Reality Crowd

“People will then often say “But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?” This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would chose not to worship him anyway.)”

- Douglas Adams in an interview with American Atheist

Have a seat and enjoy your free virtual reality haircut (with headphones). Enjoy the amazing ability of your brain to perceive the location of a sound by calculating input from both ears.

Researchers now say they have strong evidence to suggest that the area of the brain responsible for this discerning ability is the planum temporale. Read this Science Daily article here discussing recent findings of the planum temporale and the brain’s amazing ability to locate sounds in three-dimensional space.

We have seen robot walkers before, but nothing like this. Watch what happens when the developers try to knock over the Big Dog. It suddenly seems very much alive! This has all sorts of applications, from offroad transport to our soon to be invented robot overlords (pray they have mercy on us!)

Thanks Laughing Squid for the link!

More content is on it’s way soon from RealityCrowd.com, but we just wanted to take a minute to showcase a new service that we have signed up for. It’s called Tipjoy and it’s a way to show your appreciation for content that you enjoy. The idea is actually incredibly simple… you just enter your email in the box below and tipjoy will create an account for you on their site and start a running total of your tips. When you feel up to it you can go to the tipjoy site and pay off your balance using paypal (credit card and amazon functionality are coming soon) or if you are having tippers remorse you can simply not pay.

We highlight this service not simply because we like money (hint hint) but also because you can use tipjoy to send a tip to any email address or website (even if they have not yet signed up for the service). So you can send tips to any site that you enjoy. It is a simple and effortless way to show content creators that you appreciate their work. Any questions? Check out the Tipjoy FAQ.

Thanks for your support!
~The Reality Crowd team

University of Sydney scientists have discovered that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is twice as wide as previously thought. It seems very strange that this could be the case, doesn’t it? Scientists have peered billions of light years into the cosmos. They have made observations and calculations of mass and distance of a multitude of celestial objects and even of the universe itself. But right here at home, our own galaxy we calculated to be about 6,000 light-years thick, and these scientists now claim that in reality, it is 12,000 light-years thick. It is fascinating to learn that these scientists did not even make any new observations; they simply used data already collected that was available on the Internet! This surprising result has elicited mixed emotions from the scientific community. From the University of Sidney article:

“Some colleagues have come up to me and have said ‘That wrecks everything!’” says Professor Gaensler. “And others have said ‘Ah! Now everything fits together!’”

Here at RealityCrowd, we often cite ways in which science and religion are opposed. This event is a beautiful example of how in the scientific community, new evidence can change even a long-held belief. If assertions are supported by evidence, then those assertions must be taken seriously. However, religion, as many readers realize, does not change in the light of new evidence, and this is why we incessantly hear unsupported claims from many Christians such as the age of the universe being only about 6,000 years. Not even the mountain of evidence to the contrary will convince a true Bible believer. This unwavering stance may be comfortable for those who need the universe to be predictable and simple, but those of us with open and inquisitive minds will celebrate these times that we can say, “Hey, we were wrong!”

Read the entire University of Sydney article here.

Sorry for my second Star Wars related post this week, but this one is too good not to put up. Often the opening credits to a movie define the tone of the film and help get the audience (hopefully) to the place the filmmaker wants them. Here is the opening credits to the original Star Wars animated in the style of Saul Bass. It really shows just how far an opening sequence can go in terms of defining a film’s feel. What if Star Wars had started off like this, instead of the famous crawling text and orchestral score by John Williams?

Thanks to LaughingSquid.com for the Link

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
- “Politics and the English Language”, 1946

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
- “Politics and the English Language”, 1946

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

“…it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.”

“It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.”

-Charles Darwin