I’ve got two great stories (at least) to share with you. Nova Spivack’s involved.  There’s something about VoIP.  There’s another story about something that might just changed the face of how we use social networks.

There’s video to go with it.

Unfortunately I can’t muster the energy to write them.

I did do this video with Francine Hardaway and Mike Doeff, friends from the ol’ Friendfeed days.

I had a great time speaking to a good lineup of guests on the live stream (available over at SiliconANGLE during the days of the festival), but of course spring break for Silicon Valley geeks is nothing if not about the parties.  I spent a large portion of the evening with Paul Terry Walhus of Texas Coworking (along with my cohost on the stream, Michael Sean Wright) just surveying the party landscape. We did the usual stuff, picking up crowd shots to use as B-Roll for our videos and a few interviews here and there.

At one point I got swept up into the Robert Scoble aura, and Michael and I wound up on a bus with Tony Hsieh (founder of Zappos) and Frank (from @comcastcares fame).

Then something strange happened.

I had a fanboy moment.

I’m not particularly easily phased by these sorts of things. I’m realistic about the bubble in which I work.  When I go out into the meatspace world, no one knows who John Furrier, Robert Scoble, Mike Arrington or Pete Cashmore are (and certainly not me). I’m the furthest thing from ego-inflated over what I do for a living, in reality.

But I had a chance to meet Leo Laporte and shake his hand.  This is a big moment for me, even though it shouldn’t be.  He and I work in the same industry doing similar things. Both he and I have been involved in podcasting about the same length of time. I’ve referenced him, and he’s referenced me in the past, and we’ve exchanged emails. 

Heck, we’re sharing the same studio this week for our broadcasts.

Something about meeting the guy who inspired you to do what you do for a career, though, really made my day.  Perhaps even my week.

Leo Laporte is a stand up guy, and role model for almost every indie content producer, and I’m genuinely not ashamed to admit that I was thrilled to meet Leo Laporte today.

Below is me talking a bit more about it.  I go fanboy in it, about an hour after it happened. Be prepared.

You should watch all the live coverage on http://siliconangle.com

You can watch this, though, and see my thoughts from earlier in the day.

I’m not clicking on every post.  I don’t have that kind of time.

Here’s why this is a dumb idea, Gawker:

Even when I blog once or twice a month to criticize you, I’m sending attention and pagerank your way. That leads to more traffic through higher rankings in memetrackers, and better placement in Google.  People like me, other bloggers, behave similarly.  If I can’t read your stuff quickly and easily, you’re far less likely to get any attention from me or people like me.

Every time I touch on this topic of evolution versus creation, I get an avalanche of lurkers deciding they’re going to jump in and try to prove how dumb Uncle Rizzn is.

Let me first start out by saying that my initial post yesterday wasn’t about starting a debate on the topic. I was simply commenting on the fact that angry evolution proponents, like Mr. Angry, love to use science as a kludge to beat theists over the head. To them, anyone who believes in something bigger than themselves for any purpose whatsoever is an idiot, and in the process of putting their passion on display, they tend to engage in activities (like failure to check the definitions of the words they use, or parse their own logic) that make them look stupid.

Take this comment, for instance:

Angry, I’ve told you before (on Youtube) and I still have an optimistic mind when it comes to the end of religion. I think that religion will be largely nothing more than a memory by the end of this century. I think the rise of the internet and the access to free information and ideas that it contains will greatly assist the world in realising the truth about religions.

I hope so anyway. I hope that future generations can look back and realise how idiotic religion really is.

Perfect.  Sounds like an open mind to me.

To the point of reading comprehension:

At this present time, no-one knows how life began. Not any scientist, and certainly not any religious person. This does not change the fact that evolution is accepted as a FACT by everyone other than religious people who believe that God created us as we are today. That, by the way, is not backed up by a single piece of evidence; and if you think it is, please share the evidence with us.

Here’s the translation: “I don’t really support my own position with any facts or research, I think you’re an idiot because I suspect you’re religious, and I’m not willing to research what I think your position might be, but I’ll let you spill it here in a small comment window and then try to berate you over the inevitable holes you’ll leave trying to describe difficult concepts in concise sentences.”

Mr. Angry has a problem with it as well, in his response to my blog post:

Rizzn: Case in point. That is mindless fucking drivel. All you’re saying is you’re fucking clueless about science.

You can re-read my original post, but my response to a reader on Facebook best summarizes my thoughts. From an old friend, Carissa Winland:

The logic in this seems odd. Radioactive decay can accurately place the age of organic material, and genetics and molecular biology is irrefutable concrete evidence, outside of observations. Furthermore, it's like saying, just because we don't SEE a plant grow, doesn't mean that it doesn't grow. We also don't see physics, or gravity, but yet these are concrete laws by which all lives are built. Science uses evidence to infer, not simply observations.

Keep in mind, not a single one of these people responding are in fact scientists. Most of them aren’t even college graduates. My response to Carissa addresses some of her points:

Irrefutable? Radioactive decay is only accurate to +/- ~10k years (if you're talking about carbon dating). How do you prove something as irrefutable if
you aren't around to observe the margin of error? As a basis for comparison - I'm able to guess your weight within 100% accuracy, with a margin of error being +/- ~1 Ton just by simply touching you.

Sorta hard to refute that, too, eh?

I did a bit of quick research. According to scientists at the University of Florida, the margin of error generally ranges between 400 and 10,000 years, so my initial point stands, but it misses the larger point that Carissa either casually dismissed or overlooked completely.

In general, and certainly in my original comments, I’m not speaking of scientists per se (nor am I talking about theologians or apologists). I’m talking about the rank and file that tend to debate these topics (typically on the Internet) as if they were experts.  Watching the science channel doesn’t make you a scientist. Reading Origin of the Species doesn’t make you an expert. Watching Trinity Broadcasting Network doesn’t make you a theologian. Because you call Christians idiots on the Internet certainly doesn’t make you an authority on evolutionary theory.

See my original money quote: “Simply put, no one observed creation (or evolution), therefore one's conjecture and evidence interpretation is as good as another for justifying a worldview.”

I’ll re-write that again so some of you who are intentionally misinterpreting me will have a more difficult time doing so: most people interested in this topic are only looking to justify a worldview, and when that’s your goal, any old set of cherry-picked facts will do.

Since most people are simply justifying a worldview when it comes to this debate, any old set of facts they come across are as good as any others (see: climate change). They don’t bother looking for the best of the opposing view – they simply look for the weakest argument they disagree with, and then knock it down. It’s great for a debate tactic, but for a set of people looking for absolute truth, it makes them look like the type of moron you’d find on YouTube or Digg’s comments section by comparison.

Simply put, you can’t have it both ways.  As someone who has read both sides of the debate (and sits somewhere squarely between the two), you can’t say you’re in search of the truth and never look at smart people who disagree with you.

How do you think I got this smart, people? Was it by spending my life calling everyone who disagreed with me an idiot?

No. I read. I read the sources of research, not just the worldview-espousing books you find at Barnes and Noble. I dig past the wire report and what I saw on that science blog last week. I stay away from the faux-documentaries you find on cable TV. And when I’ve delved down to the source of the research, I look and see who they’re funded by to determine whether they’re constructing studies to prove a point or disclosing legitimate findings.

This isn’t rocket science, this are research techniques I learned in high school while most of my school mates were busy perfecting their keg stands and bong hits.

I like to call it voracious reading comprehension.

7 Comments

At March 10, 2010, Social Media Marketing For Sales Automation Software! wrote: [...] Voracious Reading Comprehension- rizzn.com [...]At March 10, 2010, Voracious Reading Comprehension- rizzn.com | Drakz Free Online Service wrote: [...] the article here: Voracious Reading Comprehension- rizzn.com Share and [...]At March 11, 2010, Make Learning English Fun For A Non-English Speaker wrote: [...] Voracious Reading Comprehension- rizzn.com [...]At March 11, 2010, Making Learning English Fun For A Non-English Speaker wrote: [...] Voracious Reading Comprehension- rizzn.com [...]At March 11, 2010, @victorpanlilio wrote: Mark - you've probably already seen this, but just in case not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaît... http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/science... At March 11, 2010, rizzn wrote: Indeed. Many of science's pioneers were devout men of faith. Religion isn't the natural enemy of science, despite commonly held belief. At March 12, 2010, Promotion Complete » Blog Archive » IT Courses Around The UK Explained wrote: [...] Voracious Reading Comprehension- rizzn.com [...]

I’ll start with a self-evident fact. 1+1=2. There’s no shades of grey there, it’s a simple, irrefutable mathematical fact that 1+1=2. Now imagine someone comes along and wants to propose that 1+1 in fact =4. I don’t know why they want to assert something so ridiculous. Maybe a magic bloke in the sky told them. Or maybe they have a book that they declare is the divine word of this magic bloke in the sky despite the fact it’s nothing more than a bunch of fairy stories invented centuries ago to scare illiterate goat herders into behaving themselves.

Whatever. They’re being very loud about their belief that 1+1=4. No amount of evidence will sway them. The fact that every credible mathematician in the world tells them that, no, your point of view isn’t valid, 1+1 is definitely 2 doesn’t even slow them down. They trot out someone they call a “creation mathematician” who says that because the magic bloke in the sky created everything including numbers, whatever he says about numbers must be true, therefore 1+1=4.

This post, though, tells me he needs to look up the definition of empirical evidence. His metaphor breaks down pretty quick, in light of that definition.

Simply put, no one observed creation (or evolution), therefore one's conjecture and evidence interpretation is as good as another for justifying a worldview. In the context of his post, anyone who would argue over this is simply justifying a worldview and not really interested in finding out what happened 6000/10,000,000 years ago.

Conversely, I can observe two apples sitting on a counter, and understand that one apple plus one apple equals two apples.

No one can observe spontaneous creation of life, nor can they watch a single celled organism change into a complex life form.  No one can observe a Creator inventing existence. Depending on your worldview, the evidence you assemble can point to multiple conclusions.  Typically, if you believe in God as an absolute being with absolute control over the nature of reality, you'll see evidence of an intelligent hand at work.  By the same token, if you're a person who has faith in science and the human ability to discover his world, you'll see evidence that we pulled ourselves up from our bootstraps out of the primordial ooze.

5 Comments

At March 9, 2010, james wrote: I don't think the word observation means what you think it does in a scientific sense. We do observe evolution all the time. It's called the fossil record. We also observe it when we study adaptation in everything from selectively bred animals to random mutation in bacteria. At March 10, 2010, rizzn wrote: Again (I explained this in the comments at his blog) observing evolution and evidence of evolution isn't the same thing as reproducing the spark of life. This hasn't been done, and hasn't been observed, scientifically or otherwise, to date. At March 10, 2010, rizzn wrote: I think my larger point, which got lost in the comments of the appropriately caustic Angry365 (I shoulda known that would be the case), is that the type of folks who do battle over this stuff, like mister Angry himself aren't really concerned with science, likewise with the folks who aggressively argue for creation science, are both not concerned with much of the science involved. They're usually desparately trying to grasp at evidence that supports their worldview. 90% of the time, people like Mr. Angry and their counterparts in the Creationist camp are only looking to belittle those who don't believe as they do. They don't have any scientific qualifications. There are sincere and interesting minds on both sides of the fence on this one. Scientific ones. Yes, I'll say it again, on both sides. These folks, though, who aren't looking to support a worldview but are simply interested in learning, rarely hate on each other in the manner that Mr. Angry exemplifies. At March 10, 2010, @navarroj wrote: I'm reading again your comments and trying to make sense of them. On the one hand, it seems that you criticize people desperately seeking for evidence to support their own world views. And I totally agree with you on that point, particularly that you can easily find people doing precisely that "on both camps". However from that you seem to conclude that, therefore, both views are "as good as another". But that is just plain wrong. Evolution is not just some theory that someone made up in order to justify their own world view. Unlike creationism, evolution has been subject to a great deal of scientific discussion, inquiry, evaluation, and testing. Scientists don't "believe" in evolution because it agrees with what they already believe, but because it agrees with what can be seen in reality. At March 10, 2010, rizzn wrote: I'm not talking about scientists who "believe in evolution over another belief" and I never cast a judgement in anything I said showing preference of one belief over another. I have my beliefs. If you look for them you can find them somewhere else. My point is, typically in these debates online and off, no one is either a scientist or a theologian, and the debates are just the facts assembled by those involved that support their worldview. Very few people actively look for facts that contradict what they believe. I don't know about you, but it's apparent that many who commented there on the site as well as "Mr Angry" himself are there to grind an axe, and couldn't care less as to what the other side has to say (much less is informed by the best apologists from the other side).

I’m really disappointed with BuddyPress and Wordpress teams lately.  The last two or three versions of WPMU and BuddyPress have been absolute nightmares to upgrade.

I said this earlier today:

Check this out.

An upgrade should, you know, make things better.  It shouldn’t break things beyond recognition.

A little version control and testing before deployment would be nice, that’s all I’m saying.

If this crap keeps up for many more versions, I’m going to have to stop recommending WPMU+Buddypress to anyone.

And that sucks, since I like BP+WPMU, on the whole.

3 Comments

At March 8, 2010, Andy P wrote: Did you follow the upgrade instructions and install the backwards compatibility plugin? All of the code to keep things working for older installs using the classic theme (plus a new version of the theme you are using) can be found in this plugin:Did you follow the upgrade instructions and install the backwards compatibility plugin? All of the code to keep things working for older installs using the classic theme (plus a new version of the theme you are using) can be found in this plugin: http://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/upgra... Upgrading will be a much smoother process from this point onwards. The first two versions have been about finding the right setup and process that works for the greatest number of people. Even still, your setup should work perfectly with the upgrade and the backwards compatibility plugin activated. At March 8, 2010, Otto wrote: Don't forget that MU is going away with WordPress 3.0 as well, which merges the two codebases. With things being more unified, hopefully these sorts of issues won't happen as much anymore. At March 8, 2010, RodgersAlexis35 wrote: Do not a lot of cash to buy some real estate? Don't worry, because this is real to receive the business loans to solve such problems. Hence take a college loan to buy everything you need.

Completely untrue:

Social games publisher Zynga has confirmed with us that it did not keep 50 percent of its earthquake relief donations meant for Haiti. The response follows a post from SocialMediaToday this morning (which has since been removed, but you can view a screenshot here) that claimed  Zynga kept half of its donations meant to help the earthquake-ravaged country.

Zynga tells us that SMT’s source, the Brazilian site Folha Online, confused the post-quake relief campaign with a 2009 funding campaign for Haiti. In that earlier campaign, Farmville players were made aware that 50 percent of their donations would be going towards helping children in Haiti. Zynga raised a total of $2.4 million with that campaign, and Haiti received $1.2 million of that via the organizations FATEM.org and fonkoze.org.

After the 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the country in January, Zynga ran a separate relief campaign which raised $1.5 million over five days. One hundred percent of those proceeds went to the World Food Programme to help Haitian earthquake victims.

Are you surprised, though? This is from the same guy who didn’t know Frederic Lardinois was a lead writer at ReadWriteWeb.

On a slightly related note, there’s this interview I did with Mark Pincus back in 2008.

You should go to the event and then riot if I don’t win the grand prize.

3 Comments

At March 9, 2010, Questioner wrote: Why does it say you built Mashable? At March 9, 2010, rizzn wrote: That was a judge's comment. I was involved in Mashable from it's early days. I didn't _physically_ build Mashable, but the involvement of me and a few others from those days (Adam Ostrow, Kristen Nicole, Sean P. Aune and a few others) was instrumental in shaping its community. At March 9, 2010, OnSIP wrote: Congrats, Mark. Tix appear to be sold out, so looks like it'll be a good event. -<a href = 'http://wwwonsip.com'> OnSIP Business VoIP

Things to know about me when you're pitching:

1) I've seen it all. When I was at Mashable, all the email to anyone at the company hit my inbox the first five or six months I was there. Have a unique product and a good pitch. I'm a little jaded (but you should know that already).

2) I'm a fan of wearable computing. Whenever they have the brainchip that connects us to the net, I'll be first in line. When they have a computer you can wear like contacts or glasses that I can talk and gesture to, I'll be buying or building it. If you can Minority Report up your product a bit, I'm going to dig it.

3) I'm shooting video. If you have something to show me, so much the better. If you don't, I'll still talk to you on camera.

4) I'm taking sponsorships. I have a variety of sponsorship packages available. If you have something outside what I'm focusing on you still want me to expose to the 1.2 million expected viewers I'll have over the coming weeks, you should hit me up.

5) I'm looking for thinkers. If you have a tech, music, or science passion and you'll be in Austin for interactive week, and you don't have a product or service, I still wanna talk to you and get you on one of my panels for the broadcast.

Talk about it here on Google Buzz or on this thread in the SiliconANGLE forums. Or here in the comments, if you must.

1 Comments

At March 10, 2010, @antonymd wrote: Hey Mark, QR codes are a great way of blending, cloud, physical, mobile and social that's going to be big at SXSW this year. We are behind the QR Codes on all the registration badges at SXSW this year. Attendees just need to scan your badge as a real world "follow me" button adding all your contact details to your my.sxsw.com profile, saving the need for business cards - http://sxsw.com/qrcodes We've also partnered with Austin Style Watch for a citywide music/fashion scavenger hunt called Marqr http://www.austinstylewatch.com/marqr/marqr.html