pandemic beginning?

I'm usually not the kind of guy that buys into the hype about diseases, but this swine flu has me jittery.  Probably mostly because I teach in a school with many ties to Mexico, and the flu has been discovered in Kansas.  Dickinson county, which is a couple of hours away, but right down the interstate from me.

It's times like this that being a teacher might not be the healthiest career choice.

I'm encouraged by the fact that so far the cases have been mild, so if I catch it soon, it will hopefully be milder than when it becomes more virulent and wipes out a third of the United States.

I love cell phones... except for talking

I have this thing about talking on the phone.

I hate it. 

I always have hated talking on the phone. I don't know why.  It just kind of fills me with dread.  I wouldn't last 10 minutes as a telemarketer.  I would rather talk to someone IRL, or email or text.

I like text.  I'm one of those people waiting for texting to replace voice-mail.

But voice-mail is still better than talking to people on the phone for real.  I have a paid account to slydial, and I use it often.
It's so weird.

can wires be human?

I'm predicting an argument in a few minutes.

As part of a science book club, we've been reading The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil.  Some people consider Kurzweil a prophet of technological superiority, and some consider him to be a crank.  I'm somewhere in the middle.

Kurzweil predicts that most of us alive today will reach the point where we will modify ourselves enough to be considered "nonbiological" - we will have replaced some (or all) of our flesh and bone with synthetic and nanorobotic substitutes.

One of my friends (a biologist, natch) is horrified at the idea, saying we would lose our humanity.  She thinks there is something necessary about our messy biology.

I totally disagree.  To say that we stop being human if we become electronic, I think, assumes that there is something beyond our bodies and brains that makes us human.  I think that is one of the ways supernaturalism still sneaks into our thinking.  I mean, if humans are self-contained in their skin, then our humanity is also self-contained. We really just define human as "us".  Then we would still be human even if we replaced it all. 

Otherwise, where is the point at which we stop being human?  When we replace half of our internal organs?  Three-fourths?  The brain?

What to do when there's a glut of atheist blogs

I've been wondering for awhile what to do with this blog.

There are a plethora of atheist blogs out there, most of which all discuss the same topics, and try to drum up indignant outrage or mockery at something or other the Christians are doing in the media.  Or they just rehash all the arguments for and against god.

I'm over all that.  That's part of why I haven't posted since January.

But I also don't want to stop the blog.  I find it's useful to get my thoughts on the page.  Plus I've made some friends and I don't want to break up with them, lol.

[aside:  I'm distracted because I'm currently watching Be Kind Rewind - it started off pretty underwhelming, but is getting pretty good now].

So I predict tht my blog, if it is going to survive, will evolve.  Not into the lame ego-driven laundry list of "things I did today".  But it will probably become more random; I'll post on whatever topics are on my mind at the moment, whether a full entry or only a few sentences.  I'm always fascinated with fringe culture; I'll probably muse on those things.
  Of course, it will continue from the atheist/skeptical perspective. 

Umm, so yeah. 

overwork and tooth fairies

I cannot kill myself with school next semester like I did last semester. I ignored too many things in my personal life that help keep me sane.

Part of the problem is that I have had a great many wonderful ideas that I can use to help teach students math from different perspectives. However, I pushed myself to develop too many of them too quickly, which not only didn't work, but made me neglect my personal life. That sucks.


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My niece is becoming one of my favorite people. She is five years old, and has already figured out that there is no Easter Bunny. She told her dad (my brother) that she knows the Easter Bunny isn't real because she has never seen a rabbit that big anywhere.

She also knows Santa Claus isn't real, but likes to still pretend he is.

But my favorite thing about her is her approach to the Tooth Fairy. She is very suspicious about the Tooth Fairy's existence, even though she hasn't lost a tooth yet. She has a great train of logic for a 5-year old: She knows that fairies aren't real, and she knows that the Tooth Fairy is, well, a fairy. So she has devised an experiment: her hypothesis is that the tooth fairy is really just parents. So she has given her dad instructions - when she loses her tooth, he is not allowed to put money under her pillow. Then, if money still appears, the tooth fairy is real. If money doesn't appear, then the tooth fairy doesn't exist. She is very serious about this, and has reminded her dad several times to make sure he doesn't put money under her pillow.

Her dad is torn about how to respond. He wants to respect her experiment, but he also wants her to have the experience of the Tooth Fairy.

Royalties Results

So at the end of September I got my first royalty check for my book.

I sold a grand total of 51 copies of my book. My royalty check was $61.25.
I figure I'll wait for one more check before I retire.

So after hearing the rumors online that my publisher rips people off, I have no way of telling that. I can account for about 25 copies of the book that I know family and friends (and myself) bought. And that's only half of the copies sold. There was even one person in England that ordered it.

I have a friend in Los Angeles that said he randomly saw a coworker reading my book one day, so I know it's drifting out there somewhere.

And since it has been seen in Los Angeles, I hope Will Smith sees and and wants to star in the movie.

filling the hole.

damn, I sure didn't expect to be gone this long!

This school year I set myself the professional goal of going paperless, and dramatically increasing the use of technology in the classroom. I mean, we are a school district that just gave every single student Apple laptops, but students (and teachers) are really only using them to write reports and check email. I'm teaching myself how to use the various programs in iLife and iWork. Then I'm constructing my own tutorials for students.

The internet is little more than useless at school, since the content filters are positively draconian. But of course, like any censored population, we find ways around it. I'm an active member in the proxy underground with students.

So anyway, I bought a nice scanner and now scan all work by students into the computer. I grade it on the computer and then email it back to them.

I'm taking a topology course as my semester master's degree class.

And all this stuff takes up so damn much of my time that I don't do much else. Seriously, I've played video games one time since September. Those that know me will be concerned about that.

And I kept putting off blogging. Until now.

I finally gave in and got a Twitter account. If you Twitter, you can follow me @ uncertainwonder.