The secret to finding things

You can always find what you’re looking for, provided that the definition of what you’re looking for is vague enough.

I received a call from a friend the other night, one I haven’t talked to in a while. He’s in a new situation: he lives on a farm bequeathed to him by a friend of his when she died, on the provision that he takes care of the farm and animals. read more

Let me give you an example – followup

There was probably a few things missing from my previous post on the Perimeter article from Wired, so this is part two. If you haven’t read the first, you either should, or skip this one too ;-)

Let me give you an example

Since I’m sure you’ve read everything on this blog by now (snerk!), you already know I’m in favor of critical thinking. But, you may ask yourself (you have my permission), what does this look like? How is it applied? Directly to the forehead? Under a full moon? Far be it from me to let unasked questions go unanswered, so let’s do an exercise with a recent article from Wired read more

What was that noise?

Being back in central NY brought to mind something from many years back, one of those memories that I can’t define why I find it so compelling, I just do.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties (that’s in years – I still haven’t gone fully metric), I used to go out for walks late at night. I was in a rural area, where nighttime traffic was very sparse and streetlights read more

Cause or symptom?

Over at the blog Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait has a post on September 11th, and on examining the circumstances surrounding the attacks with a critical eye. He makes some great points about distinguishing fanatics from the bulk of a religion’s followers, but says something that I feel misses the mark. I’m addressing it here (instead read more

Touch of grey

There’s this funny thing about humans – we seem to have this problem with counting above, “two.” I mean, of course we can do it, but we prefer not to. So every time we have to make a decision, we try to cut our choices down to two. And to make this easier, we tend to resort to superlatives, and try to push choices to their extremes so we don’t have to qualify our decisions read more

She blinded me with “Science!”

No apologies for putting that song in your head.

Others have approached this subject, but I felt the need to post about it because a) no one has covered all the details that I think need to be covered, and b) I don’t think, in our culture right now, another voice chiming in is too many.

In the United States at this time, there is this strange perception of science. It’s as if there’s read more

Bleak?

Over at the blog Twisted Physics, Jennifer Ouellette relates her views on an encounter during The Amazing Meeting 7, which prompted me to put out my own viewpoint, just as much for the sake of showing what “the other side” thinks.

In that post, she tells of being approached by an atheist who felt distinctly disadvantaged when speaking with someone who believes in an afterlife, because read more

The problem with blogging

…or perhaps, with certain people doing so.

No, I’m not going to attack what other people choose to write about or how they do it. This is a blog – it’s supposed to be about me! ;-). What I’m starting to find now is that I don’t like writing something as a “stream of consciousness” or introducing an idea. I’m a personality type (I think, read more

Belief in Aliens and the Paranormal 101

[Reconstructed after software failure]

Some years back, when I had way too much time on my hands, I was active on several newsgroups. Among these were three devoted to UFOs and paranormal activity. I had grown up in the UFO subculture, believed a lot of it (along with Bigfoot, Nessie, and much of Chariots of the Gods?), but with adulthood and the input of various sources I had found many read more

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