Belief in Erwin Alber is a form of delusional insanity

Let me introduce Erwin Alber. Erwin is an antivaxxer.



he runs a few conspiracy-themed antivax groups on facebook, and occasionally trolls skeptical pages. He's only got one trick though. Are you ready for it? Here it is:



Yes, you read right. Erwin's trump card is a quotation from Dr Herbert M. Shelton, one of the 20th Century's greatest quacks. A quack who didn't merely rip off his patients. Didn't merely make his patients sick, but actually starved his patients to death, and after doing so, continued to practice without a licence, causing yet more death. A man who believed he could cure his own Parkinson's disease though fasting and raw food. It didn't work.

I've been posting this simple response to Erwin's pathetic trolling attempts for months now, and still he persists in trying to use it. Frankly, it's got to the point where I can only conclude that Erwin himself is the one suffering delusional insanity, and that anyone who believes him is frankly as nuts as he is.

So if you spot him, you now know what response to give.

My hectic life

So, what's been happening?

Lots.

First up, I've been coding again. I've felt the need for creative outlets quite acutely of late. Therefore I cracked open the IDEs and I've got a few projects on the go. Project #1: The Skepticator.

skepticator screenshot

It's a blog and twitter aggregator for skeptical content, and as of this writing, it's feeding 63 64 skeptical feeds, with well over 1000 individual posts. It uses the TwitterVB API and the Argotic Syndication Framework under the covers, and is written in ASP.NET/C#. It also has its very own Combined Feed. Soon, it'll have custom feed capabilities, searchability and a whole load more content, and since it updates itself every 15 minutes or so, the content is *always* fresh. Go check it out.

Project #2 is a web-based twitter client called CHRPY, which is in private beta at the moment and is complex in an entirely different way to Skepticator - when that goes public I'll link it here.

The remaining projects are still kinda secret, though I can say that Sydney Pub Guide may be resurrected from the undead very soon indeed

Work is changing too. I've resigned my current job at Fujitsu and I'm off to pastures greener at Gen-i, a SharePoint consultancy in the Sydney CBD. More on that after I've started.

Skepticism? Well, apart from skepticator, Stop The AVN continues in force. The AVN has threatened closure and the anti-vaxxers are still vocal. In the UK, 10:23 was wildly successful, and I organised an adjunct event here in Sydney (though I didn't even get there myself due to illness and hecticness). The online campaign to win DrRachie a Shorty Award was also very successful, winning Rachael Dunlop the popular vote, with the panel votes to be announced imminently.

Atheism? Maybe a little less hectic, but nevertheless the upcoming Mardi Gras and Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne consume a certain amount of attention.

Everything else? Gigs. Music. Lots. Sydney Ukulele & Beers Meetup is ticking along, Keeping Two Chevrons Apart continues, and some recent good gigs (Jane's Addiction, The Cribs) have got me fired up for music.

It's a lot. Is anyone surprised that I don't blog much?
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