Welcome Dominion!

[livius drusus]

It's great to see your name on the list. :) Given some of your blog entries (http://home.houston.rr.com/skeptical/) (I loved your reply to the former marine idiot heckler email, btw), I thought you might enjoy Blake's journal (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/journal.php?do=view&journalid=14) here on FF. Also, Clutch's articles (Part 1 (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/article.php?a=8) and Part 2 (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/article.php?a=9)) on critical thinking as a knowledge of biases (discussion here (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=202)) might be right up your alley.

Or you could just kick back and scratch your nads with one hand while playing in the Arcade with the other. Either way, you're more than welcome here.

:welcome2:

[viscousmemories]

Greetings, Dominion.

We're a young site but I hope the currently slow pace and casual atmosphere are enough to keep you interested in coming around. Livius pointed me to a thread about Bullshit! you participated on, and I have to say your contributions were excellent. I've never seen an episode of Bullshit! but I won't go out of my way now; from the looks of it I'd get more useful information from reading your blog. :)

It's refreshing to "meet" a skeptical skeptic, as rare as it seems to be these days. And if you're allowed to present a paper critical of P&T at TAM3, I just might eat my hat. If I've learned anything lately it's that calling oneself a "critical thinker" doesn't make it so.

:welcome: to the FF.

[Dominion]

Thanks for the warm welcome. I am sorry that I have not had much time to look around, hopefully my time will be somewhat free over the weekend. I would love nothing more than sinking my teeth into a few debates.

For those that have followed my travails over on the Internet Infidels board, I wrote the definitive version from my side o' things on my blog. Feel free to check it out. (http://home.houston.rr.com/skeptical/arc20040801.html#BlogID561)

A bit about me. I am a semi-professional magician with somewhat of a background in science. I started out a lover of horror movies, which got me interested in ESP. Ghost, Goblins, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night, you get the idea. My second love developed after my mom got me the incredibly cheesy "Marshall Brodien's™ Magic Set", not to be confused by the equally cheesy "Marshall Brodien's™ Magic Cards". You might remember them as the famous "TV Magic Cards". The set itself was crap, full of tricks that were impossible to do considering the care that went into the props (I will never forget trying to do the 'Rice Bowl' trick and having the rice spill out of the plastic divider and right into the water). But there was one trick, a box with a die with different colored dots on each face, that I got pretty good at. The object was to place a colored dot upper-faced in the box. I would take the box and after some gruntin' and moanin' I would tell you what color you chose. I fooled my Uncle Roy with it, I mean flat knocked him to the ground. After that I was hooked.

Unfortunately the combination of interest led to my presenting myself as a true "psychic" at the high school I attended. I did Tarot Card readings and got pretty good at it. I began using techniques that I learned in magic to fool people into believing I had real powers. It feeds upon itself in ways I can't describe, just how big your ego can get when people believe you are some sort of spiritual or psychic master. In my defense, I really believed that such power was possible (tho not for one moment did I think I had such power), and my evidence was the Israeli super-psychic Uri Geller.

At the time I had never seen Geller perform, but I had heard of him, and the tests that he took part in at Sanford Research Institute (SRI). I was not at all surprised that he did so well, science was finally discovering what I knew all along. Then sometime in the mid to late 70's (sorry I simply do not remember the actual date) Geller came to Houston to perform at Hofheinz Pavilion. I can't tell you how excited I was to see him live...that is until I actually saw him live! I could not believe what I was seeing, the guy was doing magic tricks. Nothing more than magic tricks. The key bending was horrible, he would cover his eyes with his hands (with his hands???) and simply peek through his fingers. When he was right, he was right and when he was wrong he was right (So sorry, the powers were not working just right so he "failed" a certain amount of the time. People actually were convinced at his reality because he screwed up so much. To me, it only proved he was a lousy performer). I went away totally disillusioned. I called up a fellow magician friend of mine, who listened to my rant and then pointed out that I was doing the same thing, I had just not been caught.

"By the Gods" I thought to myself, "he's absolutely right".

That day I hung up my psychic hat and started wearing my magician hat proudly. To drive home the lesson my friend brought me a copy of "The Magic of Uri Geller" (now known as "The Truth About Uri Geller (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0879751991/104-4939345-6890305?v=glance)") and I am so glad he did. James Randi did much more than simply expose Uri for the fraud that he is, he also reminded me that as a magician I had a special responsibility to mislead my audience only in fun, and never to imply that I accomplished my amazing feats with anything other than manipulative skill and lots of hard practice.

Well that's enough about me, I am sure you will get to know me (if not like me) more in time. I look forward to getting involved.

[Nil Desperandum]

Are you familiar with energy work/channeling at all? :P

Welcome to the party.

[Dominion]

Are you familiar with energy work/channeling at all? :P

Welcome to the party.

Well it depends on what you mean by energy work/channeling.

If you mean, do I understand how energy "works" then sure. I have a good layman knowledge of physics and electronics. My first love is Ohm's law (E or V (voltage) equals I (current) times R (resistance)) followed closely by Newton's Three Laws of Motion (especially the algebraic sum of the force vectors is equal to mass times acceleration). Naw really I don't know what any of that shit means, I just like to show off. :yup:

Now if you mean do I know energy work, like they do in Martial Arts (chi) then yah I know that too. At least, I know how Martial Artist do those amazing stunts like break bricks and smash wood. The bad news is that it is not by using chi but by using tricks.

However, if you mean do I know energy work/channeling as in talking to the dead, then yah I know that too. At least I know the techniques to make it look like I am talking to your long dead Aunt Claire (a few hints - 2 hour reads boiled down to a half hour show, cold reading, hot reading, and general hit-and-miss and let us not forget the secrecy oath).

Now if you mean do I actually know how to do those things then no, but it does not make me feel bad. Neither does anyone else.

Hope that helped.

[viscousmemories]

Thanks for the blog link to your POV (for my POV, see your blog comments section ;)) and for the little bio, Dominion. My Dad was something of a card shark, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with the concept of trickery. Unfortunately he died before I was old enough to learn anything from him.

Anyway welcome again to the FF. :)

[D. Scarlatti]

It's mainly because of the meat.

[/expat Canadian]

Oh by the way, that blog entry on the IIDB was classic.

[This post was edited by me, not one of those nad-scratching admins.]

[Chiron]

If you mean, do I understand how energy "works" then sure. I have a good layman knowledge of physics and electronics. My first love is Ohm's law (E or V (voltage) equals I (current) times R (resistance)) followed closely by Newton's Three Laws of Motion (especially the algebraic sum of the force vectors is equal to mass times acceleration). Naw really I don't know what any of that shit means, I just like to show off. :yup: AhaHOH -- but Ohm's Law V=IR is only correct for so-called "ohmic" conductors; in some conductors, it's V=I(R^2), and other things. And Ohm's Law only works for specific ranges of temperatures even in ohmic conductors.

And voltage is not equal to energy -- you'd also need to know how much charge is being kept at that electric potential (voltage). It's like "gravitational potential" versus gravitational potential energy, where (in a uniform gravitational field) potential energy = gym (or mgh; g is ~10m/s/s, y or h is height, and m is mass) but "gravitational potential" is just g*y (or g*h).

That's enough physics outta me for right now, though, so I'll close by saying, "Welcome!"

K
And the smashing planks thing is also "just" a physics trick, having to do with impulse (that is, the change of momentum with respect to time). This principle is what makes the petawatt laser (http://www.google.com/search?q=petawatt+laser&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) possible with present technology. Check it out -- some fairly mindblowing (http://www.llnl.gov/str/MPerry.html) stuff exists out there. This principle is also sorta why static electricity generally doesn't kill you, if it's from your hand to a door knob, for instance.
D'oh! More physics!

[Farren]

Consider yourself boggled (by Chiron - its his speciality)

Welcome! As you can probably see from my posts I've not posted much here but am intimately familiar with most of the folks here from other boards.

I have to swim against the current and say that I flat out disagree with your take on IIDB. There are many ears sympathetic to your message here (like the eternally disgruntled viscious mammaries :D ) but I can see the need for IIDB's modding style, given their mission and workload.

In saying the above I just want to state my allegience, not reprimand you. Every opinion is valid and I do so like writers like Hunter S Thompson. Even in the sciences anarchists attract me (Feyerabends "Against Method" really gets me pumped). "You suck" means "I love you, brother" among my close in-the-flesh friends.

Its just that everything should be understood in it's context. IIDB is trying to be a model of civility and rationality that demonstrates it's superiority to organised religion by an enforced code of politeness similar to those found in the Oriental martial arts.

So, anyway, welcome :D