January 2011

Why the Cornish hotel ruling should worry conservative Christians | Andrew Brown | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Andrew Brown on the ruling against a some Christian hoteliers who refused a double room to a gay couple. The Christians would also not allow unmarried straight couples to share a double bed, but the judge made the decision on the basis that the gay couple were civil partners.
(tags: religion sex homosexuality law society andrew-brown)

YouTube – crazy watering can

Sort of Russell's Teapot with some bite: a brilliantly edited video. Apparently done as a homework assignment: can you do this stuff on home equipment these days? via mefi.
(tags: religion crazy watering-can video youtube teapot russell)

YouTube – Simon Blackburn – The Great Debate: Can Science Tell us Right From Wrong? (6)

I'm reading Blackburn's "Truth" at the moment, and "Being Good" is next on the queue (clearly I should get "Lust" to complete the set). Here he is arguing that Sam Harris is wrong to claim that science can answer all moral questions.
(tags: sam-harris morality ethics simon-blackburn blackburn harris philosophy)

Chatroulette Founder Andrey Ternovskiy Raises New Funding: “50,000 Naked Men” | Fast Company

Chatroulette makes money of naked guys. Neat hack.
(tags: internet funny pornography chatroulette)

LessWrong – RationalWiki

What's wrong with Less Wrong, from RationalWiki. I didn't know about the Roko stuff, for example, which seems pretty bizarre. Always useful to see criticism to counteract my fanboy tendencies.
(tags: lesswrong eliezer-yudkowsky rationality bayesian bayes artificial-intelligence ai)

Double agent | World news | The Guardian

"Norah Vincent spent 18 months disguised as a man. She relives the boys nights out, the bad dates – and what happened when she ended up in bed with another woman." Women don't quite know what dating is like as a guy, it turns out. Or at least, Norah didn't, and ended up being quite sympathetic when she'd tried it 🙂
(tags: equality gender women men dating sex relationships)

Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness | Magazine

The controversy surrounding the proposed new edition of the DSM.
(tags: psychology science criticism dsm)

YouTube – The Lord of the Books of the 55 Arse-Hymens of Stone

Lord of the Rings audio book mashup. Horribly NSFW on the audio, utterly juvenile, hilarious. Via mefi
(tags: funny mashup lotr tolkein lord-of-the-rings fantasy audio)

YouTube – BBC Newsnight: UK Homeopathy Update 2011

Society of Homeopaths gets spanked on Newsnight, with a well deserved opportunity for revenge by Simon Singh.
(tags: homeopathy quackery medicine science simon-singh Newsnight)

The Last Psychiatrist: Wakefield And The Autism Fraud– The Other Part Of The Story

Wakefield's a fraud, but that's not the end of the story: why did it take so long to spot it?
(tags: science peer-review journalism autism mmr wakefield vaccine vaccination medicine)