Other speakers include Eugenie Scott, Seth Shostak, Kirsten Sanford, Brian Dunning, and more.  See the list of speakers.

• Date: Saturday, April 24, 2010. 9AM to 6PM.
• Location: Brower Center, Berkeley, California.
• Sponsors: Bay Area Skeptics and Sacramento-Area Skeptics
• Tickets: Tickets are $40 for the regular registration and $55 for registration and a t-shirt. See the fantastic t-shirt design by Ranch7 Creative. This event is expected to sell out, so please reserve your ticket as soon as possible!

And, even drawing a daily cartoon – 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year – and being a most active animal rights activist, he somehow finds time to make a daily blog post.  And his blog is hilarious.  He’s a very entertaining writer, he includes a lot of cartoons, and he delights in the playful use of hyperlinks.  Click on every link – it’s always good for a bonus laugh.

Dan and I have collaborated on a handful of cartoons.  Basically, I send him an idea every once in a while and, if he likes it, he plays with it, draws it, makes it a Bizarro cartoon.

Go check out his blog – and here are my favorite collaborations with genius Dan Piraro:

***

***

***

***

***

***

]]> http://www.sciencecomedian.com/blog/2009/05/my-bizarros/feed/ 4 http://www.sciencecomedian.com/blog/2009/03/year-of-science-jetblue-and-cell-phones/ http://www.sciencecomedian.com/blog/2009/03/year-of-science-jetblue-and-cell-phones/#comments Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:56:45 +0000 Brian http://www.sciencecomedian.com/blog/?p=755 In conjunction with the COPUS Project’s Year of Science – and the March theme of Physics and Technology – I offer up a bit of humor on bad website usability on the Jet Blue…

The February theme was Evolution, as we mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species, hailed by many – including E. O. Wilson – as the greatest science book ever written.

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is the cornerstone of biology as we understand it today.  Since its publication it has been reinforced by discoveries in many disparate fields of research, including paleontology, geology, nuclear physics, comparative anatomy, and genetics.

There is hardly a theory in all of science that is better supported by multiple lines of study.

Yet, somehow, it remains controversial to this day, especially in the United States, where perhaps 50% of the general public (but only 0.15% of scientists) are still clinging to a vision of creation that involves talking snakes and an improbable ark capable of carrying mating pairs of several million species.  I wonder who fed and cleaned up after them everyday?  Why do 99.85% of scientists believe in evolution?

Incredibly, as Sean B. Carroll points out in The Making of the Fittest, despite the rejection of evolution by half the nation’s populace, our legal system relies on DNA evidence to determine the freedom or incarceration – even the life or death – of thousands of individuals every year.  DNA evidence which, of course, is firmly grounded in our understanding of evolution and is utterly meaningless outside of it.

I suppose we’ll always be a nation of contradictions but some are more glaring than others.

There is no insult in the fact that we are related to every living thing on this planet!

It’s really quite astounding what can become of a single-celled organism given a few billion years and a variety of ecosystems.  If you’ve ever left a casserole in your refrigerator for even a couple months, you start to get the picture.

Things change.

Related posts:
Year of Science, March: Nobel, Edison and the Speed of Light
Year of Science, March: JetBlue and Cell Phones
Year of Science, January:  Why is the Sky Blue?

Student journalist Trevor Bekolay contacted me two weeks ago, intending to write a short article about science and humor (or “humour,” as he calls it) but, after transcribing our telephone conversation, he decided to just run it as a Q&A with a brief intro…

“No one has explored the connection between science and humour more than Brian Malow.  A veteran standup comedian, Malow frames his witty observations with scientific theory, asking from his audience a basic understanding of the universe and rewarding them with laughter from start to finish.

“Malow is treading in uncharted territory for a standup comic…”

Thanks, Trevor!

One of the topics we discussed was science and science fiction, which leads me to my next post – Astronomy in Science Fiction – about Mike Brotherton’s fantastic new anthology of science fiction stories that feature accurate portrayals of science concepts.

Links:
Q&A: Brian Malow, science comedian

Related post:  Astronomy in Science Fiction

There’s something especially insulting and infuriating about the much more common spam we get – the unconvincing spam:  plain text, ugly formatting, misspelled words, terrible writing, apparent lack of familiarity with the language they’re written in – in short, embarrassingly poor execution.

Sometimes I’m so offended by their apparent lack of respect and effort that I’m nearly tempted to reply.  Nearly, but not quite.

Here’s one I just got…

First of all, it’s simply from “Support.”  Then the subject line is misspelled and has a dash that leads nowhere – a dash in-between nothing…

Subject:  Messge from eBay -

Inside, I find one block of pathetic plain text that says…

Dear eBay Member,
This is your official notification from eBay. Your online has expired.
If you want to continue using our service you have to renew your online.
If not, your online will be limited and deleted.
To confirm your Account records click on the following link:

The link, of course, is scary-looking with the word “ebay” sprinkled through it three times – but not in the one place you want to see it.  And then it is signed…

Thank you,
Scott R. Shipman, CIPP Senior Counsel, Global Privacy Practices eBay Inc.

My online has expired??!!  My online will be limited and deleted??!!

“Scott R. Shipman,” you dishonor me with your pitiful lack of effort.  You call that a lure?  You are a poor excuse for a phisherman.