Ferret's Cage

My triumphant return, and on double-checking

2010-06-30T23:14:00.006-05:00

For the first time in 6 months, I feel like posting and am not immediately put off by reminders of my ferret from looking at this blog. Whee! Also, since I missed posting about it, happy birthday to me, and happy blogoversary to me.

And I have a topic for my post. Presumably, since I am small and unimportant and PZ is large and important, you have all seen this post from PZ. I'm here to take issue with it.

~~...before I get into that, has PZ's blog suddenly turned these odd shades of green and purple for anyone else?~~ Apparently PZ did that on purpose. Damn him! Damn him to Atheist Hell, the worst hell there is!

Alright. So, PZ's post is, for the most part, all well and good; it's a humorous way of addressing some complete insanity on the part of certain doctors, who are attempting to enforce stereotypical female behavior by prescribing quite possibly dangerous experimental drugs to pregnant women that will supposedly reduce the tendency of their daughters to dislike pretty pink and sparkles and rainbows and unicorns and make them grow up to be a nice housewife or schoolteacher or secretary who pumps out as many babies as she can and whatnot. (Note that I'm not criticizing housewives and schoolteachers and secretaries; those are just stereotypically female jobs, and the idea is that they're enforcing the female stereotypes. Living up to stereotypes is fine, if you so choose; forcing people to live up to stereotypes is not.)

Yes, all that is great, and PZ is perfectly right to criticize it. The bit I take issue with is here:

Now the evidence that prenatal androgenization is the cause of your weird unladylike attitude is a little shaky, and the use of this drug is experimental and hasn't really been tested that well to see if it works as claimed, but never mind all that — its use has been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology, the European Society of Endocrinology, the Society of Pediatric Urology, the Androgen Excess and PCOS Society, and the CARES Foundation. The rather tenuous chain of evidence for this claim, and the peculiarity of diagnosing as a problem something that most of the poor, afflicted, purblind women do not recognize as a problem, is being disregarded because it is so very important that we reduce the incidence of lesbianism by an entirely hypothetical and unmeasured percentage. Lesbianism is just that bad.

This is unbelievable! That many organizations support such obvious insanity? It can't possibly be true, right? Well, I guess PZ is awesome for calling them out on it!

Except for one problem. Your first instinct was right. It is too crazy to be true.

If you click the link, which was also in the section I quoted from PZ's post, you'll see the following:

We have learned that, this August, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism will publish an expert consensus again stating this use of prenatal dexamethasone should only happen via IRB-approved clinical trials through research centers large enough to obtain meaningful data. An announcement of the consensus came at the Endocrine Society’s meeting in San Diego last week (and an earlier version is available here).

This consensus has been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology, the European Society of Endocrinology, the Society of Pediatric Urology, the Androgen Excess and PCOS Society, and the CARES Foundation. It was reached after review of the existing literature and consultation with researchers indicated significant cause for concern, including the fact that most of the children treated prenatally have been absent from follow-up studies.

So, they aren't supporting gender-role-enforcing insanity. The idea of using it to create pretty-princess-like baby girls isn't even discussed. While there would be some grounds for complaint if it was considering clinical trials of the anti-gay pro-superfemininity use of the pills (though PZ would still be wrong, since he's claiming that they're supporting it for women outside of clinical trials), they aren't doing even that. They are supporting proper clinical investigation into the cures of a serious medical condition.

The rest of the article PZ linked, however, is about the batshit insanity, which is likely how confusion crept in.

Anyway, on to the point that I want to prove here. Basically, when you're posting about people or organizations doing something completely and utterly ridiculous and insane, it pays to double-check and make sure you understood what you've read. Otherwise, you get egg on your face! And that's no fun at all.

Lux Noctis

2009-12-02T15:51:00.002-06:00

I haz... a CHARACTER. OMFG!

Name: Lux Noctis
Species: Canis
Age: Kid of I haven't decided yet years
Appearance: Glowingly golden-furred and with deep, knowing black eyes, young, seems to project an aura of tranquility... a deeply unsettling one.
Personality: A Creepy Child that never displays emotion, unless extolling the virtues of Love and Peace.

The son of the viewpoint character and seeming prophesied messiah of the Canis. While he doesn't exactly have a winning personality, the prophecy attracts a group of guerrilla resistance fighters against the Sculi to him. After the Canis leader working on the Totems hears of him, he gets implanted with a Totem and descends into insanity due to it, the virtues of Love and Peace forgotten in favor of increased emotionlessness... and berserk rages when he gets set off. He dies charging into combat at the peak of his insanity.

Bad Things

2009-11-02T04:13:00.004-06:00

Well, said post will most likely not be coming in the next couple of days. My ferret is really, really sick, possibly dying. So, yeah. Not good.

Edit: The Internet may have provided a solution! His symptoms (weakness of the back legs, lethargy, even thinner than a ferret should be, not eating or drinking for days) might have been caused by too little sugar, so the suggested solution was honey on the gums. I put it on, and 10 minutes later he was drinking lots of water and may possibly have taken a bite of food. The "may possibly" is because I couldn't tell if he sniffed it or ate it. Still taking the little guy to the vet, though.

Edit: It's gotten worse. He's stopped being able to drink water that isn't put directly on his lips, and the food he can down practically IS water.

Rawr!

2009-10-30T21:59:00.004-05:00

A new post will exist once I get bored of teaching myself to program. Which probably will not occur until I've finished programming in one weekend something that will take the rest of my ComSci class until Christmas to finish.

The post will be about spoons, most likely.

Neato

2009-08-16T00:42:00.003-05:00

I have acquired the Libris Mortis. It contains the template applied to Evil Jesi, called Necropolitans. They get stuck to a cross with cursed nails and stabbed while people call out to dark gods.

I have no idea why they decided to make it work like that, but it's funny.

Book: The Makings Of A Plot.

2009-08-11T07:18:00.004-05:00

OMFG, a plot! It's amazing!

Okay, for the purposes of my plot, I'm going to move the implantation thingy forward a bit. It'll happen after the start.

Basically, the book starts out with your standard Messiah, complete with Orphan's Plot Trinket and prophecy. It follows around a random friend/servant of said Messiah who's slightly jealous of the Messiah's Messiah-ness as they help a group participating in guerrilla warfare against the Sculi. It's implied during a couple of raids that the Messiah has a bit more Dark in him than he'd like to admit.

After a couple of raids, the servant/friend gets approached by a representative of a Cani leader who supports liberation from the Sculi. Said leader wants the Messiah to test the Totems. Servant wrestles with himself a bit over whether to use the totem himself, since that would give him the power he's been jealous of, or give it to the Messiah because he thinks said Messiah could help more people. He decides to give it to the Messiah... and the Messiah has a Super Power Meltdown where he ends up charging the enemy encampment and turning it into a wasteland while dying from his powers hitting himself.

Cue Heroic BSOD followed by Quest For The Truth to figure out why the Messiah went batshit.

Ken Ham Is An Idiot! Yay!

2009-08-07T16:26:00.004-05:00

You know PZ's post about how the "Don't believe in god? You're not alone" billboards in Iowa were taken down for being offensive?

Ken Ham thinks this means PZ hates theists. (It's at the bottom of the post.)

Skeptic's Circle 166

2009-07-30T21:49:00.001-05:00

Circle. Go. Now.

Getting Back On Track: The History of the Book-World.

2009-07-28T01:19:00.004-05:00

Edit: Aww, no response? I was hoping this would get at least some comments... =/

Okay, I've been lazy for long enough now. Time to get back to my book-writing project thingymabob.

This is a basic summary of the history of the book-world as it relates to the plot. This is a general outline; I'm not going to be going in-depth with a description of every single war and king and whatever.

In ancient times, back when both races had extremely primitive and tribal cultures, the Canis enslaved the Sculi due to the fact that they could use magic and the Sculi can't in between endless wars with each other. The Sculi, pissed off at this, attempted to replicate the controlling of Animus the Canis accomplished when the Canis weren't looking, and eventually found a way to channel Animus through an external object rather than their own body. They escape, and train in magic. A few decades later, an army of magic-trained Sculi used the fact that they weren't limited to a single element and had mostly unified to devastate the Canis and squash any idea on the Canis's part of trying to once again enslave them. After that, they sorta retire to a remote area and force the Canis to occasionally pay tribute to them.

Fast forward a couple thousand years. Tensions between the Canis and Sculi are extremely high due to the Canis's steadily improving tech and a move towards one (oligarchical) government; they're at approximately industrial revolution level tech at the time. The Sculi attempt to quash technology because it helps the Canis nearly equal the Sculi's improved magic in combat, and one government might lead to large, organized uprisings.

Of course, this causes uprisings.

One major leader for the Canis who strongly supports overthrowing the Sculi starts work on a magical implantation to increase the Canis's magical abilities so that they can use more than one element; it begins testing by implanting them into the members of a group of renegades who rely on guerrilla warfare shortly before the story begins.

I Have Now Lost My Faith In Humanity

2009-07-27T23:48:00.002-05:00

I became crazy enough to look at the comments on an Edward Current YouTube video.

Nearly half of them thought it was actually serious.

O.o

2009-07-25T20:11:00.002-05:00

Apparently my brother gave a resume to the FBI while at a job-hunting fair thingy today...

Given that he's studying psychology, this seemed rather odd to me.

Problems

2009-07-25T01:24:00.000-05:00

Anyone know what can cause one of those laptop mousepad thingies to stop acknowledging input? The button parts still work, but I can't scroll or move the mouse or anything. I also made sure I hadn't accidentally set it so that it required an enormous amount of pressure to move or something.

PZ iz t3h suxx0rz!

2009-07-17T20:31:00.006-05:00

Yup. He sucks. And stuff. Because he's evil. And he eats babies. And rapes them. And... uhhh... he's responsible for everything Dubya ever did. And he's Dick Cheney in one of those fake nose and mustache glasses. And he is a suicide bomber. Plus, he isn't a ninja or a pirate!

Bring it on, ya damn Horde-people! My shammy will own you despite being only level 56! Solo! Because he's AWESOME!

Edit: Hah! My cunning strategy has already gotten me a whole ~~THREE~~ SIX HITS!

Butter

2009-07-17T19:47:00.002-05:00

I'm currently making butter by shaking cream in a glass jar.

Butter made this way is AWESOME.

Circly Circle of Skeptical Circlyness

2009-07-17T17:17:00.001-05:00

The 115th Circle is up. Go take a look.

Handwriting indicating personality?

2009-07-17T13:02:00.002-05:00

I think this smells like bullshit. For example, the slanting: It says that right slant means you're open to the world around you and like to socialize.

My handwriting slants right because I write fast. It doesn't do that if I try to write slow. So, how do I fall in this?

Can't blog, playing video games.

2009-07-17T00:16:00.002-05:00

Lots of them. I finally got around to Portal, for instance.

Mmm... cake...

On The Suckitude of Humans

2009-07-08T09:18:00.003-05:00

Consider the originators of these two opposing viewpoints:

"Humans are FTW cuz God made 'em, n we aren't any stupid apes! Evolution suxx0rz!"

"Humans are maximum suckitude cuz Adam is a jackass! We need Jebus!"

Skeptic's Circle 114

2009-07-03T09:17:00.000-05:00

Izza circle.

FMA:B

2009-06-26T04:50:00.001-05:00

Has anyone else watched some of the new Full Metal Alchemist anime? I've watched a few episodes, but I didn't really like it; it felt way too rushed.

Idea of Doom

2009-06-19T20:57:00.003-05:00

I've gotten a vague idea to have the totems I mentioned be something of a super-soldier program by the Cani with bad side effects; if I do that, I'd retool the minimal plot I had so far to have the main character's friend who dies be a test subject, and have the guy who flies into an Unstoppable Rage be the friend; said friend goes crazy from strain due to something totem-related (I'm thinking what I might due is make animi channel through his brain since he doesn't have a runed arm to channel the new element through, and it drives him insane because he's using one of the ghost animi. Y'know, voices in your head and stuff.), charges into the fight, starts murdering Sculi, and eventually gets taken down after a mass slaughter of Sculi by the remnants, while the main character just sort of sits on the sidelines, horrified. Just because it might be interesting, I'm thinking about following the friend at the start, and making people think he's the main character.

HGH BS

2009-06-19T14:57:00.003-05:00

Anyone else think this sounds like complete and total bullshit?

Things on just the front page "free of side effects", clinical evidence "proving" rather than something more ambiguous, like maybe showing, and vague claims like " Soon after you begin taking this product, you and others will start noticing some profound changes in your appearance and overall health", and other such things set off my Bullshitometer.

Best. Logic. EVER.

2009-06-18T00:59:00.000-05:00

"God is father of us all" (bible text) + "Jesus is God's only son" (bible text) + "I'm male" (birth certificate) = "God is my father and I am male thus I am his son" + "Jesus is God's only son" = "I'm Jesus" (QED)

Looky, new book stuff!

2009-06-12T00:51:00.003-05:00

Since most of you seem to be completely and entirely useless as givers of feedback on ideas, I'll continue without your input.

I came up with some basic inter-racial relations history for the two races.

Basically, the Cani (btw, I realized a while back that the plural is actually supposed to be Canes, but keeping it this way probably makes more sense to people who don't know Latin) used to have the Sculi as their slaves; the Cani conquered them with their natural magic-using ability (Basically, my idea of magic as it is currently is sorta like if Cani are sorcerors, with natural ability, and Sculi are wizards, who have to learn it from scratch). However, during some periods of severe tribal infighting among the Cani, the Sculi figured out how the harness magic (how this happened will need some fleshing out) and revolted, freeing themselves and running off to an abandoned area of the jungle. After that, they mostly kept to themselves and developed more magic, and the Cani mostly forgot about them. Now that the Cani are developing industrial-revolution-ish tech, the Sculi think the Cani might be planning to take them over again, (whether or not they actually are planning to do so I don't know yet) and attack. This causes present hostilities, which is about where our story starts.

Lots of People Using Woo

2009-06-08T22:39:00.002-05:00

Article.

Too friendly to some of the woos, but okay.

Universal Translator

2009-06-06T23:32:00.002-05:00

I was thinking about universal translators in sci-fi settings, and came up with what I think is probably the most efficient way to make it work.

The basic idea is to have translators that have a mic and an earpiece. The mic translates the things someone says into some sort of universal speech thing; maybe transmit messages in binary or something. This is translated back into the language setting of each user's earpiece. Basically, if I said something into my mic in English, it transmits a signal with the English message translated into the universal signal, which is then translated back through the earpiece of each listener into their own language. This has some limitations, of course; you probably wouldn't be able to trade them with people who speak other languages, since there would probably be an upper limit to the amount of languages one earpiece could hold. Voice recognition for translation to the universal language might also be a problem. Any language with a body language component might have some trouble on both the transmitting and receiving ends. Lastly, it probably would have rather butchered grammar. Still one of the more plausible ideas, I think.

You lose

2009-06-05T00:52:00.001-05:00

Since I'm bored atm and feeling evil: All of you just lost The Game.

Summer is here!

2009-06-04T21:07:00.002-05:00

Summer is here, so I can start blogging more again. However, I have a project I want to work on this summer, so I'm going to be mostly laying off the skeptical/atheist stuff (on this site, anyway. I'll still be commenting elsewhere.) What project, you ask? This thing. I'd appreciate some input on it, if possible. Yes, I know it's monolithic, but it would be nice.

Skeptic's Circle 112: Izza party!

2009-06-04T21:06:00.000-05:00

Exactly what it says on the tin.

Social Contract Theory

2009-06-02T05:50:00.002-05:00

I wrote this for debate, and figured I'd post it up here for you guys to read since I haven't done much lately. This is the third to last day of school, though! =D
Thomas Hobbes:
Hobbes was the most pessimistic of the social contract theorists. He held that man was selfish and wicked in the state of nature, and that governments are created by general agreement due to the fact that the selfish people wanted protection against the selfishness of others. To Hobbes, a government was created when people agreed to allow another person, or an assembly of them, the right to act for them; this person or assembly is the sovereign. Since all the actions the sovereign are the actions of the subjects, the sovereign cannot break the covenant, and thus people cannot free themselves from the covenant due to the actions of the sovereign; since all the subjects are responsible for the actions of the sovereign, it is impossible for the sovereign to injure them or commit injustice against them (injustice is defined as a breach of the covenant). The sovereign has the right to control freedom of speech and freedom of the press, to make laws, to act as judge, to choose counselors, ministers, etc., to control faith and doctrine, to tax (though taxation is to be equal for all in debt to the government, and should partially provide support for those subjects that are unable to work), to wage war or make peace, to reward and punish subjects, to decide succession to power, and to establish a way to measure the worth of subjects based on honor.

In Hobbesian thought, there are three types of government; monarchy, where the power is in the hands of one; aristocracy, where the power is in the hands of the few; and democracy, where the power is in the hands of all. He believes that centralization of the power in a monarchy is best, because of his belief that a king has the closest link between his private interests and the interests of the public; that a king can’t have riches without rich subjects.

John Locke:
Locke’s opinion was that in the state of nature, men had one law, reason, though they didn’t always obey reason, and often misinterpreted it, since they lacked a judge who both had power and impartiality to make judgements on interpretations of reason. This makes the state of nature almost as warlike as Hobbes’s version, but in Locke’s state of nature, unlike Hobbes’s, failure to enforce the law of nature does not release individuals from the responsibility to follow it. Because of this, and the dangers involved in the state of nature, men decide to band together and form governments by common agreement to protect what Locke calls their private property: the rights of life, liberty, and estate. Since the purpose of the government is to protect one’s property, it can’t be the originator of the property. Because of this, Locke provides a theory on how property could arise outside of government: First, a person owns their own body. Thus, they also own their own labor, so that they aren’t slaves. If someone picks a naturally growing grape, it’s theirs. Because of this, he can deny others of the right to use it, and eat it. Locke’s reasoning behind the ability of people to take from the common store of Nature is that the state of nature is a state of plenty; as long as you leave food that’s just as much and as good for others, and don’t take so much that it spoils before you use it, you can take from nature without infringing on anyone else’s property, that is, the right to life (because one has to eat to live). He has an obvious hole in his logic here; there are times, such as during drought or overpopulation, that there isn’t enough food to go around. Since you must leave just as much and just as good, and you can’t let it spoil, there’s an upper limit on property. However, he says, gold and silver do not spoil. Thus, via gold and silver, one has no upper limit on property, and a full economic system can develop outside of government.

His view on government is that a legitimate contract can exist between the common people and a monarchy, a democracy, or an oligarchy. Also, he said the citizens had the right to revolution if the government overstepped its bounds.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that in the state of nature, people had what he thought of as pure, uncorrupted morals. However, this isn’t moral in the sense we think of it today; it’s more like an animal, which is “good” only in the sense that it isn’t evil. As we understand it today, however, morality cannot develop outside of civilization. Rousseau believed that society is a negative influence on man, creating envy, inequality, and other bad things. This is because the self-preservation instinct and reason are transformed into pride and vanity. He also held that arts and sciences corrupted people. The only way to counteract all this, which Rousseau blamed on progress, was to help create a sense of duty and civic morality by using reason. Rousseau held that therefore we needed a new social contract, one which was equal to all (the current one wasn’t equal because the rich tricked everyone else into an uneven contract), that could avoid the corrupting influences of society. He said that the new social contract would have everyone surrender their rights and submit to the general will of the people, since this prevents slavery to others, which he believes will arise from any other system. While he argues that the power to make laws, which he calls sovereignty, should be in the hands of the people, he separates this from government. In a monarchy, the sovereign is still the law. He was opposed to a republican government except in the city-state fashion.

Conclusion

My personal opinion is that the state of nature does not, in any meaningful way, exist; as long as people are together, there will be something resembling a government, and when people are apart, they can’t survive anyway. I believe the purpose of governments is because people seek some sort of somewhat fair decision-making process when in a group, which eventually becomes formalized into primitive government; the primitive government develops from there into a government. Of course, once people had heard about governments, it would always be possible to skip the primitive government stage. Anyway, since the state of nature, in my opinion, does not exist, and the government is developed from decision-making processes, none of the social contract theories would be right.

Mental

2009-05-27T19:50:00.002-05:00

My mom decided to DVR a new show called Mental. I figured I could watch it just to stave off boredom while doing chores. It looked pretty good; a bit weird, but good. Theeeen the woo came out of hiding.

While treating a schizophrenic patient, the weird hospital head guy says he thinks they should take him completely off drugs and stabilize him other ways. When asked how, he says "Megavitamins, neurofeedback, acupuncture, homeopathic remedies, juggling tomatoes, whatever works." Of course, all of these, with the possible exception of neurofeedback (I don't know much about it, but it sounds kinda iffy).

TV people: Stop doing stuff with woo! The more the bullshit spreads, the more people get scammed and sometimes fucking die.

Zanzibar

2009-05-08T22:46:00.006-05:00

This post no longer exists because I realized that even though the pretend death threat for unleashing the horrible song of evil on me is a joke, I can probably still get prosecuted for it.

Skeptic's Circle #... Uhhh... Does the one that never happened still count? I dunno. In honor of Calvinball edition, it's #Oogy. So there.

2009-05-07T00:00:00.002-05:00

Other kids' games are all such a bore!
They've gotta have rules and they gotta keep score!
Calvinball is better by far!
It's never the same! It's always bizarre!
You don't need a team or a referee!
You know that it's great, 'cause it's named after me!

Welcome to the Skeptic's Circle #Oogy (part of a once-reported Calvinball score of oogy to boogy), Calvinball Edition! The Skeptics will play the Woos in a massive game of Calvinball! Who will win? Who will lose? Will this game actually determine which set of ideas is crappy pseudoscience, or is that discernible from the crap the false idea's supporters spew in support? Probably the latter, but let's watch the game anyway in hopes something amusing will happen! And hopefully nobody will lynch the King of Ferrets for not really being good at pretending to be a sportscaster! You won't, right? Right? Oh, crap... Mommy!

Ummm... it's not me, it's Richard Little imitating Howard Cosell! (whoever the hell they are, I'm just inserting a random Futurama reference)

After many games of actual sports that make sense, with the Woos losing every time, we've finally come to the sport the Woos should prove best at, Calvinball! Since they get to make up their own rules, without actually paying attention reality, this should be significantly biased in favor of the Woos!

Apparently, a Woo has just made the rule that the players need to run to melting icebergs near the North Pole (which has absolutely nothing to do with people, of course. No, srsly. It really doesn't. Stop attacking that assertion with your relentless logic, dammit!), and have a lightsaber duel with Jenny McCarthy for theMagical Menopause Supplements, while Jim Carrey uses propaganda to support his ideas of vaccines and autism and lies his ass off to distract them. Supposedly, he gets his information from the Huffington Post. Doing this first will raise their team's score by 1 point, to R. Oooh, the skeptics have horribly beaten McCarthy and Carrey! They're at R now! Now they seem to be exchanging their Magical Menopause Supplements for an eBay (dat's tree se-par-ate lanks, raight dere, not just one), because woos aren't particularly creative and tend to form preconceptions of how things should work, which are very hard to break them out of, and the skeptics haven't bothered to make any rules yet. In this case, they seem to think it should work like Legend of Zelda. Oh, it's a close race to the eBay! The Woos are ahead by a hair! The Skeptics are catching up! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand... The Skeptics make it just ahead of the woos! They've exchanged their magic pills for the eBay, so they're now at 52.4! The Skeptics have declared a new rule: To get the next points, you must have some basic understanding of what an atheist actually is! Since Woos don't actually know anything about this subject, I'm anticipating another point to easily go to the Skeptic's.

*1 hour later*
zzzz- Huh, whah? Oh, yeah, Calvinball game. Right. The lecture the Skeptics were giving the Woos about atheism kinda put me to sleep, since it had to be repeated so many times for the Woos to understand it. Anyway, the Skeptics are ahead Blook-0 now, and have shown no signs of slowing down. They've defeated the mighty Christian Debt Scam, toppled the Tower of Common Sense (while you're there, check out the rest of the Doggerel series), provided evidence against the alt-med Argumentum ad Populum (at least, that's one implication of this, I think), and trudged through the deadly Large Amount of Stuff Russell Blackford Wrote That I Couldn't Figure Out Where To Fit In swamp. The Skeptics seem to be getting drunk off their asses now because they isn't actually a way for the Woos to win this game anymore, and they got bored. Go them!

...please don't lynch me!

Okay, didn't work. *yanks out a walkie-talkie* Initiate last line of defense! *KoF drops the walkie-talkie and runs*

*A distracting giant fireworks display starts, ending with a firework that explodes into the pattern of the phrase, "You voted for it!"*

*Meanwhile, KoF has escaped and the next part comes over his dropped walkie-talkie*

My friend Akusai is up next over at Action Skeptics, so submit stuff to him. And since I'm pretty sure I didn't do overly well this time with the Calvinball thing, I think I'll just not do anything special if I decide to host the Circle again. Or maybe the woo-spam thing, because that seems like it would be easier.

If you submitted something and don't see it in this post, I probably had a decent reason for omitting it. Unless sleep deprivation was clouding my judgment (which is likely), then I may have had a half-assed reason that won't seem half-assed till later.

Mmm, caveman food!

2009-05-05T19:26:00.002-05:00

To take a break from preparing for the Skeptic's Circle, I'ma go after some idiocy I saw earlier today. Incidentally, when I found that on MSN, I also found this thing at the same time. When asked if I was Adolf Hitler in a past life, it said "Most likely". "Can I shoot Hitler in the face?" "Yes- and more!" "Is God dead yet?" "Without a doubt." "Will Obama reveal he's actually a Muslim?" "Probably." "Will I be a famous serial killer in the future?" "Yes, but keep working hard."

Okay, enough of that; on to what this post is actually about.

Some idiots apparently think that we should use fossils of our ancient ancestors to determine what we should eat as a healthy diet. Specifically, people like Laura Cordain, author of The Paleo Diet. She thinks we should mimic ancient hunter-gatherer diets, because "it's what we've evolved to eat". This position demonstrates a horrible misunderstanding of evolution. She disdains milk and whole grains because she thinks we don't have the proper digestive system. But there's a problem; whole grains and milk have been common foods for thousands of years, probably since the agricultural revolution that started the Neolithic, in about 9500 BCE. We have been successful while eating these foods for over 11,000 years. If we couldn't digest these foods very well, the evolutionary pressure against it would have rid us of grain-eating societies. But it hasn't; in fact, they outcompeted the hunter-gatherer societies. The rise of agriculture, in fact, is what made cities and civilization possible! We won't be able to have cities on a hunter-gatherer diet.

They also claim that it's best to eat animals with "food they've evolved to eat" rather than grains. Once again, we've been feeding animals grains for a while; they've survived. Evolution has probably given them a bit of ability to properly digest grains.

This is some serious bullshit. In fact, it's so much BS that, combined with tiredness, I really can't figure out a way to do half the points I'm kinda thinking about.

Maybe I'll come back to this later.

Skeptic's Circle

2009-04-29T16:28:00.004-05:00

Yay, I'm next! Gimme your posts so that I can make a badass Skeptic's Circle! Send 'em to bahumatdragonking@yahoo.com.

I'm going to let you guys vote on how the Circle will be themed. Shall it be a game of Calvinball, take place from the perspective of my ferret, no-frills link and description, a pretend piece of spam from a woo, or other? Enter your votes now!

Detox Woo and Evolution

2009-04-22T22:03:00.003-05:00

Most of you are probably familiar with detox woo; the idea that we need to be cleansed of all the "toxins" that are building up in our colons, livers, kidneys, or whatever the fuck the woo wants us to believe toxins are in, and that if we don't we're going to die horribly from the toxin-caused diseases. But this makes very little sense if you look at it in terms of evolution.

Natural selection will wipe out any species that can't stay alive long enough to reproduce. This is obvious to anyone who knows the most basic of basics about evolution. Obviously, our ancestors must not have been affected by these toxins; if toxins built up in the body from normal biological processes in enough amounts to cause serious diseases, we'd be extinct. So, if we can know that our ancestors won't have had this problem, why would we have this problem now? Is there a reason that we're now going to have horrible things happen to us if we don't start cleansing? What could possibly cause us to suddenly start building up toxins?

I await the answers of any detox woo who feels interested in replying.

Pharma Water and Dosage

2009-04-20T18:02:00.003-05:00

Yahoo has a news story up about pharmaceutical contaminated water! O noes! Then they try to scare you, especially by saying "The pharma companies aren't testing it cuz they're eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil!" but you really can't tell if there's actually a threat or not. (There might actually be a threat, but I'm going to relentlessly mock it either way for not presenting very good evidence of this) I'll show you what I mean.

Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in American drinking water supplies. Including recent findings in Dallas, Cleveland and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties, pharmaceuticals have been detected in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans.

Yes, there's pharmaceuticals in our water! Stop the presses! Of course there's going to be pharmaceuticals in our water; as long as pharmaceuticals are being used, and probably quite a while after that, there's going to be some drugs in the water. This really isn't all that surprising. And, of course, the dose makes the poison.

But wait! There's more!

Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.

So, even extremely dilute things harm? How dilute are we talking here? Why don't we compare the dilution to how the pharmaceuticals will be diluted in the massive volume of water we consume? We really don't have any point of reference. We don't even know what studies they're referencing, or how many "some scientists" are. We don't know much of anything important.

Following this, they feature a sentence that really states what should have been obvious to them the whole damn time:

Pharmaceutical company officials point out that active ingredients represent profits, so there's a huge incentive not to let any escape. They also say extremely strict manufacturing regulations — albeit aimed at other chemicals — help prevent leakage, and that whatever traces may get away are handled by onsite wastewater treatment.

They really should have stopped there; any leaks from pharma companies can probably be safely assumed to be absurdly small, because they lose profits if they don't keep 'em that way.

And then go on and on and on about "the pharma companies don't test their waste water, though!" They probably never thought of it; if they're keeping the ingredients in, there really isn't a need to.

Of course, it is entirely possible there is a problem with pharmaceuticals in the water; I consider it somewhat unlikely based on my extremely limited knowledge of the subject, but am open to correction. This isn't the way to convince me, though.

Acupuncture in Schools

2009-04-17T16:12:00.004-05:00

Just to clarify the title; there's no attempt that I know of to have acupuncture used in schools or anything. This is just me being annoyed with school's lack of mentioning important things, like "evidence does not support it" when talking about acupuncture.

My sister is doing a project on Eastern culture, and one thing she's doing is making a teddy-bear shaped pancake to demonstrate acupuncture on, because that was one of the things she was required to cover. Nobody, of course, mentioned what I'm complaining about, namely the lack of evidential support.

When schools are teaching us stuff, they really should tell us, if something from another culture is complete and total BS, that it is, in fact, complete and total BS! Some people might say criticizing another culture's traditions isn't politically correct or something, but to hell with political correctness when it puts people's health on the line! Not only that, but talking about things like acupuncture would be a great way to help critical thinking; the schools need all the goddamn help they can get with that one; the questions for "fostering critical thinking" are completely useless for that purpose.

I mean, c'mon, what the hell?

Math

2009-04-17T14:13:00.005-05:00

Apparently, I have an absurdly good head for math, and especially figured out how to solve math problems more easily.

Example: Today, we started learning about logarithmic functions (I'm not entirely sure what the hell they are, because the teacher didn't even bother trying to explain, but I can apparently solve them! Yay!). The teacher informed us that we wouldn't be able to solve any logarithmic functions that weren't base 10 with our calculators until she taught us the trick for it.

20 seconds later, I was happily hitting buttons on my calculator while everyone else was doing it by hand, and getting all the right answers by using the graphing function of my calculator. (Apparently, if you have, for example, log710 or something, then you could convert it to something like 7^x=10. So I would put in y=7^x and y=10, then use the find the intersection function, and tada! I've got the answer.) So, I go up to the teacher after class. Apparently, I came up with an entirely different method of doing the problems, and one that worked! She had a completely different method in mind.

Interestingly, I have a history of doing this, and tend to catch up immediatly even if I was absent or slept through the last period because I can figure the basics of doing a certain type of problem out after seeing one solved just once.

Recipes

2009-04-09T14:21:00.002-05:00

Does anyone have some interesting family recipes? If so, post them here. If anyone is interested, I can also post some of mine.

Funny Debating

2009-04-06T15:23:00.002-05:00

In debate class today, we had some fun. A couple of people decided to have a mock debate, using idiotic cases they had made up a while back. One side argued that we should use the sexual energy of Donald Rumsfeld to power the world, supporting his argument using the Time Cube and arguing that the UN has been taken over by reptilians planning to destroy the sun with a black hole asteroid. It was hilarious how much of a straight face he managed to keep right up until the end (at which point he broke out laughing). His significantly less funny opponent argued that we must instead submit to the anti-Rumsfeld forces of IHOP, or suffer the horribly fatal ravages of PDS (Pancake Deprivation Syndrome).

In other breaking news, I have gotten Cave Story and dub it awesome, and my mom made a pie, causing experts to predict a suspiciously pie-shaped lump to appear in my stomach in the next 10 minutes. More on the story at 10.

DnD

2009-04-05T12:38:00.001-05:00

My DnD group is fighting the Mafia today.

Should be fun.

I Hate My School

2009-04-01T14:22:00.003-05:00

My school has apparently decided to make us bring our student IDs to school to use our lunch accounts. Of course, they decided to do this without telling anyone in a venue where they would pay attention (I'm told they announced it during lunch. Of course, nobody listens to announcements then.) To make things better, I eat breakfast at school too.

I'm hungry now.

Xbox n t3h Interwebs

2009-03-28T14:26:00.001-05:00

I'm having trouble connecting my Xbox 360 to t3h interwebs. I'm using a cable that's supposed to let me connect it to the internet via my laptop, but if I try to let the Xbox access it I can't connect to the internet on my laptop or my Xbox. Anyone know how to fix that?

(I know that it's possible to do, because my brother already did it.)

Prince of Persia

2009-03-28T00:46:00.000-05:00

Can't stop playing, or the Corruption will eat me!

Must do more jumping... and magic plate thingies... and badass combos of AWESOME.

Comic Sans

2009-03-27T20:12:00.001-05:00

Why does everyone hate it?

Skeptic's Circle 108

2009-03-26T23:37:00.003-05:00

ACK! A YOUTUBE VIDEO! The Circle is on YouTube now! Flee for your lives!

...though at least there aren't the idiotic YouTube commenters there.

Battle Royale

2009-03-26T22:47:00.003-05:00

Yoda vs. Bahumat vs. Kefka vs. Lloyd Irving vs. a generic ninja vs. Commander Vimes vs. Om in turtle form vs. a generic pirate vs. Westley/The Man In Black vs. Shinji vs. Shikamaru. Who wins?

John Oliver Is Awesome

2009-03-22T20:41:00.002-05:00

I just watched John Oliver's special, and there was one part that I really liked.

...I was fortunate enough last year to be invited to the first Republican presidential candidate debate in Simi Valley, in California, which interestingly was exactly as much fun as it sounds. But it was, obviously, a privilege to be there, and I did get to witness one incredible moment of political theater when all- at that point 10- potential leaders of the of the free world were asked the same question, and that question was, "Who here doesn't believe in evolution?" And three of those men raised their hands. And then none of those three men put their hands down and said, "Only joking." And their confidence was seductive, and I started to look into these groups in America- campaign groups that want us to put stickers on the front of all school science textbooks explaining that evolution is only one possible theory of life on Earth. Now, although this seems like a stupid idea at first, second, and 39th glance, look at it once more. Give it that 40th view, because it's brilliant. Let's have stickers on the front of all books, slap one on the front of the Bible saying "Of course, this could all be bullshit. Maybe he never died. Perhaps he opened a donkey sanctuary, he had a clear bond with donkeys." Or slap one on the theory of gravity: "Look, it's just one man's opinion, maybe we can all fly! R. Kelly believed it so, why would he lie to us? What would he possibly stand to gain?"

Eternal Matter

2009-03-20T20:00:00.002-05:00

Everyone reading this probably has heard about God being eternal, and had people say that matter can't possibly be eternal. My brother, who I think is a deist, said that he thought it didn't make sense for matter to be eternal. I have no idea why he thinks that, but it made me realize something: Matter almost has to be eternal, because I'm not sure time even exists without matter.

At first glance, time seems pretty straightforward; stuff happens, and there was stuff before the stuff happening. It seems to be continuing on at roughly the same rate. But it's much more complex than that; it's interwoven with space in ways I don't really understand, and essentially doesn't exist without it. So, therefore, I submit that matter can't not be eternal.

Feel free to correct me if I completely misunderstood the science behind this.

Book Idea

2009-03-19T23:38:00.006-05:00

I recently decided to turn what was originally going to be an RPG that I was making on GDL into a book, so that I could focus on Second Sight on GDL. This post is just a repost of all the things I had on GDL about this in chronological order. Warning: This idea changed a lot over time, and is still changing, so don't expect the things you read at the beginning to last all the way through. I'll post summaries of everything and how it works later. By the way, once you've read it, all criticism (constructive or not) and comments are welcome.

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Game Idea Thingy
I have some rough ideas for a possible fantasy world and rough plot for a game that I'll be outlining here; constructive criticism is good.
First, the setting: It'll be a world composed mostly of lush rainforest; think of it like if we had tropics extending up to Maine. It quite quickly goes through grassland into tundra following the ends of the tropics; only the poles are arctic. Due to rain shadow effects caused by mountain chains which run along the east coast of the continent, a large portion of the coast is desert. However, once the desert ends, you never have to walk more than a mile inland to reach the rainforest again. It'll have some sort of combination of shamanic and arcane magic; using runes and other power focuses, one controls spirits called Animus which are carried on the winds to use magic. My current idea is that you'll have your basic elements (wind, water, fire, earth) plus non elemental spirits, non elemental spirits being ghosts. Non elemental spirits come in 2 forms; sound and light. Sound can be used to produce sound or silence; light controls light, producing either dark or light. So, sound will deal sonic damage or silence affects, and light will deal both dark and light damage.

Races: This is going to be a fantasy type game, but there won't be orcs and elves. There will be the Canis, basically werewolves that are constantly in werewolf form, who are inborn with certain spirit affinities; and the somethingorotherthatIhaven'tthoughtofanameforyets, which are vaguely humanoid creatures with no heads. Instead, their mouth are in their palms and the eyes are around the wrists. They have blue-green skin tones and are covered in slime; basically swamp critter looking. Unlike the Canis, they have no inborn affinities.
I have some basic ideas on their societies, but I'll post about them separately. The plot will be related to the societies, so that'll go up later too.
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RPG Project: The Canis

Appearance:

The Canis are, essentially, werewolves, except without any transformations. Their coat color varies; most are browns and grays, some are black, and a very few are red or a silvery blue. On one of their limbs or on their chest, they have a rune. They often have heavy scarring on the limb with the rune or on their chest if the rune is there. They adopt a straight standing posture, not a hunched posture. Their claws and fangs are white, and turn yellow with age. Generally, they are muscled like a fit human with large muscles (think maybe football player) except on the limb their rune is on, which is lithe; if the rune is on the chest, they are extremely skinny. Their extremely large eyes can be golden, greenish, or red. Their proportions are about the same as a human, but they stand about 5' tall. The major difference between the male and the female is the presence of mammaries. Their claws are about 1 1/2 inches long.

Biology:

The skeletal structure, musculature, and organs of Canis are similar to a human's, but the skull is more wolflike. They have a relatively small cavity for the brain; about 3/4 of the size of humans. However, the areas for visual processing are extremely large, as well as the eye sockets. They have the ability to turn their heads a full 180 degrees. They have the ability to turn their color vision off; this lets them see better in the night.

At birth, they gain an affinity for one of the types of Animus, and cannot use any other. Wind users have a rune on their left arm, and tend to be more lithe than others, with the runed arm especially lithe; water users have a rune on their right arm, and tend to be taller (5 1/2'); fire users have a rune on their left leg, and tend to be red or blue-furred and have slightly longer limbs (about 110%); and earth users have a rune on their right leg, and tend to be shorter and stockier (4 1/2'. A ghost user can have 1 of 4 runes on their chest; depending on which rune, they use sonic or light, one of 2 runes for each. A sonic user tends to have a larger chest, and a light user always has glowing eyes when color vision is enabled. The reason the rune arm is lithe is because magic is used through that limb; using magic makes that limb more flexible. Approximately 50% of Canis are earth, 20% are wind, 10% are water, 5% are fire, 3% are sonic, and 2% are light. Whatever side the rune is on, the canis uses the other side mostly (like, if you have a rune on your left side, then you are right handed). Canis with runes on their chest are ambidextrous and use 2 kukris in combat.

Combat:

In combat, Canis tend to err on the side of caution, attacking only when they have a good strategy and preferably outnumber the enemy. This also means that they heavily fortify their towns, so as to gain an advantage. They use a larger version of the kukri (is that how it spelled? The Wikipedia article is unclear on that) in combat, though since it's a video game they won't use the tactic of stabbing people and chopping their heads off; otherwise it would 1 shot you. For ranged combat, they use hunting boomerangs (the nonreturning kind) and some magic.
Prior to engaging in combat, Canis use their kukris to cut themselves on the limb where their rune is; the blood on the kukri can then be enchanted. For fire users, they either heat their kukris to dangerously hot levels or cool them so that they freeze; earth users increase the mass of the heads of their kukris, allowing a faster swing; water users can use their kukris as a conduit to drain the blood of their enemies and give it to them (will be reflected in game as a health drain attack); and wind users sharpen their blade to be like a razor (if you're really nerdy and watch anime before it comes out in the US, think Naruto Shippuuden). Sonic users dual wield kukris that release deafening roars, intimidating the enemy, and light users dual wield kukris that blind those they hit for a few seconds.
Canis use loose leather armor that gives them a wide range of motion; also, it never covers their runed limb, so that they can put blood on their kukris. Those who use ghosts, since they have their rune on their chest, have slits in the breast of their armor. However, they use their elements to make a bracer on the runed arm if they don't dual wield to provide protection; earth wielders make one of dirt, water wielders make one of high density water, wind wielders make a bracer of solidified air, and fire wielders cool the water in the air to make an ice bracer.
Those who use a bracer and a kukri use the runed arm to defend and try to make an opening with the kukri. When they see an opening, they strike with the arm on the runed side (This is purely because it's the offhand; it has no relation to the rune being on that side) and cast a spell to try to kill the enemy, while switching to defense with the kukri; this is because, without the slight stun caused by getting an arm shoved in your intestines, one would get slaughtered if they cast a spell due to the concentration required. Dual wielders do the same thing, using their "off hand" to defend while trying to make an opening with their "main hand", then strike with the "offhand" and cast a spell and switch the "main hand" to defense (They don't really have one, but tend to favor one hand for each task) . This seem kinda powerful for an RPG enemy to you? That's cuz this is the kind of game where a single enemy is a threat.
There are a very few Canis who have trained as mages; they manage to cast powerful spells and somewhat defend themselves at the same time. They are extremely deadly at range, but tend to get killed easily in close combat due to lack of skill at defending themselves and using their kukris; being able to use them while casting doesn't mean you're any good at it.

I'll extend it to include culture and society and stuff later; currently I'm getting tired and want to go to bed.
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RPG Project: Canis II
I made some minor alterations to the original Canis post; this one will cover society/government, tech, and religion.

Government/society:

The Canis government/society tends to be based around a form of social darwinism with a "might makes right" philosophy and improving the gene pool by selection of mates. Unsurprisingly, it is patriarchal. Most of the desired females (aka all but the very worst) mate solely with the leader (need a good title for that post; maybe Lupus), who is usually the guy who beat everyone else to a pulp. Those desired females who don't mate with the leader tend to be murdered horribly, unless they mate with a select group of other males. Any woman who mates outside of that select group gets murdered horribly unless they're of the dregs of society. Recently, some Canis have realized that it's helpful to have a leader with a modicum of intelligence instead of just beastly strength; at the start of the game, only around 5% of the Canis villages have leaders chosen for tactical and political skill instead of brute strength. (But brute strength still helps!) As the game goes on, that percent will increase; not sure by how much. For those who don't have leaders chosen for intelligence, priests (see religion section) serve as advisers. For those who choose leaders for intelligence, the leaders realize the priests are bloodthirsty idiots whose advice would tend to bring about suffering. Lots of it.

Tech:

Basically, a jungle tribe. They haven't weaponized poison yet, despite being surrounded by poisonous creatures. (I'm planning to have poison be a threat throughout the game when traversing the jungle) They have highly advanced metallurgy, and often have houses made out of various non-rusting metals. In addition, they have complex and beautiful jewelry; however, there tends to be symbolism of war and death, especially in sapphire; they consider sapphire to be a holy gem, which has the power to absorb the souls of the slain and empower the owner. They have highly advanced communications based off stealth powers (that'll make sense later when I post more about non-background stuff.) Some have successfully created sharpened boomerangs which can be enchanted like the kukris; they have a part-wood and part-metal design so that it's still light but has an edge. Some have miserably failed due to the annoying tendency of all-metal boomerangs to be kinda heavy.

Religion:

Despite being in a patriarchy, most priests are female; this might maybe possibly have something to do with the prevalence of sexual rituals (which may be mentioned repeatedly, depending on how important religion is to the plot) as part of worship and prayer. They believe in a deity which looks like a female Canis with no head; it has a torso made of a constantly shifting pattern of light and shadows where the voice emanates from, a left leg made of fire which freezes everything it touches, a right leg made of stone that sunders the earth, a left arm of wind that causes the winds of the world, and a right arm made of water which causes the tides.

All Canis priests are ghost users; this is related to the fact that 4 runes can determine one being a ghost user. Sonic and light users each have 1 rune which denotes them as priests if they have it, and one that denotes them as outcasts if they have it; these outcasts are known as the Necant. Sonic users have about a 40% chance of being priests, and light users a 70% chance.

I'll be making a third post later about the Necant.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Leveling Mechanism (This probably won't have anything to do with the book, but I'm reposting everything, including those with little to do with the book)
This is basically a post tossing out a rough draft of how I'm planning to make leveling work in my RPG, influenced greatly by Quest 64 (which would have been the Best Game Evah if only it had a goddamn plot) and slightly by specialization systems from various games.

First, it won't have traditional levels; like Quest 64, each attribute will have its own level. I'm planning to have checks based on each attribute; the more you use it, the higher it gets. Yes, even health; this'll probably increase from the amount of damage you've recovered (yeah, you're like a Saiyan! You get more powerful when you get almost killed and healed! Well, only more health, but still!), and the amount of successful resistances to poison. Additionally, some items will level an attribute to the same percentage XP into the next level.
Magic will also have leveling systems. I'm planning to have stealth, diplomacy, and combat styles, in addition to the different elements; the more you use each style/element, the more you level said style/element. Each spell has at least one elemental attribute and at least one style attribute. I'll go further into the magic styles in another post, but I'll note that each spell has a minimum style and element point requirement, and sometimes additional ones.
I'm planning on having relatively flat power levels, compared to most games, but it'll probably be steeper than BD's. Each attribute will probably have about 10 levels or so, maybe more for the magic. More suggestions are appreciated.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Magic
This post has to deal mostly with the game mechanics of magic; the lore-ish aspect will be covered more elsewhere.

The magic system in the RPG will consist of leveling your skills in each style and element of magic to gain more abilities in each type. They'll probably just have cooldowns for each attack of an element instead of mana; basically, the more animus of a certain type you use for a certain attack, the longer it takes to use that element again because more animus have to gather. So higher level skills have longer cooldowns. The styles are combat, stealth, and diplomacy, and the elements are fire, water, wind, earth, light, and sound. (Light and sound are technically not elements, if you don't remember; their animus are actually ghosts. They still level the same way as the elements.) As you use spells of each style and element, said style or element levels up. For example, there might be a stealth/fire spell that increases the blaze of a guard's torch slightly, causing decreased vision for the guard outside of the torch's light. Some spells will require more than one element/style or be castable using more than one element; for example, the above example could also be cast with wind, by making the wind pick up and make the fire bigger by increasing oxygen exposure, or by light by directly manipulating the light of the torch. An example of a spell that would require more than one element/style would be one I thought up called Mindscrew; stealth/diplomacy/light/sound. Causes vivid hallucinations in the enemy, basically causing status effects like fear, charm, berserk, etc. Diplomacy is needed to figure out what to make the enemy hallucinate (whether you succeed will be based on a Diplomacy check) to cause status effects, stealth so that they don't realize you're about to fuck with their head, light so that you can cause the hallucination, and sound so that the hallucination sounds real.

For obtaining new spells, my ideas were as thus:
Have about 10-15 levels of each style and element. Make elements a bit easier to level than styles so that you can specialize in multiple elements. If you have enough levels in the required styles and elements, you get a new spell. Some spells will require extra research and/or training to obtain; these will basically be secret spells. You won't realize they exist till you discover one.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Swamp Monster Thingy Brainstorming
Random brainstorming for my swamp monster things. Might ramble a bit. Feel free to contribute.

-Probably will have weaponized poison. They'll use spears when they need to stick pointy things in other things, and since they don't have elemental affinities like the Canis, they can't use the blood enchants.
-Probably prefer not to kill. Planning to have them mostly use staves unless they have to kill people.
-Atheist in that they don't have the concept of a god in their culture; they discovered the Animus that powered magic early compared to the Canis, and figured that they caused all the things in nature. However, since the afterlife does actually exist in this world, they do believe in that. (People become light or sound Animus after they die.)
-Highly organized military. While they don't like killing, they do have to defend themselves against enemy Canis if they attack, and they like to be efficient about it so fewer people die.
-Will probably use the mouths in their palms for gripping things better.
-Despite many possible uses, they rarely use magic for domestic chores, so that they can stay fit.
-Don't stay in villages; instead, each tribe migrates to various different villages. When each tribe visits a village, it usually leaves something behind to help the village; a crop that wasn't planted there before, better defenses, etc. This way, all the villages have relatively equal technological levels.
Will probably add more later. Still working on a name.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Random Brainstorming
Some random brainstorming for my project. Insert ideas in comments plz.

-Things can be blown up. Even if they don't have the technology, they have magic. Should keep that in mind for getting past obstacles.
-Given that we're in the jungle, I think I might try having some different effects of poison aside from just steady health loss by looking up what some real life jungle poisons do.
-Given this game will take place almost entirely in the jungle, I probably won't have giant dinosaurs/mammoths/weird titanic creatures. Should keep that in mind.
-Should probably figure out a way for naval combat to work. Rainforests usually have a river of some sort, and it's not likely that one race will completely dominate the water.
-If Canis find out the priests are pulling their legs, then a plotline might start leaving the priests completely and totally screwed.
-Combat will be hard. I'll make it less preferable than solving problems by stealth and diplomacy. If stealth or diplomacy screws up, you have to do combat. I might have a special ending for people who are really incompetent at stealth and diplomacy.
-Magic takes time to cast. I think I'll make combat turn-based, and have spells take anywhere from 1 to 5 turns.
-You aren't a lone hero who can slaughter the enemy. Each enemy will present a threat, but you will have help most of the time if you have to fight. That way you can handle more than one.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Battle System
My idea so far for the battle system in my RPG.

Unlike the rest of the game, including stealth and diplomatic missions (I've talked about those before right?), the battle system will not be real time. For casting times and buff durations and such, 1 full rotation of battle=10 seconds real time. Every turn, you can do a few things. You can move your full speed, move half your speed and attack for 3/4 damage, attack, or cast; there will be a stat called speed that determines how many hits you do with the attack actions.
After an attack, it immediately switches to the person who's being attack; they get a chance to try to dodge and/or block the attack in real time. Basically, the battle system switches to their view and tries to let them not get hit; a very few attacks will be instant and therefore undodgeable.
Damage works by being one of various types, corresponding to the various elements and sometimes their opposites (fire, ice, earth, air, water, sonic, light, dark). There's also physical damage, your basic bludgeoning/slashing/piercing, because those don't fall under a specific category. There's no difference at all between the elemental and physical, the physical are just there because they can't be classified as one specific type. Damage reduction is based on percents; you can have organic leveling damage reduction increases up to 10%, plus magic buffs and equipment. Except in special cases, it caps out at 50% (for you). The percents also count for resisting non-damage dealing effects of that type. Attacks have a set damage they deal, which is upped through organic leveling.
Spells are usually cast in a set number of full rounds. You stop casting the spell once the set number of full rounds has been reached and it's your turn again. (So, the spell takes effect at the beginning of your next turn if it has a casting time of 1) You can't do anything else while casting a spell, and each damage-dealing attack has a chance of interrupting you (base 30%, can be lowered organically or by items or heightened by certain opponent attacks or "fragile spells"). A spell that takes "x(X is the time taken)quick" takes effect in that number of your turns. If it is 1quick, then it takes effect at the end of the turn I cast it on, 2 quick it takes place at the end of the turn a full round later. If a spell takes a fraction of the turn, consider it quick. Then you can move the remaining fraction of the turn for your speed or attack for that fraction of your remaining damage. Number of squares moved and fraction of damage are rounded up.
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Ferret's RPG Project: The Swamp Monster Things
I finally came up with a name for my weird swamp monster creatures. Given my fondness for Latin, it inevitably would end up being Latin. However, I came up with an actual theme and something resembling a plot for my game (which will actually end up having an effect on the lore stuff), so I have named them Sculi, singular Sculus, which is Latin for Shield. Basically, this is because the theme I came up with is kinda like the "save the environment from progress!" theme, but with twists that make it not stupid and cheesy. (Well, at least, not at first.)

Joke scientific names I came up with for the races:
Sculi=Sine faciei (without faces)
Cani(that's the plural of the Canis)= Acris corporis (sharp body). Sadly, this one was more limited by my dictionary.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Whee, Giant Retcon Post!
I've been thinking about my game to distract myself from the fact that life really sucks today, so I've decided to retcon a few things. Get comfy, this will probably be a long one.

The Cani and the Necant are getting quite a bit of a retcon.
First, the Canis's elemental affinities. You're going to end up playing a Canis in the game, and there are going to be ways to acquire other elemental affinities. First, you can kill other people and cut off their body parts with the elemental rune on it, then surgically attach the body part to you. You'll generally have to cut off a whole arm or leg for this, but with the light and sound, you can just cut off a patch of skin to replace yours. This is highly illegal, and you have the chance of rejection. The Necant, instead of being non-priest ghost users, are people who have run away and formed new communities after acquiring other elements through murder. If you try to acquire powers this way, you'll be forced to ally with either the Necant or the Sculi.

Alternatively, you can acquire new elements by searching for absurdly rare artifacts called totems. These are thought to be fragments of the Canis god; since he won't actually exist, it'll be something else I haven't decided on quite yet. My current idea is maybe some sort of gem with an Animus sealed inside. They'll be acquired via sidequest, but only if you actually look in the libraries and catch up on the lore. There will be people who will tell you visiting the library might help, though. When you get one, it fuses to your head. Each totem piece looks like a point of a star, and when you get all 5 you didn't start off with you get a full star on your head.

Cani schizo tech is insane. Their weapons technology hasn't developed past kukris, because they don't really need anything better (their magic is probably as good as modern guns). However, they have indoor plumbing, from their water magic. They also have magic lightbulbs and magic ovens, with some magic fridges and freezers (fire magic controls both hot and cold!), some air conditioning, and a buttload of other modern conveniences. They have primitive radio, but no TV. Sound users use magic to basically have cell phones, but they don't have a technological version yet. Their homes are basically tents, and can be taken down if needed. Yes, the indoor plumbing is mobile because of the magic. Air travel is zeppelins and single-person hang gliders, but the hang gliders are almost exclusively used by wind users. They have walking-friendly roads, because they lack cars and they lack pack animals. They have absurdly efficient mines and they have Industrial Revolution-era factories which make various things, such as jungle-plant-based textiles, kukris, and radios. They have some simple medicine, and have started refining herbs into drugs (no, not that kind, the medical kind! And they don't have marijuana!)

The Cani religion still has the same gods, but the priests work differently. They're anyone who is willing to become one, and passes the proper tests. You can probably try to become one and get some benefits if you do. However, it's a double edged sword; you get some obligations if you become a priest, as well. Priests usually acquire a retinue of willing servants over the years. Depending on the priest, they may or may not be a harem. The priests aren't aware that their god doesn't exist. The priests are usually advisers to village leaders, just like before, except that they only advise on religious, social, and economic matters, and not political or military. Political and military advisers are separate.

Cani economy is a barter system. This will basically work in game mechanics by having each thing have a set value to certain types of people, and if the things you want to trade equal or surpass the value of the item you want, they'll trade with you. Some things might be considered more valuable than they're worth by the seller, so you'll need to trade more stuff to get it. An example might be a family heirloom.

The Cani have some basic laws (like "no murdering, no stealing", but not "no voting until the age of whatever, you have to have a permit to do this", etc), and they have cops.

The Sculi are basically Luddite assholes. They think everything above the level of your average quarterstaff technologically should be destroyed, and they'll enforce that on you as much as possible. If they didn't have kickass magic, the Canis would have annihilated them decades ago. (Sculi and Cani have a long standing feud). They have small "farms", consisting of naturally occurring food sources stuck in a patch of semi-open ground and hoping they grow. They live in trees, without a house or anything. They have no medical technology. In one of the game over screens, I'm planning to have it say that the Sculi later won, and then all died of a plague.

The Necant are basically like the Cani. They have a much looser system of laws, however. They also have far less technology, because a lot of that was getting in the way of hiding their communities so that they don't all die horribly by Cani raids.

You'll be able to ally with any one of these factions, but you'll start off with the Cani.

Quests will usually be able to be accomplished multiple different ways. They'll basically be "Do this, I don't care how". In most cases, stealth and diplomacy will be options. Diplomacy and stealth go hand in hand now, because diplomacy also includes things like bribing the guard. Combat will be difficult. Stealth assassinations have a capability to avoid combat if you pull them properly.

The combat system will basically be an improved version of the Quest 64 system (Because I love that system, and with some improvements it will be even better). You have a very short time, maybe 3-5 seconds, to take your turn, and you have a certain radius you can travel. However, opening up magic menus and such pauses the time. If you get attacked, you have the ability to try to dodge the attack. If it's in close combat, you'll have some options for blocking and dodging, but they'll be hard to do. Magic takes a certain number of turns to use, based on power and such. You can only use magic every time the cooldown is over; cooldowns are based on number of turns, and the spell cast sets a cooldown for every spell of that element. There won't be mana. If you're hit while casting, you have a 50% or so chance of having to start over. You can try to dodge while casting, but it's even more difficult.
NPC movements will be extremely streamlined, with them finishing their turns just as fast as yours. Most of the time, NPCs will have just as much health as you, and deal as much damage. Power curves for combat will be extremely low; you'll mostly only get a greater variety of spells, not overly more powerful ones, and your attacks will become slightly faster and harder for NPCs to dodge, and you'll deal a bit more damage. Health levels also go up a little. If you have low health, your ability to fight goes down; your attacks become easier to dodge, you can't dodge as well, and you deal less damage.
There will be high environment interaction; if you toss a boulder at the house a guy is in, it will collapse, hurting him very badly. For simplicity, it won't matter what size the boulder is or its trajectory when it hit and whatnot, it'll just do a preset collapse and collapsing damage if your rock is big enough to knock it over.

I had some other ideas, but I'll save them for later. This thing is huge enough already.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Drugs
MWchase mentioned that the characters of my game will probably have access to some really weird drugs. Since I'm going for a dark as hell crapsack world, I am going to include them. However, since I know absolutely jack shit about drugs, I'm relying on you to tell me what exactly would be good ideas for how they'd work. You guys have done drugs, right? Somebody here has to have done them. Depending on what we decide to do with the drugs, we can decide how we want them to affect society and whether or not they're accepted. Parallels to real drugs might be nice.
(I'm going to put the comments on this one, cuz they're important.)
MWchase said...

The obvious thing to do would be to have some mild drugs. I try to be all "well, I wouldn't know anything about most drugs, the strongest thing I've had is" and then my memory catches up to me and I say "morphine"...

I normally try to have nothing but a moderate dose of caffeine, if that, really! (I had some alcohol shortly after my 18th birthday, but it was legal at the time.)

I do know, though, that drugs can do utterly nasty things if you mix the wrong ones. Finding a safe combination of as few as three should normally require the in-game equivalent of a medical degree, (Which I'm guessing is having a good track record for healing people.), or extensive research.

There should be a strong religious or social stigma against the really bad drugs. Nobody's going to, say, take anything so strong as ecstasy. (That might permanently mess you up after one dose.)

The drugs that the game should focus on depend on context. If there are diplomatic missions, there could be moderate amounts of wine (non-human animals have been documented to seek out naturally occurring alcohol for pleasure, so I don't see why not) or whatever drunk. This shouldn't have much of a long-term affect, so long as it doesn't interact with anything else before getting purged.

As an alternative to the above, perhaps the Necant could use much more in the way of recreational drugs. They've got a less cohesive society, and all among them who aren't complete masochists would have gotten their extra rune(s) under the influence of some unrefined herbal anesthetics with who-knows-what side effects.

Drugs that have a practical effect on the body, which, I think, is the sensible choice for the main focus, could be taken before combat and would offer buffs over whatever would be equivalent to several hours, and possibly some penalties, before wearing off, which would require a period of recovery. This would be the most realistic option.

As to what there should be, besides alcohol, well... honestly, if you can handwave a way it could work, you can throw it in. There are tons of drugs out in the jungle right now that we don't know anything about.

Beyond that, I suspect I don't quite have a handle on what you're going for, so go off of the above, or not.

King of Ferrets said...

Dude, we have an entire race of fucking tribalistic shaman-hippies, and you're saying there should be strong religious and social stigma against drugs? Half this crap was invented for tribal religious reasons.

If it's not too much to program, I'm thinking that medical practice will suck ass drug-wise, so most drugs will be of the recreational variety. So you'll probably just get a screwy screen for a while. I might include withdrawal too.

MWchase said...

It occurred to me that recounting said experience with anesthesia could be helpful...

I forget exactly what I got for anesthetics for surgery but here are the effects I remember: sights and sounds seemed to be more intense (Like, all colors were bright.) My perception of time got all screwy, to the point where my memories from going into surgery two different times are irrevocably mushed together. I felt really light... (good luck portraying that visually). I got generally weaker, and within no more than a few minutes, fell into a dreamless sleep. Which required constant maintenance. Also, I was getting this stuff through an IV.

Since the drugs can be weird, you should probably feel free to mix-and-match effects.

King of Ferrets said...

Uhhh... okay... that's weird.

MWchase said...

You want drugs that mess with perception, you get drugs that mess with perception.

(These were apparently supposed to mess with my memory more than they did. The anesthesiologist was all "think of a nice dream" and I did, and I felt cheated when I realized that my awareness had just sort of faded to several hours later. When I mentioned this, whoever I mentioned it to was surprised that I had remembered as far as being put onto the operating table.)

(Yes, 'put'. There's no way I'm going to pretend I could even sort of move under my own power by that point.)

King of Ferrets said...

I'm thinking drugs will completely fuck you over, and you won't be able to do much. You'll have pretty flashing lights, distorted screen, and epileptic seizure risks, though.

MWchase said...

Perhaps they'd be a necessary part of being a priest, though? Otherwise, I guess I'm not sure why they'd be there except for flavor.

King of Ferrets said...

I was thinking it would be a mostly Sculi thing. They're hippies.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Acquiring New Elements
Since you're going to be playing a Canis, you'll want to acquire new elements. This details the process.

The first option is harvesting the bodies of defeated enemies for their runed limb, or skin from the runed chest. You then have to hack off yours and attach the other. This is highly illegal, and has a large chance of killing you. You have about a 60% chance of rejection, or 30% for some characters if I decide to include blood relatives of you. If you reject a limb, it does slowly increasing amounts of damage over time. It starts out at about 1 damage per 10 seconds, in a few minutes it becomes 2, then 3, then you can't use the limb and it's 4, then 5, and it keeps climbing in damage. You can stop the damage by hacking the limb off. If you still have the original limb, you can put it back on, or you can get one from another person. Each surgery, you have a 1% chance of instantly dying from shock. Cutting off one limb and putting off another each count as 1 surgery. When you get a new element in this fashion, you get its element starting at whatever level the person you took it from had it at (which could be better than your starting element), but it levels up much slower. Probably about 1/2 the speed.

The second option is totems. Totems are the result of areas that have an abundance of a certain element not being used very much; if you're in a volcano, it'll have a lot of fire animus, and if nobody uses them, then a product they produce, known as aishek (yay, random weird ass name), which is usually used up as part of the spellcasting process, may infuse an object in the area, creating one of the rare totems. If you use a totem, it will fuse with you. When the totem fuses with you, you gain that element, and a point of a 5-pointed star appears on your head; since there are 6 elements, you can acquire 5, and each of the acquired ones gives you a point of the star. You get them via library-induced sidequests. They start out at level 1 when you acquire them, but level as fast as your starting element.
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Ferret's RPG Project: Starting The Plot
So far, I've only got a very basic seed for the plot. Your character enlists in the army, tutorial is basic training, and then you get sent out onto a battlefield. Big fight, people die. During a Body Count Competition with your training buddy, he dies and you get a bit of Unstoppable Rage. Shortly afterward, you try to figure out why the hell you're being sent out to your death against a bunch of crazy Luddite hippies. Once you find out it's because you have tech, you get to start choosing who you ally with. Filling in of gaps, especially with the finding out why you're being sent to your death, would be greatly appreciated. (I don't know if I'll use this for the book.)
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Ferret's RPG Project: The Sculi
Basic Sculi biology.

The most striking feature of the Sculi is their lack of heads. Instead, their mouths are in their palms and their eyes are attached to their wrists. Of course, this greatly affects their body language, but I haven't figured out exactly how that will work with them. Anyway, they're mostly greenish brown, humanoid, and covered in dripping slime/mucus crap. They're rather short, only about 3 1/2 feet tall. (Normal heights range from about 2 3/4 to 4 feet)

Initial speculation from the Canis will include the possibility of the Sculi being plants, but they are, in fact, animals. Instead of having large internal organs, like a humans, they have sets of minature ones scattered throughout their entire body. For example, a Sculi might have 50 minature hearts, and due to having that many, can survive if a couple of them stop working; the other hearts will work harder to make the blood pump through areas with dead hearts, and the stopped hearts will be converted to blood vessels. The same applies to all other internal organs, including the brain; the various chunks of neurons scattered about their body allow for faster reflexes than humans. However, they have more trouble thinking about complex problems, due to communication delay between the various neuron-chunks. Suggestions for diseases this might make them exceptionally prone to would be helpful. The only real exception is the digestive system; plant matter (they're herbivores) enters through the hand-mouths, is transported to a many-chambered main food storage and fermenting stomach-thing (which also functions similar to the intestine, absorbing nutrients) and occasionally exits to one of various gizzards, where food is crushed up. It goes back to the fermenting stomach-thing (but in a different chamber), where the process is repeated 4-5 times during the entire digestive process. It's sorta like cud chewing, but with gizzards. After all the nutrients are absorbed, the waste is excreted through the skin, and is part of the composition of the mucus/slime stuff coating them.

They have a humanoid skeletal and muscular system, nothing important there.

I'm not sure about anything else for the basic biology.
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Holy fucking shit, you finished? This thing has got to be longer than like 3 Orac posts.

San Antonio

2009-03-15T19:57:00.001-05:00

I'm headed to San Antonio for a few days, starting tomorrow. I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have while I'm there.

WoW Thread

2009-03-12T21:16:00.002-05:00

Some of my friends on WoW apparently subscribe to some annoyingly basic creationist canards (like, Hovind-bad), so I directed them over here. Hopefully they'll come and we can disabuse them of their misconceptions about how the universe works.
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Apparently, at least one of them feels to sorry for me to argue with me anymore, because I'm apparently going to die alone due to my attempt to feel superior to the rest of the world, and I just like using big words and have no clue what I'm talking about.

When you're only a step above asking why there are still monkeys, you shouldn't be allowed to say that others have no clue what they're talking about when they talk about evolution.

On the Evolution of Nicknames

2009-03-12T19:38:00.004-05:00

How, exactly, do nicknames and abbreviated names happen? They have a tendency not to happen the same way in multiple places. To give an example, on WoW my friends call me Ferret; in the blogosphere I'm KoF (to be fair, there's lesser naming freedom in WoW so my character is named differently. That doesn't mean King of Ferrets wouldn't just become Ferret in the blogosphere though; people just started calling me KoF instead. So it's probably not a good example, but I can't think of another at the moment). So how do they evolve? Why do they happen? Does anyone know and/or care?

DnD: Alignments

2009-03-11T16:26:00.004-05:00

I'm busily creating a new campaign setting for a nautical campaign I'm running, and I had an idea. I was wondering what you guys might think of it.

I'm eliminating the distinction of "always" from alignments. Everyone, even the demons and undead, can technically be good, and their moral development is usually based roughly on the society they live in. Of course, racism will still exist, and evil cultures will, but this gives a lot more freedom in selecting races that aren't normally player races; we currently have 2 kobolds (one of which has had the Serpentine template applied to it) and a pair of satyrs in the party. We might also have an undead of some sort. So, what do you guys think?

Oh, also, we have an atheist cleric. And the player made it believable (with some minor help from me).

Rhology Once Again

2009-03-06T17:10:00.003-06:00

Rhology is still a dumbass. He claimed that creationism could make scientific predictions, and stuck some idiotic predictions out as evidence. When I say that under theistic evolution the same predictions are made, so the creationism is still useless, he turns his tail and runs. So, I'm going to taunt him for being an idiot who can't let his assertions be criticized.

(By the way, I made that one. Ain't it prettyful?)

Burfday

2009-03-05T06:26:00.002-06:00

Can haz gifts? kthxbai. (A link from PZ would be nice.)
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Apparently the people at my school are not internet-literate. I have a sign on my shirt that says "Iz burthday. Can haz gifs? kthxbai." and only like 2 people have actually known it was lolspeak.

!si esoin terref a revetahW

2009-03-04T00:42:00.003-06:00

I'm ripping off BD's !fooW, so ask me silly questions.

Err, uhh, I mean, this is a completely original thing where you ask me silly questions that I give you silly answers to! Right! Of course!

Breaking News: Porn Addict Pastors!

2009-03-03T23:57:00.003-06:00

CNN has discovered that red states view more porn! OMGWTF! How surprising! It's not like it's predictable that increased sexual repression leads to easier to hide methods of sexual release, like large amounts of net pr0n crappily hidden (alternatively, they only measured subscriptions, and the red staters are too stupid to find it free)

So CNN is interviewing some pastor about his supposed porn addiction. Yay.

Ooo, apparently we need to be open about our porn watching so that we can get help! Of course! Wait, what? Watching porn is something we need help with? Why, so that we can hide it better? The only thing anyone's ever helped me with on that count is the prawn folder, and that's less actual hiding and more amusement.

Oh, and lots of people think they're the only ones who watch porn. Yeah. That makes so much sense. Really.
It's not like you can't keep an entirely industry afloat on your own. Of course not.

His opinion on why "otherwise happy, well-adjusted" (CNN's words, not his; I'm actually not sure he would consider the viewing of pr0n abnormal or the sign of someone not well-adjusted, because he sees it as a normal urge that needs to be overcome) people turn to porn: "Well, we're all sexual beings. We're all created equally, we all have sexual desires, and pornography taps into that. There's a certain secretness that makes it attractive (secretive sexual release: something that you don't really need without sexual repression! Of course, without the sexual repression, it would just be people watching porn but without being secretive about it, which is probably better for us). It taps into our sinful natures (yes, so horribly sinful; watching porn is horribly evil!) and it, it, uh pulls at the very core of who we are. (Our sexuality? Thanks for admitting that's a core part of humanity. STOP FUCKING REPRESSING PEOPLE'S HUMANITY, JACKASS!)"

Okay, the study was highest subscription to porn sites. My opinion is that it's probably a combination of idea #1 and #2.

His comment on conservative and religious states watching more porn: Farmers have less access to sex stores, and there's a social stigma that prevents them from looking for it, so they watch hawt pr0n instead. Apparently, this is also because people don't talk about it enough, which has the same effect as the social stigma. He also says that since it's secretive, the behavior is more addictive. (Even though it isn't. Seriously, it's not a fucking drug. It's not messing with your head. People get addicted to drugs, from what I understand, because their brain chemistry becomes dependent on the drug and they undergo withdrawal symptoms without it.)

Conservatives are hypocritical because they think it's wrong, but they weren't able to win against themselves. So, they're holding other people to a higher standard than themselves, as he said. Which makes them jackasses.

Mah Birthday

2009-03-03T14:11:00.001-06:00

Thursday is my birthday. I fully expect some sort of gift from all of you. =P

No Child Left Behind Pile Of Shit, Study Says

2009-03-02T18:01:00.002-06:00

Well, not exactly, but it does show that NCLB is stupid if they reported it right.

Me finding this is entirely PZ's fault.

Rhology again. Yeah, that idiot.

2009-03-01T22:56:00.005-06:00

Now that my anti-stupid defense system is fully recharged from dealing with Rhology before, I couldn't resist diving back into the vast, unending ocean of limitless ignorance. He has a list of reasons why Biblical creationism isn't scientifically useless due to a lack of any form of predictive power, and I intend to prove his reasons are a pile of shit.
So basically, Rhology has started a series called Bad Evolutionary Arguments Refuted. He claims accusations of a lack of predictive power, as explained above the fold, are faulty, and gives the following list of reasons:

However, if Christian creationism is true, we'd expect to see all sorts of things:
-The universe would carry an appearance of design (since it was in fact designed).
-Rival worldviews would be irrational.
-The God-man would resurrect from the dead in a unique fashion, when He said He would.
-God would change lives like He said He would.
-Formerly twisted and immoral people (like myself) would end up living sanctified lives.
-Most people would not have saving faith in God.
-Quite a few even would mock God.
-People would have innate ideas of right/wrong and fair play.
-Evidence would be a good way to discover truth.
-The world would operate virtually all the time according to regular laws.
-Yet occasionally God would perform a miracle, for a specific purpose or set of purposes.

Here's why his reasons are a load of bullshit. Feel free to add your own; I whipped these babies up in 10 minutes, so they probably aren't complete.

My response to the points:

And if Christian creationism isn't true (by the way, don't you share a creation story with the Jews, kinda? So it's not actually Christian creationism except for the fact that you claim Jesus was involved? I'm not entirely clear on the distinctions, but they're pretty goddamn similar I think), then the universe carries an appearance of design to us because we see patterns everywhere anyway (applies to both), it would be an irrational worldview since it's not supported by evidence (and opposing worldviews aren't necessarily irrational even if Christian creationism is true; atm, even if it is true, evolution has more evidence by far. So really a point in favor of evolution, if anything; believing in the Christian worldview at the moment, even if you're actually correct, is irrational.), the God-man could possibly have resurrected but there's no guarantee (you can't prove it happened, so that's not really a point in anyone's favor.), same with God changing lives (And you can't prove that either, because if God does exist, it's him working through human agents, and if he doesn't, then it's humans who claim to serve God. Once again, nobody's favor.) People would live lives they considered sanctified and regard their pre-sanctified life as twisted and immoral, but there wouldn't necessarily be any objective reason to consider either as classifying for their descriptors (So not a point in either one's favor.) It wouldn't make any predictions on the amount of people having saving faith in God, just as Christian creationism doesn't, and just as neither predicts anything about God being mocked (So neither gets a point on either. Notice how most of your points aren't Creationism exclusive or don't even apply to Creationism?) People would have innate ideas of right and wrong anyway because we're social animals who have evolved altruism, or God gave it to us at some point during our evolution (so neither idea's favor), and evidence would be the best way we have to discover truth because its worked better than anything else (and evidence wouldn't be a good way to discover truth under the creationism one, because if, for example, Satan can plant fossils, we can't really trust evidence because it might be Satan-tainted), and then the crappy last two. (First one certainly applies to both theistic and atheistic evolution, since there's no reason for different laws of physics in different places, and the second one is really a point in atheistic evolution's favor; the universe is more predictable without miracles, and you haven't been able to prove anything that was definitively a miracle. Seriously, think about it; if God can do miracles, that's another point against evidence in Creationism. If God can do miracles, we can't ever be sure of the laws of physics, because he could be changing them because he doesn't want us to know something. He could be messing with our heads to see what happens when he performs miracles. Hell, maybe "miracles" are what happens when God stops intervening! The reasons this is a point against Creationism are endless, and even then, they still apply to theistic evolution, which means it's not even an exclusive reason to prefer creationism even if you managed to show that those aren't necessarily flaws in creationism.)

So, creation has no actual advantage over evolution in terms of predictive power, and is in fact outclassed by it. You got no points in your favor, and we got two. We're winning.

(I really wish I could have just stuck with going "meh", I really do. But it's like Orac and antivaccine jackasses; Rhology just keeps sucking me back in!)

M&M

2009-03-01T21:45:00.001-06:00

Has anyone got any experience with playing Mutants and Masterminds? If so, I've got a character idea, but I have no idea how well it would work (I got like 30 minutes total to look through the book, so I know jack shit about it), so I'd like to run it past you.

Skeptic's Circle 106

2009-02-27T19:24:00.003-06:00

Mmm... circle-y.

Bobby Jindal

2009-02-25T22:17:00.002-06:00

I just watched the Daily Show's coverage of this Bobby Jindal guy. Apparently, he is being considered as a possible presidential candidate for 2012.

I'm sad now.

Awake! Part The First: Is There One True Religion?

2009-02-24T20:00:00.001-06:00

A while back, I found this Christian pamphlet thingymabopper called Awake! lying around my house; apparently it had been given to us by some random door to door proselytizer. After procrastination for a few weeks, I've finally decided to do a post or 5 on it. It's got 30 pages, so it should be a decent amount of blog fodder.

The pamphlet starts off with a nice, big, bolded question:

Is there one
true religion?

It goes on to say the following:

Some find that question offensive. Given the sheer multitude of religious beliefs worldwide, they reason that anyone who claims to have a monopoly on truth must be narrow-minded, even arrogant. Surely, it would seem, some good is to be found in all religions or at least most of them. Is that how you feel?

Nope. I feel like idiocy is "to be found in all religions or at least most of them," and not overly much of use. Based on your phrasing, I feel like you agree with me on the negative to your question, but disagree on why.

There are, of course, situations in which it is prudent to allow for a variety of opinions. For example, a person might believe that a certain diet will make him healthier. But should he impose that diet on everyone else, as if it were the only way to healthy living? Certainly, it would be wise and modest on his part to allow for the possibility that someone else's choice of food might be just as good or even better, at least for that other person.

Sounds like a pretty good analog for religion, I would think. Why should you be arrogant enough to think that everyone else has to be wrong without any good evidence one way or the other? The only reason it's not a good analogy is because diets can be scientifically analyzed for effectiveness.

Is it the same with religion?

Wait, but I thought that was the point of your last paragraph, to say it was!

Are there a variety of acceptable alternatives from which to choose, depending on one's upbringing and way of perceiving things? Or is there one body of religious truth that applies to all mankind?

Well, based on your last paragraph's analogy, I'd say the former. Why?

Let us see what the Bible has to say.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then it goes downhill. First Flaw: Referring to the Bible as a source on whether or not Christianity is the true religion!

First, we will consider whether truth is even attainable.

Not exactly. We can be 99.9999999999% sure, but never 100%. However, we can assume that the 99% is truth until proven otherwise.

After all, if it is not, then there is little point in searching for one true religion.

So, since the answer is sort of, does that mean there is sort of a point in searching for one true religion, or is it an all or nothing thing?

Is religious truth attainable?
Shortly before he was killed, Jesus Christ told his interrogator, Roman Governor Pontius Pilate: "Everyone that is on my side of the truth listens to my voice." Pilate may well have been responding cynically when he said: "What is truth?" (John 18:37, 38) Jesus, on the other hand, spoke unashamedly of truth. He did not doubt its existence. Consider, for example, the following four statements Jesus made to various people:
"For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth." -John 18:37
"I am the way and the truth and the life." -John 14:6
"God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth." -John 4:23, 24
"If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." -John 8:31, 32

First, this still has nothing to do with whether or not religious truth can be found; the Bible isn't a reliable source for that kind of thing. Second, couldn't it just be that John had a truth fetish or something? Cuz all those come from John, and he probably wasn't remembering all direct quotes. Maybe he plugged in truth a couple times. Second Flaw: Assuming Jesus existed and that the Bible is a reliable source of quotes from him!

Since Jesus spoke so confidently of truth and of coming to know it, shouldn't we at least examine the possibility that religious truth exists and can be found?

Third Flaw: Assuming that it hasn't already been examined!

Is it just me, or is this entire goddamn thing basically to convert agnostics? Are they such a common thing nowadays?

Does absolute truth really exist?
No doubt you will agree that there are some things of you being absolutely certain.

Nooooooooooooooooooope. Fourth Flaw: Assuming truth exists despite inability to prove it, based on fallible human perceptions! All you managed to do was prove that Jesus thought like most people of that time would think: That their perceptions usually worked just fine, and there was no reason to doubt them.

You are sure of your own existence and that the objects that surround you are real.

Not really, no. Fourth.

The trees, the mountains, the clouds, the sun, and the moon- the material world- are not figments of your imagination.

I can't really be sure of that either. Seriously, stop it with the Fourth Flaw already.

Of course, there may be a few people who argue in a philosophical way that even those things are questionable. But it is unlikely you agree with such an extreme notion.

Yup, they exist. A lot scientist types and skeptics are counted among them, because they know how fallible people are. Of course, it's unlikely that it's true, but we can't be sure.

Then there are natural laws. Of these too, you can be absolutely certain. For example, if you jump off a cliff, you will fall; if you refuse to eat, you will feel hungry; and if you go without food for a long time, you will die.

A repeat of the Fourth and the introduction of the Fifth Flaw: Calling things laws of nature that really aren't! I mean, you could have a neurological disorder making you not feel hungry ever, or you could survive without food for a long period of time because of IV nutrients. Didn't Jesus supposedly go without food or water for a long time at one point?

With all this Fourth Flaw flying about, I'm considering not even looking at it. Or I could count how many times they talk about it. Hmmm... I think the latter. Funnier that way.

You do not wonder if such natural laws hold true for some but not for others. They apply to all mankind and are therefore said to be universal.

Well, obviously you don't think that, because they apparently don't apply to Jesus, who died even quicker than he should have on the cross if you believe the Bible. Is he immune to hunger and thirst at the cost of being very vulnerable to physical damage? Sixth Flaw: Hypocrisy! This one will get a lot of use, I bet. Also, Fourth #5!

The Bible alludes to one such universal law when it asks, "Can a man rake together fire into his bosom and yet his very garments not be burned?"

Sure, if he's only wearing pants, or he's scooping up firewalking coals. Or if he's wearing something fire retardant. Or if he's using his hands to protect said garments from immolation. Or any number of other things. Fifth Flaw again! Plus, Sixth Flaw: They have to believe in miracles, since they believe the Bible is the word of God, so why couldn't that be one? Fourth #6!

Indeed, when that was written, it was universally true that clothing would burn if brought into contact with fire. However, in stating this fact, the above Bible proverb is really making a bigger point, namely, that "anyone having [sexual] relations with the wife of his fellowman" will suffer adverse consequences. -Proverbs 6:27, 29.

Not necessarily. What if they don't get caught? What if everyone involved knew about the adultery and was fine with it? Seventh Flaw: Assuming everyone who does bad things gets punished, and Eighth Flaw: Assuming the things the Bible says are bad are, in fact, bad! Fourth #7!

Is that statement an absolute truth of which we can be certain?

Since absolute truths of which we can be certain do not exist, no.

Some would say no.

And they're right.

They claim that morals are personal, that they depend on one's upbringing, beliefs, and circumstances.

Yup, that sounds about right.

But consider a few of God's moral laws as found in the Bible. Are these not universal truths?

Nope. Fourth #8!

The Bible condemns adultery. (1 Corianthians 6:9, 10) Some people do not accept this Bible precept as truth, and they practice adultery.

Right.

Still, even they generally reap bitter consequences, which often include troubled conscience, divorce, and deep emotional scars for all concerned.

The first not if they're in a society that finds nothing wrong with it, because the conscience is mostly conditioned by societal norms. Second not if their spouses are fine with it. Third is the same as first.

Drunkenness is also condemned by God. (Proverbs 23:20, Ephesians 5:18) What happens when people practice it?

Wake up in a gutter with no pants, no wallet, and a giant hangover, going "What the hell did I do last night?"

In many cases they lose their job, their health, and their family, who also suffer emotionally. (Proverbs 23:29-35)

Wait, you're citing the Bible for the fact that most drunkards lose their health, job, and family? What the flying fuck? Anyway, those things only happen when you make a habit of it, and the losing your family thing sadly only happens extremely rarely in cases of wife-beating or child-beating; people are afraid of the beater or think "he loves me, really!"

Such consequences come even to those who do not believe drunkenness is wrong.

Except only if they make a habit of it. Nobody argues that alcoholism isn't bad, so Ninth Flaw: Strawman!

Does the truthfulness of these moral laws appear to be relative to the beliefs or perceptions of each individual?

Is and ought are different, yknow. That's the Tenth Flaw. And hell yes in the first case, and not really but the Bible condemns rather broadly in the second case, and it doesn't happen to all who don't follow the "moral laws". And, of course, you can't evaluate the truthfulness of a law, because TRUTH DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! Laws aren't true or false, even if they get punished every time (and they don't. Especially not the "murder your son for saying "fuck"" or "murder your entire family for trying to get you to stop following Yahweh" ones. You don't see people getting guilty over not having stoned their son to death for saying the word "fuck").

Then there are the Bible's positive moral commands- such as commands to love one's wife, to respect one's husband, and to do good to others. (Matthew 7:12; Ephesians 5:33)

And to kill rebellious teenagers and those who try to convert you, stone rape victims because they didn't cry out unless it happened outside of town, and of course, the important command not to eat rabbits because they chew cud but don't have hooves.

Observing these commands brings beneficial results.

My examples definitely don't, in fact they do the opposite, and yours don't always. Respect your husband too much and you're a doormat, do good and often you'll get screwed by a con artist.

Would you argue that such moral counsel is good for some but not others?

My examples are good for nobody, and yours don't always do good for people. So yes.

Whether the moral laws of the Bible are followed or not brings consequences to people.

Well, yeah, because everything has consequences. Like stoning your rebellious child to death brings the consequence of killing your kid.

This fact argues that such laws are not just alternative points of view.

No it doesn't. Not following the laws of the Koran has consequences, too. Eleventh Flaw: Assuming that nothing else but following or not following the Biblical laws is the only thing that has consequences!

Rather, they are truths.

Fourth #9!

Evidence reveals that good consequences are realized when the Bible's moral laws are followed, but bad ones when they are not.

Horrible, horrible lies. Twelfth Flaw: Assuming all consequences of following Biblical laws are good!

So think, if they Bible's moral laws hold true for all mankind,

Sure, I'll take this little journey with you, but they don't.

what about the standards in God's Word regarding worship?

What about 'em? Thirteenth Flaw: Assuming the Bible is God's Word! That probably should have been included before this, but I'm too lazy to go back and edit it in where it should be.

What about its comments on what happens when we die and the hope we have for an everlasting future?

They're stupid and probably false, why?

It logically follows that these Bible teachings are also truths, provided for all mankind.

It logically follows from what? You saying that they are earlier? Dude, I'm spinnin round in circles! I guess it does logically follow, and is valid, but it's not sound.

Their benefits and consequences are not limited to only people who believe them.

Except for the guilty conscience parts, pretty much, yeah. But then again, the same is true of pretty much everything.

Truth can be found.

Fourth #whatever!

Jesus said that God's Word, the Bible, is truth. John 17:17

There's John's truth fetish again. Didn't I have a flaw for assuming the Bible was an accurate representation of what Jesus said, and assuming he exists?

yet, truth may still seem unattainable.

Cuz it is.

Why?

Umm, because we can't be sure of anything and all conclusions are tentative and can be disproved with new evidence?

Because so many different religions claim to teach what the Bible says.

No, that's not why. I just told you why. Since I'm assuming you mean the New Testament, too, what other religions claim to teach what the Bible says? Or do you mean sects, which is entirely different?

Which religion is teaching the truth from God's Word?

Probably none of them, because it's unlikely any of them have God's word? I'm pretty sure there was a flaw for this one too.

Must we limit the answer to just one religion?

Well, if you don't, you fall under the Sixth Flaw. Not necessarily anybody else, but you do.

Could not the truth, or at least parts of it, be found in a number of religions?

Sure.

Next time on Awake!:

Who Should Determine True Religion?

Lolferrets

2009-02-24T14:08:00.002-06:00

Matt the Pooflinger has directed me to this. Feel free to laugh, giggle, chortle, chuckle, guffaw, or use any other verbal expression of amusement.

Zombie Jesus and Ghoul/Vampire Christians

2009-02-16T14:04:00.005-06:00

Everyone, of course, knows about Zombie Jesus.

But there's something not everyone considers: Zombie Jesus makes ghoul/vampire followers!

Think about it. Zombie Jesus makes his followers eat his flesh and drink his blood. So he's trying to make them like ghouls and/or vampires! This leads to the obvious conclusion: Zombie Jesus is trying to cause a Zombie Apocalypse (except with vampires and ghouls, even worse!), turning everyone to undead Christians!

So get a stake for the vampires, and a shotgun for the ghouls. It'll be tough to defend our atheism against the ravening hordes, but we'll try to outlast them.

Skeptic's Circle 105

2009-02-13T17:56:00.001-06:00

Thou shalt visit yon Circle of Skeptics! Forsooth! Or something!

There's A New Menace On The Road

2009-02-11T18:11:00.002-06:00

The road is screwed.

TV Tropes Vaccination

2009-02-10T20:43:00.003-06:00

Apparently , some people are worried about clicking links to TVTropes . Therefore , I 'm vaccinating you guys against TVTropes .

Rhology Cont.

2009-02-03T18:03:00.005-06:00

Remember how I told you guys about my discussion with Rhology? This is a response to this post he made about me. By the way, Rhology, you named the post Ferretology? What the heck?

I tell you what - I wish I'd been thinking about stuff at this level when I was 15.

Thank you.

And I also wish I'd met someone like me now when I was 15. So, good deal for him!

It is a good deal for me, but not for the reason you think. It's because I hadn't really thought about DCT before this. You're still an idiot.

In response to my asking where God says we aren't brains in jars, Rhology says:

In the Bible.

First, that's an unreliable source that directly contradicts both itself and reality multiple times. Second, chapter and verse. Third, there's still the God lying possibility, and the not actually being authored by God possibility.

And in response to the God lying and not authored by God possibilities, he says:

Then you'd need to tell me how I can know ANYthing and not have a great reason to doubt EVERYthing if God is not telling the truth.

Really, you can't be sure you do. But you do, because it would be stupid not to. There's no point to it. And you already do have a great reason to doubt everything; it's called skepticism. Of course, you don't exercise skepticism, so you don't realize that doubt is actually a virtue, at least up until evidence is provided of the claim.

Note the lack of address of the "not authored by God" idea.

On pi=3, Rhology claims that God rounds to a single significant figure in that one instance, and I'd only have a point if it was wildly off mark, or as he said,

You'd have a point if He said the circumf was diameter times 58 or something, but He didn't.

Of course, God is known to have used numbers with more than one significant figure in the Bible, if he actually did in fact author the Bible, so this is stupid. When questioned on why God couldn't at least have gone to 31, Rhology says

Then you'd just complain that He only went to one sig fig. Seriously, let it go. Game over.

Actually, I wouldn't. Because there's actually a reason to stop there, said reason being it's the end of the whole numbers. So unless you're in the Discworld mail sorting machine, I'd say God is wrong here, and you're picking at hairs to try to get it to be right.

Okay, the 4 legged insects are in Leviticus 11. All insects have 6 legs, and you can't even say close relatives of the insects have 6 legs because their closest relatives are the 8 legged arachnids. Sources from Wikipedia and Consevapedia. The Conservapedia one actually lists a contradiction of its own, without realizing it, which is hilarious. In Leviticus 11 you can also find cud-chewing bunnies and bats that are actually birds. I'll quote all 3 off biblegateway.com's NKJV
Bunnies:

‘These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth: 3 Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud—that you may eat. 4 Nevertheless these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; 5 the rock hyrax, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; 6 the hare, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; 7 and the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you.

Bats:

13 ‘And these you shall regard as an abomination among the birds; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, 14 the kite, and the falcon after its kind; 15 every raven after its kind, 16 the ostrich, the short-eared owl, the sea gull, and the hawk after its kind; 17 the little owl, the fisher owl, and the screech owl; 18 the white owl, the jackdaw, and the carrion vulture; 19 the stork, the heron after its kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.

And insects:

20 ‘All flying insects that creep on all fours shall be an abomination to you. 21 Yet these you may eat of every flying insect that creeps on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to leap on the earth. 22 These you may eat: the locust after its kind, the destroying locust after its kind, the cricket after its kind, and the grasshopper after its kind. 23 But all other flying insects which have four feet shall be an abomination to you.

It's funny when you realize the Bible thinks people aren't animals, so they aren't covered by the non-4-footed-cloven-hooved-animals are forbidden clause. People aren't listed under forbidden foods!

When asked why any God, good, neutral, or evil, wouldn't let us see the truth, he says:

A good God? No.
An evil god? Plenty of reasons.

First, I've specifically stated before God could be neither good nor evil, and instead he's neutral, so there's a possibility you haven't covered. Everyone make note of that. Second, God can make the truth whatever the fuck he wants! Why would any God lie?

When it's pointed out God's text can be interpreted for completely different viewpoints, and which viewpoints one subscribes to is definitely affect by society, supporting my version of morality, he says:

It's TEXT. It has objective meaning by itself.
Or maybe you think I can legitimately say that your comment means that you have repented of your sin and trusted Jesus as Savior and Lord, and want to move to my town to come join my church.
Now, is that legitimate interpretation of your comment? It's not, is it? Why not? B/c it doesn't match WHAT YOU SAID.

Look at my post on connotation; that covers part of it. People vary in things they connote with different words, affecting their interpretation. The other parts are a lot of words have multiple definitions, and languages change, so translations are mucky, (fear, for example, is used more in the context of reverence and awe of God in the old versions, and now people think it means fear God literally; that's an example of changing languages) plus a lot of the Bible contradicts itself. Oh, and yes, that's technically a valid interpretation of my comment, but it's also an idiotic one. You could justify that interpretation by, for example, claiming I was playing devil's advocate. I also hijack the arguments of the first comment.

Leviticus 25 says the following:

39 ‘And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave. 40 As a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. 41 And then he shall depart from you—he and his children with him—and shall return to his own family. He shall return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 You shall not rule over him with rigor, but you shall fear your God. 44 And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have—from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. 45 Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. 46 And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.

You didn't address the idea of people believing them to be lesser because they aren't God's chosen, by the way, and the Bible does lead them to think that. It's also entirely possible that they believed others to be subhuman, even though the Bible doesn't say that. As long as they viewed others as outside society and lower in some way, my point stands.

I mean sociopaths have a tendency to do things viewed as immoral more than those who have empathy. So do you think this is true, and if not, why not? If so, how do you explain it without empathy-based morality?

I've successfully proven that morality is based on empathy, and I repeat myself to emphasize a point. I will grant, though, that Divine Command Theory has had some impact on it just because people are stupid enough to believe it.

When I say that I think it's something I wouldn't want to happen to me, you say "so?" So, that's the reason I view it as something that shouldn't happen. If it can happen to other people, it might happen to me.

Umm, no I won't suddenly disagree. I'll say that evil doesn't objectively exist, despite what the DCT idiots say.

If the people don't survive, that idea of morality doesn't survive. It's not the naturalistic fallacy, it's pointing out a hole in your scenario. By the way, the questions you forgot to address:

How did they come up with the idea? Why did they decide it was a fine thing to do in the first place? How do they survive if they have a violent culture that sees nothing wrong with rape and murder? How the flying fuck did they get that idea in the first place? Why did they decide it might appease the gods? Is there a way they could reason out this idea?

You're an idiot. Really. Seriously. I just gave you the reason I condemn it, you fucking numbskull! By the way, your comment doesn't have anything to do with my question, and do you really think people that aren't heard crying out when they're raped in a city should get a death sentence? What if they're gagged? What if there's a fucking knife at their throat?

If you don't hold to DCT, what do you hold to?

Now you're defending DCT. Yay. Anyway, just because God can create the universe doesn't have anything to do with his ability to decide right and wrong. Also, men have set down morality all through history! Look at any philosopher. The founders of the US took up some of those philosophical, man-made ideas, and that's why they decided that England governing them without consent was wrong! Should they not have had the idea of rebelling against what they viewed as immoral based on man-made ideas, because it's not a God-based morality, and was made by just some men?

This post will be improved upon a bit later, so don't respond quite yet Rhology. I'll update it when I have some more spare time.

Skeptic's Circle 104

2009-01-29T14:16:00.003-06:00

My ferretninja minions have informed me that the next Circle has arrived at Space City Skeptics. Go there or the ninjas will... uhhh... claw you! And poop on you! And stuff!

Oh, and they might steal your electronics and knock over your cups full of water. At least, that's what mine does.

A Question

2009-01-27T08:22:00.001-06:00

Where do other people find news stories to blog about?

Rhology

2009-01-26T18:09:00.003-06:00

For those of you who pay attention to Dubito Ergo Sum, you already know who Rhology is. Brief history: Rhology says something stupid on the Atheist Experience, Tom responds, Rhology responds with something stupid, Tom responds again, Rhology responds to that here, where I come in with a random point just barely related to the discussion (saying his definition of God sucks) because I was too lazy to read the whole thing. We move that discussion to this thread because the point I addressed was a link to there anyway, and after a discussion he makes a post to respond to me! (That thread started without me. T.T) Because he annoyed me by insinuating that I might actually gain some benefit from discussing things with him at the age of 15 aside from learning a couple new ways to refute arguments, I encourage you all to go over there and dissect his post. I'll have my own refuting-him post up later.

The Ultimate Battlesuit

2009-01-21T21:15:00.005-06:00

I am bored and feel like doing something silly. Therefore, I present the plans for the ultimate superhero/supervillain battlesuit. Don't know what I'm talking about? Think Iron Man.

This has a couple different points of inspiration. Most of it's from the 2 Gundam series I've watched, Gundam 00 and Gundam Wing. There's also some stuff from Iron Man. Also one thing from Naruto. And a bit of Superman.

The basic design of the suit is a powered-armor version of Gundam Epyon (Wing). It has its normal heat-whip things in its wrists and dual-wields double sided versions of its enormous beam sword, with at least a dozen backups on its body ala Exia (00), and all of them work underwater like Death Scythe's (Wing) beam scythe. Gundam Virtue's (00) missile launchers are stuck on above the anchor for the whips. On its shoulders it has two shoulder-mounted versions of the Heavy Arm's (Wing) arm gun, and in its chest it has the Wing Zero's twin-linked buster cannon (Wing). It has heat vision and frost breath (Superman-style; yes, apparently he does have frost breath, or at least that's what my brother's Superman book thing says. I never heard of it before.) Using 360 degree sensors, it automatically deploys GN particles (00) to block incoming attacks like the Virtue's (00) GN shield mixed with Gaara's (Naruto) sand. Even if it ran out of ammo and was disarmed of all its weapons, this would still have a backup: Flight stabilizers on the hands and feet (yes, also the feet, because if I remember correctly the Epyon has wings) (Ironman). Also, the Zero System (Wing), but you can use it without not being able to tell the difference between friend and foe.

Fear what I can make up when bored. This thing could probably destroy the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan, and that thing uses galaxies as stepping stones.

Edit: Adding more stuff. It now has replaced its beam-swords with double ended swords that are Swords of Light on one end (not Pokota's copy, I stole them from another dimension) and Ragna Blades on the other (both Slayers), the gatling guns fire Dragon Slaves (also Slayers), the suit is now made of an aurorum/gundanium alloy with telekinetic powers (basically, it uses telekinesis to bring back any shards that break off, and aurorum has the ability to automatically repair itself if shards are brought back to it. So basically, because repairing aurorum takes a full round, it repairs any damage in 6 seconds.) (DnD). It also has the properties of a Skin of the Troll (DnD). The flight stablizers can now fire hadokens (8-bit theater style), freeze beams, and grapple beams (Metroid). It has gauntlets that function exactly like Roy Mustang's, letting you create giant explosions by snapping. (Fullmetal Alchemist) And it has invisibility and the ability to project orbs of silence that nullify any sounds inside. (Nowhere, just sorta... generic.)

Comments on the Inaguration

2009-01-20T13:57:00.002-06:00

We watched the inaguration today in school. I liked most of it, though I really don't see the point of us watching the prayer or whatever that I wasn't paying attention to. As everyone else has probably already stated, it shouldn't even be there in the first place. First time I've heard more than soundbites of Obama speaking; he's rather good at it, and I liked a large portion of it. I joined in when what sounded like a choir started singing the national anthem; nobody in my class noticed. I attribute that to a good singing voice, instead of just being too quiet for anyone to hear me.

I found it absurd that nobody else noticed that Obama pointed out we had a lot of people failing school, and nobody connected it to the fact that we were wasting school time watching it live instead of seeing a non-live version some other time. That might have something to do with why people are failing school.

Skeptic's Circle #103

2009-01-15T18:58:00.001-06:00

New Circle. Go now. Next Circle. Go later.

Question #4257i

2009-01-06T23:14:00.002-06:00

Lots of these lately.

Why in the nine hells do we care about Israel? Seriously.

I've heard it's because of the Holocaust, but that seems kinda strange. I'll elaborate on that if necessary, though my phrasing would be awkward if I did so.

A Question

2009-01-06T17:28:00.003-06:00

Is there anything to the story of the Israelites being enslaved in Egypt from the Bible, or is it just made up fairy tale crap with no evidence?

Nostradumbass: 2012

2009-01-05T19:19:00.004-06:00

Watching a DVR recording of the History Channel special on how Nostradumbass says the world will be destroyed on December 21, 2012.

Stupid dramatic crap. Saying all ancient cultures point to events today (bullshit!). Nostradamus is the key. Another extinction level event. Nostradamus might give critical answers. And all this shit is BS.

Lost book contains coded clues? Gasp and shock! And dire warnings! More shock! Inability of science to answer things make people look to past. Because the past was so much better! It gave us things like acupuncture! It's great, right? Wait, no it isn't.

Complex problems today. Ominus. Confluence of tipping points. 2012 a cultural tradition of end times linked to today. All images in lost book point to 2012. Sun align with center of galaxy in rare phenomenon. Could change climate, supposedly. Even though sun not any different distance from Earth. Galactic alignment cause of all our problems. Maya warning. Why are the past people so far ahead of us in terms of knowing the future? Sun rising in dark rift bad. Ah, ancient people are good because they're more in tune with nature than us. Nostradumbass quote 1:55. Predictions interpreted as highly accurate. Nostradumbass only prophet talked about in 4 1/2 centuries. Timing of Nostradamus manuscript with 7 images actually means crisis in 2012. Drawings compared with other ancient people. Eerie resemblence. Seriously, people, the ancient people weren't that smart! They might have all found that this alignment is happening in 2012 if they're lucky, but that does not mean anything bad is going to happen just because they said so! They mention December 21 again, because that's galactic alignment. It occurs to me that all these idiots believe in astrology. Lost book has 7 images pointing to 2012. Proof of ancient knowledge? Give me a fucking break, asshole. Nostradamus wants us to understand his weird ass pictures? Okay, then why the hell didn't he just write it clearly or use pictures that don't have a bunch of fucking symbolism!
Sun in Leo important because it's galactic alignment. Nostradamus obviously aware of 1992 to 2012 as significant, because a lot of his quatrains obviously point to this. Yep, here it is: Nostradamus is an astrologer! This, of course, ignores the fact that even some professional astrologers admit that predicting the future does not actually work. He thinks different cycles affect stuff, because similar cycles obviously means similar stuff happening! The heavens obviously affect the lives of random people all the time.

Maya calender ends on December 21, 2012! O noes! Nevermind that I'm pretty sure that it just enters a new phase then, obviously it's the end of the world! And the Mayans knew stuff about the stars! Why does it matter if they were savage or not? Aquarias beginning of Cro-Magnon, end of Neanderthal, first campfires. I'm pretty sure you could find something significant in any sign, though. Last time of galactic alignment was the ice age! Because the Mayans were really good at astronomy, all the meanie skeptics should shut up and let idiots make up wild theories about the end of the world. Wait, I thought you were saying they were savage. Now you're saying they're further along than the West was? Mayans think black hole at the center of the galaxy is where stars were formed? Citation needed! Black holes can only be detected by their influence on the stuff around them. The Mayans definitely could not detect that. People think ancient Maya ball game was actually them acting out stuff that would happen in our lifetimes. Instead of just being a sport, if a religious and murderous one. The Mayans saw the future! Obviously, the end of the calender is corresponding with 2012! Why do the Mayans and Nostradumbass have the same idea? Well, I don't think Nostradamus will have anything to do with 2012, but you haven't shown us much yet, you fucking dumbasses. Why is the world going to hell? Everyone thought the world was ending, every single goddamn generation! Quatrain 2:3, saying that fish will be half-cooked when there's a famine, obviously refers to global warming! Because Nostradamus can't just have guessed that absurd heat would probably cause a drought, killing crops. Yup. Obviously. The galactic alignment will cause massive global temperature rising so everybody dies! Big changes ahead! Hey, 5:98 says that there will be a drought and extreme heat, and fire from the sky! This will lead to cannibalism, because it'll be horrible! The Egyptians did the same thing as the Mayans, duh. Egypt fell because of horrible stuff from galactic alignment thingies! Actually, I think my history textbook says it was invaded by people, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Magic magic commercials go!

Hey, the lost book highlights when astrology and prophecy converge! It covers ALL OF TIME! Oh, wait, this obviously just refers to right here and now, because we are self-centered idiots. Random image says apocalypse! 3 eclipsed moons in Nostradamus's picture, and this means that the 3 random eclipses, none of which involve the moon, in 2012 are the END OF THE WORLD! Spiral at head of scorpion is the Milky Way because we say so, instead of just being a spiral! Saying lightning will shatter stones of Giza pyramids, and galactic alignment predicted by pyramids, instead of just pointing at constellations because they're pretty and just because a pharaoh said his tomb should be that way. There are parallels between destruction of Egyptians and today, because I say so! And this galactic alignment shit is dangerous knowledge, because you got burned at the stake for saying it in the Dark Ages, just like you would be if you said you thought the Pope was fat or something. Ah, it's all hidden because otherwise, Nostradamus would get brutally murdered. Even though he openly made predictions during his lifetime to rulers. Wrong predictions, too. Something about the sky manifesting at a conjoined thing and entering, and a drought, means the magnetic field is failing! O fucking noes! Hey, wait, that doesn't have anything to do with the magnetic field. Is the magnetic field even weakening at the moment? Anyway, that means our magic Star Trek planet shields are down, and stuff can kill us! And global warming is caused by weakening magnetic field! Magnetic reversal would mess with our electric stuff. Lost book images tie into stuff. Solar eclipse really dark means bad stuff in 2012, Nosty (I can call him Nosty, right?) says! This means when the sun eclipses the center of the galaxy, bad stuff happens! Wait a second, a solar eclipse is when the sun is blocking stuff, not the other way around.

This shit is killing my brain. The neuron-destroying stupidity will have to be ignored for the next 1 1/2 hours of bullshit, at least temporarily, for the greater good of humanity so that we don't lose our rational people.

Annoyed at Mythbusters

2009-01-02T17:36:00.002-06:00

I'm currently watching a Mythbusters episode in which one of the myths they tested was ancient batteries. They showed they existed, though they really, really sucked at making electricity, and came up with a few ways it could have been used. One of the ways was electroacupuncture. When the build team went to an acupuncturist to see if it would work, they didn't make any comments on acupuncture, and one of them actually said, quote, "I can feel my chi moving." This annoyed me. Seriously, guys, it's one of the most idiotic myths in existence, and you guys really should know that acupuncture is a load of bullshit.

Organic Foods

2009-01-02T01:27:00.001-06:00

Organic crops: good or bad in general? Discuss so that I can find out the facts about them from presumably slightly less biased than everywhere else sources.

Why Homophobic Bigots Are Arguing That God Is Fine With Gay Sex

2008-12-24T21:34:00.002-06:00

You're probably thinking, "What? How does that title make sense in any way? I thought they were arguing that God hates gay sex!" Well, allow me to answer that for you.

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." (Leviticus 18:22) All the Christian homophobic bigots cite this passage. Now you're thinking, "But that clearly says gay sex is wrong, right? So how do they argue that God is okay with it?" It's because here's where it gets interesting: They then proceed to argue that sexuality based discrimination is fine because gay sex is different from straight sex! They argue that it's different since they can't do the missionary position (they can, by doing what I understand based on the Wikipedia article on bonobos to be called penis fencing, but that doesn't change the fact people argue it), they can't make babies, and they have anal sex (just like straight couples, actually, but once again they still argue it). So, according to them, gay sex is different from straight sex, and this would end up meaning that God was okay with it!

So, homophobic bigots, you have a choice: Either stop arguing that gay sex is different from straight sex, or stop saying God thinks it's wrong. Which do you choose, motherfuckers?

Obama Inaguration Thingy

2008-12-23T15:53:00.003-06:00

Everyone has been talking about Rick Warren in the Obama inauguration, so I figured I might as well express my opinion on the matter. My personal opinion is that whoever chose Rick Warren (I've heard that it might not have been Obama) was trying to get influence with the right, which is fine, though they probably chose someone a bit too far to the right. But it's really not a big deal.

Global Warming

2008-12-16T17:09:00.001-06:00

Anyone know a good beginner's resource on global warming? I thought it might be interesting to actually know what the flying fuck people are talking about when they talk about global warming.

Exodus

2008-12-16T08:27:00.004-06:00

Now I'm watching the special on Exodus.

Right now they're making extreme leaps of logic; yes, they admit, the only mention of the Hebrews or Israel anywhere is on one tablet, though they don't realize that someone else might have been in Israel before the Hebrews got there. But it's mentioned, they say! Obviously great evidence. Now they want us to believe that if we can find the cities the Bible says the slaves built, it'll be evidence of it. Not like they could have stuck it in there after they knew it existed, course not. What the fuck? Now their names are jumping around like crazy. They say that Moses means to draw out in Hebrew, and he was named that because he was drawn out of the water, and it specifically said that in the story, but they're saying it's an Egyptian name meaning "son of". Rameses, for example, would be Ra-moses, son of Ra, so he supposedly got rid of the first part when he converted to Judaism. Except, you know, the story explicitly contradicts that as a reason for him being named Moses!

Okay, now they're saying that a volcanic vent caused the burning bush. Wouldn't the bush have been set on fire way before Moses got there? Yknow, since it was right next to a volcanic vent for years? And why haven't you addressed the idiotic idea of God speaking to him via angel in a burning bush?

Oooo, explaining the plagues! This should be fun. Ah, a red tide. Now the frogs, who come out to avoid it. Then the gnats, who come for.... no reason at all? The flies, called stable flies, also came for no reason at all. You at least could have tried explaining it by saying "hey, frog corpses!" Then the flies give all the animals blue tongue. Boils are also from the stable flies. Okay, hailstorms happen sometimes. And then they cause locusts? Great. And the locusts cause a sandstorm to last 3 days instead of 1 or 2, because they aren't common or anything like they just said they would be, and also completely unremarkable, now are they? Wait, why didn't they mention that the hail killed the already dead animals? And what about the firstborn beasts of the 10th plague? Okay, so food buried underground caused it? How? Okay, fungus. Okay, so only the top layer is infected, as a wild guess, but ingesting or even inhaling it kills someone. Doesn't explain first born children. Ah, but tradition does! Eldest son gets double portion first, same for animals. I think, though, they're gonna eat all the damn food themselves instead of giving it to the animals, since they're low on it. Your theory sucks balls. Not only that, but they're still gonna inhale the goddamn plague, you numbskulls. Ooo, the reason they didn't kill the Hebrews is because they lived in shantytowns? Do they have 0 crops there or something? They can't. Because they had uncontaminated food. And that means they have to have had crops. Which means that the locusts would have attacked them. Idiots. So the question now is which way did they go? I would have thought to the Red FSMdamn Sea. Oh great, now we need the Bible as the sole evidence. No evidence at all, then. Ooo, tradition for the crossing it wrong. They crossed it at the Gulf of Aqaba. Wait, that isn't part of the Red Sea, is it? I thought the entire Red Sea was on the left side of the peninsula! Oh, they're headed to Midian aka Saudi Arabia. Where Mt. Sinai is. Instead of the Sinai Peninsula. Yeah, that makes buttloads of sense. And the parting of the goddamn Red Sea actually happened at just the right time? All this shit has ridiculous timing, but still. Right when Moses reaches out his damn hand? The sea parting was fucking WIND-INDUCED? Give me a break. An underwater land bridge? Show me some evidence one actually exists. Okay, you got a vacuum cleaner to part a fake sea over a fake land bridge. Oh well, I won't bother criticizing that one. Ah, they found the ridge right where the Bible says it is? You disagree on the location the Bible is referring to, there isn't a place where the Bible indisputably says it is. Wait, there aren't any bridges, and their only justification is that it was different before? Ah, so they're saying that because a city isn't a port, the water receded at some point, and the modern shoreline was a ridge. Or it just didn't form until the water receded. I opt for the latter. Okay, your scale experiment with a couple boats and a swamp drew back a rather flat body of water a few feet. While tee wind was moving at 100 miles and hours. Was there a fucking hurricane, just all blowing east? Idiots, it coming back onto the land bridge wouldn't be walls of water crashing down, it would just be "hey, is this bridge disappearing? Oh shit." I'm too lazy to watch the part where they try to locate Mt. Sinai.

Yay!

2008-12-15T22:20:00.002-06:00

We've discovered a metric fuckton of new species! Always fun. I hope they protect them.

I'm so getting a species named after me once I start on a career in biology.

Shroud of Turin

2008-12-15T18:43:00.005-06:00

Anyone know about the scientific evidence against the Shroud of Turin aside from carbon dating?

I'm watching a recorded Discovery Channel special on it. So far, I've noted that the bloodstains are really, really neat for a guy who was tortured to death. With, yknow, a clear outline of the face. So while they say it was actually blood, I gotta say that that just means someone might have painted it with blood.
----------------------------------------
Oh, this is why they think that this crap might be valid: The idea that 1st and 16th century cloth might have been intermixed. That's... great.
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Discovery Channel: It's not a choice between hoax and Jesus' burial cloth. Even if it were truly from the right time, other people were killed during the 1st Century!

Medical Problems

2008-12-11T16:59:00.003-06:00

You guys mostly have more medical experience than the average layman, so I'm gonna toss a list of symptoms I have at you just in case you recognize it: Nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps and general stomach ache, burning sensation in the stomach not helped by antacids, intestinal cramps, gas buildup in the intestines, and lack of sensitivity to temperature and/or feeling the environment is hotter than it is. (I haven't been in any hot environments recently, but apparently everyone else was cold today. I wouldn't have minded walking around in a t-shirt and shorts outside, and people were wearing jackets inside). Also, abnormally low temperature (my average is around 99.5, and I had a temp of 97.6). Any particular reason for them that you can think of?

Open Letter to the UN

2008-12-01T16:49:00.004-06:00

Dear UN people,
I have the sincere, deeply held religious belief that no belief is above criticism. Therefore, by condemning blasphemy, you have committed it. Therefore, you are hypocrites.

Do we really want an international organization composed mostly of hypocrites?

Genetic Testing for Sports Stars?

2008-11-30T20:14:00.003-06:00

This sounds ridiculously stupid. Allow me to list the reasons:
A) Why the hell do we care what sports our kids are best suited for? Childhood sports should be fun, not a competition.
B) There's a lot more affecting sports ability than one gene. If you think that this test can tell you what sports your child will be best at, you're an idiot. The experts in the damn article even said that over 200 have been shown to have a link to sports ability.
C) It's entirely possible they've pulled those quotes from people stupid enough to believe on one study; show me a couple more.
D) While it's probably not gonna happen, people might be stupid enough to try to breed better athletes using this. Not a good idea.
E) Apparently, some people (see Reilly) think planning their lives partially around trying to make sure that a kid who might be good becomes good is a great idea. No, it's fucking stupid. Coaching your kid from an early age to be good at that one sport doesn't do much to help their ability to choose their own career path later in life. Yes, we definitely should train people for stupid game crap! Don't worry about other things; we don't need doctors, or teachers, or, you know, anyone else. Just pro sports players. And we should make sure every single kid chooses to do that.

Also, I know nothing about him, but from the quote I see there, I like William Morgan.

I'm back, bitches.

2008-11-29T13:16:00.001-06:00

Don't worry, I didn't drink the Mexican water. Not peeing blood.

More Homework

2008-11-23T20:52:00.002-06:00

I'm not gonna send you any more after this, I promise!

Timmy is insisting atheism is more than lack of belief in God or gods. Since I won't be here for a bit, you'll have to handle murdering him for me.

Homework

2008-11-23T20:39:00.002-06:00

While I'm gone, I sentence you all to find out what the hell constitutional homeopathy and find decent studies on it, if there are any.

Why Google it if I can give it to you guys to do, while I get ready to go to Mexico? =P

I'm Going Away

2008-11-23T14:25:00.002-06:00

I'm gonna head off for my cruise tomorrow. What, you guys want entertainment? Here, entertain yourself!

Onwards! To Mexico!

People Don't Know Their Religion

2008-11-22T12:36:00.003-06:00

Ummm.... isn't the Buddha supposed to not be reincarnated? Isn't that the point of the whole damn religion, becoming enlightened to avoid reincarnation? What the hell?

People are stupid.

Another Attack!

2008-11-22T12:31:00.002-06:00

Again. Do I have to explain this one?

Are you guys getting tired of me sending you over there, or should I keep going every time they post something stupid?

Christmas Special

2008-11-21T20:06:00.004-06:00

Since the stores are all already celebrating Christmas, I thought I'd join in the fun:
[music]

Down in the workshop all the elves were making toys
For the good Gentile girls and the good Gentile boys
When the boss busted in, nearly scared 'em half to death
Had a rifle in his hands and cheap whiskey on his breath
From his beard to his boots he was covered with ammo
Like a big fat drunk disgruntled Yuletide Rambo
And he smiled as he said with a twinkle in his eye
"Merry Christmas to all - now you're all gonna die!"

The night Santa went crazy
The night Saint Nick went insane
Realized he'd been getting the RAW deal
Somethin' finally must've snapped in his brain

Well, the workshop is gone now, he decided to bomb it
Everywhere you'll find pieces of Cupid and Comet
And he tied up his helpers, and he held the elves hostage
And he ground up poor Rudolph into reindeer sausage
He got Dancer and Prancer with an old German Luger
And he slashed up Dasher just like Freddy Krueger
And he picked up a flamethrower and he barbecued Blitzen
And he took a big bite and said "It tastes just like chicken!"

The night Santa went crazy
The night Kris Kringle went nuts
Now, ya can't hardly walk around the North Pole
Without steppin' in reindeer guts

There's the National Guard and the FBI
There's a van from the Eyewitness News
In a helicopter circlin' 'round in the sky
And the bullets are flying the body count's rising
And everyone’s dying to know -"Oh Santa, why?"
My, my, my, my, my, my - you used to be such a jolly guy.

Yes Virginia, now Santa's doing time
In a Federal prison for his infamous crime
Hey little friend now, don't you cry no more tears
He'll be out on good behaviour in seven hundred more years.

But now Vixen's in therapy and Donner's still nervous
And the elves all got jobs working for the postal service
And they say Mrs. Claus she's on the phone every night
With a lawyer negotiating the movie rights.
(They talk about)

The night Santa went crazy
The night Saint Nicholas flipped
Broke his back for some milk and cookies
Sounds to me like he was tired of getting gypped

Wo, The night Santa went crazy
The night Saint Nick went insane
Realized he'd been gettin' the RAW deal
Somethin' finally must've snapped in his brain
Wo, Somethin' finally must've snapped in his brain
Tell ya, somethin' finally must've snapped in his brain.

[/music]
Milk and cookies for the first person to name the song.

Skeptic's Circle 100

2008-11-20T15:32:00.004-06:00

Orac has number 100 up, where he demonstrates that he doesn't understand me very well. It doesn't even matter that I'm only 15, I wouldn't drink alcohol anyway!

My brother, on the other hand, would find a way to get drunk despite being only 17. He's done it before.