Today is Cthulhu Day!
… And thus, on the Day of Insanity, when the stars are right, and the Earth is prepared for the infinite horror and madness that is hidden beneath the sea, Cthulhu will, once again, rise from his ancient temple at R’lyeh and, if He sees His shadow, the whole world will shout and kill and revel in joy and there will be 6 more weeks of winter.
To pass the time before Pin the Tail on the Lurking Fear begins, here’s a little song to set the mood:
Project Gutenberg has a ton of Lovecraft stories ripe for the picking. See ya at the shoggoth races!
This is the full, uncut interview from the documentary The Enemies of Reason. Richard Dawkins discusses psychics and skepticism with Derren Brown.
I can see the entertainment value in visiting a tarot card reader or a palmist with some friends for some fun, while not taking any stock in what the psychic says, but it quickly turns into a disgusting and dangerous act when people start to pay these crooks in a desperate attempt to speak with a dead loved one or use their advice for health problems, in the form of alternative medicine.
Random Research
While I was away these last couple of weeks, doing many important and productive things (or watching Battlestar Galactica – how did I miss this show until now?), my hosting expired. It occurred to me after I renewed that I probably could have just moved to a free WordPress blog, since I’m a little over the DIY weblog stage at this point, but for now I will be gracing looselogic.com for yet another year.
As happens most every year after shelling out for hosting fees, I started considering what changes I could make around here. I spend a lot of my browsing time obsessively researching random topics. It’s just in my nature to get hooked on on something and to try and delve deeper, as I’m sure it is with a lot of people. If I’m exposed to, or am about to take part in, something new, I tend to dig around and see what I can learn. Hell, when I first grew a beard I actually researched different styles and proper grooming and trimming techniques. Yes, I’m that big of a nerd.
I think I’d like to bring a little more of that back to this weblog. It might add some structure to the process, and I think I’ll end up benefiting more from the studying in the long run. I tend to forget a large part of what I read, but I can still remember that Socrates died in 399 B.C. from writing a short story on the topic over ten years ago in high school. I lose a lot of facts and ideas unless I put them to use somehow, such as writing about them.
I might choose a topic with which I have a superficial understanding, start with a basic introduction, and return with more detail from time to time in follow-up posts. These will be occasional posts, interspersed with the usual nonsense that’s usually here. The idea would be to promote self-learning without boring everyone or myself to death. There’s a infinite number of topics I’d like to learn more about, and this might help drive that.
Of course, there’s a very good chance I’ll forget about this within a week and start posting funny pictures of badgers instead.
Banksy and Roadsworth
I’ve always had a fascination with graffiti. Something about the culture and the adventure is really attracting. Casing the town at night with a backpack of spray paint, looking for that perfect canvas to display your art to the world.
Like most people, I can’t stand those ugly tags covering the city, but I also can’t help but admire when someone puts time into a full piece. I know it’s still vandalizing private property, whether it’s something I think looks good or not, and I don’t think any laws should be bent just because someone’s an artist, but despite all that I can’t help but smile when I see something clever or beautiful painted on a wall.
I’ve been a big fan of Banksy since I first saw some of his pieces. He’s the most famous graffiti artist around, so there’s a good chance you’ve seen his stencil work, but here’s some from Flickr just in case.
It turns out we have our own wee Banksy here in Canada – Roadsworth, of Montreal. There’s a documentary being made about him.
I think I’ve posted this here before, but I tried my own hand at graffiti once before.
Tip of the day: don’t paint your own initials on your parent’s garage if you want to stay anonymous.
Raiders of the Lost Ark Story Conference
Mystery Man on Film has posted a 125-page transcript of the five day meeting Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan had when mapping out the story for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Did you fall out of your chair? I did!
Most who know me are aware of my little obsession for Indiana Jones. When I was young, he was pretty much my hero. Still is, really. He’s essentially the ultimate geek icon. An archaeology professor and badass artifact bounty hunter who swings from a bullwhip? An action hero who uses his brains to get out of situations? It doesn’t come much better than that.
Mystery Man details 10 Screenwriting Lessons he pulled from the transcript, and it’s a great read. I’m only about a quarter the way through the PDF, but it’s really interesting to see the process they went through to come up with everything in the story.
I love brainstorming with a group of people, tossing ideas out and building on each other’s thoughts. We do this at work quite often when troubleshooting an issue or designing new functionality, and I find I work really well in a group setting like this. It’s all about asking the right questions to bring those ideas out of the other people and allowing their ideas to spark your own.
That’s something that holds me back when I try to write. I find when I’m brainstorming solo, I often don’t ask myself those needed questions and end up running out of steam. Eventually learning how to best conceptualize and flesh out ideas without that group sounding board is really going to help me in the long run, I think. That’s probably something I should start thinking more about.
George Lucas had amazing vision in this transcript. I really wonder what happened to that.
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Pete the Meat Puppet
I’m going to have this song stuck in my head all day now.
Hilarious and disgusting, a great combination. Maybe I’ll become a vegetarian…
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Big Tent Atheism
A guest writer on Boing Boing posted an short article entitled Big Tent Atheism earlier today. It’s worth a quick read, if you feel like you haven’t been irritated enough yet today. His post is essentially saying that atheists shouldn’t be outspoken and should just participate quietly with religious ceremonies while keeping their opinions to themselves.
I think closeted atheists who participate in other religious activities are the future of atheism. They know that prayer feels good without a needing brain scientist to tell them, and they know you don’t need God to want to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and provide homes for the orphaned. What if they simply stopped reciting the words that they didn’t agree with during religious services, without calling attention to it? In many places I don’t think they would be kicked out or turned upon and beaten just for that.
This is such a terrible goal for which to be aiming. When a group is closeted, it’s because they don’t want to be honest about their beliefs for fear of backlash. That backlash could be anything from physical harm to the loss of one’s job. A society full of closeted atheists is basically where we’re at now. It’s not the future.
Whether or not you agree with how Loud Atheists – people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and PZ Myers – get attention, what they’re doing is important. Many people think they’re preaching to the converted, but society needs the likes of them to get atheism on people’s minds. It’s not about converting anyone away from religion; it’s about taking the sting of controversy out of the idea of atheism.
The term ‘closeted’ is most commonly associated with homosexuality, and I think that’s a great example of how this process works. The long-running campaign for gay rights has never been about converting heterosexuals. It was about allowing gay people to live as peacefully, and with the same rights, as straight people. It’s been a long process, but major strides have been made in the last couple of decades. This is largely because gay culture has become more and more integrated into mainstream culture.
Gay people were seen while marching and lobbying. Through these events, support communities formed, and more people felt safe about coming out. Respected celebrities started to publicly come out, and people began to find that they had gay friends, family, and coworkers. Books were written, news articles were written, television shows and movies featuring gay characters were written, and the movement just started to spread throughout society. It was, and is, about making homosexuality commonplace, because mystery breeds fear.
Obviously the gay movement has a long way to go, and it’s not really that comparable to what’s happening with atheism right now, but it’s a good model. The more atheists that are heard, the more atheists who answer that they don’t believe in God when asked, the better. There are still places in North America where it can be dangerous to announce that you’re an atheist. You might be able to run for office here in Canada as an atheist and get voted in, but good luck south of the border. Fun bonus fact: though ruled unconstitutional and impossible to uphold, it’s still technically in the constitution of seven states that atheists can’t be voted in to office.
So while I do support the article’s view of the religious and non-religious living happily together, as well as forming charitable groups that cater to both sides, I don’t agree that atheists should hide themselves in order to make this happen.
