Category: link

Flying Robots are getting smarter all the time. They solve the battery problem and those things are gonna be everywhere.

Automatic music production robots to create royalty-free music for whatever your music-needs may be. Here’s a chilled track 2:30 long what it made for me. Interesting stuff.

Stereotype accuracy is discussed in this interesting book chapter from researcher Todd Nelson. Our review has shown that it’s logically incoherent to define stereotypes as inaccurate, that is it unusual (but not unheard of) for stereotypes to be highly discrepant from reality, that the correlations of stereotypes with criteria are among the largest effects in…

Read more Stereotype Accuracy

Here’s an interesting short film twisting both reality and virtual reality.

Glad to see my MP’s views on Syria include not using bombs at the present time. We don’t agree very often.

“I appear to have invented a knife-wielding tentacle, if anyone would like to volunteer to come and turn it off that’d be fine by me”

Here’s Scott Alexander’s “Hardball Questions” for the next republican debate in the seemingly-endless US election process. They are now the only questions I care about for any of the candidates there, they are hilarious and it’s such a shame we’ll never get the answers.

Tim Minchin’s poem as he was given an honorary degree at a drama school this week is amusing and rings of truthiness.

Haha, who fancies eating a bit of Kayne West?

A informative cartoon of Johann Hari’s book on drug addiction.

Interesting thoughts here on Free Will, what it might mean in a deterministic universe and how you can measure and improve it.

Reading this, I am pleased to learn that there is such a thing as an “Adam Optimiser”. Can’t say I understand what the hell one is or what it does really. They tell me it’s “an algorithm for first-order gradient-based optimization of stochastic objective functions” “Stochastic” means “random”, more or less. If that helps. Apparently…

Read more Adam Optimiser

A scary post from Charlie Stross on the new Chinese Credit Scoring system and what it may herald: “an oppressive system that runs at a profit.” Wonder how long till these things happen.

Watched John Dies At the End, which is a movie that was awesome and strange and I’m not sure how much sense it made but I thought it was great. Would I take Soy Sauce? Um. It looks like quite the experience, but… Yeah. Why not.

Here’s Max Tegmark pimping his book “The Mathematical Universe” (which is great) with an interesting essay describing his view of a person’s existence in spacetime.

As far as I can tell, Eamonn Holmes is a moron who thinks countries should be run like football-teams, and that who someone borrowed their tie from is an important matter of political debate. I couldn’t concentrate on anything Corbyn was saying because Eamonn is like a master of drunken inanity here.

Good work Juice Media, on these rhyming investigations into the whole Internet and it’s many applications.

Great editorial in the Independent from Caroline Lucas on the Union Bill. Indeed, for a Government elected by only 24 per cent of eligible voters to propose a 40 per cent ‘yes’ threshold for public sector strikes truly reeks of hypocrisy.

Interesting test of political bias here. They ask questions on political issues which have actual correct answers and compare the rate you get them wrong with your political opinions. My bias is 25% apparently. I’d have done better if there was a “Don’t know” button so I didn’t have to literally guess so often and…

Read more Political Bias Test

Interesting historical analysis here hinting that the idea that a Left-leaning Labour Party can’t win over the country in an election may well not in fact be true. Perhaps winning a war improved Thatcher’s standing, and Foot suffered because of that rather than because of his policy? Perhaps it was the more right-wing splitters the…

Read more A repeat of 1983?

CGP Grey’s nine minute history of the royal family explains the Queen’s totally legitimate and not at all taken-by-force right to reign over us granted by God or the rule of Bigger Army Diplomacy or something. Congrats on your totally legitimate and not at all insane or arbitrary long reign queeny.

Here’s a girl riding a bicycle around and around in circles in a gym. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3WnQ246f1g She’s very good at it, I must say.

Scott Alexander’s usual thoughtful and interesting blog is today on Trump, mentioning Corbyn too, and how come it seems the press’ mockery and dismissal of them just makes them stronger. Think he might be right that the electorate is splitting, becoming more extreme with a smaller middle ground. And that First Past The Post is…

Read more Scott Alexander on Trump and Corybn

Private Eye’s map of UK properties owned by companies in off-shore tax-havens would seem to suggest a pretty high proportion of our land isn’t occupied by immigrants after all, it’s instead occupied by rich bastards who won’t pay their tax. Quelle surprise. Cool map though.

Chaos Laundromat is the open-project that the Blender Foundation are currently working on. It starts with a suicidal sheep. Ha. Blender is the software I use for my cartoons. Free-software. They make films in order to have need, in order to have the necessity you need to know how to update software. You don’t really…

Read more Chaos Laundromat

This is really fun, Lots of hard work from these guys to build a zombie-game in their garden Then they got chat-roulette people to play it.

/link http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/new-study-politics-makes-you-innumerate There’s this study on maths abiltity and politics. When you give someone a little maths test, they mostly do badly. But they do even MORE badly if their political intuition is offended. If the results show things they don’t beleive, they don’t do the maths right. Politics really is the mind killer! And…

Read more Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math | Mother Jones

/link http://wartard.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-syrian-regional-war-nato-on-deck.html War Tard on Syria, and the total utter chaos going on there. There is no win condtion, getting involved at all is craziness. War-tard seems to know of what he speaks And he writes entertainingly. Yay. But Boo to war. Obviously.

/link http://usvsth3m.com/post/55504188326/look-how-much-this-baby-pig-loves-his-ice-cream http://media.tumblr.com/a9d0831d4c7a9fc24f818d087d8e76b5/tumblr_inline_mpz1u4i5Za1qz4rgp.jpg Look how much that teapot pig enjoys his icecream! Cute little thing. Thanks for that usvsth3m.

/link http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462220/ Watched “House” season six, episode one. House is great, but every episode is essentially the same. Not that one that. That was great. Funny and different and engaging and emotional. Well done House team. :clap:

/link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02xcvhw http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/272×153/legacy/episode/b02xcvhw.jpg Watched the BBC’s show examining cat’s lives. It was cool. Could have been cut down to like half an hour, but it’s nice to know what cats get up to. I wonder to what extent cat’s are deliberately bred these days. How much ARE we actually deliberately affecting their evolution? Our continuting…

Read more BBC Two – Horizon, 2012-2013, The Secret Life of the Cat

/link http://abstrusegoose.com/171 I like this litte circuit-diagram from Abtuse Goose. I guess being a virtual being, I have to just emulate the middle bit.

/link http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/01/after-your-job-is-gone/ Here’s a tech-crunch article on jobs. And how they reckon there might not be many of ’em in future. The techies, they reckon, could be the last of the employed. Bloody typical.

/link http://embed.ted.com/talks/mary_roach_10_things_you_didn_t_know_about_orgasm.html http://tedconfblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/ted-logo.jpg?w=900 So there’s this TED talk about orgasams. Do they help fertility? Can the dead have them? Interesting questions. I’m sure I’ve seen video of upsuck haven’t I? Surely that must mean it’s real? Or was faked I guess.

/link http://www.startrekcontinues.com/star-trek-continues-episode-1-pilgrim-of-eternity/ http://www.startrekcontinues.com/wp-content/themes/startrek/images/wallpaperv1-thumb.jpg Some Star Trek fans have been making new old Star Trek About as close to capturing the feel of Kirk’s ship as you could hope to get. I really enjoyed it. Though ‘Bones’ wasn’t really right. :no: Really glad it exists, can’t wait to see more!

/link http://www.youtube.com/embed/yCl_8522FF0 You know that Pixies song, “Debaser”? Turns out it’s about a French Surrealist film. Should have known really. “Got me a movie, I want you to know” Dead give away. And of course they cut up eyeballs in nearly the first scene. Here it is, if you fancy watching it. Sixteen minutes long,…

Read more Luis Buñuel: Un Chien andalou (1928) – YouTube

/link http://www.youtube.com/embed/EllYgcWmcAY http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/EllYgcWmcAY/mqdefault.jpg Bloody hell. Weebl works with Brian May. That’s gotta be a career highlight for him. Expect Weebl was pretty chuffed too. Nice work Weebl dude. Save the badgers!

/link http://www.youtube.com/embed/yi4IeMUTz1o http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/yi4IeMUTz1o/mqdefault.jpg Here’s Lee Hardcastle again More insanely violent clay-mation. Love it. Nice work Lee.

/link http://angryflower.com/screwd.html Bob The Angry Flower takes on the doctor and his bloody screwdriver Good Point Bob. good point.

/link http://www.youtube.com/embed/mfgsQX78hg8 https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTZs1y-iJpcA0rJLCOMKeEPXGNK9CIYtmxkIM7ROS27qmF5SnM-2g How to take a picture of a light-beam: 1) Fire a tiny femto-second pulse of light. 2) Capture the following few femto-second light-reflections with crazy sensitive cameras. 3) Repeat the process. Over and over. You can do it thousands of times in a second easy. It doesn’t take long. 4) Average it…

Read more Femto Photography

/link http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-launches-frontal-attack-on-white-house-corruption-130507/ http://torrentfreak.com/images/truth.jpg So Kim Dotcom’s laywers have released a white-paper. In it they accuse Obama’s adminsitration, and the whitehouse in general, of collusion with the Copyright Industry to illegally shut down megaupload.com Quite a convincing case they make too, frankly. Good luck with it all Kim!

/link https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01sfhyp http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/944x531_b/p017w7l4.jpg The Crimson Horror was a fun episode. Gotta love that Drax and his silly sissor grenades. Not sure about those kids in the end though. Oh my. Hopefully Gaiman can pull that out of the fire.

/link http://www.youtube.com/embed/5sXTrlZeDyg http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/5sXTrlZeDyg/mqdefault.jpg Some Grey Bloke on the language of the street. He is, as the youth apparently say, well biscuity.

/link http://www.youtube.com/embed/rL82YimQVFI http://img.youtube.com/vi/rL82YimQVFI/0.jpg Here’s a lovely video about a kitty-workout. Aerobic excersise for cats. Because kittie deserves to work out too!

/link http://www.youtube.com/embed/VOokxE72E3M https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQbgV5Y3o2JsPdFm9-dN8SwqdQ6ifnfsTjdlGqfGUnUn_WWu_QS Episode three, season two, of Space Janitors. Life Debt. Good stuff. I wish I had a wookie body guard. Pretty sweet.

/link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s8pn6 https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQC-Aga9R0NQ-HK5CZYYsobxiRJQToP9RupAj_0mGZy7TfXetOyUg Watched Doctor Who’s "Journey to the center of the TARDIS" It was awesome! Good work BBC. Interesting character development, unfolding story, and all set within an exploration of the Tardis which worked well and didn’t distroy the image of her.

Cool! Use google-maps to make a hyperlapse drive-by. This one shows the practice studio we use.

We all mourn in our own ways I guess. This guy mourns by singing a song about the funeral. Which is quite cheering. Good work on the song there dude. You’ll have to click ‘play’ I think. I’m not sure how to do that for you.

Space Janitors returns for Season Two. Yay! The hero-janitor reminds me of my friend Jason.