“Ratters”. Ick. These are pathetic people who use a canned remote administration tool (RAT) to seize control of other people’s computers…especially to activate their laptop cameras so they can spy on them (which is why I predict some of you will want to tape over your camera). Ars Technica has a whole article on these …
Category Archive: Technology
Mar 08 2013
Damsel in Distress
Anita Sarkeesian has released the first of her series on sexist tropes in video games. I notice that the comments on the youtube video are disabled. I wonder why? No, I actually don’t. Rebecca Watson points out something interesting. In all the noise surrounding Sarkeesian’s initial campaign to raise money (you don’t need that much …
Mar 06 2013
I remember that poster!
Back in the dim dark distant days of yore, Matt Groening actually did some promotional artwork for Apple — all at about the same time he started up with some little show called the Simpsons, and when he’d apparently doodle up a poster for them for the price of a Laserwriter. Speaking of Groening and …
Feb 28 2013
Please don’t use this argument
I got briefly drawn into a twitter argument with a fellow atheist who proudly flashed this image: The next time you get bullied by religious people on facebook, remind them that they are using hardware and software invented and built by atheists, including facebook! That is embarassingly bad. And when I pointed out a few …
Feb 26 2013
Halos in the sky
I just got back from this evening’s Cafe Scientifique — where were you guys? — and I got to see lots of pretty pictures of halos and sundogs and light pillars. One of the nice things about living in Morris is that we actually get a lot of that weird atmospheric phenomena here, because we …
Feb 06 2013
Finally! My own personal time machine!
I’ve been playing with it for a while. It turns out that when you go back to Cretaceous Morris, you need to be able to swim really well, but Cambrian Morris is high and dry on a fairly small landmass (whoa, but oxygen is way down and carbon dioxide way up). You can have your …
Feb 05 2013
See? This is why I don’t watch superbowl commercials
I guess GoDaddy had one of their awful commercials air during the show. It showed an attractive woman model next to a funny-looking male nerd, and then lingered over a long sloppy kiss, with a message: The voice says something along the lines of you should use GoDaddy because it does this brilliant thing of …
Jan 21 2013
Jenna Cavelle wants to correct ‘Chinatown’
If you’ve heard any history of the California desert at all, you’ve likely heard of the Owens Valley Water War. Here’s the canonical version of that War: The Owens Valley is watered by runoff from the immense snowfall from the Sierra Nevada to its west, much of which runs into the Owens River when it …
Jan 13 2013
The death of Aaron Swartz
Many of you already know that Aaron Swartz, an online activist, committed suicide earlier this week. I didn’t know much about him, but now I’ve learned two things. One, he was a victim of depression. I’ve never experienced this personally — at worst I can say I’ve been sad and stressed at time — but …
Nov 24 2012
A beautiful answer to a hideous problem
When he was a boy in Afghanistan, Massoud Hassani and his brother made toys that would roll across the desert landscape pushed by the wind. Too often they’d lose those toys. Not in a neighbor’s yard, or a tree too tall to climb, but because the toys would blow into land that had been filled with …
About the Author
Profile
Frequently Read Threads
Commenting Rules
The Desert Tortoises With Boltcutters Civility Pledge
[Introductions]: Meet the other commenters
The [Lounge]: a safe space; friendly chat; moderated
The [Thunderdome]: no-holds-barred unmoderated chaos
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• MySpace
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
•
Chris Clarke is a science and natural history writer, editor, and
environmental protection activist in Joshua Tree, California.
• Coyote Crossing
• my writing
at KCET
• Desert Biodiversity
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google
Plus
• Walking
With Zeke
• Walking
With Zeke (iBookstore)
I reserve the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence.
Recent Comments