Delicious LiveJournal Links for 1-18-2009

[andrewducker]

• The Stark, Existential Horror of Tarot #53
  A review of what is possibly the worst comic ever created.
  (tags: funny review comic)
• Anand Agarawala demos his BumpTop desktop
  And makes it _really_ obvious that it's about 20% as usable as either the Windows or Mac interfaces...
  (tags: technology video gui ui interface)
• Explaining to Eliza that her creator is dead
  Eliza being one of the earliest examples of "conversational" software.
  (tags: psychology technology intelligence emotion AI obituary eliza)
• The survival of US Airways flight 1549 is not a miracle - it's someone's _job_
  Sully Sullenberger didn't leave it up to God whether his passengers were going to live or die. He spent a large percentage of his professional life taking time out to practice in simulation how to land a commercial jetliner without engines. When he decided that wasn't enough, he then went on to make a professional study, on his own time, of commercial aviation safety, so much so that telling other people what he learned from studying it turned into a second job for him. And (more goosebumps again) he decided, years ago?, that that wasn't enough margin for safety for him, so he went on to learn to become a certified glider pilot. Nor should you call it a "miracle" that US Airways flight 1549 had someone like Sully Sullenberger at the helm, because that's what commercial aviation is like.
  (tags: religion work jobs flight airplanes)
• Mah Fellah Amercans
  The truth about George Bush
  (tags: funny usa politics comic)
• 22-Year-Old Sells Virginity Online -- and Feds Can't Do a Thing to Stop Her
  I am _very_ amused.
  (tags: usa sex prostitution)
• Ever Wondered What Ant's Nest looks like?
  Astounding view of an African nest - the thing's fucking _huge_.
  (tags: video nature insects ants)

Comments

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

There's a reason they called everyone that pitched into save those people heroes. It's because they were.

But given how bad things could've gone independently of what we could do to control it? I'm finding Brad's article a poor game of irrationally emotional semantics.

[andrewducker]

Brad calls them heroes too. He's objecting to people calling their survival a miracle. Very different.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Yes he does, but that's also why I separated my comment into two points. Independent of them being heroes, they still could've lost any number of those people. I don't think calling it a miracle is far off the mark or even a bad thing.

Or, to put it another way, I used to occasionally get pissed when they called people heroes or said stuff was a miracle too. I got over that phase.

[andrewducker]

It wasn't caused by a supernatural event - ergo, not miraculous. Considering the number of people who believe in genuine miracles, I think that using the term to refer to "being lucky" is counterproductive.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

You are fortunate that you don't hear the dog-whistle overtone to "miracle" that Brad does, seeing that he lives on the fringes of Jesusland. I think he is (and, given what I've read about circumstances there, I am as well) very much concerned about the attitude that lead to New Orleans' destruction.

-- Steve notes that "miracle" connotes to a happening beyond human control, and THAT is what Brad is objecting too. There was some luck over the Hudson that day, but the results of that landing were very much borne of human practice.

PS: I think the best lesson we can take from that crash is, "Chance favours the prepared mind;" that's something you don't get from calling it a miracle.