Condolences to Jennifer and Wade. Keera Snoddy passed away yesterday aged just three months. In the last week or so, Keera had a lot of major surgery.
Ian has put up some video from Howard Rheingold talking about communities, moderation, “collection action theory” and networks. I went along to a meal last night - organised right at the last minute - and it was great fun.
There’s not long left to vote in the first round of MyDreamApp. I’ve voted, and there’s some really exciting stuff in there. You even get a free licence key for Pzizz (the ‘short nap energizer’ application) if you vote.
Excellent libertarian rag, Reason Magazine, has an interview with Chris Anderson.
I’ve got too much to read at the moment - and to be honest, more scientific-philosophic type stuff isn’t what I’m really looking for. The Guardian has excerpts from chapter 1, and the BBC has excerpts from chapters 7 and 8. Beyond Dawkins’ excellent ability to put the best words in the right order, most of the information is the same stuff that folks like myself and the other bloggers of a non-theistic, rationalist, reality-based bent have been posting for the last few years. Dawkins takes all this information and hopefully catapults it down the throats of the unwitting useful idiots and flappy-lips who allow illogical nonsense and illiberal hoohahs to pass so as to support (most condescendingly) “communities” against the Evil Nasty Elites.
Related - Ophelia Benson: “The interventionist, miraclewreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible and of clerics and of the newspapers and radio and discourse is a kind of person - a person with a lot of labels stuck on such as omnipotent and omniscient, but still a kind of person, who does person-like things, who loves us and pities us and helps and protects us, so that it makes sense to love it and worship it. The other god, the one that created the whole of the universe - can’t possibly be like that. No matter how many labels you stick on it, it still just can’t be like that. It can’t be both transcendent and immanent, it can’t be both outside the universe and our loving parent. It’s an either-or thing, not a both-and thing.” (Either-Or, huh? Has someone dropped Essence of Søren in to Ophelia’s cappucino?)
Blogmeet pictures from February-03, thanks to iamcal.com’s xmas 2003 link list.
Ban Anime! (Found via convert_me LiveJournal community).
Who’s Mr Popular?
Britons want more culture in their lives according to recent research. (Via Mad Musings of Me)
I hate tech support!
What is it with tech support!? I’ve called three different companies regarding my DSL today - my ISP, the manufacturer of my modem and the manufacturer of my wireless router - and they are all useless. Two of them are based in New Delhi or somewhere else in India, while my ISP is in England. And, however many times you check something it still doesn’t work. However many times you reset a computer, or reboot a networking component it isn’t going to work.
The store is engaged. No wonder people have problems with computers - I program PHP in my spare time, yet tech support people think I need help using my bloody trackpad.
Upshot: I now have DSL, but can’t use it unless I’m within about a foot of the phone socket. Therefore making all the money spent on networking gear completely pointless. It’s also a joke, as it completely defeats the point of setting these things up during my holiday week if they’re not going to work!
