Prehistoric Life with a Human to Scale

I’ve made a bunch of images depicting prehistoric animals and their size compared to a modern human for Wikipedia. Although I intended on posting them here, I was never blessed with the opportunity.

Actually, I just completely forgot to. Funny how the human mind works sometimes, eh? Well, I created three more “to scale” images today, and since I had the good sense enough to think of it, I decided to post them. I’ll get around to posting the old ones once I find them, I promise.

Click the picture for more information on the plesiosaur depicted.

More images of prehistoric animals with a human to scale I made for Wikipedia. These three are ichthyosaurs. Click the pictures for more information on the animals they represent.

More images of prehistoric animals with a human to scale I made for Wikipedia. These three are ichthyosaurs. Click the pictures for more information on the animals they represent.

More images of prehistoric animals with a human to scale I made for Wikipedia. These three are ichthyosaurs. Click the pictures for more information on the animals they represent.

My Latest Amazon Haul [Part II]

To Coin a Term, “Allobiology”

I’ve had this loose concept of what my primary intellectual interests were since I was a kid: weird, ancient or speculative organisms.

I never bothered to articulate a definition for this loose association of tangentially connected subjects, but recently a term that seemed fitting presented itself to me. And so, here is…

Allobiology
Allobiology is an informal umbrella term for the study of ancient, strange, extraterrestrial, or fictional organisms. So basically, paleontology, astrobiology, weird biological trivia and the animals, aliens, and monsters from works of fiction.

The etymology is just a combination of the Greek prefix “Allos,” meaning “different” or “other” and “biology,” the study of living things.

I think “allobiology” does the idea justice.

Personal Thoughts #2

June 23, 2008
“Gloating to the apathetic isn’t as much fun as you thought it would be, is it?”

July 24, 2008
Yesterday I was diagnosed with “chronic and significant” attention deficit disorder. Not a surprise at all, but still, wow.

October 15, 2008
I’ve been off my meds for like a week now and I’m starting to feel the effects. I should probably start takin’ those again. Might be a good idea. Yeah.

AIG and ICR

Answers in Genesis
A site full to the brim with Young Earth propaganda and scientific blunders. Check your brain on the way in. That being said, AiG is of pretty good “quality” compared to most creationist websites. It really “sets the bar.” There’s too much content to sum up in a paragraph

Institute for Creation Research
Would an AIG by any other name smell as rank? Yes, the Institute for Creation Research is proof that it would. ICR has the same basic premise as AIG, large amounts of YEC content with a fancy layout to give it a thin veneer of professionalism. Nothing worthwhile to be found, though.

20,000 Views

Woohoo! Thanks everyone!

Abyssal’s Laws of Sex

Abyssal’s First Law of Sex
If a fetish can be conceived of, somebody has it.

Abyssal’s Second Law of Sex
People will fuck. If they can’t find a willing, compatible mate, they will find an unwilling or incompatible one (e.g. rape victim, family member, same sex individual, child, animal, etc.). If they cannot find an unwilling or incompatible mate they will create one by finding creative uses for inanimate objects.

Abyssal’s Third Law of Sex
Every image on the internet has been masturbated to at least once. Rare exceptions exist, including images online for only an extremely brief period, but since some individual images have been masturbated to so many times, the ratio of masturbation sessions per image still remains extremely high.

Dick Cheney Tells us What we Already Know

Dick Cheney recently made some interesting comments in a speech he gave. Mr. Vice President decided to inform us of something we already know: that West Virginians are inbred hicks. Soylent Ape gives us the details on this revelation:

Soylent Ape
It happened Sunday at the National Press Club on Monday, Jun 2, where Cheney was congratulating the winners of the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prizes for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. When responding to a reporter’s inquiry about his family tree, Cheney noted that he had relatives named “Cheney” in both his father’s and mother’s families.

To drive his pointless point home, Cheney made an attempt at “humor” (something a guy like Cheney shouldn’t be trying to do, anyway) which thoroughly pissed-many of the residents of a key state in the ‘08 Presidential race. The exact quote: “So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don’t even live in West Virginia!” Quickly, Cheney jovially qualified his statement, saying “You can say these things when you’re not running for re-election.”

Personally, as much as I hate that mother fucker (get it?), I found his comments to be hilarious and pretty much spot on. It really hit close to home, too, because I have “Leviathans” on both sides of my family tree and my family is from West Virginia. I know it’s that way with a lot of people around here, too. I was amused, not offended by Cheney’s comments. What offends me is Cheney and Bush’s war.

Not everyone here sees this the way I do, though. People are freaking out over the veep’s remarks, Robert C. Byrd being one prominent whiner. Somehow, though, niether the West Virginian objectors, nor any in the news media have managed to see the irony behind the outrage:

You see, when Jeff Foxworthy comes to town, people will flock by the thousands and pay significant sums of money to hear the same damn thing! That’s right, Today’s outrage was yesterday’s comedy! What does this tell us, that this outpouring of indignation is fake, or that the whiners are hypocrites with double standards?

This West Virginian doesn’t know, I’ll leave it up to you fellers to figure out. All I know is that my cousin just got back and she is lookin’ mighty fine right now. Now, if you’ll excuse me…

PS: To not let the veep off scott free, I would like to note that his remarks show a bit of elitism towards his own party base – conservative southern Christians. But the Bush administration’s contempt for its own supporters has been known for a while, so that’s nothing new.

Stephen Hawking voice simulator?

Anyone know where I can get a free text-to-speech computer program that mimics the exact voice of Stephen Hawking’s voice synthesizing computer? I’ve been wanting one for like, ever.

Wikicritic Logic

First the critics said…
“Wikipedia’s stupid ‘anyone can edit’ anti-elitism leaves it vulnerable to swarms of idiots and vandals. So why the hell would I want to contribute when anything I write will be replaced with jibberish or garbage?”

Then Wikipedia institutes the semi-protection feature to protect a small number vandalism-prone articles by limiting contributions to registered members that have been on the site more than four days, a tiny fraction of the site’s editors.

Then the critics said…
“By excluding the contributions from a small fraction of contributors from a miniscule percentage of articles Wikipedia has abandoned its democratic ideals! It’s no longer the encyclopedia anyone can edit! It’s practically a fascist regime!!!”

I guess the lesson we can take away from this is that the wikicritics wanna bitch and no amount of actually complying with their wishes is going to stop them.

To Coin a Term, “the Escalator Treatment”

The Escalator Treatment
To “give someone the escalator treatment” is to participate in a dishonest debating strategy wherein the “escalator” floods the debate with fallacious, dishonest, or blatantly false claims faster than his or her opponent can refute them.

No matter how skilled or fast the opponent is, it will take more time and energy to deal with the lies than it will for the escalator to bring them to the table. Thus, the escalator strategy can be a nearly surefire way to beat an opponent who is more competent than yourself.

Since progress against the rising flood of falsehoods quickly becomes impossible the victim is essentially “running up the down escalator.” Hence, the name.

Slacktivist’s Left Behind Commentary

Slacktivist has written an insightful critical commentary on the first book of the popular apocalyptic “Left Behind” series written by far-right looney Tim Lahaye and Christian author Jerry B. Jenkins.

He really dissects the theological, ethical and literary flaws that seem to just drip from the page. I’ve read everything that’s been written so far, and I loved it. I give this my fullest recommendation. You are hereby very strongly urged to check it out. Even the discussions in the comments on the posts are fascinating. Read this now.

Abyssal Discusses Theistic Evolution with BobXXX

Gitmocha Joe’s Freedom Cafe recently requested some perspective on the subject of theistic evolution.

I didn’t feel like spending a lot of effort articulating my own opinion on the subject, but since the first reply was from a rather strident critic, I felt a need to respond in defense of theistic evolution. The rest of this post is a transcript of our discussion.

---

I would like to chime in on behalf of theistic evolution (or thevo). I don’t have a whole lot to say, but I would like to respond to Bob.

BobXXX says…
In my opinion biological evolution has major religious implications. Evolution makes the insane of ideas of Christianity look even more insane.

There are Christian biologists like Ken Miller but I don’t think Miller would ever use the words “theistic evolution”. He would never invoke God to explain the history of life, and I think he would agree that calling evolution “theistic” is as dumb as calling gravity “theistic”.

No, I’m pretty sure he would. Search for “Kenneth Miller” and “theistic evolution” and the first site that comes up is Dr. Miller’s personal site. Its description, interestingly enough, says “… of links to articles by Dr. Miller supporting theistic evolution and some articles critical of Intelligent … Resources (Kenneth R. Miller) return to: Ken Miller’s …”

BobXXX says…
When people talk about theistic evolution they are implying that supernatural magic is a mechanism of evolution. Biologists know that’s nonsense.

Well as a theistic evolutionist, I would say that’s not true. Every thevo supporter I ever met accepted the accepted mechanisms of evolution. It’s true that we accept supernatural involvement on some level, whether through providence or direct interaction, but the first one would not alter the mechanisms, and the second doesn’t necessarily alter the mechanisms. Basically, we don’t reject any of mainstream evolutionary biology’s findings.

BobXXX says…
Only 13% of Americans agree that people developed from other animals and God did NOT guide this process. That means 87% of Americans don’t understand evolution.

That’s pretty damned condescending there, Chief. Everyone who disagrees with you only does so because they’re ignorant? Ya kinda came out of nowhere with this, too. Did you just feel a random need to rant or something? You sound bitter.

BobXXX says…
That’s disgraceful and the reason for this massive ignorance is Christianity.

Give me a break. Every theistic evolutionist I’ve ever met had a satisfactory understanding of evolution. Not to mention the thousands of scientists who hold both Christianity and evolution in high esteem. Are you blaming scientists for ignorance of evolution?

Not to mention that evolution isn’t all that highly thought of in a lot of Muslim countries, too. Do you think us Americans would have a better understanding of evolution if we were a Muslim-majority nation?

---

Sadly, Bob never replied, so the discussion stopped there, but I figured it was worth reproducing anyway. Hope it was some benefit to someone. Adios!

RPG Maker Wiki

RMwiki was my attempt to start a comprehensive storehouse of information relating to the RPG Maker series of games, along with the community that built itself around them. Sadly I was mostly unable to arouse much interest in it from fellow RMers, even though some had voiced enthusiastic support for the project.

Very few people were willing to contribute info and most additions were mere advertisements. What made this even more frustrating was that people didn’t even seem to want to do a good job on their own ads! Basically, I was stuck with only a few, low quality additions. The site went stagnant very quickly.

Several other attempts at creating RPG Maker wikis have been undertaken by various other websites and individuals after mine began, but none were very successful. I think it was this division into competing wikis that ensured that none of them would end up very succesful.

Each group would wear themselves out starting the basic framework on their wiki after its foundation. The basics of RPG Maker and its community was represented by nearly identical content across sites. Now if all these disparate groups would have built off of eachothers’ work, one of these wikis could have been successful in making progress towards a substantial information source.

But every individual wanted the glory. I started one, then some RPG Maker site started their own, then another and another. No one wanted to contribute to making a Wiki succesful, they wanted people to contribute to theirs to make them succesful in the eyes of the community.

It was mere ambition, with no spirit of cooperation. In that respect the fall of RMwiki is representative of the dying RPG Maker community as a whole. RMers have ambition, but no spirit of cooperation. People are stingy with their resources so that they get the glory, they never end up releasing games because they’re so desperate for approval that they spend more time revamping, changing and redoing than they do making progress.

And without more games and resources, how can the community thrive?

Anyway, I apologize for rambling. Please check out the wiki, there is some content there, despite how I’ve been sounding, and feel free to make some contributions, they’d be really appreciated.

Creation on the Web

Creation on the Web is the online home of Creation Ministries International and something of a sister site to AiG. Originally the two creationist giants were one organization, but eventually split ways. Part of the reason being to avoid peer review, even from fellow creationists. That’s really sad, but not a big surprise.

Don’t expect much in the way of quality content, it’s at the same level of vapidity as AiG itself. I get a chuckle every time I click a link with a “(Technical)” warning and find middle-school level content when the page loads.

I find that quite telling about their readership’s level of scientific competence. I should see this as more sad than humorous, creationists are victims of groups like CMI more than anything, but it’s still kinda funny anyway. If you’re scientifically illiterate while having internet access it’s your own damn fault, so while I kinda feel bad for those deceived by the creationis enterprise, I don’t really have a lot of pity for them.

Also, check out their affiliates for a bit of hilarity. One of them, “Alien Intrusion” is owned by one of CMI’s major contributors, a looney out to convince the world that UFOs and aliens are actually demons. The demons, apparently, have conspired in a heinous plot to, get this, convince people that aliens are real! How insidious!

Apparently they got tired of inducing mental illness and drowning pigs. Demonic possession is so first century. The latest craze sweeping the infernal hoardes is… harmless aerial antics! That’ll make those wretched redeemable humans abandon Christ! Mwahahaha!

As sweet as that sounds, the site’s not that great despite the definitely hilarious premise. The whole get-up is basically a glorified ad for the dude’s book, which is almost certainly stupid in and of itself. Best perhaps to laugh at a distance.