Mssv

At my school, all students were entered into the English Literature GCSE. What this meant was that a couple of times a week, we would take out copies of ‘English Literature’ - things like The Crucible, A Passage To India, various Shakespeare plays, poems - and take turns reading them out.
There is nothing that kills […]

A few weeks ago, I read a New York Times article about a new charity organisation called GiveWell, founded by two young ex-hedge fund managers. The story described how these two mavericks were about to shake up the charity world by using their financial skills to demand and interpret data from charities, and thus discover […]

Interesting Metafilter discussion about the Muslim niqab (dress for females that covers everything except the eyes)

Bell rock jingle rock
Bell jingle rock
Rock jingle rock
Bell jingle bell
Rock bell
Jingle
Rock rock bell
Jingle rock, jingle rock
Bell bell bell
Quite possibly the greatest Christmas song ever - Jingle Rock Bell (Jingle Bell Rock sung using only the words ‘bell’, ‘jingle’ and ‘rock’.

Remembrance of Books Past - an article by Ray Bradbury in which he talks about the idea of rewriting books from memory; a never-realised sequel to Fahrenheit 451. “Why not a sequel to ‘Fahrenheit 451′ in which all the great books are remembered by the Wilderness People and are finally reprinted from memory. What then? […]

Ask MetaFilter - truly one of the best ideas that’s hit the Internet this year. There are other websites that provide general advice, but none with the community and (some might say) highly intelligent and educated userbase of MetaFilter.

Thank you… - this MetaFilter thread on how to write thank you letters is going to get very silly, very quickly.

Metafilter UK Oxford meetup photos - a highly geeky and highly successful meetup of Metafilter UK members, featuring drinks, noodles, more drinks, a run-in with the police, a gig in a dive bar, yet more drinks and ice cream. I had a lot of fun and met a bunch of very interesting people; hopefully another […]

Steam Trek - what a find! Some enterprising individuals have masterfully melded two classic SF genres, Star Trek and Steampunk. The result is a wonderful universe with Her Majesty’s Aether Ships exploring the solar system and protecting the United Kingdom of Planets. Long live Queen Victoria, and may her glorious reign continue as it has […]

I posted a comment in this MetaFilter thread about GM crops, on how research in the area is often misrepresented by the anti-GM lobby. Case in point: it was claimed that the Bt toxin pesticide might actually benefit some pests, meaning that transgenic Bt plants could be utterly counterproductive. In reality, the research data has […]