This morning I woke up to the terrible (although not completely unexpected) news that Christopher Hitchens had died. The rational community has, of course, lost one of its most erudite and interesting members. But it seems that Christopher had one last trick up his sleeve. As with most breaking news these days, I found out… Continue reading Hitchens’ Last Laugh
Stealing Sheep
One Wednesday in August I went to the Barfly in Camden to see Alessi’s Ark. I knew nothing at all about the support acts for the night. The first act on were called Stealing Sheep. The first song they played was this one. It’s called “I Am The Rain” I am the Rain by stealing… Continue reading Stealing Sheep
Parking in Balham
You’ll often hear people saying that Mail writers live in a different world to the rest of us. Actually, I think that they live in the same world as us, they just like to think that they live in a different one. The fun and games start when they discover they are wrong and that… Continue reading Parking in Balham
LoveFilm and Silverlight
Yesterday, LoveFilm announced that they are changing the technology which powers their film streaming service. From early in January the existing Flash-based system will be replaced by one which uses Microsoft’s Silverlight technology. This is extremely disappointing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there’s the immediate technological fallout. Silverlight doesn’t run on as many platforms… Continue reading LoveFilm and Silverlight
Winterval on the Pod Delusion
I’m on this week’s Pod Delusion talking about Winterval and the Mail’s admission that it was never a replacement for Christmas.
Winterval
From today’s Daily Mail corrections column: We stated in an article on 26 September that Christmas has been renamed in various places Winterval. Winterval was the collective name for a season of public events, both religious and secular, which took place in Birmingham in 1997 and 1998. We are happy to make clear that Winterval… Continue reading Winterval
You Try To Do A Nice Thing
Long-time readers will know that I’m involved with the nms project. This is a project which writes simple software that people can use on their web sites if they want guestbooks, forms that get emailed to them and all that very Web 1.0 stuff. It’s a nice thing that we’ve done. We’ve created something and… Continue reading You Try To Do A Nice Thing
Daily Mail Corrections
The Daily Mail, along with its sister paper The Mail on Sunday, has recently started to print a corrections and clarifications page. It’s a pretty half-arsed affair for many reasons. The only way to find it is by searching for it by title. There’s no link for it anywhere on the site and it doesn’t… Continue reading Daily Mail Corrections
Pod Delusion Plug
It’s Friday, which means there’s a new episode of the Pod Delusion out. I’m plugging it because I’m in it. The first report is me talking about Nadine Dorries and her bizarre opinions of humanism. There’s another story about her too as the Pod Delustion’s editor, James O’Malley interviews New Humanist’s Paul Sims about her… Continue reading Pod Delusion Plug
Dorries on Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism. That’s how Wikipedia starts its article on Humanism. Humanists (and I count myself as one) believe… Continue reading Dorries on Humanism