This week our tenacious tune will help you brush up on your chemistry in the only way that’s worthwhile: by singing the Periodic Table to the tune of Jacques Offenbach’s Infernal Galop. The whole thing is written, directed, produced, edited, and sung by Mitchell Moffit. He goes pretty fast so you have to pay attention to keep up.

Well? What are you waiting for? Click play and enjoy your Friday!

HT: io9

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Featured image credit: M.L. Duong

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So there are some clear differences between what it takes to organize or act in face to face world vs in the internet world. The internet is constant, it’s impersonal, it’s there forever, and it has all sorts of media and tools for you to use. Face to face interaction is often more emotional, personal, immediate, and can create a feeling of bonding or community much more quickly than the internet. It’s generally fairly clear that each of these media is more appropriate for different people and different purposes. I tend to prefer online because writing is one of my passions, I am generally anxious around other people and tire easily in flesh space, and because I don’t have the funds or time to put into a lot of volunteering (whereas I can bust out a blog post on my break at work). For those people who are outgoing or feed off the energy of others, or who aren’t comfortable in an online media, or who would rather not put their voices front and center but are happy stuffing mailboxes, in person activism can be great.

One of the important things about activism is that it asks you to do some self-reflection about where your talents and interests lie. It asks you to think about what you want to do with your unpaid time and what you could see yourself doing for a while without burning out. It asks you to figure out where you’re comfortable. However even more than that, it asks you to try out things that you didn’t know you might like. It shows you where the needs are and asks if you can fill them. You might not have experience with door knocking, but you try it once and realize that you really enjoy talking to strangers about what you love. However with all activism it can be hard to remember that you’re allowed to stop or change tracks or switch up what you’re doing whenever you want. If you try something and it’s not for you, you’re not bound in stone to keep doing it. So why not try new things?

I think that no matter where you feel most comfortable, it’s important to take breaks from it every once in a while and see what’s up in other spheres of activism. I like to do this by going to conferences, which can help me to really get ideas and bounce my thoughts off of other people and really feel like I’m part of a community, energized by their support. If you tend to spend a lot of time out and about, it can be really nice to sit and just read, get a feel for some of the deep debates and ideas that are happening on the internet, or just recharge a bit by being on your own.

However what I’m most interested in at this point is the integration of technology and meatspace activism. This clearly seems to be where our world in general is headed. Some of the most effective forms of activism, community, and dialogue that I have seen have been when you both have people in the same room together AND technology. A great example of this is live tweet walls at conferences, which allow audience members to actually interact with presenters and to hold discussions as a presentation is happening. Posting videos of events has also been popular. Liveblogging is huge, and it forces the internet to happen at real world pace with real world donation consequences. I know that we have creative individuals out there who can integrate these spaces. Programs like foursquare could be highly useful for an occupy-like movement. The atheist census is doing great things to document the real world numbers and concerns of atheists. Video conferencing has been used to bring in speakers that couldn’t physically be present. I have huge hopes that these kinds of integrations are the future of the movement, and I’d love to hear what you have to say about them. What ideas do you have? How do you see technology as the future of your group or in your life?

Featured image credit: Wim L. Noorduin, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, adapted from here.

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For example, I came to skepticism via atheism (which I know isn’t the same thing but there is significant overlap). As I was figuring out my stance on religion through middle school and high school, that was the issue that dominated my thoughts. As I’ve worked through my atheism, it’s become less important to me. I don’t begrudge others need for a community that focuses on atheism, but it’s no longer something I require.

One thing that certainly never really held my attention was Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, or other cryptozoology debunking. Don’t get me wrong; it’s fun to learn about, but I never really felt like it was one of the pressing issues of the day. I was – and continue to be – more interested in improving the lives of others. Over time I’ve found that skepticism – with it’s focus on evidence-based solutions – was the best way forward. Skepticism and critical thinking can and should make the world a better place and I suspect that my specific interests will continue to evolve I grow as a person and as different social issues crop up. It’s what I like most about skepticism. There is (ostensibly, at least) no dogma to adhere to. It’s a skill set that can be applied to a variety of areas. I find that incredibly satisfying.

What part of the movement do you like the most? Are there skeptical issues you identify with more strongly than others? Have your specific interests changed over time?

Featured image credit: JD Hancock

Featured image credit: photosteve101

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Alright, the first thing you have to realise about this movie is that it’s very action-heavy. That might sound obvious considering this is a blockbuster movie, directed by J J Abrams and considering that the trailer made it look like The Expendables in space. However, Star Trek isn’t an action-heavy series, as with the mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise, it’s more about exploration, both of new worlds and the characters, and to be fair to the movie, it does a pretty good job of these things too, just don’t be confused at the amount of Star Wars-esque action sequences.

That’s not to say the action is a flaw in the movie, in fact is was beautifully done, especially when -SPOILER- happens and -SPOILER- follows up making me cry by having a very Worf moment. Now, if that didn’t make any sense, understand that the best parts about this movie are intertwined with key plot elements. What I can say however, is that the Kirk-Spock dynamic is beautiful in this movie, and is played with and twisted and tweaked until all your feels are oozing out of you.

I would make a point about Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in regards to that, however, they are both out-shined (as is everyone apart from perhaps Simon Pegg) by Benedict Cumberbatch. Yes, it goes without saying that Moffat’s Sherlock Holmes is an excellent actor, but seriously, he will blow you away. In fact, I was so impressed I’m no longer wondering why he was picked to be Smaug the dragon in the upcoming ‘Hobbit’ movie. After seeing his performance in ST:ID, any role with his name next to it makes perfect sense, except for maybe… no, I can’t think of one.

Belatedly, I’ll briefly summarize this movie. ST:ID is the second installment in the J J Abrams (Cloverfield, Alias)/Damon Lindelof (LOST, Prometheus) parallel universe reboot of Star Trek. It follows the bromance of Captain Kirk and Commander Spock as they break the prime directive, get demoted, get promoted again, get a top secret mission, get almost killed, save a bunch of people, and get almost killed again.

It’s better than I’m making it sound.

Another plus is that Simon Pegg as Scotty actually had quite a large part in this film, and every scene with him in was wonderful. While we’re on the topic of casting, I have to say (please don’t shoot me), that I think I like this version of Bones McCoy better than the original series version, and pretty much every actor did an amazing job. It was great. Go see it.

My main gripe with the movie was the fact that almost all the promotional material showed a single shot of Alice Eve (whose performance was also amazing) in her underwear. That scene was a throwaway joke, albeit one that was gratuitous and out of place (and one for which Lindelof has recently apologized for), but it was one second, if that, in a two and a half hour movie. The fact that the marketing department at Paramount thought it was important enough to flash all over the trailers and promo shots strikes me as sleazy at best as misogynistic at worst.

Still, that’s not the movie’s fault, it was awesome.

I give it six redshirts out of six.

Featured image credit: Adapted from Figure 8 of Wolff, J.O., Nentwig, W., Gorb, S.N. 2013. The great silk alternative: multiple co-evolution of web loss and sticky hairs in spiders. PLoS One 8(5): e62682. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062682