Do free will skeptics make their own point by being so dumb?
What is it about free will skeptics and their insistence that we completely reorganize society based on their realization that nobody controls their own actions in any way? The Munk Debates just published Be it resolved, humans have free will, and it's a classic of the genre.
There is an interesting nugget at the start, which is how much of what we decide is based on extraneous factors. I'd love to go deep on that debate. I thought I wouldn't have time to write about this podcast as I needed to mop some floors. But my wife decided to steam clean them instead and so this post wouldn't exist without events that are completely beyond my control. But it also wouldn't exist if I wasn't interested and didn't want to write it.
Unfortunately instead of that debate we get the discussion about how with no free will criminals have no choice about commiting crimes and therefore we should not punish them. The first part of that may very well be true, much more on that subject here. The second part though shows such catastrophic misunderstanding that maybe it acts as a kind of proof. Nobody with free will could fail so comprehensively to follow their own argument to its logical conclusion, and so free will cannot exist.
Related Posts
- Was there ever any doubt that I would eventually write this post?
- Can I move to a Better Simulation Please?
- Fermi Suicide
You Might Also Like
- Using the Azure Monitor REST API from Google Apps Script
- Change in Presidential Vote from 2000 to 2020 by US County
- Control LIFX WiFi light bulbs from Google Apps Script
Animation of US PM2.5 Air Pollution in 2023
The video below shows PM2.5 air pollution in the United States from February to November 2023. The frame above is the impact of fireworks on the 4th of July. It's a blink and you miss it moment in the video but a pretty incredible impact.
I started this project in February expecting it to be more of a long term thing. Unfortunately, Purple Air started charging for their API in November, more than I was willing to pay for this project.
In terms of wildfires this year the big story in the continental US has been Canada belching plumes of smoke down across the East Coast. I didn't include Hawaii or Alaska in the map and so there is nothing for the tragic Lahaina fire on Maui.
To make the video I had a Google Apps Script running that pulled the Purple Air sensor data hourly. I then wrote an app to periodically render the data to frames using my shapefile library to plot the US and then interpolating the air quality for each pixel from the nearest sensors. The frames are stitched together at 60 frames per second using ffmpeg and final production was in DaVinci Resolve with music from Filmstro.
Related Posts
- Daily Average Global Cloud Cover Animation
- Animation of a year of Global Cloud Cover
- Coronavirus Visualization Update
You Might Also Like
ITHCWY Newsletter for September 2023
Catfood WebCamSaver 3.22 released with the latest web cam list. Catfood Earth for Android now supports random locations.
New tool - this page is updated every hour with a video of the last 48 hours of global IR cloud cover. Useful for tracking hurricanes and atmospheric rivers.
Sunset timelapse with a slider. And a video made from the highest resolution version of Blue Marble Next Generation.
Does the US need a third party? Also, sortition.
Some bubbles and a San Francisco Crayfish.
Reviews for August and September.
Previously:
- 2022: Stable Diffusion Animation of Scale Parameter
- 2021: Catfood WebCamSaver
- 2020: Cause and Effect, or Strange Skies over San Francisco
Related Posts
You Might Also Like
Global Cloud Cover 48 Hour Video Updated Hourly
The video below shows the past 48 hours of global cloud cover, 6 frames per second. It's HD so view full screen to get the most detail. The video is updated hourly.
The source is the Global IR product from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center. I process their image to be equirectangular instead of spherical mercator (full details here) and then generate a video.
Related Posts
- Daily Average Global Cloud Cover Animation
- Animation of a year of Global Cloud Cover
- 4K One Year Global Cloud Timelapse
You Might Also Like
Blue Marble 2 Animation
This animation shows twelve sections from the highest resolution version of NASA's Blue Marble Next Generation image for December 2004.
Can you guess all twelve locations? Answers below.
I use a lower resolution version of this image in Catfood Earth. The full version is 86,400 by 43,200, or 3.7 gigapixels. I've always wanted to do something with all this data, and decided to just follow some random paths and animate out the results. It's a little like watching the view from the ISS, if the ISS could randomly change location and direction.
The sequences in order are:
- Passing over Madagascar and then across central Africa.
- Along the Aleutian Islands and into Alaska.
- Across South America and the Amazon.
- Up the Eastern seaboard of the US into Canada.
- Following the Nile through North Africa.
- From Siberia to Denmark.
- Up Baja California and then California USA.
- Philippines, Taiwan, China, Mongolia.
- Following the Caribbean to Florida.
- Across Australia.
- South South America, focused on Chile.
- Koreas, Japan.
Related Posts
You Might Also Like
ITHCWY Newsletter for July 2023
ITHCWY is now part of the Fediverse (Mastodon etc), follow @[email protected].
Time lapse of the Market Street Laser Rainbow for Pride, and the Shenandoah Valley.
Hikes with Hyperlapses: Presidio of San Francisco, Philosopher's Way.
A 3D printed kong holder, if you hate kongs falling over while you stuff and freeze them.
Photos of a Black Crested Night Heron and, sadly for the heron, a frog several thousand miles away.
Previously:
- 2022: Snowdonia Milky Way Time Lapse
- 2021: Teague Hill Preserve
- 2020: Did anyone tell Material Design about Gesture Navigation?
Related Posts
You Might Also Like
Federation
ITHCWY is venturing into the Fediverse. This is the second attempt, I had a brief-lived API implementation to a bot account that didn't go so well. This time I've hooked up Bridgy Fed, which is free and easy and so far seems to work pretty well. I added webmention support last year which helped with the process. You can add me as @ithough[email protected] or use the form on this page. If you reply to a post in the Fediverse it will end up as a comment on this blog (and vice versa).
Related Posts
You Might Also Like
- Space and multibyte character encoding for posting to Twitter using OAuth
- Better Rotating Outages
- I'm with Her
3D Printing a Kong XL Holder
Problem: filling a Kong without it rolling around and dispersing its contents and then freezing without tipping over and oozing peanut butter. I found a couple of solutions for smaller Kongs, this one fits a Kong XL perfectly.
STL on Thingiverse or OpenSCAD code:
Related Posts
- 3D Printing a Window Mount for a Google Nest Indoor Wired Gen 2 Camera
- 3D Printing a 72-58mm step down Camera Filter Adapter
- 3D DIY
You Might Also Like
ITHCWY Newsletter for May 2023
A time lapse of the Milky Way over South Lake Tahoe. And, World WebCams 2.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is 10 Electoral College votes closer. If you live in a state where this isn't law yet consider doing something about it.
Catfood WebCamSaver 3.31 released.
Reviews for March, April and May.
Adventures in telling ecommerce stories via generative AI. Also, using ML.NET to predict when fog will flow through the Golden Gate.
The Coronation was looking for a pledge of allegiance?
Although it's not supposed to do much I can now blog from a reMarkable tablet.
Previously:
- 2022: I would do anything to reduce gun violence, but I won't do that (an open letter to Joe Manchin)
- 2021: Catfood Earth
- 2020: Summer Solstice 2020
Related Posts
You Might Also Like
Hold It
I don't know what to do: Please, Do Not Pour Liquids Down Waterless Urinal.