Thursday, 26-Nov-09 22:59
Just sayin'

Just out of curiosity, I went through Helsingin Sanomat discussion board and picked a news item about how much the fight against the climate change is expected to cost per person. Of course, the discussion board was flooded with discussion on whether climate change is real, and how it's actually a green conspiracy rivaling nazism, aiming to create a new world order.

So I spent an hour and I went through each comment, and noted how many typos or grammatical errors they had, and put them in three bins: Sceptics, Defenders and Others. Factual errors or hard-to-understand sentences were not counted - only real grammar errors. Quotations were also not examined, because the errors in them would be the fault of someone else.

"Sceptics" are the people who don't believe there is anthropogenic climate change. "Defenders" were people who believed it is true. "Others" were people who were mostly just complaining about the price, saying things like "we should really make sure our war veterans are taken care of first" (neither confirming nor denying), or just so unclear it was impossible to say whether they were for or against.

As you can see, the sceptics had over 3 grammar errors/typos per comment, whereas the defenders only had an average of 1.13. Others were in the middle with 1.71 errors/comment.

While the sampling is a bit small to draw any real conclusions, the result does not exactly weaken the image of climate sceptics as uneducated people who spew thousands of comments online with their mouths foaming.

(However, it was interesting to note that the same error patterns seemed to occur even in posts by different aliases. So I suspect that some people are using multiple aliases to create the appearance that there is bigger consensus. Which would be quite normal online, and is one of the reasons why feedback should be always taken with a grain of salt. Also, thanks to Muprhy's law, it's almost certain this particular blog entry is teeming with grammar errors. Then again, English is not my native language. So there. Besides, I think my brain is bleeding internally after reading through all those comments.)

Friday, 20-Nov-09 23:44
Triage

I've been doing triage on stuff found from my cupboards. Here's the stuff which I think might still be usable to people, so let me know if you need any of this stuff before I drag it to recycling.


I've got the following stuff to share for the price of postage (or you can pick it up or suggest a meeting in Helsinki area):
  • Apple iPod/iPhone Firewire wall charger (needs Firewire cable)
  • Apple laptop US adapter cord (from transformer to wall) [reserved]
  • Apple EU adapter plug for laptop
  • Bluegiga WRAP Multiradio Access Server
  • 2x256 MB DDR2 SO-DIMM 667 MHz
  • 2xNokia ACP-12E charger
  • 2xNokia ACP-8E charger
  • Nokia ACP-9E charger
  • Composite video and stereo audio to EuroAV/SCART converter
  • ADSL adapter for phone line
  • Amiga A520 TV adapter
  • Apple iBook/Powerbook 45W power adapter (not magsafe)
  • Retractable phone cable (e.g. for travel modems)
  • DLink AirPlus DWL-650+ WLAN adapter for PCMCIA slots [reserved]
  • TRENDnet TEW-429UB USB Hotspot Finder/WLAN card (802.11b/g)
  • Cables. All kinds of cables. Ask.

Following stuff is also available, but you need to make me an offer

  • Canon Wordtank Intelligent Dictionary IDX-9500 (Japanese/English) [reserved]
  • Psion Siena 512 MB personal organizer (good condition) [reserved]
  • Psion 3MX (display broken) + 2MB SSD + Scrabble. Usable as spare parts.

Friday, 13-Nov-09 00:25
class Son<?> extends Father<?>

My parents got us a present for the naming day of our son. It was a photoframe, engraved with his birthdate - the exact same kind of a photoframe that they had for me. They also gave me that photoframe, so we could put them side by side and display them proudly in our livingroom.

The thing is, the photoframe had a stock image of a generic baby, not a picture of our son, 'cos we hadn't found a good picture yet. The frame looked nice, so we put it next to the telly, and kind of forgot about it.

What was fun that every single person who saw that frame afterwards commented on how much the boy looks like me. Nobody stopped to consider that the boy in the picture looked nothing like the entity crawling on the floor. So we had to take the picture out so as not to confuse people.

Our expectations colour our perception.

(That, or I look like a generic baby.)


Private comments? Drop me an email. Or complain in a nearby pub - that'll help.



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"Main" last changed on 10-Aug-2015 21:44:03 EEST by JanneJalkanen.