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News Briefs 24-02-2009

By Jameskeon

Randi must be getting flashbacks, poor chap.

  • Randi backs out of million dollar challenge with homeopath George Vithoulkas.
  • How to procrastinate like Leonardo da Vinci.
  • Natural explanation for UFOs found. Not for the UFO I saw.
  • Scientists look to weaponise ball lightning. Better natural explanation for the UFO I saw.
  • Does the Amazon jungle conceal a vanished empire?
  • Dark energy to erase big bang’s fading signal.
  • Can assisted migration save species from global warming?
  • 2000 year old Shiva shrine found.
  • Clusters and cosmological constants.
  • The next generation of mirrors.
  • How a new phase arises and why.
  • New witness recounts his father’s involvement with the Roswell UFO crash.
  • No speech please, we’re British.
  • Our hair bleaches itself as we grow older.
  • Gene could allow lab grown teeth.
  • Astronomy has little to celebrate in 2009.
  • Hidden cameras in DTV converters? Youtube hoax fans conspriacy fears.
  • Doubting Darwin: debate over the mind’s evolution.

Thanks Greg

Quotes of the Day:

I do not expect that homeopathy will ever be established as a legitimate form of treatment, but I do expect that it will continue to be popular.

I don’t expect that the million will ever be won, simply because there is no confirming evidence for any paranormal claims to date.

James Randi

Jameske
Related

7 Comments

  1. Thunderbolts Fizzels
    I read the excerpts from Thunderbolts.com for amusement, even though it sometimes comes with a dose of dismay. Today’s included more than its share of dismay. They start out in the subtitle half right, but end it wrongly:

    “A distant cluster of galaxies is said to confirm the existence of undetectable energy. Not a single reference is made to the most powerful known force in the cosmos: electricity.”

    It is half right in that the effect mentioned exists. It is wrong in their assertion as to the origin, based on their own assumption.

    Not a single mention is made of the most powerful known force in the cosmos: the strong nuclear force.

    Four fundamental forces and their relative strengths:

    Force Relative Strength Range

    Strong 1 Short
    Electromagnetic 0.0073 Long
    Weak 10 – 9 Very Short
    Gravitational 10 − 38 Long

    I fear that just bringing this up will trigger an outpouring of justification for their statement. If it merged the strong and EM force, it would be a huge breakthrough, since Feynman helped describe the “electroweak” merger of forces. This would give us but one force left to merge for the Grand Unified Theory. But given the fact that they don’t know the relative strengths of the forces they’re discussing, I suspect simply more amusement and dismay.

    I don’t think they’re entirely wrong or misguided. I simply think that there are very few phenomena than they assert that will prove to have EM force at its basis. I also think they’ll find (if they look, and if they see) that there are EM like forces that don’t involve movement of electrons. Like water ice, in which the protons, not the electrons, flow.

    No, I am not the brain specialist…..
    YES. Yes I AM the brain specialist.

  2. How to procrastinate like Leonardo
    This article strikes a very deep chord in me.

    Incidentally I was just having a discussion in another blog regarding all this.

    You see, I graduated from High School at the 3rd of my class (a class of 300+ students). The grade difference between the Top and I was of maybe 1 or 2%.

    And when I went to college, like everybody else here in Mexico I took an admission exam. Somehow I found out I happened to get the highest score from all the people that took the exam that year in that school.

    So how was my overall performance while in college? I can sum it up with just one word: Mediocre.

    When I was in my second-to-last year at college, I had an… episode. I was struggling with my final project for the Design class, and on the night before the presentation day, as I was fumbling with my scale model, I suddenly realized that my project was sh*t, and that no matter how many hours of work I had left, I would not be able to present a project that I would be proud of; the awareness of my own mediocrity was unbearable, so I threw my model away and went to bed. The next day I came to class empty-handed, and even though my teacher was willing to concede me a few more days to finish, I refused and told him I’d rather have an honest F than a hypocrite D; he accepted my decision and flunked me. Because of that I didn’t graduate Suma Cum Laude (or the Mexican equivalent of that) even though my thesis got a special commendation; it took me two years to finish my final thesis BTW, and when I printed it it was bigger than the phone book! But I knew that I had to make something I could actually be proud of, if just that once (In all my years in college I never had one single project I was really happy about how it tuned out; so must of my college work ended up in the trash can).

    It is a very difficult thing to reconcile the perfection of a project when it is just an imagined concept, with the stark reality of the end result. But I can say that at least I tried to make bold projects that were obviously way above my level; instead of taking the shortcut of undertaking something easy that was just <>slightly innovating, and that would permit me to finish it on schedule with ample time to make a good model that would impress the teacher—like so many of my classmates did.

    So for me, my stay in college taught me that my perfectionism was both a gift & a curse at the same time. And it’s something with which I still struggle to this day, whenever my boss yells me that I need not make everything with such annoying detail, just good enough to be finished on schedule :-/

    —–
    It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
    It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

    Red Pill Junkie

    1. Trust me, I understand
      My art professors likely curse the day they met me. At present, when I should have six paintings ready for color glazing, three are still underpaintings. Praised by my painting professor and far more ambitious than my fellow students’ work, but still not ready.

      So often, whatever method of application is involved, the hand betrays the mind’s vision like a blunt pencil. The university and another’s workroom are poor places for the perfectionist. I find I must strive to choose my battles, like a general. I have to find one truly worth winning/perfecting. The masterpiece deserves the attention, the make-work, not so much.

      Seek that masterpiece that could get you the next rung up the ladder. You should feel it with passion and know it worthy of notice by others. That is the work that deserves more than workmanlike execution.

      1. Thanks for the advise
        Unfortunately, being an employee, you really don’t get to choose your own battles; you’re supposed to only follow orders 🙁

        —–
        It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
        It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

        Red Pill Junkie

  3. Ball Lightning Weapon, etc.
    Break out the Bazookoids!!!

    Just one word for Randi – WEINER.

    I really hope they do go ahead with the homeopathy test. It’s about time science got with the program. How do we learn by dismissing concepts out of hand?

    1. Ball Lightning or UFO?
      The Wired article referring to the attempt to weaponize ball lightning shows a little clip of “ball lightning compilations”.

      One of the first clips shown was taken on January 20th 1996, in Varginha Brazil.

      Varginha. Ring a bell? Anyone?

      Here, let me refresh your memory.

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

  4. Hidden Cameras in dtv converters
    The very direction to own one of these devices by gov subsidy and law, should set off alarm bells. The digital signal can be used to manipulate the viewer either from digital radio and now digital tv broadcasting. Our minds are under seige from the servants of the Archons. With current satellite technology, our home has become open to prying eyes from above as well as outside our sanctum of illusive privacy by law enforcement with a device they have to look into your home and view where everybody is located and what they are doing.

    I know of that for sure because a local law enforcement officer told me he was trained for 3 days on this device which he discribed with the word “unbelievable”.

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