Stonehenge, the naturist symbol, and the Druid Awen sign

Atheist, technopagan and vegan.

But that's not all you can find here.

Paul

Theremin, continued.

Maybe you notice that there's "Theremin" in the title, not "theremini", just like in my previous post. Even though I own a Moog Theremini, I don't intend to use it as that, but as a practice-theremin. Something I discovered on the fifth day of owning the device is that I despise the pitch correction. This is one of the biggest sales pitches (pun intended) for the theremini. It makes it nearly impossible to miss a…

Continue reading...
Paul

A theremin.

What is a theremin? It's, as far as I found, the oldest electronic musical instrument. Invented around 1920 by the Russian Leon Theremin as he was trying to find a way to audible detect the changes in gas density (which was his actual work around that time). A theremin is the only instrument that's played without touching it. It's sound is generated through 2 electro-magnetic antennae on either side: 1 controlling the pitch and one…

Continue reading...
Paul

May is Lupus Awareness Month. What is Lupus?

Lupus is a cruel mystery. It is an unpredictable and misunderstood autoimmune disease. It is difficult to diagnose, hard to live with, and a challenge to treat. There is a range of symptoms, and strikes without warning. Lupus is a chronic (long-term) disease that can cause inflammation and pain in any part of your body. It’s an autoimmune disease, which means that your immune system β€” the body system that usually fights infections β€” attacks…

Continue reading...
Paul

Making a murderer. "God guided her life."

I am following this series on Netflix. It is scary to see how the American justice system works. They want a confession. It's clear, from various statements in the series, that this is what counts. If the person confessing actually did the crime, great, otherwise we have a confession and that's it. In several interviews of detectives with Brendan Dassey, it's overly clear that they were leading him into admitting things. Brendan isn't the brightest…

Continue reading...
Paul

imagine aliens and their lifestyle.

Note upfront: this could be considered an #NSFW post depending on your work, so be aware of that. Right. We all know about aliens, be it from close encounters of the third kind, or from films like Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. (These are the up-close, personal ones, in case you don't know.) Imagine you have the opportunity to visit their planet (and you can actually live there. Air is important, as is food,…

Continue reading...
Paul

When using Register.com for domain registrations.

I have registered one of my domains at register.com. Usually that's nothing special, but there is something peculiar about their system that keeps annoying me. Even though I've switched "Auto-Renew" on since forever, their mailing system keeps bombing me with mails about the domain being close to deactivation because the expiration date of the registration comes closer. That's not needed of course, because auto-renew is on. The past few weeks I got those mails again.

Continue reading...
Paul

The man who knew too little

Yesterday I saw this film (movie) on Amazon Prime. I was in the mood for something fun and decided on this one. Bill Murray usually is good for laughs and this film didn't disappoint me. The start was a bit overdone perhaps but things got better so quickly that I laughed a LOT! It is clearly an older film, seeing working phone boxes and a total absence of smartphones and even Nokia 3310s. Add to…

Continue reading...
Paul

Politeness and the Internet

Something surprising happened to me a few days ago. It started with what looked like a spam mail that somehow had made it through the entanglements of the filtering. It was from "Bernie Jones" (name altered for privacy reasons) who had a question. I thought I had something of an answer so I wrote back to him, starting my reply with "Dear Mr Jones..." There we had it. Mr Jones, a.k.a. Bernie, took a LONG…

Continue reading...
Paul

About this great god

Yes. This is a little bit about that guy up there. The christian sky-wizard who does so many great things. It hit me, a while ago, that someone was happy a close relative was healed from a serious medical affliction. The doctors had done quite an amazing job fixing that person up. For some reason, the someone said, "Thank god for your healing." I don't get that. This man got sick and the doctors healed…

Continue reading...
Paul

American atheism

I have started listening to a podcast series called 'The thinking atheist'. (Follow the link to the website.) At first, I thought it would be an interesting addition to the podcasts I'm already listening to. As I am progressing through the podcasts though, I am more and more shocked about the state of religion in the US of A. I had no idea it was that bad! From visits to the USA I knew that…

Continue reading...
Mastodon - Diaspora