Thankfully, the widget itself is mostly Javascript and the issue is actually very minor. In the two files, one for the “tall” view and one for the “wide” view, you simply have to insert a space at the particular points where the Process ID is searched for.

Details are in this post on MacRumors.

Via: Refined Robot.

My father’s book, a summary of radio talks he gave regarding science (mostly related to evolution but relevant to anyone who wants to understand science in principle) is now available as a Kindle eBook.

Science, Myth or Magic?: A struggle for existence: S Anthony Barnett: Amazon.com: Kindle Store.

On Monday on the way back from Tokyo, my ANA flight, much to my delight, flew close by Mt Fuji. I happened to be on the left-hand side of the plane by the window and thankfully had my camera with me, so I had plenty of time to snap off a bunch of good shots. The only problems involved the sun shining on the plane from that side and reflections from the window, which I had to counter by holding up a blanket.  The weather was so clear that despite the snow on the peak, the walking trails could clearly be seen. Click on the image for the full gallery.

“But what happened to me was, far from being delusional, as real or more real than any event in my life. That includes my wedding day and the birth of my two sons.” He added: “I’ve spent decades as a neurosurgeon at some of the most prestigous medical institutions in our country. I know that many of my peers hold as I myself did to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us.

“But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it.”

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows we bring in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a complete jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering—waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.

When we reach the station, that will be it, we cry. When I’m 18. When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz. When I put the last kid through college. When I have paid off the mortgage. When I get a promotion. When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after.

Sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.

Relish the moment is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.

So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

By Robert J. Hastings

(Via an email from a friend.)

The real point of magic, Teller said during those lectures, is “telling a beautiful lie. It lets you see what the world would be like if cause and effect weren’t bound by physics.” It’s the collision between what you know and what you see that provides magic’s greatest spark.

The Honor System – Esquire.

Double Rainbow after the Typhoon

One of the mistakes that people – and I include scientists and journalists in my definition of “people”, because, well, I’m charitable like that – is that they think science is all about discovering the “truth”. Scientist David Sloan-Wilson went so far as characterising science as a religion that had truth as its God.

But science is nothing of the kind. “Truth” is a concept that is best left to theologians and philosophers. Science, on the other hand, is better characterised not as a religion, but as a rational process, in which the goal is not the attainment of truth, but the quantification of doubt.

I see this daily on forums of various kinds where people argue about science as if were an arbiter of absolute truth, even though those people arguing about it are not, nor ever have been scientists themselves.  Some of this is arguably the fault of the press in past decades, where reporters would write about what scientists said as if they had discovered something irrefutable and neglected to include the limitations of the results of any research. Additionally, some of the blame goes towards school education that doesn’t emphasise the limits of human understanding of many things taught.

The full article can be found here:

Different kinds of truth: religion, science and fiction.