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Freedom of speech, and Anonymity
In the news today, an English council has forced Twitter to release the real name of someone who was being rude about it. The outed blogger has complained that they are not respecting his Freedom of Speech.
But, so far as I am aware, there has never been a right of anonynmous Freedom of Speech. There are times when there is a need for anonymity, ( Read more... ) -
Writer's Block: Get up
One large orange juice, two fresh croissants, three cups of coffee. -
Giant Databases - and Burqas
One could suggest that my attitude to big - or rather, huge - databases of personal information is a bit schizophrenic. In fact, I suggested it to myself, and came up with a justification which satisfies me at the moment. Others may, of course, differ, and I would be glad to hear other opinions ( Read more... ) -
Discovery: TiddlyWiki
A discovery which I think may be of value to some people: TiddlyWiki. This is a fairly complete Wiki, implemented as a single HTML file - albeit one rather heavy on the Javascript. You all know what a Wiki is - you have all used Wikipedia. It is a set of hypertext-linked pages which can be freely edited - and quite easily so, once you learn the ( Read more... ) -
A tough job, but somebody has to do it
I read, in many sources (New Scientist, The Economist, The Guardian) of the latest selfless contribution of scientists our knowledge. Someone has teamed up with the lap dancers of Albuquerque to analyse their tips. Apparantly, when they are in the fertile stage of their personal cycle, they get about 50% more tips than those infertile, either ( Read more... ) -
Dissonnance
There is, I now find, a form of cookie called ladyfinger. I didn't know that, and now that I know it, I would call it a sponge rather than a cookie. It is the kind of hard, sweet sponge often dipped in tiramisu, and that I have seen sold as Sponge Fingers. I had to Google to find this out. And, despite the presence of the cookies, okra (a.k.a. ( Read more... ) -
Legalising Drugs.
As many people will have read in various forums I have posted to, I believe that we ought to legalise at least some drugs. Not that I believe that the various illegal drugs are harmless, though their harm has in some but not all cases been exaggerated. But becasue I believe that the law shopuld be organised to minimise drug use, not maximise drug- ( Read more... ) -
Punctuated Equilibrium
One of the many storms-in-a-teacup of Evolutionary theory is the idea pf Punctuated Equilibrium, proposed by Gould and Eldredge. Rather than expound the details, here is Wikipedia's reasonably clear take on the subjectDawkins has, as the Wikipedia article describes, attempted to belittle the theory as merely obvious becasue no evolutionary theorist ( Read more... ) -
Dramatic photographs
There are many dramatic and beautiful photographs on the Web. But for me, just about the most dramatic and meaningful, and one of the more beautifuyl, is the Hubble Deep Field: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1998/41/ ( Read more... )
