Skepticism

I should’ve been born Amish.

So apparently, you can’t just dump a small cup of water on an IBM Thinkpad and have it keep chugging along.

Now, I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’ve dropped my fair share of water on my Powerbook at home, plus I seem to recall it surviving a house fire. But apparently, a few tiny drops of liquid is all it takes to KO the work computer.

And there you have my excuse for not posting anything this morning, and only posting this much right now.

I’ll leave you with something fun for the day, anyway: it’s Jack Chick’s birthday! Why not celebrate by passing judgement upon others? It’s all the rage!

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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8 Comments

  1. This is, perhaps, entirely unrelated. But I think you might get a kick out of it: http://www.quackgrass.com/worst.html

    Apparently: "Skepticism is the rejection of reason. Reason is the actual target of skeptical attacks. Every skeptical argument is aimed squarely at the evidence of the senses and the validity of thinking, i.e., at the essentials of reason itself. There's a clue in that!"

    Oh, and: "A practicing skeptic is a knucklehead."

    Personally, I'm just thankful that there are bulleted lists out there that summarize all reality, so I don't have to think. Thinking is hard.

  2. Actually, there's a footnote at the bottom of that page, which suggests that the "skeptics" mentioned are of the "philosophical" type. Those types of skeptics do, indeed, tend to be "knuckleheads." However, I doubt seriously that the evil triune god of "skepticism, nihilism and statism" poses any real threat to anyone. I don't even know that a real philosophical skeptic would leave the house — perhaps doubting the reality of the driveway.

  3. You know, I DO feel compelled to wish Jack Chick a happy birthday. I was raised by fundamentalists — really,only marginally better than being raised by wolves, it's a miracle I can function in polite society. And I grew up reading his comics. They scared the shit out of me, and most of my friends, too…

    So happy birthday Jack you bitter old bastard. Thanks for the all the childhood terrors…

  4. You know, you are too young to remember Saturday Night LIve and their blaming Three Mile Island on the spilled Pepsi.

    It was very funny.

    So at least it wasn't Pepsi you spilled.

  5. you know, speaking of jack chick, i had an idea a while back, but couldn't think of any way to justify the time, effort, and expense required to carry it out. so i'll post it here:

    why not create and distribute chick tract-style booklets that celebrate atheism and skepticism instead of religion…?

    imagine: little cartoons about people who aren't happy with the restrictions religion has placed on their lives, or who are confused by the conflicting lessons they're being taught in science class vs. sunday school, or what have you. they meet a skeptic who explains the inherent problems with their belief system, they learn to think logically, and they live happily ever after!

    they'd be infinitely funnier than chick tracts and hopefully they'd have just as much impact…

    so… who wants to provide me with a staff and a bankroll…? :)

    love

    jeff

  6. Well, IBM laptop keyboards have tiny raised edges. I suppose the idea is that if you spill a beverage right on the middle of the keyboard, while the keyboard may stop functioning when it's wet, the raised edges prevent the liquid from dripping into the interior of the laptop. But, it appears that on the bottom edge, there's a little hole in this "tray" to enable you to pop the keyboard out with a screwdriver when you have to replace it. So I guess they've effectively sabotaged something that would otherwise prevent them from selling more new laptops.

    Also a design flaw is the way the exhaust grille for the airflow cooling the processor is on the side of the machine instead of at the rear. More notably, the left side, where most people will put their cup of coffee (because with right-handed people, the right side is occupied by the mouse). This means that a tipped over cup will have all its liquid running right through that grille, and straight onto the area where it can do the most damage (i.e. the processor). That actually happened to one of the users here at work. I never got that machine running again.

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