Focus, part 3

Still not photography-related, this is mental focus, like part 1 and part 2. This is, I believe, the last of them.

So in part 1, we looked at jumping to conclusions and not having any kind of solid background info, and in part 2, we looked at the protests that sprouted up because of this. Now we’ll look at the overall attitudes that have been getting far too prevalent in this country, and the read more

Podcast: Criticism

I have a small confession to make: I recorded this back in February with the intention of posting it as March’s monthly podcast, and so set it aside. And forgot about it – after a little time had passed, I largely just remembered it as having already been posted. Then the 2,000th post was coming up (“For dog’s sake, will you quit harping on about that?”) read more

Focus, part 2

Once again, this is continuing a theme of observing and commenting on recent cultural behavior in this country, and has nothing to do with photographic focus. It’s potentially a lot more useful than camera technique, but still, it’s not photo-oriented.

In part 1, the attention was on the read more

Focus, part 1

Despite this largely being a photography blog, the ‘focus’ of this topic is mental, regarding critical-thinking, and so for that I apologize. I started this some time back when some of the events were ‘current,’ (for whatever applies to the webbernets-influenced definition of that,) and then left it off because things were changing so rapidly. That, and the fact that I cannot read more

Repost Redux: Amateur naturalism, part six

As we once again enter the season of baby animals (for most species, anyway,) I decided to repost something last seen seven years (and two days) ago, because it still applies – I should probably find a way to make this automatically post at this time. Anyway, let’s look into abandoned/orphaned/injured wildlife and rehabilitation.

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

Here’s why, part 3: Bigfoot and related

I haven’t followed through on this category of posts for a while, and now is as good a time as any, so let’s delve into why science doesn’t take Bigfoot/Yeti/Skunk Ape et al seriously. And while I focused on the giant humanoid accounts here, a lot of this will be equally applicable to other cryptids such as the Loch Ness Monster and Chupacabra and so on. So let’s read more

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

This topic came to mind as I was hashing out some ideas about potential instructional activities (that may or may not come to pass, but I’ll keep you informed.) It’s amazingly simple, but I couldn’t count the number of people I’ve met that would probably benefit from taking it to heart. In short: it’s okay to be wrong.

Well, actually it’s completely unavoidable. read more

But how? Part 28: But why?

Various aspects and versions of this one have been tackled before, but I decided to approach this directly when reading about some of the alternate theories (other than the Big Bang) regarding the beginning of the known universe. The author said that there were two approaches to some of the traits that have been proposed as alternate scenarios:

  1. We can attempt to devise a theoretical mechanism to explain those phenomena, while simultaneously maintaining all the successes of the prior theory and making novel predictions that are distinct from the prior theory’s predictions.
  2. Or we can simply assume that there is no explanation, and the Universe was simply born with the properties necessary to give us the Universe we observe.

The second outright announces that no one’s even read more

But how? Part 27: Not even the start

We’ve long departed the question format and are now delineating how many ways religion is merely a sop to ego and wishful thinking, and this one is perhaps the most distinctive evidence of that trait. So let’s look at how proving the existence of (a) god would barely even be a start.

I’ve encountered a lot of rationales behind believing in the existence of god – and the vast read more

But how? Part 26: Some other religion

I think I have to go back and rename these posts so the topic title is more appropriate and no longer a question, but that would ruin all of the outside links to these posts (snerk!) so for now, we’ll just continue blithely onward even though we can no longer phrase things in the form of a question. Today we’ll talk about how the disturbingly huge number of horrendous and outright read more

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