[caption id="attachment_5496" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Radiant Star, designed by Madhura Gupta[/caption] This weekend, I'm at PCOC, the Pacific Coast OrigamiUSA Conference. The…
From: A Trivial Knot
Last day of Spooktober I always gotta take the losers of the voting and turn 'em into an excessively convoluted…
From: Life's a Gas
The Probability Broach, chapter 10 Win Bear and his friends have captured a hitman. By threatening the prisoner with summary…
From: Daylight Atheism
what is wrong with me (/kurt)... content warning for school shooting related shit, but this is all horror stuff, so…
From: Life's a Gas
Many people nowadays find friends and potential romantic partners through online dating sites and similar means. If they strike up…
From: Mano Singham
this is just a dreampost. for more substantial things, look two posts back. had a dream i was at the…
From: Life's a Gas
weird birding day. was looking directly at my bedroom window when a robin flew into it like a ton of…
From: Life's a Gas
still at it... - SPOOKTOBER DAY 18 - WATER/NAUTICAL OPTIONAL CHALLENGE: STRANDED/DESERT ISLAND TITLE: THE QUESTION OF SUBSTANCE Premise: Philosophers,…
From: Life's a Gas
I like puns and other plays on words. This is why I like doing cryptic crosswords, which depend more upon…
From: Mano Singham
had a dream last night i was an armed security guard and got into a point blank gunfight with a…
From: Life's a Gas
The latest xkcd makes the point that science changes over time, and that the early days of space flight preceded…
From: Pharyngula
Here's an update to a story that's been brewing for almost twenty years. In 2006 and then in 2010, I…
From: Daylight Atheism
When something is both outside of your education and, at least on some level, outside of your interest, it will…
From: Life's a Gas
Imagine how odd it would look if all the heavenly bodies we see are more or less round-ish, and only…
From: Stderr
It's said that the world is made of stories. But, if that were true, why is translating a personal experience…
From: A Trivial Knot
Back in 2022, I made a dagger blade, when I was out at Dragonfly Forge in Oregon. I posted about…
From: Stderr
Avi Loeb is playing games with his peculiar interpretation of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS. He keeps suggesting that this interesting, carbon-rich,…
From: Pharyngula
He proudly claims that he saved a life. His account: A few minutes later, as the service was starting, Pastor…
From: Pharyngula
Dan Stern Cardinale offered an opportunity to creationists: come to his channel and present their affirmative evidence for their theory…
From: Pharyngula
‘Deciphering the Gospels’, by R. G. Price, argues the case for Jesus mythicism, which is the view that Jesus never…
From: Geeky Humanist
Various conservatives are celebrating the publication of a new issue of the Journal of Controversial Ideas, or Peter Singer's slush…
From: Pharyngula
Donald Trump has another reason to invade us: this state stands for trans rights. Today, the Minnesota Supreme Court issued…
From: Pharyngula
I wish people would stop running to Richard Dawkins for quotes defending regressive policies in science. He has nothing worthy…
From: Pharyngula
The book Nobody’s Girl: Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre has just been released.…
From: Mano Singham
RFK jr went on a rant about sperm. It's a national security threat, you know! Today, the average teenager in…
From: Pharyngula
I suspect most of my readers are not manly, masculine "he-men," according to this declaration by Edward K. Strong. [caption…
From: Pharyngula
Professional sports in the US is dominated by male teams whose players get the big contracts and media focus and…
From: Mano Singham
They've founded a new organization, Beyond X and Y. As the copy on their web page says: We’re a trans-led…
From: Pharyngula
Damn, this review hurts for a couple of reasons, but it really shouldn't. When people say stupid, hateful, hypocritical things,…
From: Pharyngula
I must say that I have been surprised by the reactions to the killing of Charlie Kirk. I had of…
From: Mano Singham
I am vindicated! It was only by accident, though -- the video above is about Conservapædia, and you may recall…
From: Pharyngula
I made a quick run to St Cloud today, to visit Spirit Halloween after Hallowe'en, when they are busy dumping…
From: Pharyngula
It's Hallowe'en. It's a dark and rainy night. I'm home all alone. The trick-or-treaters have been sparse -- I've only…
From: Pharyngula
My granddaughter has become Hornet from Silksong. Give her lots of candy if she comes to your door!
From: Pharyngula
I know exactly how this guy feels.
From: Pharyngula
Just in case you wanted to wear an ugly costume every day, here's a bluesky thread about where Jordan Peterson…
From: Pharyngula
I'll be handing out festive spider balls to all the trick-or-treaters coming by my house tonight. Unless they request a…
From: Pharyngula
Many people nowadays find friends and potential romantic partners through online dating sites and similar means. If they strike up…
From: Mano Singham
A beer ad caught my attention this morning, and I watched the whole thing. That's good advertising! Except for the…
From: Pharyngula
This is this year's last bowl of slightly more than 3 kg of tomatoes. [caption id="attachment_50615" align="aligncenter" width="600"] © Charly,…
From: Affinity
In these days of relentlessly depressing news, a good comedy comes as a welcome relief and this is such a…
From: Mano Singham
[caption id="attachment_77735" align="alignright" width="130"] Dumbass[/caption] I don't think she should graduate from college until she passes a basic English literacy…
From: Pharyngula
A reader sent me a comment about how Catholics tell stories that they claim are in the Bible that aren't,…
From: Pharyngula
[caption id="attachment_77649" align="alignright" width="150"] Chopping it all down[/caption] I had a nightmarish realization last night -- that American education was…
From: Pharyngula
We all know of and despise Ryan Walters, the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Oklahoma. He's a Christo-Fascist of the…
From: Pharyngula
As regular readers know, I play the card game bridge and recently I happened to look at some aspects of…
From: Mano Singham
Joseph Ladapo is the surgeon general for the state of Florida and is a vaccine skeptic who recently announced plans…
From: Mano Singham
I've been pretty blithe in my attempts to make people feel less doomy, and PZ did call me out on…
From: Life's a Gas
I was in the parking lot of home despot, when I saw this sign at a distance. Initially I thought…
From: Life's a Gas
To me the answer is 'no' but the title of this post was suggested by this essay by Philip Goff,…
From: Mano Singham
Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I…
From: Pharyngula
This article leads with a photo of a spectacularly beautiful joro spider. Beautiful. I'd love to see more, but I…
From: Pharyngula
We have a home Pholcus phalangioides living under our kitchen cupboard, who occasionally emerges when they've caught something in their…
From: Pharyngula
Found lurking in our bedroom, an assassin! [caption id="attachment_77786" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Masked Hunter (Reduvius personatus)[/caption] It has been courteously escorted…
From: Pharyngula
(See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. Also I am going to suspend the limit…
From: Mano Singham
I've been experimenting with feeding regimens for the spiders. What I've been doing is feeding twice a week with an…
From: Pharyngula
Deservedly or not, Harvard is the premiere research institution in the US, internationally renowned, magnificently endowed, so it's shocking that…
From: Pharyngula
I thought they were ugly, stupid, and pointless a few years ago, but apparently, there's still a market for them.…
From: Pharyngula
They are quite small. Here's one stroking Abraham Lincoln's cheek. You can also see the juvenile coloration -- the adults…
From: Pharyngula
Spiders in the genus Theridiidae (and their cousins, Latrodectus) are well known for hunting and eating prey much bigger than…
From: Pharyngula
Two federal judges have ruled that SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) payments that assist low-income people to pay for food…
From: Mano Singham
I have written many times before about the practice known as jury nullification, where juries exercise their right to acquit…
From: Mano Singham
The Department of Homeland Security is recruiting with a new trope, same as the old trope. I was never into…
From: Pharyngula
Various conservatives are celebrating the publication of a new issue of the Journal of Controversial Ideas, or Peter Singer's slush…
From: Pharyngula
First the bad news. In mid-term elections in Argentina, the party of president Javier Milei, a Trump fanboy, won a…
From: Mano Singham
That question, rhetorical of course, is prompted by the story about the leaked texts by members of the group known…
From: Mano Singham
The Fifth Head of Cerberus, by Gene Wolfe is a work of anticolonialist science-fiction published in 1972. Personally, I am…
From: A Trivial Knot
Yesterday saw massive protests against the Trump regime and its increasingly fascistic nature. Millions took part in over 2,700 locations…
From: Mano Singham
You'd think they'd learn. The Young Republicans had a signal chat where they thought everything was confidential among themselves, so…
From: Pharyngula
In previous government shutdowns, federal employees were furloughed and not paid during it but when the shutdown ended, they were…
From: Mano Singham
Two federal judges have ruled that SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) payments that assist low-income people to pay for food…
From: Mano Singham
I have written many times before about the practice known as jury nullification, where juries exercise their right to acquit…
From: Mano Singham
This could have been predicted. The cease fire in the Middle East is falling apart. Israel on Tuesday carried out…
From: Pharyngula
The Department of Homeland Security is recruiting with a new trope, same as the old trope. I was never into…
From: Pharyngula
First the bad news. In mid-term elections in Argentina, the party of president Javier Milei, a Trump fanboy, won a…
From: Mano Singham
I don't even need to name him, you all know who I am talking about. He's challenging Alexandria Ocasio Cortez…
From: Pharyngula
It is my habit to read quietly before bed every night, and I vary between cheesy sci-fi and classic literature.…
From: Pharyngula
Trump is heading off today to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in Seoul, South Korea. A lot…
From: Mano Singham
California has a special election this year, and I'm following my routine of discussing my choices, with the intent of…
From: A Trivial Knot
It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump is preparing the ground for a direct military assault on Venezuela. This has…
From: Mano Singham