A quick one here, I just re-discovered Philosophy Bites. Good stuff! Here’s what I just listened to:
A bit on the light side, but good never the less.
As a bonus:
- What is Quality for our Time? – Patagonia Quality Director with an amazing qoute: “Quality is about process”. This is something that should ring true for all GTD/Agile/Scrum/Lean/Process-people out there.
Time to close some tabs, this time on my perhaps greatest intellectual heroes. Daniel C Dennett and Douglas Adams. Starting with Adams:
- “Is there an artificial god?” – Douglas Adams brilliant speech on Digital Biota 2 Cambridge U.K., September 1998. Fabulous stuff in a rambling typical Adamesque way. Including the famous puddle analogy and the ages of sand. Long read, but worth it.
- “Parrots, the universe and everything” – A likewise rambling speech, but this time on video. Hilarious and reflective, just what we loved him for. And do read the book, it is rather nice.
And now Dennett:
- “Free Will” – A lecture from Edinburgh University. This is, if you like, a short version of his book Freedom Evolves. Which you should read (I’m re-reading now).
- “Thank Goodness” – Reflections on his near death experience (from an atheist’s perspective) and a moving thanks to the advancements of science and medicine we tend to take for granted these day. I don’t think I could be as hard on the theists though, but the man has a point.
- “Autobiography, pt I” – And if you need more, here’s some on the man himself.
Enjoy!
TIme to close tabs. This time two of the links will be in Swedish, sorry about that.
- Fokus writes Spelet om FRA (SE). This is an article about what happened behind the scenes when the Swedish parliament pushed through its recent signal tapping laws. If true, it is really incredibly stuff fit for any Tom Clancy novel. When the prime minister in Sweden is raging “either your with me or egainst me” in front of his inner circle, you now something is very, very wrong.
- Brokep, one of the admins of The Pirate Bay, writes Sverige – väx upp! (SE). The background is simple, there is a terrible murder of children in a Swedish small town (actually my home town, close to my mom), the documents from the proceedings, which includes pictures of the murdered children, is published by the court as official public documents for anyone to look at, the documents end up on The Pirate Bay. Simple eh? And you’d thinks it’s fairly clear whom to blame? Yes, of course it’s the eviiil Pirate Bays Fault! Eviiiil….
- I don’t understand economy. But it’s clear something has gone very, very wrong in the States. Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes The Fourth Quadrant: A manp of the limits of statistics over at Edgo.org. Jaw-droppingly good article about risk, risk management and probabilities in statistics. Oh, and for your light entertainment, John Cole’s had enough…
Enjoy!
In no particular order.
Enjoy!
Let’s just toss them, shall we?
- Daniel Brahneborg rips Anders Wik and Ingvar Åkesson a couple of new ones. Regardingthe FRA stuff. In Swedish: Finn fem fel.
- Conservapedia, my ultimate source of knowledge and wisdom, has this to say: Causes of Atheism. Look at the dancing clowns mama!
- I’m an elitist bastard. Are you? Here’s the second carnival in any case.
- What it says: The opposite sex.
- Conspiracy theorists rejoice! All this tedious mucking about with actually imagining up your own fantasy is over. Now you can all use this instead: The Zionist-Conspiracy-O-Matic.
- The official God FAQ.
- Steampunk cufflinks? Oh hell yes! Steampunk rings? Of course! Etsy have them all.
Enjoy.
Because low hanging fruit is soooo easy to reach. Here’s two more or less funny and one “damn yes I told you so”:
Enjoy.
Still having a cold. Damn. The concert on Thursday went alright though, thanks to pills and sprays and adrenalin. But, still…
Oh, and I forgot to tell you that Fafblog is back! All hail the Glory that is Giblets! Whee!
What could we pay for with the $$$ poured into the war in Iraq? Charlie Stross makes some calculations:
Going by Stiglitz’s indirect estimates, the picture is even more ludicrous; for $3Tn, assuming a crew of four per expedition, $20Bn per flight, and a basic $450 start-up price, you could send 510 astronauts to Mars. That’s not a Mars exploration program, that’s a battalion! It’s a small colony!
Seriously, war is such a bad idea. Even though we may argue about the necessity of a Mars trip, investing the money in renewable energy (or even nuclear power plants), global education, water resources etc. would be A. LOT. BETTER. THAN. WAR.
I don’t know if I need say no more: All rise!
LOL
Daylight Atheism is written by the man behind Ebon Musings, and it is a very enjoyable weblog, about and for atheism. Well written, thought out and careful; I like it. Here’s three pieces for your Sunday reading:
Catholic-bashing might be considered an easy target, but the morality of those swines really are disgusting. How about this gem from Mother Theresa:
I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.
I’m sorry, but that’s just downright evil.
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