Boris Johnson going even more mental than usual, which is impressive.
"According to the newspaper, Mr Johnson said: "If you look at all the psychological profiling about bombers, they typically will look at porn."
There are too many things wrong with that sentence and its implications, so I'll just point out that this is coming from a serial adulterer.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hes-fathered-a-love-child-and-had-three-affairs-but-the-british-public-still-loves-boris-johnson-8636709.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31056823
Saturday 31 January 2015
Thursday 22 January 2015
HoloLens
Windows 10
The HoloLens looks to be a case of "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY", if it works as advertised. This is exactly what I wanted Google Glass to be, I'd love to fill my house with Blender creations... however, I'm less sure of its mass-market appeal. For some unfathomable reason, people thought that the much more stylish Glass made them look silly, but had no problem with people using hands-free phone kits while walking down the street. Looking like you're a crazy person ? No problem. Wearing unusual spectacles ? Ridiculous.
I don't get it. But if people don't like wearing even slightly odd specs, it's hard to believe the headset will catch on as a mainstream alternative to giant TV screens. For another thing, screens are easier to share. Custom graphics and gaming aside, it's hard to see why I'd want to wear a bulky headset to overlay the internet on the world when I could just consult my phone. It seems very cool and all, but is it useful ?
It would certainly be handy in the workplace though, where having virtual screens would be infinitely easier than trying to organise large amounts of contents in different desktops. At home it looks like a fun toy. A really frickin' cool toy, but still a toy. Now of course, when it gets to the stage of being no bigger than regular glasses that you can wear all the time, that's another matter entirely.
I'm even less sure about Cortana. I suppose there are some situations where hands-free is good (a smart house seems like an obvious one), but mainly talking out loud to a computer is undesirable. The example of "Do I need to bring a coat ?" followed by a straightforward answer via checking the forecast is impressive, but is this just a pre-programmed routine, or is it able to figure out what the question really means ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30924022
The HoloLens looks to be a case of "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY", if it works as advertised. This is exactly what I wanted Google Glass to be, I'd love to fill my house with Blender creations... however, I'm less sure of its mass-market appeal. For some unfathomable reason, people thought that the much more stylish Glass made them look silly, but had no problem with people using hands-free phone kits while walking down the street. Looking like you're a crazy person ? No problem. Wearing unusual spectacles ? Ridiculous.
I don't get it. But if people don't like wearing even slightly odd specs, it's hard to believe the headset will catch on as a mainstream alternative to giant TV screens. For another thing, screens are easier to share. Custom graphics and gaming aside, it's hard to see why I'd want to wear a bulky headset to overlay the internet on the world when I could just consult my phone. It seems very cool and all, but is it useful ?
It would certainly be handy in the workplace though, where having virtual screens would be infinitely easier than trying to organise large amounts of contents in different desktops. At home it looks like a fun toy. A really frickin' cool toy, but still a toy. Now of course, when it gets to the stage of being no bigger than regular glasses that you can wear all the time, that's another matter entirely.
I'm even less sure about Cortana. I suppose there are some situations where hands-free is good (a smart house seems like an obvious one), but mainly talking out loud to a computer is undesirable. The example of "Do I need to bring a coat ?" followed by a straightforward answer via checking the forecast is impressive, but is this just a pre-programmed routine, or is it able to figure out what the question really means ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30924022
Tuesday 20 January 2015
Atheism isn't a belief, but antitheism is
Essay/rant in which I examine a particular brand of atheism which looks remarkably like a religion - and a rather nasty one at that. Hate speech (not merely criticism or insults) is hurled at non-believers, counter-evidence ignored, even slight criticism is shot down, free speech is denied, and history is revised to suit an agenda. Adherents are held to be better people than non-believers and granted a peculiar freedom to abuse that would be described as the very problem they claim to be trying to solve.
Part 1 examines the usual agnostic/atheist/antitheist perspectives. I contend that atheism is a belief, not merely a lack of belief. Belief isn't intrinsically right or wrong, but pretending atheism isn't a belief at all (as some are wont to do) is daft. Atheism might not be a fully-fledged religion, but some staunch anti-theists are practically indistinguishable from religious fanatics.
Part 2 (http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2015/01/the-unthinking-atheist.html#more) can probably be read independently of part 1 and looks at the behaviour of certain antitheists. Comparing moderate theists to rapists because they profess a love of a deity is hate speech, not a critique of religion. The blind assumption that all religious people believe the literal truth of the Bible is daft. And the notion that by being an atheist automatically makes you a better person is a stupid as the assumption that believing in God does the same.
With full supporting cast of world turtles, UFOs, climate skeptics, polar bears, Rowan Atkinson and an invisible goat.
Part 1 examines the usual agnostic/atheist/antitheist perspectives. I contend that atheism is a belief, not merely a lack of belief. Belief isn't intrinsically right or wrong, but pretending atheism isn't a belief at all (as some are wont to do) is daft. Atheism might not be a fully-fledged religion, but some staunch anti-theists are practically indistinguishable from religious fanatics.
Part 2 (http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2015/01/the-unthinking-atheist.html#more) can probably be read independently of part 1 and looks at the behaviour of certain antitheists. Comparing moderate theists to rapists because they profess a love of a deity is hate speech, not a critique of religion. The blind assumption that all religious people believe the literal truth of the Bible is daft. And the notion that by being an atheist automatically makes you a better person is a stupid as the assumption that believing in God does the same.
With full supporting cast of world turtles, UFOs, climate skeptics, polar bears, Rowan Atkinson and an invisible goat.
Friday 16 January 2015
Too good to fail
"Colin Pillinger himself never had the chance for a second attempt. But he always avoided using the word failure.
And, if he were alive today, he would surely argue that news of Beagle2 touching down intact proves him right, that Britain did manage to land on Mars, and by any standards that counts as success."
YEAH ! We landed a probe on frickin' Mars damnit ! OK, it didn't do a lot, but it still landed without smashing into itty-bitty pieces...
[waves a little Union Jack, shouts "hurrah !" quietly]
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30842576
And, if he were alive today, he would surely argue that news of Beagle2 touching down intact proves him right, that Britain did manage to land on Mars, and by any standards that counts as success."
YEAH ! We landed a probe on frickin' Mars damnit ! OK, it didn't do a lot, but it still landed without smashing into itty-bitty pieces...
[waves a little Union Jack, shouts "hurrah !" quietly]
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30842576
What ban ?
Interestingly, this turns out to be quite controversial.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30813742
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30814555
"There is no specific, or explicit ban in the Koran on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad - be they carved, painted or drawn."
"Shia Islamic tradition is far less strict on this ban. Reproductions of images of the Prophet, mainly produced in the 7th Century in Persian, can be found."
"Siddiqui points to depictions of Muhammad - drawn by Muslim artists - dating from the Mongol and Ottoman empires. In some of them, Muhammad's facial features are hidden - but it's clear it is him. She says the images were inspired by devotion: "The majority of people drew these pictures out of love and veneration, not intending idolatry."
"The prohibition against depiction didn't stretch everywhere though - many Shia Muslims appear to have a slightly different view. Contemporary pictures of Muhammad are still available in some parts of the Muslim world, according to Hassan Yousefi Eshkavari, a former Iranian cleric, now based in Germany."
But...
"Dr Azzam Tamimi, former head of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought told the BBC... He is not convinced by the argument that if there are medieval depictions of Muhammad that suggests there is no absolute prohibition. "Even if it were that would have been condemned by the scholars of Islam.""
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30814555
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30813742
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30814555
"There is no specific, or explicit ban in the Koran on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad - be they carved, painted or drawn."
"Shia Islamic tradition is far less strict on this ban. Reproductions of images of the Prophet, mainly produced in the 7th Century in Persian, can be found."
"Siddiqui points to depictions of Muhammad - drawn by Muslim artists - dating from the Mongol and Ottoman empires. In some of them, Muhammad's facial features are hidden - but it's clear it is him. She says the images were inspired by devotion: "The majority of people drew these pictures out of love and veneration, not intending idolatry."
"The prohibition against depiction didn't stretch everywhere though - many Shia Muslims appear to have a slightly different view. Contemporary pictures of Muhammad are still available in some parts of the Muslim world, according to Hassan Yousefi Eshkavari, a former Iranian cleric, now based in Germany."
But...
"Dr Azzam Tamimi, former head of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought told the BBC... He is not convinced by the argument that if there are medieval depictions of Muhammad that suggests there is no absolute prohibition. "Even if it were that would have been condemned by the scholars of Islam.""
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30814555
Thursday 15 January 2015
Know thyself via a Facebook quiz
"The Facebook users completed a personality questionnaire and were asked to get their colleagues, friends and family to act as character witnesses by filling out a survey. The researchers then compared all the results to see how the computer model fared in summing up a person's self-reported character. Given enough "likes", the computers came closer to a person's self-reported personality than even their closest allies."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30775401
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30775401
Thursday 8 January 2015
Socrates wants to insult you
This is why the freedom to insult people is very, very important, according to Socrates :
"For if you kill me you will not easily find another like me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by the God; and the state is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has given the state and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. And as you will not easily find another like me, I would advise you to spare me. I dare say that you may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping; and you may think that if you were to strike me dead, as Anytus advises, which you easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you gives you another gadfly... coming to you individually, like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to regard virtue; this I say, would not be like human nature."
And this is why he thought violence against those you disagree with is futile :
"Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more severe with you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves. "
"For if you kill me you will not easily find another like me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by the God; and the state is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has given the state and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. And as you will not easily find another like me, I would advise you to spare me. I dare say that you may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping; and you may think that if you were to strike me dead, as Anytus advises, which you easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you gives you another gadfly... coming to you individually, like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to regard virtue; this I say, would not be like human nature."
And this is why he thought violence against those you disagree with is futile :
"Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more severe with you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves. "
Tom Holland on cartoons
" Insults to him [Mohammed] were traditionally held by Muslim jurists to be equivalent to disbelief - and disbelief was a crime that merited Hell.
Not that there was anything within the Koran itself that necessarily mandated it as a capital offence. "The truth is from your Lord, so whoever wills, let him believe; and whoever wills, let him disbelieve."
While under normal circumstances I am perfectly happy not to mock beliefs that other people hold dear, these are far from normal circumstances. As I tweeted yesterday, the right to draw Muhammad without being shot is quite as precious to many of us in the West as Islam presumably is to the Charlie Hebdo killers.
We too have our values - and if we are not willing to stand up for them, then they risk being lost to us. When it comes to defining l'infâme, I for one have no doubt whose side I am on."
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30714702
Not that there was anything within the Koran itself that necessarily mandated it as a capital offence. "The truth is from your Lord, so whoever wills, let him believe; and whoever wills, let him disbelieve."
While under normal circumstances I am perfectly happy not to mock beliefs that other people hold dear, these are far from normal circumstances. As I tweeted yesterday, the right to draw Muhammad without being shot is quite as precious to many of us in the West as Islam presumably is to the Charlie Hebdo killers.
We too have our values - and if we are not willing to stand up for them, then they risk being lost to us. When it comes to defining l'infâme, I for one have no doubt whose side I am on."
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30714702
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