Website Archives – Skeptical Raptor

2018/07/242018/07/24

Helping this website with contributions – the feathered dinosaur needs you

Like those Public Broadcasting System fundraisers, I’m here to ask (beg?) for contributions to keep this website going. And as annoying as it is to you, it’s more annoying for me. But this website isn’t supported by anyone but myself and your kind support.

I am hoping that some of you will contemplate making a financial contribution to the old feathered dinosaur, also known as the Skeptical Raptor so that we can continue to be that valuable resource that we have been in the past.

Although some may consider this a hobby, it is almost a full-time job for me. Researching and writing an article takes several hours of my time – I think it would be irresponsible of me to just write an article from the top of my brain. Setting that aside, all the other costs of this website are borne by me and through contributions.

I want to grow this blog to another level. Why? Because I want this blog to be at or near the top of the search results for topics that I focus on – vaccines, diabetes, GMOs, cancer, nutrition, and a few other narrow areas. I want to make sure that when someone is “doing their research” they get viewpoints beyond what the science deniers provide.

Please consider supporting this blog with a financial contribution of whatever level you think the old dinosaur deserves. It can be little. Or if you feel like it, it can be a lot, I’m really not going to complain.

How do I use your contributions?

Operating expenses such as web hosting, paid services, ISP charges, and other small but regular charges.
The hiring of contractors to regularly maintain the website or fix major issues (like the requirement to switch to https).
Cost of literature – reading an abstract on PubMed is hardly the proper way to analyze published research. Although there are several websites that allow one to get full articles illicitly, they are generally taken down through intellectual property claims, and I’m reluctant to violate intellectual rights.
Subscribe to a couple of journals that are the focus of this website.
Maintenance of hardware that is used to support the website.

This website will always remain free to use. I need your support to keep that happening. Many of you have made generous and continue to make generous contributions to this website that keeps it running. And I’m hoping some more of you will also contribute so that I can maintain and grow this website.

There are two ways you can help support this blog.

First, you can use Patreon by clicking on the link below. It allows you to set up a monthly donation in the form of a subscription.

Become a Patron!You can also support this website by using PayPal, which also allows you to either make a one-time donation or set up a monthly contribution. Either way, it will be greatly appreciated.

2018/07/21

Supporting the Skeptical Raptor website with contributions

Hey, you loyal readers. This website was started in January 2012, getting just 100 page hits that month. I actually celebrated that I did so well. We’ve grown so much since then, now getting well over 1000X that number every month.

The growth was a result of your encouragement. Your comments. Your ideas. And, yes, your critiques, even when they come from science deniers. I believe that we have provided you with valuable information that has been and will be useful to you in your own understanding of current scientific and medical topics, but also in helping others.

Although some may consider this a hobby, it is almost a full-time job for me. Researching and writing an article takes several hours of time – I think it would be irresponsible of me to just write an article from the top of my brain. Setting aside that, all other costs of this website are borne by me and through contributions.

How do I use your contributions?

Operating expenses such as web hosting, paid services, ISP charges, and other small but regular charges.
Hiring of contractors to regularly maintain the website, or fix major issues (like the requirement to switch to https).
Cost of literature – reading an abstract on PubMed is hardly the proper way to analyze published research. Although there are several websites that allow one to get full articles illicitly, they are generally taken down through intellectual property claims, and I’m reluctant to violate intellectual rights.

There are two ways you can help support this blog.

First, you can use Patreon by clicking on the link below. It allows you to set up a monthly donation in the form of a subscription.

Become a Patron!You can also support this website by using PayPal, which also allows you to either make a one-time donation or set up a monthly contribution. Either way will be greatly appreciated.

2018/07/05

Skeptical Raptor website updates – because it’s kind of a holiday

The old feathered dinosaur took a bit of break from posting stuff since American readers are off celebrating the country’s break from England. Of course, most of the celebration is wrapped up in myths and tropes, but it’s a time for hot dog eating contests, baseball games, and fireworks. Instead of giving you an article about Meditteranean diets (stay tuned, it’ll be here), I thought I’d give one of my boring Skeptical Raptor website updates. Continue reading “Skeptical Raptor website updates – because it’s kind of a holiday”

2017/12/042017/12/04

Shop Amazon to help the fund feathery dinosaur – he thanks you

The old, snarky, cranky, curmudgeonly feathery dinosaur still needs funding to keep this website running for the next year. And to run it smoothly. And there is a way that won’t cost you money – shop Amazon, and a portion of your purchase will come to this website.

This is a painless method to support this website. And no, Amazon doesn’t increase your prices to do this.

How does this work? Click on any of the links below to shop Amazon. And you can buy anything, although some of the links take you to promotions and other things Amazon is advertising. Just don’t leave Amazon’s website or shut down your browser.

So click on these links below, then do your shopping. Go grocery shopping, Buy a new computer. Complete your holiday shopping. Anything you want from Amazon.

Remember, anything you buy at Amazon, not just the recommended ones above, will count towards this website.

But if you want to donate to the website, you can still do it the tried and true way:

Please help me out by Tweeting out this article or posting it to your favorite Facebook group.

There are three ways you can help support this blog. First, you can use Patreon by clicking on the link below. It allows you to set up a monthly donation, which will go a long way to supporting the Skeptical Raptor
Become a Patron!

You can also support this website by using PayPal, which also allows you to set up monthly donations.

Finally, you can also purchase anything on Amazon, and a small portion of each purchase goes to this website. Just click below, and shop for everything.

(Note: sometimes the PayPal button is mean and won’t work. You can just find the button along the sidebar to the right, and that one should work.)

Anything you can do will help. Go shopping for your whole family, friends, neighbors, and scientists at Amazon. Use GoFundMe. Use PayPal. The feathery dinosaur appreciates it all.

Thanks for your time. And shop Amazon – and buy a lot of stuff.

2017/11/26

The feathered dinosaur is not a Big Pharma Shill – please help

It’s been a calm Thanksgiving week. Compared to the last few wild weeks where this website was overwhelmed with hits after being accused of being Dr. Paul Offit, being David Gorski, and working for Dorit Rubinstein Reiss. The feathered dinosaur is confused.

That’s interspersed with the daily claims that the feathery dinosaur is being paid by Big Pharma for doing their bidding. If only it were true, this posting wouldn’t be required.

Your generosity so far has provided approximately 30% of what is necessary to keep this website running. But it’s an expensive endeavor, and the Skeptical Raptor could use a little bit more of a push so that the survival of this website is guaranteed over the next year or so.

So, if you have the ability, please donate to this website Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated.

There are two ways to contribute to this website. First, you can make use of PayPal. If you wish, you can set up PayPal to provide monthly contributions, which are just as helpful. I prefer PayPal, because it doesn’t take out a fee, so if you send $10, I get $10.

Or you can use GoFundMe, if you prefer. They take off about 7%, but many people feel more comfortable with the anonymity of GoFundMe.

So click either the GoFundMe or PayPal buttons below to be taken to the secure website where you can contribute to the cause.

Finally, you can also purchase anything on Amazon, and a small portion of each purchase goes to this website. Just click below, and shop for everything.

(Note – for some strange reason occasionally, the PayPal button doesn’t work, a problem on PayPal’s side. If that happens, try the PayPal button along the right sidebar, which almost always works.)

Please help out the funding of this website for both the short term and long term. The feathery dinosaur thanks you.

2017/11/20

Help the feathery dinosaur for Thanksgiving – please

We are coming up on the Thanksgiving holiday here in the USA, where we all fall asleep watching football and consuming turkey. And we still have to ask readers out there to help the feathery dinosaur keep the website running for the next few months.

Admittedly, the feathery dinosaur is someone offended that one of his relatives, the distinguished turkey, is a part of this meal.

Right now, we’ve gotten about 60% of necessary funds from all of your generous donations. We’ve removed many of the ads that drag down performance of this website (we hope someone has noticed). We will going to leave a couple up because they don’t appear to have much of an effect on loading time. But we will monitor it.

There probably won’t be many posts for the next few days, because we’ve got a project on this website that’s caused by the vexatious (not really) Orac, who was forced to move his website to a new domain. Actually, Orac gets better control over his website doing this, so that’s great for him, but an inside source said it took some work to get it done.

Unfortunately, we have literally 100s of links to his old domain. And we need to fix each of them – everyone hates broken links. As we review these links and articles, we might repost old favorites for your reading pleasure.

So, if you have the wherewithal, please help the feathery dinosaur. Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated.

Or you can use GoFundMe, if you prefer. They take off about 7%, but we know many people feel more comfortable with the anonymity of GoFundMe.

So click either the GoFundMe or PayPal buttons below to be taken to the secure website where you can contribute to the cause.

Finally, you can also purchase anything on Amazon, and a small portion of each purchase goes to this website. Just click below, and shop for everything.

We regularly revise the goal level on GoFundMe to include amounts we’ve received through PayPal. We started with a goal of $4000 and we’re already down to needing only around $1900 more.

Please help out the funding of this website for both the short term and long term. The feathery dinosaur thanks you.

2017/11/142017/11/14

The feathery dinosaur still needs funding – please help out

The last couple of weeks were pretty wild. First, being accused of being Dr. Paul Offit by the bastion of fake news, the Health Ranger’s own Natural News. Then several people on an anti-vaccine YouTube video accused yours truly of being David Gorski, and working for Dorit Rubinstein Reiss. What next? I’m actually an alien from space? A lizard person?

Also, last week, Professor Reiss wrote about the sad tragedy of Nick Catone’s son. The massive hits to the website (nearly double or triple the usual amount) caused the server to collapse so many times that I nearly threw my computer through the window. But it’s cold outside, and I need my computer. This is why I still need to ask for further funding so that I can do some upgrading and improvements to the website’s code.

Then this week, I published an article on glyphosate and cancer. And once again, the server got hit from all of the views of the article.

Now, I’m not whining. It’s so cool that my humble little website has grown into a monstrosity.

Anyway, the issue with the server is that when there are peak runs on the website, and that happens with each of the popular articles, it overwhelms the processor and memory of the server. Right now, I have enough power for about 80% of the time. But that 20% causes a lot of errors when people try to read the articles. And that’s why I write, so people can read the articles.

I’ve received about 30% of what I need from the year from all of your generous support. But I need to keep asking. Please contribute.

So, if you have the wherewithal, please donate to the Skeptical Raptor. Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated.

Or you can use GoFundMe, if you prefer. They take off about 7%, but I know many people feel more comfortable with the anonymity of GoFundMe.

So click either the GoFundMe or PayPal buttons below to be taken to the secure website where you can contribute to the cause.

Finally, you can also purchase anything on Amazon, and a small portion of each purchase goes to this website. Just click below, and shop for everything.

I will regularly revise the goal level on GoFundMe to include amounts I’ve received through PayPal. We started with a goal of $4000 and we’re already down to needing only around $2000 more.

Please help out the funding of this website for both the short term and long term. The feathery dinosaur thanks you.

2017/10/30

Skeptical Raptor is not Paul Offit – help feed the feathery dinosaur website

Well, I hope it’s clear to the anti-vaccine world that the Skeptical Raptor is not Paul Offit. One’s an ugly old dinosaur who rants crabbily about science. The other is a distinguished researcher who rants professionally about science.

Dr. Offit invented the rotavirus vaccine that saves 450,000 lives a year. The Skeptical Raptor once chased a bunch of kids in Jurassic Park.

Dr. Offit is only 66 years old. The Skeptical Raptor is about 66 million years old.

These are obvious differences. The other big difference is that if Dr. Offit requires assistance with his website, he’d call on the resources of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia or the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. The feathery dinosaur needs to hire a starving website coder to make some changes to bad code.

So I’m going to take you away from your regularly scheduled programming to ask once again to help out in funding the Skeptical Raptor website for the next year. As I am not a rich man, unlike the ignorant fools at pseudoscience websites who hawk fake treatments for all kinds of real diseases, I need help to run this website. It’s an expensive process.

So, if you have the wherewithal, please donate to the Skeptical Raptor. Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated.

I will regularly revise the goal level on GoFundMe to include amounts I’ve received through PayPal. We started with a goal of $4000 and we’re already down to needing around $2300 more.

So now that you know that the Skeptical Raptor is not Paul Offit, can you please help keep this website going. The ancient dinosaur thanks you.

2017/10/262017/10/28

The feathery dinosaur wants you – to please contribute

In case you you don’t know the humor, a few years ago Orac, one of the snarkiest skeptics on the internet, called me a scaly dinosaur. Though I was scared to do so, but I had to correct him – I am a feathery dinosaur. Of course, I don’t think Orac is a paleontologist, but you never know.

I am once again e-begging. We’ve made a massive dent in the fundraising, chopping away about $1,000. If we can get the other $2-3000, it would be great. Continue reading “The feathery dinosaur wants you – to please contribute”

2017/10/232017/10/23

It’s that time of year again – I need to do some e-begging

It’s that time of year for the old feathery dinosaur, Skeptical Raptor to do something he hates. It’s the time of year for e-begging. That old dinosaur and I are trying to get enough funds to keep this place running, and running smoothly.

Like I’ve said a hundred times before, I started this website as a hobby. A place where I could write down some thoughts, share them with a few people, and call it a day. The first month of this website, January 2012, I had 100 visitors. And I was ecstatic. It wasn’t ScienceBasedMedicine, but as a hobby, it was great.

My total costs for the website were around $15.00 month on a shared server located in Colorado Springs. The technical people there knew me by my first name, and we would fix issues in about 10 seconds, and then talk about skiing or something.

Expenses

This year, 2017, I’m ranging from 120,000 to 200,000 unique visitors per month, 200,000 to 300,000 total visits, and 2-5 million hits per month. That can’t be done on a shared server, because my website would be demanding all the resources, and other websites on that server, like JanesCatGrooming would fail to load all the time. In fact my web host in Colorado kicked me off their service in February 2015 without any warning.

On my current web host, I pay $350 a month for a dedicated server and bandwidth. Frequently, I exceed the limits of the server because I publish a very popular article, and the website performance goes down. I really need to upgrade soon. I could get it cheaper if I paid for a year of service in advance, but that’s a huge outlay for me.

I also pay another $100 a month for various services that block hacking (very important these days, the Russians probably aren’t happy with my anti-Trump articles), track stats, improve performance, and other things that are critical to a website.

Then, I pay about $150 a month for a technical guru who fixes issues with the website. For example, I had to switch from http to https in one day to maintain Google rankings, who was dropping non-secure websites from rankings. That was a large expense for me, because there was a problem in how I originally set up the website (back in 2012). When I knew nothing about websites.

Revenue

Despite all of the hits and design of the website, along with what appears to be 50 ads, my ad revenue ranges from $80-120 per month. In other words, it does not cover my average $600 a month outlay.

There is an assumption that because I am a “Big Pharma Shill,” I am either wealthy from my past life or receiving huge checks from Big Pharma. Sorry, but neither is correct. Although I cover the costs of this website from my own monies, it is a serious burden for me.

This is why I need to e-beg for cash. I have several goals, beyond monthly fees, depending on the amount of money I receive:

I need to start caching this website to improve performance. But I have a major issue in how the website is organized which will require repointing every article to a new URL. This is an expensive and difficult undertaking, which only became a problem in the last few months.
I’d like to remove all but a couple of ads to improve performance. Since most of you use ad blockers (according to website data), I get no revenue, and still get performance hits.
I’d like to slightly upgrade the server to handle upticks in visits and hits.
I’d also like to really improve the performance of the website, which Google identifies as “Poor.” It’ll take a lot of work to get this done, above and beyond what I am paying out now.

I think there a lot of top articles with high Google rankings that counteract the misinformation of the anti-vaccine folks. Many of the HPV vaccine and GMO articles rank in the top 5. The articles on vaccines and law are often the most shared articles on this website.

I like to think that Skeptical Raptor is a resource to the world of scientific skepticism, especially in areas of GMOs and vaccines. I know if this website disappeared, it would be replaced by many of the other websites out there. But there are nearly 1100 articles posted on this website, and a good number of them are valuable tools in arguing with quacks and junk medicine users. For example, I wrote an article 5 years ago about whether bananas can cure cancer – they don’t, in case you were wondering. That article still gets 50-100 visits a DAY.

e-begging sites

My second method is through GoFundMe. Some people are more comfortable with the anonymity and popularity of GoFundMe, and it’s a perfectly fine way to do it. However, GoFundMe does take a small portion as a fee for the service.

Your generous donations can keep this website going for another year. Please help if you can. And like I said above, if I can get enough donations, I can eliminate all but 2 low bandwidth ads, which will make me happier. And make the reader happier.

I really hate e-begging, but I need to do it to keep this website running. Please help out if you can.