What grinds my gears

For several years after Star Wars The Phantom Menace was released, I just couldn't see what was so horribly wrong about it, and why people hated it. The subsequent two movies were quite ok as well. Now, don't get me wrong. Back then I thought that the vast majority of people hated it simply because the vast majority of other people hated it, and it was just a hip and cool to hate it (a phenomenon I have complained about several times,) and I still think that's mostly the case. However , I have later come to realize that some of the criticism of the prequel trilogy is, indeed, valid. I have come to realize that my own appreciation of the trilogy has dropped significantly since those times. What changed my opinion the most was the great review series done by The Distressed Watcher (who I think made a terrific job at analyzing it, and sadly has gone mostly unnoticed by the vast majority of people, who only know the review by Red Letter Media which, while funny, I don...

There's a rather curious misconception, or intuition, that many people have related to gravity, and this is sometimes seen in movies and TV. This misconception is that if there's a very large object orbiting a planet (eg. Earth) and it's broken up to small pieces, all of the pieces will fall down. (A related concept is that if small pieces get loose from the large object, eg. garbage or such, they will likewise fall down to the planet.) I find this misconception rather curious. It's the exact reverse of Aristotelian gravity. You see, in antiquity there was among some philosophers the concept that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. In this case it's the exact reverse: The intuition seems to be that lighter objects fall faster (ie. are pulled more strongly by the planet's gravity) than heavier objects. If the orbiting heavy object gets broken to smaller pieces, or it lets small pieces loose, those pieces will now be pulled by the planet's gr...

Homeopathy is most certainly not the only snake oil salesmanship out there that's a pure sham, but it's probably the one that makes the most money worldwide. (There are other shams that may make more money than homeopathy, but they are usually not related to selling supposedly medicinal products.) Homeopathic products are 100% placebos, pure and simple, yet it's taken really seriously among many people, and many claims of successful clinical studies and efficacy abound. There are published papers and lots of positive experiments that claim that homeopathy fares much better than placebos in properly-conducted double-blind trials. But how can there be, given that homeopathic products are just placebos? It's not hard to get such results. There are some simple tricks that can be used for this. For example: When conducting an experimental trial, minimize the amount of test subjects. For example, rather than testing on 500 people, test on 20. Engage in confirmation bi...

One common sentiment that many people express goes something like this: " Your freedom of expression ends immediately when you hurt someone. " It's sometimes described with an analogy: " You are free to wave your arms around, but that freedom ends immediately when you hit someone with them. " This is a rather deceptive sentiment because it's so easy to agree with, when you don't think about it too much, yet it's quite hideous. There's a big difference between hurting someone physically and hurting someone's feelings. The former is an objective and universal thing. Hitting someone on the face will hurt every single person in existence, and it's not a question of opinion, education, culture or personal preference. It's quite an objective thing. Hurting someone's feelings, however, is completely subjective. It depends completely on one's personality, background and a ton of other things. What hurts someone may well not hurt...