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  • Steam Trek

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    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…

  • GM Spin

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    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…

  • GM

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    A comment of mine on MetaFilter expressing my views on genetically modified crops.

  • A Passage To Boredom

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    Here’s a comment I posted in a Metafilter on bad books today: Schools should never assign books for class reading. It’s a sweeping statement, but the agony treated upon students must be stopped. I remember reading ‘A Passage To India’ at school; it was the dullest thing I’d ever laid eyes upon. Maybe it’s a…

  • The steam-powered drum machine

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    The steam-powered drum machine – an astonishing extract from a journal written in 1894 about a steam-powered drum machine and a 19th century rave (yes, it’s a joke). Via the Culture List and spawned, in part, from the demented mind of Brendan Nelson.

  • Alive and well

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    Some utter fool has written an article in the Times (part one, part two) on the failure of psychology. My views are reflected quite accurately in this Metafilter thread which I contributed to. Psychology is alive and well, and if you want to attack the strawman of psychoanalysis and outdated views of early 20th century…

  • A few good men

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    Cheeks to the rescue – ever been in a desperately embarrassing situation where you wished you could just crawl into a hole? Imagine being a 13 year old and fluffing the words to the American national anthem on live TV, and in front of 20,000 people. Fortunately, NBA team coach Mo Cheeks came to the…

  • Never good enough

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    The big news today is that Apple has launched its new music service. $.99 for a single track and $10 for an album. However, the folks at MetaFilter are positivery derisory of the entire scheme, even though it has almost no DRM issues (burn to CD effectively as many times as you want). What do…

  • Natural Artifacts

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    Natural Artifacts – a well-written post at MetaFilter by someone who has written a program that generates images without human output. Is it art? The creator says no.

  • 4 million

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    4,000,000! – the population of New Zealand reached 4 million today. New Zealand has a very nice statistics website which sets an impressive example for other countries (via MetaFilter).