Geological Swindler

This is a fascinating read on a swindler who roamed the US in the late 19th century scamming various scientists out of specimens and selling them. Cincinnati make an appearance and actually apprehends the confidence man.

Hyperlinks in books

After our discussion this past weekend concerning the digitization of literature, I found this link from boingboing particular on point.

The Joy of Statistics

Science Map

Holy Smokes!

Crispian Jago put together this incredible map of science based on maps of the London underground. Just after skimming through it very quickly I can tell that there are a lot of names that I'll be looking up.

Each "subway line" is a science discipline. Each name is a "stop" or "station". Explore til your heart's content.

Technological Singularity

The idea of computing power becoming so powerful that it will create a Utopian society complete with sentient robots and humans merging with computers to essentially become immortal is an idea that I have heard in the past. But I really have never looked into it beyond the thought that it seemed rather grandiose, and if it ever occurred I would not be around for even the beginnings of it.

However, there are people who are predicting that this technological singularity is going to occur sometime in the 2030s. Sam Ogden of Skepchick has a nice writeup on those who hold these opinions.

This seems all too fantastic for me. Just the hurdles of creating computer AI and interfacing humans with computers on a larger scale seem to be formidable tasks that will not be easily overcome. Couple this with predictions for the future being notoriously difficult and you'll have a tough time guessing what life will be like in 5 years let along 10 years.

Philosophy Games

Here are a few philosophy games you can play and test yourself for consistent logic and thinking. Really I think this would make a great party game and you could compare answers with your friends and hate them for it afterward.

A Sea Without Fish

This book has been out for over a year, but I heard an interview on the radio, WVXU, with the author, David Meyer. He discussed the fantastic fossil hunting we have here in the Cincinnati area. We really do have a great resource for science education right in our backyards, literally. Local group, the Cincinnati Dry Dredgers are doing that today.

101 Patterns for Influencing Behaviour Through Design

Here's a nifty link showing examples of design elements which lead users to take certain actions. I found it interesting to see how people are influencing us.

More Scale

Depth of the ocean.

Math Opinion in the NY Times

A new series in the New York Times takes on Math. This ought to be an interesting looking to the power of abstraction, why math is interesting to so many people, and how it has brought us to where we are today.

Scale again

Going back to this post will get you a nice view of the scale of the world, but this graphic is even better. The whole Universe down to the Planck Length.

The strawman to knock down all strawmen

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, is a natural medicine practitioner. He recently got in a little scuffle on twitter concerning some silly internet award. When some of his votes were taken away because they were fraudulent and he started to lose in the health category to a real doctor he decided to write what up what he believes skeptics are. Free registration is required to read the entire article, but don't bother. The blog Dubito Ergo Sum has the whole thing with commentary.

Really, what else is there to do but laugh at this. Mike Adams is so deluded that just about everything that he states is demonstrably wrong.

Here's a few examples of what he believes skeptics to be.

...and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and "good for your health."

Skeptics believe that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganism and that the only things that can save people from viral infections are vaccines.

Skeptics believe that DEAD foods have exactly the same nutritional properties as LIVING foods (hilarious!).

I don't even know what that last one means. I prefer not to eat live animals. The squeaking is really annoying when I'm trying to bite off their arms. Or does he mean plants? Some plants actually have more nutritional value if they are cooked. Cooking actually can release more nutrients for consumption than just eating the food raw.

Coast to Coast Predictions

Here's an amusing list of predictions for 2010 from the listeners to Coast to Coast AM. Enjoy.

Scale

Here's a neat illustration of scale.

Revisionist History

The webpage is currently down due to being hit by multiple majors blogs the last two days, but this piece of "art" makes some strange claims about the founders and modern society. The artist is trying to make some profound statements about America, but the symbolism is all screwed up. Of note is the number of founding fathers who are portrayed good Christians including Ben Franklin (fornicator), Thomas Jefferson (read his version of the Bible), George Washington (didn't take communion) and even Thomas Paine (atheist). I was especially confused by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dressed as the modern American soldier.

If you were wondering, the college professor is sitting right next to Satan and Mr. Hollywood.

You can see a revised version of the art with a humorous slant to it here.

A Glorious Dawn

This video has been making the rounds around the skeptical blogosphere. It has a catchy tune and a nice message from Carl Sagan.


If you don't know what Autotune is check out this video from Nova Science Now.