NBC gives the fraud Uri Geller his own TV show
It’s a double whammy coming to NBC – reality TV and the pseudoscientific fraud of Uri Geller come together in a new show Phenomenon.
Geller is nothing more than a third-rate magician who, unlike most magicians, claims he has some sort of actual powers. His fraudulent act was exposed on the Tonight Show, and it’s a thing of beauty:
Another l lame “worst things about Macs” list.
The Worst Thing about Macs. Here we go again. Another clueless list of what is bad about Macs. Are there bad things about Macs? Yes. Does this list make any sense? No.
Microsoft Just Copies Everyone and Buys Everything. The author claims that Apple copies people and buys things. The favorite example of this is the whole Dashboard stole Konfabulator’s idea bit. Daring Fireball thoroughly debunked this idea in 2004. A little thing called Desk Accessories predated either of them. Yeah Apple bought Cover Flow, and they bought iTunes too. Anyway, David Pogue “proves” that Vista didn’t steal from OS X in this satirical video.
Every time someone mentions a competitor to something Apple does well, the Mac cultists flood message boards and inboxes with snickering messages to the effect of “why do they even try?”. Well, he’s invoking Artie Macstrawman. The Zunes are pretty underwhelming, as they basically match the iPods at best, and certainly don’t go above and beyond them. I would love to see a legitimate iPod competitor, but these aren’t them. Pointing out that the Zunes offer pretty much nothing distinguishing is hardly “cultist” behavior. He also could cite an actual “cultist” but he prefers his strawman.
Apple fans have an attitude where, when Apple does something bad, it’s okay, or at least understandable. More strawmen – “Apple fans.” Who are these people, exactly? Anyway, he rambles on about 3rd party apps on the iPhone and that because MacOS X only runs on Macs somehow this is the same as the Windows “monopoly.” Little difference here – Apple makes all their computers, Microsoft doesn’t own Dell, HP, etc. Nor has anyone accused Apple of using their OS “monopoly” to stifle application development. Yet anyway. If you want a phone that allows 3rd party apps, go use a Windows Mobile phone – go nuts. At the moment, that’s not who the iPhone is targeting.
I myself, do get annoyed when people blame Apple for DRM (which is the music industry’s idea), or for breaking sim unlocked iPhones (um, you thought hacking the SIM card somehow obligated Apple to support your hack?).
Anyway, I have detailed some actual lame things about Apple before, the last time some dumb list like this was published. Quicktime Pro, the “black paint tax” on Macbooks, .Mac, etc.
Slate embraces pseudoscience
Check out this drivel from Slate. They actually wanted to get a graphology “expert” to analyze Clinton’s handwriting for personality.
Apparently Slate is unaware that graphology is a well-documented pseudoscience. I’m looking forward to see an astrological chart on John McCain or perhaps Mitt Romney’s biorhythms? Why not get a palm reader out too? Let no psesudoscience go unused.
Update I’m told this post was supposed to be in jest – I’m a little touchy about pseudoscience, I guess.
