Nicholsclan.com : a dimension of mind...

Paging Dr. Freud... Dr. Sigmund Freud

I woke up this morning with a quite vivid memory of a dream still in my head. I'm not too sure what to make of it. Armchair psychoanalysis is welcome.

In the dream, a large chunk of hair fell off the back of my head onto my pillow. However, it wasn't real hair, it was that fake polyester doll hair. Further, when examining the bald spot on the back of my head, it became apparent that it was not scalp under the hair back there. Instead, several more chunks of doll hair were adhered to a plastic panel on the back of my head where my skull should be. My face, and the hair on the front of my head were normal, but the back of my head had been replaced.

I was incredulous. How could I have possibly not realized this sooner? How could my barber not have at least noticed that the hair was fake back there!! Then the plot thickened. My childhood barber, an ancient German man with a thick accent, named Otto, appeared on the scene. He was sporting glue, and a cordless screwdriver. He assured me this was all the result of an accident when I was a child, and that no one wanted to trouble me with the awful truth of how they rebuilt my skull. And he would take care of everything.

I sat in the barber chair and he proceeded to remove the fastening screws from the back panel of my head with the cordless tool. He then popped the back of my skull off rather like opening a TV for repair. I sat there calmly with my brain pan exposed while he re-glued the misbehaving hair chunks onto the flimsy plastic. He then deftly screwed the panel back in place, combed the hair all out and trimmed it a bit. Then he assured me all was well, and sent me on my way.

This is about when my alarm went off. Although rather than lingering and listening to the radio for the morning weather, as is my wont, I sat bolt upright, grabbed the back of my head and bolted for the bathroom mirror. For the life of me I can't find the exposed screws. But dammit, my hair hasn't felt right all day.

If You Don’t Love God, You Can’t Be Our President

The emerging 2008 presidential race has spawned a myriad of candidates spanning gender, racial, and religious lines. The question of whether or not you would vote for someone of a particular minority group has probably never been so relevant. However, a new Gallup Poll shows that on a whole we are becoming a reasonably tolerant populace. 94% would vote for a Black person, 88% for a woman, but only 57% for someone over 72 (sorry Mr. McCain). Note that at the absolute bottom of the list are atheists. Only 45% would vote for one, ranking atheists a full 10 points under homosexuals.

I've said before that atheists are a largely unrecognized oppressed minority, and this would seem to support that position. Regardless, the comparative ranking to other minorities is striking in a new way. What makes atheists so threatening? Is it simple ignorance? Maybe, but I suspect not. I think the difference is that all the minority categorizations on the list say something about the candidate, but only atheism says something about the voter.

If I'm a thrice divorced 75 year old Catholic Hispanic homosexual woman, those labels reflect something I am or choices I've made. They say nothing about you. By supporting me, there's no inherent admission (or even inclination) that your manhood, your Jewish faith, your stable marriage, or your Asian heritage are wrong. But I think atheism is different.

As an atheist, I can accept your belief in God. I may not believe that God actually exists in reality, but I can believe that the idea of God is very real to you. And further, that this belief is appropriate and healthy for you. Your belief is a good thing for you. I do not require that you be wrong or crazy to keep my world view in tact.

However, as a theist, it is not nearly so easy to reconcile atheism. Theology says that God does exist in a very real, albeit intangible, way. Further, most western theologies (especially Christianity) teach that those not of the faith are either unaware (in need of education and conversion) or oppositional (in need of being culled from the flock). So whom would a theist vote for, the ignoramus or the heretic?

I think other religions are easier for theists to accept than atheism. This is especially true among Christians, Jews, Mormons, and Muslims. They all share books of the bible, certain mythologies, many philosophies, the same God, and even some of the same prophets. They are flavor variations, more similar than not. But you can't stretch faith around atheism - pretty much by definition. Atheists may be unexposed to the Word, they may be wrong, misguided, or nuts. But they can't be right. Their position is definitionally untenable in the theistic world view.

I think it is this world view dichotomy which will make atheists one of the hardest minorities to accept. If I'm straight, it doesn't mean it's wrong for you to be gay. But if I'm a theist, it does make it wrong for you to be an atheist. I'm not sure how we get past that. To that end, I'll encourage any readers who are theists and who have come to a way to reconcile atheists without contradicting their faith to share that reasoning with the blog.

Evidence of Man's Domination of His World

I submit: The Beer Launching Fridge

Did You Miss Me??

We've been vacationing in Florida this week...

Vexation Without Representation

It never fails to amaze me how many people are willing to condemn things based on hearsay evidence. Now that the new Harry Potter book is imminent, I'm sure we'll see a lot of angst arising from folks who've never opened any of Rowling's books, but fear the story anyway.

In this particular case, the gentleman goes so far as to admit he's never actually seen or experienced Second Life, but the idea that people would spend real money on virtual clothes, houses, and other objects scares him. Ostensibly because there are real people who could benefit from that money having been spent to feed, clothe, and house them.

This guy is almost certainly a complete hypocrite. People in Second Life are spending money to entertain themselves. Buying a virtual ball gown is no more frivolous (or scary) than buying a new outfit for your Build-a-Bear. Spending a few dollars on a skydiving kit in Second Life is no more wasteful than renting a DVD from Blockbuster on your way home from work. This guy's (probably unintentional) message is essentially that all income not directly required for your physical well being should be given to the less fortunate. Now, that's a noble message. A message Jesus himself would probably support. But it's also a financial state in which almost no one in the U.S. or Canada lives - most likely including Mr. Janz.

Smart Guys Date in Parallel

Maybe it's a good thing my kids don't date yet. I may need to find a new source for parental advice first. The trouble is, this is just so damn easy to explain!! If only you could breadboard your actual relationships. It would ease troubleshooting a great deal.

Cab Tab

I'm on a brief junket through Boston and Newark for a couple of days. I'm talking to all kinds of facinating people. I met the guy who produced Teen Wolf with Michael J Fox. He was a facinating man with tremendous insights into entertainment. He was teamed with an MIT professor who was surprisingly clueless. He had a ton of bright people working for him, but really didn't seem to know how anything worked.

I then went to meet with a bunch of Havard mathematicians. They understood how things worked that I didn't even know existed. My whole goal for the meeting was to ask just one question that didn't make me look like a total moron. They said they were impressed with my professionalism and intellect. However, they're hoping for funding so I expect they were just being nice. I felt like a moron.

Afterwards, my exhausted brain just wanted a quiet dinner and an early bedtime. The hotel eatery looked a little lame, so I thought I'd opt for an Applebees about 6 miles away. A quick cab ride, a familiar meal, then back to the room. However, after discovering that the roundtrip cab ride was $70, the hotel food stared to sound a lot better. Talk about highway robbery!

Then finally I met some not so famous guys who had the coolest tech of all. It's good to be a geek. And it's good to be home before the snow hits.

Baby, You Stimulate My Nucleus Accumbens

Science comes the the rescue again. Those wacky Scots have devised a mathematical formula for the Beer Goggle effect. The trouble is, when you're drinking, you can't do the math.

You Gotta Love Science

Finally, something I do naturally turns out to have a positive side. Berkeley researches have concluded that male sweat causes female hormones to rise. Now the answer to, "Ew! you need a shower," is "Hey baby, just tryin' to turn you on."

...or maybe not.

Fifteen geek movies to see before you die

Geeks and movies go together quite nicely. This guy (a former movie critic and current self-avowed tech geek) has been thinking about films that reflect tech and geek culture, and has pulled together a list of 15 movies that should probably be on any geek's must-see list. Fortunately, there's one on the list I haven't seen. So I must not be a geek.

Fun With Numbers

I bought some shares of stock a couple of days ago, and in an uncharacteristic stroke of good luck, the stock has jumped up over 1% in value each of the two days since. Which in actual value means I'm up about $150. And I'm pretty sure that anomaly will correct itself soon.

But in the mean time I'm enjoying looking at my investment tracker. There is a column which shows your annualized gain. Currently it assumes that the investment will continue to grow at this unrealistic rate, yielding an annualized growth of 17,808% A fantasy to be sure. But a fun number to look at. Woo Hoo!!

Weather Weenies

What happened to our tough northern constitutions?? For cryin' in your beer. It was cold today. So suddenly all the schools closed??

Now I hate to begrudge my kids a day off, but am I the only one that saw irony in it? My kids have the day off because it was too cold to go outside, so they spend most of the day outside playing in the snow. And it wasn't just my kids either. The neighborhood was full of kids outside today.

Suck it up guys. It gets cold here. It snows here. Maybe for only a few more years if Al Gore is right. You can deal with a little adversity. It builds character.

Not Your Father's Oldsmobile

Kodak has launched it's ink jet killer (finally). It's a printer that uses ink that's 50% the price of other ink jet printers. This should spawn some interesting reactions in the market. Personally, I think it's going to trigger a price war. But it will be nice for Kodak to not be the one reacting to the price war for a change.

However, the really interesting development is the edgy marketing approach. This is not typical Kodak. It's goofy, irreverent, and exhibits a refreshing attitude that may (hopefully) be the new Kodak.

See it here: http://inkisit.com/

A Sad Day in Texas

One of the best things ever to come out of Texas was Molly Ivins. Her rapier wit and insight as a columnist will be missed by most everyone, except perhaps the man she called "Shrub" (GW Bush). Molly has lost her battle with cancer, yet her words will live on through the memories of those of us who loved to read her.