What grinds my gears

In order to understand Postmodernism, we first have to understand what Modernism is. Modernism is a kind of umbrella term used to describe the quite radical changes in sociopolitical, philosophical and scientific concepts in the western world, which started in the 18th century, and which then eventually pretty much expanded to much of the rest of the world. The philosophical and scientific aspect of this zeitgeist started with the so-called Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. Prior to this time, religion, philosophy and science were all considered pretty much parts of the same thing, tightly tied to each other. The approach to science was highly presuppositionalist (heavily driven by the religious and philosophical ideas of the time, with any scientific theories being controlled by these presuppositions). The Age of Enlightenment, however, caused a massive change in the philosophy of science. It was the time when the modern scientific method was developed. Religi...

Surprisingly few people know the history of the Sony PlayStation line of consoles. This might not be news to tech-savvy console aficionados, but it's nevertheless quite little known. The fact is, Nintendo effectively created the Sony PlayStation. Or, more precisely, caused it to be created. You see, back when the SNES was at the end of its lifespan in the early 1990's, its greatest competitor, the Sega Genesis, had a CD peripheral (which could contain an entire CD worth of a video game, including CD quality sound and some primitive video footage.) So in order to compete with it, Nintendo wanted to also create a CD peripheral for the SNES. So Nintendo partnered with Sony to create such a thing. The tentative name for this peripheral was, and I kid you not, PlayStation. However, the corporations got into some kind of argument, and they dissolved the partnership. But rather than just forget about it, Sony decided to create their own console. The Sony PlayStation. Which w...

Many people think that science works by formulating a hypothesis (based on observation and measurement) about a particular natural phenomenon, and then trying to prove that hypothesis correct. While that might sound very reasonable at first glance, it's actually a very naive and even incorrect approach. It's an incorrect approach because it may lead to the wrong conclusions because of confirmation bias. Rather than trying to prove the hypothesis, the better method is, as contradictory as it might sound at first, try to disprove it. In other words, don't construct tests that simply confirm the hypothesis; instead, construct tests that, if successful, will disprove the hypothesis, show that it's wrong. And "trying to disprove the hypothesis" is not always as straightforward as "if the test fails, it disproves the hypothesis". In many cases the hypothesis must be falsifiable even if the test succeeds. An example of this is controlled testing. I...

Bill Nye is a somewhat famous "science communicator". Meaning that while not a professional scientist per se, he helps popularize and inform the public about scientific matters. He is most famous for his 1990's TV series "Bill Nye the Science Guy". For some reason in later years he has become quite badly "blue-pilled" (ie. an advocate of modern feminist social justice ideology). In the absolutely infamous 9th episode of his newest show, "Bill Nye Saves the World", he advocates for "gender fluidity", and how there are billions of genders and sexes and whatnot. The episode is an absolute cringefest (and I'm not just saying that; it really is. You have to see it for yourself.) Many people have criticized it for, among other things, dishonesty. For example at one point in the episode he says: "These are human chromosomes. They contain all the genes you need to make a person. This one is called an X chromosome, and that on...

When Nintendo released their previous-gen console, the Wii U, they botched their marketing strategy almost catastrophically. The Wii U was, indeed, a completely new "next-gen" console in the Nintendo line, ie. in the same "console generation", ie. the 7th, as the PS4 and the Xbox One. It was not just a slightly fancier version of their previous-generation console, the Wii (which competed with the PS3 and the Xbox 360). Nintendo botched the marketing because they didn't make it clear enough to the wider public that yes, this was indeed an entirely new console, a "next-gen" console, not just a slightly upgraded Wii. This has been estimated to be one of the reasons for the relative commercial failure of the Wii U. People were simply confused, as they thought that it was just some kind of Wii with an extra touch-based controller, or something. Many casual non-tech-savvy Wii owners didn't see the incentive of buying (what they perceived as) just anoth...

Software development processes are higher-level ideas and principles on how to develop a piece of software (or any system based primarily on computer software) for a required task. For very small projects it may be enough to just have a need, and start coding a solution for it. However, for even slightly larger projects this becomes infeasible very quickly, especially when many people are involved in the project. (When more than one person is involved, it immediately introduces management problems, so that every participant knows what to do and when, etc.) The so-called "waterfall model" is one of the oldest such development models ever devised, going as far back as the 1950's. While there are many versions of this model, differing in details and number of steps, the distinguishing characteristic of the model is that it consists, essentially, of big sequential stages, which are usually followed in strict order (ie. the next stage isn't started until the previous one...

Public and/or marketing hype for a work of art is definitely a lot more common with video games, but movies also get their share from time to time, especially if it's a new movie for a popular franchise (and especially if it really is new, as in, the first one made for the franchise in a very long time). What is the movie that was the most hyped, in the entirety of movie history? There are, of course, many candidates, but I would propose the Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace wins in that category. The original Star Wars trilogy is, for one reason or another, one of the most influential set of movies in recent popular culture. Very few other movies or franchises parallel its success and pervasiveness. In the 80's and largely in the 90's Star Wars was everywhere, and everybody knew what it was. It was almost impossible not to. And the amount of fans was staggering. However, the third movie in the trilogy, Return of the Jedi , was released in 1983. Since then a ...

4k displays (ie. 3840x2160 resolution) are all the rage nowadays. More and more display manufacturers are making their own 4k products. There is one thing that I have noticed about many of them, however: Many, even most, of these displays are using HDMI 1.4, rather than HDMI 2.0. Which makes little sense. The major difference between the two versions is bandwidth. HDMI 1.4 does not have enough bandwidth to display 4k video at 60 Hz (in uncompressed RGB format). It only has enough bandwidth to do so at 30 Hz. HDMI 2.0, on the other hand, has the required bandwidth for 4k@60Hz. It's never a question of the display itself being incapable of displaying 4k content at 60 Hz, as invariably they support this through their DisplayPort connection. It's only the HDMI connection that limits the refresh rate to 30 Hz. Some 4k displays do support HDMI 2.0, but for some reason they seem to be a minority at this moment. This is problematic for several reasons. Firstly, it forces PC u...

The Australian Public Service is a branch of the Australian government that provides services to almost every part of Australian life.   In 2016, women comprised 59.0% of the APS as a whole, but accounted for only 42.9% of its Senior Executive Service officers. Is this clearly a case of gender bias (deliberate or unconscious) in hiring? A governmental study sought to find out, by testing with applications and CVs that had no identification of the gender or any other characteristic of the applicant. The results were surprising. There was indeed bias when applicants were identifiable. But in the other direction. As in, women were more likely to be shortlisted (ie. accepted for the next step in the hiring process) than men. Not by a lot, but measurably so (2.9% more, according to the study). Even moreover, and perhaps more surprisingly, male reviewers were more likely to shortlist female applicants than female reviewers. Of course this meant that when the reviewers did not ...