Wonderful Dawkins article

Yet the highly improbable does exist in the real world, and it must be explained. Adaptive improbability—complexity—is precisely the problem that any theory of life must solve and that natural selection, uniquely as far as science knows, does solve. In truth, it is intelligent design that is the biggest victim of the argument from improbability. Any entity capable of deliberately designing a living creature, to say nothing of a universe, would have to be hugely complex in its own right.

If, as the maverick astronomer Fred Hoyle mistakenly thought, the spontaneous origin of life is as improbable as a hurricane blowing through a junkyard and having the luck to assemble a Boeing 747, then a divine designer is the ultimate Boeing 747. The designer’s spontaneous origin ex nihilo would have to be even more improbable than the most complex of his alleged creations. Unless, of course, he relied on natural selection to do his work for him! And in that case, one might pardonably wonder (though this is not the place to pursue the question), does he need to exist at all?

I started to select all of the interesting parts of the article, and soon realized that I'd selected about 90% of it. :-) I winnowed it down to two great paragraphs, but the entire piece is (typically with Dawkins) worth reading. If you haven't read The Blind Watchmaker, you've missed one of the great science books of the 20th Century.

Amazon's pre-Black Friday sale

Amazon's pulling out another bunch of DVD sales, although none of these, alas, cover TV box sets. Still, they've got:

1. A bunch of Special Edition DVDs at $6.97 each. This list includes Stargate, Dirty Dancing, Reservoir Dogs, and Glengarry Glen Ross ("Fuck you. That's my name.").

2. Anywhere from 40-60% off a bunch of new releases (with an price of $11.97 each), including the new (non-Cronenberg) Crash, High Tension, and Beyond the Sea at 57-59% off.

3. 53% off a bunch of UMDs for the PSP. Does anyone actually own a PSP? If so, they've got 10 movies for $9.47 each. Of course, you could also buy the DVDs for about the same price and get special features.

There will probably be better DVD sales on Friday in various stores (see GottaDeal for a list of them), but you just can't pay me enough to wait outside my local Best Buy at 5 in the morning in 32 degree weather for a chance to fight a mob for a $4 copy of Happy Gilmore.

Comicgasm!

It's been ages since I've seriously considered adding a new DCU comic to my subscription list (LSH doesn't count, nor do the occasional miniseries or TPB).

But Chaykin and Simonson on Hawkgirl?

Oh, hell yes.

Now this is a real All-Star comic.

Dead or Alive: The other movie

No, not the Miike masterpiece. The adaption of the cheesecakiest game ever. Trailer located here, ganked from digriz.

And yes, I do plan on seeing it, even though I know it might well suck. Why? For one, it's not directed by Uwe Boll. Two, the cast includes Collin Chou, Devon Aoki (Miho in Sin City), Jaime Pressley, Robin Shou, and (for kitsch value alone) Eric Roberts and Kevin Nash. Three, it's directed by Corey Yuen, who directed The Transporter and High Risk, possibly my favorite Jet Li movie. And four, it clearly isn't trying to take itself seriously.

Do I expect it to be good? No. Do I expect it to be fun? Yes.

Mets get Delgado!

Holy shit!

And we didn't have to give up Milledge!

I'll miss Jacobs, but this was a no-brainer of a trade.

As an aside, can I mention just how much I love all the stories about Billy Wagner, if only because they all mention his agent, the wonderfully-named Bean Stringfellow?

ETA: And yes, I know that Petit's going to be an amazing pitcher, but we had to give up something in the trade, and the Mets have a history of having great pitching prospects flame out, anyway.

Disappointed in the media

So, Danica Patrick gets married, and, as far as I can tell, no one, not even Deadspin, has managed to make any "Pole Position" innuendo when covering the story.

(That said, Deadspin's reaction was the same as mine: "The two reportedly met while Hospenthal was treating her for a hip injury suffered during a yoga class. We suspect that to be true because it’s too stupid to make up")

Grr.

This is normally one of my favorite work days of the year, as I can catch up on email and ongoing projects, and there are usually only a few other folks in the office.

Not today. I had to generate various data for a report that was declared urgent and sprung at the last minute, and which involved various Sisyphisian tasks. Nothing I did could be automated (at least, not without generating more work than I was doing otherwise), none of it will ever be repeated, and at least half of what we were asked was impossible. Add data in at least three locations that were suspect, along with tons of other data that appeared suspect but wasn't (but had to be double checked), and today was Not Fun. I didn't leave the building at all today, and barely left my cube, even.

(So, how come there's no Thanksgiving-themed horror flicks? Silent Night, Deadly Turkey, or whatnot?)

I am getting the fuck out of here now.