Tales from the Flat Earth Society

I had to write something about this because I discovered this group to today and I think it is so remarkable, I really had to share it with the world. I write this as an educated American in the year 2011. Despite all of our scientific and social strides forward, this group persists. I speak, of course, of the Flat-Earthers. Yes, in 21st-century America, there still exists a group of people who think the world is as flat as a pancake.

When I discovered their online forum, I was naturally skeptical. “This must be a parody,” I thought, “This must be someone just having some fun.” Nope. On their FAQ thread, near the top, they state in no uncertain terms that they are sincere about their belief. That FAQ thread goes on for a while about some of the details of this “theory.”

I was, and still am, shocked. I have been exposed to numerous debates, many of which are difficult to settle. Is human cloning ethical? What is religion’s proper role in society? These are things that everyone has an opinion on and are difficult to settle. But is the Earth round? I thought that shit was settled.

Their beliefs get pretty crazy. The Earth is flat. The geographic north pole is at the center of the world and Antarctica is really a giant “ice dam” that keeps the oceans from flowing over the edge of the world. They even offer specific figures. The Sun and the Moon are both spotlights, which are 32 miles across and are both 3,000 miles above the ground. NASA is at the heart of a global conspiracy to keep the nature of the Earth’s flatness a secret from the general public so that they can just take the space program’s money for themselves. The Flat-Earthers believe that because gravity is just an illusion caused by the Earth’s constant upward acceleration, extended spaceflight is impossible.

I discovered this forum while I was eating lunch and I found myself pondering this group and its members for the rest of the day. How does one come to believe this? Further, how does one persist in this belief well into adulthood in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? I have come to the conclusion that some people just believe crazy things. That does not make a person crazy, though. Maybe some people just get so attached to an idea that they feel uncomfortable breaking with it and admitting they were completely wrong. It is not a rational response, but I think I can understand it.

Of course, this is a fringe group. They are not impacting politics or education on any significant scale, so I will not pay too much attention to them. I just had to say something because this group is so blatantly absurd. I would not try to engage the people who are really committed to the flat-Earth idea. I would try to convince them they are completely wrong and they will counter every shred of evidence I offer by saying it’s a lie.

</rant>

Hug it out or we’re all doomed

I am trying to get a better grip on my own empathy. I have been narcissistic and self-centered in the past and I am trying to move past that because I have come to a realization. We are finished, as a species, if we cannot look at each other and realize that we are looking at other beings with similar thoughts, needs, and desires as ourselves. To realize that and to really grasp the fact that we need to be better than we are if we are going to survive is crucial.

I was recently listening to an interview with author Steve Almond, where he described giving a commencement address to a group of people my age who had mostly adopted a “body culture,” as he put it, and was representative of a society that placed little emphasis on existential thought or self-reflection.

I largely agreed with his position that the reality television that so many adolescents grow up is creating a generation that is becoming overly self-involved, narcisstic, and even confrontational, where people view one another as potential rivals, rather than potential friends.

My generation’s children and grandchildren are going to be in deep shit if this does not change. We have created comfortable walls around ourselves so that we really don’t have to think about the world’s problem. Reality television may have come along for other reasons, but now it is something that encourages people to insulate themselves from one another and from the world. It allows people to adopt selfish personas that are not necessarily self-reflective but do allow them to feel important and avoid human suffering and large-scale, global issues, like climate change.

What is required here is willingness from everyone to both look inside themselves and into the people around them, to see the hope, fear, and potential there. Then, maybe, hopefully, realize that there are bigger issues than what we see on TV. These are the issues that must be dealt with if our species is to be worthy and able to survive.

Intro to structs

Structs have been a part of the C programming language from nearly the beginning. They seem to be somewhat inspired by objects or, given C’s age, it could be the other way around. I am not really sure.

A struct is like an object, but simplified. A struct cannot have any methods. Without methods, you are left with a structured group of variables. When you create a C struct, you must first define a struct type. This is a lot like writing a class. You define how many variables the struct can hold and what their types are. Here is an example of a struct definition.

typedef struct {
  int lengthInSeconds;
  int yearRecorded;
} Song;

That was the struct definition. Now we can create several instances of that struct. You will need to create a new instance of the struct before using dot syntax to add values to the struct’s variables.

Song thisSong;
 
thisSong.lengthInSeconds = 145;
thisSong.yearRecorded = 1948;
 
Song theOtherSong;
 
theOtherSong.lengthInSeconds = 213;
theOtherSong.yearRecorded = 1994;


If you are a newcomer to C or a new programmer in particular, this may seem a bit strange. However, it can be very helpful to pass structured groups of variables around, especially if you are writing a C program that has to handle lots of data. For example, if you wanted to write a basic address book, you could use a “Person” struct to handle individual records, each with a name, address, phone number, et cetera. If you are looking to get into Mac or iOS programming, which use Objective-C you still might see C structs being used there, as well.

There is an excellent C tutorial over at Cocoa Dev Central. If you are new to C or just want to brush up, that one page should help a great deal. The example struct above came from that site.

Running twice in the same class

Last week, my father, sister, and I were at the 2011 APBA Stock-Mod-J Outboard Nationals in Wakefield, Michigan. Racing began on August 2, so we had July 31 and August 1 to get some engine testing in. My sister and I both run 200cc Modified Hydroplane, which is virtually identical to the A Stock Hydro class. Therefore, our engines are identical.

This simplified things a great deal when we were trying to troubleshoot an issue my motor was having. We were able to swap out parts and try to find the problem. The TinyTach attached to my motor was only reading about half the RPMs it should have. A healthy A motor turns at about 7,200 RPM. The tachometer read only 3,380 RPM.

This TinyTach works by wrapping a wire around a spark plug wire so that, when the plug fires, a current is created in the wire through induction. We went through a process of elimination and changed out parts with ones from my sister’s motor, one-by-one. Eventually, we found a spark plug wire with about 1 ohm of resistance when they are supposed to have about a tenth as much resistance.

It was not a huge issue, but it did show me how useful it is to have two drivers with similar or identical motors because it lets you compare the two and find issues more quickly than you might if you just tried changing things at random. When my dad was still racing, he kept a spare Yamato 80 powerhead a box of Yamato parts, which came in handy when he had to troubleshoot his 350 Mod Hydro.

Keep your bile to yourself

I recently saw on an atheist blog that a Fox News story regarding a Christian monument at the World Trade Center site resulted in a torrent of hate mail and death threats directed at atheists in particular. While I certainly do not condone hate speech or death threats, I  can understand why people might say these things.

Times are tough. We all know that. Some people have been hit harder than others. Some people are not well-equipped to handle personal and national crisis simultaneously. They get scared. They look for an outlet. This is my theory about why there is so much vitriol in comment threads across the internet. People abuse their online anonymity to blow off steam, even if they do not necessarily mean the things they say.

I hold a rule of thumb about putting stuff on the internet. It goes something like, “If you would not say it in real life, do not say it online.” If you would not walk up to somebody’s face and say something to them in meatspace, then you do not have any business saying that in person. It keeps my online presence more civil. It also helps keep focus because the message or idea I am trying to convey is not drowned out by crazy bullshit.

I wish sites like Fox News Comments did not have so much material. I really do. If you catch yourself writing something hurtful or crazy online, stop yourself and ask, “Would I say this to someone in real life?” If the answer is no, delete the comment or post, push away from the desk, go for a walk, and cool off.