Am I a Materialist?

Sometimes I wonder whether I, or any real scientist, can be considered a “materialist” any more. That is, do I really think that matter – chunks of solid ’stuff’ – is all there is? Here is a quote from Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion which may help clarify (or further confuse) the issue:
We have this [...]

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50 Things To Do To Stop Global Warming

Here is a list of 50 things you can do to not feel guilty about global warming. I think this stuff is pretty important, because seriously, we’re going to destroy the Earth. It might be sooner, it might be later, but pumping pollution into the air can’t be a good thing, so we [...]

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Reality Television Secrets

So I TiVo’ed American Idol last night and watched it this morning. I discovered that, if you fast forward through the commercials and useless filler, you can watch a 2 hour episode of Idol in approximately 40 minutes. That means about 66% of the show is skippable. It’s not a good sign [...]

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Nine Inch Nails Kickass "Viral Marketing" Stuff

OK this is pretty cool. A new Nine Inch Nails album is coming out pretty soon, and to promote it, a series of weird-ass web sites have popped up in relation to it, such as this one (click and drag), this one, and this one. There is a whole story emerging out of [...]

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Anagrams

Rearrange my name, and this is what you get (from this web site, Sternest Meanings):

Mike Battista -> I’m a basket tit.
Michael Battista -> Blast it! I’m a cheat.
Michael E. Battista -> I am athletic beast.
Michael Evan Battista -> Hateable victim Satan.

Nice. I think I’ll just call myself “hateable victim Satan” from now on.
Also:

George W [...]

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Skeptiko

A new podcast, called Skeptiko, has just started releasing episodes. It’s about controversial scientific issues, and the scientific method. I’ve enjoyed the two episodes so far, so if you’re interested in this sort of thing, you can download the shows from the official site or the usual way through iTunes.
The reason [...]

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