Today is Carl Sagan’s 75th birthday. I wish he were still around so that I could tell him just how important his life was to me and many others like me. You see, it was reading his books that got me interested in science and skepticism and critical thinking. His books that made me see the real wonder of the universe. I would not be the person I am today if it weren’t for Dr. Sagan.
I never got to meet him, never got to thank him for everything he did for his fellow humans. Everything he did for me.
If you’ve never read any of his books, I recommend them all, but particularly The Demon Haunted World. If you’ve never seen Cosmos, it’s on Hulu, you should check it out.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~~ Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark
Holy fuck! I just read that the London TAM in October sold out within an hour of registration opening! That’s Amaz!ng! Sadly, I’m not one of the lucky folks going. Just don’t have the money this year, but I’m extremely excited that the event is so popular. This means they will have more and maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to go next year.
I’d been racking my brain and going through the closets for things to sell to go to London TAM, but it just wasn’t happening. With it being sold out, at least I don’t have to fret over it.
Damn. I’m severely jealous of everone that gets to go. But, I look forward to reading all about it. Plus, I will make it to a future one. Damn it.
Even 30 years after it was made, Cosmos is relevant and brilliant and inspiring. Carl Sagan takes us all on journey to know ourselves, where we came from and, hopefully, where we’re going.
Carl Sagan introduced me to skepticism and critical thinking and I am ever thankful for that. He inspired me to learn. Far from taking the beauty out of the universe, science teaches us just how magnificent it really is. And that we can even comprehend any of it is truly awesome.
If you haven’t seen Cosmos it’s available on Hulu. Check it out!
I haven’t always been a skeptic. Far from it, in fact. There was a time when I believed in all manor of nonsense – UFO’s, alien abductions, ghosts, homeopathy…. It’s kind of weird for me to think about now. Continue Reading »
Twice in the past couple weeks I have walked by someones desk at work and saw them looking at one of the scare monger websites saying that the Large Hadron Collider is going to destroy the planet! Oh noes! Sadly, both times the person reading the site was buying into all the weapons grade bullshit the site was spewing. Also, sadly, I have no links to the sites they were visiting. I’ll have to remember to get links next time.
Anyway, thankfully, people way smarter than me have done all the hard work for me and have explained exactly why these scare monger websites are so very wrong and I was able to point these folks in the right direction and give them, hopefully, some peace of mind. I hate to see people scared over nothing and actually buying into whatever these snake oil salesmen are selling. And it’s always something, isn’t it. Continue Reading »
This alleged Bigfoot discovery was all the talk around the water cooler at work today. Yeah, color me skeptical. I could barely contain my laughter when I heard about it. Seriously? Are the news outlets bored? Continue Reading »
Today is the 39th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy, posted about it today along with the left half of the picture above of Buzz Aldrin’s footprint on the moon. There is a really neat trick of perspective in that picture (that many of the commenter’s noticed). When the picture is looked at right side up, the footprint looks raised and the surrounding ground more solid, while when turned upside down the footprint looks indented (like one would expect) and the surrounding ground looks softer. I just love stuff like this. Continue Reading »
A Russian court just convicted Grigory Grabovoy of fraud for bilking people out of money by claiming he could raise the dead. Like our own Silvia Browne and John Edward, this creep made a living preying on the desperate and the grieving. People who are very vulnerable to snake oil salesmen. Well, now he’s doing hard labor in prison. When can we start convicting fraudsters like this in this country? Continue Reading »
Richard Wiseman has the video up of 800+ of us at TAM doing the soon bending trick! My husband and I are even visible in the video! In fact, that’s us in the still frame of it. I’m the redhead and my husband is sitting to my left. This was such a fun experience. Heh.
Edited to add: By the way, there is nothing magical or mystical about spoon bending. There is a technique to it, that was first demonstrated to us by Teller (of Penn & Teller) along with a very funny story. Anyone can do this if they know the technique.
My husband and I just got back from Vegas where we attended our very first TAM! Wow. We’re both still processing all of it. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what to write. Man o man, it was just amazing.
We got into Vegas on Wednesday night and got checked in and stuff and were even able to get a semi good night’s sleep. We were both awake at 5am because we were still on east coast time and that was great for us because we got to have a leisurely breakfast and wander around a bit and get our bearings.
I’m going to try to get to the real highlights of TAM 6. This is going to be hard, there were so many, but ok, here it goes, in no particular order: Continue Reading »
