Digital Dreams
Hi. I still use LJ, follow my friends and similar, but I've moved my main host to Dreamwidth now, and am crossposting everything to here, but asking people to comment there.
Mat Bowles.
It's still fully interoperative, the OpenID comment functions there are good and improving, and I can follow everything from both sites easily.
Mat Bowles.
It's still fully interoperative, the OpenID comment functions there are good and improving, and I can follow everything from both sites easily.
Firstly, on the Atheist Bus campaign[1], three scientist bloggers, Dave Godfrey, Debi Linton and Strangefrontier who says:
Dear Christians on my friendslist, when you feel that atheist campaigners are generalising about your whole faith and railing against you, the real target is folks like Stephen Green. The problem is that he and others like like are so damn loud and have such a constant media presence, they drown out the normal, decent and sane* Christians. No matter what positive PR you throw out there, the attention will be given to some cunt shouting, "God hates fags!"I especially liked Dave's line
If he didn't exist I think the atheists would have to invent him, he's launched a case on which the crux is he has evidence of the existence of God. Well, like Dawkins, if you can give me some proof I'll change my opinion...
Anyway, next topic. Woolworths has shut down. Since he finished his degree,
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
doctorvee has been working for them, in a number of branches, and I heartily recommend his series of posts on the history of the company and the experiences of working there in its dying days. Like him, I loved Woollies as a kid but found them fairly pointless as an adult, they definitely had no clue what they were trying to be as a chain, and Wilkinson's have definitely displaced a lot of their business in Yorkshire. I had no idea that the company had started out as the early equivalent of a pound store, they only dumped their fixed price policy because of rationing during the war.Sad news however. Number 6 is dead.
Cool news: Molecular Analysis Confirms Tyrannosaurus Rex's Evolutionary Link To Birds. They didn't die out, they evolved. Next time you eat a chicken dinner, that's one of T-Rex's relatives you're chomping down on ;-)
Want: Trends Are Cyclical: the Asus Eee Keyboard. It a complete fully functioning computer, all inside thin keyboard. How cool is that?
Have to say, I pretty much agree with Tim here, economic protectionism makes us poorer and damages our economy more than it benefits us. Buy British if you want, but if it's not the best deal, buy whatever, the economy benefits from the transaction regardless. ETA: Friday's More or Less is a politics special starring Vince! Yay!
Last up,
innerbrat wants to declared this year as the International Year of True History to commemorate both Darwin and Galileo. She's wrong to call it "true" history of course, everyone knows that real history started at about 1600, everything before that is pre-history, but it's a nice idea.[1] From which I've taken this icon, I yoinked the LJified version from
strangefrontier but it was designed by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small}
jonworth_eu_fd who coordinated the intial fundraising campaign before it all got a bit bigger than anyone expected. I'd forgotten how good a blogger he is until I found him on Twitter, Labour party members that can actually write well about politics are worth paying attention to, methinks[2]. [2] On a similar line,
blimpish_fd is back, one of the few Tory bloggers that doesn't make me want to shout at the screen at the idiocy and ignorance.
the effects of free trade and globalization & the driving forces behind worldwide urbanizationor, in other words, making it fairly clear that imports make us rich, and exports are the boring shite we do to pay for them, something that's fairly well known to anyone that understands Ricardo. Shame that most journalists and politicians don't.
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Time's analysis of the Clinton campaign failures. Personally, I always thought Barack was a better candidate, but for her cheif strategist to not actually understand how delegates are won? Gah! You can't win if you don't know the rules
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Dubbya's coming to visit. D'you fancy being annoying? I most certainly do. Nice little button in my sidebar coming right up...
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Meant to link this yesterday, but as every other bugger has done it already I thought I might as well. Mark in 'state the obvious' shockâ”for a filthy Stopper trot he's quite switched on really.
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I think Chris is right here, but not 100% sure, opinions? 'Conventional economics - which is distinct from plundering capitalism - can be the ally of environmentalists, not its opponent.'
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10 reasons why Obama won from the BBC's US correspondent, they look about right to me. Point 10 is especially good, although I've not seen that series yet
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A character based on a real person wins a TV election campaign, the real person borrows from the character and wins a real election campaign. Circularity headache time?
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A nice little summary of the history of Mozilla and Firefox, complete with nifty poster of the browser wars, found it in an old folder of links
New Statesman - Richard Reeves
Wrote the bio of JS Mill I'm currently reading, which means I like him already. Very interesting set of columns, well worth looking over, even if they are in Staggers.
Edible Dirt,—Easter Sunday, Jesus wakes up
Not original, probably offensive to those that care, rather funny
10 Unfortunate Facts of Life | f*cking c*nts
This amused, it's about time I cleared it from my linklog and actually posted it somewhere
theweaselking: Abortion discussion
Key quote from comments: "It's a hard enough choice without having to make it in an alley. I'll always be pro choice, period."
Why I am an abortion doctor
Read this: 'I can take a woman, in the biggest trouble she has ever experienced in her life, and by performing a five-minute operation, in comfort and dignity, I can give her back her life' Safe, legal, rare, why is there still a controversy?
How to Pack Up & Leave LiveJournal (A Tutorial) (://URLFAN)
Not a bad little how-to. Not how I'd do it specifically, I've already backed up everything including comments to a Wordpress install, but still not bad.
drjon: The LJ Strike (which is today)
Containts a nice little history of previous fusses on the site, with a balanced overview and points out that, well, we've won already
Pharyngula: EXPELLED!
Creationists premiere dodgy movie near home of famous science blogger, specifically ban him from viewing, but not his family or his guest. This is a really dumb move...
It's Just a Game... - Review: The Bible
Funny: "Summary: A confused film, half effects laden, no-brain blockbuster, half cinema-verite talking-heads, lacking a conclusion or climax to justify the budget. Poor plotting and characterisation lead the audience to sympathise with the villains rather
FT.com | The Undercover Economist | Dear Economist: How can I create an incentive scheme to keep our house clean?
Sounds familiar: "My fiancee is moving in with me. We’ve lived together before, and we hate housework. Before, we didn’t do work in retaliation for housework not done by the other." Good to know that even economics doesn't have all the answers
chris_dillow_fd has an excellent summary of the banks reaction to Northern Rock at Stumbling and Mumbling, and naturally I concur completely: This episode shows that many bosses don't really believe in free markets. Instead, they are like the slaggiest single parent. They pretend to be victims, and expect the state to save people from the consequences of their own stupidity and promiscuity. Indeed, they are worseA large number of capitalist managers and owners pay lip service to markets, but when it comes down to it would rather not worry about that dangerous 'competition' stuff.
Which is why calling markets 'right wing' is both blinkered and stupid--markets are a tool, a means to an end, and are neutral on left/right alignment. But they are a fundamental tenet of a modern free society.
Softpedia reports that Windows Vista is essentially spyware and Microsoft will be able to track a big chunk of what you do; yes, they're unlikely to pick on individuals, but the EULA gives them carte blanche to give everything away.
Cthuugle--the H. P. Lovecraft search engine. Do Werewolves Roam The Woods Of England? Probably not, but some interesting stuff, even if the guy writing it is a bit, shall we say, touched? How about instead a bunch of 3-D Starmaps? So very very cool.
Reading this Register article on Conservapedia I discover the wonder that is RationalWiki, a slightly satirical riposte to the loons and their delusions. Conservapedia has managed to clean up all the blatant vandalism that it got hit with soon after it launched. Now the edits are much more subtle.
On the subject of wikis, anyone fancy a game of Wikington Crescent? Very very silly way to kill time, but you never know.
sunflowerkits recently attended a Gothic Bellydance workshop and has videos of some of the teachers dancing; it is actually very impressive, and I'm not just saying that because they're also quite hot.On to a bit of politics. My old friend
paulatpingu compares Gordon Brown's position to that of Londo Mollari. Yes, that Londo Mollari, the one with the silly hair and the tentacle penis. Scarily, he's actually got a point, although as I commented there it's not going to happen any time soon.Silliness. Turn the subjects from any feed (including your public LJ posts) and burn them into Lol!cats. Results can vary between the impressive, the funny and the downright stupid. And of course there's an online macro generator, which even works from LJ userpics. Yes, I've ued it, and it's actually not a bad overall tool for quick-and-dirty actual design work.
Lastly? How about a survivors guide to Doctor Who fandom? So very true, especially the Rose-fen; I only really started follwing the online fans since Torchwood started, and seriously, they scare me. Especially the Jack/anto shippers. SRSLY, they're warped. Not interested? Ok, how about an economic argument against the smoking ban combined with an assertion that passive smoking isn't actually dangerous. Ok, that last comes from the Torygraph, and is thus a little sus, but not hugely, the science he researches is real, and I remain of the opinion that car exhaust fumes do more damage than someone else's smoke ever will.
Not bad that, cleaned 16 links out of the folder. You really don't want to know how many there are in total.
Trust me on this. Oh, look at that, I've managed to do that silly Doctor Who quote meme without even trying. Bargain.
Mars said it became "very clear, very quickly" that it had made a mistake.Merely very very stupid. Was going to post about the sheer idiocy when
mooism first posted on the 8th (note, that was 6 days before the BBC caught up), but things got lost in the shuffle. They were using the excuse that "only strict vegetarians" would be affected, and in a way, they'd be right. When I eat out, I don't tend to worry whether the cheese is made using rennet, I'm not that strict. But if a company does something blitheringly stupid, and says that it shouldn't bother me at all?Worse, for them, it would've meant that many of my non-vegetarian friends and family would have stopped buying their products; why buy Masterfoods when Cadbury do something just as good? Stupid stupid company decision. Still, while I'll try to stick to Green and Blacks when I can afford it, and Cadbury when I can't, I can still buy Masterfoods now, they're idiots, but they're not
evil like Nestlé. Ah, informed consumers making choices within an active market, and forcing companies to change. You can see why so many capitalists are anti-market at heart, right?
The only problem of course is that some of the statistics used to claim how many vegetarians there are in the country are likely very very wrong. Why? Because even smart people are stupid:
Twenty years after the IQ tests were carried out in 1970, 366 of the participants said they were vegetarian - although more than 100 reported eating either fish or chicken.Guys? Vegetarians don't eat fish, let alone chicken. So as virtually every survey of the nature relies on self reporting, and approx 1/3rd of self-described vegetarians are pescetarians at best, the market impact might be smaller than it should be. People assuming I can eat fish despite being vegetarian is probably one of my biggest pet-hates, and it isn't helped by the ignorance of some who self-describe wrongly. It's a bit like self-described Christians who don't go to church; they may quack like a duck, but they sure as hell don't walk like a duck.
Oh, it's National Vegetarian Week as of tomorrow, so expect dodgy media coverage, false assumptions and some of my more idiotic ethical eaters to be a bit too assertive in various places, sorry about that.
baseballchica03, The world's first and only stand-up economist gives us a translation of Mankiw's Principles of Economics (written version).Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown 2007 - Jarvis will be the director of this years Meltdown Festival at the SouthBank centre. Y'see this? This is a Mat very happy he moved to London.
YouTube - Unicorn vs. Narwhal. Via
tyrell and kobold almost at the same time; very very cool.Man cleared of murder by TV comedy gets LA pay-off - seriously, his alibi was proven when his lawyer went through some crowd scene out takes after five months in jail.
And via Debi and Katy, again right next to each other on the friends page, Shaggy Blog Stories: a collaborative blog-stunt for Comic Relief. Go through your archives for a funny post from the last year, and send a link to it to Mike, or re-write it, edit it up, and send it. He aims to have an entire book ready to go to print by next Wednesday. Yes, the man is mad, but, y'know...
And finally, some good suggestions in my poll of yesterday, a few more and I'll do a run off. Ruling out
raggedhalo's suggestion though, chickenyoghurt did that one already...You get this sort of thing. Still, it killed time while I was eating lunch.
You either believe in a free society with markets, or you want a command/control economy where everything is fair and there's no dynamism or diversity. This little socialist gets it, why can't the 'normals'? Seriously, there are some obtuse people in there. Apparently, touts are killing live music? WTF?
ETA: Link fixed. OK?
I like movie pirates. I like pop culture pirates. I also, (whispers) like ninjas. Like most Lib Dems, I want it both ways and am somewhere in between. ( Thoughts on the modern term 'pirate' )
So, yeah, talk like a pirate. Use a silly icon. Have a giggle. Only, LJ? Next time you decide to celebrate International Talk like a pirate day? Could you make it so the little tricks you put on the profile and update pages showed up for people using English English as well as US/LJ English? Thx muchly.
notes from the basement
halcyon_shift managed to get to 1000 comments. Utter insanity. Cool.Also? How not to hunt for a place to live in London. Not a good day. More seriously,
jantshira really could do with a stroke of luck finding a room to rent in London. If anyone reading this knows someone that could help?Anyway, to topic. I took the ( OK Cupid politics test ) and found the results to be a little weird to say the least, although they didn't surprise me. Essentially, I'mstrong on social freedoms, but strong on social protection. The problem with these things is it judges a desire to give a safety net and an equal start to everyone as being economically controlling, and makes me non economically permissive.
Wrong! I'm a strong believer in the principles of a market economy, the Market is undoubtedly the most efficient means of distribution and exchange yet discovered, and it's pretty good with assessing the value of an individual product, as long as it is a functioning market.
The thing is, I don't believe in corporate ownership, and would rather shop in small, local businesses than chain stores whenver possible. But every tick in favour of controls on corporations makes me "less" in favour of economic freedoms. This isn't tied to online tests, it's endemic within commentary on economics. It's assumed you're either 'Left' or 'Right' economically, there doesn't seem to be any understanding of the difference between social justice, fair trade and a functioning market analysis.
Sorry, rant over, I return you to your regularly schedule of me bouncing all over the room and worrying about the phone bill.
Feeds
Introspection
There probably ought to be a Creative Commons licence in here somewhere but in the meantime consider this permission to quote me (link) & link to what I write.
If you decide to keep reading, please do say hello, let me know where you found me from, etc. I promise not to bite (well, unless you want me to...)
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