THE CALLADUS BLOG

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Ten Year anniversary of the Calladus Blog!

Can you believe it? As of today I've had this blog online for ten years!

Way back when, in 2003, I started a website called, "The Calladus Project" on Tripod. It was about some of my thoughts, and I used it to play with wysiwyg HTML editors. I wrote several pieces there, but didn't touch much on the themes of skepticism and atheism.

I quickly ran into the limitations of HTML and HTML tables, and in creating multiple pages and a table of contents to jump to each new posting. Frankly, it was a dinky website that was becoming claustrophobic. And since I was holding down a full time job AND going to school at the time, I wasn't about to use HTML to invent the "next new thing".

So in 2005 I shut down my tripod page. I left a sign there, to indicate I was moving. And I started "The Calladus Blog" right here on Blogger.

I created a brand new first post in which I mentioned the new podcast, "Skepticality". I also wrote about how terrible it was that people believe that humans in the past just are not smart enough to invent and build wondrous things.

In 2005, three years before California Proposition 8 was implemented, and ten years before the Supreme Court ruling that same sex marriage is constitutional, I made the prediction that same sex marriage was inevitable. I based this upon the fact that same sex couples were already raising children, and that these children were more accepting of same sex couples. I did not mention that friends and relatives of these children, and friends and relatives and parents of gay children are also more accepting of homosexuality and of LGBT rights. I didn't mention that this was a form of positive feedback that would continue to grow. I think I knew this argument at the time, but didn't include it.

In August 2005 I purchased the domain names calladus.com and calladus.net. I set them up as a redirect, so if you put those into your browser address bar, you'll end up back here at my blog. If for some reason my blog ever disappears, try using those addresses and see if you get to a new destination.

My first post to gain lots of attention was a humorous post I made about a very unfortunate Gecko. It also gained me a friend that I've never met in person, but hold great respect and admiration for. (Hi Sumi!)

Here are a few of my most popular posts over the last ten years:

The one post that gets absolutely the most traffic on my blog is, Testing the Counterfeit Money Detector Pen by DriMark. This post was created in response to a Skeptic's Circle contest held in September 2006, and hosted that month by Dr. Janet Stemwedel. You can find Dr. Stemwedel at her blog, "Adventures in Ethics and Science" - where she's still doing great things.

Traffic to my Counterfeit Money page comes mostly from Google searches, or from links in various web forums that talk about counterfeit money - from both sides of the law. I am somewhat amused that I get just as much referrals from police and law abiding people warning about DriMark as I do from people who are attempting to create "funny" money.

Looking back at that post, I can see that the formatting didn't change gracefully when I made blog changes. I may re-make the entire post to make it prettier.

I am proud that one of my posts has actually been cited in a few different semi-scholarly places. That post was in response to Tony Perkins, President of James Dobson’s Christian lobbying organization “Family Research Council". Mr. Perkins stated in March 2007 that there are "stacks of peer-reviewed research" that show abstinence only education is effective.

Due to Mr. Perkin's statement, I started reviewing the "peer-reviewed research" that he cited. And I found that it was all a sham - a facade created out of whole clothe to give people against birth control something to point at. I wrote up what I found in a post called, "Let's examine the proof that Abstinence Only education programs actually work".

Some of the posts that I'm the most proud of have to do with the intersection of religion and human rights. Specifically how some religious positions limit human rights. The post that most demonstrates this is, "If Abortion is murder, coffee is manslaughter". In this post I explore the implications of declaring humans to exist as persons under the law from the moment of conception. If a blastocyst has the same rights as a born human, then how shall we treat those women who are guilty of the death of their unborn through criminal negligence? Later, I followed this post up with, "Abortion vs. Personhood" - which further clarifies terms, and explains why the chance of miscarriage can increase due to a woman's actions. This leads to grave implications if a zygote is legally the same as a born person!

As an atheist, my blog contains questions and responses to Christians. Of course, I'm not a "big name" atheist, so I get relatively little discussion. Still, I have to ask. For example, how can anyone be happy in Heaven if there is a Hell? Or how about this, if an atheist can recreate the experience of the Holy Spirit at will, what does that say about people who base their faith upon this experience? Here's another question - if you try to witness people into a religion, what happens when that religion is proved false? In this case, it can be both funny, and extremely sad.

And I answer questions that have been put to me. "What do you believe?" "Why do you discuss atheism", and my favorite, "What's the point of life if you're an atheist? Why bother?"

I've tried to inform and teach in my blog from time to time. I'm very much interested in art, and most love Romantic Realism. Over a 3 year period from 2005 to 2008 I posted "Friday in the Atelier" about art that I love. I also posted a 3 part series called, "What is Art?" where I explained the difference between the skill of Pierre-Auguste Cot, the unskilled "happy accident" produced by Jackson Pollack. And I speak about Pablo Picasso - who had skill but decided to use as little of it as possible so it wouldn't interfere with the time he spent with wine and women.

One of my informational posts that gets heavy traffic is about the aggressive selling tactics shown by members of the Core Gas Aggregation program. These are the people who knock on your door and say, "Hi! I'm from PG&E! Can I look at your latest PG&E bill?" My take is that if you have to lie to sell your product, then you don't deserve the sale.

There's been drama in my blog. Frankly, I wish I could have avoided the whole "Possummomma" affair. I am left saddened and confused by my friendship with Chris - who is no longer communicating with old friends. I haven't heard from her in years now - although I see occasional updates on Facebook. I am still not making any conclusions on the matter, one way or the other. But because of this drama I have become much more wary of offering assistance to any blogger.

And that is sad, because I've been the beneficiary of assistance when I needed it most. On the death of my late wife, Won Chong, I received over $3,000 from very kind people all over the world - which helped me fly to Korea and bring Won back home. That was a dark time for me, and my blog updates dropped off dramatically after that.

I've had other dark spots in my blog. Not quite as traumatic, but traumatic at the time. For example, when my dog Leena died - it shook me deeply. From my point of view now, it seems like the foreshadowing of Won's death.

There's been bittersweet. Losing my dog Tasha, just after proposing to my wife Wendy. That is also a whiplash of the heart. Wendy and I have recently lost another dog due to old age. I've yet to write about her, but I expect that I will. I've heard it said that owning a pet was owning delayed heartbreak.

But there has also been healing. Finding out that my scumbag ex-stepfather was in jail for his crimes was extremely healing for me and my sister. And knowing that my sister had some part in putting him there made us both do a fist-pump of triumph.

And buying a house together with Wendy has also been amazingly great. I had not thought that I'd ever be married again, but I lucked out and found a perfect mate.

My blog posting hasn't increased to the point where it was before 2010. But that's for mostly happy reasons. I'm a homeowner, a newlywed, and more active in my hobbies of woodworking and aquaponics. I have also started researching several possible books, and have been writing a little. I hope to become more serious about that.

I do write in a much more trivial manner, much more often, on Reddit. Look me up as Calladus there to see what I've written. Don't expect too much of it to be very profound.

And now, at the ten year mark, the question remains. Do I continue blogging?

Yea, whenever I think I have something to say, I'll blog about it here. It probably won't be amazing, and I will probably never have a large audience. But it will always be what I'm thinking about. And it may occasionally be profound.

Calladus on ExChristian dot net

Dave, of ExChristian dot net invited me to blog on that site. I'll be re-posting a few of my favorite entries from the Calladus Blog to ExChristian first, but I expect that at some point I'll be posting original content to ExChristian.

However, I want to keep most of my blogging at one site, so after a period of time, say two weeks, I'll cross post my ExChristian content back to the Calladus Blog.

To keep up to date with my blogging (yea, like my readers - all two of 'em - care) you'll have to keep both me and ExChristian in your blog aggregator.

My first post went up on ExChristian today, one of my favorites - "Mind Hacking God".

Enjoy.

Atheist in a minivan widget

If you haven't been reading the blog "Atheist in a minivan", written by Possummomma, well then you've been depriving yourself.

Possummomma, and her family of possums (read here to see the meaning of her pseudonym) are two Atheists raising 4 children. She's a great writer, and describes how she cares for her brood and what affect that her atheism has on that care.

She also the autoimmune disease, "Lupus". A truly terrible thing that is not only painful, but limits how she can interact with her family. Due to this disease, she is currently unable to withstand sunlight - she has gotten by so far by turning her bedroom into a sort of "bat cave" and not coming out until after the sun goes down. The sunlight through the rest of the windows in her house causes painful burns.

Well, Berlzebub - another out of the Atheist community, decided to do something about it and has started taking donations for a film to limit ultraviolet - when placed on the windows at Possummomma's home, it should allow her to leave her bat cave even during the day - it should give her back the rest of her house.

This has been going on now for several weeks, and Berlzebub is almost 2/3 of the way to his goal of $5000. Since then, he's created a widget to allow easy donations - and you can find that widget to the right on my blog.

Yes, I know the widget shows a mere few hundreds of dollars (as of this writing) but apparently the company involved won't allow you to start the widget at any number other than zero. Check in at Berlzebub's Possummomma thread to see what the current totals are.

And if you are part of the online Atheist community, you probably know all about this since it has already been covered by an "A-List" blogger - PZ Myers. Still, I might get one or two readers that he doesn't, and so it's worth it for me to bring it to my reader's attention.

And it is worth doing so because I like P-momma. She's good people.

Oy! My blog is Monitized!

I've received emails from two very kind readers who have asked about donating to help me set up a better website. Let me reassure everyone that my current lack of blog posting has very little to do with money, and I can afford a modest website. What I need is a site designer. Still, the idea of offsetting my ~~addictions~~ hobbies even by a couple of bucks a year is attractive.

So here's the deal, I've added buttons to the side of my blog. One will take you to a Paypal safe donation site. You can choose how much you want to send my way. There's no minimum amount required – give what you want. Or, if you're really feeling generous you could click on the second button and send me a book from my Amazon wish list. Again, I'm not choosy – save a few bucks and send me a used book.

So if I've amused you, or informed you, or explained something in a way that aids your understanding, you can express your appreciation by the click of a button.

And if you don't feel like giving, then that's okay too. It won't change how I blog.

Comments to Deep Posts in my blog

What is a blogger to do when a reader discovers and comments on a blog entry written months ago? The recent Steorn fiasco resulted in new comments to my Steorn posting from last year. And I still get comments on my Homeopathy and Counterfeit Pen postings.

Blogger notifies me for every comment that I get, so it isn't a problem for me to keep up, but how could you - the reader - know about a new comment from months ago?

Well, I have two ways to keep you informed. First, if the comment is entertaining enough, or relevant in other ways, then I'm happy to bring it to the front page and give it a post of its own.

The other way is a new blogger hack I've included in the column to the right, titled, "Recent Comments". New comments appear at the top of this column, and clicking on the user's name will take you to that particular comment. Clicking on the blog post title will take you to the top of that blog posting so you can read the whole thing.

Please note that as long as I have comment moderation turned on, your comments will not appear immediately, nor will they appear in the sidebar. Your comment will only appear once I've approved it. I do have a comment moderation policy that I try to stick with. It has been necessary for me to keep moderation turned on due to comment spam of the advertising sort. Although Google's Gmail has excellent spam filters - that technology hasn't migrated into Blogger... yet. (You listening Google?)

Lastly, while I'm discussing my blog - I'm still on a hiatus. Yes, I know I've been awfully chatty for being on hiatus, but really I've limited the sheer amount of posting that I was doing, from 2-3 posts per day down to 1-2 posts per week, and I've suspended "Friday in the Atelier" until I come off of hiatus. My apologies for this, my life is currently in disorder and I'm on a cusp that requires the majority of my attention.

Blog fixed - back online

I found out why my "Read More" drop-down posts stopped working. It had to do with the fact that the critical bit of javascript was hosted off site. This caused bandwidth problems for that provider, Ramani, at Hackosphere, who stopped offering the service.

However, Ramani was kind enough to allow his javascript to be posted inside other people's Blogger templates - so after a quick copy and paste I'm back where I'm supposed to be.

And now it is even more obvious to me that my blog is big enough to need a real site and some professional set-up and maintenance. Once things in my life settle I'll get onto that.

Something wrong here - blog error

Okay, my expandable posts seem to have an error - some of my javascript has gone missing, and I don't know how long ago it happened. For now, the "Read More" hyperlink won't be working, but you can still read each entire post by clicking on the post title.

I don't have the time or energy today to troubleshoot this. Maybe over the weekend - who knows?

300th post!

This is my obligatory, self-referential 300th post!

I don't have a subject prepared for this post, so I thought I'd just note a few statistics about my site.

First post: 22 Aug 2005
Number of posts: 300

Average posting frequency: 3.4 posts per week (Click on image to enlarge)

Frequency of visitors to The Calladus Blog (Click on image to enlarge)

I'd like to point out that my returning visitor count looks very low due to the way it is calculated. Stat Counter uses 'cookies' to count the number of returning visitors. If the browser in question has cookies turned off, or if the person reads my site through a Blog Reader, then they will often be counted as a unique visitor instead of as a returning visitor. This is why so many different measurements are tracked, to give a better picture of what is going on.

Secondly, I'd like to say that I'm very happy that I no longer mess up my web statistics when I visit my own site. It was discouraging when half of my web traffic used to be me!

And lastly, I'd like to thank everyone who I've managed to entertain and inform. I'm astonished that several sites have seen fit to link to my articles as source or background material for theirs, and I'm gratified that Googling “Calladus” produces page after page of links back to my writings. Thanks to all my readers – I could not have come even this far without you, so I'll do my best to keep providing content.

Meta-Blog - a little spring cleaning.

First, before I begin, I'd like to point out that I've re-arranged the essays on the right-hand bar. I hope you all enjoy them.

Second, I'd like to point out a new addition, "Mind Hacking God" in where I try to point out that the overwhelming feeling of God's presence isn't necessarily an indication that he actually exists. As I point out in that essay, people in other religions also feel the presence of their God(s). (And this Atheist has also re-created those feelings!)

Last, I've received an email asking what happened to the "Creation Challenge". I apologize, but challenges in my personal life have kept it on the back burner. I've never stopped with it, but it is going very slowly. I've read Jonathan Well's book, "Icons of Evolution" and tore it up from the standpoint of faulty reasoning and poorly made arguments, and now I'm (slowly) learning why his arguments also don't work in Biology. Dr. Wells has made a few points that I will concede, but that in no way saves his original premise.

It doesn't help that the local University library is torn up for rennovation. Ah well, I can still get the books I need when I order them through intra-library loan.

Blogs are a Cloud Chamber, not an Echo Chamber

I'm getting a little annoyed at how articles, stories and information propagate through various blogs and other content Internet sites.

I'm an information junkie and am interested in geeky projects, politics and secular issues; so I have over a hundred blogs and news sources in my Google Reader.

I've noticed that stories filter through several of my RSS feeds. The popular label for this phenomenon is the “Echo Chamber”; but that's not a very good analogy because content isn't merely echoed from blog to blog. I think that a better analogy is a “Cloud Chamber” because content seems to explode into the 'net and spin its way through blogs and websites.

Each bit of content starts with an initial energy from a news distribution source or an individual offering something new and interesting via his or her website or blog. The content then spins in a somewhat predictable way through several sites and blogs, all while throwing off similar “particles” of content as it is amplified or allowed to decay into obscurity. Many blogs add so much energy to a story that the content will achieve a much higher energy level than it had during its original appearance.

And just as in a cloud chamber, I can almost determine the nature of a story just by following the track that it makes through blogs and news sites. Gadgets appear most often in Endgadget and will spin through Boing Boing before throwing decayed particles through MAKE and Slashdot – final decay happens as it is scattered through A and B list bloggers. Political content particles spring out of different news media, and are accelerated to higher energy levels by The Daily Kos, Michelle Malkin, Think Progress, The Huffington Post or others.

If I didn't have work and other commitments I would be interested in compiling a listing of different content tracks that would be useful in identifying the type of content being tracked. I wonder if it would offer a better way of searching for content? Hey Google, are you listening?

What most annoys me about the Blogging Cloud Chamber is that very little original content is added to a story as it spins its way through an average site. Energy is added, but interesting new properties are seldom discovered about the original content. I find this frustrating because some bloggers do offer fascinating commentary on the implications of a story, and some manage to connect data in a way that adds to our basic store of knowledge. I just don't know if or when this happens.

(sigh) I need a tool that watches for fascinating, high-energy content, and keeps track of the interesting decay particles generated as the content spins through the Blogging Cloud Chamber. I know Particle Physicists have such a tool – they call 'em “Graduate Students”.

Trusted Pseudonyms and the Blogger’s Code of Conduct

I’ve been behind on this whole “Blogger Code of Conduct” thing. I think I'm caught up now and would like to contribute a comment or two.

I read about the awful comments on Kathy Sierra’s blog that seem to have triggered this discussion about ethical blogging, and I’m aware that some people seem to think that even discussing a blogging code of ethics is overblown – I disagree. I don’t have a problem with a general agreement to be civil – or as Violet Blue succinctly puts it, “don’t be a douchebag”.

I am concerned about the wording on aliases, and pseudonymous and anonymous identities. From what I’ve read so far, it seems to me that Tim O’Reilly means one thing when he speaks about identity, and language in the Blogging Wikia means something else. I think this must be explored.

When the subject has arisen I’ve very clearly warned my friends and family that the Internet does not allow for true anonymity. I’ve said that with enough time and effort any post, email or instant message could eventually be traced to its point of origin. This isn’t the whole truth – there are ways to create true anonymity on the Internet – but all the methods that I know of are time-consuming and difficult to implement, and not worth my bother for my current needs.

Anonymity is a tool, and like any good tool it can be used or misused. An anonymous person could spray-paint vile, bigoted, misogynistic hate speech on the side of the town hall; or an anonymous person could paint damning evidence against “Those In Charge”. The message cannot be judged by the identity of the poster; it must stand or fall on its own merits - and the message may be missed by the intended audience if the owner of said property decides to ‘censor’ the message by washing it off or covering it with paint.

A policy of refusing all anonymous comments in a posting area available to the general public is as silly as a policy that allows all anonymous comments. Neither dictatorships nor anarchies are nurturing of candid and open discussion.

And what about pseudonyms? Are they encouraged or discouraged? It is difficult to tell with the current wording of the Blogger's Code of Conduct.

Used properly a “Trusted Pseudonym” becomes a veil of privacy between an author and his or her audience – like my own pseudonym: Calladus.

My pseudonym is only pseudo-anonymous. A simple subpoena would easily reveal my identity, as would some determined detective work. I don't require a deeper level of anonymity. If I were a political fugitive and in fear of my life or freedom, I would use a more secure method of writing.

But my pseudonym has a certain level of trust on the Internet. Although I'm not an “A List” blogger, a Google search of my pseudonym or my blog will demonstrate that I have a (small) reputation that I can be proud of.

This is what I mean by a “trusted pseudonym”. The author trusts the pseudonym for protection, which in turn allows for the growth of trust between the author and his or her audience. Unlike a merely anonymous message that must be judged solely upon content, the author becomes part of the message and brings with it his or her own credibility – or lack thereof.

Inflammatory text could be accredited to my pseudonym in an effort to defame me, and my denial of authorship might not be enough to save my reputation. The Blogger’s Code of Conduct tries to address this problem by requiring that a valid email address or OpenID be attached to the pseudonym. I'm not sure this is enough protection - perhaps something like a PGP signature would be better if it were not so unwieldy to use in practice.

In Orson Scott Card's “Ender Series” the pseudonyms of Demosthenes and Locke were taken by Ender's sister and brother and used as trusted pseudonyms while they built political power. The use of pseudonyms disguised the fact that the authors were merely children - genius children, but children nonetheless whose age would discredit their otherwise valid opinions. In these books, pseudonyms were never in danger of being compromised.

Would that it were so easily accomplished in today's Internet.

I believe that the idea of a Blogger’s Code of Conduct is good, but ultimately flawed and meaningless as it is currently presented. A blog owner can pay lip-service to a code of ethics while ignoring it, or worse – spin it to suit him or herself. No matter – the final measure of any blog is a mixture of the author's attitude and the blog's reputation.

In my opinion, the greater flaw with the Blogger’s Code of Conduct lies in the difficulty of creating universally recognized, trusted pseudonyms.

Perhaps these flaws can be overcome. I'll keep my eye on the Wikia and see how the code evolves. Until then, I'll continue to be the benign dictator of my own blog, and will follow Violet Blue's Blogging Ethic: “Don't be a douchebag.”

Hacking Blogger

I'm trying out a new hack that I found on the Hackosphere blog. It's called 'peekaboo' posting - or 'drop-down' posting. Via the Unbearable Lightness of being a Postdoc blog.

To see more, click on the 'read more' link below.

See? Now you can read the rest of the post! To get back to the summary portion of the post, click the 'summary only' link.

Note, this does leave a bug in your blog. From the Hackosphere blog:

Update 2: If you click "Older posts" link, the "Read more" link may appear even for the posts which you haven't divided into summary and full post. This is a known problem which we haven't solved yet.

Also note that if you click on a post title, you see that complete post with attached comments by itself. This isn't a bug - just thought I'd mention it.

On another note, Blogger DOES have a built-in bug (or perhaps it is only this template, I dunno) in that if you do click on the "Older Posts" link at the bottom, you won't be able to return to the main page by clicking on the blog header. This is why I included a link to the "-Main Page-" at the top right.

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