Ian Bushfield

Last night was the first night of Vancouver’s annual fireworks show, the Celebration of Light. From my balcony I was able to listen to the accompanying music over Shore FM (104.3 MHz) and could see all the big fireworks over neighbouring condo buildings. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the smaller ones, but at least there were [...]

It’s mid-July already, when did that happen? I can’t even really account with what I did through May and June. I worked on setting up a terahertz spectroscopy system (which is still jittery and noisy) and trying to get half-decent data about this one sample (with another sample already in line). I filled out an [...]

I stepped foot inside my new lab yesterday. Dr. Dodge’s terahertz lab operates a system that is very similar to Dr. Hegmann’s ultrafast set-up back at the University of Alberta. I also had my first four-hour lab TAing the Physics 130 life sciences lab. We (meaning the students) explored the simple pendulum. I am not [...]

At the BC Humanist Association’s annual general meeting last night I was acclaimed to their board of directors. The BCHA is a registered charity that has existed for over 25 years, but like many humanist associations has seen its membership drop in recent years and its median age has steadily risen. Hopefully, I can reverse [...]

[This post is part of a week-long series from July 24-30 about issues within the secular community. Also see parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.] After I’ve hopefully identified my chief concern, hypothesis about the issue and presented the first steps to rectifying the issue by building positive-action centred communities (in addition to and [...]

[This post is part of a week-long series from July 24-30 about issues within the secular community. Also see parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.] So far I’ve discussed the issue of non-active atheists and how the cynical skeptics and their tone may keep them from joining and being active in our organizations. Today, I [...]

I’ve finally written an article for The Peak again. This time I address the long-form census controversy and ask if Harper’s really a great strategist or just a lucky ideologue. Harper’s success: strategy or luck? By Ian Bushfield Many pundits and voters view Stephen Harper as a strategic political mastermind. Since winning the Conservative party [...]

[This post is part of a week-long series from July 24-30 about issues within the secular community. Also see parts 1, 2, and 3.] I’ve hopefully introduced my main concern in the discussion of the non-active atheists and cynical skeptics and how I think we as a community need to find ways to make them [...]

[This post is part of a week-long series from July 24-30 about issues within the secular community. Also see parts 1 and 2.] The key concern I’m trying to address with this series is: Why would atheists who generally agree with our positions feel unwelcome at an average skeptics event (based on the various ones [...]