Here’s a heartwarming story.

Some burglars broke into an office in San Bernadino that provides services for victims of sexual assault and took away all the computers. The non-profit office has no sign on the door in order to protect the people who seek its help. But the thieves later apparently discovered the nature of the work that the office did, and on the following morning they broke into the same offices again and returned all the stuff along with a handwritten note of apology.

Here’s the video. [Read more…]

About a decade or so ago, there was massive interest in figure skating. It seemed like a lot of TV time was devoted to showing one competition after another. These figure skating competitions left me cold, like any competition where the scoring depends on aesthetic criteria rather than objective measurements. It seemed like harmless fun but could not hold my attention for more than a couple of minutes. I used to joke that for it to really catch on, they should make it into a contact sport where all the contestants would take the ice simultaneously and were allowed to body check each other and the last skater who managed to stay upright would be declared the winner. [Read more…]

Some people who drive expensive cars are so worried about their cars being dinged by the opening of doors of cars parked next to them that they park straddling two spaces. This is a serious violation of parking etiquette that can enrage people. I myself, though not prone to get upset over trivial things, also find myself highly irritated when I see someone do that, even though I know it is small in the great scheme of things. But like most of us, I do nothing except secretly despise such people. [Read more…]

Via Xeni Jardin, here is the story of Pascale Honore, an Australian woman who became a paraplegic after an accident. She has a love for the ocean and wanted to surf and that now seemed out of her reach. But with sheer dogged determination, the help of her friend, and a roll of duct tape, she not only surfed but also went scuba diving.

I dislike flying because of the sheer unpleasant of the whole experience but I am not scared of flying. It is one of the safest modes of transportation. But we sometimes forget, in this age of autopilots where human pilots seem almost superfluous, how necessary they are and how skilled the pilots must be in order to deal with unexpected situations. [Read more…]

The free online conference organized by most of the Freethought bloggers starts today and runs through Saturday.

PZ Myers explains where to find what and the best way to participate.

Here is the final schedule with links.

Many of the bloggers on the FtB network have organized a free online conference to be held July 19-21. It is called FtBConscience: Atheism with a conscience and is expected to be an annual event. This year will focus on social justice, technology, and the future of the freethought movement.

You can see the full schedule here. The organizers have put together a wide array of speakers (73 in all) and a range of topics that should appeal to almost anyone.

So you have achieved your dream of making a ton of money and have been accepted to membership in an exclusive country club. But you still feel dissatisfied because you do not stand out from your fellow members as being obviously more wealthy than they, since all of you drive the same expensive cars, wear the same expensive clothes, and use the same expensive golf clubs. [Read more…]

I hardly ever text people and very rarely do I receive any text messages myself so I am not aware of the conventions of that world. But I am aware that texting can be very convenient in certain situations, while at the same time sometimes requires decoding to get at what the sender is actually saying. [Read more…]

The phenomenon of ‘sockpuppetry’, the creation of alternate characters by an individual to create the impression of greater support for that person or that person’s point of view than is actually the case, is something that I have written about before. (See here, here, and here.) [Read more…]