My latest writing post is up

The best time to use first person POV Here

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Shut-up Stupid Sunday: Object Permanence

Ken Ham the guy who is behind Northern Kentucky's Creationist Museum where kids can learn that 6,000 years ago men rode on dinosaurs just like in the Flintstones posted on his blog how proud he was that a 9 year-old followed his brain washing techniques.

Here is his post.

I received a letter from a nine-year-old girl who has been brought up on AiG resources. She wrote to me the following:

I went to a NASA display of a moon rock and a lady said, “This Moon-rock is 3.75 billion years old!” Guess what I asked for the first time ever?

“Um, may I ask a question?”

And she said, “Of course.”

I said, in my most polite voice, “Were you there?”

Love, Emma B

When she got home her older sister said, “Mom's birthday is coming up.” Guess what she asked for the second time ever?

“Um, may I ask a question?”

The sister said, “Of course.”

She said, in her most polite voice, “Were you there?”

For a thoughtful and respectful response to Emma B. I refer you to Blue in the Bluegrass

On this site I don't do respectful very well so here is my response to Ken Ham.

Ken,

You might not be aware of this but between the ages of three and a half months and two years old children develop something called Object Permanence.

I guess you never developed this skill, Ken, so let me describe it to you. At some point a child realizes that if they see something and it is taken away so they can no longer see or hear it, the object still exists. Have I blown your mind yet Ken?

Knowing an object still exists when you can't see it is a very useful skill as it means if you search for it there is a chance you can find it.

Now building on this concept of Object Permanence it is logical to assume that the object may have existed BEFORE you saw it! Now Ken I'm sure that the concept that things have existed in the past has your mind rattled, so take a deep breath before reading on because here is where it really gets mind blowing.

If you accept that something existed before you saw it, then there is a chance that that there are other things that you haven't seen yet, and that they exist! Imagine that places like oceans and cities and pastures that you have never seen actually exist.

Now Ken I realize this is a lot of information to process, but here is the really wild part. If you know how something happens you don't actually have to witness it for it to have occurred. So in Emma's case the fact that she or her sister didn't see her mom being born doesn't mean that it didn't happen. In fact I will wager any amount of money that her mom was actually born.

Now Ken, I realize that your head must be hurting realizing that there is a whole world out there that exists even if you have never seen it. You'll want to reject this whole concept of Object Permanence and say that everything was created by God at the exact moment you saw it. In that case since you have never seen me or this post before feel free to assume I don't exist and it is God telling you to, “Shut-up Stupid.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Forgot Something

Yesterday I put up my latest Writing Wednesday but forgot to post the link.
HERE IT IS

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Temper Tantrum Tuesday: The Victim

Over the weekend Jon Stewart appeared on Fox for an interview with Chris Wallace. Even after heavy editing Wallace looked ridiculous in trying to say that Fox balances out the rest of the mainstream media's “liberal bias”. His claim was that conservative views automatically get attacked.

Echoing Wallace's theme that conservative views get attacked, Rick Santorum did an interview to explain his stance on same sex marriage and he talked about how horrible it was that people have labeled him a bigot. He looks forward to a time in America when someone can be free to compare two people in a loving relationship to bestiality and not be called prejudice. To prove that he is not a bigot Santorum mentioned he has had gay people under him, and he recently went out with a gay friend and you should see the things they did together.

I feel so bad now for all the conservatives I've talked about in the past, I didn't realize they were the victims.

Just as Santorum is a victim by being called a bigot for saying same sex marriage is the same as incest, many others are victims of liberal bias.

The poor hedge fund managers who say that teachers who work at 80% of what private sector employees with the same education level earn should take huge pay cuts, so they can keep their tax cuts that allow them to pay a smaller percentage in taxes than the teachers, are the true victims. For some reason people call them greedy.

Companies that lobby to keep tax breaks for shipping American jobs overseas are victims when they are called Unamerican for doing that.

The teabaggers are victims of being called racists just because they hold up signs calling Obama a n*gger.

And of course when the Gulf of Mexico ran into British Petroleum's oil slick they were the victims of that powerful liberal bias when people saying they should look into their safety procedures.

After hearing Chris Wallace and Rick Santorum talking about how they are standing up for the victims that are being called names just because they are greedy, homophobic, bigots who scapegoat minorities so they can plunder the wealth that the United States has accumulated over centuries of hard work, I feel so bad that I might have hurt their feelings by calling them a bad name or two.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Fantastic Future Friday: Interstellar Travel

DARPA has announced a contest where they will offer half a million in seed money to a private company that can come up with a blueprint to travel to another star in the next hundred years.

This is a huge undertaking, and I don't see how it can be done in only one hundred years. I do realize one hundred years is a long time for scientific progress. A hundred years ago Godard was just starting to experiment with rockets and IBM was selling the first of the Tabulating Machines. Now private companies are going into space and computers are everywhere. However traveling to the nearest stars seems like too big of a leap.

Our current space ships only have the power to break Earth's orbit. There are designs for Magnetic Field Oscillating Amplified Thrusters, using fluctuating magnetic fields to induce density waves in electric conductive media, that could allow a spaceship to reach speeds of 260 Kilometers per second or nearly 1/1,000th of the speed of light. These ships that are more advanced than anything we can build right now would take 4,000 years to reach the nearest star. Knowing my luck there would be an annoying kid kicking the back of my seat for the whole 4,000 year trip.

These ships would open up the inner solar system but would still leave the outer solar system where all the good stuff is isolated.

I've talked before about a giant space based solar power plant in Mercury's orbit to create antimatter to power ships at speeds of up to 6% of the speed of light. But even with real research and development budgets (3 to 5% of Earth's GDP) I really don't see that happening in the next hundred years.

A faster way to get something up to the speeds necessary to cross Interstellar space, at least 1/10 the speed of light so the nearest stars are only 40 years away, is with lasers and mirrors.

You could launch a lot of small craft, if you consider the largest spacecraft we've ever launched small, that are just solar power platforms with huge lasers into low orbits around the Sun. You could then have a ship that had a huge mirror on its back and the lasers around the Sun could aim at it speeding it up to the necessary speeds. This could get a ship to the nearest stars by 2100, however I've got no idea how you would stop the ship once it got there. This would work great for sending a probe to the nearest stars, as it would spend a good 5 hours in the inner solar system of that star, but it's not such a great idea for humans.

It would be possible to send a lot of small probes, weighing couple of pounds each, with a mirror made of buckypaper a mile wide so it could use it as a solar brake as it got near the star. This would work best with Alpha Centuri as you could use it's three stars to slow down. Then use the huge mirrors to concentrate the star's light to a solar panel to power a laser to slow the probes coming from Earth until you had enough lasers around Alpha Centuri to slow down a spaceship carrying humans. But getting all that in place in the next 60 years in order to hit the DARPA deadline of one hundred years, taking into account the 40 year voyage, seems a little far fetched.

The final option for reaching the nearest stars within a hundred years is something that is at the same stage as computers or controlled fusion were a hundred years ago. It might work or be a pipe dream. The Neutrino Drive. The idea is if you could find a way to store Neutrinos you could use them to power a space ship. Neutrinos have no mass or charge, so your fuel would weigh nothing. You could take as much fuel as you needed and you wouldn't have to use fuel to accelerate it. A ship with Neutrino drive could get near the speed of light and still be able to slow down. The question is can a method of storing Neutrinos ever work.

If it can it will lead to a fantastic future within the next hundred years.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

It's up (I'm not talking about new Anthony Wiener Photos)

My latest Writing Wednesday is up: HERE

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Shut-up Stupid Sunday: Political Sex Scandals

I wasn't going to touch Weiner's penis, but the MSM had to take this small soft news story and stroke it over and over again and make it a huge hard news story and then ram it down everyone's throat. The whole thing is becoming a big pain in the ass.

It's like the old saying, “If you think sex is a pain in the ass, you're doing it wrong.”

I enjoy a good sex scandal as much as the next guy, but Weiner twittering photos of his penis is a small story. Worthy of a quick mention and chuckle and then moving on, not two weeks of round the clock coverage.

I feel the same about other recent sex scandals, Mike Lee sending a chick a beefcake photo and then it was revealed he liked to swap photos with She-males, Arnold knocking up his housekeeper, I'm sure I could find other non-stories that were given way more coverage than they deserve.

I personally think politicians should be held to the same standards as other professionals. Would you care more if your accountant sent pictures of their junk over twitter, or if they were incompetent? If your Lawyer liked She-males, would that matter more than their ability to file a prelimb? If your doctor knocked up his housekeeper, would that matter more than his experience?

There are sex scandals that are worth covering, like when laws are broken.

Larry Craig got a ticket for soliciting sex in a guys bathroom, worthy of a small mention.

David Vitter had prostitutes pamper him where it was illegal, worth the press following to see that he doesn't use his influence to get off, so to speak.

Then there are the real sex scandals where the politicians do despicable things and break laws to cover them up, John Edwards and Newt Gingrich. Those are actual news stories. If my accountant had an affair while his wife was on her deathbed and used his firms money, or a related company's money to cover it up it would make me seek a different accountant.

So to all the people in the media that are treating the Weiner, Lee, and Schwarzenegger stories like they are real news stories, I say, “Shut-up Stupid if no laws were broken then these sex scandals don't deserve more than a passing mention.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Conspiracy Caturday

Although I haven't blogged about it in a while I've still been fighting the Catspiracy when I can. Today I launched a devastating blow against it. I got this idea for the attack as I tripped over the bags of cans that had built up in the kitchen. My wife suggested that I take them to the recycling center for cash, but that is a half hour drive one way and I'm too lazy to do that.

On the other hand my allies in the fight against the Catspiracy, The Central KY Humane Society, are only three blocks away. I figured they could use the $20 that the cans are worth, to fight the conspiracy by finding the cats a good home.

They told me not only would they take the cans, but if I needed a friend to join me on my morning walks they have plenty of dogs that would love to volunteer.

So take that catspiracy, I have found a way to fight you while saving myself an hour trip and getting some new friends to walk with.

While I was there I observed how they are training puppies to save us from the coming tennis ball invasion:

Those Tennis Balls don't stand a chance.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Why you should avoid writing what you know.

My Writing Wednesday Post is up. Writing What You Know (And why you shouldn't)

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Shut-up Stupid Sunday: Hollywood Producers

Growing up I loved comics. There are a number of Superheroes who I would like to see make it onto the movie screen. The Green Lantern is not one of them.

The Green Lantern was always the awkward superhero in DC's line-up. The Hal Jordon version's ring gave him powers comparable to Superman but since Superman always had at least two comics going (Action Comics and Superman) having a pale imitation wouldn't fly, so to speak. The solution was to give him a huge weakness, the entire color yellow. Since yellow is a primary color it was up to the individual writer as to how far into the Yellow-Green or Yellow-Orange this weakness could go. As a result at different times he was written as one of the most powerful superheroes or one of the weakest.

To make the comic story worse, for those of us who bought our comics used, there were 6 different versions of the Green Lantern. When picking up a Green Lantern comic you never knew what you would get.

So now this total mess of a comic is being made into a movie because Hollywood feels comic geeks like me will watch any movie based on a comic. It doesn't matter if that comic should be turned into a movie or not.

I hope to be surprised. Given the totally inconsistent plot of the comic, the writers from DAWSON'S CREEK and SEX IN THE CITY along with the director of SEX THIEF, have pretty much a free hand in making the movie without worrying about staying faithful to the comic.

So to all the producers out there that green light projects just because they are based on a comic and you figure comic geeks will watch any film made from a comic, I say, “Shut-up Stupid, look at the comic you are basing the movie on first or you'll find yourself giving THE GREEN ARROW AND AQUAMAN movie a $200 million dollar budget.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Writing Wednesday: Rules

I had to get up about 3 hours earlier than I normally do, but I did manage to post my latest Writing Wednesday.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE