Switching to OSX

An interesting thing happened the other day.

I forgot my MacBook Air 13" inside the aircraft on my flight back from Greece. I was using only Windows 7 in that machine.

The laptop was thankfully retrieved a week later, but meanwhile I had to travel to Canada within 2 days. As a result, I had to take with me and 11" MacBook Air, which only had OSX installed. This was the first time I continuously used OSX for a prolonged period of time.

I realized I can actually use that operating system instead of Windows. Here are the reasons:

1. There is a certain mathematical elegance about it. A strict, ordered, geometric design, almost godlike. Windows on the other hand still feels like an assortment of code put together. Even OSX application developers seem to care more about the looks of their app, being more consistent with the overall OSX look (much like the design consistency between iOS apps).

2. It is stylistically way more beautiful than Windows 8 (although on par with Windows 7).

3. The multiple desktop experience in OSX is very efficient for me, combined with all the touch gestures to manipulate between applications.

4. Incredible restore capabilities. By pressing command+R during boot, I can connect to a wifi and completely restore my machine from the cloud. No need for discs or usb drives. When I got my 13" Air back, I re-installed OSX and then transferred over my programs and settings from the 11" Air OSX account. I smoothly continued work where I left off.

5. Innovation.

The last point is the most critical one. My workflow under Windows hasn't changed since I started using Windows Vista in 2007. A left side taskbar with program shortcuts, fast switching between apps, gadgets on the right side, done. I am extremely efficient with this setup and two screens. With the advent of Windows 7 and 8, that has largely stayed the same (I had to restore the taskbar in Win8 to regain the efficiency).

In that same period however, OSX has introduced several tweaks that are actually focused on improving my workflow: touch gestures, multiple desktops, full screen apps, notification center, Airdrop, etc. These are features that I actually use and improve my workflow.

Then I looked at the future. OSX Mavericks and Windows 8.1 were both announced in June. OSX will be adding many more useful features I will probably like to use, such as tabs in Finder & notification syncing. Windows 8.1 is adding several nice features in the tablet interface (which I still think it's the best tablet OS out there), but nothing really for the desktop user. It has stagnated, and I feel like Microsoft has given up trying to change anything in the workflow of the desktop user.

Combining all that with the superb support for high-res displays that OSX offers, and the poor outlook of Windows for such displays, I see that Apple is truly trying to innovate in the desktop space and make everyone life's easier.

I'll still be using Windows for a while. But my time devoted to that OS will be shifting.

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump

The are two reasons why I love the above painting by Joseph Wright of Derby from 1768.

First, the painting depicts a scientific experiment. These air pump devices were common in the 18th century. Scientists would use them to demonstrate that a candle's fire goes off after the air is removed, or that it is impossible to hear a ringing bell in vacuum. Joseph Wright chooses here a much more powerful experiment: a bird is placed in the chamber, and as the air is removed the bird starts suffocating, flapping around. The operator is looking at us, as if he needs our opinion: "Should I go ahead and remove all the air and see the air dying, or should I put the air back?"

The attendees' expressions are very interesting. The two girls can barely keep their eyes on the suffering bird, while the rest watch very carefully. With the exception of the two lovers on the left who completely ignore the situation.

Second, it is very interesting to know why the painting depicts the scientific experiment.

This is the middle of the 18th century. Newton, the founder of modern science, had lived the century before. Galileo, too. This is the era that marks the beginnings of science, which will lead to the industrial revolution and then onto the modern world.

This is the first time in history that people start becoming aware of science. It is an era where the physicists are still called natural philosophers, because physics is just starting to form as a science. It is the first time that science starts affecting people's lives, pulling them out of the middle ages.

How to communicate science though? Most people are still illiterate, they can barely read. Communication media are extremely limited. Thus, Joseph Wright chooses to prepare a painting about science.

This painting is one of the earliest depictions of modern science in art.

This painting is an effective method to communicate a scientific idea to society.

For all intents and purposes, this painting is the 18th century version of a PowerPoint presentation.


You can admire the painting in London's National Gallery.

Game of Thrones and the United States of America

I started watching Game of Thrones recently. While it is a medieval fantasy world, I cannot avoid thinking that many practices depicted in the series have strong elements of truth from the actual medieval times on this planet.

Most interesting to me is the vast separation of the social classes. Kings are kings, queens are queens, royalty is royalty, and the everyday people (villagers) remain everyday people. There are strict barriers between them and rarely if ever does someone cross to another social group.

I cannot possibly imagine how people of the middle ages must have felt, knowing that never in their entire lifetime would they be able to advance socially. The royal families, which dominated virtually all of the European countries, maintained their status using the very convenient rule that their status is derived by a blood relationship, and not by merit.

Travelling today in the palaces of France, England, Austria, etc., I try to get a sense of how the villagers of the time would look upon them, knowing that they can never get inside. Neither them nor their children, or their children's children. There must have been people that loved their kings, but there must have been people that hated them.

And then the discovery of the Americas happened, and its conquest makes way more sense to me under this prism now. Because the poor villager without any hope of improving his life now is presented with an opportunity to go to a new land where there are no kings, queens, or royalty. He finally has a chance to be judged on merit. And so the first people that migrated to America must have been the people that mostly hated the status of the European royalty.

This is all more evident in the constitution of the United States, which starts with the words "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States". Not to a king, but to a Congress. In fact, the term "President of the United States" was chosen as the simplest, most humble title they could find, as far away as possible from royal terms. The president is someone that simply presides a board, without implying any direct executive powers. (The fact that it became a very powerful title is a result of later developments.)

I have much higher appreciation for the founding fathers of the US now. They looked at Europe and designed a ruling system as different as possible. No kings, no royalty, with distributed power among different bodies, elected from the people. 

It's quite amazing if you think about it. We tend to forget its importance because today we never really feel totally unable to progress in life. We are not meritocratic enough yet, but there is a general sense that if you struggle in life you will be rewarded. Which is why our world is so much better than the middle ages.

Science is not a democracy

In my last post I argued that believing in an anthropomorphic God is not a choice, where the two options are of equal value. This is because there is no reliable evidence yet on the presence of an earthly supernatural being.

Robin Ince recently wrote along similar lines:

There is a gaggle that seems to consider that expertise is an unfair advantage, that all opinions are equal; an idea that people who are experts in climate change, drugs or engineering are given unfair preference just because they spend much of their life studying these things. I do not think it is fascism that heart surgeons seem to have the monopoly of placing hands in a chest cavity and fiddling with an aorta.
We should not trust people just because they are experts, but if we are not prepared to put the time and effort in to understand something, [...] then we are placed in a position where we must defer and try and make the best decision we can as to who we should defer to.

Science is not a democracy; it's an evidence-based meritocracy. It's closer to fascism than a democracy, with the major difference that the expert/fascist earns his status through the scientific method, and not because of circumstances or strength (physical, political, or otherwise).

In science we do not vote or make decisions based on popular choice. There is no choice. At some points in time most people believed that the earth was in the center of the solar system, that matter cannot cross walls, that the universe was eternal and static. But it didn't matter. What matters is what's right and what's wrong.

Apology to theists

I am an atheist.

I used to think that believing in God or not was a choice. I admired people that didn't, and didn't care about people that did.

Not anymore. I have come to think that believing in God should have a definite answer, in the same way that whether the earth is flat has a definite answer. Sure, you can choose to believe that the earth is flat, but that's wrong. It's not a choice.

No one is born an atheist. We have no reason not to believe in God, and atheism is a state that needs effort to be reached.

I, and millions other people, have reached that state through education, scientific reasoning, logical deductions, and by just plainly looking at the data. It boils down to a lack of evidence for the existence of a God.

(God, in this piece, is the supernatural anthropomorphic know-it-all old man sitting in the sky and watching us all. There are other forms of God which can be fine.)

Now here's the thing: In today's world, I don't think this is a choice anymore. Any person who is educated, can reason scientifically and deduct logically, should reach that same conclusion. There is no excuse anymore in our hyper-connected western world with ultra-fast communication systems and access to all of human knowledge. 

So when I see someone that believes in God, I see a person that hasn't gone through the the process of education, scientific reasoning and logical deducting. I have a problem with them. I can never admire such a person fully, because it signifies lack of coherent thinking. My perfect person has to be an atheist.

I don't have a problem with religion per se. Many aspects of religious teachings are great. But when the supernatural part comes in, and I am asked to believe something without any proof, then I cannot stand it. It's not a matter of choice, it's just wrong. I think of such people in the same way I think of people who believe in astrology, homeopathy, or faster-than-light-travel: they are unaware of the truth and thus choose to believe in something false.

It's exactly the feeling I have towards kids that believe in Santa.