Limitations

Several years ago, I witnessed a particular action from a friend’s dog that startled me. The dog had come into their living room on a lazy afternoon and looked around for a place to lie down, to find the other dogs had already claimed all of the best snoozing spots. He actually got a slightly pained expression, tail dropping and ears twitching back slightly as if hearing a harsh sound – read more

Buried at the crossroads

I wish I could draw political-style cartoons, because then I’d open this with an illustration of an unkillable zombie, or maybe Jason from the Friday the 13th franchise, with the label “Free Will” on it…

This time around it’s an article in Slate from Roy F. Baumeister entitled, “ read more

Spectres and splattered bugs


We had plans to do the whole downtown Savannah thing again this trip, and spent one day and one evening down there. The Girlfriend wanted to do a walking ghost tour again, taking The Younger Sprog with her, but I decided to skip that and do a self-guided tour, starting with Colonial Park Cemetery.

I’m not going to go into the whole history of the cemetery here – there are more than enough read more

Don’t take it personally

It’s funny I first read the posts which prompted this over a week ago, and have been thinking about this ever since.

To set the scene as briefly as I can, the first post can be found here, which details some highly questionable practices from a particular nature photographer, read more

Recognizing pseudoscience

One would think that recognizing pseudoscience is an easy thing, almost intuitive – and, to be honest, it is, provided the right measuring stick is used. But there’s simple, and then there’s simple, you know?

First off, we can get some other bits out of the way first. There’s no reason to get all pedantic over a firm definition of pseudoscience, but can we count such things read more

Alien psychology

I feel slightly guilty about appending an ‘astronomy’ tag to this, because it’s going to seem not just distantly-related, but wholly out of place to some reading. Yet, there really is a legitimate bearing, as I hope to demonstrate. So let’s take a brief look at the history of extra-terrestrial encounters, because sometimes it helps to know the perspectives of the time.

I am read more

Advice on advice

If you came to this post by following one of the links under “composition,” I’m going to apologize up front, because this isn’t exactly about how to compose photos. Yet, it does have some relation, so stick with me for a second as I explain.

Last week was a busier one for me due to photography students (which is just fine,) but it repeatedly raised something I’ve noticed read more

Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure

Despite the fact that, just this past weekend (as I type the first draft anyway,) friends of mine have made disparaging comments about debates that take place on the Intersnarl, I return once again to the fabled Fountain of Free Will, a topic sure never to die because philosophy has taught us nothing if not how to continually fail to “get it.”

This time around it’s a post on Why read more

But what if it is broke?

I’m very fond of pushing different perspectives, because I believe it helps us to understand many things better, and changes our predefined views of our world. Some perspectives, however, are heavily ingrained, and perhaps even self-perpetuating, so introducing something ‘new’ is complicated.

With the lead-in out of the way, let’s take consciousness, and to do so, read more

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