Chaos, revisited, part one

I almost felt obligated to do this follow-up, considering how badly I lambasted the book that purported to explain the concept, because it seems that it was, at least to a degree, more the author’s dismal attempt to explain it than the concept itself.

We’re talking about chaos theory, and it does not bode well that I sought out multiple sources to try and get a grip on it and failed read more

Rehab6

This is actually the sixth time I’ve posted this particular writeup – it’s now become a yearly thing right around the time that wildlife starts becoming most active, and fits in nicely with National Wildlife Day, which is today. Plus look at all this content that I only have to cut-n-paste! So without further fanfare, we delve back into injured and orphaned wildlife.

I used to work read more

Totally free

Yep, once again, today is Free Thinkers Day, when you can go into your favorite home furnishings store and get a little statue of a naked constipated man at no charge! While supplies last, of course.

Okay, the Walkabout Fact-checkers (stop giggling) are informing me that this is not at all the case, or even the meaning of the holiday, and that it’s actually Freethinkers Day, so now I have to read more

More human than human

Our legal system, at least in the US but I imagine in many other countries as well, has gradually become so broken that it barely serves its original purpose anymore, and while by all rights it should be improving, it is instead collapsing into a wildly manipulative affair that falls a long way from, “justice.” There are multiple factors behind this, but I’ll stick to the larger read more

Here’s why, part 6: Psychic abilities

This is a rather broad topic with no real consensus on what it includes, so it’s likely that anyone could either fault me for not covering something, or accuse me of lumping disparate concepts together. Overall, however, the same factors will apply to most or all of them, so let’s dive into, “Why doesn’t science take psychic powers seriously?”

The short answer is, such read more

Improving autofocus

Earlier I mentioned having pretty egregious autofocus issues with the Canon 7D and the Tamron 150-600 lens, and sat down to see if I could improve things. My efforts were quite successful, so I’m going to go over what I did in the hopes that someone else may benefit from this. Virtually all of these will apply to any DSLR camera, with perhaps minor variations.

Clean the contacts. read more

The real Carter

This is what comes from procrastinating. I’ve had “Jimmy Carter” as a topic in my list of potential posts for years, waiting for me to get motivated to do a little more research to clarify details, because I felt that his presidency had been badly misrepresented in the media since before he even left office, and now that he’s entered hospice, articles (mostly along read more

Rehab rehash

The date that I originally posted this is now just one day shy of a decade ago, but it remains relevant and so it tends to return at this time of year, right before birthing season starts for many of the local species. So, here on National Wildlife Day, let’s consider what we should do with injured and orphaned wildlife.

I used to work in this field a fair amount, both in administration of read more

Save time, eliminate dross

This is directed primarily at the people who get into these kinds of discussions, from any angle, but the perspective might be useful to others as well. And by, “these kinds of discussions,” I mean all of the fringe, esoteric, paranormal, supernatural and suchlike topics like alien visitation, crypto-critters like Bigfoot and Nessie, religious miracles… you know the range. Because read more

Playing the rubes

I’ve had this one sitting in the blog folder for a while, and since it’s Freethinker’s Day, I decided to tackle it (especially since photographs still aren’t happening too often.) If I don’t finish this, I’ll set it aside for Freethought Day instead and just change this paragraph.

The U.S. really has an inordinate number of religious politicians – or at least, read more

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