Plato and the Pythagorians advocated a mind/body distinction in terms of the supernatural and natural. At the time this ideology helped justify slavery because a slave’s caged body had a free mind that would later rest in an afterlife; after the slave owners were done with the slave’s body. The idea of a distinction between the mind and body has powerful implications for what we will tolerate within our lives.

We now know through modern research that disabling parts of the brain can affect the mind and its personality. Those with brain damage can have different personalities, and this effect can last for life. A person could live for one half of their life with one personality and then — through brain injury — live the other half with a very different personality. The concept of one essential personality is false. The idea of ghosts or souls that survive death of the body must be reconciled with the dozens of personalities that we can induce in the body’s brain.

When children are treated poorly they often react against the person, showing some simple forms of reciprocal altruism (be nice to others until they’re not nice to you). One evolutionary explanation for this behaviour is The Selfish Gene which is about how kindness is a product of selfishly taking care of others in your gene pool, as shown in this YouTube video:

This basic tit-for-tat altruism involves getting payback for kind deeds, however when the payback is in the form of supernatural rewards the question is whether there is any payback. Our innate reciprocal altruism can be co-opted by the promise of supernatural rewards that are inherently unknowable. It’s as if you lent money to a friend who promises they’ll pay it back in an afterlife.

The ideology that Plato and the Pythagorians advocated is still with us and, I think, it’s a foolish wager to make.

A fascinating transcript of a trial in which biochemistry professor Michael Behe is called to testify about a Creationist idea called Irreducible Complexity: the suggestion that some things in nature are too complex to have evolved from simpler forms. Irreducible Complexity is positioned against Evolution.

Irredicible Complexity is little more than pointing out something unknown, and others have called it an “argument by lack of imagination”. Behe has given some specific examples including the eye (a mediocre piece of design in humans), and bacterial flagellum which is a simple biological motor.

Here’s the court testimony in which Behe undoes his own argument:

Q. Just for some more foundation. In the first paragraph, it says, Intelligent design’s leading scientist, Dr. Behe, a professor of biochemistry, visited the U, which I understand to be the University of Minnesota, last week as a guest of the McLauren Institute, and that, in fact, did occur?

A. Yes, I visited Minnesota as a guest of the McLauren Institute.

Q. And if you could turn to the third page of the document. And there’s some discussion on that third page about the bacterial flagellum and the type III secretory system?

A. Yes.

Q. And Mr. Kurzinger makes his own observation about the type III secretory system being a subset of the bacterial flagellum?

A. I’m sorry. Could you say that again?

Q. In the paragraph that begins, much to Dr. Behe’s distress –

MR. MUISE: Objection, Your Honor, that’s hearsay. He’s pointing to a paragraph for the truth of what’s in the statement.

THE COURT: Well, it’s sustained to the extent that you’re going to read it. He can read it and put it into context.

BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:

Q. Could you read the paragraph that says, much to Dr. Behe’s distress?

A. Out loud, or –

Q. Please.

A. Okay. This paragraph says, Much to Dr. Behe’s distress, the TTSS is a subset of the bacterial flagellum. That’s right, a part of the supposedly irreducible bacterial outboard motor has a biological function.

Q. And I’m not going to ask you about whether you were distressed or not. But the next paragraph then says that he asked you about this at lunch, correct?

A. That’s what it says, yes.

Q. And you did have lunch that day?

A. We had lunch, and I recall a conversation about this, but again, I don’t recall many details.

Q. Okay. And according to Dr. Kurzinger, you acknowledged that the claim that –

MR. MUISE: Objection, Your Honor. He’s referring to an editorial, and he’s trying to recount this as an exact conversation. Dr. Behe doesn’t have recollection of what occurred. This article has no relevance.

THE COURT: The next paragraph starting with, when I asked Dr. Behe, I think, is where you’re going.

MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes.

THE COURT: Why don’t you go right to that, as it’s expressed there, instead of trying to paraphrase it.

BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:

Q. It says, When I asked Dr. Behe about this at lunch, he got a bit testy, but acknowledged that the claim is correct. Paren, I have witnesses. He added that the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex in the sense that the subset does not function as a flagellum.

My question here is, is Mr. — Dr. Kurzinger’s account that you agreed that the claim that the TTSS is a subset of the bacterial flagellum, did you agree to that?

A. I don’t recall, but I would, if I was going to answer it very carefully, I would make a lot of distinctions before saying so.

Q. Okay. But you don’t recall whether you said that or not?

A. No, I don’t.

Q. Okay. And then you go on to say that you still think — well, I’ll leave that. Your argument is that, even if the type III secretory system is a pre-cursor to the bacterial flagellum, is a subset, the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex because that subset does not function as a flagellum?

A. That’s correct, yes.

Q. And, therefore, the bacterial flagellum must have been intelligently designed?

A. Well, again, the argument is that, there is — that when you see a purposeful arrangement of parts, that bespeaks design, so, yes.

Q. And yesterday, you testified that, that doesn’t mean the bacterial flagellum was necessarily designed, appeared abruptly in one fell swoop, correct?

A. That’s correct.

Q. Could have been designed slowly?

A. That’s correct.

Q. So under this scenario, at some period of time, the bacterial flagellum wouldn’t have had all of its parts until the design was completed?

A. Could you say that one more time?

Q. Yeah. Under this scenario of slow design — which was what I experienced with my kitchen — at some period of time, the bacterial flagellum wouldn’t have had all its parts until the design was completed?

A. That’s right.

Q. And so without all its parts, it wouldn’t be functional?

A. That’s right. Not as a flagellum, yes.

Q. So that is a phenomenon in both intelligent design and natural selection?

A. I’m not quite sure what you mean.

Q. In slow design, the bacterial flagellum has some prior existence, it doesn’t have all its parts, right?

A. Well, if — until it has all its parts and it starts functioning, I guess it’s problematic to call it a flagellum.

Q. It has some subset?

A. I guess things that will eventually be part of the flagellum would begin to appear, yes.

Q. Just not function like a flagellum?

A. Yes, the system would not yet function as a flagellum.

Q. Just like has been suggested for natural selection?

A. I’m sorry.

Q. Just like has been suggested for natural selection?

A. I’m not quite sure what you mean.

Our submission’s introduction reads “Today, a large proportion of interactions with copyrighted material involves personal use through personal computers and devices with internet connections. It is fair to say that, in turn, a proportion of these interactions involve infringement of copyright. Understandably, there is much debate as to how to interact with the new paradigm of creation and distribution that the internet represents. Some have responded to this new digital era by seeking to extend the scope of copyright, and the methods of its enforcement, so that existing ways of creation and distribution are protected, if not privileged. We do not share this view.”

Download Submission

I was recently asked by a NZ primary school student to help explain evolution for a 5 minute presentation. Naturally I told them that I’m not qualified but I gave them some pointers to youtube videos about it, and I provided the following speech. I had to make some generalizations but I tried to be accurate and here’s what I sent her:

You might have heard people say you look like your parents.. perhaps you have your mother’s eyes, or father’s ears. When you were in your mother’s womb you grew your eyes and ears from a recipe called DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid, which tells bodies how to grow. DNA is a recipe for life, and all living things on earth use it to grow and reproduce. Trees have DNA and so do all animals. Human children are all the result of about 50% of our parents DNA with 100 to 200 mutations, which is why we look a bit like each of our parents. Because of your parents DNA and those 100-200 mutations your DNA is unique (unless you’ve got a twin).  Little bits of DNA is in all parts of our bodies.. in our blood, our muscles, and our hair. If a crime scene had DNA that was like yours but not quite the same then it would mean that the DNA was from someone in your family.

A poodle is a weird animal that didn’t exist 500 years ago. Dogs are domesticated wolves, and since people began breeding wolves we’ve been able to breed them into poodles, chihuahuas, and other hairy and hairless dogs. Someone trying to make a friendly dog would just breed friendly dogs together to get friendly dog DNA. Someone trying to make a small dog would breed the smallest dogs together to get small dog DNA. People breed dogs, horses, birds, and all kinds of plants. People breed all kinds of life on earth, and what they’re controlling is DNA. A scientist named Charles Darwin wondered if people could make such a massive change to dogs by breeding them then could nature do it too? In wild forests would weak animals get food, or would the strong get food? If there was a strong animal would it have more children? What Darwin discovered was that nature had a natural ability to breed… to naturally allow the smartest and strongest to survive. About 150 years ago he wrote a book that explained this and it was called “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”

What Darwin discovered is that just like dog breeders being able to encourage the growth of small dogs, nature had been breeding all life on earth for a long time. Dogs can be bred to the size of chihuahuas in a few hundred years, but nature had been doing it for millions of years. About 200,000 years ago there weren’t any people, but there were hairy apes. The weakest and dumbest apes didn’t have as many children as the strongest and smartest, and with those mutations that we talked about earlier those apes eventually became humans. Before apes were fish that breathed air called lung fish. and before that were fish in the water. Life keeps changing shape and adapting. So all life on earth is related in a big family tree that looks like this

This is called Evolution, which is a fact and a theory about how every life form is related and how different species of plants and animals arose. Although some people don’t believe in Evolution they have never been able to prove it wrong and infact Evolution has mountains worth of evidence.

The scammer, here known as FakeRose, wanted me to send $1000 to a London branch of Western Union because she said she was robbed at gunpoint. Here’s part of the chatlog….

FakeRose: hmmmm

Matthew: ok bron is here

FakeRose: ok
go now

Matthew: I haven’t seen her in ages
you’ll be glad to know she still has that damn fine ass

FakeRose: Can you go now?

Matthew: She’s getting my wheel chair ready
what a kind woman

FakeRose: ok

Matthew: and really, she’s got some child-bearing hips that can’t be beat
what do you think about bron?
honestly?

FakeRose: okay
Can you leave for the western union now?

Matthew: she’s okay?
I think she’s great
bron is wonderful
well what do you think of bron?

FakeRose: she is okay

Matthew: is that all?

FakeRose: aren’t going to the western union again?

Matthew: well I’m a bit worried that you just think that bron is okay
I thought you two were best of friends
what went wrong in your friendship?

FakeRose: Nothing

Matthew: then why do you think she’s okay?

FakeRose: Leave for the WU now

Matthew: I want to talk about you and Bron
you clearly have some issues
did Bron say something rude?

FakeRose: am freaked out here
not this day

Matthew: no. we must discuss this now

FakeRose: can you leave for the WU?

Matthew: we need to talk about you and bron first
what went wrong?
Are you ok?
ROSEANNA SKELETOR MCCOLL ARE YOU THERE?
(cruel parents to give you that middle name)

FakeRose: am here
am freaked out

Matthew: me too
what do you think of Bron though?

FakeRose: she is caring and kind
am getting frustrated here

Matthew: I agree. She is caring and kind.
thank for you saying that
…
and she has a slammin’ booty

[FakeRose has defriended you]

Over at PublicActa.org.nz Jon Penney has written an excellent article about how artistic remix rights (what under New Zealand law calls Fair Dealing defenses) are eroded by DRM. Digital Restrictions/Rights Management is like a brick wall in front of legally purchased content that attempts to block legal or illegal use of material. Penney writes,“ACTA may create substantive a new civil and criminal offence— and indirectly conferring new “access control” rights on copyright holders they do not current possess— despite its pretensions as an “enforcement only” treaty.  Indeed, even putting aside current New Zealand law, ACTA is supposedly limited to enforcing copyright and intellectual property, not technology measures or access control.”

UPDATE We have just returned from a MFAT/MED briefing on ACTA. CFF Director Bronwyn Holloway-Smith asked about the stakeholder meeting and whether it was about international or domestic stakeholders. It apparently is the case that certain NZ stakeholders will be invited to meet international delegates and other domestic stakeholders. This is the first time this has happened in ACTA negotiations. They hoped that it would set some precedent for stakeholder involvement in other countries.

Introducing…

A simple personal accounting system that I wrote over the holidays. It’s user-friendly, web-based, fast (AJAX), and free to download. Here’s how it works…

First you browse to the homepage and upload your bank account’s transaction CSV… Subaccounting will try to figure out the CSV columns itself

Then you browse into the bank account…

And here you make subaccounts and subtransactions within that account. A subaccount is a way of breaking up a bank account into areas for your savings, food, clothes, rent, etc. Each subaccount has it’s own balance so you can see whether you’ve spent too much on food.

Here’s how you add a new subaccount…

Type the name…

And then you add what’s called a subtransaction. A subtransaction is simply moving money between subaccounts (Eg, from savings to health).

So basically you describe your bank transactions by using subtransactions. In the following screenshot a purchase at Sweet Momma’s Kitchen comes out of the food subaccount, so we make a subtransaction for that amount.

Notice how in the following screenshot the red ‘equals’ sign went away because we resolved this transaction.

You can then browse to the food subaccount and see how you’re doing… not good it seems.

Important bits

• It supports backups and restorations via an XML export. Back up your data regularly.
• It only officially handles Kiwibank transactions although other banks will probably work. Use the CSV export and Subaccounting will try and determine the columns itself.
• It has no built-in security so be sure to secure the webserver directory yourself
• It’s released under the GPLv3.
• It may never be updated again.

Download Subaccounting 1.0.

It’s simple and fairly naive but here’s an OFX/OFC SGML to XML converter in PHP.

For immediate release The Creative Freedom Foundation welcome Minister Simon Power’s release of the replacement for Section 92A of the Copyright Act. CFF Director, Bronwyn Holloway-Smith states ”Earlier this year we came dangerously close to a Guilt Upon Accusation-style law but this new proposal steers well clear of that approach, respecting due process and the principle of being innocent until proven guilty by experts. While there are issues like internet termination and liability for malicious allegations we are optimistic that the government is on the right track to creating a great solution for NZ that supports both public and artistic rights.”

The previous law was called “draconian” by Prime Minister John Key before being scrapped in March this year pending a rewrite which has resulted in yesterdays’ proposal by Minister Simon Power.

Holloway-Smith further says “the internet is nothing more than the most efficient copying machine the world has ever known, surpassing earlier industrial copying machines which produced wax cylinders, paper piano rolls, vinyl records, and plastic compact discs. Our society has moved forward from regulating an industrial manufacturing process to trying to regulate what people do in the privacy of their own homes on personal computers. The public relations aspect to modern copyright law and maintaining public respect for artistic rights is crucial to encouraging the arts, and this proposal goes a long way toward that.”

“The proposal empowers the Copyright Tribunal to resolve disputes and issue financial penalties, with the harsh punishment of internet termination being reserved for a court process.“

“There are still issues to resolve but we look forward to the Select Committee process.”

ENDS

SEE ALSO Creative Freedom Foundation s92A proposal review

ABOUT THE CREATIVE FREEDOM FOUNDATION

The Creative Freedom Foundation is a not-for-profit trust representing 20,000 New Zealanders, including 10,000 artists (musicians, film makers, visual artists, designers, writers, & performers). The trust founded in 2008 in response to changes in copyright law and the effect these changes are having on creativity, the economy, and public rights. Through education and advocacy, the CFF seek to encourage, and promote New Zealand artist’s views on issues that have the potential to influence their collective creativity.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES

For more information please contact:
Bronwyn Holloway-Smith
Director, Creative Freedom Foundation
cff@holloway.co.nz
(+ 64) 021 107 5747

Minister Simon Power has released the design for revamped s92A a few minutes ago. The press release reads: “The Cabinet Paper that outlines the basis of new legislation, which will be introduced to Parliament early next year. This follows a review of section 92A of the Copyright Act 1994.

The new process is summarised as…

Right holders will be able to request that internet service providers (ISPs) give alleged infringers notice to stop infringing activity.

The first notice will inform the account holder that infringing has occurred and is illegal. Two further notices may be sent.

If infringing continues after three notices, the right holder may seek a penalty of up to $15,000 at the Copyright Tribunal. The amount will be based on the damage to the copyright owner.

Where serious and continued breaches occur, right holders will be able to go to court to seek a range of remedies, including the suspension of accounts for up to six months.

Account holders will be able to issue counter notices, and can request a hearing if they feel they should not be penalised.

The wording in the press release is a bit odd in that it mixes up alleged infringement with actual copyright infringement. We assume this is just a poor choice of language.

Further analysis to come but these are the main points.

• People are innocent until proven guilty either by the Copyright Tribunal or the courts.
• Termination can only be ordered by the courts, not the Copyright Tribunal
• No special sanctions on right holders for false or malicious allegations.
• Penalties of up to $15,000 may be awarded by the Copyright Tribunal. This is in keeping with the maximum of the Disputes Tribunal
• The courts have existing maximum fines that are already established under the Copyright Act.
• New definition for ISP that is less broad and excludes organisations such as businesses and universities. Too early to tell what this means for shared connections such as internet cafes, open WiFi, etc.
• It says “right holders will pay a fee per notice” although as regulations not set might be premature to read too much into that. This is as opposed to a process that allowed many notices on a flat-rate for rights-holders.
• No resolution to the overlap with s92C disputes. As outlined in our submission s92C lacks a counternotice procedure and due process. Further due to technology changes there may be no functional difference between an s92C or s92A dispute.
• A copy of the cabinet paper is available from the MED website