The Out Campaign is an effort started by the Richard Dawkins Foundation to get atheists to publicly declare their status. It suggests to display a letter "A" in Zapfino font and scarlet color as a symbol, not of our disbelief, but of our willingness to declare something that by now should be obvious: the world is not for, or made of, believers only.

I have been pretty much undecided about what to do as an atheist. On one hand, I think it's very important to voice our disbelief, as otherwise, those in power will only respond to the interests of the superstitious majority. On the other hand, I see religion dying a natural death and I don't want to give religious leaders more reasons to fight.

My decision so far is on the side of speaking up. I think atheists need to have a saying, but not to try to convince the more credulous people that their pixie in the sky does not exist. What we have to do is to give a hand to that large group of people who were raised to belief in something following a cultural custom, but that now that they are not children, cannot reconcile the teachings of religion with their own life and reason.

See also: Pharyngula

Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky was born in Rusia in 1863. In the year 1910, he had already invented a process for making color photographies. The process consisted in using a camera that taked quickly 3 sequential photos. The result where 3 images that combined provided a result that was slightly "ghostly", given that the photos where not taken simultaneously.

The inventor could transfer these results to paper, but that was a very slow and costly process. For this reason, the result was usually kept as three glass plates that could be seen with a special projector. This inspired Prokudin-Gorsky to begin the project that would make him famous: document the people and landscapes of Russia to generate material that could be used in schools for teaching.

An important collection of these photographies can be seen on-line thanks to the Library of the US Congress. I recommend the part of people at work that takes us, in full color, to the occupations of a very distant time.

Sources: Library of Congres (USA), Wikipedia

Bicing is a new component of the public transportation system in Barcelona. The system consists in a series of over 100 stations all over the city, each one with approximately 15-20 bicycles that you can borrow automatically using a card. To obtain this "bicing card", you must register through the Web and pay an anual fee of 24 euros ($33 USD).

The system is very simple. By approaching the card to the station's base, one of the bicycles is freed and the screen shows the number of that bicycle. Then the user can use the bicycle for 1/2 hour and return it to any of the stations. Each extra hour costs 0.30 euro ($0.40 USD). This extra is paid through the credit card that you must use to obtain your bicing card.

In practice, bicing is excellent. It is more comfortable than having a bicycle as you don't have to worry about leaving chained in the street or having to take you bicycle upstairs to your flat or office, and there are always many bicycles available. It is very good as a complement to metro or bus, or to move faster through the city than by foot.

The WWW is an important part of the system, as all the process for registering and obtaining the bicing card is done via web, and you can also block the card and request a duplicate if you loose it. The credit card that you must use when registering is an effective way of making people take care of the bicycles and keep them in good conditions.

The US department for veteran afairs has a long list of Emblems of Belief for Placement on Government Headstones and Markers. For instance, if you belong to the United Moravian Church and join the choir of invisible, you can rest in peace knowing that the government will respect your beliefs and put over your dead body the corresponding symbol.

The list includes about 40 symbols from the cross to the crescent and start, including a pentacle -- upright, not inverted. Interestingly, there are several non-belief symbols, including humanists and atheists (and having them in this list is like listing "bald" as a hair color). See list>>

In the novel from Mark Haddon "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" the main character is a 15 years-old autistic child that discovers the corpse of his neighbors' dog in the frontyard. ¿Who could have committed this horrible crime?

This book is fascinating, and its chapters, labeled with prime numbers, alternate between the main plot and a description of the image of the world the main character has.

A brief extract, translating from chapter 67 (that is number 19):

Talking to strangers is not something I usually do. I do not like talking to strangers. This is not because of the Stranger Danger which they tell us about at school, which is where a strange man offers you sweets or a ride in his car because he wants to do sex with you. I am not worried about that. If a strange man touched me I would hit him, and I can hi people very hard. For example, when I punched Sarah because she had pulled my hair I knocked her unconcious and she had a concussion and they had to take her to the Accident and Emergency Department at the hospital. And also I always have my Swiss Army Knife in my pocket and it has a saw blade which could cut a man's finger off.

The main character of the book is a kid that has a strong interest in physics and mathematics. For the same reason it includes, parallel to the main plot, the description of some classic math problems. One example is the following: you are in a contest in television and there are three doors: A, B, and C. Behind one of the doors there is a car. Behind the other two doors there is a goat. You have to pick one door to open, and we will assume you prefer the car.

You pick door A, but before opening it, the presenter of the program opens door C and shows that there is a goat behind it. He offers you the possibility of keeping door A that you chose originally, or change to door B. ¿What should you do?. Most people, including people that has studied a lot of mathematics, thinks that it's equal to stay in A or to change to B.

Actually, the best strategy is to change to B. The argument goes as follows. Let's suppose the goats are called goat 1 and goat 2. At the beginning you choose a door at random. With probability 1/3 you picked the car, with probability 1/3 goat 1, and with probability 1/3 goat 2.

• If you originally picked the car, then changing is bad.
• If you originally picked goat 1, then the presenter showed you goat 2, and changing is good.
• If you originally picked goat 2, then the presenter showed you goat 1, and changing is good.

So, 2 out of 3 times it is better to change, so changing door is better than staying in the current door. There is more information about the puzzles in this book in a review at the Mathematical Association of America.

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In general, the history speaks about a weird kid, in this case an autistic child, and the distance between the world of adults and that of kids. The book has received several awards, is fun to read and it reads pretty fast, so much that you want to make it last :-)