The Aliens of My Mind

My next post was going to involve bigfoot, but instead you get aliens this time. Sorry folks. You see,
after some internet-usage yesterday, I was told that the internet had gone out due to lack of payment -- thus disconnecting me from my blog posts-in-progress -- so I decided to work on other projects, which incidentally did not involve the use of my computer.
` This morning I finally opened my laptop, fully expecting the internet to be disconnected, when I noticed the 'internet connected' icon. It was then that I realized that I had not even bothered to check whether or not the internet was out in the first place.

Way to go, Spoony, great critical thinking skills! You probably could have been checking your email again last night, as well!
` In any case, I found a most bizarre English assignment on my hard drive and thought that some would appreciate the subject matter:

I'd woken up in the night, or thought I had, in the bed I'd had after I had finally been permitted to move out of my parents' room. It had a gigantic, cramped frame of dark, varnished wood that was built into the wall, its first bunk hanging higher than my waist so that I would have to jump in order to crawl into it. The second bunk was low overhead, and was closed off from the rest of the room by a trapezoidal structure that stretched halfway across the ceiling. The bedroom may have been only the size of our bathroom, making my child-sized furniture appear full-size, but it was this bed that really gave the impression that the walls were closing in on me.

Lying in my bed was something like being inside a coffin, as it had such low clearance that my only place to sit was the carpet, which was pungeant from my feet staying in the same place for hours each day. In the dark, I tried to make out the familiar patterns in the unvarnished wood about two feet from my nose, but for some reason it didn't look right to me. On top of that, I couldn't seem to move.

What was going on, here? I thought. Before I could think further, I found myself slowly sliding off the bed, toward the center of the room, where I seemed to be lying in mid-air. The pink-orange sodium glow of the streetlight revealed my tiny dresser and chest of drawers, and the open door of my cramped closet -- full of hanging shirts sprawled out on the shelves below them -- which all seemed to bend toward me menacingly as a colorful wave of anxiety overtook me.

This must be what sleep paralysis was, I figured, just as it was described by psychologists on those television shows where people would claim they were abducted by aliens. I had once found those reports convincing, but now I realized that sleep paralysis must be a very good explanation. After all, closets don't actually bend toward one in real life, nor do their colors shift from sodium lamp orange to mauve when they do so.

With a sudden lurch, I drifted out of the window and mysteriously found myself looking up at a bright ceiling, which I figured was also a hallucination. In the brightness, I vaguely could make out gray figures standing around me having pale, bulbous heads and enormous, all-black, almond-shaped eyes -- just like the 'gray' aliens I'd seen on those shows!

Realizing that this must all be happening in my head, I somehow was able to convey the message, "You guys really could use some color!" and suddenly, their light gray skin turned a vivid purple. This seemed so ridiculous to me at the time that I immediately started laughing aloud, before noticing that, far from being in a spaceship, I was safe and sound in my own claustrophobia-inducing bed.

And that, dear readers, is something that my 2011 English 102 classmates were subjected to. They still probably haven't gotten over it.
` This 'alien' incident, by the way, was the first completely-convincing evidence to me that such alien encounters could be hallucinated. Later on, I learned that people in other times and places describe similar encounters with ghosts, old hags, demons, sprites and witches.
` As for me, the 'aliens' didn't come back, but I had plenty of sleep paralysis episodes that involved human beings, even people that I lived with, even though it wasn't really them. (Thankfully, none of these hallucinations anally probed me.)

Well, back to blogging and checking my email where I left off yesterday!

I remember that guy!

There's a lot coming in my next blog post, and I won't be home much to finish it in a timely manner -- so I decided to throw out one of the next early blog posts. It's short and mentions George Ruefner, who was this awesome writer I saw at the Medina County Writer's Group or whatever the hell it was called.
` Neither his phone number, nor his CompuServe all-numbers email address will work anymore, so I hope he's all right. I remember he said that he had a hole in his mind, so I hope it hasn't exploded or some such.
` Here's a link to the post, newly-imported into this blog's archives:

My friend George


What's funny is, my response to the dark energy article says "dark matter" instead, but I didn't bother to fix it. And I'm still not!
` Today, we're still asking the question -- is there really such thing as dark energy? There is an ongoing debate to this day. Maybe it's there, after all, but more work needs to be done before anyone can be sure. I hope to see this resolved one day!

In the meantime, I've got a lot on my plate, with gardening, to boot! I'm also hugely excited to have just registered for The Amaz!ng Meeting today, in big part because of Gerg Dorais, that really awesome skeptic guy. Yeah, I remember that guy, too! Thanks, Gerg! I mean... Greg!

Small fuzzy mammals and more of my first blog

Yet another highly-assorted post for my readers -- first, some material that I left on the cutting room floor, virtually speaking. You may remember that post I did upon discovering a Mysterious Rodent by the grocery store, and had no clue what it was until later!
` This event was surprising to me since I normally could tell what type of fuzzy mammal I was looking at. In this bit of edited-outness, I describe the surreality of learning that this ability is not very common:

Years ago, I saw a rat foraging through a dumpster in broad daylight, and mentioned this to someone. When he asked me whether I thought it could have been an opossum, my mind just about crashed trying to figure out how someone could ask such a nonsensical question. After much perplexed stuttering, a stab of insult helped to force out an intelligible answer, along the lines of; "What kind of ignoramus do you take me for?"
` Since then, I've found the reason for this question is probably because so many people around here don't know the difference between a rodent and a marsupial. Even more shockingly -- to Australians in particular -- several have even said they'd never heard of a marsupial! Others have thought that the word "rodent" means "pest", and so have referred to cockroaches as "rodents".

Which brings the question -- why would anyone be so passionate about identifying some small mammal, anyway? It's because the more you understand what you are looking at in the world around you, the more you can appreciate what you see (or hear, or smell...).
` When you know about our atmosphere's various layers, for instance, you can literally see more when you look at the clouds, because now you have a specific way to interpret what they're doing. One could say, understanding adds layers of interestingness.

It's easy to see why this section was distracting to my article, although I've included it here because it's a good illustration of my values when it comes to writing. Granted, now I am so inundated with science news, particularly in my email, that I don't seem to have the time to read most of it.

Back in 2005, however, I had such a low amount of email that keeping up with the latest wasn't that difficult. This fact was evident in my second post on Land of the Big Wingy-Dingy, which is entitled:

Tyrannosaurus Cells and Elephant Mimicry

That is, supposedly preserved cell remains and mimicry by elephants. If you haven't heard of either of these things, then by all means, take a look! (Also, you may want to follow the latest research that's been done on these topics...)
` Originally, I was reluctant to mention religion on a science blog, but since ideological extremists are a good discussion topic, I did comment on the unreasonable behavior of a religious extremist in the third post:


Unwholesome extremists -- gotta love 'em!

By the way, 'Jonathan' is now a psychologist and lives far enough away from his mother that it would be hard for her to persecute him for being gay as well.
` I was also reluctant to write about such insane people as my PsychoDad, but then figured that it might be somewhat relevant in that it shows ways in which one can be tricked/brainwashed, which is relevant in the fields of reason.
` So, already by post four, I have a rant/description about my dad's psychotic behavior, which is alright (if you can stand the craziness of it all) except that it has no explicit connection with critical thinking:


The importance of recognizing abuse... An unbelievable tale of insane people in my life

And what is the importance of recognizing abuse, you ask? It is knowing enough to realize that you have been duped by a complete nutcase, and that your model of the world doesn't really fit what's there. Thus, I had thought it might go well with the skeptical blogging theme.

Next up, having left off from the sciencey second post, I finally had written about the plants that do weird genetic things -- apparently, the discovery of a bizarre epigenetic effect.

Plants that correct their genetic mistakes!

Research has soared since 2005, of course. Right. I should get to poring over that. In the meantime, if that isn't enough for this post, I have also saved some snippets of the aforementioned rodent article which involve links to YouTube videos:

The largest rodents in the world, the water-roaming capybaras, are related to guinea pigs although they can weigh upwards of a hundred pounds (45 kg, 7 st). Thus, it does not surprise me that some people are kooky enough to have them as pets, although as tropical species, they don't much like the snow.

Also, a mention of shrews (for not being rodents), led me to this:

I found this video of venomous short-tailed shrews, slugging it out, even killing and eating a snake. It's really cool. Apparently around 8,000 years ago, there was once a species that injected venom, much as solenodons do.

There's even one more part of this damn article, but I'll save that for next time.

Next time, Gadget! Next tiiime!!

Warping Blog-Time...

Seven years ago, I wrote my very first blog post, with the hope of spreading awareness of science and critical thinking, as well as perhaps even sharing the insanity of my own human experience. I've learned a lot since then (and have probably forgotten even more), and am now in an overall better position to accomplish my goals.

Back in 2005, I devoted most of my waking hours to writing somewhat aimlessly, and then sculpting the raw material into good prose. It worked well enough to be able to churn out at least one lengthy post per day, as well as gain some appreciation from readers.
` My technique has improved quite a bit since then, although production has slowed markedly. At present, this has a lot to do with the fact that I spend more time accomplishing other tasks -- which is mostly a good thing, when you think about it.

Still, in order to demonstrate my worth -- and increase readership -- I need to create new content at least every other day. This can be easily achieved, considering how many articles I've written but never published before; as well as how many articles that I have published, yet would like to see updated.
` I have published older material on this blog before, although it includes only one archived blog post, because I didn't like the idea of taking old posts out of their timeline context. Now, however, I've decided to post articles from my other blogs here, but at their original date, and announce each move as I go.

Thusly, I shall transfer everything from my other blogs, day by day, in chronological order, to the archives of the Mad Science Writer blog. Sounds mad, I know, and that's perfect for this place! So, let's start with the first post, so full of humor, hope, and wonder.
` It even mentions an issue that I've only recently been able to deal with (thank goodness!). So, without further ado/figs/atmospheric inversions, here's my first blog post EVER:

Introduction (To my SEO-blog, 'Land of the Big Wingy-Dingy')

Uh... you have to click on the link...

And yes, I'll have articles other than ones I've published before. This is just for starters.

Siberia: Nearly 105 years between giant space rock collisions!

Keeping up with the times as always, I've only recently heard about the February 15 meteor impact near Chelyabinsk, and have, today, finally dragged myself to the internet to see all the dash-cam videos.

` Installed for the purpose of recording events in cases of police corruption or insurance scammers, dashboard cameras have provided many angles of viewing the 7,000-ton meteor as it flared up in the earth's atmosphere. (Hooray for legal fraudsters?)

As it approached the earth, the meteorite was only 50 feet in diameter when it exploded into an enormous fireball (sometimes called a bolide), with the strength of a large nuclear warhead at 500 kilotons. Luckily for the folks below, this happened so high in altitude that the air was too thin to conduct much of this force.

` The infrasound from the shockwaves were detected by a global network of monitoring stations dedicated to use for upholding the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. (These same stations also detected North Korea's third nuclear test on February 12, finding it to be laughably small in comparison to the meteorite, although that Kim Jong young-un would probably claim otherwise.)

There are, of course, many videos of said shockwaves, blowing out windows and sending glass and debris flying. In this case, stationary security cameras were more instrumental in getting these shots, as well as folks who have whipped out their video cameras in response to the meteor.

From this, some 1,500 people were reported injured (mostly from glass), and to add insult, many homes were missing windows or otherwise damaged during the winter in Siberia! (And here I was thinking that single-pane aluminum windows are bad!)

Not only is this the second well-documented impact of an enormous meteor recorded in science history, but it is also the second such meteor impact recorded in Siberia. (Thus, without Siberia, none of this could have happened...)
` The odds of two huge meteors striking Siberia really aren't so low, considering that its borders stretch to nearly 10% of the earth's land surface, and the fact that the two impact sites are about three thousand miles apart.

More interesting (to me) is learning that there have been other large meteor impacts at times between 1908 and 2013, which I've never heard of before. However, I am getting ahead of myself...

Drat this infernal illness!

Despite being so ill since about January 12, I've been making good use of my time. Although there is a great deal written here, you will find this post to still consist more of colors than anything else.

Yes, even pretty colors!

Writing has been difficult for over a month now, due to the constant congestion and brain-frying inflammation from a particularly bad bug that's been going around. (I mentioned the start of this illness in this post about hypno-awesomeness -- speaking of which, Rachel's wrist has healed, so she's beaten me in recovery time.)

It's true, most of my photos are not of an intellectual nature, but they are worth a fair amount of words. For example, the words that would be coming from these creatures that have occupied the living room:

Example words:
Heather (front): Why do I get the feeling that there's... a third cat?
Christina (middle): Invisible Cat is... invisible.
Dilly (top): My hazardously long fur... it has a flavor.

Although my angry immune system has made thinking difficult, I've been taking a nootropic called Piracetam on my better days since January 23. With the help of choline capsules (which I've been taking anyway for deficiency reasons), I've only noticed positive effects -- and more of them compared to Ritalin!
` Hence, on those days when I've taken Piracetam, my schedule has been fairly packed. On other days, I've spent more time needing to rest and/or recreate.

For example, on February 2, I went to a fairly dark room to play with arcrylic paints for the first time ever -- explains a lot about the color scheme, doesn't it?
` Why did I choose a dark room? Because in there, $15.00 gets you a beer and a small canvas with paints -- and I didn't even drink the beer! Hard-core, right? Yes, now all the pieces are starting to come together!

Here's what it looked like as I was painting at the table -- minus all the cognitive reframing exercises happening off to my left:

I STILL LOVE YOU FOREVER, MAYNARD!!! Also, Dilly the cat's new height of stupidity.

You may be familiar with my account of The Amaz!ng Meeting, in which I was interviewed for half an hour by Australian Interviewing Guy, Maynard, for podcasting goodness that was so massively exciting my brain started spinning and ehrmegerd...

Some of it has finally shown up on this TAM 2012 episode of Maynard's Malaise: There's short bit in which I am introduced, at the 9'15" mark, starting with "I have deformed sinuses." Nice!
` And, as I have in other cases of video and podcast bits relating to TAM, I've updated the post where I originally mentioned the interview.

I've also been updating other posts, such as re-editing the amazing tale of 'Nine Years of Numbness, Reversed with Hypnosis.' This is when I realized that the comment filter would not allow anonymous comments, hence others' complaints that they cannot comment, and so changed that.
` There are a great many other posts that I have taken offline and will be re-editing, so it is no wonder that my blog seems sparse at the moment. Although I already have other blog posts and writing projects going, I'll be filling in those back-posts gradually.

Before I go, I'll leave you with an especially cute and stupid story about our especially cute and stupid cat, Dilly -- here she is taking her frustration out on a roll of TP:

You will rue the day you mess with Dilly Badger!

Earlier today, I brought Dilly over to the Clampett's house in order to show them how much she's grown since last time. Now that Dilly is no longer a kitten who would sit under the deck screeching like a dying eagle because she couldn't figure out how to get back to the door, I figured she would be alright if I just let her find her own way home. After all, our house is in view of their house.
` So, after playing with the eleven year old neighbor girl and her new rats and toaster oven (though not at the same time!), I came home and wondered where Dilly had gotten to. Hours later, Lou Ryan and I went back to the Clampett's house, looking up and down the street for the cat, and were puzzled that we couldn't find her, nor hear her dying-eagle squeals.
` Later on, when Lou's friend Anthony (and his kid Little Anthony) were visiting, I went looking for Dilly some more, bringing Little Anthony (and his soccer ball) with me. After not finding her again, I went back to the house and brought one of our newly-inherited cats, Christina, to the Clampett's front door, instructing her to sniff out Dilly's path.

Instead, she made a beeline for our house. Dilly could easily have done that, considering how many months she's had to explore the neighborhood, but soon it was clear that she had stayed put all this time: I heard very distinctly the sounds of a dying eagle and began searching the Clampett's yard. ...