determine which of the 5000 service centers to send that data to, and either all 5000 service centers are going to have to get the same computer systems to be able to handle the requests or the routing facility is going to have to be able to translate the data into a format each disparate system understands. Then there's people who don't have data plans. Or phones capable of sending and receiving data. Or phones capable of running apps. It's a problem worth tackling but it's not as simple as the show made it sound, and saying "if I can order pizza with an app, 911 should know where I am" is at best ill informed and at worst, disingenuous.
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May 17, 2016 13:25
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GutBomb posted:It's a problem worth tackling but it's not as simple as the show made it sound, and saying "if I can order pizza with an app, 911 should know where I am" is at best ill informed and at worst, disingenuous. I agree that it's an oversimplification of the issue, but I don't think it's as bad as the old "if we can put a man on the moon we can do X!" - the point about the pizza delivery thing is that we know this technology already exists and is widely available - so why are emergency services so behind? If anything they should have been the FIRST to adopt that kind of system. Of course the answer is clearly that they don't have enough money, which is not surprising. It seems like this issue is very similar to the infrastructure one a while back where a problem exists but the government doesn't want to pay the cost to fix it, because it's the kind of problem where the fix is invisible; if you do it right, things continue to work as people expect them to.
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May 17, 2016 15:36
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GutBomb posted:It's a problem worth tackling but it's not as simple as the show made it sound, and saying "if I can order pizza with an app, 911 should know where I am" is at best ill informed and at worst, disingenuous.
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May 17, 2016 16:42
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I think another part of the problem is that the people in charge don't really understand that the technology is out there, what it can do, and why it must be done. The first thing to remember is that old people are in charge of poo poo. Old people. As in, people who are old. So when judging their performance and trying to figure out why they're not solving the problems as we see them, try to see the world through the cataract-laden eyes of an old fart. See, as it goes to infrastructure... well, old people get that. They know potholes. They understand crumbling bridges. The problem they have with fixing all that stuff is simple: people hate taxes, and with revenues down, governments have to get money for important services from somewhere... and when it's down to paying teachers, the general thought is that the road is good enough for now. Now, as to deploying a 911 system that can track a cell phone's location using GPS or network locator algorithms... well, here's the thing. First, it's expensive as gently caress. But it's 911, so isn't that a priority? Old people get priority and they certainly should understand the need of getting emergency medical or fire or police assistance. But, they don't understand just how ubiquitous cell phone usage is. Not even the ones with smartphones themselves. Combine that with "hey, it's working now, isn't it?", and it's easy to see why this isn't a priority: ignorance. They probably honestly believe that most calls come from land lines, and that calls made away from home are being made by people who will guide first responders to the location like in a TV show or something. I'll even wager that many of them have seen too many episodes of Law and Order: Crime Scene Investigation and think that we already have this ability somehow. (And I agree: we should have land lines if possible. I have one through my cable company, but I was thinking of seeing if I can get POP service from a local phone carrier. We have cell phones, but I like having a land phone, and if it's from the phone company, then it tends to still work fine when the power goes out--which my cable company phone won't do unless I can power the phone modem. Which I can't.)
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May 17, 2016 16:44
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