http://www.solstice.us/russell/idleness.htmlRead more... )

There is a great deal of energy directed towards bashing the Twilight series, a quartet by Stephenie Meyer. People are certainly entitled to dislike the books for any number of reasons, but the malicious, vitriolic criticism directed at Meyer and her fans seems really inappropriate. Most of it is easily disarmed, but I have yet to see anyone try ( Read more... )

I have finally started a food blog: http://improvisationalsoup.wordpress.com

Today I went out for dinner with a friend from school, her boyfriend, and his three-year-old son. When they came to pick me up, and I got in the car, the little boy looked right at me and said, completely out of the blue, "You're beautiful."

I'm still grinning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4VzuWmN8zY

I have such a geek crush on her.

Suppose you have a woman who knows that she comes from a family with a history of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a debilitating disease which kills fairly young (typically earlier than age 30) and leaves the sufferers crippled for most of their lives. She knows this because her full-blooded brother has the condition. However, she doesn't know if ( Read more... )

As we have more technological capability, we have the capacity to accomplish more good. This creates more obligations than we would have without this technological capability. For example, being able to treat a disease makes it wrong to withhold that treatment (under many conditions) from people afflicted with the disease. Before the existence ( Read more... )

I'm getting awfully tired of not having an opinion on gun control, so I'm soliciting everybody else's opinions. For your convenience, here is a summary of my thinking up to this point on the subject.

The earliest opinion I am aware of having on the subject of gun control was that nobody should have them except maybe the police. Then I was ( Read more... )

http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehudaRead more... )

There should be a social networking site where you can meet people who fit certain demographic criteria, thereby rounding out your circle of friends so you look good when photos are taken of your birthday party. You could want a friend of a particular race, or a gay friend you can point at defensively when accused of homophobia, or whatever ( Read more... )