Category Archives: fun

God Wins in Nebraska Court

Here’s the abstract of one of NPR’s Morning Edition stories this morning.
Morning Edition, October 16, 2008 · A Nebraska state senator last year filed a lawsuit against God. Ernie Chambers sought an injunction against God because of widespread death and destruction. Judge Marlon Polk has thrown out the lawsuit. He says there’s no way [...]

From O’Reilly to God’s Existence

Attention Philosophers of Religion and Theologians: You’ve been asking the wrong questions! You’ve been asking, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
You should have been asking, “Why is there Bill O’Reilly, rather than no Bill O’Reilly?” Surely the fool must admit that there is a God when he reflects on that question!
I kid you not [...]

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory

(Clip from The Onion)
KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held “theory of gravity” is flawed, and they have responded to [...]

16 Things You Should Know About The Incoming Freshmen

Every year, before I start teaching I like to think about the cultural background of the incoming freshmen class. It helps me teach and relate to them. It’s also pretty interesting to think about.
This year, I decided write some of those thoughts down. I’m assuming that the average incoming freshmen student was born in 1990.
With [...]

Zeno on Acne Treatment

I was walking through the store looking for my wife’s face soap when the word Zeno jumped out at me. Philosophers will know why - Zeno is a famous Ancient Greek philosopher.
I snapped a picture of this acne treatment device (see photo on the left)  because the irony was just too awesome.
Let me explain the [...]

Assortment of Fun News for Linux Lovers

I’ve been ranting enough about switching to Ubuntu for professional reasons, that I thought people interested in those posts might be interested in some of these items that I’ve come across today. Here’s a fun list that should be of interest to Linux lovers.

This is kind of funny. Dell has discovered a loophole to give [...]

Plan for Immortality Presupposes Psychological Continuity Theory

Here’s an interesting article about a group of people, including one neuroscientist, who plan to cheat death by uploading an exact copy of their brain states to a computer.
Of course this plan does assume some kind of psychological continuity theory of personal identity. I hope someone has seriously discussed The Duplication/Fission Problem with them.

They’re Made Out of Meat!

Matthew Mullins posted this gem a couple weeks ago, but I just now discovered it. It’s great! Especially if you’re interested in the mind-body problem (and the possibility of thinking machines).
The short film below is based on this short story.

Typo Eradication Advancement League

Here’s a funny story about two friends. They formed a group called TEAL (Typo Eradication Advancement League), and they travel the country correcting typos.

Pop-science Time Travel Video

At first I thought, “This can’t be real.”

But I looked into it more, and found an article that sheds a bit more light on the video. The guy in the video is Ronald Mallett. He’s a professor at the University of Connecticut, and yes he intends to build a time machine. Here’s a link [...]