Circles of bigotry

"To claim that you are being discriminated against because you have lost your right to discriminate against others shows a gross lack of understanding of history and oppression, as well as a disturbingly narrow understanding of Christianity."

Originally shared by Scott Elyard
http://www.adn.com/article/20150429/discrimination-simply-not-way-christ

Chemical safety doesn't depend on its origin

Short and to the point.

The internet makes the world scarier

"Most of the chief protagonists in my book I met online first, and offline second. I always liked them more in the real world. By removing the face-to-face aspect of human interaction, the internet dehumanises people, and our imagination often turns them into inflated monsters, more terrifying because they are in the shadows."
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32446711

Sounds like a job for... FALLACY MAN !

Sounds like a job for... FALLACY MAN !
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/9

Originally shared by Jesus “H” Christ

Some excellent (and amusing ) explanations of a few common fallacies.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17142_5-ways-common-sense-lies-to-you-everyday.html

Realism is not always a good idea

Because sometimes there are very, very good reasons for sci-fi to be unrealistic.
http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/150423.html

There be whales here !

Partially very interesting, but would be about ten times shorter and a hundred times better without the vitriolic diatribe against science and technology.

Also it's completely lacking any discussion of evidence in behaviour to support superior whale intelligence (besides the human tendency towards being self-destructive and lack of similar behaviour in whales). If the whale brain is so great, what problem-solving behaviour do they show to demonstrate this ?

Originally shared by David Stroe

An essay worthy of your time
„Apart from our collective ego as a species, the idea of an Earthling species more intelligent than ourselves is difficult to swallow. We measure intelligence in strictly human terms, based on those abilities that we as a species excel at.”
https://knowledgeutopia.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/the-cetacean-brain-and-hominid-perceptions-of-cetacean-intelligence/

Robot butlers

I'd prefer the five tonne version that comes with a gatling gun.

My mother would prefer one that does the ironing. My solution to that is simply not to do any ironing.

I would quite like a robot chef since my solution to cooking is to find something which is frozen and heat it in the oven until it's done. I'm not willing to spend £10,000 on a robot that prepares more interesting food though.

A general-purpose robot butler that takes the rubbish out, washes the dishes (or puts them in a dishwasher), mows the lawn, mops and/or sweeps the floor and does the laundry... that'd be something, but I'd still plump for the gatling gun robot suit version given equal costs. A robot butler that says, "Get away from her YOU BITCH !" just isn't the same. :P
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32282131

The best ideas...

"Another idea is simplicity, or theoretical frugality, sometimes referred to as Ockham’s Razor. But given the enormous successes of string theory, it becomes clear that the best scientific theories should be as complicated as possible."
http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.00108

Choosing sides

Fun with choosing a political party based on policy.

According to uk.isidewith.com, which lets you choose individual policies and rank their importance, I'm 97% in agreement with Labour (who I will actually vote for) and 91% in agreement with the Greens.

Another website (which I can't find anymore) neatly reversed that, putting me at 97% agreement with the Greens and 91% Labour.

whoshouldyouvotefor.com also puts me strongly in favour of Labour, with a score of 52 (49 for the Greens, 4 for Lib Dems, -15 for UKIP and -16 for the Tories).

voteforpolicies.org.uk lets you choose policy sets rather than individual policies. According to this I chose Liberal Democrat policy sets 50% of the time, with Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens each getting an equal 16.7% split.

The Telegraphs' election quiz (which is rather simple) says I should vote for Labour, but it's surprisingly close : 77% Labour, 62% Lib Dems, and amazingly, 51% Tory.

The Green Party : so near and yet so far

Sigh. I really like the Green party, apart from their unscientific anti-nuclear stance.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32086204