Fun (pleasure or jouissance), was part of Zizek’s agenda noted below. I finished his “Living in the End Times” a week or so ago; a good provocative read in many places, but I was just left with an inconclusive anti-climactic “so what ?”, and no further specific review subjects to publish, so I moved straight [...]
Entries from January 2011
What’s So Funny ?
4
January 31, 2011 at 3:21pm
by Psybertron
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Is Science The Only Path To Truth ?
2
January 29, 2011 at 9:04am
by Psybertron
The provocative title of a discussion event by Intelligence Squared held last Thursday at the Science Museum, Dana Centre, which I managed to attend after all. Chaired by Jack Klaff, featuring Ian Angell, Ray Tallis, Jane O’Grady, and David Papineau as the panel, with Lewis Wolpert and others in the audience of around 100(?). If [...]
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Lost Faith in Science
0
January 26, 2011 at 2:22am
by Psybertron
If you missed Sir Paul Nurse on BBC Horizon: Interesting unspoken stumbling block is that boundary between science itself and the political (ie aim-oriented) public communication “about” science. ie yes, clearly, science / scientists need (always needed) to concern themselves with public communication, but is that necessarily science or scientific ? Meta is the word.
General · Science Add Your Comment
A Game of Two Half-Wits
2
January 25, 2011 at 12:05pm
by Psybertron
Two football posts in two days. Great headline, lifted from one the red-tops, just about sums it up. Sex discrimination or plain ignorance, Gray is just a dinosaur ex-player (Rio is right – there’s a first) with a stock of punditry clichés, good riddance. Keys is a professional broadcaster, he should have the book thrown at [...]
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Strip Out The Emotion
1
January 24, 2011 at 5:48am
by Psybertron
Not been following all the details of the Spurs vs Wet Sham vs UK Athletics on the “legacy” use of the new Stratford Olympic stadium, but I have to say. Football should not be played in athletics stadiums – not for fans who want to watch how the game is played; not for players who [...]
Is Science the Only Path to Truth ?
0
January 21, 2011 at 9:40am
by Psybertron
A discussion at the science museum next week, evening of Thurs 27th Jan featuring Ian Angell (previous post). [Post Note: Over-subscribed already.]
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Forget Starbucks
2
January 19, 2011 at 5:37am
by Psybertron
Seems Ian Angell is a Costa Coffee man. A man after my own taste. Actually, I prefer Cafe Nero, but either way, anything but Starbucks. Magic I first mentioned Angell when I heard him on Thinking Allowed discussing his book “Science’s First Mistake” with Laurie Taylor. I mentioned in the footnote there, the suggestion, gained [...]
Philosophy · Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Crow Intelligence
2
January 14, 2011 at 7:53am
by Psybertron
One in a long series. Just collecting the links.
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
The Real Joke
0
January 14, 2011 at 5:18am
by Psybertron
I’m a big fan of Howard Webb (defended him over the world cup final Dutch fiasco, for example) and in fact in the offending game here, he got both the controversial decisions right – Gerrard sending off and the Berbatov penalty – in our opinion. Anyway, after Kenny branding the latter decision a “joke” and Ryan [...]
Dennett on Hacker
2
January 13, 2011 at 9:23am
by Psybertron
Since I’ve just started reading Bennett, Dennett, Hacker and Searle’s “Neuroscience & Philosophy” I thought I’d post a link to the coincidence in the earlier post today, as a current reminder to myself to post some review notes. My most considered reading of Bennett & Hacker was back in 2009. There I speculated on Dennett’s [...]
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Open Source Power Struggle
2
January 13, 2011 at 6:08am
by Psybertron
Interesting piece in WSJ, linked by Johan on FB. Global east-west power struggle to avoid dependence on US dominated proprietary software.
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Wound or Heal ?
3
January 13, 2011 at 6:03am
by Psybertron
Interesting to contrast yesterday’s UK parliamentary knock-about between Milliband and Campbell with Obama’s call for healing in the rhetorical wars between US partizan politicians and commentators. Blaming opponents for “all that ails the world” was unhelpful, he said. Cameron and Milliband were downright personal in trading insults of each other and their colleagues – despite [...]
The Full Macondo
2
January 11, 2011 at 1:44pm
by Psybertron
And now the full and final commission report to the president on the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, including the Chapter 4 on the blow-out failure itself, reviewed previously. Finally, to the American people, we reiterate that extracting the energy resources to fuel our cars, heat and light our homes, and power our businesses can be a [...]
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Suicide WikiLeaker
0
January 11, 2011 at 12:11pm
by Psybertron
OMG, I was joking when I said Martyr was the best word for Assange, and now it looks like he literally wants to be one. “Fears death” my arse.
Uncategorized Add Your Comment
More on Macondo
16
January 10, 2011 at 7:58am
by Psybertron
I’ve now had time to read the whole US Commission report on the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico – the discussion sections that I’d not read earlier, in order not to be influenced, when I published my initial conclusions. It is ever clearer. “Most, if not all, of the failures at [...]
General · LinkedIn Add Your Comment
Philosophy in the Clouds ?
0
January 7, 2011 at 5:57am
by Psybertron
A good Dilbert today.
Spam Reducing
0
January 6, 2011 at 12:57pm
by Psybertron
The Symantec story is about the large drop in spam traffic over Christmas, but in fact the chart shows enormous fall in recent months generally, under 20% now of what it was back in August 2010. Suggestion is that this is not because spamming has become bad business for spammers sadly, but simply a change [...]
The BP Commission Report
2
January 6, 2011 at 5:14am
by Psybertron
Still digesting this … They were operating on well-known and understood tight margins on pressure balance ever since the incident during partial drilling by the earlier rig, and right through completion of the drilling to the final “primary” cement job. That balance was always between too little (mud, pressure, cement, etc) failing to control the [...]
Governance · LinkedIn Add Your Comment
The Uncanny Valley
0
January 5, 2011 at 6:43am
by Psybertron
An interesting post over at Anecdote. Business story telling has to be natural, not simply a professional simulation.
Ten Years of Blogging
2
January 4, 2011 at 4:03am
by Psybertron
This open source s/w approach really works surprisingly well. I have a collapsing archives plug-in the side-bar that failed as the date went from 2010 to 2011, despite having ten years of successfully linked archives. At first – yesterday – I thought maybe there was a “decade” level of hierarchy, but whatever the design intent [...]
Science vs Religion Wars
17
January 3, 2011 at 7:26am
by Psybertron
I have three or four draft responses to Pharyngula (PZ Myers) blog posts, but they always turn into long essays and I rarely get round to publishing. One problem is he has many signed-up readers who respond to every post, and individual comments get lost in the baying mob (just like Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science [...]
