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Every now and again, “downloading the brain” pops up in the news media and it leads to some confusion. As it’s portrayed, somehow you, the person reading this, is transfered into a computer, leaving an empty shell (your body) behind. That’s not true. Instead, a brain download would be a copying of you being created on a machine. You, the you reading this, would still exist in your body and the copy of you that exists in the computer would also exist. There was a short story in “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” (or “The Mind’s I“, I can’t remember which) in which this brain download scenario occurs. Both versions of the participant are fed identical inputs, but at some point the computer version deviated from the flesh version, resulting in a different “being” with different thoughts and different perceptions. That is what would happen to you if you were copied into a computer. The duplicate would start thinking on its own, making decisions based on it’s experiences, different from your own. Immortality wouldn’t be achieved and you would still die, leaving behind a divergent duplicate of yourself different then who you were when you died.

I don’t have a problem with creationism in and of itself. An all powerful being could have created the universe in 6 days. My problem is with creationists. They take an approach to life that can be summed up with “here are the answers; go find the proof”, using the Christian bible as an authoritative work. This flawed approach to investigation is like the police saying “he’s guilty; go find me evidence”. It’s a result of arrogance, making the assumption that what a person believes is always true. The scientific approach to investigation is the exact opposite. It takes evidence and formulates theories. It accepts it’s mistakes (ultimately) and formulates new theories. Creationists attempt to fit the evidence to the theories.

When entering/editing a contact in Address Book 4.0.1, using Apple+Left does not move the cursor to the beginning of the edit box. Using the Apple+Right does move you to the end of the edit box.

Steps to reproduce: 1. Create a new entry in Address Book. 2. Select a new phone book entry (it can be any entry except Name or Company). 3. Hit the Apple+Left and nothing will happen. The cursor will not move. 4. Hit the Apple+Right and the cursor will move to the end of the edit box.

Notes: This does not happen in the Company field. In the first/last name fields, hitting Apple+right will move the arrow to the end of the Last Name; hitting Apple+Left will move to the beginning to the First Name.

So why is is that I can drag-and-drop music files onto the iTunes icon in the dock but not that active iTunes app?

Also, why is that that if you delete a file in iTunes (and remove it from the library) and then hit the up arrow you move all the way to the end of your Library list? If you hit the down you move to the beginning?

Bad UI designer! Bad!

I like TV. I love my TiVo. I do not like either enough to do the following that TiVo is suggesting if you are worried your show might be pre-empted.

Reference your local TV station websites for last-minute schedule changes. Compare the new times with your To Do List (TiVo Central > Pick Programs to Record > To Do List) to make sure the times for your favorite shows match. If the To Do List does not have the correct information, set up a manual recording. From TiVo Central: Go to "Pick Programs To Record," then "Search By Title."

Nope, I gave up caring that much about TV years ago. Now if I have an urge to watch TV, I flip on the TiVo and watch some show. Otherwise I’ll goof off.

Wrong, just wrong. Funny, but wrong. I’m not sure how Sherri would react if I got her a pillow made of one of the pups skins. I take that back, I know exactly how’d she react.