gdp's Comments

Macleans.ca : The Oda ado: overblown?

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:06:01 +0000

Agreed.

Macleans.ca : The Oda ado: overblown?

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:05:22 +0000

What I am saying--what I think I have been very careful to say--is that the responsibility is hers, whoever wrote "NOT". So, no, there's no "Don Corleone" question and your point is off target. The question is whether any wrong was done at all in the writing of the "NOT". If it was substantially wrong to do so, she is responsible, period. As minister she is arguably responsible even if she didn't know it was done!

Macleans.ca : The Oda ado: overblown?

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:03:24 +0000

She could have actually approved the funding, changed her mind after the document left her desk, and phoned somebody to order it changed. But it IS true that if she personally wrote the "NOT", she has been lying to Parliament; and on that score I am not an advocate of mercy. If she is guilty I am happy to help build the gibbet.

Macleans.ca : The Oda ado: overblown?

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:58:23 +0000

If people perceive me as fulfilling that function, I'm completely happy with it.

Macleans.ca : Pull the other one, Pullman

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 05:28:26 +0000

Why would you assume someone was "making up stuff" instead of just making a math error? I suppose I should be pleased by the presumption of wickedness instead of stupidity (the actual source of the problem).

Macleans.ca : Pull the other one, Pullman

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 23:56:27 +0000

Sure, I only meant to specify that he doesn't flog Labour in this particular speech.

Macleans.ca : Pull the other one, Pullman

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:19:45 +0000

Right, I'd obviously dislike Pullman because he's an atheist. Are you quite sure you're careful enough about the whole "Knowing what the hell you're talking about" thing? http://richarddawkins.net/articles/571

Macleans.ca : Spidenfreude

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:33:04 +0000

"People have been flying in the theatre for over 100 years"? Accurate, but I'd have gone with "2,500". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechane

Macleans.ca : How gassy

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:41:31 +0000

Yes. It is a problem "then" in some hypothetical nightmare future where gas drilling turns the world into a reeking thirsty wasteland of spontaneously exploding farmhouses. (You can't believe I'M serious?)

Macleans.ca : Where are they now?

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:07:48 +0000

Yes, it certainly would be surprising...if either man were in fact American. Velshi's from Toronto and Anglin is a Montrealer.

Macleans.ca : How gassy

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:16:20 +0000

Even in the absence of any good evidence for harm? Well, that's settled then.

Macleans.ca : How gassy

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:18:43 +0000

Really? You guys are freaked out and impressed by the old "I can light my water on fire" thing? It's pretty familiar if you actually live in "a gasland". I see the director of the movie admits that the methane doesn't affect the quality or the safety of the water, but he apparently proposes that it could explode or fatally poison the occupants of a home. Which would certainly be a cause for concern if it had ever actually happened...

Macleans.ca : That non-weapon sure is pointy

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:43:23 +0000

I didn't suggest that security agents and their rulemakers can't make a practical distinction between knives and guns. Merely that there's not much of a moral one.

Macleans.ca : Pointed comments on the kirpan: "above all a religious symbol"

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:53:12 +0000

The scare-quotes around the ontological jargon give the game away, I'm afraid. "Take out the metal detectors, boys, we're installing the 'essence scanners' today."

Macleans.ca : I'll take "Cheap Publicity Stunts" for $1,000, Alex

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:34:20 +0000

By "the naive expectations of science fiction" I presume you mean "the naive expectations deliberately created by IBM promotional materials and employees".

Macleans.ca : I'll take "Cheap Publicity Stunts" for $1,000, Alex

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:07:34 +0000

No. You need to make a case that doesn't depend on repeating the same mantra decade after decade. It's been forty, in some cases fifty years since people started saying "AI is inevitable, resistance is useless". Model after model has been discarded. I'm not a technological pessimist by nature but I AM GETTING OLD; rhetoric like yours is beginning to sound a little street-corner-preachery.

Macleans.ca : I'll take "Cheap Publicity Stunts" for $1,000, Alex

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:05:47 +0000

"Linguistic programming involves just a search of keywords through a database" is not what I wrote. Defiantly or otherwise.

Macleans.ca : I'll take "Cheap Publicity Stunts" for $1,000, Alex

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 23:30:02 +0000

10 PRINT "U OBV1OUSLY KNOW NOTH1NG OF C0MPUT0RZ" 20 GOTO 10

Macleans.ca : A prediction for 2012

Wed, 5 Jan 2011 18:17:26 +0000

Is the prediction that Rubio will actually be #2 on the ticket, or is it that everybody's #2 is obviously the most logical #1?

Macleans.ca : Statistical sour grapes

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:32:04 +0000

I completely stand by my characterization of that answer.