The Corrigendopedia Blog

It's been difficult, but I'm sticking to it

2011-07-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

I've been working on another project, hard-core, then I was working for three weeks and was away from the house 12 hours a day, then I got really sick and even bedridden for a couple of weeks, but finally I'm doing well enough to restore the pace I was at in May.

Still, I could really use some minions.

Currently, I'm rearranging the site, in preparation for new material

2011-05-03T21:46:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's finally happened. I have more stuff. Thank gads.

Just swingin' by the site and rearranging what's already there. Can't wait!

Looks like I'm not going to be busy with school for a long time...

2011-03-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

On the one hand, that means that I might be able to be online often enough to keep up with my online projects. On the other hand, I might not, depending on the type of job I can get.
` Not only have I been rejected from the university I applied to, but I've also failed to get my transfer degree, and it may be many years until I can get the money for doing so. Indeed, without being able to make more money, I may not graduate from college until I'm 40, or maybe by then I'll have found another lot in life.
` Basically, college is like one big game of catch-up, not having had an education before now, and it's gotten yet another complication. Plus, I really think it's important that I learn other subjects I haven't ever studied yet, like history.

Well, perhaps because I have a lot of things going for me, I'll be able to get another job, as an orangutan, perhaps -- no really, check out this commercial I was in last December!

Okay, so that didn't make me any money (which pissed off my grandma so much she didn't want me to tell her about how much fun I had), but seriously, there is 'monkey-work' that can get me some cash.

(I know, orangutans are great apes, it's okay....)

For now, I will probably have more time to build this website into some recognizable form. My days and nights are no longer consumed by homework, as I only have one more final to study for. It's Spanish, which is a very easy subject for me. Perhaps I can make money doing some sort of translation?
` I want to learn more languages, but again, that requires going to classes, which I don't have money for.
` I may be able to improve my Spanish skills based on what I've already done in three quarters, and use the rest of the book and website and keep going somehow, but I highly doubt I'll be able to learn other languages without classes.

Anyway, I'm skipping karate class at this moment because I'm sick and stressed out, and somewhat doubt that my stomach will hold up to all the jostling. Ugh, that's something that I'm getting a little behind in since I passed my yellow belt test, because I haven't been feeling well for about a month so far.

Spanish, karate, art, writing -- these are some of the skills I'm developing, but it seems likely that they won't be of any use unless I can get some more money for college.
` Sigh... well, I'm hoping that if I make this website decent enough, I'll have something to show people if they want to know what I'm capable of. You know, like a portfolio, sort of.
` I have some more ideas about how to organize the website, so it's good that I haven't been actively mixing it up even more as I've been busy with school.

So, time to keep writing this website, and it finally seems that now I'll have a lot more time than I have since I first started it -- I have a place to do it, a computer to do it on, and no crazy and/or abusive roommates or school to get in the way. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah, some unforeseen disaster. Those are common, but considerably less so these days, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. On with the show!

I'm back for more!

2010-12-10T18:02:00.000-08:00

While I've been in school this fall quarter, I may not have updated my website much, but I have actually been working... on paper! Again.
` I have partly-written articles on paper, as well as a better site organization. Now that fall quarter's over, I'm going to be actually putting those ideas onto the website, FOR REALS!

Also, I'm going to be writing some new and used (re-written/updated) Mad Science Writer posts, which I'll also be using as material for The Corrigendopedia. Whoo hoo!

Schoooooool's out... for... a little while!

Schoooooool's out... 'til... next year!

And I'd have made more progress online already if it weren't for my amazing procrastination skills (on other things)!

Ah, here we go...

2010-08-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

During summer quarter, I've been doing only a little work on the site, including the rearrangement of the How to Figure Stuff Out... And How Not To section so that it's simpler. Check it out!

` Now that summer quarter's over, I'm also working on the next article, and may actually start speeding up work on this website.

Also, I'm finally caught up with cataloging ALL my notes for the first time ever! In my last blog entry here, I had three binders, and now there are six! My arm is tired.

Well, better get crackin' on that new article! There's no time like the present -- even though I'm sweltering hot!

Working OFF the website more than ON

2010-06-15T18:13:00.001-07:00

So, I've made a few little updates to the website here and there since my last post on this blog. During my two-week break during between spring and summer quarter, I've been taking the opportunity to catalogue my science notes for this website (and presumably other projects as well).
` I think I'm going to need another mini-binder!

I'm just that hardcore, so don't you worry about me forgetting about The Corrigendopedia! Classes are out, and I'm hard at work on this website, albeit 'on paper'! I am going to make some changes to the site soon enough, though.

In sad news, however, I've discovered that I have yet another setback for my goal of becoming a science writer.
` I just got the grades for one of my classes back, and it was for English 102, which was largely focused on societal issues, in which we students had to log in at least ten hours of volunteer hours.
` I know I did really well in my other classes, but for English I got a D-, and I was somewhat surprised considering how hard I had worked on everything.

Me fail English? That's unpossible!

I know this fact because my grades for this course have been published online. Though I started out very enthusiastic about this class, it took so much out of me that I slowly fell behind. I wasn't even upset that I got a 68 on my first paper. After all, I was supposed to write about being part of a group of people and alienating someone else.
` As I've been alone most of my life and have only been recently loosely associated with a group of people, though we've never alienated anyone (not even the daddy longlegs girl), so I've never had this kind of experience.
` As I was unable to convincingly make something up, I didn't do very well on the paper. That, and my egregious spelling and grammatical errors, which surprised me since I thought I have always been good at the technicalities of writing.

Then, for various other reasons, I did very poorly on all my papers. As for the final paper, which is about 15 pages long after weeks of research, scored only 200 out of 350 points. Since I don't have this one back, I'm not sure exactly why this would be.
` So, yeah. I'm rather depressed now. Not only do I have to make more money to re-take this class, because Financial Aid won't cover any more credits, but I also may lose my Financial Aid for the classes in Spring and Fall that I've already signed up for and need to complete my transfer degree. If that happens, I will just have to stop going to college altogether!

Let me tell you, even if I'm able to complete my transfer degree by next year, this is really going to set me back in terms of becoming a mad scientist.
` Speaking of which, check out my latest post on Introspection of a Struggling Mad Scientist, it's called Superhero Lou Ryan outdone by bickering senior citizens and a little boy!
` It actually features film/video projects my fiance has been in, and it's a lot of fun and not depressing at all, so please, go and be uplifted!

Update: Since I got A's in my other classes, my GPA is still fine, and I'm now in my Algebra II class. It's amazingly fast-paced because it's ten weeks of material in only eight days, and thankfully I have Lucas to drive me because my car's not doing so well.
` I'm amassing some quarters, though, so I can have some bus fare for future weeks.

Moving onto the next thing -- plus, a Stegosaurus!

2010-04-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

Here's my next illustration -- I mean, 'drawring'. Believe it or not, but it actually has to do with the text in Is That a Fact? Plus, it's eye-catching!

Also, after much homework this month and just not seeing the point in continuing the list of Odds, Ends and Beginnings, I have decided just to wrap it up and move onto the next article!

A trivia item a day...

2010-03-31T16:41:00.000-07:00

...is how I am constructing my final section on 'Fast Facts and Trivia: Is any of it true?' I've just combined the last two sections because they don't really fit into two categories anyway.

The first three items, which I've been working on for the past couple days, are the origin of the toothbrush, the microwave, and, in a way, the kneecap, though not in that order. I shall probably re-arrange them a bit as I add more.

I'll come back when I've finished the whole thing... it's called Odds, Ends and Beginnings.

Finally finished with said new page!

2010-03-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

It's really long and detailed, and I hope for my readers, fun! These are five words/phrases whose 'netymology' I once received in my email. There was a lot to explore on each one, and though all of them turned out to be false, it's a really interesting read!

Behold: Fun Facts and Trivia: is any of it true? Word and Phrase Origins!

Finally, a new page!

2010-03-20T19:09:00.000-07:00

It's another section of the page 'Fast Facts and Trivia: Is any of it true?' called Word and Phrase Origins. Incidentally, none of the 'facts' about these particular word and phrase origins have turned out to be true.

However, I've been so busy with college in the past month that I've only managed to finish the first couple of items by this time. Now that I'm on Spring Break, I can go back to building my website, so I'll continue building this section piece by piece.

Count on it.

Corrigendopedia's first internally-linked page!

2010-02-24T17:16:00.000-08:00

You know how some internet pages have a list of links that correspond to items lower down on that page? I've always wondered how to do that, and it turns out it isn't so difficult! You just use a 'name' tag (really!) and then create a link to that 'name'. I learned it here.

I have used it on the Animals and Vestibules (trivia investigation page), which was really long in its enthusiastic, detailed explanations. Now, you can click on each individual title and it takes you to that item, without having to scroll down and find it!

Animules and Vestibules -- the real facts, and more!

2010-02-20T14:40:00.001-08:00

I've finally completed the Animules and Vestibules section of the page Fast Facts and Trivia: Is any of it true?

I think I've done a decent job taking a handful of 'factoids' and actually finding the 'real story' in great detail, all while demonstrating how I've done it. My only hope now is that others find it just as fascinating as I do!

The 'deleted' article finally making a comeback!

2010-02-12T19:58:00.001-08:00

I've been slowly re-writing the article that was completely deleted (Internet Trivia: How much of it is even true?), and now it is about 1/3 finished. Since I'm re-writing it with a main page linked to different 'sections', I figured that was far enough along to publish the main page, along with the ostrich, once again:

The new title is Fast Facts and Trivia: Is any of it true? Some of it is, of course, but what? That is what I'm investigating! The first section of trivia I will be publishing is about plants and animals, which I whimsically named Animules and Vestibules. It's coming up soon.

At last! My first new article completed (HEY! WHERE DID IT GO?)

2010-02-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

It's been tough, as I've been busy... also, Johnny's been getting worse. Yesterday, Lucas forced him to admit that he owes Lucas money, so today he stole Lucas' truck keys! Yes, that's right! While I was here in my office, I heard Johnny leave his bedroom, go into ours for a second, then slam the door really fast so that my coat fell off it, and hurry out of the house!
` Will Lucas ever find them? And what will Lucas do to Johnny when he comes back? Tune in next time to Spoony's Crazy Life!

Similarly crazy is the article I've written about... all sorts of things. It started out as mainly concerning the myth that harvestmen are venomous, but... well... it's now similarly packed with human drama!

OMG! MORE DRAMA! I've just discovered that I 'dumped' my final edit of this article!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It's now eight o'clock, two hours after starting this blog post, and I've finally managed to do a rough reconstruction of the finely-polished work I had done. It's not only a drag, but my sense of satisfaction is gone. Plus, I could have been back from the gym and have finished my last English assignment by now!
` Anyway, I guess I'll sort it out some more later. Here's the link to it.

In other news, Lucas managed to call Johnny, who denied stealing the keys, then called Lucas back to ask, "Have you found them yet? Huh? Huh?" It was pretty obvious that Johnny had just hid them somewhere, and sure enough, Lucas found them right away, underneath my car.
` He knew they would be somewhere around there, because Johnny had run through the carport on his way out, which Lucas had thought was odd.

Anyway, I can finally, FINALLY update the Corrigendopedia, like I was ABOUT TO when I started writing this. Man, I can't believe I DUMPED the page after I was completely done with it! How is that even possible?
` You know, I actually think a reasonable possibility is the distraction of Lucas running around, looking for his car keys, wondering if he should call the police for grand theft auto, etc.

P.S. Also, the gym was about to close by the time I got to it. ARGH AGAIN! However, I've since drastically improved my article anyway, so pttthhhbtbtbt!

New illustrations up, and new material on its way!

2010-01-25T14:50:00.000-08:00

I may be very busy with school and other time-consuming projects, as well as socializing, but I'm still writing new material, and already have the illustrations up! I think this is the best way to go -- finish the illustrations first so that I can indicate where new articles will go! That way, it's like I know what the plan is, and you do too!

That's the thing about not having your website done, or barely even started out, when you put it up on the internet!

Check out my plans and thumbnails of illustrations on Is That a Fact? It's really coming along!

P.S. Finally decided on an illustration for Corrigending the Corrigendopedia -- look and see!

Ah, I feel much better!

2010-01-08T12:09:00.001-08:00

Now that the crazy roommates are ALL gone, and I'm going back to school, AND I'm hanging out with my friends, I feel the best that I've ever felt in my entire life! Though I have been recovering from my past over this time, until now I didn't feel so great because of the enormous stresses put on me.

Not only have I figured out what I need to do, I also don't have some amount of terror hanging over my head, so now I can actually think clearly and make proper plans and do whatever I need to do without any problem.
` That includes this website, only I haven't been working on it this past week because, well, I've just taken some time off to work on maintaining my relationships, homework, and other projects, of mine. (I'm really ADHD, so there's a few! Hm, that's another thing I'll be writing about!)
` One of them was finishing organizing and uploading nearly ten thousand digital photos (here on Flickr), all of which I've edited (i.e. shrank until they weren't blurry anymore, adjusted color levels, occasionally added amusing effects, etc.).
` And that is only the first step of continuing work on my Abnormally Humorous Photo Gallery website, which I started years ago in hopes of achieving high comedy. Well, I have the material -- it's here, there and everywhere, thanks to continual chaos over the years! -- I just need to put it all where it needs to go!

Last quarter I took a class helpful to this website -- Critical Thinking. I did outstanding! Not only did I ace my final, despite forgetting my notesheet (I think that had a lot to do with guarding my room from having things more things tampered with or stolen from it), but my term paper on anti-vaccination pseudoscience got a 98 out of 100!
` This quarter I'm taking English 101, and it's great! My instructor is the coolest, and so are a lot of the students, whose papers I'm going to be reviewing.

Despite school, I'm planning to work on new pages for this site every day. I've actually already mostly-written a few new pages by the beginning of this week/year, I just haven't quite completed them!
` What I can do now is just work at a steady pace and it'll probably go smoothly for the most part! I'm so anxious to really get into the 'meat' of critical thinking and all the other things we need to know to survive in a misleading and sometimes miserable environment!

The Corrigendopedia finally has a main page illustration!

2010-01-01T16:31:00.001-08:00

It's about time I got this loaded up! Here's the main page illustration... it's my website, so I'm making sure my face is on it!

This 'drawring' is from a sketch that I did of myself looking down into a lamp, which I then re-composed it using abstract shapes. Then, after taking the photo, I made it all green. Why not?

I also got my banner-logo thing for the top up on Flickr, but can't figure out how to put it on the website!

Oh well! I guess I'll find some use for it!

Finally found a good use for this picture!

2009-12-29T21:27:00.000-08:00

Rather than just being at the bottom of a 2005 blog post, I've finally found a place for the mouse drawing of Gourdy the MIR Space Filler.

Now to continue on with writing the rest of the page!

Back to it...

2009-12-26T13:46:00.000-08:00

I'm working an another version of the article that was deleted, plus I uploaded this spiffy picture:

I even figured out how to make it float right, see?

Well, I have a website to write, and I'm finally feeling better enough to really get down to it. I'm actually going to take a break to go to the gym right now, but I expect I'll be back on it later.

Unless some other unpredictable, crazy thing happens.

Parts of Corrigendopedia missing? Slogging ahead anyway!

2009-12-20T12:07:00.001-08:00

I'm glad to say there have been no more crazy housemate-initiated police visits (yet), though things are still pretty harsh and scary at the house. So harsh and scary, in fact, that three of us are pretending to be evicted because of their bullcrap along with them so they'll stop being so resentful towards us and move out already!
` You can read about that right here in my journal blog, Science, Wackmobiles and Spurious Brainchildren.
` As I've said before, my entire life has been one long episode of Jerry Springer, and for some reason, I just can't shake the crazies! One look at what I've written should help explain why I'm so obsessed with being rational and ethical!

So anyway, I'm back to working on The Corrigendopedia since the site switch has screwed up its coding, and the first thing I discover is... are you ready for this? THERE'S STUFF MISSING!
` Although my ostrich is still online because it's hosted on Flickr...

...the page it belonged to, the biggest page I had, called Internet Trivia: How much of it is even true? which I mentioned in this blog post: Possibly the lowest form of information, is COMPLETELY GONE!

No worries, though, because that page was largely based on blog posts I wrote in 2005, and I was actually planning to expand it and make it into a proper section. I can probably just re-find my additional resources and continue on with even more silly items I've picked up on my September visit to Georgia, which I've also been meaning to add.
` On the other hand, the jokes I've made for the site are forever lost, as I didn't have a backup of that page. Sniff!

My second-largest page, Rudy and Russo's Big Gullibility Experiment, is also partly missing, as it is cut off just below the lowest embedded video. (This is the blog post to that.)
` That's okay, too, since I'd been meaning to revise that last section for some time -- I didn't even mention that Rudy and Russo emailed me because they liked the page so much!

It's like the html mix-ups read my mind! Spooky, but not really; there are a few different potential html flaws that I think explain this missing stuff.

In better news, my photo journal website S E E Quine's Anomalous World, which I plan to begin again at some point soon (because I have my own computer now!!), is not missing anything, as far as I can determine.
` However, some of the photos on one photo hosting website are no longer there, but that's okay because I need to replace them anyway with the same photos, but on my Flickr Pro site (where you can view my photos and art!) at least, when I get all of them uploaded. I've taken a lot of digital photographs for the past few years, and the ones I have uploaded only go back to June 2008 by this point in time.
` I would have probably managed to upload more, at least back to 2007, it's just that immediately after uploading my June 2008 photos a few months ago, I lost all internet functionality of my old computer and was unable to do continue.

Now that I have a new computer, I have spent countless hours preparing yet more photos for upload (on my old computer, though, as I'm not sure how to do it on this one), then transferred them to my new computer.
` Of course I've been planning to upload them to Flickr, but I just have been so busy working on other, more intense things to distract me of my even-more intense living situation, that I keep forgetting to.
` Not to mention, my laptop has been under lock and key for days at a time, in case someone tries to steal it, so I haven't been on the internet as much as I've wanted to be. Then again, when I am on the internet, I find there's a lot of other things to catch up on and plan (like my emails, blogs and websites), so... you know?

I have, ironically, been working for days at a time organizing my sources for The Corrigendopedia, so I have been technically working on it, just not online:
` For one thing, I've been hand-copying my notes from various sources of information into miniature three-ring binders, which I've divided into different subjects so that all the notes I have for one subject will be together.
` If only I'd taken those notes electronically, I could just 'cut and paste' and it would be much faster, but as you'll recall I didn't have a computer for a while so I had to improvise. Even now that I do have a computer, I'm going to continue this paper organization because; a), paper doesn't give me eye strain whereas my laptop does; b), I'm almost done, and c), I really dig the convenience of a real binder!
` All I have to do is grab the little tab I glued onto each divider and it opens to that subject! There's page numbers and even space at the top that I can use to make notes about my plans for the notes! I have to say, the binder worked splendidly with my critical thinking term paper, so I think the hundreds of hours I've spent on this project is well worth it!

Although honestly, I wish I'd had henchmen to do this stuff for me!

Ironically, it was just after the end of the quarter that I sat down for a couple days and worked on my index cards, finally finishing them at long last! Yes, index cards; I have a little drawer filled with hundreds of cards, each has the title and author of a book at the top, with the status of whether or not I've read it, and a short description below that.
` That may sound obsessive, but I think it's necessary; I really need to keep my sources, and potential sources, on my radar, and through trial and error I've figured out how to keep track of the books I want to read, and have read.

I started out doing just lists of titles and authors of books I wanted to read, but based on that information I could not remember what half of those books were about!
` Later on, I realized that I also didn't even know what most of my own books really were about, whether I've read them or not, so I took my books off the shelves, and made each of them one of these 'library cards'. Then, so that I could easily find each book via card, I organized my books by category and then likewise made little 'category divider' cards with tabs sticking up, and organized the cards to match the books.
` That way, if I need to research something, I'll have an uber-quick way to find what I'm looking for without tearing apart my bookshelves! It was not long before I got the bright idea of extending this concept to my organized list of hundreds of books I want to read!

Anyway, I've got places to go and things to do besides setting things in order, so I'd better go!

You won't fricking believe this.

2009-12-11T04:43:00.000-08:00

I told myself I'd start work on the Corrigendopedia after finals were over, but I've gotten no rest. In fact, I can't sleep at all tonight. It's that bad.
` I've been dealing with two philistines who won't leave the residence without taking things which belong to me and my fiance Lucas -- like our bed! -- and it's gotten to the point where the cops have been called... on us!
` It's absolutely unreal the things we've gone through, and I've written all about them in another blog post, here.

NO MORE WRITING THIS WEBSITE ON PAPER - I have a computer now! (Also, the site URL has changed)

2009-11-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

Not only do I have a new computer, it's a laptop and it works normally and connects to the internet, unlike the 2002 desktop -- now I can continue writing this website with no problem!

With so much activity constantly going on around Lucas' computer, I've barely been able to periodically sneak in to check my email before having to leave again, so accessing the hundreds of pages that I've already written online so I could edit them for The Corrigendopedia (or access any other online resource) was not happening -- there was NO WAY I was going to print all that stuff out!

Instead of being discouraged, I decided to just start from scratch and write everything on paper, largely relying on dead tree resources. It worked pretty okay at first, but then, anything longer than a page became increasingly more of a struggle:
` All that writing in longhand was tiresome to begin with, then every time I needed to make one small change I'd have to erase sentences and then write them again; each time I needed to add something, I'd have to spend hours writing the whole thing again, essentially copying most of it, and then when I realized I needed to add something else, doing it all over again!
` Days would go by with very little progress. And then, how was I supposed to type all that up and proofread it and make any other changes? I'd have to stay up until the middle of the night so I wouldn't be disturbed, and... well... I need my rest (especially since I've had the flu for a month) and I need to be able to get up in the morning!

While I will continue to keep track of my pages on paper, I'd really rather do the writing electronically for such an immense project -- and now I can! I'll be back with more website updates soon!

Oh, by the way, I just visited The Corrigendopedia and it's been moved and rearranged, so I have some editing I need to do in order to fix it. The new address is:

http://sites.google.com/site/corrigendopedia/

That is such a hard-to-remember URL it's LAME! (I'm going to have to update my links, too!)

How to arrange my website... and how not to!

2009-10-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

At last! I have the house all to myself, so I can type to my heart's content!

A few days ago, I think I solved my whole 'organization dilemma.' My plan is to write about a general critical thinking topic and give examples - except that those examples may belong to a science topic or some such. The question has been plaguing me, for a couple years now; How To Arrange Them?

My general plan is to demonstrate How To vs. How Not To. I expect I may be able to do well enough to advertise my site like hell and see if I can get some traffic.

So, How To Arrange My Website, and How Not To? My first instinct was to create a site that was a bit like a wiki of all the research I've done, just sorting it by topic, but that clearly won't do in this case. My angle is specifically, 'How To Think' and 'How Not To Think'.

So, instead, I'm going to start off with critical thinking basics and show how they apply to everyday examples, even if many of those examples are large enough to need their own entry. So, the facts concerning that entry will be placed under their own topic.

For example, one thing I wrote long ago mentioned how the Coriolis effect has nothing to do with water spiraling around drains, yet I didn't have enough room to explain, so I intended to do a separate article explaining why this is in detail. But then I had the problem of where to put that article. In the part about how the Earth's systems work, right?

Wait a minute! Wouldn't I first have to explain some basic stuff about the currents of our planet?

Figuring out how to proceed from that point has been a huge stumbling block for the past two years, besides all the scary stuff happening and constant stress and noise I've just barely been able to live through without losing my mind. Not to mention, all the people who told me I'm an arrogant loser for thinking I can make a difference in the world.

It's true that I'm still struggling to get my brain working after a lifetime of severe abuse (and then being told that I'm not capable of getting my brain working again) but I really believe that if I work on this project, my brain will be helped. I have the talent, but the question is, do I have the diligence?

Here's my solution; focus on the critical 'How To' bits and various examples, and THEN put the examples in a larger context of their own subject matter at a later time.

It's the only way I can think of that can move this project forward. What did trying to think of alternate solutions get me? Zilch! There apparently is no better idea!

Here I go again, and I'm going to start with a different entry that also has to do with the myth about the Coriolis effect, and other subjects. I have finished the outline for the main article and am now working on the examples.

Check out the changes I've made to the site, and stay tuned for my next article!

Corrigendopedia: The Website Written On Paper!

2009-10-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

So far, most of the material that is already on this site has been written ahead of time on plain white paper. That's because my internet access is very limited, as it has been for some years. The only computer I have to work with is downstairs, in the same room that my housemates are currently watching a movie in surround-sound.

For the past two days, every time I have gone down there to check my email, I haven't been able to because someone has either been watching TV next to the computer or using the computer themselves.

It seems no matter how early I wake up or how late I stay up solely in order to check my email, this is usually the case. The same goes for any public place with internet access, like a library - my earplugs do nothing to dull the roar of constant chatter of other internet-users.

Originally I had been planning to re-use material from my other blogs, including reams of unpublished notes I've been saving for future articles. However, there is no way for me to access, search and read them if I'm endlessly waiting 'in line' for the computer.

* Later... I've discussed the matter with Lucas (my beloved, and generally the 'man-in-charge' around here). He says we'll have to get a laptop so I can go to whatever place is quiet and have my own private computer to use.

My roommates have since stopped watching the movie, but as usual I have to leave for an appointment.

* Next day... The roommates are done with their movie right now and I have some free time to type this in! That's three days I had to wait to use the internet. There's so way it can be a daily habit until I have a laptop.

I've made note of this fact on the Corrigendopedia.

By Jove, I think I've got it!

2009-10-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

Besides having an emotional roller-coaster of a time -- including the very good news that both my fiancé and one of our roommates are soon-to-be hosts of their own local TV shows (Max Deluge Show and The Angry Chef), plus I finally got my Financial Aid check from Summer Quarter a few days ago (!) -- I've been otherwise hampered in my plans for this website.

Meanwhile, I've accumulated so many bits of material for this site that I hardly know how to start adding them.

Until now.

It's obvious that the Corrigendopedia site cannot consist of a list of (eventually) hundreds of articles, all in a line. Rather, I need some way to organize my pages via categories so they are easy to explore.

So I did. (I hope the move from Google Pages to Google Sites doesn't screw it all up!) Look at this and tell me it's not a bad scheme. Do it!

Back again!

2009-09-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

I am back from vacation, with several more ideas for The Corrigendopedia!

First I was writing one, couldn't figure out where to go with it, then I started another but it was going nowhere, so I have started yet another one, and it has this spiffy 'drawring' (greatly enlarged):

Can you guess what this thing is?

Doubtless you've seen millions, but what are they? Well, I know it's a drawring, but it closely resembles a photo. The vertical lines are meant to be reflections. Also, these things move really fast and we don't get a clear look at them.

How is this thing moving? If you can guess that, you can figure out what it is!

Anyway, the article I started (but did not finish) is called Look Again! Where are your preconceptions from? Someday I'll find a decent middle and ending!

Possibly the lowest form of information.

2009-09-05T23:36:00.000-07:00

This is my last pre-vacation post -- I'll be in Georgia until the 13th! -- but when I get back, I'll have tons of cool material!

What is today's Corrigendopedia article about? Well, back in 2005, I was emailed some 'Fun Facts' and found a lot of it false. So, I blogged about it. Finally, I've compiled those posts into one big article and added this ostrich:

The article is called; Internet Trivia: How much of it is even true?

While I haven't actually gotten around to doing a statistical analysis, I can already tell you that the percentage does appear to be over ten percent.
` I also go a little bit into researching and critical thinking throughout the article. It ain't much for that kind of thing, but for now it'll do.

I may stop in here for a minute while I'm on vacation. If not, my next post will be a post-vacation post!

Finally done with Morristown UFO Hoax article...

2009-09-02T14:53:00.001-07:00

...It just took me a good forty hours to work out all the kinks. Really. I now see why I always used to just 'dump' most of my really long blog articles. I still have 'em, though, and a lot of them will be making a comeback on The Corrigendopedia.

For now, here's article #2 Rudy and Russo's Big Gullibility Experiment. And my customary drawring....

It took a really long time to fill all that black space in. Maybe next time I won't use a ball-point pen!

As for article #3, since I've busy doing storyboards for a movie (which I'd be more enthusiastic about if I were being paid), I may not finish the drawrings for it and all before going to Georgia for the first time ever, to visit my mom.
` That will be during September 6-13. But, rest assured, I'll still be working on other Corrigendopedia material via paper. Good old paper!

Corrigendopedia preface written and illustrated by moi!

2009-08-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

I've spent a large portion of today sitting on my bed with my essential writing tools (a stack of printer paper, a Sumo Grip 0.9 mm mechanical pencil and the Desk Slab II), writing and drawing the preface for The Corrigendopedia.

That's right: Most websites seem to have an introduction, whereas mine has a preface. That's only because I know what I'm going to do, I just don't know where I'm going with it.

My 'dedicated' face.

Also, I'm rather proud of myself for coming up with some jokes that made me laugh. I don't know where they came from, but if you ever see the same jokes elsewhere, know that I didn't get them from there. Perhaps there is some sort of mysterious portal in my brain?

Read and witness my comedic stylings and (BONUS!) my purpose in life!

I've been writing and writing for days...

2009-08-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

...And I still don't have anything to show for it. However, a long time ago, I originally put this message on the homepage, just to have something there:

Control. Illusion or not, it's what we all want.
` Whether you're an evil genius who wants to take over the world or some faceless bum who can scarcely take on the world, I am here to show you that the world is already within reach.

The only trick is in grasping it.

Even if plying and dominating others is not on your mind, it is important for everyone to learn how to wrap their brains around anything that comes their way.
` That may seem intuitive, though you need to ask; "How does 'everyone' and 'anything' apply to me and whatever might be in my life?"

This is actually a question that you can answer, because skills are not so much things that one knows as they are things that one does.

In other words, what you know or don't know is not as important as how you observe, approach and engage what you could know.

The first skill you must learn is asking questions. Here are some you might have:

That is completely different than my plans now, so I'm taking it off there. I've been writing for... ever to figure out what I want on there, except I have to do it on paper because this computer is so loud I'm gonna scream if I have to be on here for much longer.

So I'm leaving the Corrigendopedia blank for now. See?

At least it's finally up.

The Three Themes of the Corrigendopedia

2009-07-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

I have a few upcoming pages for the Corrigendopedia, just as long as I don't lose focus again. They will be the 'seeds' for future pages, and are on the themes of:

Getting Yer Facts Straight

Logicality

The Science of Trickery

I'll have those up soon. Just gotta focus. My computer's distractingly loud, no matter what I put in and over my ears, so I have to use other computers to do this. Lame, huh? Time for a new computer!

Writing about Morristown UFO Hoax

2009-07-11T17:52:00.001-07:00

I really really am. I promise. I in fact shall make my Corrigendopedia website into an organic place full of notes. Not musical notes, but notes like those I posted before.

Inspiring curiosity...

2009-07-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

That will be my theme.

For the Corrigendopedia.

"Expand Your View of the World" could be a good motto.

Dissatisfied with this post? Look, I have been posting on other blogs. This, for example, is today's art blog post, complete with Dr. Nociceptor, Cyborg Puppies of Doom, and a meth head who has taken to peeing all over our carpet.
` From there, you will also find links to some amusing videos starring my boyfriend, both as 'Pinhead' and as 'Bruiser', a hillbilly who gets shot.

Oh yeah, and I keep wanting to write about the Morristown UFO Hoax, complete with videos that show the hoaxers releasing the balloons, then calling the news station and saying 'hey, there's some weird lights! We don't know what they are!' and then making the infamous YouTube video.
` ...And later appearing on the news... not to mention, UFO Hunters cites it as more evidence that aliens are visiting us... hilarious!

Aaanyway... I have some homework to finish real quick-like. See ya later.

P.S. I have a considerably less noisy environment now, since I live in a new house, and since the meth head who has been framing us and getting us into trouble is gone. That was a ton of crazy drama!
` No longer is writing a rebellion on a personal level....

To write is to rebel.

2009-04-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

Just when I think I know myself, I ask more questions. You might appreciate this one: Why am I a writer?
` The answer is: To assuage my burning discontent, to cry out in loneliness, to temporarily escape the constant feeling of imprisonment.

When I was four years old, starting to feel the friction of my dysfunctional family, I remember that I wrote little books on construction paper about the way I thought things ought to be. I wrote fantasy stories of animals, who had children, and they were nice to one another.
` Unfortunately, I don't think anyone knew what I was getting at. Sometimes, I would be made to sit around the table and be scolded about what I wrote, then my books were taken away from me and I never saw them again.

I stopped writing for a while. The abuse from my dad became even less tolerable. He would tell me that I was stupider than a horse because at least horses allow themselves to be broken. Why was he punishing me all the time? What was I doing wrong?
` He kept telling me that I did all kinds of things I didn't even know about and that the reason I didn't remember was because I was crazy.

When I started school, at Sydney Fenn Elementary, I got in a lot of trouble. I was even mean sometimes to my only friend, Tina LaFerrier, who was three years older than me. We were troublemakers and made up our own 'language' called 'Ma' (with an 'a' like in 'shadow').
` I remember fighting a lot with Hubert VanDeusan and I remember him scribbling on my paper so I'd have to erase what I wrote.
` My teacher, Ms. Solomon, was a trip. She said she was a witch who had magical powers and would use them on whoever was bad. Apparently her magical powers consisted of dragging my desk to the corner of the room, where nobody paid any attention to me.
` I went to the principal's office a lot. Sometimes he would threaten me. When my dad threatened me, sometimes I would cry and he would laugh at me because I was crying, and then I would start to laugh, too. Pretty soon, I started laughing every time I got scared.
` Once, the principal, Mr. Leher, made me sit in a chair and I was scared of him. He kept saying, "Look at me!" but my eyes were glued to the ceiling. Involuntarily, I started laughing and drifting away into some other place, and then he slapped me in the face and said, "Do you think this is funny? Are you having a good time?" I didn't know what to do. I was like a deer in a room full of headlights.

Soon after that, I was transferred to Garfield Elementary - coincidentally, so was Mr. Leher! I went to Special Ed for 'problem children' because I was everybody's problem. I was so bad that Mr. Peterson, a volunteer from the Baptist church, would drag me around in a laundry bag, even down the steps.
` Sometimes the principal would assist in dragging me down the steps by my hands and any rug burns I sustained were proclaimed my "choice."

I didn't even know what a choice was. Some "stupid hippie" term, I thought. And so was 'self-esteem'. That was a really bad word, my dad taught me. He said that the way they treated me was "stupid", too, but he never told mom because then she wouldn't let me go to school anymore.

I was about seven at the time. I remember that I went to music class and had to sing. I didn't really like most of the songs. Worst of all was Gospel music, but when I refused to sing words that made my palms sweat, like "God" and "soul", I got an 'X' on the clipboard and privileges were taken away from me.
` I hated most singing "All night, all day, angels watching over me." Were there really angels? I asked one of the teacher's aides on the way back to class one day. She thought there were.
` I looked around the hallway. I was frightened. I knew I was a bad person, and angels were supposed to get rid of bad things, right? I started to become terrified that there was an angel that was going to get me.
` But then who was I supposed to run to for help? I didn't even consider my parents, as they were no help at all. I wasn't sure I believed in the devil either, but I thought that at least I would not be in trouble with him.
` Then, in the classroom, what should I have but large pieces of colored construction paper. I think they were from an art project. So I started drawing angels, on winged horses galloping across rainbows and clouds, dropping bombs on devils. But wait, that was wrong. If angels killed devils, then they would kill me too, and I didn't want that to happen.

Well, what if they were wrong? What if bad was good? Since I was punished constantly for no discernible reason, I thought that maybe 'bad' was just what other people wanted it to be. It sure didn't have anything to do with my actions.

So I was bad, but I thought that I must really be good.

Soon enough, my angels turned to pathetic white laboratory mice, and the devils turned into large, powerful black rats. The mice had puny weapons while the rats were always scurrying underground and blowing them up.

This competition also gave way to Mu-loos and Dragons. The dragons were the ones I wanted to be - sleek, strong, fire-breathing, flying - while the Mu-loos were the ones I didn't want to be, the ones I laughed at.
` They had beaks and ate pine trees and each other's droppings and had horse hooves on the back feet and fingerless nubs for front feet. I came up with six types of Mu-loos, more pathetic than the last, as well as six types of dragons, each one having a different special ability.

Soon, I began turning little notebooks into story books, but used different creatures for these, ones supposed to be villains. I really liked them, but other people acted like it was a huge chore to even look.
` My dad didn't read them either but he said that while my illustrations were good, the dragon-like character representing myself was ugly. I didn't know why. I put a lot of work into drawing her fancy markings and tall hair - she always took the longest!
` I had a certain number of circles I put on her wings, and each segment of her tail had a different pattern in it! But he didn't like it - I remember showing him a drawing of the various characters, with the one supposed to be me on the end.
` He said, "Well, it's okay," and then he folded back the part of the paper with my character on it and said, "Much better!"
` I knew it was a stupid drawing, but something inside of me was hurt. I didn't know what it was.

I spent my last year of grade school, sixth grade, in a place called C-FIT. When I told people where I went to school, they laughed and didn't believe the name.
` I think it stands for Child-Family Intensive Treatment. It was very intense - they did things to make us mad, like watch Sesame Street, and when I would try to run away from being treated like a five-year-old, they would grab me and cross my legs and sit on my back! Pissing the students off was down to a science.
` Unfortunately, nobody ever heard of or believed this type of treatment until after I was gone, whereupon the school was shut down.
` During my internment there, I had a fascination with writing about cats who slunk about in the shadows at night. They had homes but a lot of the time they wandered around, stealing sandwiches and making fun of dogs.
` The cats gradually turned into superheroes with cool gadgets who were a great deal like Batman, though I didn't realize it at the time, but they still made fun of dogs and other animals who I identified as my enemy and were sometimes supposed to represent real people, like the kids who hated me and poured Pepsi on me.

I also drew special pictures of teachers, teachers aides and students in each year of Special Ed. Most of the students were depicted favorably while the others were terrible monsters or absurd creatures. Sometimes, my parents got called because of my drawings.
` At C-FIT, I drew very accurately the faces of the people who were supposed to be watching the twenty or so students who went there, but the rest of their bodies was quite different:
` Mr. Galbraith got to be a giant mushroom (like these scary mushroom people I saw in a cartoon) and Mike Swanson was part swan and part doughnut (because we weren't allowed to say the word 'doughnut') and the principal Anne Vaner was a rock with a bulging vein because she was angry, and Colleen the counselor was a Colleen Chevrolet Used Horse and Allison Rafter was some annoying thing or another that says "don't worry be happy", and Genette was a Flower Face (because flowers were plants' genitals) and Lauri was a Loris and I don't know who else.
` I remember one day, I told Mike and Mr. Galbraith about how I kept asking this woman at the mental hospital I'd just been at if she was videotaping me. She left the room for ten minutes, apparently as a test, so I did some things to prove to myself I was being paranoid, such as pulling my pants down and screaming, "THERE IS NO VIDEO CAMERA!"
` Before I could get to that part, however, they started laughing and said, "We were watching that!" I remember at that moment that they were standing very close to one another, as if they had their arms over each others' shoulders, and their mocking faces seemed to fill up my vision.
` I never talked to them about my problems again.

My constant lack of control in the world had long been manifested in obsessive compulsiveness, which got me in constant trouble. One instance was my set of three pencils that must always stay together because they matched. I was like that with a lot of things.
` Well, I wasn't allowed to have more than one pencil. I would keep them in my bra, but Mike and Mr. G would reach in and take them anyway.
` One pencil was not good enough, though. I kept throwing it because I didn't have the other two pencils and it was driving me insane. Mike grabbed it and put it in his desk. When I asked for it later, he took it out and then acted like he was handing it to me but instead dropped the end of a wooden pencil, the lead and the eraser both chewed out of it, and told me to write with the 'stump'. With no lead, I couldn't write. Then he said, "Well, you should have thought of that earlier."
` There was seriously no lead, though - it had been pulled out. I told Anne Vaner what happened and then tried to get my pencil back, and you know what he did? Took it out of his desk, then dropped the stump hidden in his hand, just like before! And she said, "Wull, Sara, there isn't anything I can do."
` They kept telling me it was my choice and my decision. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. It reminded me of when my dad would scream at me, "Don't make me kill you!" or "Don't act like I'm going to hit you, because that makes me hit you!"
` Understandably, my pictures of them got more and more detailed. Sometimes, they would be taken away and I'd never see them again.
` I wrote a lot, too. I was also made to write things called 'compositions'. Once I had to write one about why I should be good. I had very little understanding of the subject. I recall writing the words 'I should act happy'. Happy was only a way of acting, after all. By then, I had forgotten what the word 'emotion' meant. All I knew was actions and facial expressions. Feelings did not seem to have a place in the world of emotions.
` One composition I was very proud of. But Mr. G. wouldn't read it because he was mad because he had to beat up another student - at least that's what it sounded like. Instead, he tore it up and threw it in the wastepaper basket. I tried to grab the pieces before my bus left at the end of the day, but Mike and Mr. G wouldn't let me! I cried and cried.

After I apparently failed horribly at school, I was made to stay home all day. But I couldn't believe my parents would just drive to work every day and leave me by myself. I was sure they didn't trust me enough. Instead, I was led to believe that there was a hidden video camera on me, like in the mental hospital.
` During this time, I was lonely, so I talked to what I thought was the camera all day. When my dad did something bad to me, I wrote it down in another little notebook. I wrote about his abuse, my thoughts, my attempts to undermine him, and what I thought of the world. It was a very sad little world, and I had nothing to compare it to.

For six years I wrote. Six long years. For the future. So I could look back on it with a different perspective once I was out.
` I was also writing a novel. It made no sense, I know that now, because I didn't know about how other people's lives were. Just mine. It was about a girl who saved the world.

When I was eighteen, my mom had enough sense to kick him out of the house. Unfortunately, he considered anything that belonged to me to be his. He took it all. All those hundreds of hours of writing. Gone.

I would never be able to see what I wrote. The fruits of my labor. The only thing I had done during those six lonely years. Those six years when I was frightened to see that my culture encourages smiling. Smiling triggered the worst feelings for me. "How can anyone smile?" I thought. "They are sick people."
` And all along, I learned, it was just me. The rest of the world was okay. I was the one who was sick.

Years later, I was starting to recover from the abuse, when something even worse happened. I was tortured and mistakenly thrown in a mental hospital and left to die.

I have written about my dad's abuse and the torture incident online before in great detail, so there is no need for that. I will bring them together with this item at some point.

Years went by. The flashbacks began to fade. Finally, I got ready internet access. I was trying to pull my life together. Finally, I started to write on a blog, specifically because I didn't like myself but couldn't accept that I was worthy of that.
` I just thought of it as a dull exercise to strengthen my writing skills. It was difficult to persuade anyone to ever read my blog, even the guy I called my boyfriend, who treated me like a small child and showed no interest in anything meaningful I had to say.

I wrote about science and various oddments, but I felt ashamed when I felt compelled to write about what had happened to me in the past. That wasn't right for a science blog. I did it anyway, with much guilt.

It was pretty certain that I had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder my whole life and was utterly ignorant of what most people considered 'normal'. Instead, I was treated as if I was stupid and lazy or else was being a sob story and using 'victim leverage'.
` I wasn't given any chances. I didn't know about what I could do. Even so, I felt like my future was grim because I had to marry this guy that I had no interest in anything.
` Whenever I showed curiosity to something new, I was told that it wasn't really interesting or was ridiculed for being a smartass. Whenever I did something Socially Awkward because I had never learned how to be an adult, I was shamed because I supposedly should have known better.

Worst of all, my therapists had all been jackasses and had no interest in talking to me, only reading my file and telling me that I was mentally ill like my father, so the only person I had to talk to about my problems was this guy.
` He told me that if I wanted to hurt myself that I should go right ahead and work through my problems, but if I wanted to get better, I should ignore whenever something triggered a memory and bury it deep inside.
` The whirlwind of memories in my head just spun faster and faster as I clung tighter to him. Then he called me 'needy' and made me feel guilty if I didn't say I loved him.

I was fortunate enough to get away from him, only wearing the special engagement ring from him once or twice, without even first having a physical relationship, and I quickly found my first Real Boyfriend, Lou Ryan, who just got home from playing 'Pinhead Simon' on 'Crypticon Idol'.
` He actually thinks my feelings are important, and my PTSD has since gone away. I learn by his example, but only things that he's better at than me. He doesn't always understand what my problems are, but I am patient with him. Usually.
` Just last April 1, we were going to Johnnie's show at Haley's, and I was telling him my homework strategy and he didn't understand how I was just trying to get my assignments done on time by pushing back other assignments to the days I didn't have anything due, and he kept nagging me about wasting time by cleaning and I wound up screaming at him that cleaning the house a little and making things in order and quieter was not a waste of time because it helped make my brain work better. Finally, he understood my plan and shut up.

I really hate it when people doubt the choices I make. It was only in January of this year (2009) that I finally started to realize that I am justified in wanting to help myself, and am competent enough to follow my instincts, rather than thinking that anything I feel like doing must be 'rationalized' by miles of mental gymnastics. No wonder I never did anything before.
` Now I go to school, and I've had a couple of jobs, too. It wasn't as terrible as I had thought.

It really used to bother me to be myself. Apparently, thinking through my past traumas - and there have been far too many for me to completely handle - was supposed to be bad for me, so I stagnated and closed up, and making myself better was wild, sporadic and painful because I 'knew' it was wrong.
` Now I know better. I know that working my way through the abuse and torture that I have suffered in the past is what I needed.

Still, my home environment is not as good as it could be. Living in a ghetto house is better than the scary ghetto apartment I used to live in. We're even having major victories over our crazy slumlord!
` However, the whole thing with not having a quiet environment for long... each day I have two choices. Use the lulls in the house activity - which are not very predictable - to do homework OR to write my screenplay that has been stagnating in my mind for the longest time.
` It is difficult because I have severe ADD, and earplugs are my only defense. I don't like taking Ritalin because it makes me focus so hard on the TV noise that that's all I know and I'm compelled to come out and watch TV too.

Right now, I have to cease and desist all activity soon because B-Gangsta wants to play the piano and fill the house with really loud piano noise because he won't put on the headphones. It is very loud and stressful and I won't be able to organize all my homework and other projects in my piano room, either, which was what *I* was planning to do instead - and it really needs it.
` I also won't be able to do my homework because of all the loud TV-watching going on in the other end of the house. It drives me nuts. I'm never able to relax when I have to hear it. I wish I had a choice.

So, now all I do is wear earplugs all day and hide in the corner. Ohhhh the TV! It is a huge terror. Lou Ryan still laughs at me because it affects me this way, but I don't know what else to do. I have a million projects that would make us all rich and I just don't have enough time to be ME.
` I need eight hours a day to do homework and do all my other things. Since I understand that working on my own things, like my websites, videos, screenplay, learning a very important language, etc is useless, I sometimes go hang out with other people. That is another way of being 'me', but it does not help me finish all these years of unfinished projects I have piled up in my piano room. Oh yeah, and playing the piano. I haven't done that for a really long time.

Sometimes, I just want to kill myself. Life isn't worth living if you have all these goals and other people won't let you attain them. All I need is an office. A place where I can go to be safe. The closest thing I can do is take a nap in the middle of the day and then be awake when no one else is, except Lou Ryan makes me feel ashamed of that because it's not a smart thing to do.

I tell ya, no matter how many times I escape, I only find myself in a larger cage.

At last... I believe I am ready.

2009-04-14T23:05:00.000-07:00

After long periods of deliberation and discovery, I have decided that the best way for me to teach others about science and critical thinking is from the heart. In fact, I will use my own perspective as a demonstration, recounting how I have fought against my own ignorance and why I fight for the illumination of others.

In my previous writings, I have tended to write about what I have learned without mentioning my own desire to learn and to teach, nor the personal meaning I derive from it. This, I believe, is a mistake:
` Rather than just reporting the straight dope (as well as I can), showing people how it affects me as a person would most likely help others understand the reasons why I work to get these ideas across.

Such a personal journey may seem like a startling approach until one realizes that brilliant minds like Richard Feynman and Carl Sagan had been quite successful using similar methods. There's just something about learning from another human being who is in awe of the universe and our ability to learn about it that makes others want to be in awe as well.

And that is where I'll begin.

And for my first act...

2009-03-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I was into what I now call Quantum Psychobabble, which eventually led me into the Cult of Seth -- which if you'll notice, I am not too embarrassed to admit. Anymore.
` In my dialogues (triologues?), I shall address all the insanity involved therein.

Even though this is my week in between quarters, don't count on it getting done any faster than other things I have going. Some of them being blog posts.

It took me the rest of my humanities class...

2009-03-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

...to get my 'writer's side' going! I now have a starting point and direction to go! But first I must contend with -- finals week!

As a consolation of not having any current material, please enjoy decoding this essay by Robert Hutchins, which I have added some formatting to for those of us, like myself, who have difficulty reading large blocks of text.
` But first, an appropriate quote, lifted from Jon Stewart's America (The Book):

"It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not the few."
-- Pericles

"Yes, Pericles, but have you gotten a load of the many?"
-- Socrates

No, really! Is it any wonder that Socrates put so much effort into educating the many in how to reason? Upper class, lower class, it didn't matter, everyone needed to learn how to ask questions! In fact, he didn't even go for all the hot young boys who chased him around, for to him thinking with your head was far better than... but I digress!

Also, I feel I should make sure everyone knows the definition of 'liberal education', as it's important in the essay.
` Instead of a specialized education, it is, according to the Association of American Colleges and Universities; "a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ... characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, and more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study...."

Without further ado, here it is:

The Idea of a College

Robert M. Hutchins

Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977) was President of the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1945 and Chancellor from 1945 to 1951. This essay originally appeared in Measure 1 (Fall 1950): 363-371. Reprinted in Engaging the Humanities at the University of Chicago, ed. Philippe Desan (University of Chicago Press, 1995).

I should like to try to make clear what I mean by a college and a college education. This I shall have to do chiefly by saying what I do not mean. Educational discussion in this country, like the discussion of everything else, is based on headlines.
` Hence it is possible for an educator who says he favors the abolition of football to be accused of being against health; if he says that the aim of a college is intellectual, the rumor will spread that he is against morals; if he says that he is against making the college either a vocational school or a place where the young are adjusted to their environment, he is charged with indifference to the fate of countless millions who have to make their own way in the world; if he says that he is for liberal education, the conclusion is that he is undemocratic.
` Yet a moment's reflection will show that none of the consequences assumed to follow from these positions actually does follow from them.
For example, big-time, industrial football, the symbol of the noneducational aspects of educational institutions, confuses the public mind about what education is and contains elements of injustice, hypocrisy, and fraud that run counter to the high ideals that our educational institutions profess.
` It is perfectly possible to be against football of this type and to be for health and exercise. As for me, I am for exercise, as long as I do not have to take any myself.
It is not the object of a college to make its students good, because the college cannot do it; if it tries to do it, it will fail; it will weaken the agencies that should be discharging this responsibility; and it will not discharge its own responsibility. It is possible to say this and still be for goodness.
` A college can make a highly important contribution to goodness by supplying the intellectual foundations of morality in an atmosphere conducive to the maintenance of good habits. But the family and the church have the main burden of inculcating and developing these habits. I may say in passing that I am for the family and the church.
A college should not aim to teach its students vocations, because going through vocational routines is too easy and lulls the conscience of a faculty that does not want to face the enormously difficult task of educating the young; because an educational institution cannot do a good job of vocational training; because the shifts in technology and the migration of workers may make vocational training at one time in one place useless at another time in another place; because jobs are easier and easier to do and require less and less training of any kind; and because the great problems of our time are the right use of leisure, the performance of the duties of citizenship, and the establishment of a community in this country and the world, to none of which vocational training makes the slightest contribution.
I shall never tire of telling the story of that Dean of Christchurch at Oxford who was asked by a student what was the use of studying Greek. The Dean replied, "It is not only the immediate language of the Holy Ghost, but it leads to positions of great dignity and emolument."
` The study of Greek now leads only to positions in the teaching of Greek, which, though of great dignity, are not of great emolument. [That is, payoff.] It was a mistake to seek to justify Greek on the ground of its vocational value, for that has now disappeared. And in a world of rapid change the same fate may at any moment overtake any subject that is taught because of the emoluments achieved by those who have studied it in the past.
` It is possible to say this and at the same time feel concern for the economic future of college graduates. The question is not whether it is necessary to learn how to earn a living, but where it is desirable to learn it. In general the way to learn how to do anything is to do it; and industry is the place in which the young should learn how to work in industry.
A college should not seek to adjust its students to their environment, because it cannot tell what their environment will be. It cannot predict where they will live, or what social, economic, or political conditions will prevail when they have reached maturity.
` The world is now changing so fast that current information has little value because it will not remain current. What the father knows of the facts of life is almost useless to his son. If the present demand for instruction in current events succeeds, it can lead only to one result: it will fill the students with miscellaneous dead facts. The college that wishes to adjust its students to the environment is likely to teach facts miscellaneous in the highest degree, for adjustment to the environment may mean anything, from how and when to dress for dinner to how and when to vote for president.
And certainly our object must be not merely to prepare our students for any possible environment, but also to induce and prepare them to try to get a better one.
` To do this they must chiefly have some standards of judgment, some idea of good and bad. If it is charged that the effort to prepare students to bring about a better environment will lead to a crop of maladjusted, neurotic youths, I reply that Socrates and Gandhi are worthy ideals for the rising generation, and that I have little fear that America will ever produce too many men of this type.
` The charge is in any case absurd, because I am urging nothing more than what is inherent in any democratic system, namely, that by the exercise of the intelligence of the population the community should struggle forward toward a better world.
` To struggle forward to a better world you have to know what kind of world would be better.
It is possible to say all this without being a reactionary, or a medievalist, or a theorist. In fact, if he will only think, the contemporary, practical, democrat will see that he cannot say anything else.
` The power we want our graduates to have is power in and over the unpredictable future. The power the college is best equipped to help them gain is intellectual power. It is the power of understanding and judgment.
The object of an educational system is to supply this power. It may, perhaps, do many other things that are interesting and useful; but it fails to the extent to which it fails to supply this power. Its contribution to the moral, physical, and spiritual natures of its students and to their "success" in the world is made by way of this power.
` No other agency in the community has the responsibility of supplying the intellectual power that the community requires. If the educational system does not discharge this responsibility, it will not be discharged.
In a democratic community every citizen should have as much power of understanding and judgment as he can develop, because every citizen has a voice in the management of the community.
` The progress, and even the safety, of a democratic community depends in part upon the intelligence of the citizens, and by this we cannot mean the intelligence of some citizens, but the combined intelligence of all. For this reason democrats since the earliest times have advocated universal free compulsory education.
In the last fifty years a remarkable reversal has taken place among democrats. They are still for universal free compulsory schooling. They seem to feel that it would be undemocratic not to be. At the same time the demands of labor unions and the ambitions of parents have raised the school-leaving age to heights undreamed of by our democratic ancestors.
` As the President's Commission on Higher Education and the GI Bill of Rights suggest, the policy of this country is to the effect that schooling is a good thing, that being in school is better for everybody than being anywhere else, and that the more schooling everybody has the better everything will be. But the hordes of students let loose upon the educational system by reason of this policy, the difficulty of obtaining competent teachers to staff so vast an enterprise, and the great differences in the ability of pupils to get an education in any definition of it that our democratic ancestors would recognize have led some of the most vocal advocates of democracy to propose, in the name of democracy, the most undemocratic educational ideas.
For example, in the report of the President's Commission on Higher Education, presented by men who have the deepest democratic convictions, we are urged in the name of democracy upon a course that divides the population into the mass and the elite.
` The mass, we are told, since they are not really capable of being educated, should not be allowed to clutter up existing educational institutions, because they are not bright enough. Two-year community colleges will be established for them. They should go to these colleges because everybody should go to school as long as possible. But they should not be educated, because they are not capable of it.
` The two-year community college is therefore a kind of waiting room, or housing project, in which the young are to be kept out of worse places until we are ready to have them go to work.
Perhaps we need waiting rooms or housing projects for the young. Perhaps we need the mass equivalent of those girls' finishing schools of the last century in which young ladies were accommodated with genteel occupations in that difficult period between the time at which they reached physical maturity and the time at which they could get married. But it would be helpful if things were called by their right names.
` To call a waiting room or a housing project a college or an educational institution is to cheat the student and his parents and to confuse the public still further about what a college, or an educational institution, or an education is.
The doctrine that educational opportunity should be open to all is the great American contribution to the theory and practice of education. But you will notice that the opportunity that should be open to all is educational opportunity, not the opportunity to spend two years doing anything that occurs to you in a place erroneously denominated a college.
` The advocates of the two-year community college either keep silent altogether about what its curriculum is to be or say that it is to be whatever the students would like to have it. This is based on the hypothesis, which I regard as wholly undemocratic, that these students cannot be educated, and therefore they might as well do anything they care to.
` It is assumed that their interests will be largely vocational and recreational. Hence those offerings of American universities which we have hitherto regarded as somewhat eccentric, offerings in tap dancing, embalming, cosmetology, and janitoring, would become the normal course of study in the community college.
Meanwhile it is supposed that those colleges and universities which now exist, freed of the burden of struggling with the vulgar mass, will go on educating the elite. It is suggested that the preexisting colleges and universities will assist the community colleges by supplying them with teachers and administrators.
` This is of course fallacious, since the preexisting colleges and universities are not prepared, and apparently do not intend to prepare, to turn out teachers of tap dancing, embalming, cosmetology, and janitoring.
The choice before us is clear: either we should abandon universal suffrage or we should give every citizen the education that is appropriate to free men.
` We cannot say that we are for democracy and at the same time protest the impossibility of preparing all the citizens to take their part in a democracy. In a democracy the people rule and are ruled in turn for the good life of the whole community.
` If democracy is to work, every citizen must have the education that rulers ought to have. If we do not know how to give every citizen this kind of education, we shall have to find out.
Liberal education is the education appropriate to free men. Since it originated at a time when only the few were rulers, it was originally an aristocratic education. Hence the deeply convinced democrats who wrote the report of the President's Commission assume that you cannot be a democrat and be for liberal education.
` They most undemocratically assume that the mass of the people are incapable of achieving a liberal education—but they have no evidence for this, because the mass of the people have never had an opportunity to achieve it. It is true that, as large numbers have come into the American educational system, education has deteriorated and liberal education has almost vanished. But this is the result of the indolence and inattention of educators rather than the ignorance and incapacity of students.
` To teach a boy who does not care about being educated how to read, write, figure, and understand the ideas that have animated mankind is hard; it is far easier to forget that he is going to be a citizen and set him to learning, or to think he is learning, a trade.
We must applaud the notion of education for all; but we must deny that this ideal is achieved by having everybody in school. Everything turns on what is done there. To the extent to which the pupil is acquiring the power of understanding and judgment, to that extent he is being educated.
` It is impossible that too many people can be educated in this sense. We hear a great deal today about the dangers that will come upon us through the frustration of educated people who have got educated in the expectation that education will get them a better job, and who then fail to get it. But surely this depends on the representations that are made to the young about what education is.
` If we allow them to believe that education will get them better jobs and encourage them to get educated with this end in view, they are entitled to a sense of frustration if, when they have got the education, they do not get the jobs. But, if we say that they should be educated in order to be citizens, and that everybody, whether he is a ditch-digger or a bank president, should have this education because he is a citizen, then the ditch-digger may still feel frustrated, but not because of his education.
Nor is it possible for a person to have too much liberal education, because it is impossible to have too much understanding and judgment. But it is impossible to learn to understand and judge many important kinds of things in youth.
` The judgment and understanding of practical affairs can amount to little in the absence of experience with practical affairs. This indicates the limitations of formal, institutional, liberal education in youth. It indicates, in short, the limitations of a college. Subjects that cannot be understood without experience should not be taught to those who are without experience.
` Or, if these subjects are taught to those who are without experience, it should be clear that these subjects can be taught only by way of introduction and that their value to the student depends on his continuing to study them as he acquires experience. Such subjects as economics, ethics, politics, history, and literature may be studied by young people, but they cannot be comprehended by them.
` Young people may enjoy them, and they may get something from them, particularly from literature and history; but they cannot understand them, because the full lessons of these disciplines can be grasped only in maturity.
` The tragedy in this country is that these subjects are studied in youth and never studied again. Therefore, our college graduates never understand them. Yet these are the subjects which in the present crisis the democratic citizen most urgently needs to understand.
The basic error is that of supposing that a college can give its students all the education they will ever need—that when they receive their degrees they are educated men and women and can stop worrying about getting educated.
` The effect of this on the college curriculum is to jam it with all kinds of courses representing the assumed needs of adults, without regard to whether or not a young person can comprehend them. A course in business, for example, is useless to a boy or girl who has never been in business. In the American tradition a businessman would never think of taking such a course; yet only to a businessman can such a course have value.
We are concerned here with the college and not with the education of adults; but we see that there is the most intimate relationship between the two. In fact the idea of a college depends upon our understanding this relationship.
` If we say that education is a process that is to go on chiefly or exclusively in youth, then we are likely to say that the object of the college is, as the cant phrase has it, to prepare for life. If we say that education is a process that must go on through life, then the object of the college is to give the student those habits, ideas, and techniques which he needs to continue to educate himself.
` Then the object of the college is to prepare the student for more education. In view of the impossibility of understanding the most important subjects in youth, the attempt to do more than initiate the educational process in youth is bound to fail in the most important respects.
I have said that the great problems of our time are the right use of leisure, the performance of the duties of citizenship, and the establishment of a community in this country and the world.
` The idea of a college that I have attempted to outline solves the problem of the use of our leisure by proposing that it should be used for the continuation of education in adult life. The idea of a college that I have outlined tries to solve the problem of the duties of citizenship by proposing that the college help its students to develop the intellectual powers of understanding and judgment in so far as it is possible to develop them in youth.
` I must now say a final word about the contribution of the college to the establishment of a community in this country and the world.
The college should have a common curriculum, prescribed for all the students. The common prescribed curriculum is at least a partial answer to those who say that a large fraction of the population cannot achieve a liberal education and must be relegated, for this reason, to vocational training.
` The elective system deprives the student of one of the greatest contributions that could be made to his education, namely, the contribution of his fellow students. Under a common prescribed course of study the education of the student proceeds through discussion with his fellow students throughout his waking hours; under the elective system it goes on only when he is in class, for it is an accident if he finds another student who is following the same program with whom he can discuss it.
` The disintegration of the course of study under the elective system, popularly called the "enrichment" of the curriculum, has impoverished the colleges by depriving them of any common intellectual life. Extra-curriculum activities have achieved their exaggerated importance partly because the students have only these activities in common.
` So an undergraduate of a great university wrote to the student newspaper not long ago and complained that the curriculum of the University had now reached such richness that one student could not talk to another unless they both happened to remember the score of last Saturday's game.
The accomplishments of college students under a common prescribed course of study are amazing to those accustomed to the listless performance that is the normal reaction of the young to the dreary fragments of the elective system.
` The multiplication of the power of the student is such that those who have seen it are entitled to say that it is possible to give the whole population a liberal education.
We cannot hope to build a community, collegiate, national, or international, without understanding. Of course we may not have a community even if we do have understanding, for men may determine to shoot one another even if they do understand one another.
` We cannot hope for agreement on all the important issues of life. We must have faith, however, that understanding will minimize the areas of disagreement and moderate the passions of those who disagree. A common training that leads to a common understanding would appear to be the most promising foundation of a community of any kind. Hence our democratic ancestors established the common schools.
The advance of specialization in the last seventy-five years has brought with it great gains and great losses. The gains are more Spectacular, but the losses are more important. The gains have come chiefly in our power over nature. The losses have come in our power to control ourselves and understand one another.
` Unfortunately we have recently discovered that we cannot be trusted to use our power over nature wisely unless we can control ourselves and understand one another. Specialized education has now reduced us all to the level of students who cannot talk together unless they both happen to remember the score of last Saturday's game.
` The human community has been split in a billion fragments, which the cults of nationalism, racism, or regionalism are constantly reforming into more and more dangerous combinations.
The responsibilities of the United States are heavier than they have ever been. No one would claim that they are being discharged. The misery and anguish of the world are intensified by that overhanging fear which the United States was the first to let loose upon the earth.
` There are no simple-minded solutions—the most simple-minded and the most irresponsible is that to which we seem committed, namely, that overwhelming force is the answer to every question. Military power is important if it enables you to do something to somebody else that he cannot do to you at about the same time to about the same extent.
` The day of military power ended when the Russians exploded their first atomic bomb; for then it became impossible for us to exert such power without suffering irreparable damage ourselves.
Now at last we shall have to think. Now, if we have the power of understanding and judgment, we shall have to show it. Now we must have intelligent citizens who know how to rule and be ruled in turn for the good life of the whole community.
` Now we must apply ourselves to the task of creating a community in this country and then throughout the world. The education that will help us toward these ends is liberal education, the education of free men. This education is the task of the college.

I must say that this essay has put word to many thoughts that I have had, chiefly that we all need to learn how to think, and how to keep learning, for our own sake. However, though I knew it to be true, I didn't much ponder the fact that when everyone tends to do this, we can work together better.
` After all, I have a tendency to be paranoid about group homogeneity; if everyone got a similar education, then everyone would learn to think more similarly. But then, I think of the unity; there would be fewer prejudices against 'elite intellectuals' or 'uneducated people' because such a distinction would not be so widespread.
` Perhaps, after long enough, there would be no real distinction between academic 'classes' and we would wind up with some sort of 'intellectual communism' where everyone, being given a lot of the same education, would be on more the same wavelength, resulting in more free sharing and equal distribution of ideas.
` And, perhaps, I should work on my metaphors....

I also feel intimidated by those who frame the value of college in purely financial terms, having read far too many articles like this one, not to mention snippets of public opinion. After reading Hutchins' essay, I understand now that this is a fallacious viewpoint to begin with.
` In fact, when I began college, I had no such illusions; the plain and simple fact being that I was very smart and very uneducated and craved knowledge and discipline and perspective so that I could understand myself and the world around me, and only then could I figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
` I tell you, it's worked. A little science, a little art, a little math, although I failed English. I know, right? Me? Fail English? That's unpossible! In fact, the experiences gained in college have really helped me to believe in myself and to write my screenplay and, yes, figure out how I'm going to tackle the Corrigendopedia! And no, I haven't even taken the relevant classes for that sort of thing.

Anyway, I figured out that science is too tedious for a person such as myself, and while the scientific method is invaluable to me, I would rather use it in my own ways rather than actually pursue a science career, as I now understand that I'm an artist and can be no other thing.
` I used to think that I didn't need to be an artist, and that artists don't usually make money and wind up turning into pompous jackasses. In fact, I consider art to be freedom.
` I also consider science and art to be very similar, and I'll tell you why: Art is a creation that is meant to be experienced by critics and can only be judged in comparison with other art and human experiences.
` A scientific idea is a creation meant to be reasoned about by critics, and this reasoning is possible because we can systematically compare it to past discoveries and predict future discoveries, thus determining its relative objectivity.
` Both a work of art or a scientific explanation require creativity, but one is selected for its impact upon the viewer while the other is selected for whether or not it works in real life.

It is late and Lou Ryan has just called me, from the bedroom, to come to bed because I have work to do in the morning. So, I'd better go. Until next time....

Partial homework assignment...

2009-02-24T20:05:00.000-08:00

Okay, most of my homework time has been taken up by driving B Gangsta around to do some important stuff and we didn't get back until 6:30, but then I had to kick him out of here so I could do my homework, which he doesn't sound happy about, so I only have a few hours before he comes back to work on his music.
` Anyway, yes, things have been busy and lacking in internet access since I have to contend with other people for access to my office and the internet, and the only thing I'm allowed to do anymore is homework, which is the only thing I have to put on my blogs.

/end rant.

Well, I think there needs to be some sort of content. Also, it's a creative way to display this to my other team member just so that we have a hope of getting a presentation finished by tomorrow.

So, here's my part in answering the question; "Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?"

Wait, I've removed this homework assignment. I'm going to put parts of it in other posts, because it doesn't stand on its own... just like everything else I post here, right?

Dialogues commencing shortly...

2009-02-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

In the interim, I have discovered that my 'facts via fiction' idea is called a 'dialogue', or 'dialog' - although I prefer still spelling it with the silent 'ue', thank you very much!

And they aren't out of control.

But, I shall also need to create characters to carry out these dialogues. This has been my main obstacle. I suppose once I start writing, they'll come naturally.

For now, I'll call them 'Why' and 'Why not?'

Later on, you'll see my creations in the flesh... by some means, so they are a little bit more than talking heads.

Oh, and I also have one other major obstacle... the subject matter, since each time I pick a topic that is most interesting to me, I tend to feel that it is too silly/controversial/trivial/getting off on the wrong foot.
` The truth is, I just need to get over it already and write something, or I never will start!

Since I JUST HAPPEN to have been at a presentation about gay marriage today, thanks to political science instructor Stephen Horn, I should just start there instead of waffling and stalling because, I mean... Why start there?

Well, WHY NOT?!?!

Peace out,

Dr. Nociceptor

The Doctor Says...

2009-02-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

The official format for The Corrigendopedia will be FACTS, VIA FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.

Is that totally out of control or not? I'd say not, since I've seen it done before and it looked perfectly controlled to me. But can I handle it?
` Let's hope so, or I have a huge mess in the future.

Wish me luck.

I need to learn how to play. Seriously.

2009-01-29T19:26:00.001-08:00

I was going to turn this into a 'weekend blog', but now I'm not so sure about that. I mean, I have to have some day of the week off, considering that blogging isn't particularly fun for me. I just do this because I can.
` Since last week, however, I've been working hard to figure myself and everything else out, and I've processed an amazing amount of information, which I shall be posting on another blog.

It was only yesterday that I was reading the article about the importance of imaginative play in the most recent Scientific American Mind, and I realized...

THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN MISSING ALL MY LIFE!

I'll explain later.

The Introspective Mad Scientist,

Dr. Nociceptor.

Opening Paragraphs, Evil Genius Style

2009-01-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

Control. Illusion or not, it's what we all want.

` Whether you're an evil genius who wants to take over the world or some faceless bum who can scarcely take on the world, I am here to show you that the world is already within reach.

The only trick is in grasping it.

Even if plying and dominating others is not on your mind, it is important for everyone to learn how to wrap their brains around anything that comes their way.

` That may seem intuitive, though you need to ask; "How does 'everyone' and 'anything' apply to me and whatever might be in my life?"

This is actually a question that you can answer, because skills are not so much things that one knows as they are things that one does.

In other words, what you know or don't know is not as important as how you observe, approach and engage what you could know.

The first skill you must learn is asking questions. Here are some you might have:

I do hope you found this so entertaining that you want to keep reading, though I'm afraid that this is all I have for now.

` Besides, my cat is frantic because I'm in here typing rather than taking her on a walk. So, I'd better go do that.

` I love three-day weekends!

I Skipped A Turn...

2009-01-15T20:01:00.000-08:00

In putting together a post for this blog (and a day ahead of time, too!), a revolutionary idea struck me. I'm slightly changing this blog.

I recommend enjoying the delay.

Sunshine and Napalm,

Dr. Nociceptor, Editor-In-Chief

My first sheaf of notes!

2009-01-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

I fell asleep last night to the sounds of the giant oscar cichlid eating the weakest of the other fish - the telescope eye goldfish. I can't understand why anyone would purposely breed an animal that is half-blind, so deformed that it can barely move about, and susceptible to injury through its own actions.
` Unless it was meant to be a feeder fish, which it was in this case. That is, until the cichlid realized it couldn't swallow it whole.
` That is why, this morning, I woke up to the sounds of Lou Ryan and B-Gangsta trying to flush the poor monstrosity's mangled remains down the toilet.

They got stuck halfway.

Well, this is a great excuse to work on making one of the other two bathrooms in the house usable!

Just thought that might be of some amusement to you all. Now, down to business: In the Corrigendopedia, my main format will be two columns, rather than one.

The left-hand column will have a general, brief overview of a broader topic, while the right-hand column will have more details, including links to specific examples of the same topic.

In other words, it's very non-linear and, by displaying all manner of things, is intended to prompt the reader to ask questions and gain curiosity.

Now, these notes are extremely incomplete and contain no references, precisely because I've heard all of this information from many reputable sources and don't precisely remember where it is I've heard all this from.
` References will be added as I go over the material I got it all from, but that comes later on as I double-check, triple-check and fill in the details of the notes, turning them finally into a proper article.

Does this make sense to you?

The first notes I just happen to have decided to start with are about Evidence-Based Medicine versus Non-Evidence-Based Medicine. The point of this exercise is for me to physically type in all this stuff, in a linear fashion, and show any folks watching out there that I am indeed working on the Corrigendopedia.
` I figure, if I keep doing this every four days, I'll have it 'filled in' by no time.

No wonder I've had so much trouble starting this website - this is the most backwards method possible! Read this and see if you don't agree:

Non-Evidence-Based Medicine (left column)

Is the preferred term for Alternative or Complementary Medicine. Let's compare the definitions of Evidence-Based Medicineand Non-Evidence-Based Medicine. ...

For short I'll call them EBM, and Non-EBM.

Sometimes, Non-EBM is recommended alongside EBM. To paraphrase snarky skepchick Rebecca Watson, "First, bathe in crystals, then have the tumor removed. It works!"

What are some differences?

Why call it Non-Evidence-Based Medicine? The only conclusive studies in 'alternative' medicine are conclusively negative.
` There is at least some degree of certainty in Evidence-Based Medicine.

Biomedical research is extremely expensive and time-consuming, and doing this on the free market results in a lose-lose situation.
` First of all, on the free market, Non-EBM products are attached to health claims before any research is done.
` If they were to do actual research, the manufacturer must provide its own millions or even billions in research money, and if the product is found to be unsafe or not able to meet the company's claims, then they risk a possible decrease in sales, thus sabotaging themselves.
` On the other hand, if the research does happen to show that your product really does work, it won't help your sales because you've already said that it works before even bothering to see if it really works or not!
` Since just saying that something works is what people respond to the most, sales probably will not increase and you've just wasted millions of dollars of your own money.
` This is why free-market companies would rather spend their millions of advertising - that's the only sure way to improve sales.

Offshoot: Herbal Supplements

What is a drug? It is a substance that affects the body in a way other than providing nutrients. In other words, it does something to you other than what food does (of course, some foods contain drugs, such as coffee beans).

Herbs are taken for their pharmacological effects, which therefore makes them drugs. In America, these drugs do not need to be proven effective, or even safe, because they are labeled as 'dietary supplements'.
` Thanks to the Dietary Supplement Education Act, herbs are not allowed to be labeled with claims that they can cure any disease, only that they 'may improve' bodily functioning. A quick perusal through an aisle full of such 'supplements' will reveal a multitude of examples.

Drugs take massive amounts of time and money to establish because they must be regulated.

If mainstream medicine were not regulated, it would be like... alternative medicine! The free market would explode with unproven pharmaceuticals!
` There is very little chance that untested drugs are safe or effective; regulation is what ensures that drugs on the market are probably both safe and effective.
` However, consumers don't usually choose their supplements after carefully reviewing the literature, they choose based on what they perceive as quality. Personal evidence is not acceptable in medicine because there are always people who swear by products that 'work' even though this is highly unlikely for a variety of reasons.
` Scientists know how much individual situations differ, and they see how what seems to work for one person can easily not work for others. If they can't find something that has consistent effects for more than just one person, then there isn't much point in pretending that it does.

It's your health on the line. Would you trust someone who does not think basic medical standards are very important? A consumer typically has no tools to test out whether a product works. They mostly go by what the ads claim to sell, or by what they are told.
` Interestingly, many quacks do believe in what they're doing, even some who have medical training.

Testing methods (Detail?)

Pilot studies are tiny and usually have no placebo group. The point of them is to see whether or not it's even safe to have studies with more people, over a longer time, with a higher dose of the drug.
` In other words, pilot studies are not designed to determine the effectiveness of the drug, only the safety of it as tested on a small handful of people.
` Because the placebo effect is not measured, every drug will seem to show somewhat positive results, whether or not it later turns out to be effective. On top of that, negative studies tend to be published less often.
` In Phase II trials, there is enough exposure to the drug, and a placebo group so that the outcomes with the real drug can be compared with the positive effects from a fake drug.
` It isn't until Phase III trials that one can gain definitive evidence: That is, it's a prospective study, which means that experiment is designed before the data is collected. In Phase III trials, controls like double-blinding are the norm.
` Though Phase III gives the least promising results, they show what's passed all the tests and what doesn't measure up. Echinacea, Gingko, St John's Wort, etc, have all failed.
` If an effect is determined after two or three Phase III trials, and side-effects are relatively mild, then the drug is taken to Phase IV trials, which are the facilitation of common use.
` This process takes about a decade and many millions of dollars.

Supplements, magnets and the like do not need to be regulated, so marketers can use pilot studies, which, remember, are relatively cheap but worthless for determining the effectiveness of a drug, to claim that they've been scientifically tested with positive results.
` Another method is to refer to studies that show positive results for something completely irrelevant and pretend as though they support what the marketer is selling.

The people at drug companies, however, do not have this liberty.

Pilot studies of echinacea affecting affecting the natural course of the common cold were aggressively marketed at the public as if they were significant.
` By the time echinacea got to Phase III trials, no effect was found, though the marketing effects have lived on. In other words, enough people were told, and believed, that it worked, earlier on, and that's all that was needed to get a market going.

When Phase III trials are done on 'alternative' products and are shown not to work, it generally has no effect on the market because commerce is separate from scientific research. No change has been found in sales of Echinacea, Gingko, St John's Wort, etc. when they were shown not to live up to the manufacturers' claims.
` Selling products is all about marketing and advertising. Even Consumer Report, a skeptical publication, does not sway the established customer base.

Some say, "We know it works because people have used these herbs for thousands of years."
` The truth is that most of them are simply new gimmicks for a changing market.
` Even so, a thousand years ago, people had a 50-50 shot at surviving to 18 years of age, and had an average lifespan of 35. Why would anyone believe that they had superior medical knowledge?

Interestingly, many pharmaceutical companies sell herbal supplements because they do not require millions of dollars in scientific research and possible rejection. Instead, the herbs are ready to sell, no impediments.
` The fact that some drugs, like Vioxx, have been found to be dangerous is a good example of how science corrects itself. If some herb made people more likely to have heart attacks, we would have no way of knowing because they would probably never be scrutinized.

Scientists know full well just how much people can fool themselves into thinking that treatments work, via a placebo effect, and that's what science is for.
` Well-designed trials are meant to eliminate one's expectations. That is why scientists routinely find things that surprise them.

Scientific viability is not required when it comes to patents or licenses for 'Alternative' medicine. Take the wide world of 19th century 'Patent Medicine'. ...
` In other words, your invention doesn't have to work - a patent is merely evidence that you came up with a unique idea that no one else has.

Non-EBM practitioners don't have to pass any kind of inspection of qualifications to have a state-issued license. Like psychics, they merely have to decide for themselves what they think makes them qualified, no objective tests administered.

In evidence-based medicine, you can get in trouble for giving substandard care. Non-EBM takes care of this problem by not having any standards to begin with.
` If you're administering some type of treatment that's not even based on scientific research, you can protect yourself from malpractice suits by labeling it 'alternative medicine'.
` Unlike a doctor, your patients are not protected if you behave irresponsibly, even if it's intentional.

How was Vioxx discovered to be dangerous? Scientific scrutiny and research! Since 'alternative' medicine isn't part of the medical community, there is no one there to screen for things that are harmful or don't work.

Examples of Non-EBMs (Offshoot)

Sam Chuchua claims to cure cancer, as do Hulda Clarke and (Adolph?) Brazinski. Each of them has a different explanation for how cancer works - Clark claims it's because of bodily pollutants while another says it has to do with a certain protein, and the other says the key is nutrition. Yet, despite these contradictions, they support one another.
` Why? If they criticized one another's claims, they'd encourage other people to shoot down the others claims with scientific research, and they don't want potential followers looking into that.

Since stem cells have been all the buzz, some Non-EBM practicioners like to profess that they're into that.
` Dr. Hwang implants olfactory stem cells into patients with ALS, MS, spinal cord injuries, etc. He says the reason he's done zero research is because he's too busy healing people.
` So, some neurosurgeons found the time to study his technique and found no benefit, as well as a side-effect rate of 80%, meningitis among them.

Toxins, of course, are routinely used as medicine. For example, scientific studies show that Botulinum toxin actually works in treatment of nervous disorders.
` Dr. Coley discovered tumor necrosis factor, which our body produces when we are infected with bacteria. It's been shown to kill only part of tumors, and can kill other tissues, so it's potentially dangerous and doesn't work well enough to meet modern medical standards.
` However, some people sell products purported to contain 'Coley's Toxins'. The good news is that they don't.

??

According to one survey, 1/3 of women taking herbal supplements for menopause don't tell their doctors, and 2/3 also say these supplements work.
` It may be telling that 70% of former users say that it did not help them.

Laetrile is naturally found in crops like maize and cassava. When cows eat too much laetrile, they stagger and fall down, showing symptoms similar to 'mad cow' disease (bovine spongiform encephalitis).
` Laetrile contains very well-known poisons like cyanide, and the only clinical effects known are toxic rather than beneficial.

Conspiracy? (Offshoot)

Many Non-EBM practitioners diagnose their patients with cancer, without first having any medical evidence of cancer, and then administer a treatment that costs the patients money.
` Since the patient almost certainly has no cancer to begin with, they are grateful to find that they still don't have cancer by the end of treatment.

Many people who are utterly immersed in Non-Evidence-Based Medicine and/or conspiracy theories have told me that the people working for 'Big Pharma' have a cure for cancer but won't share it.
` My answer is: A cure for cancer would tell us a lot about the nature of cancer itself, because for all those medical researchers know, different types of cancers have different causes, and currently cannot all be treated in the same way.
` If any research hinted at a cure-all for cancer, various pharmaceutical companies would be in a race for the sloagan; 'First to Cure Cancer'. Such a title would amount to the winning company's financial security for the next hundred years.

Upon hearing that, most of these people say; "That's total bullshit!" Then, they usually say one of three things;

1.) "If they did that, people would stop getting sick and the company would stop making money."

And I say to that; "If that was so, then why did pharmaceutical companies bother to completely wipe out other diseases (at least in industrialized nations) such as smallpox or polio, which used to kill and disable people on a regular basis?
` Besides, I would think that saving people's lives is more effective at keeping a patient base than letting them all die, since they may later on need other drugs from your company.

2.) "Their cancer cure patent would only last twenty years, and after that, they wouldn't be able to make any more money off it."

And I say; "If your company actually cured cancer, it wouldn't ever lose its recognition. As I've mentioned, it's the ultimate advertising campaign."

3.) "The cures from cancer can be found in our backyards, and they can't make money off that."

And I say, "Au contraire! Some pharmaceutical companies also make money off of selling herbs that you can grow yourself. Why? They don't require all that complicated and expensive scientific testing.
` The truth is, most people would rather buy their herbs than grow them, just as most people buy fruits and vegetables (or even cannabis!) at the store even though they can grow their own."

Besides, if they really did have a cure, then why do pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars a year on cancer research?

Also, why would researchers and physicians alike let their own friends, spouses and children die of cancer?
` Of course I've gotten responses like, "Those doctors very well-educated, they just don't realize they're not being taught the right things." ...

Most articles about the safety of microwave ovens are sober and scientific. According to them, the radiation levels of microwave ovens are far below the recognized 'safe' levels. If you stand a foot away from a microwave oven, there's virtually no radiation because the levels fall off at, well, the rate at which microwave radiation falls off. Which is fast.
` Still, it's not safe to stand too close to the microwave and look in, because that can give you cataracts.
` On the other hand, there are some really incoherent articles that claim microwave ovens kill people. It is important to note that these are usually written by naturopaths and the like.

Chiropractic

People have always asked; "How does disease come about?" Before things like harmful bacteria were discovered, there were many ideas. Some had to do with an irregular flow of life-giving energy.
` One such idea was that a life force from God comes down through the top of our heads and through our nerves, keeping us healthy. When the nerves are crooked, we get sick.
` That idea was called 'chiropractic', though only about 30% of today's chircopractors still make these claims.

It is interesting to note that people with severed nerves do not have diseases aplenty - their organs would be getting no 'life force', so why are they still healthy?
` Also, the neurological symptoms of a pinched nerve are not usually present when a chiropractor makes this diagnosis.

While some chiropractors do have some medical education, they are not required to have basic medical knowledge to get their doctorate, and don't even need to pass any kind of test.

Most of what chiropractors do has nothing to do with disease, but rather it's about manipulating one's spine to relieve back pain. It's about as good as physical therapy and other EBM treatments.
` However, neck manipulation can tear arteries and increases the risk of stroke by five times. If neck manipulation were a drug, it would not survive FDA inspections because it is too much of a health hazard.

Homeopathy:

In Hahneman's time, medical doctors relied on the four humors, which later evolved into the 'hot' and 'cold' energy in modern Non-EBM practices. Methods of treatment based on this view involved experimenting with bloodletting and having patients ingest toxic minerals, treatments which did kill some of them.
` The best treatment a patient could get was to stay out of a hospital, and since homeopathy did not hurt patients, they had a better chance of surviving their illnesses. Apparently, Hahneman saved lives by keeping them away from doctors.
` In a very real way, by not killing people, homeopathy was superior to 19th century medicine!

Proving a substance generally involves telling people what to expect, so it's no surprise that they can develop matching symptoms. ...

As James Randi has quipped; "The First Law is that you take something that gives you symptoms; the Second Law is that you don't."

In modern times, Dr. Strauss rigorously tests homeopathy, using up lots of money despite the fact that he hasn't found anything yet.

I hope this jumble of assorted notes was not as exhausting to read as it was for me to type! Now, to put everything into its own place and, well, continue on with assemblage!

The old way is the best way!

2009-01-07T19:19:00.000-08:00

Now that I must write a chunk of Corrigendopedia every four days, I'm realizing just how tough that is to do as a full-time student who works out for an hour and does three hours of housework each day, plus errands.
` I'm actually taking most of the housework off today because I needed to finish homework. Compromises, compromises!

But I won't compromise the Corrigendopedia: Instead I will break down the process even further.

You see, writing the Corrigendopedia is not like writing in a blog. It has a different structure all its own. I know because I get mired in it every time I try to write a 'chunk' that is polished, yet fits into a linear sequence.
` I think it's a lot of unnecessary work, considering how long it takes for me to polish my work, and then have to go back and change it to help fit the next chunk.

Besides not having much computer time for various reasons since I've started this blog, I'd say that making this work at a 'blog level' is my main difficulty.

My original vision of the Corrigendopedia was a general outline of some topic or other that is linked to more detailed articles or examples so that the flow would not be interrupted.
` To do this the 'chunk' way, I've been attempting to write small pieces of a single article which either don't have very thorough explanations of the concepts within them, or are very limited in scope.

Since chunks don't help organize the website, nor do they make sense to put on a blog, I now realize that the technique I began with was actually close to the one I must use.

In order to build a base for the Corrigendopedia, I must organize key concepts, notes, etc, and gradually add on more material.
` But, as I had recognized before, that won't work on a blog, either, so I'll have to publish these notes in the Corrigendopedia itself before they are made into articles, making the process of editing transparent.
` To break up this monotony, I'll also have to write new essays and spruce up older ones.

I hate to do this again, but my fifteen minutes of typing is up, and I must now get around to finishing my homework and all the rest.

I'll have a sheaf of notes four days from now....

My Unintentionally 'New Year's' Resolution

2009-01-03T22:11:00.000-08:00

I've made many resolutions lately, especially in mid-December. (One of them is to continue looking for another second job.) The one that has fallen on New Year's just happens to be;

I will publish one blog post per day.

What kind of resolution is that, you ask? It sounds silly, to be sure. Supposedly, blogging is a waste of time, and making two posts per week is hard enough!

Not so: This time, the point of writing posts will be to publish material rather than have much material to offer, the main purpose being to get myself into a routine of going online every day.

Oh, getting online every day, you say. Isn't that a bad thing?

Not when you're neglecting your email.

What's more, I'll rotate from one blog to the next, so each blog will be updated every four days. Plus, I should be able to throw together some longer posts from time to time. (I think that's how P.Z. Myers must do it....)

The one challenge I have is... making time.

This resolution of mine was originally supposed to start near the end of December, but I kept having to do things that kept me away from the computer.
` Finally, I predicted a patch of free time before bed after our New Year's party, but no one showed up.
` I should have started in while I could, but instead I agreed to use the time to watch a movie with Lucas, which would end just before midnight. I figured that I'd go and type it up after it was over.
` I'm glad to say that I didn't feel like the movie was a waste of my time, considering the quality levels of the ones I've been exposed to lately.

But then, at about twenty 'til, just when the movie was getting to the good part, one of our associates brought a crowd of strangers into the house and we had to occupy them until 1:30 in the morning.
` And a mess was made of my rug, which I'd spent cleaning for four hours earlier that day, with a small broom, a fur-trapping cat brush and a wet towel. It sure looked nice while it lasted.

After that was over, I was too tired and busy with other things to come online, or even to pop my loose tooth back into place - now it's stuck at an odd angle.

However, the next day I made some time in my busy schedule of cleaning the entire kitchen, scrubbing the entire bathroom (even the walls) and sweeping the entire upstairs floor, to write up a tiny post for each of my three other blogs.
` That was a good move, because I was kept busy until about midnight upon which time I was too tired to go online and I went to bed. Only to be kept up until after 2 a.m. by Lucas snoring, the cats misbehaving, something going on outside, etc.

On January 2, after another two hours of cleaning my rug, and many other chores, I was in a good mood because I knew I'd get to bed on time this night. But first, I would gather up all my various projects together, and make plans using a new system I devised weeks before and was eager to finally get a chance to use it.
` I would figure out which step I need to take with each thing, and I knew exactly what I was going to propose for writing in that fourth blog post. Not only that, but I had a whole hour to reposition my messed-up tooth!

I felt better than I had in weeks.

Literally about ten seconds after I shut my door and had my stack o' projects spread out in front of me with a mug of cocoa to boot, Lucas popped his head in to tell me that this same person who came over last night was taking him out to a bar, and since neither of them could drive at the time, I would have to be their taxi service.

While this is not a nice kind of thing to have happen once, this was in fact the fourth time it had occurred, so perhaps you can understand my frustration.
` Yes, I've been trying for about a week now to get my long-term projects going 'in gear' without neglecting anything, and each time I've been called away for some reason. It's hard enough to duck into a room to write something in my scheduler!

So, I had to drive them to one bar, where I tried to work on my postcard (to G-Man), and as I was walking back to my car, feeling relieved to be going back home and getting to work before my plans faded from my mind completely, the guy drags us to another bar.
` That's nice and all, though Lucas and I would have rather been at home. Lucas was able to glean some enjoyment from a couple rounds of pool, though I was hiding a fair amount of frustration, partly because my loose tooth was starting to hurt.

Finally, we came back well after I was supposed to have been in bed, catching up on my sleep, and nothing had gotten done.
` What's irritating is not that it happened, but rather, the sheer amount of times this very same scenario goes on and I don't get any free time, which I estimate to be about one in three days.

Today I'm pretty tired after a long day of my daily regiment of cleaning the upstairs floors and going to the gym for an hour, plus other jobs such as; washing and folding several loads of laundry; scrubbing out the cat's litter box; and buying enough garbage cans for each room so that Lucas will stop throwing garbage on the floor.

Phew!

Once again, just prior to this post, I was just getting the gist of what I was going to write down about completing my projects and all, and what do you think happened? Oh yes, I got interrupted.
` Before I could even start.
This time I got so angry that I eventually forgot all my plans anyway and decided to come in here to vent so that perhaps I can get some rest tonight.

Almost every night I have to say, "I'll probably have time tomorrow" to at least one task. So what am I doing in here, anyway? I've been typing for fifteen precious minutes of my time!
` No matter - I don't know about you, but I feel better than I did before. And if you feel worse than before, I apologize.

Besides, I think that this post, warning all that there should be a new post about every four days, will be suffice for this cycle o' posts.
` Tomorrow, if I'm permitted, I'll start a new round of posts and hopefully be back here four days from now, instead of five.

Seriously, the days that are skipped in a daily routine do not exactly constitute a daily routine, do they? But the world does not revolve around my plans, does it?
` In fact, the only reliable and predictable thing in life seems to be that something will make my quest to develop good habits very difficult to establish, if I do at all.

I really do my best!

Anyway, I have to be well-rested by Monday, which is when college starts. The one post-a-day thing should come in really handy while I'm busy with school and homework and all that.

But, before I can sleep, I must reposition my tooth or it will stay stuck where it is! (And it hurts where it is!)

See you next round!

Meandering musings

2008-12-30T12:18:00.000-08:00

Ah, yet another post to briefly assure my readers that I'm still here for this blog.
` I was working on another dinosaurs post, and another more important one, and then got involved with housework and creating my own office space, piano included, and cleaning up the copious quantities of cat hair, pine needles and other dust that has crept underneath all the baseboard-less walls of the house. (We've had delays in construction.)

Also, since I've been laid off from yet another job, I've been fishing for another one of those. So far, no biters.

But I also have been thinking a lot. Three of the things on my mind are:

1) Why third generation (or '3G') cellular phone technology is all the rage in America. Last I checked, other developed countries are now well into '4G' and beyond. It's like a celebration of being slow to catch up!

2) Since I'm still on the search for a job, another thing that has come to my attention is looking presentable for job interviews. One of the criticisms my boyfriend has is that I tend to leave for them without parting my hair in a straight line.
` It looks straight to me. But apparently, there are subtleties that I do not fathom. If I ask my boyfriend 'is it straight?' I have no idea what answer I'll get.
` Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It all looks the same to me. I may work at it for minutes on end and still he doesn't think it's straight.

3) And then, of course, this gets me thinking of my friends. Of all the friends I have had - not counting roommates - I'm one of the few heterosexual ones. What's odd about this is that I feel somehow different because... I'm straight.
` Now that strikes me as significant: A trait that might be considered as 'usual' now becomes 'unusual'. I'm still trying to figure out what implications this may have.

I'm also excited to announce that I'll be starting up college once again on January 6. (Thank you, Financial Aid!) Most probably, I'll write about what I learned in class up here for all to read.
` Well, back to work! I'll come back soon with more stuff!

Update: Just so you don't think my blog-skimping has been meaningless, 'back to work' began with mucking up all the litter box excavations that had been scattered through the melting snow by raccoons.

Working around work...

2008-12-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

Somehow or another, I've managed to write a new 'chunk' on a new topic that should help to round out the content so far - dinosaurs!

It wasn't easy. First of all, I'm away from home about twelve hours a day, with no computer access: When I am home, most of my time is taken up by housework and other necessities.
` Of the time I set aside to write at the computer, I am interrupted at least once, either by power surges (from construction) which turn the computer off, or by people crowding into the room with me for several minutes, at which point I usually just go off and do something else for a while.

Nevertheless, I have finally succeeded in writing my first few bits about The Survival of the Dinosaurs. It's not entirely new, however:

My original vision, entitled Dinosaurs and their Descendants, was posted on my very first blog (on SEO-Blog) in five segments from April 30, 2005 to May 28, 2005.
` Later on, I re-edited it and posted it on the corresponding days on my first blog here at Blogger.

This time, it's getting a full makeover, and when the time comes to arrange it in the Corrigendopedia, it will be more fully updated and illustrated - by moi!
` Though I haven't done them yet, I think I can handle a few dinosaur-related illustrations: As a sample of my talent, here's a visual 'study' sketch that I did, years ago, working from a 'real life' Albertosaurus.

Real life Albertosaurus? That's right! After all...

(Click to enlarge.)
...So... they were actually models. Models that exist, in time and space, even!

Without further ado (or Albertosaurus sketches, alas), here's the new text:

The Survival of the Dinosaurs - Chunk 1

2008-12-08T22:32:00.000-08:00

When I was five years old, I was taught that dinosaurs had all died off, so there was no chance that I could ever see what they were like.
` If only I had known that real live dinosaurs lived in my own house, remnants of a lineage that had survived the great dinosaur extinction, I might have seen my pet birds in a very different way.

I remember how my grandma would cautiously peek through the front door before entering, with the question; "Is that robin in his cage?"
` Robby might have just as well been a ferocious meat-eating dinosaur as far as she was concerned - and he as well, judging by the way he gave chase.

It is with great irony that I later learned this isn't far from what all the scientific discoveries show; Robby's own grandparents, ones living way back in the Early Jurassic, actually were ferocious meat-eating dinosaurs!
` Technically, robins are but a 'new' species of dinosaur.

The idea that birds are but a branch on the dinosaur family tree was once controversial; however, after many decades of meticulous research and hundreds of amazingly well-preserved fossil finds, there is no longer much room for doubt.

I could go on, into great detail - so, where to begin?

Which Dinosaurs Are Birds Related To?

Over a century and a half has gone by since Thomas Henry Huxley recognized that birds have much in common with dinosaurs - and in particular, a group of meat-eaters with the strangely-spelled name of Coelurosaurs.
` The word is pronounced "see LOO-row saurs" and means "hollow reptiles", in reference to the air-filled sacs preserved in their bones. These air sacs are similar to the ones found in birds, and seem to have been connected to the lungs in a similar way.

Am I supposed to know what Coelurosaurs are?

If you've heard of Tyrannosaurus rex, then you know at least one! Undoubtedly, this is the most familiar coelurosaur species, though it is also among the most unusual:
` Whereas most coelurosaurs are rather small, with long, well-developed arms, you will know that Tyrannosaurus was huge and heavy, with short, stubby arms and massive jaws.

You might also be familiar with Velociraptor, made popular by the movie Jurassic Park, although it was much smaller in real life.
` Important to know about Velociraptor is the fact that it belongs to the dromaeosaur (DRO-mee-o saur) family.
` Four noticeable features of dromaeosaurs are 1.) the single, retractile sickle-shaped claw on each foot, 2.) long arms that could 'flap' like a bird's wings, 3.) opposable fingers, and 4.) reduced and fused tail bones, resulting in a stiff, rod-like tail.
` Though Velociraptor's skin has never been found, other dromaeosaurs are known to have had feathers almost exactly like those of adult birds, differing only in the complexity of microscopic hooks.

Why Are You Telling Me This?

Because, another famous coelurosaur is precisely what you'd expect if the fearsome Velociraptor had a smaller cousin that could fly.
` Known from several well-preserved specimens, the first few having been discovered in the 1800s, it has another strangely-spelled name; Archaeopteryx (say; "arkee OP-ta-ricks").

Though it was among the earliest birds known, Archaeopteryx - and its close kin - resembled the dromaeosaurs far more than they resembled any bird living today.
` Though its well-preserved feathers were identical to those of modern birds, Archaeopteryx had teeth similar to those of dromaeosaurs, as well as a fused, stiffened tail, grasping hands, and a sickle-shaped retractile claw, among many other characteristics.

In fact, one Archaeopteryx specimen with very poorly-preserved feathers had been thought - for a whole century - to be another tiny coelurosaur called Compsognathus (comp-sog NAY-thuss) until Dr. Peter Wellnhofer noticed the feathers in 1993.

So, when are you going into great detail about all this?

It starts in Chunk 2!

That was fast...

2008-11-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

I got a job just yesterday! I'll get back to writing posts... after Overeating Day.

Well, isn't this a predicament?

2008-11-24T19:14:00.000-08:00

As anyone can observe, I haven't spent much time posting here, or anywhere else. In fact, I haven't even checked my email, or read anything at all on the internet much either.
` Instead, I've been busy doing housework and searching for another job, as I've mentioned before.

But, as I've gotten laid off from one of my jobs, and since the other one doesn't actually pay money, and since one of my housemates/co-workers is going back to live with his parents, I need to find another source of income.

Until then, I am not permitted to go online for any purpose, except to notify people of this development.

I don't know when I'll be back. I've applied to hundreds of establishments, am currently with four different temp agencies, and have gone to several job interviews.
` Quite often, I'm only that close to succeeding, but never quite there.

Supposedly, this development (if one can call it that) will encourage me to work harder at getting a job. Not only that; I can spend the whole day looking for work, and with my evenings free, I can do household chores instead of being on the internet, or reading, or whatever.

Real great lifestyle change. I feel like a kid again... who's been grounded!

Well, wish me luck! I hope to be back here soon!

The Importance of Skepticism in Making Limeade

2008-11-20T14:47:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, my housemate Brad made an excellent gourmet dinner - as always - though I don't now remember what it was. I do, however, recall that part of the seasoning involved lime juice.
` After dinner, I saw the unjuiced half of the lime sitting on the counter and thought, "Won't I be clever if I use the rest of this lime... to make limeade?"
` So, I crushed the lime in such a way that most of the juice squirted out into a small glass, one of many sets of kitchen supplies given to us by people who have too many of their own. Since we also had just gotten yet more boxes of dishware, cheese graters, silverware, shakers, and the like, there were great stacks of them all around the kitchen and I didn't know where the sugar had gone to.

I asked Brad, who was probably at the time gathering together some furniture for housing all those things, if he knew where I might find some sugar. He said it was in the shaker by the toaster.
` I looked over at where the toaster had previously been for many weeks, though this space was now a hopeless-looking pile of kitchen tools. Right next to this pile was a small shaker full of white granules, so I thought nothing of pouring a great deal of it into the glass.

The taste test, however, revealed that it was, in fact, salt. It actually didn't taste bad, though I know better than to drink salt water.
` As for the toaster? It was at the other end of the room, unrecognizable with all manner of things piled on top of it, and I wouldn't have known if I was looking at it or not.
` The three of us present - Brad, Lucas and I - had a good laugh over this. Next time, I said, I would actually look for the toaster instead of just assume that because it is normally in one spot that it is still in the same place.

This is, indeed, similar to the way skeptics (including scientists) avoid making logical pitfalls, because if you really want to find the truth, you must always question your assumptions!

Just Say "No" To Quote-Mining!

2008-11-08T22:11:00.000-08:00

Many times I have worked to create written pieces which, in one way or another, convey this basic message:
1) The scientific process, ever-moving and ever-changing, depends on contradictions for expanding and refining our knowledge of the world.
2) This is the opposite of dogma, which resists change by denying the existence of contradictions.

For some of my readers, however, my message does not get across, and that can lead to some pretty interesting exchanges.

Specifically concerning religious dogma, I've written about how scientists discover the way the world works, while at the same time, people of some faith or another deny the results because their beliefs must come first.
` Some of them go so far as to oppose the existence of gravity, preferring the explanation that the hands of God literally hold everything down onto a flat earth.

I mention this to illustrate the fact that modern technology, and all of civilization, could not do what they do without the roundness of the earth. Airplane flight paths would be far different, while satellites would be an impossibility.
` How did we know what to do in order to make them work in the first place? From scientific explanations: Explanations with a history of trial and error, that are best at predicting what would happen if someone were to do 'X' (or if 'X' were to happen naturally); these explanations are known, in technical jargon, as 'scientific theories'.

So, scientific theories are much different than the common use of the word 'theory', which usually means something like 'hypothesis' or even less.

It was but three days ago that I received an email from a reader who insists that scientific theories are not well-established but instead little more than guesses. Even more, he said that the scripture of his own faith, which has itself been changed and reinterpreted through the millennia to begin with, is every bit as reliable as actual observation and research.
` He wrote:

Who cares where the truth comes from? Truth is truth, right? You are so blind if you cannot see truth when if it is in the Bible because all you do is shun religion, you don't care about being objective as you say. Why can't you just admit that scientists don't know everything.
Believe it or not, I read in an article in the New York Times that even your astrophysicist boyfriend [huh?] Neil DeGrasse Tyson, agrees with me:

Scientists may scoff at people who fall back on explanations involving an intelligent designer, he said, but history shows that “the most brilliant people who ever walked this earth were doing the same thing.”

I quickly found this article online; the title is A Free-For-All on Science and Religion by NYT science writer George Johnson.
` To be honest, I strongly doubt this person has ever laid eyes on it. Either that, or he was not counting on me to actually check out his source, as is important in critical thinking, because what I found shows that, while the quote is from Tyson, his message was in fact the opposite of what it appears.
` I think the next few paragraphs speak for themselves (emphases mine):

When Isaac Newton’s “Principia Mathematica” failed to account for the stability of the solar system — why the planets tugging at one another’s orbits have not collapsed into the Sun — Newton proposed that propping up the mathematical mobile was “an intelligent and powerful being.”

And we found that it wasn't, now, was it? That was Tyson's real point! And he had far more to say, too:

It was left to Pierre Simon Laplace, a century later, to take the next step. Haughtily telling Napoleon that he had no need for the God hypothesis, Laplace extended Newton’s mathematics and opened the way to a purely physical theory.

You see there? Laplace and others would have been saved a lot of work if Newton hadn't given up when he did (or at least appear to).

“What concerns me now is that even if you’re as brilliant as Newton, you reach a point where you start basking in the majesty of God and then your discovery stops — it just stops,” Dr. Tyson said. “You’re no good anymore for advancing that frontier, waiting for somebody else to come behind you who doesn’t have God on the brain and who says: ‘That’s a really cool problem. I want to solve it.’ ”

In other words, a "no we can't" attitude, of any type, has no place in scientific advancement. You gotta keep going, even when it seems hopeless for anyone to crack the problem. Otherwise, you have zero chance of a deeper understanding.
` Tyson goes on, in the article:

“Science is a philosophy of discovery; intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance,” he said. “Something fundamental is going on in people’s minds when they confront things they don’t understand.”

He told of a time, more than a millennium ago, when Baghdad reigned as the intellectual center of the world, a history fossilized in the night sky. The names of the constellations are Greek and Roman, Dr. Tyson said, but two-thirds of the stars have Arabic names. The words “algebra” and “algorithm” are Arabic.

But sometime around 1100, a dark age descended. Mathematics became seen as the work of the devil, as Dr. Tyson put it. “Revelation replaced investigation,” he said, and the intellectual foundation collapsed.

There! Now we've read the rest of what Tyson had said, before this person had so rudely cut him off. That wasn't so hard, was it?
` Apparently, however, he either did not take the time to read this himself, or at least expected me to just take the quote at face value.
` Even more importantly, you can see that Tyson, in fact, agrees with me rather than him! In fact, some of what I've written in the past has been inspired by his words.

So... what the heck's going on? Does this guy honestly think he can fool me by taking a quote out of context? Especially someone I'm familiar with, though let's get one thing straight - he isn't my boyfriend:
` I only commented that I can see how he can be considered to be the World's Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive.

Because he is. In People Magazine, anyway.

So, I am sorry, dear e-mailer, but according to Tyson, we must try ideas to test their worth and discard them if they are useless, whereas dogma - and there are many types - cannot, or is not to be tried, because by definition it is to be accepted without evidence.

So, there is 'truth' - that which is to be accepted, in your opinion, because of where it was printed (your Bible) and there is 'truth' - that which is to be accepted because it happens for real (in reality).
` If you can't interpret your religion to be consistent with modern findings of cosmology, biology and human nature, I'd say it's because your understanding is outdated a couple thousand years.

There is nothing you can do to make me believe that a scientist, while speaking about what science is, and how it is important, is really saying that science can be replaced by what you personally believe in.

The moral of the story? There are at least two:

The first one might be said as, 'Resist the temptation to mine through science writing for the one quote that glitters with ambiguity, for deceiving others is wrong - "Thou shall not bear false witness" as you might say.'
` The second one is; 'Do not trust those who will say anything to make an enemy out of those with differing views - and always check their sources.'

There could also be a third: 'Do not be so eager to use mined quotes against me, for publicly exposing logical fallacies - and their relations - is something that I am even more eager to do.'

It's great to be back on my own computer....

2008-11-03T11:06:00.000-08:00

That's right! I finally got the first article done and there's still more good news!

After a month of shunning the importance of 'playing around on the computer' as at least two of my housemates regard it, I finally got the junk cleared out of the office, and even persuaded them to let me use my own 'computer furniture' (a nightstand and an endtable) so that I could set up my own computer and actually turn it on for once! (It's been about a month.)
` The consequence of this, I hope, will be more posts here, as well as new posts on my other blogs!

I ask myself why I didn't do this earlier - besides my reluctance to give others fuel for shaming me about treating my blog as a sort of 'writing job' on which I have a regular 'work schedule' and even 'deadlines', which have been more trouble than they're worth to meet.
` I guess I just didn't take it, well, serously enough; though I also would have done this earlier if I hadn't been under the impression that I would have my own computer space by... weeks ago. Each day I kept telling myself, "Oh, what's a few more days?"
` But, as it always turned out, there's been a lot more remodeling to be done in the new place than we had bargained for (we're getting this house done the right way rather than the 'fire hazard' way) so, that didn't happen.

After my harrowing experience with just getting one Corrigendopedia article online - especially considering its length - I decided that I couldn't take the pressure of the constant teasing and being kicked off the office computer every half hour, so I set to work clearing out the mountain of things in 'storage' here.
` So, that took about the first six hours of of yesterday - the other six involved laundry and cleaning all the floors and bathroom using a most frustrating and environmentally unfriendly method; rolls and rolls of paper towels!
` Then I spent a couple hours of today scrubbing down 'my' furniture, wiping the sawdust and plaster powder off my computer, and then finding a way to arrange everything so that I can comfortably use it without being stepped on. (It was quite a puzzle!)

In truth, this process was actually hurried along by the fact that Nate needed some photos I took of him working on-set and had just discovered that my camera doesn't work with Macs (though it's almost identical to his camera).
` To my surprise, he had no idea that I hadn't even turned on my PC, much less used it, since we'd moved in so now I actually have a legitimate excuse to have my computer hooked up now! Just as long as I continue to be the photographer....

Let's hope my excuse endures long enough for me to get some new (or at least old) posts up on this blog. I can't wait to open my Corrigendopedia!
` For now, however, I must go. There is yet more work to do. Thankfully, I'll be using rags this time rather than paper towels.

It's Huge! It's Collossal! It's My First Post, At Last!

2008-11-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

Below lies the first piece I am presenting as a part of the vast body of writing known as the Corrigendopedia. It is not what I had originally been writing; that article was actually of an ideal subject for introducing the whole purpose of the Corrigendopedia.
` This one may not, but this is a blog, not a book; it doesn't necessarily matter in what order I post things, just so long as they get into the Corrigendopedia (where they will then be placed into book-like order).

As I've mentioned - in this comment here - I'm having some difficulty finding enough time to write new posts in a consistent manner, so what I can do instead is go back through earlier blog posts and re-write them for the Corrigendopedia.
` By the time I've incorporated much of this material, I should have a sufficient framework on which to build and add 'layers', etc.

The first one I've chosen to post is appropriate for Halloween, and boy is it a doozy! Like many of my past articles, it's extremely long and thorough, though this one also required much video footage review (as reference), so there's little wonder that it took me several hours to complete it.
` Despite the fact that I get kicked off the computer virtually every day, I was still on schedule for posting it on Halloween: However, the only computer available to me during my scheduled internet time that day was being used for watching a movie - which wasn't even very good, as it turned out.
` How could such a travesty possibly happen to me? Well, this time I learned that when our Nate is gone (along with his laptop), and cannot be reached by phone, figuring out how to operate his DVD player is beyond the ability of the rest of us.
` So, no playtime for me!

Can't wait to get some space where I can set up my own computer!

Well, it's movie time again. Good thing I'm done. Without further ado the first ghost of writing for the Corrigendopedia!

World's Scariest? Or World's Least Convincing?

2008-11-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

Originally posted Tuesday, October 23, 2007.

This article is about illusions - specifically some illusions caught on tape and marketed as reality. But first of all, we should ask ourselves; what is an illusion?
` They are natural to human perception - so natural, in fact, that having normal vision relies on them: Our brains employ mental shortcuts that normally give us the right picture - but if certain elements are taken away, our brain still fills in the gaps, even in error.
` In the realm of vision, these mistaken perceptions are more commonly called 'optical illusions'.
` However, with any of our perceptions, we can be deceived by having to fill in particularly large gaps; the less one knows, the more one's brain must compensate by 'filling in' the missing parts.

I admit, I've been fooled many times due to lack of information: For example, just last weekend, my boyfriend Lucas and I received a phone call from a man who identified himself as 'Officer Hampton' from the local police, asking about a murder in our friendly little ghetto [which I thankfully moved out of a year later].
` We didn't exactly buy that, so we wound up exchanging a few words with him and the police.
` Long story short, the same man called later, while Lucas was out, claiming that he was actually a friend of the neighbors and that they were now going to kill Lucas for telling actual police officers about the homicide.
` I immediately locked the door and began breathing into a paper bag. I'd thought those neighbors had moved to this state in order to start a new, crime-free life. It didn't make sense to me, but what did I know?
` After hours of trembling on the floor, locked in my apartment, I was more than glad when Lucas came home in one piece! Coincidentally, it was also at this time when the police had finally called me back about my claim.
` Lucas was on the phone with the police sergeant just as he was approaching to arrest the neighbors, when another call came in. It was a guy we knew who wanted to talk business, but Lucas had no time for this. Just as he was about to hang up, the guy said; "Oh, by the way, I'm Officer Hampton! Wasn't that funny?"

We let him know just how much it wasn't.

This is just one of many times in my life that I have been mortally terrified due to a lack of information: By the mere fact that I could not see who was calling, I had believed that this unusual acquaintance of ours was a seedy thug, and it almost got our normalcy-seeking neighbors arrested!

This is exactly the type of reason that I prefer to look before I leap to conclusions. But I admit, I was fooled. I very much wanted to knock on my neighbors' door and ask them if they knew what was going on. I almost did. But, 'almost' doesn't count as any kind of investigation.

In the world of television, commercial TV producers and even news journalists deliberately exploit their viewers' lack of information so that they can promote a sensational idea. As I've previously explained - in great detail - the purpose of this is to keep people watching.

In this article, I'm dealing with programs - specifically one in particular - that present people's claims of ghostly encounters just as they are told, no questions asked.
` To me, these shows seem pretty simple to throw together: First, pick a sensational topic, interview a bunch of people who claim to have real experience with said topic, then use editing effects and scary music to make it look like a TV drama!
` To give the impression of having a balanced perspective, you can even display a scientist or skeptical expert on the matter as long as you leave his arguments on the cutting-room floor; be sure to select only a few out-of-context sound bites that make him look like a complete know-nothing.
` This is very important because if the claims are portrayed as being dubious or ridiculous, the viewers may realize that the program is not actually being serious and would begin asking what joker would even present this stuff in the first place.
` Even more gravely, the viewer might actually... change the channel!

Frightening indeed!

Please keep in mind, however, that I don't outright reject evidence for ghosts: Besides, this is a television show (hello?) where entertainment value comes before everything else.
` In fact, you might be surprised to know that there was a time in my life when I would have thought this program to be proof positive of real supernatural goings-on: Secure in my knowledge that 'real' paranormal events were being showcased, I tried, just for fun, to see if I could interpret the videos as having more 'earthly' explanations.

When I began to open my mind to this perspective, I noticed just how easy it was.

For this program, called World's Scariest Ghosts, and which you can watch online along with my walk-through, I offer the viewer a whole slew of ordinariness to think about when when considering any so-called 'ghost video' they may see.
` You will find the link for viewing this program, in its entirety, shortly below.

The opening narrative of World's Scariest, concerning the ghostly cases presented in the show, states, "...But none can be authenticated. Are they real? You decide."
` I'll get around to those questions after my analysis, but first let us ask; "Why, pray tell, are the viewers supposed to be the ones to decide?"
` As you will see, it is because the so-called 'paranormal investigators' and 'experts' are not shown making any attempts to verify the paranormal claims. Instead, they profess to believe the claimants and encourage whatever drama is already present.

And see you can, right on the computer screen: World's Scariest Ghosts. That's the link. Go there.
` But, before you really get into it, I suggest reading my careful examination of the first few segments or so and then "decide for yourself" what is most looks like.

Mysterious Liquid, Noises, and People Generally Freaking Out

The first segment deals with a woman, 'Jackie' who says she kept feeling like there was evil activity in her home, and that it has to do with a reddish-orange liquid pooled on a shelf in her cabinet, apparently dripping down from above.

I may as well tell you that there is also a sticky, reddish-orange liquid that falls on me as I step out of the shower each day. [One of many reasons I am glad to have since moved out!] After considerable scrutiny, I've determined this much:
` That a), the hideousness of my [former] bathroom ceiling is actually caused by the many tears and cracks in what must have been, at one time, wallpaper;
` and b) that wallpaper, having been painted over decades ago, evidently contains pockets of filthy wallpaper paste which liquefies and drips down when exposed to steam, which c), makes me want to get back into the shower!

Critically, we see no one asking what this liquid even is, nor do we see anyone try to find out where it comes from - as we would in a legitimate investigation!
` To these types of ghost 'experts', 'something strange in the neighborhood' is all the evidence they need to get a positive ID.

For all we know, the fluid could even have been put there on purpose, as we don't actually see it emerging from nowhere.
` However, as with my [former] bathroom ceiling, it appears to be something like gluey water leaching out from between two pieces of wood in the cabinet. Did you notice that's where the drips are forming?

The stomping noises heard in Jackie's attic might conceivably be water dripping on metal or the roof changing shape due to temperature - I generally ignore similar sounds, as they are ever-present at my own [previous] dwelling.
` Of course, that is partly because the attic above my [former] apartment is alternately occupied by tweekers doing meth, homeless people taking shelter, or a combination of the two.

Next up, we see the first of the two the ghost 'investigators' lifting himself into the attic, (starting with a shot of his feet rising as if floating), while the narrator says: "At that moment, they were attacked." It may be important to clarify that they were both fully inside the attic when we hear the screams, in case you misremember what happens:
` 'Investigator' Jeff Wheatcraft returns with a very startled look, claiming that he was almost strangled by a cord hanging from a nail. The culprit? A ghost.
` In truth, similar creepifying things have happened to me. I don't know how, but my head has been known to go through loops of various materials when I'm probing around attics/basements with a flashlight; I don't see them until I back away and find that something is wrapped around my neck!
` Presumably, he could also have been staging this 'assault' - or exaggerating something that happened accidentally. He has good reason to here because it's required on these shows - one reason I sometimes call them 'paranormal reality TV'.
` Interestingly, this incident happens out of view of the TV camera: All we see of this is a photograph of a fearful-looking Jeff standing with his head at an odd angle.

Towards the end of this all-night investigation, a probably sleep-deprived Jackie goes ballistic because she believes the ghost has attacked her four-month-old daughter.
` Evidence? Jackie says she suddenly noticed a faint red mark on the baby's forehead. It could be a bruise that took a while to appear, or - who knows? - it could be some of that dripping red stuff!
` Whatever it was could have even been there for a while before she was consciously aware of it. Perhaps, in the middle of a period of time when she saw nothing happening, she may have looked down, finally spotted it, and thought it must have just appeared seconds ago.
` Because of this 'ghost attack', we are told, she moved away after that episode and the house has been quiet ever since.

To me, that statement seems to say more about Jackie than the house.

In any case, there is nothing that can be seen or heard that is really unusual - just the way the people are reacting - we see no attempts to narrow down possibilities of what may be going on and Jackie's account is taken at face value.

Objects Moving With No Visible Cause

The second segment is a bit better than the first because it supposedly shows actual poltergeist activity before our eyes! The first of these videos shows a glass being dragged across a table, towards one edge of the frame. Then, the typewriter's roller also lazily moves in the same direction - just as one would expect something to move if someone was standing off to the side pulling on some fishing line.
` Then, a chair is mysteriously pushed out from under the table, which leads me to think that someone could be concealed behind the tablecloth and another flat surface in the foreground. After that, the reclining chair rocks just a little bit (more fishing line) and we hear the sound of the door being slammed again and again (though the door is not in frame).

The next video, shot by someone else, apparently shows some 'invisible force' grabbing the leg of a chair and dragging it offscreen; then, a piece of sheet rock appears momentarily at the edge of the frame as it is pulled from the wall by one corner.
` Invisible force? Sure; fishing line is even more invisible on videotape than it is on film. The simplicity of the movements (i.e. objects moving in a straight line from certain discrete attachment points) would suggest its heavy use here.

Who, exactly, is responsible for these incidents? It's hard to say; however, anyone can do them with some fishing wire and a little ingenuity. Odd? Perhaps. Unexplainable? Definitely not.

A Family Secret?

"Meet professional demonologists, Ed and Lorraine Warren." Yes, let's do meet them:

I ought to mention first that their best evidence for paranormal activity includes a video in which a young man was taped standing in a room when an indistinct shape comes into view close to the side of the camera.
` Much like a hand reaching for the 'record/stop' button.
` Then, the whole room - flickering candles and all - suddenly changes; most notably, the young man is missing.
` Much like a moment from the classic sitcom, Bewitched!
` "He just disappeared!" Ed had claimed.
` Curiously, the guy in the video didn't seem to notice anything unusual had happened at that time, reporting that he had stood in the room briefly and then went upstairs.

Oh, and we can't forget the cursed antiques in their basement - the Warrens warned of certain doom if you touch them! This is, of course, a good reason why critical investigators enjoy touching them so much. You know, to check for certain doom. Nothing yet, as far as I know.

Anyway, Ed Warren, who died last year (presumably leaving the antiques of doom to Lorraine), is probably best-known for his involvement in the Amityville 'Horror' - which later was uncovered to have more to do with the troubles of a dysfunctional family than any poltergeist.
` In the next video, we have Ed and Lorraine gathered around a table with another family, under the pretense of communicating with another poltergeist (or, what Ed calls a 'demon').

As with a spiritualist séance, we hear what sound like intentional tapping noises supposed to be responses from the demon: This could easily be faked by any one of the people sitting around the table, or even Ed.
` In fact, I ought to mention:
` The entire Spiritualism movement (mediums, séances, etc.) was started in 1848 by the young Fox sisters, who found clever ways to trick people into thinking that their questions were being answered by ghostly rapping sounds.
` Later on, they came up with new tricks, such as producing lights, ghostly hands and 'spirit-writing'.
` By the time Margaret Fox began a tour of public demonstrations of how she could seem to produce rapping sounds from any part of a theater (in reality they came from her toe), spiritualism in general had become far too popular for her to stop.
` In fact, the very spiritualists she had created accused her of being paid to make people think it was a fraud, and she later recanted her demonstrations.
` So, who knows? Someone could be using their techniques of tapping the table with their foot or cracking their toe joint against it. The camera does not even peer under the table!

Afterwards, we see footage of the table itself, with Ed apparently alone and to the left of the video camera. One of the chairs moves toward the spot where Ed apparently is, pulled by one leg.
` (Say, I wonder if fishing line is one of the basic tools of a demonologist?)
` Then, the chair moves again, while at precisely the same time the camera is also bumped - my guess is that this was Ed knocking into the camera while pulling the chair himself.
` Then, "in the name of Jesus Christ", the entire table along with the chairs slides towards Ed, apparently dragged by fishing wire threaded between the chair and table legs.

Again at the table, we next find the little girl doing homework, and her elbows are firmly braced against the tabletop while her feet are wrapped around the front legs of her chair. Can you do that right now where you're sitting?
` Try it!
` Importantly, make sure your feet are touching the chair legs, but not the floor, and that your upper torso is supported by your elbows (not your hands). Then, do a little 'abdominal crunch' to lift your knees up. The chair goes right back on two legs, doesn't it?

I don't think it works with swivel chairs, though....

This move is apparently what this girl is doing, and yet, what is it said to be? 'Oh, her feet aren't touching the floor, which means she can't be doing this herself; therefore, it's unexplainable, and that means a ghost must be responsible.'
` Not only is that a huge leap of logic, the truth is really the opposite; you can't tip a chair like that without your ankles or feet 'grabbing' it like hers are. To prove this point, all you have to do is try tipping the chair again, this time with your feet on the floor.
` Doesn't work, does it? Your feet may leave the floor, but since they are not braced against the chair, it does not move with them.

After this, when the table is 'pulled out' from under her, she simply appears to be pushing it away - which similarly can only be done if one's feet are hanging onto the chair for leverage.
` If someone puts their feet on the floor and pushes, they are simply pushed away from the table.
` Try it yourself!

(Still doesn't work with swivel chairs, though!)

Waking Up, Unable To Move

Here are some eyewitnesses describing some perfectly plausible scenarios where in which they wake up in the middle of the night to see figures, feel presences, even communicate with beings.
` I have had many of these experiences myself since the age of two.

The most recent, as of this writing, was opening my eyes one morning to see that I was on my side, with a view of the floor beside my mattress. I couldn't move.
` My first thought was; 'Oh, this again.'
` Then, I heard someone walking across the floor and step onto the mattress, which I could feel sinking down behind me.
` Judging from the voice which followed, it was a man, who told me he was going to do some bad things.
` "No." I said.
` "Yes," he replied from high above my ear.
` Suddenly, my imagination ran away with me and I started to think, for a moment, that he actually existed outside of my head. I finally managed to move enough to roll over, finding nothing there but the walls and ceiling.
` Even that didn't stop me from having to take a minute to calm myself down.

I've had many similar experiences, though with a variety of characters, from a roommate wrestling with a cat, to completely floating off through the wall and into an alien spaceship.

It's called 'sleep paralysis' - it can be a usual occurrence for some people, and can happen to seemingly anyone under certain conditions, especially if they are under a lot of stress.
` It's a period of time - either when falling asleep or waking up - when some of your brain is awake - so you might think you're wide awake - while other parts are not.
` As a result, it can really appear to you as if something is watching you, as if your chest is being crushed, as if you are being restrained, as if you are being raped, as if you are being lifted off your bed, as if you are being rotated, as if small creatures are kidnapping you, or anything else that could possibly happen in your wildest dreams if you should suddenly find yourself mysteriously bound and helpless.

According to records going back many centuries, these experiences tend to be very emotional; even sleep researchers who know what's going on are not immune to having a terrifying experience.

The key feature to an episode is that you can't move: When you are dreaming, the part of your brain that allows voluntary movement is shut down. (Otherwise, you would act out your dreams. Conversely; sleepwalking is different because it takes place between dreams when you aren't paralyzed anyway.)
` During sleep paralysis, part of you is aware of the room around you while part of you is 'dreaming'. So, while you're still unable to move, you may have strange and unusual sensations around you that are often influenced by the paralysis itself, including vivid hallucinations that you may or not be able to distinguish from reality.
` That doesn't mean you're crazy, of course, just that you're not fully awake, so you're not experiencing reality like you normally would.

What these people are describing are textbook cases of sleep paralysis - being paralyzed, feeling as if they're being held down, being unable to speak, seeing people and white lights, sensing telepathic communication, etc.
` Classic examples.
` So, I would say that in this segment, we have typical examples of a phenomenon that's well-known and fairly common - up to 40% of people report at least one episode.
` The very fact that they are, I think, convinced, that something has happened in the 'real world' outside their heads is still in agreement with known cases.

In other words, it's fairly certain that something truly ordinary has happened to these people. How can that be evidence for something extraordinary?

Wildland Music Video 'Figure'

It boggles my mind how "everyone" filming a music video in the ruins of a mining town could miss the most obvious explanation behind a figure that they claimed not to see while they were actually there!

You only have to ask; why did they not see it until they watched the video?

I'd say that the most important things about this shape's appearance is the fact that 1) it doesn't move, and 2), that there is an empty space where the head should be.
` It doesn't help that the image is black and white and not in focus, so all we have is a twisted, dark lump that vaguely resembles clothing worn by a (headless) human with its arms and legs crossed and leaning against a column from what is left of a wall.
` Because it does not overlap with the top and side of the column, it would actually appear to be some sort of debris that has fallen behind the structure.

Above this tall 'lump' is a much smaller dark shape that appears to be of the same stuff, projecting out from behind the wall just above the 'lump'; it looks to be part of the same object, curled around behind the column.
` It is positioned just so that it looks like it could be a hat, reminiscent of the Invisible Man, complete with background objects creating a contiguous image both above and below the 'hat'.

The whitish part of the background moves at a different rate as the figure, and so it can be seen to pass behind the column. If you don't realize, however, that it is the background, it can look like a featureless object between the 'hat' and 'coat' that moves off to one side.
` That is basically what the cinematographer says, or to put it in his words; "There was no face on the figure, and the face is slightly disjointed from the body." (At least I think that's what it's supposed to mean - right?)
` He apparently has failed to realize that the 'face' (or 'no face'?) is obviously connected to the rest of the background several meters beyond the dark object.

I suppose I can't blame him; the optical illusion of pareidolia - the ability to see six-legged pigs in clouds, or hear a message in Stairway to Heaven played backwards, etc. - is extremely common and yet probably not much known among rock groups and camera crews.

Why bother to bring a historian on to tell about the nearby deaths of poor miners or priests if all one simply needs is a closer look to find the real explanation? Oh yeah, I almost forgot; pareidolia is far more ordinary than ghosts.
` While such illusions are easy for most people to 'get' - especially when they know what they are supposed to be seeing - it is not so easy for some of these people to realize that what they're looking at is, in fact, an illusion.
` As the producer of the video said; "There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that that was a ghost."

Personally, I'd rather believe my own eyes.

A Projected Light

This video seems to show a projected light that is moving across the surface of one side of the hallway wall, flittering over door frames and other objects to the far end of the hall, and then sliding nearer, over the surface of the other long wall and off the edge of the screen.
` The shape is flat, narrow, and near the floor, apparently unvarying except for the fact that it is distorted by the objects it's hitting - it looks like it could be a reflection, or from a car headlight coming in from a crack beneath a curtain.
` But, the man who lives in the house, Edgar, apparently thinks it's actually the ghostly arm of his mother, walking across the hall and into a doorway. (I don't see anything like an arm, nor do I see it stop at any doorway.)

That's because he's set up the camera to film whatever's making all these footsteps he hears at night. That sounds like what I used to hear in the house my grandpa had once lived in... when he was alive!
` I could hear them from the upper floor and the basement alike. I'd thought it was just temperature changes in the wood, but silly me, it could have been his ghost! Even more strangely, I also heard them when he was still alive and sitting in a chair....
` Curiouser and curiouser!

The Greencastle Mansion

Onto some photos of the abandoned mansion during a spooky lightning storm! First of all, the photographer says that there's a strong smell like sulphur and roses. I'm not sure what smells like sulphur and roses, though there's no reason an unfamiliar smell would be supernatural.
` Perhaps something's been rotting in there for a while? Or maybe it has to do with ozone from the lightning storm?
` He also says that he feels a presence and hears a heartbeat in his head that isn't his. Since he is surrounded by cameras, what evidence of the supernatural can he show us?

In some photos he took, there seems to be light reflecting off the 'melted'-looking old glass. Know how I can tell they're not inside the window? Look closely: The edges of these 'apparitions' are actually in front of the inner part of the window frame, coinciding exactly with where the glass is!
` That would also explain why the 'Pink Lady' doesn't seem to move, so much as shift a bit over the surface of the glass. So, unless ghosts typically manifest themselves on glass, I don't think there's much evidence of anything beyond the grave, much less the window.

Still, some beg to differ. Observe the 'photographic expert', who is astonished to find that the photos taken really are on the film. Of course they're on the film! Where else would photographs of window reflections come from?
` Then, Sean Dempsey, a 'computer graphics expert' is shown distorting the images with a special effects filter called 'bas relief' which I'm familiar with after spending my teenage years editing photos to create utter 'monsterpieces'.
` In my experience, this filter tends to exaggerate images in such a way that photos of real people become images of horrifyingly-distorted zombies and the like. Which was one of the ways I could make them more grotesque.
` And yet, our 'expert', Dempsey, is baffled to see that the filter has made the 'face' look like a skull. Why he's so surprised, I can't say. Even more puzzling is the question of why he did not at least examine the edges of the 'ghost', which were quite visible in the enlargement on his screen.
` Not noticing that the 'ghost' is apparently confined to the glass, his conclusion is, well, a bit colored. (Pink?) "It's either a real photo of a ghost," he says, "or it was done with a photographic technique that I don't know about."

Or he could just be missing some vital information. All the same, it now becomes necessary to find out who once lived in the house.
` The photographer, Guy, believes the 'Pink Lady' is the ghost of a woman, one Irene O'Hair; he also found this very same name scratched on a bedroom wall. Possibly by Irene, when she was alive, I would think.
` There's also the matter of the 'Gold Ghost', on yet another window. Much like the 'Pink Lady', it is a blob-like shape that can be seen in front of the inside of the window frame. Which leads me to ask; why does Guy insist on using a flash? That's probably what's causing it!

As for the 'ghostly' clouds; their breath-like rhythm suggests the cameraman's exhallations drifting through the flashlight beam:
` I have inadvertently videotaped my own breath sneakily doing the same thing, so I have learned not to turn my head and breathe across the camera frame, especially when it is cool or humid.
` And, like the 'mist', it even moves from left to right like that because I (like most people) hold the camera in my right hand.

On a related note, someone I know sent me a picture he took while working as 'the chainsaw guy' in a haunted corn maze last year. He did not expect to see this:

I hope it's friendly....

Strange Shapes in Photos

After more bits of descriptions of random ghostly encounters, we move onto photos of a little girl named Carrissa. Photos containing what appear to be a typical camera strap, except it's enormous-looking, overly-bright and so out-of-focus that it could not possibly be anywhere near Carissa in the room.
` But, wait a minute; that would mean the only way it could be a camera strap is if it was somehow... attached to the camera itself!!

How can we possibly explain this?

Hey, maybe that's the camera's own strap hanging down and into the picture! That would explain why the 'entities' would be photographed around a child and not an adult; the person taking the picture would be looking downwards rather than straight across the room.
` It would also explain why the shapes are mostly white (from the light of the flash bouncing off) with only a little black, and have a distinctive, camera-strap-like ribbing.
` Note also that these shapes all curve in the same orientation, as if part of a loop were hanging down from somewhere along the right side of the camera. On top of that, some of the photos show two distinct and parallel straps, as if this loop were... meant to be adjusted in size by the human hand!

But no, that's too easy; while the mother says she would believe a good enough argument against her belief that these are ghosts, no 'experts' are consulted this time. Perhaps they would (or did) say exactly what the producers didn't want to air, thus ensuring that the 'mystery' would be safe on TV!
` Instead, we get our expert opinion from the grandmother, who says; "What we're seeing in the photos is just saying 'We're here, we're part of your world, you have to trust and believe in us, too, and just because you can't see us with your eyes doesn't mean that we don't exist.'"
` Right. Because film, which captures light only from three narrow wavelengths - much like the cones in the human retina - also has the secret property of picking up 'spirit photons'!

Orrrr, maybe it's just the camera strap.

Then, the narrator tells us that her story is "strangely similar to the fictional film The Sixth Sense." According to the information presented, Carissa has not said that she sees 'dead people' or other strange things - only that something is "scaring" her - so what is the parallel again?

A Little Boy's Story

In this segment, we at least find one parallel with the movie in that six-year old Justin does claim to see ghosts. But, what do the photos reveal? That the strap on his parents' camera is wider, or at least shorter than the one shown in the Carissa photos; take note of how much more it tends to hug the lower right-hand portion of the frame.
` Could little Justin be lying, or exaggerating something that he thought he saw? Let's see; his wide eyes and nervous smile suggest to me that he is intimidated by being taken seriously. Maybe he isn't being serious? Especially in the melodramatic way that he says "closer, and closer, and closer, and closer...."
` Honestly, kids have told me tales of Bloody Mary and other ghostly sights and sounds with a much straighter face than that.

The many-times-over-exposed fake, James Van Praagh, is precisely the wrong person to introduce into this situation, because his job is exploiting people for money - even if it's giving them his (completely wrong) guesses as to what's happened to their missing child, or other vital information.
` The look on Justin's face while Van Praagh is 'investigating' on this scene seems to betray thoughts something along the lines of; 'Wow, I can't believe he's agreeing with me!'
` If Justin is just making stuff up (and since it's been well-established that Van Praagh does the same thing) he is of course going to agree that the police sketches are what he sees.

Regardless of Justin's thoughts, the only 'evidence' of ghosts here are camera straps and lots of talk. Nothing I haven't seen before.

Dots and Spots

Here we see Linda Davis walking around a basement, claiming to use her psychic powers to see luminous 'orbs'. If that is so, then why is the cameraman the one telling her where they are and how they're moving? Can he see them, too, despite not having psychic powers?
` The first 'orbs' seem to be very faint unless they are flying directly across the infrared spotlight mounted on the camera. Judging by the way they're fluttering, I'd say that these are moths, though others look like bits of cobwebs and similar things drifting on the air currents.

I knew we'd have a 'ghost-hunting' squad sooner or later. They're all about anomalies (read = fluctuations of things they think they're measuring). They forget to ask, though; what readings are 'normal'? What would they expect to find in a non-haunted house?

Houses are full of all kinds of fluctuations in temperature and in electromagnetic fields - especially in basements where all the utilities are crowded for access. For another thing, ghost-hunters in general (like the ones on the series Ghost Hunters) don't seem to know what their equipment is actually supposed to measure.
` The thermometer gun he's using, for example, picks up only the surface temperature of the object it is pointed at, yet they are all-too-often interpreted as displaying a readout of the temperature of the air just in front of the gun.
` That's a very important difference: If you point it towards people and cold walls alternately, I would imagine the temperature readout would go up and down wildly.
` As for electromagnetic readings; these detectors pick up plenty of signals from both camera equipment and electrical wires in the house (although this particular house is said to be abandoned). Some of them also need to be pointed along different axes before any readings can be made.

Before one can really go into that, we must ask what to expect in a house without paranormal activity. After all, you can't have 'anomalies' if you don't actually know what's normal and what's not.
` Unfortunately, I can't tell what is going on from what I see here, so who knows what he is really reading and whether or not it's unusual?

In any case, I'm not sure of what a true 'anomalous' reading would really demonstrate. After all; do we actually know what kinds of readings ghosts are supposed to give off in the first place? Or, will perceived strangeness suffice?

In the next part of this segment, we have a family who says they came home to find that their furniture had been moved, with strange lights and voices all around. Maybe there were burglars, or squatters. If not, it doesn't mean that anything is paranormal.
` This reminds me of story related by Jay Leno, from before he was famous, when he came home to find his clothes and other belongings strewn everywhere and drawers pulled out. He was just about to call the police when he finally remembered; that was how he'd left the apartment!
` He's learned to clean house better since then, I hear.
` But honestly, any of a number of things could be going on here, though it's hard to say without tape which shows the 'force' which is responsible.

Quite conveniently, the father, Steve, does indeed claim to have such a tape. So, what are these things? Well, the first ones appear to be out-of-focus specks of dust and similar things, flitting in and out of light beams.
` The 'backyard orbs', however, do seem to be glowing like lights, though I don't think they're anywhere past the sliding glass doors.
` To begin with, I first noticed that they do not go any farther away or closer to the camera - they move on a 2D plane. This is especially evident when one examines the 'trails' they seem to leave: Because of the long exposure of each frame (necessary in low light levels), the lights are 'blurred' and take a second to fade from the camera's innards.
` The narrator says that the lights "go around the trees" - I'm presuming that is supposed to suggest that they move behind the trees - but perhaps not, since I don't see that happening.
` Do you?
` Now; watch the light that disappears off to the left; it goes in front of the edge of the doorway; not behind it.
` Instead, the light continues into the door frame and vanishes at the edge of the glass, which is, by the way, a great 2-D surface on which to reflect small lights from inside your house!

Just saying.

The narrator mentions that Steve - who is doing the filming himself - does not think that these 'orbs' can be due to "any known camera tricks". But wait - what about the one where you wave lights around a darkened living room?

Maybe he knows that one?

Relying on glass, however, could not account for the giant glob-in-an-oval shape, which instead appears to be a serving tray (or the like), shining brilliantly in the camera's infrared spotlight.
` Additionally, it also appears to be carried by a person, as if to shield them from view of the camera: Just before moving into a light-enough area where we would be able to see whether or not anyone is there, the shining oval suddenly moves downwards and offscreen.

So, who is perpetrating the 'lights' and the 'oval' illusions, anyway? Is it Steve himself? Do his sons love pranks as much as the Fox sisters did? Is it ghosts using LEDs to create reflections on the glass doors in the living room?
` Also, I thought Steve was trying to videotape whatever was moving his furniture. Not a single chair seems to have been displaced.
` In any case, I can't see any reason to suspect that the images are otherworldly. Dust, along with someone wielding household objects, can account for the images.

Doesn't mean they are, but they certainly don't look abnormal.

McPike Mansion Mist

Deep down, in the basement, we observe images of what appears to be large droplets of mist, or particles of something, claimed to be dry and electrically-charged as they swirl around the room.
` Electrically charged? I wonder if that would explain why the particles were rushing around so fast? Or maybe even the balls of light that have been reported: Naturally- and artificially-occurring electricity can cause some very odd spectacles, including ball lightning and St. Elmo's fire.

Conspicuously, there is no talk of asking someone who studies things like air currents, humidity, electrically-charged dust, etc. to attempt to understand the basement conditions.
` I'm no expert myself, but when I see look at the roundness of the walls and hear a mention that the mist only appeared after walking through the door, I begin to suspect air currents. Is there some kind of opening in the wall through which dusty air flows when the currents in the room are disturbed?
` For all I know, there could be a number of things going on involving some kind of mist. In any case, fast-moving clouds of dust are not unfamiliar to humans; if this cloud was emanating patterns of glowing ectoplasm, I might be a little compelled to say that it looks rather paranormal.

And...

My most pertinent question about World's Scariest - after analyzing all of the video footage - would be; "Is this the best footage they could come up with?"
` The parts not captured on video, by the way, simply cannot be judged on the basis of the sincerity of ghost encounter witnesses:
` After all, I'm sure that some of the people who described having episodes identical to sleep paralysis were genuine in what they reported; but, as with others on the program, their belief in having seen a ghost can be viewed in a very different light when we analyze the tape.

"...But none can be authenticated."

That might be because they look authentically unimpressive.

"Are they real?"

To some people, yes.

"You decide."

I've decided that anyone who thinks the videos of World's Scariest represent real ghosts most likely has not tried very hard to think of another explanation.

The Beginning of The Beginning - Writing in Layers

2008-10-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

What's this about layers? Is this the beginning or not? Herein lie the answers - and the method to my madness:

For those who are familiar with my writing, you'll know that I am in the habit of writing essays which probably cover more than enough material to satisfy most readers.
` That, however, tends to be rather time-consuming because of the large amount of research that necessarily goes into it.

However, even when writing small 'chunks' of the essay/article, I would still probably need to do a sizeable amount of research. So; why not just do one source at a time, adding on new insights, details, and corrections, with each pass?

Crucially, I must first start out with a subject I've already done a lot of reading on beforehand, so that I can have a good feel for what I'm getting myself into - not to mention the key facts and points I should expect to cover.

Then, I must select only one or two sources and construct an incomplete article which builds upon what I already know (or think that I know), and then expand upon that with each new source.

This is much like a wiki, except that the references consist of my own college courses and several hundred reputable books, periodicals, etc. and is in fact updated only by myself.
` My materials contain a wealth of information about such things as language, muscles, hoaxes, time, space, dinosaurs, atoms, developmental biology, geology, philosophy, genetics, stars, planets, and most prominently of all, critical thinking skills and virtually anything one could ever care to know about brains - human and otherwise.

As I read new sources, and re-read older sources, I will add onto what I've already written, somewhat like adding layers upon layers onto a very tall cake (of some delicious sort, I hope); thus, I shall call each draft a 'layer'.
` When I've posted at least three layers of an article on this blog, I will add it as a new article on the Corrigendopedia site.
` Before any of these go up, however, I ought to wait until I have racked up five different articles before I even publish any part of the site at all. (Otherwise, it wouldn't be a very grand opening, would it?)

Additionally, each layer shall be annotated so as to reveal my way of asking questions and progressing onto the next step.
` Therefore, this blog ought to be much like watching me write a large essay in a series of steps so that one can see how I plan my next move, including some of the questions that I ask.
` When these blog articles become sizeable enough, I shall thereafter only mention the new parts added and link to the website article, rather than to reiterate the entire article here.

If I do a reasonable enough job at this, I expect that others might find this instructive for building up their own essays. First and foremost, however, they can probably be considered as more of a learning experience for me.

Okay, enough with the talk - where's these layers I'm talking about? Wasn't I about to start on one last time I came by?

Just as I'd planned, I did begin that first article, as well as prepare the Corrigendopedia website's main page. The following morning, however, I woke up with a double-whammy of illnesses and had to sleep a large part of the day; I was too tired and in too much pain to really think about writing or doing anything else.
` Since then, I've been recovering nicely, though am forbidden to write much in the way of blogs or screenplays or any other career-related activities until just before bedtime, when my day's work is done.
` As usual, there's been a lot of work to be done during the day; rearranging furniture and storage in the still-being-remodeled house; cleaning up plaster dust and debris; occasional basement flood relief; doing laundry and other housework; spending quality time with my housemates (including my wily cats); learning to sew properly; not to mention my 70-minute daily aerobic workouts and continuation of hunting for a third job in the present (and suffering) local economy.

Thankfully, everyone here - especially Lucas - has taught me some valuable things about time management, and I expect to have even more spare time in the near future.
` With my extra spare time so far, I've collected the articles from a former (now deleted) science blog of mine for use here, and, as you have already seen, I've decided on the fundamental 'layer' formula necessary for beginning this project (as opposed to the 'bricks' idea from before).
` In fact, assuming that I am not about to be once again called away from this computer or else interrupted by someone who needs to use the computer desk as a writing desk, I shall begin typing that first layer onto this blog right now.

When will I finish? Hopefully, by the time you are reading this article, it will already be up.

What Am I Waiting For?

2008-10-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

To answer that; I am waiting to find a spot in which it is possible to set up and actually use my computer. For now, it sits in a corner, covered in sawdust from the remodeling that's going on in my new house.

In the course of moving, however, I've somehow managed to ruin my first post (it was on paper), so I'll be starting on another tomorrow.

In other news, I am still searching for a third job, with the help of online classified ads and a temp agency, plus I'm continuing to rearrange rooms, help with carpentry, and do massive amounts of housework.
` There really is a lot of that, especially since both the washing machine and the dishwasher (both firsts in the household) are still not working.

On the upside, at least all of the outside walls are closed up (for now), and my three housemates and I now enjoy a real, functional furnace so we don't have to go about our daily lives bundled in winter coats (it's rather hard to relax, or even wash, when violently shivering).
` Plus, we have an excellent, mostly-finished and fully-functional kitchen along with a talented chef to utilize it (my housemate, Bradley), so everyone eats very well over here.

Things should be back on track soon, since I already have plans for the Corrigendopedia website written up and scheduled for tomorrow. (It still won't be online for a little while, though.)

See you again soon!

Building the Corrigendopedia

2008-09-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

My intended fashion of constructing the Corrigendopedia website is piecemeal: I will write tiny little sections to use as 'bricks' from which to build entire articles.

This is probably the most effective method; especially at this time, since moving house and finding a third job are my two foremost full-time activities.

In writing a series of somewhat self-contained article sections, I plan to develop my ability to keep the reader interested enough to read onto the next section.

Frankly, my hope is that those reading this blog feel disappointed that there's not more to these small pieces, so that satisfaction can only be met on the Corrigendopedia website.

At this time, I am using my spare minutes to focus in on the opening of my first article: I have decided that it needs more work, so that will be in my next post rather than this one.

As for today's personal morning news, so far I've applied for a pawn shop, a video rental place, and two different restaurants... well, back to it!

Challenges, Challenges!

2008-09-23T05:47:00.000-07:00

Sure, we all learn new things about the world, though do you ever think much about how, in order to learn something, you must often unlearn something else that was contradictory?

As a critically thinking person, I cannot help but notice that the culture surrounding me propagates many misconceptions about the world:
` A small, but prevalent, example is the assumption that the direction water spirals down the drain is affected by what side of the equator it is on.

While a phenomenon having to do with the earth's rotation, called the Coriolis Effect, determines the cyclical direction of storms and water currents, it is virtually negligible when it comes to plumbing; its effect on less-than gargantuan scales can only be glimpsed in carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

You can challenge this myth in real life: If you watch water drain from a sink a few times, it will probably swirl one way just as often as it does the other. (You can also change the direction with your hand!)
` And one more thing; a flushing toilet flows either clockwise, counterclockwise, or straight back, and this is determined by the angle of the spouts near the rim of the bowl!

However, it is possible that if this is the first time you've heard this revelation, you may yet forget it in the future! Why?
` Because; I repeated the myth first and corrected it afterward, placing the myth most prominently in one's awareness.

A month from now, which would you remember? The well-ingrained myth that you've heard a hundred times, or that one instance in which you've seen it dispelled (assuming this is the case)? Will you forget it or not?

I've known this general principal for some time, though just prior to this writing I found an interesting article which really exemplifies it. (Shankar Vedantam, Difficulty in Debunking Myths Rooted in the Way the Mind Works, Washington Post, 2007.) It starts out with the description of a psychological experiment:

Norbert Schwarz, a University of Michigan social psychologist, had some volunteers read a flyer issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This flyer repeated many commonly held views about the flu vaccine and labeled which ones were correct and which ones were actually common misconceptions.

Half an hour later, the older volunteers incorrectly remembered the 'trueness' or 'falseness' of 28 percent of the statements! Younger volunteers misremembered the same amount, except this was after three days rather than thirty minutes.
` As for the older individuals at three days, they falsely remembered about 40% of the statements!

The unsettling thing about this is not just that the volunteers wound up with misconceptions about which statements were true and which were false, but that they believed their own mistaken perceptions were put forth as fact from the Center of Disease Control!

That didn't shock me, considering the well-established fact that conscious memories are basically reconstituted from a surprisingly sketchy recording in your brain, resulting in a picture of what you think happened, or what you think you learned.
` It could be relatively accurate to begin with, but over time you can forget more and more details, and to compensate, your brain may 'flesh out' the sketch differently - thus your memory changes without your being aware of it.

This is why people get into arguments over the details of what happened, say, last Wednesday, or what they did on a road trip, or perhaps even what they learned in physics class! Interesting indeed, and you can rest assured that I have more to say on the subject.

Schwarz's study, which has since been confirmed in many peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, shows that reciting a myth to someone - even for the purpose of dispelling it - makes that myth more memorable in the person's mind!
` If they cannot remember the correction as clearly as the myth, they're more likely to believe the myth is true.

And so, the very fact that many myths are challenged may actually help them to stay around. In addition, according to research by Kimberlee Weaver at Virginia Polytechnic (and others), a message heard often enough may seem to have been repeated too many times to have come from only one source.

When that happens, the sheer number of repeats can mentally 'overflow' from the original source and be perceived as coming from other, independent sources.
` So if an untrustworthy source says one thing over and over, you might get the sense that you've heard the same thing elsewhere, giving the impression of believability.

Plus, research by cognitive social scientist Ruth Mayo of Hebrew University found that after two things are shown not to be associated, repeating the names of both things close together in time still create the feeling that they are connected.
` If I say; "Bill was shown not to have stolen the car," you feel that Bill is associated with stealing cars, don't you?

So, what if you don't say anything at all? According to a recent study by University of Southern California organizational psychologist Peter Kim, when you don't challenge an assertion, the silence is taken as confirmation.
` Apparently, in the absence of a reply, people will still hear what they want to hear!

The whole point to this is; ensuring that I'm getting correct information across to someone can be difficult if they are also exposed to contrary information.

So you may wonder; what authority do I have to go around shelling out correct information in the first place? That's an excellent question.
` To begin with, I've long been a science enthusiast and have a huge amount of scientific and skeptical understanding from reading the hundreds of publications currently in my possession.
` Secondly, I have more than seventy college credits so far - mostly in science and math - at Everett Community College, though I have not been able to afford tuition since successfully completing Spring 2008.

Someday, however, I will be able to say that I have at least three degrees - in psychology, biology and writing - most likely from Washington State University. You can count on that.
` In the meantime, each day that I go to work at my blue-collar job, I will be pondering the cost of attaining those degrees versus the cost of not having them.

I have a dream...

2008-09-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

Greetings and welcome, people of all stripes and backgrounds! There's room for everyone, so please make yourselves comfortable.

My name is Sarote E. Quine, your friendly neighborhood science writer, working to offer you an understanding, not only of what's going on in the world, but also how to figure these things out for yourself... and then use this knowledge to deceive others and bend them to your will.

Do you ever wonder why one person's recollection of an event can be so different from someone else's, yet both people are sure their own account is correct? That's an important topic in psychology and manipulation - which I'll discuss, of course - but did you know that this is part of the reason why human beings bother to practice science?

It is well-known that we have many various biases and soft spots in our thinking, and the whole point of science is to find them out so that moving forward with some level of confidence is actually possible.
` Though part of the scientific method involves taking great pains to avoid mistakes, scientific research is also required to go through a gauntlet of criticism (by scientists whose jobs do not depend on the outcome).
` Also essential is for independent researchers to actually repeat these studies or observations in order to see whether or not they find the same thing. If they don't, it may be 'back to the drawing boards' again!
` Basically, just about any scientific claim is considered to be possible as long as no real contradictions are found.

That's the general gist of what scientists do every day: If you can understand that, then I expect you can also understand all sorts of things about scientific methodology, critical thinking and other things with big scary names, as well as the hows and whys of amazing scientific discoveries.

Along the way, I'll be instructing my readers how to do all kinds of fun stuff, including various ways to come up with crackpot ideas and sell them to the unwitting public. At the same time, I hope that they wisely use this knowledge to spot other crackpot ideas.

Sound dangerous? You bet it is!

In all seriousness, I'm here to promote our natural human curiosity and problem-solving abilities, as well as to enhance public perception and enthusiasm for science. At this time, especially, I believe it is sorely needed because science education in the United States (and many other countries) has been rather substandard for some time.
` It is a fact that most Americans fail to understand basic scientific concepts that they would probably be better off knowing, and a lot of this probably has to do with a large amount of poor and unreliable science presentation in school and the mass media.

Thus, it is no wonder to me that there are so many intelligent people with a lot of misconceptions about science and critical thinking who fancy themselves as having superior knowledge. As a consequence, they help to continue spreading misinformation, confusing yet others.
` On the other hand, we have people who may feel that even basic critical thinking skills would take too much time and effort to learn, or perhaps that they are not 'smart enough' to learn them, or that they don't want to bother because it is 'not their job' and they will supposedly never need to know these things.

My true goal here - besides creating conniving masterminds - is to demonstrate that, although our minds are very fallible and although we are often presented with more information we know what to do with, any feelings of being overwhelmed or cynical are not warranted.

Here I go....