vertigo25

Astrophotography

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:37:58 -0800

i drew this « Ulises Farinas draws. This is an old comic...

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:52:03 -0800

This is an old comic idea, that i decided to draw a poster for. Gamma is basically “What would the world be like if giant Kaiju destroyed the world, the Power Rangers couldn’t stop them, and pocket monsters were used in brutal back alley cock-fights?” This is the answer.

I love this idea, and love Ulises’ style. I want to play an RPG of this.

Wesley Willis’s Joy Rides on Pitchfork: TV It’s a...

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:52:48 -0800

Wesley Willis’s Joy Rides on Pitchfork: TV

It’s a “one week only” deal, and I’m not sure when the week is over… so you should watch it soon.

6. Climate Change — Those hacked e-mails (via potholer54)

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:07:56 -0800

6. Climate Change — Those hacked e-mails (via potholer54)

"New Age beliefs are the Creationism of the Progressives"

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:42:09 -0800

“New Age beliefs are the Creationism of the Progressives”

- Roger Ebert: New Agers and Creationists
should not be President

iRobot’s Soft Morphing Blob ‘Bot Takes Its First...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:23:23 -0800

iRobot’s Soft Morphing Blob ‘Bot Takes Its First Steps (via)

Robotics just got really weird (and kind of gross).

And a Red Ryder BB Gun with a Compass in the Stock…

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:26:00 -0800

In the spirit of this materialist season, here are the thing I pine for which I will most likely never own as I am poor and friendless (cue violin muzak). But… if some generous soul or souls should happen upon this list and take pity on this wretch, I shall ever be in your service and eternally grateful.

Things Andy wants, but will probably never get:

Kodak Zi8 HD - $179.99
The Complete Love & Rockets Library, Volume One - $84.99
Barnes & Noble Nook - $249
- OR a Sony eReader - $199.99 – $299.99
Apple iMac - $1199 – $1999
Apple Magic Mouse - $69.00
Any of the Star Trek Mego reproductions, but especially Kirk and Klingon - (prices vary)
Some prints by Jason Munn (The Small Stakes) - (prices vary)
If it’s on my Books List… I want it.
World peace - Free, but we’ll all need to coordinate on this.
Pretty much anything from Steamed Glass Studio - $35.00 – $200
A subscription to Seed
A car - $500 – $20,000

[Interesting note… I started writing this on Friday, and the Zi8 was listed at $149.99. Today, Cyber Monday, it went up to $173.99.]

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Bond theme song on Eigenharp (via) I saw this over at...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:13:56 -0800

Bond theme song on Eigenharp (via)

I saw this over at BoingBoing, and I have to say… I’m really intrigued by the instrument. There’s plenty more Eigenharp videos on YT, and the Eigenlabs site has more info.

GOOD LOOK: NYC Revolution Door (via GOODMagazine) This is the...

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:35:32 -0800

GOOD LOOK: NYC Revolution Door (via GOODMagazine)

This is the epitome of genius.

Thanksgiving cartoon by Ron Cobb.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:15:11 -0800

Thanksgiving cartoon by Ron Cobb.

kateoplis: Amen.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:25:50 -0800

kateoplis:

Amen.

Hard Lessons: Being a Skeptic Doesn't Mean You're Always Right

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

This week has been an eye opener for me when it comes to my skepticism. I’ve realized it’s pretty easy to get a chip on your shoulder about being rational and skeptical. The problem is that you can get lazy with it and fall in to several fallacies if you let that happen. You can get some information from a reliable source, say, and forget that there’s no such thing as a 100% reliable source. Or, you can accept something just because it sounds about right… relying too confidently on your own critical thinking skills… but forgetting to actually practice them.

This week, I realized that I have made both of those mistakes on two prominent news stories.

The first, and most obvious, is the story of Rom Houben – the Belgian man who was believed to be in a coma for 23 years, but has recently started “communicating” through a computer. At least, that’s what all the initial news reports told us. None of them mentioned that the process that was used to determine brain activity is, itself, very controversial (fMRI has even been able to detect emotional response from whole, dead fish). Nor that the “communication” was actually the long disproved pseudoscience of Facilitated Communication.

There’s been a lot of criticism of this story written by people much smarter and more famous than me. I’m not going to rehash all of that, because that’s not the point of this post. For those who may have somehow missed the controversy see: Wired Science, PZ Meyers, James Randi, and the discussion at MeFi.

No… the point of this post is that I bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. Despite there being obvious red flags in the initial stories I read (I didn’t see the video until I read the PZ piece), I payed no attention to them. The reports spoke of “advanced scanning techniques” and “sophisticated computers” with no specifics. Despite that tactic of credulous journalism being one of my biggest pet peeves, I skipped them. I even ignored that initial thought of “Wow… for someone who spent 23 years silent and neglected, he seems remarkably well adjusted… and ‘well spoken’.”

The second story was the one about U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman who was found dead in Kentucky with the word “Fed” scrawled across his chest.

It turns out, it was a suicide.

When the initial reports came out in September… I didn’t question them. Not one bit. In this case, I didn’t even see any red flags in the reporting. No internal voice said to me, “Really? Do you really think our society has gone this far off the edge? Or could there be something else going on here?” It’s particularly shameful on my part, because back during the 2008 presidential election, I strongly suspected the woman who reported to have been attacked by a black Obama supporter of lying from the first headline I read. I’m embarrassed to say… ashamed, even… that I know my biases played a part in both my skepticism of Ms. Todd’s story and the Sparkman story. My brain played the “us vs. them” game, and it was easy.

So what went wrong in my head?

I’ve been thinking it over, and I can say there was a lot. In neither case did I practice much critical thinking. The very first thing I did wrong, was not live up to my self-assigned credo: question everything. I let my biases play way too big of a part in accepting the information I was given. Sure… both cases involve credulous journalism, but I’m not going to lay the blame simply on them. I preach all the time, that verification is the key to getting past credulous reporting. I did practically no verification. Shame on me.

But there is something that these two stories share that I think helped greatly in shutting of my critical thinking. Something I think helped a lot of people do so.

Fear.

Yep. It’s the mind killer, alright.

In both cases, the presentation of something I feared… deeply… made them less prone to my skepticism.

It’s an odd reaction, really. We want, desperately, to believe that our fears are founded. Really, we want to believe any emotional response we may have is justified. And the deeper the emotion, the more primal it is; the more we want to believe. And fear may, perhaps, be the most primal emotion we have.

My take-home from this is that the more emotionally something affects me, the more I must question it… no matter how uncomfortable it may make me. Lesson two is that, even though I may practice often practice critical thinking, it does not make me right all the time. Even as skeptics, we are subject to ego and biases. Being aware of those things is just as important as critical thinking skills. Being critical of ourselves is as important as being critical of the information we receive… perhaps even more so.

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Beautiful photos of abandoned asylums by Chris Payne

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:21:09 -0800

Beautiful photos of abandoned asylums by Chris Payne

The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:08:36 -0800

The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

The Little Red Hen - Illustrated by Andy Warhol

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:02:07 -0800

The Little Red Hen - Illustrated by Andy Warhol

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Has Bell Invented a "Telegraph Killer"?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:53:52 -0800

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Has Bell Invented a "Telegraph Killer"?:

This week Bell Labs plans to roll out the Telephone, the first viable Telegraph alternative, but reports indicate they may not be ready. Many of the rollers are said to be jammed and the Telephone might have to be carried out instead. For agreeing to help lift the contraption, we have been given exclusive access to what experts are already calling “a device which emits sound and is not filled with bees.”

The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:11:40 -0800

The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia:

Also see: 50 more of Wikipedia’s most interesting articles.

These seriously are some great articles. If esoterica is your thing, make your way through the lists. It’s worth it.

This awesomeness brought to you by MeFi.

Atari Video Games | Arcade

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:43:29 -0800

Atari Video Games | Arcade:

Play classic Atari games for free online. They have both 2600 games and arcade games: Adventure. Asteroids, Battlezone, Crystal Castles, and Lunar Lander. So freakin’ cool :)

Sarah Palin Book Signing - Interviews with Supporters I really...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:51:44 -0800

Sarah Palin Book Signing - Interviews with Supporters

I really like this video, because it doesn’t put out the whole “look how stupid conservatives are” you would expect. Sure, a lot of them come off as stupid and vapid; but the take home for me was the mindset: “values” over “issues,” facts don’t matter… perceptions do.

Flavors.me: A Content Aggregator That is Actually Pretty

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:01:26 -0800

Flavors.me from Jack Zerby looks very promising. The beta will supposedly be launched this Friday. I look forward to trying it out.

Flavors.me allows anyone to creat an elegant website using personal content from around the Internet.

Ideal for personal homepages, lifestreaming, splash and microsites, celebrity fan pages, commercial promotion, brand marketing – and everything in between.

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