gregladen | March 18, 2012By "Controlling the Message" I mean setting the agenda, usually by putting something out there that causes other people to shift their own message to be more like yours. I can think of a few spectacular yet small scale examples that are safe to talk about. I'll give you one, although if certain people hear this they may not be happy.
When I first joined the Anthropology Department at the University of Minnesota, there was a meeting where everybody introduced themselves so new people could get a bead on the old, and the old people could test the new waters. Based entirely on where I was…
gregladen | March 16, 2012So, what are you doing on Sunday morning?
We've had a slight change in plans, and my interview with Maggie Koerth Baker will be on April 1st. No fooling. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Atheist Talk Radio will have a conversation woth Jen McCreigh, Stephanie Zvan, Brianne Bilyeu, and Moi. In other words, four Free Thought Bloggers all at once on one radio show talking about .... well, we have a plan, but you can email and call in and tell us that we've got it all wrong, if you like.
gregladen | March 16, 2012Bill McKibben shares a message with the 350 community about what we've done so far, and the plan for the months ahead. Our next big fight: taking on the billions in subsidies that the fossil fuel industry makes.
gregladen | March 15, 2012Last weekend, Desiree Schell and I taped a segment of "Everything You Know Is (Sort of) Wrong" (apologies)for Skeptically Speaking, a radio talk show and podcast that Desiree hosts. The topic was the concept of humans as predators, or hunters, or really, eaters of meat, and I was discussing the many ways in which people misconceived this notion. One of the misconceptions that came up is the idea that human ancestors went through an evolutionary stage called "scavenging" during which time we were not capable hunters, but we were good enough to scavenge, so we did that for a while until we…
gregladen | March 14, 2012A UFO (Underground Freaky Object) has been located in Austria by a farmer searching for his lost cat.
"I managed to get a big magnet which I dangled down there and it clearly fastened onto something at the bottom -- so there is something large and metallic about down there," he said. "It also sounds as if there is a hollow space around about whatever the metal object is. It sounds as if there is a room underneath."
He even called a local plumber, who lowered a camera down the pit on a rope -- but the camera failed just as it reached the object. Knoglinger said that the interference may have…
gregladen | March 13, 2012DId you ever wonder if people "back then" really sounded like Rudolph Valentino or if there was just something wrong with all the recording equipment?
Turns out .....
Hat Tip C.A.
gregladen | March 13, 2012
Obviously, since the hardware can be stolen, this would work better if the gear was surgically implanted in the homeless people who could then constitute a new race of cyborg servants who would not have to be paid much.
gregladen | March 12, 2012I'm not recommending this. In fact, I may recommend against it. But I thought you should know:
gregladen | March 12, 2012I usually write about race and racism here, but about humanist and atheist stuff at The X Blog. So, I thought I'd point you to this: White Atheism and the Billboard Problem
gregladen | March 11, 2012Do you have a Roku with which you watch Netflix? Do you watch Netflix on a Mac? If so, you are using either the Linux operating system or a closely related "*Nix" operating system. (Mac's run on a form of OS that is the same basic system as Linux*)
However, if you run Linux on a regular computer, you can't watch Netflix videos, as you can with Windows or a Mac. Why? My understanding is that the the people who own and operate Netflix, bless their pointy heads, think that if they released a Linux version of Netflix, Linux "hackers" would break through the DRM protection schemes and everyone…
gregladen | March 9, 2012".... The car stopped on a dime. Unfortunately, the dime was in Mr. Rococco's Pocket...." and other great moments.
If you don't know Firesign Theater, then a) your soul is empty and b) you won't know who Peter Bergman is/was.
Here's a post by a friend of his.
And now, go get and ingest some hallucinatory substances and listen, in no particular order, to the following: How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're and This Side and Don't Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers and Everything You Know Is Wrong and Waiting for the Electrician Or Someone Like Him and Firesign Theatre's Box of…
gregladen | March 9, 2012
Yes, folks, it's YouTube Weekend! (Our daycare is closed and it's convention/caucus season in Minnesota and I've got a candidate!)