Come on, subscribe!

April 27, 2016 • 3:48 pm

With only 114 more subscribers, I can hit 40,000. Since I get no $$ from writing here, I must make do with subscriber stats—and 40K is a lovely number—though I promise to resist the urge to write things that attract views. (Clickbait is parody and doesn’t count.)
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As for the 39,886 people all being “amazing” (a truly overused word these days), well, I’ll let you be the judge.

UPDATE: This took only 5 minutes, and I’m not sure whether it’s a regular update or people are really heeding the call. Anyway, much appreciated. I’d offer a prize to the 40,000th subscriber but I’m not sure I can identify him or her. If I can, they get a free hardback of FvF (autographed, avec chat), or an audiobook.

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61 thoughts on “Come on, subscribe!”

  2. “Amazing” is undergoing an amazing shift in meaning, from “stupefy, make crazy”, to “overwhelm with wonder”, to merely being a member of of group of almost 40,000 people undistinguished by any common trait other than subscribing to a particular “website”.

      1. The thing is, I couldn’t use the b-word featured in your post, so I had to add the so-called scare quotes to signify what I literally meant.

    2. Friend of mine used to refer to words such as “amazing” as atomic flyswatters.

      It’s certainly a word used by people too lazy to come up with a more descriptive adjective. I blame Steve Jobs for its prevalence today.

        1. There’s a comedy skit (I haven’t been able to find a link to it lately) called, “Honest wedding vows”, in which the groom at the altar says to his bride, “…and you have this habit of saying that everything is ‘amazing’; this morning, you said our DRIVEWAY was ‘amazing’.” She giggles and says, “It WAS….”

    3. The word amaze is from the Middle English amasen ‎(“to bewilder, perplex”), from Old English āmasian ‎(“to confuse, astonish”). If you dig further back into Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European roots, you find meanings like delusion, bewilderment, confound, weary, dream and stupefy.

      This must be why Donald Trump always refers to himself as “amazing”.

      2. Even my miserable failure at Eng.Lit is prompting the back of memory with at least one Shakespearism where a character is ” ‘mazed” after an event – in the “confused” sense you allude to.
        My deduction – Trump is even less up on Shakespeare than I am. Or cares even less – which might be a remarkable characteristic.

        1. Remember the early 1980s “reality” show That’s Incredible!? Hearkening back to the etymology of “incredible”, my reaction to the show was, “What’s really incredible is how they can get away with broadcasting this crap.”

          1. Thankfully no, I don’t remember that. Should I preemptively batter (culinary sense) an advertising executive, just in case I meet it?

          2. You’re lucky you missed it. It was appalling. IIRC they had just three topics – one was the latest miraculous medical technique, one was kids doing something unusual and frequently slightly gross (like, maybe, spit twenty feet), and I forget the third. Fronted by simpering Barbie and Ken look-alikes. I used to call it ‘That’s slightly unusual’.

            A quick Google reminds me that it popularised the phrase “Don’t try this at home” – which, if true, is both its most striking achievement and its lasting memorial.

            cr

          3. “Don’t try this at home” – that’s what garden sheds are for. The walls blow away and relieve the pressure on your ear drums before too much damage. Doesn’t provide much protection against schrapnel though.
            What? Pardon?

          4. One of my classmates at school reputedly made some glyceryl trinitrate in his garden shed at home. Just half a test-tube full. And dropped it. He was halfway out the door by the time it hit the ground. He survived relatively undamaged. The shed didn’t.

            In my long-ago pyrotechnics career I carefully stuck to fast-burning mixtures of the light-metal-powder plus oxidiser type, which required lighting and didn’t go off if you dropped them. You might burn your fingers but were unlikely to blow them off.

            cr

  3. I’m subscriber number 39.942. 😛 Subscribed because of the science and religion posts. I think I read whyevolutionistrue almost every day.

      1. Well, it’s science first and religion second. And religion often intrudes into science.

    1. In exchange for your soul you will receive a notification of every new post on whyevolutionistrue via e-mail or dark, prophetic dreams.

          1. Exaclty this. You will also receive a notification in your inbox asking to confirm your subscription. Don’t forget to confirm.

  6. I wouldn’t think there were that many other people that were equally as crazy as I am.

    Groucho Marx sent the following wire to a Hollywood club he had joined: “Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”

    Bada boom! Congratulations PCC(E) (very soon)

  8. FYI, many of the movers and shakers of the skeptical community tweet links to your posts, so you’re having a wide influence.

  9. Oh you know you more than “make do” with us. Because we’re totes amazeballs.

    1. I’m not actually a subscriber 🙂

      But this has to do with my brain. If I get emails, they control me; I stop, look, read, think.

      I’ve got the perception that I’ve got more control over my brain by coming to WEIT several times a day to see what’s been posted.

          1. For me, Twitter’s the spreading of scientific ideas with a touch of humanity. I spy on intellectuals and let others spy on me. It’s open. No censoring, at least none to me, thus far. This is in contrast with Facebook, which I no longer use except as a public placeholder. I’m averse to Facebook’s censoring of ideas and safe-spacing and the displacement of friendship into an online, bodiless ether. I’m so averse, I should adopt Jerry’s asterisk spelling: F*cebook.

          2. T – ime-
            W – asting
            I – nternet
            T – textually
            T – trimmed
            E – xpression
            R – ecycler.

            Any improvements?

  12. I’m hooked also seem to be hooked on religion,evolution and things like it.Was reading Esquire mag get it free in the mail have no idea why.An article title The End of the World. Thought it was going to be about religious ideas about the end of the world fun.It was about money or something. So if they had anything about evolution i’d be on it .I have to thank this site for that. Money who cares especially if its the end of the world.

    1. I .l.o.v.e. reading your comments, Ms Rose !

      Truly I do !
      Every time I see something from you !

      Blue

      1. Thanks i like reading comments also, especially the ones that go on for days .I ain’t got time for all that reading.

  14. Looks like I am #39,984.

    I really didn’t need to subscribe as I always check the website at least once a day but if that is what you are willing to accept as payment for your informative and entertaining essays then who am I to argue.

      1. IF this helps find #40k, then Dr Coyne, just after 8:00 pm Central — when I subscribed ? ~8:01pm or ~8:02pm ? and not later than that … … THEN thus:

        I read in the left margin something to the effect o’thus: “Congratulations, you are subscribed. Along with 40,005 others !”

        ? help discern 40k – th, ya’ think ?
        Blue

        1. And then, yes: that same statement seemed to increase in absolute number .stat. thereafter !

          I saw it rise to 40,007, then 40,010 and 40,013 — right afore my very eyes !

          Very, very shortly thereafter 8:02pm or so !
          Blue

  16. Minimal membership in this PCC club should include ownership of at least two of his books and past or present ownership of a cat. Partial membership requires that you were at least nice to a cat.

    1. ha.ha.ha.ha.ha. — = .that. is just darlingk! = “partial membership” means that “you were !at least! N I C E to a cat.”

      T R U E ! .that. is sweet ! and should be a requirement as to membership in to .any. club !

      And the title of m’next book chapter: “Nice to a Cat” !
      Blue

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