EKEN Power Bands = Another Crappy Scam

Check it out. These EKEN Power Bands are using the same nonsense as the Power Balance range of crappy products that I wrote about in one of my first posts.

What are they? Well they are just pieces of silicon fashioned into a bracelet that you can wear around your wrist. That's all. I'm sad to see that the Hurricanes are endorsing such rubbish. But perhaps thats why they are playing so shit this season. Coincidence?

It's all total a total scam. EKEN claims to use nano Frequency Infusion Technology (wtf?) to ensure that each  product receives a highly concentrated dose of the required frequencies (their words). I'm not making this up. Really look. This is a classic example of taking scientific sounding words and mashing them together to make it sound high tech and fancy.

So perhaps it is worth going through this a little. Especially since scamers seem to be using this word frequency a lot now. It's almost up there with quantum and energy in it's frequency (haha) of use in the pseudo-science scam marketplace. What is a frequency exactly? Frequency refers to the period of oscillation of an oscillating system. If there is nothing oscillating then there can be no frequency.
for example. The second hand on an analogue watch ticks with a frequency of 1 Hz. That means it moves once every second. The Rock radio station has a frequency of 96.5 kHz. That means that the electro magnetic radiation carrying the signal has a peak every 0.0000103 seconds. And that the electrons in the broadcast antenna producing that signal are oscillating at half that period.
The word frequency has no meaning unless it is applied to something oscillating. People do not have frequencies. Nature does not have a frequency and neither do holograms.

These crappy bands coat $90 if you buy them off the site. And they are sold in a lot of stores. Including Rebel Sport. If you really need a magical rubber bracelet to improve your whatever. Go buy, and wear, a rubber band. Or better yet get one of these! They are made in the same factory. Using the same process as the Power Balance bracelets (and maybe the EKEN bands too. I don't know).

Whenever some product is using the word frequency as part of it's marketing. Be Skeptical. This should raise a red flag. And then you can ask the right questions. What frequency? What's oscillating? What's the power source? ect. ect.  

 
        

Space X Heavy Lift Vehicle Coming

Space X has unveiled plans for a heavy lift rocket capable of carrying a 53,000 kg payload into low earth orbit. The Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful launch vehicle in current use when it is complete. Capable of carrying almost twice the payload of the space shuttle (Soon to be extinct) into low earth orbit. And able to carry reasonably weighty payloads out past escape velocity.

The entry of commercial operators into the space flight business is a good step forward. And Space X is a good candidate with a proven record. They have shown that they can be reliable and flexible to the changing needs of this developing industry. They have also demonstrated a good ability to learn from past errors and failures. And make the required adjustments with remarkable speed and efficiency. Something government based agencies are notoriously bad at.

The commercialisation of space flight is certainly the right way to go. Space X has already proven that commercial space flight companies can be more flexible, more efficient and thus drastically reduce the costs. This is a really good thing. One of the biggest barriers to the space industry is the enormous cost of lifting payloads into orbit. We have the technology ready to go. But until we can reduce those costs down to a reasonable level. Space travel on the scale we desire will continue to elude us. The best way to reduce those costs is to on space travel to commercial competition. This model has been proven successful in almost every comparable environment (the airline industry is a good example). I think once the costs are reduced to a level where orbital space tourism becomes viable, we will really see the industry really taking off (Haha). Space hotel anyone?

If we want to continue to explore space (and I think that we do). And if we want to someday return to the Moon, and then travel on to Mars. We must encourage the commercial space industry to continue to grow. And the best way to do this is for government based space agencies to contract with these companies to provide launch vehicle capacity. At least until space tourism is viable business.    
  

Natural Disasters and God

With all the recent focus on natural disasters and the terrible toll in human lives. I have an interesting question on my mind. That is how the do the devout masses reconcile their faith and belief in an interventionist deity with the toll in human lives and suffering?

Now in one sense this is an uninteresting question that can be simply dismissed with at few pithy words. Something along the lines of: "God works in mysterious ways". "His ways are not our ways". "We cannot know the mind or the plans of God". Et cetera, et cetera blah blah blah. But I think that these attempts at dismissing the question raise considerable problems of their own. And that there are yet other, more interesting insights that can be gained by addressing this idea.

(Also, I will use God/Deity in the following to refer to all interventionist deities. Not just the Judeo-Christian God.)

The first thing I want to look into is whether or not god is causing or allowing natural disasters to occur. On the one hand God may be actually causing natural disasters to happen. If this is the case then why? It could be that God is simply using natural disasters to kill people. Why would God do that? Because of some offence given? Then why kill indiscriminately? There are many other far more precise and targeted ways of killing people you don't like. Especially when you're omnipotent. If god is killing in such an indiscriminate fashion then surely God is not benevolent. One of the key properties of such deities.
Maybe God is not actually causing the natural disasters but simply allowing them to occur and not intervening. But then we have the same problem as above. If God is supposed to care. Why allow people of all kinds to die it such large numbers. If God can intervene and save us why does he not?
Perhaps he does not intervene because to do so would have consequences that could prove to be worse? No. That just doesn't make sense if God is omnipotent.
What if God is not causing the disasters but simply unable to prevent them from occurring. If this is the case then God is not omnipotent. Thus loosing another one of those key properties it is said to have.

So in essence. Either your God is a mean evil fucker who enjoys the inflicted suffering of his creations, or refuses to prevent it. Or it is a weak, impotent nothing that is unable to prevent the suffering.

Now I don't buy any of the rationalisations that attempt to resolve these problems while still maintaining an omnipotent and/or benevolent God. To wave the question away by saying that the mind of god it not to be known by us (or some equivalent). Is ridiculous and dishonest. These explanations are given by people who make it their lives work to understand and interpret the mind of God. Not only that but they have been doing it for a long, long time. Do they mean to tell us that a few thousand years (in some cases) of this pursuit has yielded nothing of any value? How can they say that God is this, that and the other and wants x, y and z from us. Then turn around and say we cannot understand what God wants or how God thinks?
To my mind, this kind of blatant dishonesty and upfront nonsense is an insult to any intelligent, thinking person.

Another thought I have is that any God that demands so much in the way of worship and obedience. And at the same time casually decides to exterminate hundreds of thousands of people in a single random stroke. Some of whom were no doubt devout followers. Is an irrational lunatic not deserving of a even the smallest amount of my energy or time.    

There is no God. Natural disasters and the devastation they bring are the result of physical forces naturally operating on and within our earth. Is it really so hard to believe that the universe in which we live is completely unconcerned about our existence. All the evidence points to this conclusion. I am perfectly happy with the reality of our situation. We are insignificant. Basically nothing in an unimaginably large expanse of nothing. It isn't necessary to derive meaning or purpose by the invention of a supernatural parental figure.
    

Jury Service.

I've just got back from the district court after attending a jury selection process. And I thought I would get down how it went, what was involved and my thoughts on the whole thing and jury service in general. All this while it's still nice and fresh in my mind (for whatever that's worth).

The Selection Process

I think I'll begin by describing the selection process as it went. So it starts with a letter summoning you to attend at the district court for jury service. At this stage you are invited to attempt to provide an excuse if you feel that you cannot attend for any reason. Acceptable reasons are things like; Work, family commitments, disability ect. If you cannot supply an excuse, or if your excuse is not accepted. Then you are required to attend the selection process.
The selection process begins with all those who turned up collecting in a large room. I would estimate there were probably somewhere between 150-200 of us present at this point. Then there is a video. The video was about how jury service is important and blah blah blah. And some things we needed to know about the process.
After the video there was the house keeping. This is the evacuation procedure, these people can help your out and so on. That was followed by an explanation of the process we were about to follow for the selection. And another video explaining that process in detail. Then it went as follows.
There was a ballot drawn for each of the two trials starting that morning. The ballots were drawn one after the other. The first for court room 9. The second for court room 4. As each persons name was drawn from the wooden box, they had to acknowledge by saying yes. My name was drawn for court room 9. There were 50 names drawn for each room.
At the conclusion of the draw. Those whose names had not bee drawn were dismissed for the day with instructions to check with the court after 6 pm that evening to see if they would be needed again.
After a brief break of about ten minutes or so. The group for court room 9 was ushered out of the jury selection room and up one level into court room 9. There we were all seated in the public gallery at the back of the court room. The Judge, counsel and court personnel had already taken their seats but the accused was absent.
The court was called to session and the accused was brought in. The charge was read and the accused was asked if they were guilty or not guilty. They pleaded not guilty. The judge then explained to us that the prosecution would read the names of the witnesses to be called and that we were to indicate if we knew any of them. We were also asked to indicate if we thought we could not be impartial, now that we knew the identity of the accused, the counsel and the nature of the charge. No one excused them self.
Then the draw for the jury began. Again names were drawn out of a wooden ballot box. As each name was drawn. That person was required to go and take a seat in the jury box. At this point the counsel for each side (defense or prosecution) could challenge the selection before the person took their seat. This simply involved them saying "challenge". At which point the unwanted juror would simply turn around and return to their seat.
So the draw started. Names were read out and people took their seats. The first challenge came from the defense and it was one I expected (more on that later). The second challenge also came from the defense but was not one I expected. The third and last challenge came from the prosecution and was against my selection (again, more later).
After the selection was complete the jurors were asked to take and oath or swear an affirmation (more later) that they would do their job properly. Then they retired to choose a foreman. The judge explained that some of the jury could still drop out at this point and so we were not yet dismissed. When the jury returned. We were dismissed with instructions to check back if we would be needed tomorrow.

My Thoughts on the Selection


So the first thing I have to say is that I was actually rather impressed with the speed and efficiency of the whole thing. I really did expect it to be far more time consuming. The room was perhaps a bit too small for the number of people and it became a little stuffy despite the air conditioning. This was bearable though as we were not in there for too long a time.
Any way thats just noise.
The two points I really want to get to are the challenges to the jury selection and the oath/affirmation required by the jurors.

  The oath/affirmation.

As each juror goes to take their seat in the jury box they are offered a bible by the court attendant. This can be declined, as was explained to us in the video, by a shake of the head or a gesture of the hand. It is weird that this is stilled practiced. I cannot understand the association between the christen religion and our justice system. New Zealand is a secular state and our laws should have absolutely no connection with religion. No matter how slight.
This connection is reinforced by the oath that is administered to the jurors. It reads:

"Members of the jury: Do each of you swear by Almighty God (or solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm) that you will try the case before you to the best of your ability and give your verdict according to the evidence?"    

Almighty god? What the hell? Even if you want to argue that this exists purely as a historical artifact and has no real connection to Christianity. I still think it's complete bullocks. Of the 12 jurors that I saw take the oath today only 6 took the offered bible. And the history argument just doesn't hold water. We don't maintain links to other areas of our law that we no longer accept as right. This is holding up Christianity as something special in our society. And that is simply not a reflection of who we are as New Zealanders. How about this.

"Members of the jury: Do each of you solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm, that you will try the case before you to the best of your ability and give your verdict according to the evidence?"

What's wrong with that? The jury promises to hear the evidence and base their decision accordingly. Not just good rules for a jury but a pretty good strategy for life!

  The challenge to selection.

So as I mentioned above. The final selection for the jury involves a ballot and then these can be challenged by the counsel for either side. This is called peremptory challenge. The information video we had been shown earlier explained that counsel can challenge for any reason they like. They just say. "Challenge".  And that person doesn't sit on the jury. What is the point of this? The video suggested that it may be done to get a better balance on the jury. Balance of what I ask? Gender, Age, Socioeconomic status? From the challenges I saw today this did not seem to be the case.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that the challenge affords the counsel an opportunity to exclude jurors that they think may not look favorably on their case. And by so doing. Give themselves a better opportunity to be successful.
The reason peremptory challenge exists is so that counsel can exclude people who they believe may have a bias in some direction. And this is supposed to ensure a decision that is more fair and acceptable to all involved.
I disagree with this. First. How can you tell from someones name and appearance (the only information the counsel has) that they have any kind of bias? Correction:They also have access to your age, address and whatever your occupation is as listed on the electoral roll. But the point still stands. You can't. At best your can make a rough probabilistic guess based on your experience. But this is going to clouded by your own biases.  
Second. The challenges can be used to move the jury away from a representative cross section of society. This could be done for any number of purposes. For example. A counsel may know that a mostly female jury is more likely to convict for rape. And so they may use their challenges to exclude men. Random selection would result in a more or less even and balanced representation most of the time. 
The challenges during todays session certainly contributed to the second of these two and highlighted the first.
The first challenge was against young pacific island man. I had been sitting near him earlier in the day and heard him talking to another person. He was in second year at university and studying business. But he was dressed like he was on his way to work at a construction site. His name was called and I immediately expected a challenge form the defense (of whom I had made my own judgement). Sure enough. The second the defense lawyer looked up and saw him the challenge was made. So the defense lawyer immediately judged this lad as someone unfavorable just on appearance.
The second challenge was a middle aged man. I did't expect this one and I don't know why the defense lawyer challenged him.
The third challenge was me. My name was called and I got up to take my seat. Right before I sat down I was challenged by the prosecution and I returned to my chair. I of course have no idea why my selection was challenged. The best I can come up with is because I'm young and male (The accused was young, female and not unattractive).

The jury ended up being mostly older with 8 women and 4 men. There was one person under 30. A young woman who I would guess to be early twenties. One guy I would guess is in his mid thirties. And the rest would be 50 or over I think. O. And all of European descent (aka white). Is this an accurate representation of our society? You would have a hard time convincing me of that.   

 Jury Service and the Jury System.    

I'm not opposed to the jury system and jury service. Although I am happy that I'm sitting at home blogging and not in a court room. But I think better results can be obtained from a system where the decision on guilt or innocence is made by professionals with the correct knowledge and training.
For example. As a skeptic. I am always amazed by the fallibility of the human memory and our capacity to reason and rationalise. The fact that eyewitness accounts make up the majority of the evidence in criminal cases is scary when you know just how bad our memories are. Memory is not a camera. It is faulty and does change overtime. A person trained in, and familiar with, the problems of human memory will have a much better chance of determining truth out of often conflicting accounts.
Where trials involve complicated forensic evidence. It can devolve into a case of which expert do you believe more. What is needed in these cases is an understanding of the scientific process in order to evaluate the relevance and strength of the evidence presented.
I think that a panel of judges, trained in the intricacies of evidence and law. Have a far better chance of coming to the correct conclusions of a persons guilt or innocence.

I know that the trial by jury is of huge historical importance. And that it is considered by many to be a fundamental right of any citizen in a free democracy. You only have to look at the example of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (among many, many others) to see what happens when the justice system loses it's transparency, accountability and independence. But we can have these things and still have a system that provides for the best possible way of determining the truth.

I'm suggest that we follow the evidence. Does trial by jury give the best possible success rate for convicting the guilty and setting the innocent free?  
        

Sniffer Dogs Led Astray By Their Handlers

It's a familiar site at any international Airport. Working dogs and their handlers busy about the place sniffing this and that in a constant search for prohibited substances. But a new study by researches at the University of California at Davis has found evidence that these dogs may be influenced by their handlers. When it comes to sniffing out the goods. The behavior of the handler, conscious or otherwise, may be having an effect on the dogs detection rates.

In this study. 18 dog/handler teams were studied under test conditions. Decoy scents were planted to test the influence of these distractions on the dogs. And the handlers were told that a paper marker would show the location of a target scent. There was no target scent present in the testing. So any alert on the part of the dog/handler team was a false positive.

What they found was that there were more alerts in the test scenarios where the handler was told of the location of a target scent. And that in fact the handler reported more alerts around the location indicated by the marker. So it was clear that the handlers expectation that a scent was present had an influence on the dog.

What I find interesting is the number of alerts in total. 225. This seems like an awful lot of false positives.
Also the tests were not recorded on video. So the effect of the handlers bias, leading them to incorrectly interpret the dogs actions as an alert, cannot be fully ruled out.

I would really like to see this experiment repeated with a larger sample size, closer scrutiny of the participants and the introduction of actual target scents. It would then be interesting to see if the handlers, or dogs, could be fooled into missing the target scents and giving a false alert. For example the handler may be told of the false location of the target scent and see if the dog can identify the correct location.

Though maybe that would be a bit hard on the poor subject team. Interesting tho.

Maori Elder "Sees" the Destruction of Wellington

Maori Elder, Keri Tia Toa, has used a speech this morning at the Waitangi treaty grounds to share his vision of the destruction of Wellington by devastating earthquake.

You can listen to his tale here. 

This is bizarre to say the least. I mean consider the context. A morning prayer session during what is a reflection on the singing of New Zealand's founding document. It's a time when we as kiwis are to remember how or nation came about.

And then we have an old crank stand up and declare that our capital will be destroyed. That our seat of government will be thrown down and that there will be soldiers and bodies in the streets. 

Amazing. 

Here are the possibilities as I see them: 

1) Keri Tia Toa is just a whack job. I mean it's entirely possible that he is simply loosing his marbles and decided to tell a fantastical story for what ever end he had in mind. 

2) He had a weird experience some time ago. A bad dream or something. And his obsessing over it combined with what ever influence his particular spirituality or belief system has had. Has twisted his memory of this experience into the strange "vision" that he now reports.  

3) He is just plain making shit up. This seems the most unlikely to my mind. Tho people have been known to do stranger things. 

As predictions go this is a rather lame one. I mean yes it is spectacular and would have enormous consequences for Wellington and the country as a whole. But it's so vague and rather a given.

This is what we skeptics refer to as the low hanging fruit. It's a prediction that is very likely to come true. There will be a large earthquake in Wellington some time in the future. That is a certainty. By not giving a specific date he leaves the possibility open that no matter when it happens it can still count as a successful prediction. Keri Tia Toa does say that it will be in the month of June. This is surprising because it cuts down his chances of being right to 1 in 12. Although if it's close to June or even in the middle of the year some time it will probably be considered a hit by some.     

I don't think I'll even bother why the idea of predicting the future is complete and total rubbish. suffice to say that in the entire history of our species there has never been any convincing evidence that humans are able to predict future events without using some form of inductive reasoning or theoretical  structure. No person has ever demonstrated the ability to have an accurate "vision" of events to come.   

I find this whole thing rather embarrassing really. A supposedly respected individual given a forum of national importance and he uses it to put forward an absurd vision of death and destruction. I mean come on. 

What do you think?        

Is This Brain Washing?

Here is "note able" creationist and general all around jackass Ken Ham indoctrinating a room full of kids.

  

This has a very cult like feel to it don't you think. The brain washing of young children in this way I find absolutely appalling and abhorrent. Filling their young minds with nonsense and denying them the chance to discover the truth is a form of abuse. 

I have real issue with the indoctrination of the young by religions of all stripes. But it seems all the more repugnant when it takes the form of anti-science, anti-reason, nonsense. These children will grow up and enter society with a warped and inaccurate knowledge of how the world works. This will surely hurt their prospects for higher learning and hold back their understanding of just how truly amazing things really are. 

Note to Mr Ham: I notice you're using a microphone. And a Projector. And you're in a Building. Probably in a modern city. No doubt you're wearing manufactured clothing. And you probably arrived at your brainwashing event in a car, train or bus. 

All of these things would not be possible without the science that you are so eager to deny (Science in general, not specifically evolution of course). Science works! The evidence is all around us in our lives. Evolution is a fact. The earth is older then 6000 years. Much Much older! Your holy book is an interesting piece of historical literature. It is not literal truth. 

O and also. 

You suck.

The above is not an argument in favor of my position. Merely something I felt like saying. Full and complete demolitions of the ridiculous Creationist/Intelligent Design ideas have been done to death by many, many people much smarter and more well informed than I. They can be found all over the interweb.

I really, really, really hate the indoctrination of the young and impressionable by the idiotic and the  foolish. Teach children to think critically and to reason for themselves. Then let them loose with the evidence and see what conclusions they reach. 

I suspect that if this were done right. Many more people in our society would have a more accurate and informed view of the world.