Dying is bad, dying stupidly is worse

Mike Hughes has built a steam-powered rocket, which is kind of cool. It takes some skill to assemble that kind of thing.

Mike Hughes does not trust in science, which is kind of stupid.

According to the AP, Hughes says he expects his new rocket to hurl him through the skies above the Mojave Desert ghost town of Amboy at up to 500 miles per hour for roughly one mile, attaining a peak altitude of 1,800 feet before it deploys two parachutes. Hughes is a proponent of the Flat Earth theory; the Research Flat Earth group is his main sponsor. Hughes does not “believe in science,” which he told the AP has “no difference” from science fiction.

Now that is a curious statement, because he claims to be doing this stunt in order to test a scientific claim, that the earth is round, which means he is purporting to do this for a scientific purpose. If he actually knew anything about how science works, though, he’d be able to think this through and realize that launching himself 1800 feet in the air to snap a picture a) doesn’t actually test his hypothesis that the earth is flat, and b) has been done safely and intelligently many, many times before. He could attach his camera to a weather balloon that could easily loft itself to 100,000 feet and take many pictures.

So this exercise makes no sense at all, and will probably get him killed. He launched himself before for a shorter distance and came out physically wrecked from the acceleration and the rough landing. Now he’s pumping up his steam rocket for even more acceleration.

What an absurd way to commit suicide, for such a pointless purpose.

I’m raising sea monkeys right now

This video is a surprising history of those sea monkeys that you used to see advertised in comic books — I raise them routinely and mundanely to feed to fish, and I was surprised by a couple of things. First, the “instant life” gimmick was faked — they lied about the contents of the little packages you got when you ordered them (I never did that part, I get the eggs direct), and the other surprise…well, if you must know, skip ahead to around 11 minutes in the video.

Now I’m just glad I never ordered them from the original company, and Braunhut never got a penny of my money.

We have a new house! Kinda sorta.

We live in a somewhat unfashionably old house — not old enough to be exotic, but old enough to be a bit, well, shabby. That’s exactly the right word for it. It was built in the late 1940s by the Wohler family, who were sort of a big deal in these parts, since they owned the most important bar in town, the Old #1. It was sold shortly afterwards to Ed LaFave, a banker, who was also one of the civic leaders who led the effort to get the University of Minnesota Morris built here, in the late 1950s and 60s. So anyway, we’re sort of connected to small town royalty through this house.

LaFave had bought it for his mother — his home was across the street — and she lived her for several decades, which means, of course, that our home is known as Granny LaFave’s House to all the locals. That’s fine, none of the subsequent tenants, including us, have had her endurance, so she earned it. Unfortunately, while the interior was quite nice, the exterior had gotten a bit run down over the years. Here’s what it looked like a few years ago.

There’d been a few poor attempts at tidying it up. One of the worst was that it was covered with nice cedar shakes, but they were painted over white, and that paint was flaking off, and some of the windows were in less than pristine shape, and there were those odd wooden strakes protruding over the windows (I think they used to have some kind of screening over them) that were simply falling off.

So this summer we hired a contractor to give it a complete make-over.

We had the old shakes stripped off and replaced with siding. New windows everywhere, with better insulation. The deck was resurfaced. Some of the stonework was patched up. Now it looks completely different!

Strangely, at the same time all this was going on, the county sent us a notice that they’d decided, for some obscure reason, to change our house number from 300 College Avenue to 209 College Avenue, so now we can pretend we’ve moved to a completely different house with none of the hassle of actually having to move the contents.

Oops. I just doxxed myself.

I made a brief video of walking around the house. Most of you won’t care, but I’m sending this to family — this is the house where my youngest two kids grew up, so they might be curious.

Right now, the interior is cluttered because we had to pull everything away from the walls (because they were doing some major work with new windows), and most of our posessions are piled up in our living room. One of the things we’ll be doing this long Thanksgiving weekend is de-cluttering and moving everything back to where it belongs.

Also, most importantly…that room with the bay windows used to be our daughter’s bedroom, and I’m taking over. We had the interior redone (most importantly: grounded 3 prong outlets everywhere), and I’ll be setting that up as my home office. Yay! Electronics will be neatly organized, I’ll have a quiet writing space, and it’ll have wonderful light!

No, the house is not up for sale, and this is not an advertisement. We’re planning to stay here a good long while yet.

One is not supposed to speak ill of the dead

So I would like to point out that Charles Manson never:

  • poisoned Indian lands with a leaky oil pipeline;

  • invited and enabled the slaughter of elephants;

  • built cheesy gilded hotels and casinos;

  • ripped off the contractors who built his hotels;

  • voted for tax breaks for the obscenely rich;

  • conspired with the Russians to subvert elections;

  • got elected to congress;

  • appointed far right conservatives to the Supreme Court;

  • or was elected president.

I’m still glad the old monster is dead.

A review of Louis CK’s latest, and possibly last, movie

I haven’t seen it, probably won’t have an opportunity to see it, and have no desire to see it, but Alexandra Schwartz reviews it. It sounds like it’s just Louis CK playing himself (as he always does), and it sounds rather sad and ugly.

The only generous way to read “I Love You, Daddy” is as a portrait of male cowardice. What kind of man would be so shamefully pathetic as to avoid confronting the famous geezer who may or may not be screwing his underage daughter because that geezer has offered to read his latest script? The same man, presumably, who winces but doesn’t intervene as his dumbo comedian buddy (Charlie Day) describes, at gleeful length, all the ways that the man’s daughter has probably been fucked on spring break. As is often the case with the roles that Louis writes for himself, there is a strong note of masochistic pleasure in this extreme passivity. Louis, famously obsessive and controlling of his work—he writes, he directs, he edits, he acts, he produces, he distributes, he does it all—likes to play losers who are at the mercy of others. Often, those others are women. It’s hard not to wonder, in the wake of Thursday’s revelations, to what extent Louis has used this persona to shield his reputation. But cowardice is not just an avoidance of a moral stance; it is a moral stance, too, and not a flattering one.

His character always seems to wallow in his failings as a man, which at first is part of the appeal — at least he’s aware of his shortcomings. Unfortunately, it’s always coupled to an even lower opinion of women, who must be kind of dim and oblivious to be willing to associate with such an unappealing character. At least now we’re all seeing through the pretense to recognize that there’s not much thoughtfulness there — he’s just another opportunist with a schtick.

Live! From #Skepticon! Well, mostly alive, anyway

Yesterday, got up at 6am and prepared for my busy day, went to one conference, then got on a plane for another one…with an itinerary that went from Minneapolis to Baltimore, then a 6½ layover in the dead of night, and then to Atlanta, and finally to Springfield. I did not sleep a wink the whole time. I attended a series of talks: a workshop on queering violence with Randall Jensen, which was a nice eye-opener. A talk by Nikki Jane on hip-hop as a tool for coping with mental illness. I learned about pre-apocalyptic party planning from Mika McKinnon, and that was a nice surprise. You don’t prepare for disaster by by getting a bunker and a big gun and 5 years worth of processed food, but by making social connections and building a more resilient community. And finally, Mandisa Thomas spent an hour being fierce and strong, as she does.

No sleep yet. I’m feeling it, though, boy am I feeling it. I’m too old for all-nighters. So, for dinner, I took a long hot shower to try and restore some humanity. It didn’t work, as you can see.

I look even more terrible than usual. Those aren’t eyes, they’re aching blobs of bloodshot gelatin, and all that lurks behind them is a howling void. I should collapse into a bed right now, because I’ve been 36 hours without sleep. But I’m not. Because obviously I’m a party zombie.

There are two more talks ahead of me. Samantha Montano is going to be talking about Disasterology, because somehow I think a theme of this year’s meeting is coping with catastrophe. It would be useful, except that as the old decrepit guy, I know what my role would be. I’d be the grey-haired crusty cynic dispensing advice who eventually gets eaten by zombies to the relief of the stalwart band of survivors, who were just to noble to admit the he was slowing the whole group down.

Then Leighann Lord is going to invigorate me with an hour of comedy, so I might have the energy to drag myself to the Skeptiprom, where I will have one drink, and only one drink, which will make me fall over in an unconscious stupor.

Instructions to kindly skepticonners: I’ll have my room key in my front left pants pocket. I’d appreciate it if you’d carry my unconscious form to my room, and drop me on the floor or, if you’re especially nice, on my bed. Don’t worry about the usual defenses against choking on my own vomit, because I won’t be drunk, just exhausted.

I can do this. Jeez, though, it sure was a heck of a lot easier when I was 19.

Another battle of the Blue Check Mark

Twitter has once again put their foot in it over their annoying “verification” system — you know, the deal where certain users get a ‘prestigious’ blue check mark next to their name. To what purpose, I don’t know. Anyway, they handed out a precious Blue Check Mark to a known Nazi, the guy who organized the Charlottesville debacle, and suddenly everyone was questioning the invisible criteria they use to give these things out, and Twitter suspended the whole process while they review what the heck they’re doing.

I think xkcd explains it best.

Ouch. That’s a mark that’s gotta sting.