If the title didn’t clue you in and you’re not already familiar with other posts here, I’ll kindly inform you that I do not refrain from obscenities, vulgarities, expletives, blasphemies, curses, and potty-mouthing. However, it’s a public service, because there are people who actually judge what I have to say by whether or not a naughty word is heard or read, and since I
Category: Rants
The proper way
Sorry, this will be brief, and pointless. Courtesy of a post by Sean Carroll, I herewith present the proper way to order your favorite drink:
1. Ask for what you want.
2. Drink it.
You will note that I have excluded everything having to do with learning how anyone else does it, receiving instruction, and most especially long discussions about what effect some method produces. It’s your
An open letter
This post was fostered by an exchange on Panda’s Thumb and simply needs to be said. This is an open letter to everyone who might call themselves devoutly religious, creationist, conspiracy theorist, new age or alt med supporter, paranormal or psychic believer, and so on. Or anyone that has ever used the phrase, in any form, “Science doesn’t know everything.”
It’s simple.
The ethical responsibility of scientists
Sometimes, we humans get a cultural belief or concept stuck in our collective heads, something typically called a meme, and therefore think that this has importance solely because it’s repeated. Some sociologists have expressed the idea that this is exactly what culture is, and there’s an interesting theory that memes actually go through a process of natural selection.
Frustrations, part eight: Where is it?
There’s not going to be anything insightful hidden within this post, I’m just writing it out because I’m hoping it will be cathartic.
First things first. I’m actually pretty good about being able to find some place on a map that I’ve been to years before, based largely on the general landscape and my memory of how I’d arrived, and this even applies to little unplanned
The binary age
This is just a casual, rambling observation, inspired by far too many of my experiences, but the skeptic in me forces the admission that none of this has been empirically tested or statistically supported. Yeah, you get that way when you spend too much time on such forums…
Much is made about the “connected” nature of our society anymore, and by that I mean, the ability by a noticeable
Don’t ask
I’m pretty hard on philosophy, but I’m even harder on pseudophilosophy, the practice of asking questions that aren’t even comprehended or, much worse, are asked for the sake of asking. Unfortunately, quite a few people still seem to fall for this, and we have been treated to countless instances – blogs, articles, books, etc. – where someone has taken the bait
What are you afraid of?
I’ve had this topic sitting in the background of any number of posts, and have been meaning to address it in detail for at least a year. In the wake of even more muslim-related violence and a long string of christian hand-wringing, now is as good a time as any.
While I’m going to concentrate on the big two which display this so readily, feel free to notice how often it comes up in any
Off track
A few years back, I rode with a friend who had a speaking GPS. As we exited the interstate to get gas, the functional female voice said, “Off trail.” But then we turned left onto the overpass and crossed the interstate, provoking the voice to update us with, “On trail… off trail,” with barely a pause in between. Credit for picking up on our brief position above the
Say it isn’t so!
Courtesy, once again, of Why Evolution Is True, comes another article in the New York Times, this one about a bible-belt pastor that left religion behind. Despite the fact that the author, like many journalists, has only a superficial understanding