Black Holes and Revelations

Let’s try something a little different.  Before you click the “more” link, do me a favor.  Either in your head or on paper or whatever, define the word “game.”  The more specific, the better.  You probably had something in your head before the undertaking, due simply to the title of this essay.  Hopefully you’ve adequately defined it by now, so let’s continue. (more…)

Continuing the series begun here, we now present a refutation of the pro-green statement:

We first need to determine the “opposite view on the topic.”  We will take the more general “green is NOT the best color” position, as opposed to “green is the not-best (i.e. worst) color,” or “not-green (perhaps magenta?) is the best color.”  To show that green is not the best color, we aim to argue that “best” is an inherently subjective term and that no objective measure of “most satisfactory” can be made. (more…)

I am currently taking a philosophy course at the local community college, the subject matter of which is “critical thinking and writing.”  It is essentially a logic class, and I am really enjoying being “initiated” into the fold.  Learning the names of the informal fallacies is like learning secret code, and drawing up the contradiction/contrary square and learning about categories is great fun.

One assignment in particular provided me with both a lot of food for thought and a great deal of amusement.  The assignment was to state a “truth claim” and defend it in written form.  Following this, we were supposed to defend the opposite side of the argument.  Finally, the assignment had us come down off the fence and decide which side of the argument we thought had better points.  It was interesting and fun to defend two separate positions as well as possible, and I have decided to post my essay as a series here, taking each part in turn. Comments on the validity of the reasoning, about your thoughts on my decision, or about which color is  actually the best are most welcome.

Without further ado:
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I’ve been thinking lately about the visual effectiveness of this blog in conveying ideas that are contained primarily in the form of large blocks of text.  Sometimes it is hard for me to read through my own posts, and while I am aware that this is almost certainly my own fault for being excessively wordy, I also wonder whether there is some component to it that is dependent upon sans-serif fonts and blue hyperlinks instead of grey, etc.

Consequently, I have changed the theme to one that is at least a little easier on my eyes, does a bit better to separate block quotes and links from normal text, and in general makes me feel as though I am being very efficient and benevolent to my non-existent readership.

Non-existent readership:  Please let me know your thoughts on this visual shift — if the text is easier to read now, if the layout is more intuitive, and so on.  Our primary concern is to make it easy for you, the reader, to waste time on somebody else’s mundane thoughts, including my newest post on the color green.

Given that this pathetic blog’s name is taken from an album by the rock band Muse, it would exceedingly poor form to not at least pretend to like the band long enough to crank out a half-hearted review of their latest CD (note: I really like Muse but do not particularly enjoy writing reviews.  Be gentle).   I finally purchased The Resistance a few weeks ago, and have been spending some quality time with it.  If you’re a just-give-me-the-verdict kind of reader, read no further: yay. Here, briefly, are some extra thoughts.  Caveats: I am necessarily using language that will make more sense to Muse fans than to those on the outside.  I also reserve the right to use audiophile lingo inappropriately.  All of these songs are available on Youtube, but I’m not going to link except to the official Muse page. (more…)

Filler: Lately I’ve been waffling between a desire to write something here and crippling fear (read: minor discomfort) over whether I even have anything worth writing.  The result has been quite a few creative titles to non-essays that may or may not ever see the light of day.  I’ve taken the liberty of posting some ideas below as a sort of outline to some things I’d like to post here, given an infinite amount of time.  Feel free to comment on which you’d like to see next, given no information whatsoever besides titles.

Hymns Contain Promises

Bosons are Extroverts

“The Soul That Sins Shall Die”

Green: Can a Color Be “The Best”? [in three parts]

Christianity and “The Issues”

Humor is Relative: Critiquing Big Bang Theory

My Charismatic Experience: Christian Fortune Tellers

In Defense of Administration

Dogs on the Beach, or Why I Am a Cat Person

One or more of these is already underway, but I don’t always post things in the order in which they are written.  Something will be posted soon though, hopefully.