Much in the same way that “woodpeckers” have evolved several times (most are birds that look like each other, but then there is the aye-aye and Darwin’s finch), one can say that the nightjars are birds poking around in the insect-eating bat niche.
Monthly Archives: September 2010
Technobabble: Microsoft hates you if you are gay, Newly minted Mint
Microsoft says Teh Gay is “inappropriate.” The corporate computer giant and evile empire banned a kid from having an X-box account because he listed the name of his home town in his profile, and happens to live in Fort Gay. The people of Fort Gay are not putting up with this. When challenged, Microsoft made up some fake story about how this happened, said they were sorry, and agreed to reinstate the child’s account. As long as he not list his home town as Fort Gay. Which part of “you are a bunch of bumbling morans” do they not understand? And these are the people who are in charge of all the software? Source and more details.
Speaking of Microsoft, have you considered trying Linux? If so, consider the “Mint” version of Linux. It may be the most friendly version for new users, and a brand new edition has just come out.
“No, wait,” you say, “always wait until the new version has been out for a while so they can work out all the bugs!”
If you thought that, you are obviously not a Linux user yet! For some computer operating systems, the new versions are marketing events full of bugs, later to be fixed by the service release. In Linux, the new version is the thing that fixes whatever bugs may have emerged since the last version, and for the main operating system itself, new versions come out very frequently, so the number of new bugs is low and the number of bug fixes is high.
The Women Of Skepticism
Live from Skeptrack at Dragon*Con, we talk to the women of skepticism about the contributions they’re making to science and critical thinking.
In this episode:
Panelists: Kylie Sturgess of The Token Skeptic, Robynn “Swoopy” McCarthy of Skepticality, and Heidi Anderson and Jenna Marie Griffith of SheThought.
Live on September 10th, as a podcast Sunday. Details here.
Waiting for Superman
A documentary on education. And culture.
Is it really “irresponsible” for Hawking to be an atheist?
“Maybe Hawking should leave God alone,” claims Marcelo Gleiser.
Poor god. Getting beat up by a guy in a wheel chair.
Continue reading Is it really “irresponsible” for Hawking to be an atheist?
Why does the US military not consider a brain injury to be an injury?
The U.S. Army honors soldiers wounded or killed in combat with the Purple Heart, a powerful symbol designed to recognize their sacrifice and service.
Yet Army commanders have routinely denied Purple Hearts to soldiers who have sustained concussions in Iraq, despite regulations that make such wounds eligible for the medal, an investigation by NPR and ProPublica has found.
Your letter to your child’s biology teacher
You have to tell your child’s life science teacher (or, any science teacher for that matter) that your family does not support creationism, does not want to see anyone “teaching the controversy” and that you know that “Intelligent Design” is a form of creationism. I promise you, the creationist parents of your child’s peers, and some of the creationist kids in the classroom, are not keeping their mouths shut. Why should you?
So, pursuant to this, I have composed a template for you to use as an email or letter to send to your child or ward’s life science teacher:
Continue reading Your letter to your child’s biology teacher
Igor is living on borrowed time
Technically, Igor is no longer a tropical storm, but the National Hurricane Center had decided to let Igor keep it’s Tropical Storm Symbol and that status that goes along with that for the rest of the day. If Igor shapes up and gets its act in gear, then, well, we’ll see.
Continue reading Igor is living on borrowed time
What is the oldest living organism?
Rachel Sussman shows photographs of the world’s oldest continuously living organisms — from 2,000-year-old brain coral off Tobago’s coast to an “underground forest” in South Africa that has lived since before the dawn of agriculture.
In support of a diligent, relentless critique of creationism
Have a look at this video, done by Brian Rooney of ABC News Nightline, in which he follows around Billy Jack and Rusty Carter, two young earth creationists who are leading a school group through the Denver Museum of Nature and Science:
Continue reading In support of a diligent, relentless critique of creationism
Igor is not just a creepy assistant to a mad scientist any more
Because Igor is now a tropical storm.
Igor is not much of a storm yet, and is showing no clear pattern of increased intensification. However, Igor’s current path will take the storm through a region where there will be very little to weaken it and a great deal of very warm water to strengthen it. There is a possibility that Igor will drift to the north, which would cause the storm to weaken. If not, there is a high potential of a large and powerful hurricane. Details.
Child-Driven Education
Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education — the best teachers and schools don’t exist where they’re needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.
Why the Wind Blows: A History of Weather
Why does the wind blow, and why does it blow the way it does?
Continue reading Why the Wind Blows: A History of Weather
Parents: Is your child’s teacher a creationist?
It happens. A very large percentage of life science teachers are creationists. In Minnesota, and Minnesota is not that unusual, about half the population or more are creationists, but among life science teachers, that number is reduced by almost one half. In other words, one in three life science teachers are creationists, although most, one would hope, only barely so.
This does not mean that creationism is being taught in the classroom. Some, perhaps many, life science teachers who are creationists know to not teach creationism in the classroom. But I find it difficult to believe that their creationism does not affect their teaching, at the very least by reducing the emphasis they place on the mortar that holds all the bricks of life science together: Evolutionary theory itself.
Continue reading Parents: Is your child’s teacher a creationist?
What to do about Bible-thumping students in the science classroom
…. Have you ever had this happen: You are minding your own business, teaching your life science course, it’s early in the term. A student, on the way out of the room after class (never at the beginning of class, rarely during class) mentions something about “carbon dating.” This usually happens around the time of year you are doing an overview of the main points of the course, but before you’ve gotten to the “evolution module”…
Continue reading What to do about Bible-thumping students in the science classroom