ChaoSkeptic

(Happy Black History Month!)

Imagine having the opportunity to reach immortality. Not the fleeting immortality of fame that goes out of style quickly. Or even the pie-in-the-sky metaphysical immortality that supposes that your mind will keep on going even after your brain has turned to mush. Imagine having real immortality where part of your body goes on forever and doesn't stop. A state where your personal genetic code never changes or dies. Such a thing happened to one Henrietta Lacks:

In early 1951, Ms. Lacks, a 31-year old mother of five children, was found to have a malignant tumor of the cervix. During her examination at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD, a sample of the tumor was removed and provided to Dr. George Gey. He was head of tissue culture research at Hopkins who for years had been attempting to produce a line of immortal human cells. When Ms. Lacks died in October 1951, Dr. Gey announced on national television that he had produced from Ms. Lacks’ tumor a line of cells that propagated as no other cells ever had before. He called them ‘HeLa’ cells in her honor, and showed a vial of the cells to the television audience.

Sadly Mrs. Lacks' consciousness left existence in 1951, but her cells are still growing. Unlike normal human cells which degrade over time due to DNA damage, they just kept going and going. They were so aggressive that they would often contaminate other cultures. Her HeLa cells were soon used by Jonas Salk to help end the polio epidemic. They've been used all over the world for research into cancer, AIDS, and the effects of radiation and toxic substances. Some cells were even sent into outer space on one of the United States' first satellites. Her sacrifice of a few cancer cells has definitely changed the history of mankind.

Unfortunately though, Mrs. Lacks never got to know about her ever-lasting cells. She was never asked for permission to use the cells. Her family wasn't even notified that they were her cells until the 1970s. As far as I know they have never been compensated for her very persistent cells. Then again, I think I would trade all of the gold in the world for a chance at immortality.


(To learn more about Henrietta Lacks and her amazing cells, pick up "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skoot.)

Believe it or don't, but I've actually been doing this blogging thing for over a year now. I completely missed the anniversary too. For some strange reason I thought that I had started at the end of January and not the beginning. I think blogging was supposed to be my "unofficial so I'll actually stick to it" New Year's Resolution last year. At any case, that means that this post was the closest you'll get to an anniversary celebration I'm going to have. Hooray.

At any rate, since I've been at this blogging thing for over a year that makes me somewhat of a success story. Blogging, much like the restaurant industry, is a failure more times than not. If you can make it past a year then you are certifiably insane. To help others out there in their own blogging endeavors I have decided to offer you, free of charge, several pieces of advice that I have all but ignored on my way to mediocrity:

1) Find a good reputable site to host your blog. Blogger is good. WordPress isn't bad but I never liked the feel of it. LiveJournal should be your last resort. Squarespace is best if you have an iPhone and money to throw around. If you can register your own domain, then by all means.

Ways I have ignored this: I'm at Blogger. Enough said.

2) Learn some HTML. You don't have to get fancy with it. Know how to do bold, italics, links, blockquote, how to post pictures. The basics, in other words. You don't have to be an expert, but it helps to know your way around and how to fix things if you royally fuck up.

Ways I have ignored this: I typically cheat and use the toolbars that Blogspot provides you. I know absolutely nothing about layouts and design. And I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag.

3) Write write write. Write as much as you can. Write everyday if you can. Experiment with style and content. Figure out what works for you and do it. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Find inspiration where you can.

Ways I have ignored this: If you haven't noticed I have a lazy habit of just posting entertaining videos rather than writing. Or I'll post about writing other people have done. Personally I think my writing is rubbish, but is slightly better than it was a year ago. At the very least I am writing longer entries now.

4) Be your own proof-reader. Once you write something, go back over it to looks for errors. See if misspelled any words, accidentally left out any words, and just see if the flow is right. Make sure you check your facts and add links where necessary.

Ways that I have ignored this: I have a nasty habit of dropping the word "not" from sentences. I believe I did it twice this summer and others corrected me. I was horrible about not reading my stuff at the beginning. Hopefully I've learned my lesson.

5) Promote, but don't spam. Once you've got that writing thing down, go out there and let others know you exist. Share links with your friends. Use social media to get your name out there. Connect with other bloggers that share your interests. At the same time, don't over-expose yourself. No one likes spammers or attention whores.

Ways I have ignored this: I'd like to think that I haven't done too bad with this. I participated in Skeptic's Circle several times. I got several link backs thanks to my two-parter on Russ Pulliam and the Indy Star. I use Twitter all of the time to update people on when I've posted something. I used Yahoo Answers to spam my post on Lady Gaga, but I have no regrets on that! But, at the same time, almost no one that I know in real life knows about this blog. I've never used Facebook to promote myself. I could find more ways to promote myself but it sorta embarrasses me.

6) Interact with your readers. The main reason to write things online is so others can read it and talk back to you. That's what the comment section is for. Get to know your readers and what they expect from you.

Ways that I have ignored this: According to Google I currently have roughly 22 followers. Statcounter says that I have around 40 regular visitors. And yet, I get almost no comments. The few times I have had commenter it was either a spammer or someone correcting me about my grammar. This means that either my readers think that I am far superior to them and are afraid to talk. Or (more likely) I haven't said anything interesting enough to warrant comments.

[Confidential to Garden City, Michigan: Your haircut is stupid.]

[Confidential to Madison, Wisconsin: Keep being awesome.]

So there you have it. Follow all of this advice and you will be as successful as me. You'll have women (or men, as the case may be) hanging all over you. Millions will hang on your every word. You'll get your book/movie deal in no time.

Or you'll end up internet famous. That and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee.

Apparently Randi has made himself some rather annoying enemies. The James Randi Educational Foundation has it's own account on YouTube. Or rather it did until some time earlier today. According to the JREF's website:

Our YouTube account has been suspended, which means all of the Randi Speaks and other JREF videos are temporarily unavailable. We're researching the problem, and will be back online as soon as possible. Thanks very much for your patience.

It's too early to speculate on exactly what caused this problem, but I've got a couple of quick guesses: 1) Flag bots hit the channel hard and tripped YouTube's automatic ban system 2) Someone filed a DMCA complaint which automatic suspends an account (ala the whole Thunderf00t - PCS saga). Either way the whole situation stinks to high heaven. If you want to complain to YouTube about how they are handling it then click here: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/.

Even more of importance, contact your favorite member of Congress and tell them that the DMCA is a complete joke with too many loopholes that can be misused for censorship.

I have jumped on the bandwagon and signed up for Twitter. Or to be more accurate, I've had a Twitter account for almost a year now and I'm finally doing something with it. It looks like Twitter is where the "cool" people are migrating now that Facebook is being fascist and stuff. If you want to follow me CLICK HERE NOW. You'll see me post insanely interesting things like this:

I wonder if the guy who writes Doonsbury has stock in Twitter. Has anyone investigated this?

If there was a website where a bunch of pr0n stars constantly updated their status would it be called Twatter? I bet someone already regged that name

I have just discovered the awesomeness of Sprite with orange flavoring from Sonic. I wonder if I could get a raise for this

Having a dream about Twitter and my blog is probably not a good sign.

How could you miss out on an opportunity like this??

(Note: Most of this was hashed out in a thread at PD.com that ended up getting sidetracked by bullshit. I thought I made some good points and didn't want it to completely go to waste so I'm going to repost it here with some added context)

The topic was brought up on what was the most important technological advance in mankind's history. It is a rather tough decision to make. Things like the wheel, fire, agriculture/domestication of animals, urbanization, art, organized religion, geometry, clockwork, and fermentation were all extremely important prehistorical discoveries. Humanity wouldn't exist without all of these things. There were only a handful of developments in the 1 - 1750 CE that I would consider earth shattering. Off the top of my head: empiricism/scientific method, the printing press, the telescope, the microscope, Newtonian physics/calculus, and gunpowder. The Dark Ages really did set us back a lot.

Meanwhile, the time from 1750 until today has given us huge leaps in technology. Atomic theory, evolution, quantum mechanics, theory of relativity, germ theory, and genetics were all fleshed out in this period. Plus we came up with inventions like the combustion engine, the light bulb, rockets, turbines, computers/the internet, digital watches, vaccines/antibiotics, the telegraph, telephone, radio, television... I feel like I could go on forever here.

However, if I had to pick one single technological advance that shines head and shoulders above everything else, I would have to pick: Language. That is the single greatest advancement humanity has ever made. None of the advances (except for a few) would have even been possible without language.

Language is what helps us spread knowledge and information to our tribe mates, our neighbors and future generations. Because of it mankind doesn't have to go through the learning process anew every generation. Our descendants will be able to build on the knowledge we have already amassed, add to it, and pass it to future generations. And some of the biggest leaps have been thanks to new ways to spreading information: written language, the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, the internet. Humanity would be not be humanity if we had never learned to communicate with one another.

I now have moral justification for buying myself a Kindle. Now I just have to wait for my stimulus check to reach my checking account!



(I couldn't post the comic in line because my blog is teh ghey doesn't have enough girth. Go check it out at xkcd, instead.)