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gregladen | September 30, 2011I want you to know that certain blogging and conversations are going on at the X Blog. For instance, we are speaking of The Things That Shall Not Be Named here and here. A little Dawkins, a little Watson. Go joint the fun.
Life, Death, Teenagers and Guns. A sad story but an important topic.
And a bunch of other fun stuff.
Today was a Huxley Day so my blogs are quiet but there are some interesting thing going on, including something biggish on climate change and the EPA. Also, again on the subject of The X Blog, big things are brewing over at Freethoughtblogs.com. Two things, actually…
gregladen | September 29, 2011Holy crap! I was just randomly pushing buttons on the TV Remote (I never actually watch TV, of course) and there was LeRoy! He's so talented! LEAN ON ME LEROY!
Musician LeRoy Bell
Very nice job, they loved you. Knocked it out of the park.
gregladen | September 29, 2011Thanks for visiting!The contents of this post have been updated and moved to THIS LOCATION. Please click through. Sorry for the inconvenience!
gregladen | September 28, 2011Damn them. The Kindle Fire is about the same price as the higher end Kindle that I bought Julia just before her trip overseas.... oh well.
The Kindle Fire is an android based tablet designed to be an ebook.
Here's why I want one: An iPad, which is also an eBook reader but that does a lot more stuff than a Kindle Fire, weighs 1.33 pounds. The Kindle Fire weighs 14.6 ounces. That puts the Kindle Fire just under the threshold for comfortable reading where you don't have to prop it up. I'd like it to be lighter, but that's a good start. (The regular Kindle, by the way, weighs about 6…
stoat | September 28, 2011 The comments over at More Misc are trailing off, but I am (as ever) astonished by peoples' desire to have the last word. Let it never be said that KK is uncontroversial. Still, what more could he ask? So, time for something else.
I didn't comment on Al Gore's latest (did I?) or even watch it, but David Hone has what look like some perceptive comments.
I'm beginning to get google circle spam in unmanagable amounts: too many X's are adding me to their circles, and I can no long bother check them all out, let alone reciprocate. Still, I did find Climate Deniers Campaign Against the BBC…
pharyngula | September 28, 2011I am so bogged down in work…I'm clinging on to the faint hope of liberation as all my deadlines are past next Tuesday (and they will be met! They must!), but until then, I'm thoroughly tied up and sweating over a gazillion things that have to be finished right now. So blogging will be light for a bit.
Until I've leapt past the work essentials though, I'd like to keep you occupied, so I'm open for insults. Vent over my failures and laziness by calling me names in the thread below. Try to be creative; zoological insults are particularly appreciated, and please avoid trite scatology.
I'm going…
gregladen | September 27, 2011It seems like every time I take Huxley (now 18 months old) to the doctor, the following things happen: 1) Somebody says "Well, he won't need to get stuck with any needles for a long while now .... his next scheduled immunization is [insert phrase indicating 'a long time into the future']"; and 2) Huxley gets stuck with some needles.
The last time, a few days ago, was especially bad.
[A repost in honor of Get Your Damn Flu Vaccine Week]
We hung around in the exam room for a while, and Huxley was in a very happy mood. He learned to say "Elmo" and how to point to the "Otoscope" when asked…
gregladen | September 26, 2011
I don't have the same circle Google Girl has but I do have a Circle of Shame. You want to stay out of there.
krandall | September 26, 2011By Dr. Richard Quinn; Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, and Gail Jacobs
Is the surface of Mars really sterile, or could there be still-undiscovered traces of life littering this hostile landscape? Chemist Richard Quinn focuses on understanding the reactive processes that take place on the surface of the Red Planet, and how these might give a better idea of the potential for habitable environments.
Click on images for larger view
Richard, briefly describe your research projects.
I typically have four to five concurrent projects, all with a common theme,…
gregladen | September 26, 2011Hurry over while the guessing is still good! A Darwin I Think Mug to the first commenter who correctly identifies the symbolism of the name "The X Blog"
gregladen | September 26, 2011It is very reasonable for a parent to worry about vaccines. For one thing, most of them involve sticking the baby or child with a sharp object, thus making the little one cry, and it would be abnormal to not have an automatic reaction to that. For another thing, they are drugs, in a sense. When the little one is ill, and you call in to the health care facility in the hopes that there will be some useful advice, most of the time you hear "No, we no longer recommend giving [fill in the blank with a medicine you thought might work] to children under [one or two months older than your child].…
gregladen | September 25, 2011It will be the Early Show at 830-9 Eastern. Details here.
OK, they skipped that segment but Sheril should be on TOMORROW MORNING. 8:40 ET.
gregladen | September 25, 2011How do you know when alternative views are real alternatives, and thus should be considered in a "balanced view" vs. when those views are not any longer valid and should be ignored? This sounds like a hard thing to do but it is not as hard as you might think. I suggest two different approaches: "Tipping Points" and "Clues that Something is Wrong Here."
The Tipping Point approach works like this: As the percentage of qualified scientists that hold a particular view diminishes, when it reaches about 25 percent or so, the view should continue to be references but as a minority view. Many…