Just for fun

I actually get chills when watching the following video – it’s just too cool seeing this all come together:

I’ve known this video for a couple of years now, and there’s a decent chance you’re familiar with it at least with the tour that culminated from it. That, however, was only the lead-in for this. Turn your volume down if you’re someplace public:

Seriously, read more

Hiding in plain sight


Right alongside our front walk sits a cluster of flowers that I planted from seed to assist with hummingbird photography – I’d rather have shots at natural-looking flowers than feeders. Unable to find either plants or seed for varieties I knew were hummingbird attractors, I grabbed a bag of “bird and butterfly mix,” which wasn’t an ideal choice – read more

The information age

I was just sitting here a few minutes ago answering e-mail, and felt something shake the chair I was in gently, as if a strong gust of wind had shaken the house, but if there was a sound, it was at the edge of hearing. Went outside to see what might have caused it, but found nothing even remotely likely. I thought I might have had my first encounter with infrasound.

…Until The Girlfriend called read more

No flag at the summit

In working on an earlier post, a particular observation suddenly leapt out at me, making me wonder if skeptics and critical-thinkers need to put a little more emphasis on a different approach. Whether it is sufficient to increase the number of people reached will remain to be seen.

Some of us mix it up on forums, websites, bulletin boards, and whatever, addressing the various flaws of religious belief read more

The mailbag

Hi, all you spambots out there! You’ve been sending me so many fascinating comments that I’ve been neglecting, so I thought I’d sit down and finally answer some choice selections. I’m sorry that I can’t get to all of you, but I can say that I appreciate your efforts nonethemore. Also, for those of you who included links (which seems to have been most of you, come to read more

That’s where I draw the line

There have been some interesting discussions coming up of late within skeptical circles, largely based on a survey report regarding religiosity in select populations of the US. The critical thinker in me starts asking these sneaky little questions, as usual, but in this case the answers may not be evident without a lot of examination. Bear with me a moment, here.

The census report in question is read more

Too cool, part 10: Bang!


I’ve related this in part elsewhere on the site, but I thought it deserved its own post, especially since it was one of the more memorable experiences from a few years ago.

When I lived in Florida, I started “maintaining” a small saltwater aquarium to house photo subjects and interesting marine critters. Being close to both the ocean and the Indian River Lagoon, a large isolated read more

Illusion interlude, or interlusion, or something…

I’ve been a little slower in posting than intended, for several reasons, among them dueling on other blogs and doing computer upgrades. I’ll have more coming shortly, but in the meantime, check out this video version of Edward Adelson’s classic checkerboard illusion over at Why Evolution Is True.

… which is not a blog. If you remember nothing else, remember that.

Conformity

Walkabout podcast – Conformity

Secular humanism is the concept that, put simply, human beings can be good without god – no religious or scriptural moral guidelines are necessary, since we have the ability to recognize “good” and “bad” without cribsheets. We’re not abject idiots, in other words. read more

1 283 284 285 286 287 310