Anytime there’s an exodus of talent from a major player like Disney (Pixar, Dreamworks), or in this case, Google, it gets a lot of attention because it usually means someone’s going to make something good. The internet story du jour (and discussed during a picnic at work today, too) is the new search engine Cuil, pronounced cool. After checking it out, I have decided that although it has a few nifty features, it seems almost useless compared to the Big G. Read More…

A little more than a week ago, I received an email from Marni Chidsey, a librarian at Okaloosa-Walton College in Niceville, Florida. She heard about a “Beyond Expelled” event that was about to take place in her locale, and the speaker was going to be Nancy Pearcey. Yes, that Nancy Pearcey. Mrs Totaluberdoubleplus Truth herself.

Marni emailed me, PZ Myers, Ken Miller, and a few others asking for advice on how to represent science and reason at the event, and what would be a good question to ask. Nick Matzke helped me out with my question then, so it was time to pay it forward. I sent her a few good proposed questions for her to ask Pearcey, and explained a little background on her arguments and its basic flaws.

Ken Miller sent the both of us a preview of his now-published essay about Expelled and how utterly dishonest it is. Check it out when you have the time. Ken suggested that Marni hand out copies of it if she could, and I asked her to record it if possible. How did it go? Read More…

Hello everyone, it’s great to be back.

Previously, I mentioned that my website was getting transferred to a new system, and that I would be able to do a lot more with the site, bigger capacity, host more domains, etc. Well, the transfer didn’t happen, and after a week, all of our sites went down as our old accounts were closed.

And our emails were inoperative.

And people were unable to download my podcast.

And every time I called them, I was told that someone would be working on it and have it done in a couple days. A couple days later I got the same story. After repeated calls to Startlogic, I finally got someone to move their butt on Tuesday and start moving things from my old accounts to my new one. Then, bit by bit, things moved over during the last couple days, amidst frequent status update calls from me.

Needless to say, I’ve been pissed off. It was so easy for them to charge me extra money for this new service, and yet so hard for them to deliver on their promises. Whereas I would have recommended Startlogic to people before, now I’m not in an amicable mood about it.

Add to this the fact that I’m having to learn the new system, and learn how to set up Domain Name System (DNS) entries with little help from my website host. I finally got some of the information I was looking for today, and within half an hour, voila! Back online.

Sociologique and Meet The Composers are still offline, so I’m still pissed. Two databases have not been moved, and one site hasn’t been moved at all. I can restore it from my own files, but the database has some info that I cannot.

Over the phone, I was told that I would get an in-person explanation as to why my account was sat on, however, to this date I have not received this explanation.

Meanwhile, I was able to learn enough about the virtual private server’s system to be able to set up a new domain on my own. In a snap, I give you Bee Lovely Candles - a project of Ariela’s. I can’t tell you more about it until this weekend, because I’m in quite a time crunch right now. Suffice to say that when I set it up it worked perfectly, and when they transferred it over it didn’t. Nyaa nyaa! (Keep in mind, I have no training in any of this stuff. It’s all been learn as I go)

So, here I am, didja miss me?

Tuesday, the 11th of March, 2008, Professor Richard Dawkins came to Madison, Wisconsin. As I mentioned before, he was here for two talks, and I was going to try to get him on my show for an interview. It was a busy day for me in class, and in lab as well, plus my backpack was broken and I had to use two shoulder bags all day, but I carried around my books, notes, computer, and recording equipment for what was a jam-packed day.

First, there was the talk in the afternoon, of which I caught the latter half. It was a casual affair, a discussion between Dawkins and mostly students. If you want a more complete description of this event, visit Missives from the Frontal Lobe or The Uncredible Hallq. My reason for being there was to approach Dawkins after the discussion to ask him for an interview.

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Ariela and I just got back from seeing The Dreaming perform at a night club here in Madison. It was great! Myself not being very knowledgeable, it sounded like heavy metal to me, but it had a very clear melody to it - two of the band members called it “Radio Rock.” “Punk, Metal, and New Wave,” if you read their MySpace page. A bit of goth too.

If you read my blog or listen to my show regularly, you might notice something funny in the names of the band members: Read More…

Last night I posted my first Madison-produced Mindcast show, Episode 75, and I would like to share my nifty setup with everyone, what I’m working on to create more media capabilities, and what this means for the show in the near and long term.

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I just posted Episode 40, which features an interview with Chris Turney, author of Bones, Rocks and Stars. Now, for my review of his book.

People need to understand how we measure time. Today with our regular calendars and atomic clocks, the measurement of time can be taken for granted very easily. In addition, anti-scientists take advantage of the fact that most people do not know how we know how old the Earth is. Many believe that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old, roughly, after the domestication of the dog and the fig. A fellow host at KDRT once asked me how we determine the age of rocks, because he keeps running into creationists that make bogus claims with parroted talking points. I knew all about several kinds of radiometric dating methods, but I needed to find someone who might be good at explaining how all these different things fit neatly together.

A few months later, I got wind of Chris Turney’s new book, Bones, Rocks and Stars, The Science of When Things Happened. Chris sent me an advanced copy, and right off the bat I knew he would be the right person to help untangle the past for us. Read More…