Stumbling the Net

Several months ago (perhaps even as much as a year ago, I'm a bit fuzzy on the details), my friend Richard introduced me to an add-on for the Firefox web browser known as 'StumbleUpon' which does as the name implies... you can stumble upon websites that you never knew existed and then blog about them and keep them listed for future references. Now, there are many more things that the StumbleUpon community can do, but the joy of this add-on is the ability to have a program to get you to places that can be as almost like presents at Christmas for a computer geek like me. Here are some of my favorite places that I have found in recent months:


[1] The Element Song by Tom Leher




[2] Tea - wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia_sinensis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea

[3] The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures

http://www.terebess.hu/english/oxherding.html

[4] The Classical Music Archives

http://www.classicalarchives.com/

[5]The Skeptics Annotated Bible/Quran/ Book of Mormon

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

[6] The Ethical Atheists Ten Commandments

http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/ten_commandments.html

[7] Northern Lights from Iceland

http://www.iww.is/art/shs/pages/thumbs.html

[8] Space Telescope Images

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/screen/heic0717a.jpg

[9] Perfectly Timed Photos

http://beachestatelagunareal.com/Perfectly_Timed_Photos.html

[10] The Sphere and the Moebius Strip

Sam Harris at the AAI '07 Conference

Sam Harris has been one of the most articulate speakers on the case for atheism and takes atheists to task for their inability to find an intimate understanding of the need for the contemplative state of being. Here is Sam in his own words:


Part 1


Part 2

In Defence of Science

In 1633, Galileo was convicted by an Inquisitional Tribunal of the religious crime of heresy. He was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life for having argued (correctly) that the Sun was the center of the solar system and not the earth. He was forced as part of his sentence to:

"Galileo was required to recant his heliocentric ideas; the idea that the Sun is stationary was condemned as "formally heretical." However, while there is no doubt that Pope Urban VIII and the vast majority of Church officials did not believe in heliocentrism, heliocentrism was never formally or officially condemned by the Catholic Church, except insofar as it held (for instance, in the formal condemnation of Galileo) that "The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures", and the converse as to the Sun's not revolving around the Earth."

You might be forgiven if you think that we would have progressed since that time to where science is no longer on trial by religious idiots and bigots... you would be wrong. Witness as proof of my contention the Dover 'Intelligent Design' trial as diligently shown by the PBS science series NOVA:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html

Note: you must have Quicktime installed to watch the program. Also, it is a two hour program which comes in 12 parts but I implore you to watch all the segments to get the full story before you think you can make any judgements as the the veracity of the program. Here is a preview of the program:



Here is some information from BBC Video about the Intelligent Design controversy:

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5