Archive for the “helpful stuff” Category

Yesterday I confessed my addictions to woo and how I realized it was all a pack of lies and nonsense. It’s been hard to learn to think more critically and skeptically about pseudo-science (the fancy grownup term for woo). Unless someone teaches you how to think critically, there’s really no way to easily pick out the slick pack of lies and shiny bullshit for what it is.

For instance, I just found out last month that Airborne is not only pseudo-scientific and completely useless, but can also be harmful. And here I was, just the day before, trying to get my husband to take it for an oncoming cold. Sigh…. The battle never ends.

For me, my bullshit radar with religion is very sensitive. Then again, if it’s about an invisible man in the sky, it’s complete nonsense, so that’s pretty easy. But when it comes to products on the market, any kind of scientific sounding news or claim, I am less sure about what to accept or what to reject.

A couple of days ago, I was listening to The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast and they took the time to talk about how to spot pseudo-science for what it is. Since the list is so important and helpful, I took the time to write it down for all of us. Hopefully this will make it much easier:

Some Main Features of Pseudo-Science by Dr. Steven Novella on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. Episode 164, September 10, 2008.

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Hey everyone. How are you today? This post will be about the 2 guys in my life. Coincidentally, they both have done something recently that I wanted to share with you. So here you go:

First, my husband Butch, who happens to be awesomely smart (and pretty damned rogueishly handsome too! hee hee). He doesn’t blog often, but when he does, I just love to see what is bouncing around in his brain. Usually it’s a bit on the angry/ranting side of things. Ok, not usually, almost always.

The other day he wrote about Things Every American Needs To Know. It’s a bit on the “angry diatribe” kinda post, but it’s good stuff and I wanted to share it with you. Basically it’s the difference between rights and privileges. I hope you find it interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

College is expensive. But if you look around, you might find that education can be free. We live in a world full of information, but sometimes you just have to know how to search for it.

A friend of mine wrote about MIT and their free classes online. It sounds great. The only catch is, you don’t get credits for the classes you take, so it can’t get you towards a degree, but it’s Free Information. It’s pretty hard to beat.

While looking into MIT, I found a lot of other great colleges and universities are now doing the same thing. Here’s a brief list. I’m sure there’s much more out there if you look: Read the rest of this entry »

Books can be quite expensive. Sometimes, especially when doing research, it’s also great to be able to search through the book easily, like you can do with an ebook. This list is partly done for selfish reasons, so that I can easily find these sites again for myself. But for you, my friend, here is a list of 6 great places to find ebooks for free.

Bartleby - providing students, researchers and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information free of charge on the web.

The Internet Public Library - Huge selection of more than 20,000 books to read online.

Many Books - Over 21,000 free ebooks available here.

Project Gutenberg - Over 25,000 free ebooks in their online catalog.

Refdesk - Quality, credible and timely online resources available for free, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, calculators and much more.

The Online Books Page - Over 30,000 free books online, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania.

This list is compiled from Here where 40 sites are listed. But most of the links either didn’t offer much or didn’t seem quite as free as they appeared at first glance, so I’ve pared it down.

There are many other resources out there. But these seem like the best of the bunch. If you find more places to get great books online for free, leave a comment.

How about a self contained living river ecosystem in your living room? I love the idea of combining art into something practical, useful and also great for the environment, so this really fits the bill. Read the rest of this entry »

I love money. I love saving it and spending it. I have a tendency to hoard it, as well. But my love of gadgets and expensive electronics usually wins out in the end.

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