Category: Science & Technology

The Return of the World’s Filthiest Habit

Conspiracy Theories / Health & Medicine / Pop Culture / Pseudoscience & QuackeryOne Comment

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Why are celebs glamorising smoking again? That question was part of the headline in a recent story on BBC.com about how some unthinking and selfish celebrities are once again promoting the dirtiest, smelliest, unhealthiest, intelligence-lowering, and ugliest habit in history: smoking. The article notes that “even in low quantities, smoking increases the risk of serious diseases like lung cancer, which has a 90% five-year mortality rate.” Despite everyone — including smokers — knowing this, the article adds, …singers, actors and influencers seem to be bringing smoking … click below for more ↓

Jurassic Park: Some Thoughts About the Franchise Part 2

Culture / Evolution & Paleontology / Film & Reviews / MusingsLeave a comment

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Charles Darwin knew the score. In Chapter 11 of his famous and brilliant book, The Origin of Species, published in 1859, he wrote, “We can clearly understand why a species once lost should never reappear, even if the very same conditions of life, organic and inorganic, should recur.” But despite Darwin’s warning, the evil, greedy corporations of the Jurassic Park films kept bringing species of dinosaurs and other extinct lizards back to life. In many of the films, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) plays the … click below for more ↓

Jurassic Park: Some Thoughts About the Franchise Part 1

Culture / Evolution & Paleontology / Film & Reviews / MusingsOne Comment

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There’s one particular scene in the first Jurassic Park movie, about twenty minutes in, when Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler see the dinosaurs walking wild in the open for the first time on Isla Nublar; that still chokes me up, every time almost bringing me to tears. Even on my fourth or fifth viewing of the film last week, that scene still moves me. The kid in me is still agog with wonder when I see that brachiosaurus… even though my knees tell … click below for more ↓

The Litter That’s Killing Everything and Everyone

Collingwood / Environment / Ineptitude and bungling / Manners & Civility / Politics / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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Four and a half trillion. That’s how many cigarette butts are estimated to be littered every year on our streets, sidewalks, parks, downtowns, parking lots, lawns, and everywhere else smokers feel entitled to leave them. That’s 4,500,000,000,000 pieces of toxic, non-biodegradable, chemical-soaked plastic waste that smokers — and smokers alone — pollute the earth with every year. That’s litter deliberately left to poison the water, kill plants and wildlife, and remain in the environment for more than a decade, doing their damage. An estimated 1.69 … click below for more ↓

65: A Catalogue of Disappointments

Culture / Evolution & Paleontology / Film & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Can a movie featuring aliens, dinosaurs, spaceships, one of the main actors from Star Wars, and a giant asteroid about to crash into the planet be bad? Sadly, yes. The movie 65 manages to take what could a been another Godzilla or Kong: Skull Island. instead, it’s a watered-down Jurassic Park. Severely diluted. I love scifi and fantasy. I’ve been reading it since the mid-1950s when I got my first Tom Swift jr book. I read Jules Verne at age 10, and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ … click below for more ↓

Musings on a New Bread Machine

Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Pasta / Technology & Gadgets2 Comments

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Okay, I’ll admit I’m a gadget-loving guy. I am easily seduced by devices that have buttons, programming, switches, dials, and LED displays. And if they’re kitchen devices, I’m even more vulnerable to their siren song. Walk through a store display of Instant Pots, pressure cookers, stand mixers, panini presses, pasta makes, air fryers, or convection ovens, and my knees grow weak. I start to hyperventilate in the appliance aisle of a box store, touching the displayed appliances in an unseemly manner, and Susan has to … click below for more ↓

Wild Fruits

Books & Reviews / Botany & Paleobotany / Environment / Philosophy / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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When he died of tuberculosis in his mother’s home, in 1862, 44-year-old Henry David Thoreau had already made his mark on the world with the publication of several books and numerous essays, including Civil Disobedience, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, A Yankee in Canada, and his classic, Walden, or Life in the Woods. I trust we’re all familiar with Thoreau’s major works, at least their titles, particularly Walden (first published in 1854). Thoreau — or at least some of … click below for more ↓

Jail the Unvaccinated

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Health & Medicine / Politics / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Social Order & Disorder / Uncategorized8 Comments

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In a recent opinion piece in Macleans Magazine, Scott Gilmore wrote what I expect many vaccinated Canadians felt about those who still refuse to get vaccinated and help end this pandemic: We need to begin treating the vaccine holdouts as the fools they are. It is not fair that reasonable and responsible Canadians should pay the price for their deadly selfishness. No more soothing tones and patience. Time for the stick. The stick in question that Gilmore suggests is withholding services and access to the … click below for more ↓

Is Bigger Better? In TVs, Maybe Not.

Daily life / Family history / Personal Reminiscences / Technology & GadgetsLeave a comment

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I read on several websites that for a distance of about 3.6 m (12 ft) from the screen to the viewer, the optimum size of a television should be 85 inches (220 cm, measured on the diagonal). That’s also the distance between someone sitting on our couch and our current (much smaller) TV screen. The mind boggles. A TV set that large (74 by 43 inches, or 190 by 109 cm, or 3,225 sq. in./ 20,710 sq. cm) would occlude our windows! (our house is … click below for more ↓

We’re Doomed. Doomed, I tell you.

Aging / Conspiracy Theories / Cults / Health & Medicine / Personal Reminiscences / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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While walking our dog recently, we encountered another couple “our age” (somewhere between 65 and 90) also walking their dog. While the two pets sniffed and frolicked, we chatted with them (at a safe distance, of course). And, as might be expected during a lengthy pandemic, one of the first questions we asked them was, “Have you had your shot yet?” Shockingly, they both answered, “No! And we’re not going to get one.” My first thought when I heard this, “We’re doomed.” These are people … click below for more ↓

We Need New Names for Stupid

Conspiracy Theories / Health & Medicine / Pandemic issues and events / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Social Order & Disorder2 Comments

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I was reading a story in CollingwoodToday about another anti-mask/anti-lockdown protest recently — this one in Barrie, Sat. April 24 — and thought to myself that our language does not have the appropriate words to describe the combination of selfishness, stupidity, and ignorance that fuels this sort of event. Sure, we have lots of individual words to describe these people, but it seems the pandemic has brought out a unique combination of attributes that deserve their own vocabulary.  This was the seventh such rally in … click below for more ↓

Musings on Viruses and Evolution

Books & Reviews / Creationism / Evolution & Paleontology / Science & TechnologyLeave a comment

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One has to wonder how creationists can maintain their beliefs during a pandemic where the virus is clearly evolving to improve its ability to infect people and avoid immune system responses. It’s like watching Darwin in action every day. What sort of cognitive dissonance is necessary to believe in creationism while reading the headlines about COVID variants emerging all over the world? Or maybe they don’t read the news to avoid being confronted by such inconvenient truths. Although viruses evolve mostly through mutations of their … click below for more ↓

Lichens of South Georgian Bay

Botany & Paleobotany / Collingwood / Environment / Personal Reminiscences / Science & Technology / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”19″ display=”basic_thumbnail” thumbnail_crop=”0″] In recent months, I have developed an interest in lichens: wondering what species live in our area, how and where they grow, which plants are their competitors or companions, why they grow where they do, what they live on for nutrition, how they reproduce and spread, what lives on them, and their microbiology. Small, innocuous plants you may mistake for a discoloration on rock or even a disease on a tree, they are nonetheless very common throughout our local environment. … click below for more ↓

Finding a Breakfast Cereal With No Added Sugar

Eating / Food & Drink / Health & Medicine4 Comments

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Why is it so difficult to find a breakfast cereal without added sugar? Even your basic, unadorned bran flakes have added sugar in them! And not just a small amount. While I’m sure there are commercial brands of cereal without sugar or some alternative sweetener, I’m struggling to find many (if any) on local grocery store shelves. I’m not against sugar per se. It belongs in desserts and candy. I like some ice cream or frozen yogurt for dessert at times. And I sometimes enjoy … click below for more ↓

I’m Struggling With Julian Jaynes

Behaviour & Psychology / Books & Reviews / Classical period / Learning & Education / Science & Technology / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

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I first came across Julian Jaynes and his controversial (or at least provocative) book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, back in the late 1970s. I bought a copy, and read part of it, but my life was in a bit of turmoil back then, and I didn’t get too far along in it. Over the years, the book left my shelves, possibly given away or traded in. It wasn’t until two years ago that I came across a used … click below for more ↓

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