gregladen | January 29, 2010I've never seen the ocean glow, but Katie Spotz did this week. She has been rowing in the Atlantic Ocean for 3 weeks now, getting closer to South America each day. A recent tweet from her:
Read the rest at DR
gregladen | January 29, 2010There is a big fight going on over at Quiche Moraine. Apparently, my friend and co-blogger Mike made a comment or two, months back, about someone and she didn't like it. So she complained to Stephanie. Well, she complained to me, and I forwarded her complaint to Stephanie. And then they got into it. And Stephanie has turned what would otherwise be a series of emails worthy of little more than deletion into an interesting study of libel, defamation, accusation and loathing.
Libel and Legalistic Bullying
There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. One is don't ever blog anything…
gregladen | January 27, 2010Not the actual babies, but the birth weight of the new ones.
Just a snippet; I've not looked into this yet. But given that human size goes up and down over secular time, this probably would mean (if it means anything at all) that we've peaked out with whatever causes that cycle:
Birthweights in the US are falling but no one knows why, according to a study of 36.8 million infants born between 1990 and 2005.
A 52-gram drop in the weight of full-term singletons - from an average of 3.441 to 3.389 kilograms - has left Emily Oken's team at Harvard Medical School scratching their heads.
source
gregladen | January 27, 2010Skeptics ask questions (Q's) and try to do so in a systematic, scientific, way. But what about IQ (and here I use IQ as a euphemism for smarts). The recent discussion here and elsewhere about the Skepchicks touched on this issue. I've been (temporarily) avoiding it, but skepchick car2d2 is staring to think about it.
Please have a look at this: Skepticism: Your IQ must be this high to ride
gregladen | January 27, 2010Negotiating with dog god...
Judaism is a religion of scepticism, made for and used by sceptics. The relationship with Jews and God is not a one-way thing in which God says 'thou-shalt-not' and everyone jumps. It's a constantly evolving contract. It's not inappropriate to remind ourselves, especially today, how a panel of rabbis in Auschwitz put God on trial and found him guilty. Such an action would hardly be possible in a religion in which obedience is unquestioning, unthinking.
This is at Henry Gee's joint. Go piss on his rug!!!11!!
(Only kidding about the part about the rug.)
gregladen | January 26, 2010Librarians & Scientists: YMMV
...people (and more so engineers and scientists) consult their friends first, then their files, then after trying everything else, consult the library. It's sort of the library/librarian as goalie metaphor (you know, 10 other people missed the ball so the goalie has to save it).
Science Online 2010: Scientists and librarians
Stephanie Willen Brown and I did our level best to bust some stereotypes and suggest some points of contact during our (lightly-attended) session. I think we did a reasonably good job of it; I only wish we could have reached more people.
gregladen | January 26, 2010The following story is current, but the issue is not new. But interesting. ...
Science standards for Minnesota schools are about to be set for the next six years. Is the battle to keep pseudoscience out of our classrooms over? Sadly the door has been cracked open for intelligent design, an idea with no real scientific basis cooked up by creationists, to remain in Minnesota's classrooms.
The same vague science benchmark that was a compromise in the intelligent design controversy early in the Pawlenty administration still exists, unchanged, in this round of science standards. These standards…
gregladen | January 25, 2010... the theory might diversify ...
Pat Robertson needs to watch this. In fact, this YouTube video needs to be attached to his eyes so he has to watch it again and again for all of his days .
Hat Tip Glen
gregladen | January 25, 2010I really need to be clear that as an atheist, I don't pretend to "know" that there are no supernatural entities. I agree with those who label themselves as agnostics that there is no way to ever know the unknowable with an absolute degree of 100% certainty. I think that those atheists who claim to know that there is no such thing as a supernatural realm are overstating their case by tiny degrees.
Read the rest here
gregladen | January 25, 2010Robert Gentleman and Donald Nickelson have joined the board of REvolution Computing. Gentleman is co-creator of this OpenSource statistical package which is widely used by researchers. The news was released moments ago, and here is a press release from the company:
REvolution Computing, the leading commercial provider of software and support for the open source "R" statistical computing language, announced the appointment of R co-creator Robert Gentleman and investment-banking veteran Donald Nickelson to its board of directors. Gentleman and Nickelson join directors Norman Nie and Basil…
gregladen | January 24, 2010Camp Quest is a secular summer camp program, and the Minnesota Version of it has been growing in recent years, and needs volunteers to help. 2010 camping dates are June 25 to July 31, not too far from the Twin Cities.
Here's a brochure (PDF, 900K) with more info, and the web site is here.
If you are interested in volunteering your time please contact Minnesota Camp Quest by email.
I believe they will be happy to hear from volunteers interested in working for one week stints. According to Jeannette Watland, who is coordinating the camp this year, Camp Quest is "...rapidly expanding. In…
gregladen | January 24, 2010Although if Microsoft wasn't the Gorilla in the Room example of Proprietary the contrast may not be as stark. Maybe....
JH at Linux in Exile discusses the anti-Google "bug" in IE that MS left in place for months.
gregladen | January 24, 2010On Desiree Schell's Skeptically Speaking Radio with Quiche Moraine and Almost Diamond's Stephanie Zvan ...
... a panel discussion on skepticism and race. Is the face of modern skepticism really as monochrome as it appears? How do we make our message appeal to a broader, more diverse audience? And how do racial demographics influence belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal?
Our panel includes LaVerne Knight-West, Stephanie Zvan, and Girl 6.
CLICK HERE
By the way, here's an interview with Massimo.
gregladen | January 23, 2010When I first got involved with skepticism, I noticed that it was a total sausage fest. Except for one prominent group of women, the Skepchicks, the attention paid to women in the skeptical movement was slim. And how did I feel about the Skepchicks? A little jealous honestly....
must read here
gregladen | January 23, 2010I'm a woman, and I'm in technology, and I demand here and now that you stop catering to me. That's right, I'm talking to YOU: brands, marketers, PR flaks, hardware manufacturers, advocacy groups and the women and men in my industry. And while we're at it, stop referring to me and my female colleagues as "girls."
Visit this open thread.