jfiore
Posts by this author
April 28, 2007
No, this is not some weird porno contest, I really want you to try to identify a couple little snakes I found in my garden. First an explanation. I have a couple of large four foot window boxes with everbearing strawberries in them that I leave on an elevated deck during the summer (no problem with…
April 24, 2007
As noted in an earlier entry, Richard Dawkins was on the BO'R show last night. There's some discussion of it by fellow sciblings here and here. I didn't expect much and thus I wasn't disappointed.
There is one item though that I would like to address and that's the line often used by the hyper-…
April 20, 2007
OK, we've seen the overtly religious blame atheists and "evolutionists" for much of the evil in the world such as the recent tragedy in Virginia, but did you know that if you don't mention the glory of JC specifically when bad things happen, you're a bad person? Check out this dreck. Here's a taste…
April 9, 2007
The April 8th edition of ABC's This Week With George Stephanopulous featured a blurb with Walter Isaacson who will be releasing a biography of Einstein shortly. In it, he pushes the idea that Einstein was a deeply spiritual man:
He said he was like a child walking into a library, and you see the…
April 7, 2007
A few stark lines on a white background could represent any number of things. What do you see?
(My cheesy drawing was inspired by the cover artwork from an early 80's Frank Zappa album.)
April 5, 2007
With all of the recent content ragarding the DI and other purveyors of hokum, I thought it would be an appropriate time to post an entry from a pre-scienceblogs version of the Refuge.
...and pretty soon there won't be no streets
for dummies to jog on and doggies to dog on
religious fanatics can…
April 1, 2007
In order to learn how to design circuits and systems using transistors and other solid state devices, students of electronics are told in their courses how semiconductors function. The atomic structure of crystalline silicon is examined in its intrinsic and doped states. Discussion of energy levels…
March 27, 2007
I always snicker when I hear folks talking about "liberal leaning colleges", especially when they are referring to small junior and community colleges. I do not consider our community college faculty to be particularly liberal, nor is our campus a "hotbed of liberal activism". In fact, a number of…
March 21, 2007
A recent analysis of the performance of our current president relative to that of someone many folks like to make fun of reveals a surprising conclusion.
Top Ten Reasons Paris Hilton Would've Made a Better President than G.W. Bush
10. Not beholden to the religious right.
9. Too distracted by self-…
March 20, 2007
An ancient National Lampoon once intoned "Fun is where you find it." I have found this to be a useful rule to live by. The intersection of humor, Dada, and a vacationer armed with a digital camera can bring entertaining results.
Clearly, these folks are fans of the Austin Powers movies, but it's…
February 20, 2007
I've already mentioned the amazing amount of snow that's hit places like Redfield, NY, some 40 miles from us. For Utica, this winter is proving to be one of bizarre extremes. January turned out to be the warmest on record and over 4 degrees warmer than usual. In fact, I was running comfortably…
February 14, 2007
I mentioned the intense amount of snowfall in Redfield, NY the other day (131" record breaker event, and enough for the Colbert Report to quip that there was so much snow that identical flakes were beginning to fall). Well, we're all getting pelted again (like the rest of the Northeast), but when…
February 11, 2007
After what was a mild and low-snow start of the winter, the past few weeks in upstate New York have been nothing short of blanketing. The town of Redfield has just broken the all-time accumulation record for a lake effect snow event. They beat the old record of 127 inches recorded at Montague in…
February 10, 2007
One thing I want to dispel immediately is that this is about normal "handedness". Sure, you can pick up a ball and throw it with your non-dominant hand/arm and experience the sensation of a "chicken-arm", but that's not the point under investigation. No, this has more to do with skills that are…
February 9, 2007
Owing to an overuse injury that has curtailed my running, I find myself gravitating toward my other main avocation, the drums, in order to maintain my sanity. These two things are at opposite ends of the spectrum: one is all about fitness, the other, skill. In the past couple of weeks I've been…
January 25, 2007
At the beginning of each semester I give my new students what I've come to call "the metric lecture". Since we do everything in metric units and many of the freshmen have only a vague knowledge of the topic, I tend to go on a tear. Many years ago I put this all down in an essay for them to peruse (…
January 5, 2007
Man-o-manischewitz this is some hot sh*t.
Science is wonderous, intriguing, captivating, sublime, but as Frank Zappa said, Music is the best!
Check out VC about 7:05 in.
January 4, 2007
The latest issue of Freethought Today, the newsletter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has a bunch of goodies, including an article by Daniel Dennett, a transcript of Sam Harris' speech at the 29th annual FFRF convention this past October, and an article by atheist Brenda Frei who appeared…
January 3, 2007
Mother Jones has an interesting article this month concerning hypermilers, that is, people who try to get the absolute highest possible fuel mileage out of their vehicles. Lots of folks are concerned about the environment along with high fuel costs, so I figured these drivers might be able to give…
January 2, 2007
I'm what they used to call an audiophile. What with folks listening to music on cell phones, low bit-rate MP3's and the like, it's kind of out of fashion these days. That is, unless you're into music production. In that case, you can buy all manner of interesting goodies, including microphone…
December 29, 2006
After watching doc's Friday flower porn (below), I saw a link to this. When it finished, I saw a link to this. And that led me to this.
Yes, that's Kent Hovind explaining that the Big Bang is a Big Dud, and he isn't being self-referential. Here's a link to the first part of the six part series.…
December 27, 2006
Living in central New York, and only a few miles from the Utica Marsh, the honking and flying V's (not this) of the Canada goose are a common sight in the Fall, and perhaps it's only a mild exaggeration to say they're more common than red or yellow maple leaves. Early on Saturday mornings I can be…
December 18, 2006
Every now and then I come a cross an advertisement that makes me say "What the #&$!?" I have seen the ad for the ROM machine in the back of Scientific American for some time but I never bothered to read it. Until yesterday. Then I went to their website. Yeow. My head is still spinning.
The ROM…
November 16, 2006
I don't know if it was part astral projection and part sleep paralysis, or just a too-large slice of autumn bread too close to bedtime, but I recently spent some time at planet Nurmth. Don't be alarmed. It's much like Earth and populated by sentient hominids with technology similar to ours. There…
November 12, 2006
I caught Richard Dawkins on C-SPAN2's BookTV last night. This was a video of his talk at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia on October 23, 2006. He read a few passages from his newest book, The God Delusion, and then proceeded to take questions from the audience. Dawkins was his…
October 29, 2006
They say that a man who owns a clock knows the precise time of day, but a man who owns two is never quite as sure. In my case, that implies complete temporal confusion.
I wish my house had a master clock, sort of like the clock in my computer, which would serve as the time base for everything held…
October 29, 2006
Like myriad other normal Americans, my wife and I like to carve what we affectionately call punkins the weekend before the empty hotdog holiday (AKA Hollow-weenie). While my wife just sort of dives right in, hacking out gourd-guts with a butcher knife and great zeal, I tend toward the more…
October 25, 2006
I'll let you decide after watching this and this.
October 24, 2006
Suppose you were told that a candidate for congress, while serving as the county DA some years earlier, had gone to New York City for a conference. While there, records show that he made a call to a phone sex number. The DA, in response, does not deny that the call was made but asserts he didn't…
October 18, 2006
The Military Commissions Act Blues (with apologies to Don McLean)
Bye-bye to our old Bill of Rights
Heard a lawyer in the foyer: "How'd we fall from such heights?"
With Congress's twits helping turn off the lights,
Our King George declares that "Habeas bites!"
Congratulations America, with the…