Java Zen:Thinking Out Loud Sunday, 2026.06.21 
"We have many studies in teaching, for example, in which people make
observations, make lists, do statistics, and so on, but these do not thereby
become established science, established knowledge. They are merely an imitative
form of science-- analogous to the South Sea island airfields, radio towers,
etc., made out of wood. The islanders expect a great airplane to arrive. They
even build wooden airplanes of the same shape as they see in foreigners'
airfields around them, but strangely enough, their wood planes do not fly. The
results of this pseudoscientific imitation is to produce experts, which many of
you are. You teachers who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap
can maybe doubt the experts once in a while. Learn from science that you must
doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way:
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."

		Richard Feynman, The Physics Teacher, 7 September, 1969, 313-320

2007.03.20

Unbearable Cuteness

God’s Holy Trousers! Not again!

Allahpundit at Hot Air reports: Lethally adorable baby polar bear marked for death

By, um, animal rights activists. The zookeepers are domesticating him, which means he might have trouble interacting with other polar bears later, which naturally means it’s better that he die.

I’m not unsympathetic to their position. Cuteness at moderate levels is productive and useful, but cuteness this highly enriched could cause mass shock, seizures, and uncontrollable cooing. If it were ever to fall into the wrong hands…

Let’s just pray that day never comes.

I lived through the massive cuteness release here in Denver when the twin polar bear cubs, Klondike and Snow, were unleashed upon the world. It’s been 12 years and the effects can still be seen and felt – people smiling with fond memories, brisk souvenir sales of bear cub stuffed toys, bumper stickers.

I toughed it out, like any resident to their hometown would. You hunker down and endure. But like so many others, I felt compelled, obligated even, to visit ground 0 X 2. So I did and was overwhelmed. I’m not ashamed to admit I smiled at their playfulness, their delightful curiosity, their innocence.

Alas, the animal rights activists have a solution different from that found for Klondike and Snow.

🙁

[Edit History]

2007.03.23

But wait! Knut lives! Reckless, it is, for those zookeepers to be handling such a critter without cute tongs and anti-cuddle suits. Mark my words, they’ll regret it.

2007.03.27

Run for the shelters, folks! Run! (H/T Allahpundit)

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