Students compete in OzCLO

This month saw the state round of OzCLO, or the Australian Computational and Linguistic Olympiad. High school students from all over Perth poured into UWA to solve tough puzzles and problems. It was great to see kids getting fired up about linguistics, I must say.

The peak moment for me was seeing one student stare for ten long seconds at the problem on syntax (which I wrote), and then silently mouth, "WHAT?!?"

Here's a taste of the kinds of problems they had to face.

One of these two Egyptian hieroglyphic cartouches represents the name of Cleopatra. Which one is it, and whose name is in the other cartouche?



(No spoilers in comments, please.)

There are more sample problems here, if you get hooked.

Good Without God: The first wave

The first batch of posters for the UWA Atheist and Agnostic Society have hit campus.


We might not have gotten them done so quickly, but since the odious Christian Union blanketed the uni with their odd (and strangely defacement-prone) "Jesus Much?" posters, we had no choice but to remind students of the godless way.

It really is amazing that churches give so much money to CU. I think they see the university as some kind of huge recruitment pool for future tithers. But in the process, they're wrecking people's critical thinking skills and promoting mythology. Just the opposite of what should happen at university.

Anyway, future versions of the poster will have the main text somewhat smaller, and catchy slogans in the middle. Say, anyone have any suggestions?

What's the point?

During one of those browser free-association moments, I found myself staring at the Mormon.org website. That's the focus for their proselyting efforts on the Web.

Here's something that really curdled my cream.

What's the Point of Having a Family If It All Ends at Death?

I wanted to have a family but wondered what would be the point of having one, if it all ended at death.

I wanted a sandwich, but wondered, "What's the point of having a sandwich if it's just going to end when I've eaten the sandwich?"

This is something I've heard from a number of believers: if life doesn't go on forever, then life is just some cosmic joke with no purpose.

I harbour no illusions that my family relations will last forever, since no one's ever provided evidence of a world beyond. Nevertheless, I see a great deal of point in having a family. I get to have good people in my life. I get to raise a couple of good men for the next generation of humankind. We have good talks. My beloved and I get to live together happily, right now. That's worth something, even if it doesn't last forever.

Life is cool. There's so much to enjoy: get-togethers with people we love, good food, books, music. And sadness and frustration. A whole universe of wonder and discovery. And for this creep to sit there and say 'What's the point?' is a kind of petulance bordering on ingratitude.

Vegetarians get fewer cancers, mostly.

New study:

A vegetarian diet may help to protect against cancer, a UK study suggests.

Analysis of data from 52,700 men and women shows that those who did not eat meat had significantly fewer cancers overall than those who did.

But surprisingly, the researchers also found a higher rate of colorectal cancer - a disease linked with eating red meat - among the vegetarians.

Oh, that. That's because we're eating teh Fake Meat, hom nom nom nom.

ARIS poll says non-believers up

Finally had time to get a good look at the ARIS survey everyone's talking about. The big news: most religions are down, non-theists up.

The percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent. Given the estimated growth of the American adult population since the last census from 207 million to 228 million, that reflects an additional 4.7 million "Nones."

If all those 'nones' were a religious group, they'd be the third most populous, behind Catholics and Baptists.

And if you want some striking graphics to illustrate, USA Today has them.

HBO v LDS: 'Big Love' to show fragment of boring religious ceremony

Trouble brewing.

HBO's Depiction Of Mormon Ceremony Upsets Church

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Is 'Appalled' at the TV Series

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is angry over an episode of HBO's hit series "Big Love" that the church says is in "appallingly bad taste."

An upcoming episode of "Big Love," which chronicles the lives of a fictional polygamist family, is reported to be depicting an endowment ceremony, one of the most sacred rituals of the Mormon Church.

HBO has apologised.

"Obviously, it was not our intention to do anything disrespectful to the church, but to those who may be offended, we offer our sincere apology," read the statement.

It's one of those apologies like "Sorry you got mad" or "Sorry you're so touchy." Except in this case, it's "Sorry, but we're running the episode anyway."

Does it seem strange that the LDS Church is objecting to people knowing the details of ceremonies which, according to them, contain the truly great things that all people need to know for salvation? Okay, that's not really fair. They just want people to see the temple ceremony with the appropriate "context", by which they mean the kind of context where you join the church and pay them lots of money over years and years. That kind of context.

Here's the issue: the LDS Church has (don't take this wrong) occult practices. I don't mean 'occult' as in 'satanic' like people sometimes do. I mean 'occult' in an earlier sense: 'occult' meaning 'hidden'. Many 19th century movements, religious and otherwise, taught that the really great truths were held in reserve for those who were initiated into the mysteries. The Masons and the Rosicrucians, the Gnostics and the Theosophists, all used this strategy. Joseph Smith plumped for it too in later years, for better or worse. But of course, secret knowledge has a way of getting leaked in the 21st century. How reasonable is it to expect the mysteries to stay hidden in the Information Age?

I understand the Mormons wanting to control their Endowment ceremony. After all, they wrote it. But it's not reasonable to expect everyone else to share their concern.

On second thought, maybe I'll wear a different shirt today

Even though religiously-motivated sexual repression is a very sad thing to watch, it does have its hilarious side. Witness the ex-Masturbator t-shirt. Imagine trying to have a conversation with someone wearing that. Pleased to meet you. I won't shake hands, thanks.

Atheist t-shirts have a certain transgressive appeal, if you don't mind offending people just by walking down the street (which I don't). But you can't pull off edgy and squeaky-clean at the same time, and people look like idiots by trying to do so. At least they're not as bad as the unintentionally homo-erotic Mormon t-shirts.

Speaking of sexual repression: according to a recent study, guess which state has the most porn subscribers per capita?

How'd you know?

Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.
...
The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. "The differences here are not so stark," Edelman says.

Number 10 on the list was West Virginia at 2.94 subscriptions per 1000, while number 41, Michigan, averaged 2.32.

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

There are a few holes in the study. I suppose it's possible that it's just the non-Mormons in Utah ordering up all the porn. But you combine this result with the 'men kissing' item from Google Trends, and the picture begins to emerge.