Jury Duty Update
Just a quick follow-up on my jury duty talk from last week to start. I spoke to the attorney for the defense. He wanted to get my opinion on a few things. He also let me know he wanted on the jury because I was a skeptic. He figured I'd be skeptical of the plaintiff's testimony.
I was. But I was also skeptical of the defendant's.
That's how it works.
Four Dimland Radio Science Heroes!
I had four Science Heroes to award this week. Two were repeat heroes, two were first timers.
First up were Susan Gerbic (a previous Science Hero) and Mark Edward (a first timer) together with their team of skeptics they set up a sting to see if they could change a celebrity psychic using hot reading in his act.
They did. The sting was called Operation Pizza Roll and you can learn more about it here and here.
They did. The sting was called Operation Pizza Roll and you can learn more about it here and here.
Next up was John Oliver (also a previous Science Hero). On his HBO show Last Week Tonight, he did a 20 minute expose on psychics. He explained cold reading and hot reading. He was wise enough to know that he wouldn't convince true believers, but he has a sizable audience and he's doing his part to get the message out.
A psychic responded to Oliver's message. She like John Oliver and his show. She believes he is honest, but she thinks he's wrong. She does a bit of hand-waving rationalizing to explain why psychic abilities don't work that way. How convenient.
And the fourth Dimland Radio Science Hero is Lewis Black. He does a regular bit on The Daily Show in which he rants about something. Recently he ranted about the recent measles outbreaks going on all over America. His rather pointed and much-needed rant dug right into the whole anti-vax bullshit.
It's pretty good.
I also mentioned a county in Washington state that has seen a 500% increase in their vaccination rate. That's great, but it jumped because parents, who had been frightened by the anti-vax message got even more frighten when kids started getting measles.
A Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: Kittens Or Cubs
A few weeks a go a story came out about a jogger having to kill a juvenile mountain lion when he was attacked. The story got fleshed out a bit more the other day when the necropsy report was made public. The headlines and articles online began referring to the young mountain lion as a kitten.
I had thought young big cats were called cubs. I also thought using the word kitten was a subtle attempt to downplay the difficulty of the fighting of the attack. "Oh, it was a kitten? Big man! You killed a kitten." That sort of thing.
While I looked into it and found out that kitten was correct for mountain lion young. Mountain lions aren't considered big cats like tigers and lions. Biologists will refer to them as both kittens and cubs.
So, I learned something.
Three Cool Things
1) There's a new podcast out there the focuses on collaborations. It's about people teaming up and going farther than they might have alone. The first season examines the collaboration of a somewhat well-known song-writing duo: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It's called One Plus One and it's really cool.
2) There is another podcast called Discography. This show focuses on an artist and talks about each of the musical releases of that artist. The third season or series focuses on The Who. How cool is that?
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| Photo credit: St. Paul Pioneer Press (used with permission) |
3) In a special section of the St Paul Pioneer Press from a couple weeks ago there was a photograph that is very cool. The section was publishing photographs that had appeared in that newspaper throughout the 20th century. The photo (see above) in question is way cool because my uncle is in it. He's the dark-haired kid wearing overalls right in the middle of the group of excited second graders getting their summer break started.
Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: 'Fight For Love' by 54-40 & 'One At A Time' by The Who
First ad break bumpers: 'Fight For Love' by 54-40 & 'One At A Time' by The Who
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle
That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
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