Monthly Archives: October 2007

Research tool wanted

Posted on October 29, 2007 by acb

What do people here use to store all the clippings they make from the web? It needs to be quick, unobtrusive, so that I can just press a hotkey in the browser, and to allow tagging and later sorting by … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in nördig | 15 Comments

Fresh hells of idiocy

Posted on October 28, 2007 by acb

I see towards the end of a comment thread, where only the trolls cavort and gibber in the ruins, two things: that someone is arguing against me on the basis of a wikipedia entry whose only substantive source is an … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 2 Comments

Cartoons, stupidity, cleverness

Posted on October 26, 2007 by acb

I think the third frame in this Doonesbury packs a lot into one picture. Whereas xkcd, here, doesn’t even need speech. And, on geekery, I want this for Christmas. Still geeking: you could not improve this definition of “open”, or … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 1 Comment

Small random thoughts

Posted on October 24, 2007 by acb

Should we treat stupidity like spam? I quite like the idea, especially as some people are working on a stupidfilter based on spam-fighting principles. With this in place, most comments on newspaper sites would just vanish. Also, if you poke … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

Patti Smith, Jesus Godfuckingdamn

Posted on October 24, 2007 by acb

Her show at the Junction last night was about the purest slab of punk/rock that I have ever experienced. It’s a small venue: there were maybe four or five hundred people there, all standing, and the sound was excellent. She … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on Patti Smith, Jesus Godfuckingdamn

Midgley, Dawkins update and end

Posted on October 23, 2007 by acb

I don’t normally cross-post from the Guardian pieces here. But I finally stuck the Midgley/Dawkins story somewhere people might read it and now I know what it feels like to be Madeleine Bunting. It also occurs to me, afterwards, that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Science without worms | 4 Comments

Small world scoop

Posted on October 17, 2007 by acb

Deborah Kerr is dead. The news doesn’t seem to have reached the wires yet; but my mother, to whose brother she was once married, just rang to tell me. She was a nice woman and a fine actress. Helmintholog: the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 5 Comments

Briefly Noted

Posted on October 15, 2007 by acb

I finally got the London Library’s electronic access to scholarly journals working. Still no JSTOR, but lots of goodies anyway, among them an article from the Journal of the American Academy of Religion arguing that the “Prosperity Gospel” movement, known … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on Briefly Noted

Adaptationism contested

Posted on October 15, 2007 by acb

Jerry Fodor, in the London Review of Books, takes a swing at adaptationism in the name of Evo-Devo. I’m not sure that he lands any really new or heavy blows, but I have only read it once and I am … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Science without worms | 4 Comments

disconnected jottings

Posted on October 11, 2007 by acb

This is an example — perhaps the platonically perfect example — of a joke which is either screamingly funny of wholly incomprehensible, with no region in between. It seems to me that if you understand it you are bound to … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 9 Comments