Call me old fashioned.

This is not a blog. This is some kind of website with news articles powered by a content management system that is optimized for blogs. Sorry, Skepchick, you're just the best example.



This is a blog. It's got an archive on the right, no blogroll, but that's not that important, though I do like them, and it has a title, then a headline followed by the text. Then, you know what happens when you scroll down? More headlines and more text.



And another thing!

How have we let blogs be taken over by corporations and large companies? Even "new" internet companies like Gawker and Cnet and stuff are bloated and shit. Blogs should be personal. And some personal blogs, like Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy, are now run by magazines! Eugh! Internet, what's happened to you?



Come on, dudes.

Call me old fashioned.

James May's Man Lab

 

 

I'd forgotten that this show existed. I loved the first two series, and hence, I'm pretty upset with myself for missing series three...particularly because they addressed one of my favourite subjects: bullcrap cryptozoology.

 

http://www.skegnessstandard.co.uk/news/local/skegness-sea-monster-revealed-to-be-bbc-hoax-named-susan-for-top-gear-presenter-james-may-s-man-lab-series-1-5039877

 

So, James May came out with a skeptical perspective, as expected by me, though he has, in the past, said some dubious things. Far from even entertaining seriously that there might be a Loch Ness monster, they accept that most of the photographs are hoaxes. While this is probably not true, and most of the photos are misidentifications, it's a warranted opinion that there isn't a monster in Loch Ness. All the evidence is consistent with there being no monster, even if there is, which is a possibility.

So, because they think that the Loch Ness monster photos are hoaxes, and they bring lots of money to the area around the Loch, they decided to do the same with Skegness, a resort town in England.

They created a needlessly elaborate contraption to film and hopefully put online to create a stir. And it did. It even hit the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2189371/Forget-Nessie-Skegness-Monster-Mysterious-sea-creature-spotted-bobbing-coast-beach-resort.html

 

Fantastic. This news is two weeks old, I think.

Testing.

I am testing my Transformer, which I should have been using like six weeks ago, but am only now using. This thing is pretty nifty, once I get past the tiny keyboard.





Also: currently rereading The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. God damn, he is amazing. I feel like his interest in scientific skepticism, and indeed science itself, closely aligned with my own. I would have liked to know him, but he died when I was just a kid. His candle burned out long before his legend ever did. Apologies to Bernie Taupin.

Joe Nickell's a cool dude.

There's this guy named Joe Nickell. There's a distinct non-zero chance of me going over a few of his books or articles here. I'm a pretty big fan of his, and he's always been super nice to me when we've met. We hung out for much of CSIcon in 2012. Here's us in Halloween costumes.





He did his makeup himself, by the way. He's done everything. He even has a list of what he calls "personas" on his website, numbering in the 4 digits, most of which have documentations. So, from this zombie thing, he is now a makeup artist, a movie actor, and a zombie. Three personas right there! The guy's pretty cool. He also doesn't have a computer.

One of the things I've been trying to do lately is write more things down. Dr. Nickell carries a notebook of good ideas with him at all times, then works on them. And, due to his wide range of interests, he stays productive and goes through his notebook much faster than one would think. If he gets tired of writing, he'll paint. If he gets tired of that, he'll do something else. The guy's really amazing. Magician, private investigator, glass blower, poet, this guy's done it all.

Anyway, his primary job is as a writer, and I love that stuff. I read things he writes in The Skeptical Inquirer, some of which can be found online at http://csicop.org, but some of which can't. In addition to this, he's written a few dozen books. They are all interesting, and indeed excellent bathroom reads. This is a major category of books for me. He put two out in the last year, if I recall correctly.





CSI Paranormal, which is available from CSICOP for only $5 (I bought two copies at that price), focuses on the art of paranormal investigation, but in a light manner. Benjamin Radford's book, on the other hand, couls almost be seen as a textbook on how to investigate the paranormal, albeit an interesting one. Dr. Nickell instead tells us all about how he does things, some past stories he likes to tell, and how his process allowed him to keep abreast of the reality of the situation, and not get caught up in either the gullible believer mindset or the armchair debunker mindset like so many of us on the internet.





The Science of Ghosts was also released, and it's about twice as long as CSI Paranormal, with a special focus on ghosts, investigating them, and how their existence is perceived to have been evidenced, at least by those who buy into it. Split into many 8-10 page chapters discussing specific cases and subjects for which he's specifically researched, the book is almost a definitive skeptical book on ghosts; a specificity often lacking in modern skeptical literature. I love it.

Anyway, as said, there is a non-zero chance of me going into further detail on these books later.

The Skeptical Inquirer should do more of these.

I've been plowing through a lot of my skeptical books lately, and The UFO Invasion, put out by The Skeptical Inquirer is fantastic. I don't have a massive back catalogue of Inquirers, only back to 2010 or so,  but I love them.





And, my favourite stuff? UFO stories, without question. Hence, a collection of Skeptical UFO analyses curated by 3 skeptics I like a lot is heaven for me. The best part is,  considering this book was published in 1997 as a collection of Skeptical Inquirer articles, there is almost no chance I have read any of these before. As I go through, some of it seems familiar, because I have heard about the investigations, like a couple of the Joe Nickell ones, and some have entered into the global skeptic consciousness for lack of a better word (I'm positive there's a better word, and I'm just too lazy to type it). But these are awesome.

May do a full non review later. Just wanted to get this recommendation out there.

I love it when people "harass" me about joining their religion, cult, etc.

Pictured: St. Patrick, famous for conversions.

When very religious people whose religion is one to which I do not belong talk to me, I am astonished at their lack of interest in my soul.

How do I know? I know from the degree of tolerance they give my divergent beliefs. No fundamentalist Christian, Mormon, Muslim, uh...whatever else there is out there that considers proselytizing a core virtue should ever be that way. It's taught that they are out there saving souls from punishment and a life of purposeless monotony without their particular brand of religion. They know I am not of that brand of religion, hence they do not care to bother themselves to save my soul.

Imagine you were talking to someone and he said "Oh, by the way, I'm going to go jump in front of a bus right now," and you made no effort to save him, but instead said "You know, I choose to not jump in front of busses, but you are making a perfectly legitimate life choice." That's pretty much what non proselytizing members of proselytizing religions or denominations of religions do.

I spoke to one today. I asked her why she believed the way she did.
"I have faith that I'm doing the right thing, and that Catholocism is the best way to be Christian."
"What do you mean by faith?"
"I mean that I know in my heart that Jesus is my saviour and his bible is true."
"You know? How do you know?"
"You just know. I know it more than I know I am here and you are here."

She has faith. She knows it as much as she knows she is in a shared reality with me, possibly more. She knows it as much as you know that busses are dangerous in the previous example. She was working with two admitted atheists and had not tried to convert either of them. She knew she was letting two souls go to hell, and did nothing.

This is why I love it when people try to get me to do their religion. I know they truly care about me, and they want me to have what they have. So, religious people. Don't ever stop trying to convert. Save as many souls as you can, it shows you care.