Mike Oren.com

The first portion of this entry will be a little bit different than most of my updates on my web site (the majority of my updates are simply meant to fill people in on what's been going on in my life, not give my opinions on topics); however, I read an article recently that I felt needed a response. However, if you don't want to hear my opinions on the topic (or simply don't want to listen to them, since the topic is controversial) then feel free to simply skip to my updates.

The other day, I read an interesting piece in Wired about New Atheism. Like many scientifically minded individuals, I realize how various religious beliefs can get in the way of scientific study, objectivity, and in general hold back the advance of civilization. I have also had my periods of doubt as to whether or not there is a God (after all, there is no way of proving that God exists, and by scientific reasoning you normally don't trust something exists simply because you can't disprove it--the fact that it can't be disproven simply means that there is a possibility). Still, I have not fallen in with atheism in general and still hold my belief in God and that Jesus is the savior. This article about the New Atheists though claims that such a belief is detrimental and even seems to be inclined to declare that the very notion of belief in God(s) is a great evil. It declares that we must throw away our beliefs in anything that is rooted in superstition and ancient beliefs in favor of reason. The logic behind this argument is, of course, very reasonable. Important points that are brought up are things like the Pope speaking for millions/billions of Catholics and that having weight, even though millions/billions of Catholics don't necessarily agree with the statement--so he is being given more influence/power by those on the outskirts who aren't fundamentalist Catholics. The negative effects of this are, of course, dire. Especially in the spread of AIDS/HIV throughout Africa because the Pope says that using contraception is a sin (something millions of Catholics don't agree with), but the majority of the Catholic population of Africa (and most of Africa is Catholic) take that as the word of God and refrain from the use of condoms--leading to the spread of AIDS.

Then of course we have the United States, where fundamentalist Christians have continually tried to put an end to stem cell research, which is incidentally making our nation fall behind in medical and biological science research. It should be noted that proposals to only use stem cells from fertility clinics (that are just going to be destroyed any way) have also been rejected (although the last attempt to pass it was vetoed by President Bush, since enough Congressional members had a change in thought from the original passage of the stem cell research laws). Furthermore, homosexual individuals have had their rights taken away from them due to religious beliefs. While I do not agree with that lifestyle, I do think that every person should have the right to live their life the way they choose to do so and as such I feel our nation has broken from our charter of separating church and State (although if you look at the history of the United States, we have always been a Christian nation and have always failed miserably at separating church and state--but that doesn't mean it's right to do that). Then, of course, you have the Muslims in the middle east who die in a holy war for the promised after life with virgins and all of that. Religion is clearly a problem for the advance of society. A problem for peace.

BUT religion IS necessary. The New Atheists, the majority of which are in the top 5% of the population (whether that be by social, economic, or education status--or a little bit from all three) seem to forget some basic tenants of humanity, as often happens when you're at the top and looking up. You see, humans need a thing called hope. If you remove hope from the bottom 5+% of the population, if there is no longer an after life free from their daily drudgery, if there is no longer an everlasting punishment for going against societal norms (when you're at the bottom, why does it matter if you go to jail? What have you got to lose at that point? Freedom? You were never free). If they lose that hope, lose those promises, lose that fear then society as we know it will collapse. Religion has a purpose in life that cannot be replaced by any society created law or any amount of charity. Religion is there to keep society functioning. Without it, the lowest of the low having nothing to lose and nothing to gain will either end their lives or make a desperate attempt to have something in life, leading to violent clashes that are just as bad, perhaps even worse than those that have occur ed over religion. Religion gives these people direction, purpose, hope.

It's not just the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder that requires religion though. Religion is required of people in the middle rung as well. The middle managers, office employees, etc. Life for these people are tedious--the same thing day in and day out (go to work, go home, eat dinner, watch TV, sleep, repeat). Without religion promising them something better in the afterlife, what's to keep these people working? The hope for retirement? At the current retirement age, most people are so worn out from the daily grind that retirement is just a wait until death. Sure, there are some that haven't had their bodies so worn out at that point that they are able to enjoy retirement, but they are in the minority. If there is no God and no after life, then they are simply wasting away the little time they have so that a select few can enjoy themselves and so that they, themselves, can continue living.

So, yes, religion leads to bad things, but religion disappearing from the world (at least at this point in time) would be much worse. That doesn't answer why I believe what I believe (I feel that each person should find that out on their own and shouldn't simply be told what they believe, and in that part I agree with the New Atheists--I think one of them also proposed that all major religions be taught in all schools, and I think that would be a very good thing in teaching tolerance and understanding, which will likely also lead to greater reasoning). If you really want to know why I choose to believe in God then send me an e-mail or leave a comment. Incidentally, I believe some of the problems discussed by the New Atheists can be alleviated if people stopped going to church and stopped declaring themselves Baptist, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, etc. and find their religion on their own. This way nobody is speaking for anybody else and this way nobody is being led by (possibly false) promises of a better life and all of that.

Update on what's been going on in my life: I need to get some work done for the C6 demo that I volunteered to do a sound engine for, but that hasn't been going so well--I have what I need to do for the most part, it's a matter of plugging it in to the larger program, but I'm having some issues with that because there's no design document for this project and a lot of people working on a lot of different sections, which makes it difficult to just plug in my engine, build some hooks, and be done with it (which is what I was hoping I'd be able to do...) I'm still hoping I can get it done, but I'm also having some issues getting some of the dependencies working... So we'll see how this ends up.

I'm also almost done with my user study for my audio game, and I'm hoping to write an abstract up and submit it to CHI '07s student research competition. The results from the study have been encouraging and interesting, so I'm hoping I stand a decent chance of making it into that conference, but they're standards are extremely high and while I consider the project to be very HCI-centric, I'm not sure if the reviewers will agree with me on that point. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

I've added drawing to my H3D application, as well as dynamically creating objects, and I've finally gotten around to having the haptic and sound properties get looked up from an image that the user can't see. So that's been going well and those features are pretty cool, but at the moment they're all pretty buggy (each one of those 3 features have a bug that I need to work out to improve performance). Still, I'm excited about that, and it looks like I may even be further along then I thought I'd be by the end of the semester (which is good, since I began thinking that I might be behind where I wanted to be by the end of the semester).

On a final note, I'm almost done with the little bit of Christmas shopping I'm doing (I bought Danielle her presents, I'll be buying Brooke something today--I know what I want to get her, and then I just need to find presents for my parents). I also think I've already chosen the charity that I will be putting the bulk of the money I set aside each year for a Christmas donation--the free medical center set up by the real life Patch Adams. I'm getting tired of just donating to the Salvation Army and places like that, so I thought this would be a good change in pace.

On a final note, for those of you not in the "know", the Nintendo Wii comes out next week (November 19th) so be excited! Due to some unexpected expenses (read: one of my college loans does not qualify for deferral), I no longer have the budget to buy it when it comes out (which is kind of okay because I wanted black and they're only releasing it in white at the moment... although I NEED my Zelda fix... and that's kind of hard to do without a Wii... but I'll survive). Plus I had figured out even before that time that my Wii money should go toward Christmas presents... unfortunately (see my last post) the current budget does not allow for me doing Christmas shopping (other than for the four people I just mentioned), so that didn't work out too well either. With the exception of those two minor issues though, my budget that I made before school started has been holding up and I still have the savings needed to get me through (as in living comfortably) to a month or two after my tax refund, when my savings fund will be replenished.

So it's been quite a long time since my last update. About a month. I suppose it's time to make up for that though, especially since I've had a lot of stuff going on (hence no updates). These updates will be split into 4 sections: Danielle's visit (yay!), my research (both the audio game and the haptic research), family stuff, and miscellaneous stuff (including some notes about Christmas--and the reason for not doing my traditional list).

Danielle's Visit: My dearest and truest love, Danielle, was on fall break for a week in October and I was lucky enough to have her stay with me for pretty much the entire week (the original plan was to bring her back to the Chicago area so she could spend some time with her family and so I could go to Six Flag's Fright Fest with mine, but for various reasons she ended up spending the whole week with me instead). Before she came, I went through and cleaned everything as completely as possible (scrubbing the bath tub, organizing paperwork, moving a few items into my closet, etc.). It really wasn't all that messy, but I wanted to make things as clean as possible for her. I had a seven hour drive to pick her up and then spent the evening there (we ate at the Duck and tried out their new menu, which was pretty good but the dessert menu still needs work). So then Saturday we left in the afternoon after cooking breakfast and Danielle packing. Then we took a nice long drive back (we stopped at Olive Garden for soup, salad, and breadsticks lunch and then stopped at a mall and walked around; we also stopped at Culver's and bought shakes/malts). Sunday we went to Des Moines to the mall and Archiver's there (Danielle needed some stuff for some cards). Then we went to a Korean restaurant for dinner--the sweet potato noodles Danielle got were delicious and VERY interesting; I got some spicey noodles that are served over ice which were interesting but not as good as Danielle's sweet potato noodles (the chicken in both dishes were disgusting though). I think we may have gone to campus after that so I could show her my program (she had fun playing with it, perhaps too much fun). Monday I went to class/work and Danielle was waiting for me when I came back (she had done some reading and stuff for classes while I was gone) and, of course, we made out and it was wonderful. Dinner was brats in beer (and I tried to make fried mushrooms that didn't turn out so well). After dinner, we went to Target and did MORE shopping and stuff. Tuesday, we had Thai food and went to see Little Miss Sunshine in the movie theater (it was well written any way and decently amusing); we also walked around campus for awhile before the movie. Wednesday, I made my world famous fried chicken (turned out ok) and Danielle made some weird potato, vinegar, green onion mixture thingy (it was alright as well), and this time I was able to make the fried mushrooms correctly. Of course, we also watched Lost on Wednesday (that's our show--we watched the entire first season and a few episodes of the 2nd season in one sitting together on a Saturday). After Lost we watched that New World movie which we had rented earlier in the week--it was REALLY boring (and poorly made with an annoying sound track, crappy cinematography, etc.). Thursday we went to an awesome Irish restaurant (Dublin Bay), but this one wasn't planned earlier in the week so we ended up not going until much later (like 7) then we went and walked around the Ames mall a bit and found out where the $1 movie place is located (I didn't know it was in the mall). After that we went to my cubicle so I could make a quick fix to the program for a demo that was being done on Friday (and then Danielle played with the program some more). Friday is a partial day for me, and my original plan was to drive to Toluca that day so Danielle could spend more time with her family and either they could drive the last 3 hours to bring her back and I'd stay with my family or I would spend the night there and then drive Danielle back on Saturday evening. However, after putzing around for awhile, Danielle wasn't sure if she wanted to spend another day with me or go to Toluca and we ended up staying here and taking a LONG walk around town/campus and going to the grocery store and an Asian food store (where Danielle got sweet potato chips that are VERY delicious). Oh, and I forgot that we had gone to Pita Pit for a healthier lunch (it was pretty good, although seemed slightly expensive). Before that I had taken Danielle over to the C4 cave so she could see a VR CAVE demo, and she had fun playing with that app (although I didn't think it was a good use of the cave, it did have some cool particle effects)--plus it was cool that she got the VIP treatment and got to go through it by herself as opposed to being part of one of the larger groups. For dinner we made some AWESOME chicken quesadillas. Then we kind of just spent the night watching TV, cuddling, etc. before heading back to campus around midnight for the mass Campanileing (when couples gather under the Campanile--a clocktower in the center of campus--the Friday of homecoming and kiss at midnight). Danielle wanted to go to see what it's all about--the band played, there were fireworks, and just a lot of other people all around. I was sad because people were making out and Danielle only gave me a quick kiss because she wanted to see what was going on. But she made out with me later as we walked back to the car, so that made things better :-). Saturday, we got Hardee's for lunch (the jalepeno burger is quite good) as we drove back to campus. We also made a stop in Toluca so Danielle could spend at least SOME time with her family. I enjoyed my time during that visit and would've stayed longer, but Danielle said we should get going so I don't fall asleep at the wheel (probably a wise move). Her dad and grandpa were being funny though because they were pretending to be Denny Crane and Alan Shore (Boston Legal characters--great show), and I enjoy talking to Danielle's great grandmother because in some ways she reminds me of my grandmother and also because I think she's led an interesting life. After leaving Toluca, I finished driving Danielle back to campus and promptly fell asleep. Sunday I woke up, we had breakfast, said good bye, and then I drove the 7 hours back to Iowa. It was a great week and I enjoyed having Danielle here. I miss her though now that she's far away again :( But Thanksgiving isn't that far away.

My Research: I've been in the user study of my audio game this past week. In terms of people being able to play the game without graphics, so far I've been quite pleased with performance (and this is using sighted people). I haven't looked at the surveys yet, but so far its looking promising. I am disappointed by the maps people are getting though, and I am worried that we may have run into a memory problem despite our attempts to minimize memory's effect (however, it seems everybody still just seems to want to beat the level as quickly as possible instead of providing as accurate a map as possible). However, people playing the game with graphics map the levels just as bad (and sometimes worse) than those playing with just audio--so the results from the mapping portion may still be useful/interesting. I'll have more details about that after it's finished (and I'll upload a new version when I have time to do so). My haptics project has been moving along slowly (due to the amount of time I've had to spend on user study stuff), but I've gotten it so that you can now grasp objects and move them around--both individually and as a group. Plus the sound is now mapped to the height and you can now switch between different textures. The rotation speed using the spaceware mouse is now variable as well. So lots of fun stuff to do on it now, and it'll be even more fun after the undergrad working on implementing a cutting algorithm gets that done.

Family Stuff: My sister is pregnant with another child (she found out today it's another girl). On top of that, she was diagnosed with the early signs of cervical cancer (I think that's it), but the doctor said they need to wait until after she's had the baby. So right now she's just taking meds for it (which for this type of cancer can take care of it at this early stage, but it may not). My uncle has also been spending the last couple of weeks in the hospital after some complications arose during gall bladder surgery (at one point I was told he was only given a 50/50 chance of recovery). The original surgery took place at a private clinic and he wasn't transferred to a hospital immediately after complications arose. The hospital he ended up going to later transferred him by helicopter to another hospital with better specialists and since that point he's been doing much better and hopefully he'll pull through (I'm only getting news every so often when my mom forwards it to me or I call and ask about it). No gall bladder surgery should have gone this far though because that's pretty routine surgery, so I'm suspecting it was malpractice but I don't have all the details so can't really say for sure.

Miscellaneous Stuff: I'm going to be featured three times in the Fall issue of Iowa State's VRTech publication--once as an incoming HCI student, once for my haptic project, and once as a member of the C6 Demo Crew. So that's pretty cool, and I'm excited about that. It looks like I won't have issues to hand out until December though, but I'll have it to show people soon enough. I've really gotten into the new seasons of Doctor Who lately as well (2005 & 2006 seasons; the 2007 season starts at Christmas time--at least on the BBC; you'll need to wait longer to see it on the SciFi Channel), so I've been enjoying watching those. Along with that, I've started watching Torchwood (the new spinoff show from Doctor Who) and that's kind of fun because it mixes elements of Doctor Who with a crime scene investigation show. Other than that, there have been a few HCI social activities that I've gone to and those have been fun. I'm also trying to make a push to increase the focus on usability within our HCI program because right now it's still too tech focused. There are a group of other students who want to make that push, but there's still some resistance from the engineering side of the program. Plus, there's the issue of politics in that it's only a program (and not a department) so the faculty have to answer to their department heads and such and have less freedom to teach HCI courses and all of that. My plan is to write a proposal though and then people who have been there longer and know the ropes more are willing to help get the word out and kind of get a petition going. So hopefully we can get positive change that way (it's a young program, so I think that should be fairly doable). Finally, as for the lack of my traditional (amusing) Christmas list. I'm not creating a list this year because I can't afford to buy other people presents (although I'll get my niece something for sure). Anyway, I'm a believer in that if I can't give gifts, I shouldn't receive gifts. So that's why there's no list. If you must spend money on me, I would recommend instead recommend donating the money to charity (like little kids who wouldn't get presents otherwise). I think that would be a better use of the money then wasting it on video games or movies or whatever other fun but needless thing for me.