Mock the Movie: Now With Nazi Time Machines!

There is no trailer for this Thursday’s mockable movie available on YouTube. The entire description of the movie on IMDB is “A Nazi scientist invents a time machine enabling him to go back to alter the events of WWII.” Really, though, what more do you need? Join us this Thursday for The Yesterday Machine, free at YouTube. Or, if you haven’t destroyed your glasses, you can watch it in 3D.

Two weeks from Thursday, on November 29, we will return to SyFy (then SciFi) original movies with Sands of Oblivion. It is supposed to be one of their better productions, but…well. Still, we’ll have Morena Baccarin and Adam Baldwin for the slash lovers (did anyone ever actually want Jayne and Inara to hook up?), Homer Simpson as Cecil B. DeMille, and American desert that, for once, isn’t standing in for Egyptian desert. Just fake Egyptian desert. This one is available on Hulu or YouTube if you’re willing to fall behind slightly for commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7xMGFB35yc Continue reading “Mock the Movie: Now With Nazi Time Machines!”

Mock the Movie: Now With Nazi Time Machines!
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The Limits of Bricks and Mortar

Yesterday morning at Skepticon, James Croft gave a pitch for creating Humanist communities with their own buildings. The (main) point of the buildings is to facilitate regular meetings. The point of regular, or at least somewhat frequent, meetings is to promote civic engagement, something for which James has at least very subjective data.

It was a good talk, but as usual, I tend to play devils’s advocate on James’s ideas along these lines simply because our perspectives are so different. I don’t do it intentionally. He just starts talking, and I hear myself saying, “Yes but…”.
Continue reading “The Limits of Bricks and Mortar”

The Limits of Bricks and Mortar

The Ethical Use of Irrationality

Friday morning at Skepticon, James Croft and I ran a workshop on the ethical use of irrationality. When I first proposed the session to James, I had in mind a discussion of story and persuasion. We tend to focus so strongly on rationality that we sometimes neglect to look at the rest of our lives in any kind of structured way. I thought we should fix that.

Demonstrating both that this is a much larger subject than can be discussed in an hour and that audience-focused sessions end up going unexpected but useful places, we spent most of the hour talking about the ethics of the emotional appeal.

We started by asking people to give examples of things they thought were both entirely irrational and entirely unethical. We ended up with an interesting list. It included war, capitalism, consumerism, and political advertising, to name just a few.

If that list makes you want to raise objections, that was exactly the point. While the person who added war to that list was quite adamant, most of the room appeared to believe self-defense is both rational and ethical.

Continue reading “The Ethical Use of Irrationality”

The Ethical Use of Irrationality

The Final Reckoning

I promised more thanks from happy teachers either after the election or when the science bloggers’ Donors Choose campaign ended. I, for one, didn’t need cheering up after the election, so I saved these for today. You can see the final results at the end of this post. Spoilers: You helped a lot of kids.

Now for some happy teachers. Continue reading “The Final Reckoning”

The Final Reckoning

What About Love?

JT gave one of the talks that opened Skepticon last night. It was a new version of his “Dear Christian” speech. It addressed numerous arguments that Christians have given him to try to persuade him into faith. One of the ones that resonated with me went something like, “If you admit you would feed that starving child where God does not, you admit that this world is not perfect. You admit that you are better than God.”

(I tweeted the quote above and had an answer waiting for me this morning. Someone tweeted back to me, “God delegates.” If so, he appears to have very poor judgment. Children still starve.)

Near the end of the talk, JT held out his hand literally and metaphorically to Christians with doubts an uncertainties. He said that while God has abandoned the believer, atheists have not. They are welcome to join us.

Then JT took one one more argument. “What about love?”

Continue reading “What About Love?”

What About Love?

Saturday Storytime: Art of War

Nancy Kress is best known for her Sleepless series, starting with Beggars in Spain, which explored the tensions of what we consider to be human strengths and weaknesses. This story, though very different, touches on some of the same themes.

The four vaults were nothing like I had imagined.

Art, even stolen art—maybe especially stolen art—is usually handled with care. After all, trouble and resources have been expended to obtain it, and it is considered valuable. This was clearly not the case with the art stolen by the Teli. Each vault was a huge natural cave, with rough stone walls, stalactites, water dripping from the ceiling, fungi growing on the walls. And except for a small area in the front where the AI console and a Navy-issue table stood under a protective canopy, the enormous cavern was jammed with huge, toppling, six-and-seven-layer-deep piles of . . . stuff.

Dazed, I stared at the closest edge of that enormous junkyard. A torn plastic bag bearing some corporate logo. A broken bathtub painted in swirling greens. A child’s bloody shoe. Some broken goblets of titanium, which was almost impossible to break. A hand-embroidered shirt from 78-Alpha, where such handwork is a folk art. A cheap set of plastic dishes decorated with blurry prints of dogs. A child’s finger painting. What looked like a Terran prehistoric fertility figure. And, still in its original frame and leaning crazily against an obsolete music cube, Philip Langstrom’s priceless abstract “Ascent of Justice,” which had been looted from 46-Gamma six years ago in a surprise Teli raid. Water spots had rotted one corner of the canvas.

“Kind of takes your breath away, don’t it?” Lu said. “What a bunch of rubbish. Look at that picture in the front there, sir—can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be. You want me to start vapping things?”

I closed my eyes, feeling the seizure coming, the going under. I breathed deeply. Went through the mental cleansing that my serene Dalo had taught me, kai lanu kai lanu breathe . . .

“Sir? Captain Porter?”

“I’m fine,” I said. I had control again. “We’re not vapping anything, Lu. We’re here to study all of it, not just rescue some of it. Do you understand?”

“Whatever you say, sir,” he said, clearly understanding nothing.

But then, neither did I. All at once my task seemed impossible, overwhelming. “Ascent of Justice” and a broken bathtub and a bloody shoe. What in hell had the Teli considered art?

Keep reading.

Saturday Storytime: Art of War

Atheist Talk: David Mills on Atheist Universe

In 2006, when David Mills published Atheist Universe, there weren’t many books like it available. Atheist books were science books and philosophy books. GoodReads explains how Mills’ book is different.

Clear, concise, and persuasive, Atheist Universe details exactly why God is unnecessary to explain the universe and life’s diversity, organization, and beauty. The author thoroughly rebuts every argument that claims to “prove” God’s existence – arguments based on logic, common sense, philosophy, ethics, history, and science.

Atheist Universe avoids the esoteric language used by philosophers and presents its scientific evidence in simple lay terms, making it a richly entertaining and easy-to-read introduction to atheism. A comprehensive primer, it addresses all the historical and scientific questions, including: Is there proof that God does not exist? What evidence is there of Jesus’ resurrection? Can creation science reconcile scripture with the latest scientific discoveries?

Atheist Universe also answers ethical issues such as: What is the meaning of life without God? It’s a spellbinding inquiry that ultimately arrives at a controversial and well-documented conclusion.

This Sunday, Mills will join us to talk about his book and the impact it has had.

Related Links:

Listen to AM 950 KTNF this Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio at 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to [email protected] during the live show. If you miss the live show, listen to the podcast later.

Atheist Talk: David Mills on Atheist Universe

On Compromise and Reconciliation

The short version: No.

The longer version: I see people on Facebook and Twitter talk gratefully about the election being over and saying it is time for healing, reconciliation, and compromise. I find myself wondering whether they were paying attention during the campaigns, during the last congressional session, during the last 30 years.

First, I completely support healing. People have been working hard in the face of some ugly opposition to make our world better. That’ll net you some bruises. Take time to sleep, exercise, have some fun, get to know your friends again. Take time to heal those bruises if you’ve got them.

If you’re talking about reconciling relationships, however, ask yourself what you’re doing. Continue reading “On Compromise and Reconciliation”

On Compromise and Reconciliation

Last Chance to Jump In

Donors Choose comes to a close tomorrow. Thanks from teachers whose projects you’ve funded keeps rolling in. I’ll share more later this weekend. Before it’s all over, though, I’d love it if we can help give a bunch of kids access to the same technology that most of us take for granted.

Jumping With Technology

Elizabeth Fonde Elem School, Mobile, AL

My Students: Change the world with technology aid. My students have two computer labs for the first time ever! In order for them to create and save projects, they will need jump drives. As a teacher at a title I school, my parents are not financially able to purchase these for their child.

This year, I have 18 lovely children. The are all excited to learn and are soaking up what we do in the computer lab like a sponge! They range in age from 9 to 12. I teach at a Title I school in Alabama. Our school is slowly trying to change our reputation from a rough school to an academic thriving school with many opportunities for our students.

My Project: If my children have jump drives, I will be able to teach them many technology resources and how to use them! By having the ink and paper, I can provide more resources to help them complete their projects by providing a resource for them to print information that they gather form the computer!

I feel as though this donation will make a huge difference to my classroom. It will show students how kind people are in the world and that others care about them and their education. I also believe that it will better prepare my students for a better future!

The NEA Foundation is matching everything donated to this project. I know that many of you donated to election campaigns. I know that many of you donated to Skepticon. However, this project is only $152 from completion. Small donations will add up quickly. Think we can fund one more project?

If you donate, don’t forget to enter the matching code “SCIENCE” when you check out. Your donation will be matched up to $100 by Donors Choose itself.

Last Chance to Jump In