dimland radio 5-15-10 show notes

The chat room wasn't very full, but I did a show anyway.

This old house

I started off boring my listeners with the tale of our replacing two windows in our kitchen. They needed replacing. They were quite nasty. I also talked about my peculiar habit of putting a plastic toy soldier inside a construction area, so that it's hidden away. I like the idea of the hidden toy soldiers. Peculiar, I know.

Man in coma still ain't talking

Rom Houben, a Belgian man, has been in a coma for 23 years. Some news was made recently when it was said that he woke and started talking. Well, not exactly. He told his tale through a communications facilitator. Right there you should have your skeptical red flag waving. It turns out that it's far more likely that the facilitator was doing all the talking and poor Rom is still comatose.

Read Michael Shermer's take on this here.

I also talked a bit about the 2007 film, 'The Diving Bell and The Butterfly'. It's somewhat related and it's available at Netflix. Sign up!

Pringles ad explains crop circle

I haven't seen the ad yet, but 'Skeptical Inquirer's' Ben Radford wrote a piece about it. The ad depicts a group of young people having a great time eating Pringles and making crop circles. Apparently, the way they are shown making the circles is exactly the way that phenomenon is produced. Believers will scoff, but what seems more likely? Super intelligent extraterrestrials travel the vast expanse of space or some beings from another dimension to make patterns in crop fields, OR some people take boards and ropes out to a wheat field and make nifty crop circles? Sharpen up your Occam's razor everyone.

Arrrrrr Mythbusters be doin' it again

Then I talked about the Mythbusters looking into the myth of why pirates would wear eye patches. Not because of a missing or damaged eye, but, as the myth went, it was meant to keep that one eye accustomed to the dark. They tested it and it's true! The covered eye was much bettered suited for seeing in the dark.

Here's part of that show on the YouTube.

Hodgepodge

I finish up talking about The X-Files, Jaws, Legend of Hell House, The Blair Witch Project and how not seeing the shark, ghost or whatever makes it even scarier.

I also talked a bit about the new series of Dr. Who. I really like the Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston and I'm just getting to see the episodes with the next actor, David Tennant. Not sure about him yet.

I touched on the old Columbo show too.

Correction

I misspoke when talking about the old Columbo episodes and how the same actors would keep coming back to play murderers. I meant to say Jack Cassidy, but instead I said Jack Kennedy. Cassidy was an actor, Kennedy was a President. Whoop, whoop.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ahead' by Wire
First ad break bumpers: 'I Got You' by Split Enz & 'Life's What You Make It' by Talk Talk
Second ad break bumpers: 'O.K. This Is The Pops' by Tones On Tail & 'Fall On Me' by REM
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next week for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com You can also download my show from the Z Talk On Demand page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

this decade ain't over yet...

During an episode of ‘The X-Files’ in late 1999; Scully, the show’s skeptic, pointed out to Mulder, the show’s woo-woo advocate, that the new millennium would not begin with the ending of 1999, but that it would begin when the year 2000 came to an end. And Mulder’s reply to Scully’s correct observation? “No one likes a math geek, Scully.”

Ain’t it the truth? When everyone was all giddy at the approach of the new millennium as 1999 came to a close, I was practically pulling my hair out. “It is not the new millennium!” I kept saying. We had one more year to go. The second millennium wouldn’t be starting until January 1, 2001!

There was no year zero, people!

Ten years later and my hairline is getting nervous again. As 2010 approaches, we are getting all the lists of the decade coming out. But, I’m telling you… the tenth year of this century’s first decade is just beginning!

Look at it this way, when you count to ten, how do you do it? You start at one and count to ten, right? But the way people are considering this decade, just as with the millennium, they are counting to ten by starting at zero and ending at nine. See what I mean?

However, with age comes wisdom, as they say. And a little mellowing. I’m still bugged by this, but I understand that people are actually looking at it as though the “zeros” or “aughts” (or whatever we call it) decade is coming to an end. I’m ok with that. After all, one of my favorite podcasts is ‘Stuck in the 80s’, a celebration of our favorite decade - the 1980s. For the purposes of that show, the 80s began in 1980 and ended in 1989. That’s true. Those were the 80s. However, the 80s was the ninth decade of the twentieth century and it lasted until the end of 1990.

Remember: there was no year zero. And when we count to ten, we count from one to ten, not from zero to nine.

Have I straightened out the confusion? Probably not. Have I changed any minds? Doubtful. Do people still hate math geeks pooping on their party? Absolutely.