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Giving Mega Shark his due

by Nebton 2/22/2010 - 2:14 pm   |

Recently, it came to my attention that a fellow nerd has gone to the trouble of calculating some statistics behind MegaShark's dramatically captured attack on an airplane. Here's a small version of his info-graphic (I encourage you to visit the blog itself as it has additional details):

Megashark infographic [Read more]

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Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron give away free copies of Origin of Species

by Nebton 11/18/2009 - 11:59 am   |

In an odd turn of events, Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron are giving away free copies of Origin of Species. No, this is not satire. What's the catch? Well, Comfort has added an introduction where he presumably explains why Darwin's theory is all nonsense. [Read more]

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Barbara Boxer shows how it's done

by Nebton 11/5/2009 - 3:28 pm   |

The US Senate has many rules not codified in the Constitution. The most famous of these rules is the fillibuster. As was made clear by the threat of the "nuclear option" when Democrats were threatening to fillibuster judicial appointments, these rules are more guidelines than hard and fast laws. They are usually followed, but they don't have to be. [Read more]

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When is sexual discrimination wrong?

by Nebton 9/25/2009 - 11:24 am   |

I know, your first thought is ALWAYS. Bear with me, however, as I examine the edge cases. What qualifies as an edge case will vary from person to person, I imagine.

Starting with the most extreme case that is so extreme it's hard to imagine it being labeled as discrimination, consider our dating choices. Most of us (literally) discriminate on the basis of sex in those conditions, and almost no one would consider it wrong.

Moving slightly along this chain, we reach beauty contests. Some people have challenged sexual discrimination in these as well, but not too many find a problem with the sexual discrimation aspect inherent in almost all beauty contests. (That's not to say that they don't have other flaws being picked over.) [Read more]

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Quantum Corner: Introduction

by Nebton 9/21/2009 - 10:52 am   |

I'm hoping to start a fairly regular set of postings on Quantum Mechanics and/or other weird science that fascinates me. However, if there's no interest (after all, it's outside the normal scope of all things dagblog), I'll drop it. With that in mind, I thought I'd start with an overview of Quantum Mechanics, talk about how it's really weird, and give my interpretation of it, all without delving into math or jargon. Well, I'll try to at least save any such delving for the comments section.

For those who find QM confusing, I offer up these quotes:

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it. - Niels Bohr [Read more]

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The right to choose death

by Nebton 9/2/2009 - 2:01 pm   |

Most of us here at Dagblog probably support a sane person's right to choose to terminate his/her life (although we would likely try to talk a friend/family member out of it if no sufferering was involved). What about those of questionable sanity? [Read more]

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Cataloging political species

by Nebton 8/4/2009 - 10:53 am   |

 

As much as I hate the over-simplification of the liberal/conservative dichotomy (which feeds into the "with us or against us" mentality), a discussion I had recently with a friend left me thinking about how we often not only use those distinctions, but also use finer grained distinctions that are equally misleading. (Specifically we were talking about how the free trade vs. protectionism discussions combines disparate camps from both sides.) [Read more]

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Null fish

by Nebton 7/31/2009 - 11:24 am   |

A while ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of the "null fish". It's the atheists response to the Jesus fish. I know what you're thinking - don't we already have the FSM "fish", the Darwin fish, and the Evolve fish? Well, first of all the FSM fish technically advocates belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and I don't think you can be an atheist and believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I'm pretty sure s/he qualifies as supernatural. As for the Darwin/Evolve fishes, they're not really particular to atheists, are they? I mean, several Christians et al. (and probably all regular Dagblog posters, regardless of religion) believe in evolution, don't they? [Read more]

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Innocent until proven guilty? Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

by Nebton 7/15/2009 - 12:37 pm

Two phrases that get tossed around a bit are "Innocent until proven guilty" and "Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt". Of course, these phrases are typically reserved for people we want to defend or people we don't want to believe could be guilty of the crime they're accused of. [Read more]

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Obama disappoints, once again

by Nebton 6/19/2009 - 12:32 pm

Obama has disappointed many on the left time, and time again, from suppression of abuse/rape photos to giving amnesty to telcos over illegal wire-tapping, just to name a couple.

This time, however, he's crossed the line.

We want a President who wouldn't hurt a fly. Don't we? Well, maybe not all of us, but PETA does.

Although I'm a pescetarian, and am very sympathetic to many of PETA's causes, they really do like the crazy, don't they?

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