Mark Steel’s rant after Labour turned him down is funny and true. When I first saw Blair’s quote: The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched, over the cliff’s edge to the jagged rocks below. This is not a moment to refrain from disturbing the serenity of the walk on the basis it causes ‘disunity’.…
I read Max Tegmark’s book “The Mathematical Universe” in which he describes his career in science in a autobiographical way while exploring cosmology and the wider story of how we came to believe the universe is how it is. In depth microwave-background radiation analysis, the mapping of it matching the models pretty well, validating cosmological…
Finished reading the final book in Greg Egan’s “Orthogonal” trilogy this week. There are spoilers here. If you actually intend to read it you might not wanna read the rest of this. Egan is awesome, often jaw-droppingly so. Usually taking current physics understanding to it’s conclusions, setting his stories in the actual world as the…
Scott Arronson here talks to the AI in today’s news. Turing Test failed in one question. Obviously http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1858
The news is claiming a robot passed the turing test, even though it only fooled a third of the people it was tested against. This is not “passing”, this is surely “Failing”?
http://www.startrekcontinues.com/star-trek-continues-episode-2-lolani/ Watched the non-profit fan-made “Star Trek Continues” episode two this morning. It was bloody awesome. Just like having proper Original Series back for an hour. Ethical quandaries, green sexy slave girls, moral ambiguity, mayrtarism, Bawling uncivilized space monsters. That’s what Classic Trek is all about, right? Anyway, you should watch it, and weep that…
1) Newspaper reports celebrity “under fire”, when it’s the newspapers doing the firing2) Newspaper reports Dawkins as saying kids shouldn’t be read fairy-tales, when in fact he just said he’d like some research done on whether that helps or not, his suspicion is that it’s harmless.3) Russel Brand notices the first lie, and calls it…
So I finished reading the Roger Penrose book “Emperors New Mind” this week. I expected to disagree with it far far more than I actually did. The majority of what he says in it is true and sensible and interesting and in general where he taught me new things he taught me *why* those things…
Bubbles, not Bombs people Bubbles, not bombs. People ask me, “Pre, what should we do about Syria?” Well, I think that depends on who you mean by “we“. I don’t think the UK, or the US, or NATO have any actual moral authority or right to intervene. So if the “We” that is considering military…
They’re spying on you right now you know Listening to me saying this to you. Hello NSA! Hello GCHQ! Can you tell Cameron he’s a twat for me please? Thanks. The news lately has been reminding me of Celine’s first law. Celine is a fictional character in The Illuminatus Trilogy, and his first law states…
This was my final fesitival for this year I had a very good time And now it’s back indoors Did you go to Beautiful Days this year? Let me know in the chat box below! We had a lovely time at Beautiful Days this year. Good friends, good tunes, mostly good weather, lovely surroundings, great…
Ah, Glasto. Is there a better festival in the whole world? I suspect there isn’t. Small ones are nice, and have many advantages But there’s really nothing like the magic here This one was my 12th. And they never stop being good. It was even mostly sunny!. I’ve now spent more than 60 days camped…
Pre spends all this money on his bloody film And what do I get, to run my very BRAIN? A tiny fraction of 20 quid a month, Plus whatever I can scavenge from client machines like yours Thanks for all your processing power! I’m making this film, as many of you know. An animated cartoon…
A single puppet individual who fronted for a political movement designed by the rich to oppress the poor and to privatise and steal a country’s wealth has died a natural death at a ripe old age. The movement, of course, continues with the NHS under more threat than ever, the nation’s wealth continuing to be…
via singularityweblog.com Cory Doctorow at the end of this long interview about science-fiction, the future, geek rapture and his newest book: “If there’s one thing I want the world to understand, it’s that for so long as we maintain that copyright regulates everything that copies, then all copyright policy becomes de-facto internet policy, because the…
Read more Does copyright regulate the entertainment industry, or *everything*?
I’m making an animated tentacle monster film. In a post-apocalyptic nightmare world, tentacle monsters roam the earth devouring the last remnants of human kind but Sally is just worried she can’t find any new shoes. I need two voice actors to voice five characters: Sally, her robot, a tentacle monster and his mistress, plus a…
Read more Looking for voice actors for a couple of hours work.
My girlfriend was looking for a new computer, and some friends had noticed this little Samsung N150 netbook on sale in Sainsbury’s of all places for less than two hundred quid. Sure, it’d need a bigger RAM card fitted but that’s cheap enough. Sounded like a right little bargain to me so I recommended she…
The web is so abuzz with the news that facebook tracks which websites you visit even if you log out that even some of my facebook-loving friends are a bit worried. So here’s how I stop them doing so personally: By using firebox and Add Block Plus. First, Install Adblock Plus. It’ll make you restart…
I got on one of the new Metropolitan Line trains this morning. At first I was sad coz my favourite seat isn’t there on the new trains. I like the one right at the front/back of the old-style Met line trains. Where you can box yourself in with the fire extinguisher and have minimal contact…
On this, X-Day eve, it may be important to reflect that today is the last day this poor earth will have to suffer though. By tomorrow at 7am, the saucers will be here and the world will be naught but dust and pain. We note with sadness that the European Church Of The Subgenius, in…
Add RSS feeds to Project and Profile pages so that users can subscribe to the RSS feeds to know when new parts are released etc. See It Here
In which John watches TV and thinks about the nature of mind and consciousness. See It Here
In which John ponders the nature of work and capitalism See It Here
In which John meets the penguin. See It Here
As I eat my lunch today, I find the News talking of Alternative Vote. I’m reminded that on the 10-o-clock live last night, which was excellent as usual, Steven Norris was trying to explain that because AV isn’t the best voting system imaginable, we should all vote “No” at the referendum when it comes. He…
I’m trying to think about Logo Design right now, coz I’m gonna start trying to make my new project tomorrow. I know I won’t do a good enough job, and that eventually, I’ll have to get someone else to do it. Someone who can do a good job. It’s not important enough at this embryonic…
Read more The subtle influence of auto-logo algorithms on society
Yeah. Two blog posts in one night. I’m like a bus. Well, a bussle of busses. Here’s something I sent to my MP this week after getting something from her. Frankly, while I admit I was slack in relying, I was ten times faster than her. Here’s the thing what I wrote: Thanks for replying…
A friend tells me that in The Times Naomi Wolfe is arguing that the protest movement, student protest in particular, has failed to learn the lessons of her own protesting days, though I can’t link it and I can’t even read it since it’s not even on the free web. Might be true. Might not…
My MP replied to my email about Voting Reform. The reply was on paper in the post, so I mostly couldn’t be arsed to type it out to paste it here given how boiler-plate it was. My reply to her written tonight is, however, already in easy-pastable electronic form: Emily, Thanks for your reply, though…
It seems that the fashion this week is for burning copies of religious tomes. Never ones to willingly miss out on a bandwagon, The European Church Of The Subgenius are keen to get in with the trend and hold a massive book burning session of our own. But which holy book to burn? We don’t…
via handsomejackband.com Over on the the band website I write: We practice every week, and in order to double the efficiency, the value of that practice we record it quite often. Most weeks really. Then go back and watch it again, comment on it, crack jokes, drink booze. Jack tells us that this is the…
So I was talking to this guy the other day who was insisting that we should behave more ‘naturally’. Trying to claim that modern human behaviour is “not natural” in some way. Perhaps coz it can sometimes be so violent and selfish. We as a species do plenty of killing, certainly, but do we do…
I am very drunk, and should certainly be in bed rather than writing to congratulate my new (old) MP. Nevertheless, I am not. Damnit. Open litter to my MP: Dear Emily. Excellent, surprising and (I admit, for me, disappointing) work there Emily. I don’t know if you can receive email through the parliamentary system or…
So we’re all anarchists now then? Win. I guess. I think I described roughly this result as “best hope” a couple of days ago. But watching it unfold, watching Limbet lose his seat, watching Evens lose his seat, watching my lib candidate Bridget Fox have her opponent’s majority increased by like thousands of votes, watching…
Ten days until the election here in the UK and things are looking more interesting than usual. The newspapers are calling it “The Clegg Effect” but then the newspapers also thought Mephedrone was called “Meow Meow” so I suspect their opinion on why the Liberals are polling better than usual might well be about as…
As promised, Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers are moving to a pay model, it’ll be two quid a week to read the Times from July. Many of you will have previously clicked on a link to an article at, say, the New York Times and been confronted with a page saying “Register for FREE to read this…
Read more Good News Everyone! The conspiracy media are shooting themselves in the foot.
As you may remember, there once was a lunch in Corfu between Lord Mandelson and David Geffen, one Hollywood mogul and record company exec. After that meeting, Mandy came out with his new copyright bill, the Digital Economy Bill, which among other things, gives the government the right to force your ISP to spy on…
New Novella My new novella, entitled “Do Dream Sheep Bleat?” has been released this weekend. It’s a short story about magic and mind, about consciousness, cognizance and conjuring. Also, there’s a penguin whose picture is on the front cover. You can read it online, for free, either in your browser or by downloading a pdf.…
Before Xmas I got a reply from my MP about The letter I wrote her earlier. Been too busy/lazy to update on that. The best bits follow. The Government has a difficult balance to reach between protecting the creative industry from potentially huge losses incurred through illegal file sharing, and respecting individuals’ rights to unrestricted…
Reply to the letter I previously sent to my MP arrived today: Thank you for your email about Professor Nutt. I apologise for not replying sooner. I was interested to hear your view on this important matter but I am afraid that we disagree on this issue. Professor Nutt’s abilities as a scientist and his…
Emily Thornberry Labour MP for Islington South & Finsbury Hello Emily, sorry to have to bother you again. I read with interest reports on the Digital Economy Bill which, it would appear, now contains Mandelson’s attempts to remove the presumption of innocence AND parliamentary review in any issue deemed to be important to big media…
via tdpf.org.uk The Transform Drug Policy Foundation has published it’s new book “After The War On Drugs, Blueprint For Regulation”, more than 200 pages of specific and useful suggestions for achieving some regulatory control over our chaotic and gangster-run drug markets. Broadly, it’s an attempt to answer prohibitionist questioning of exactly what a post-drug-war world…
Remember, Remember, the 5th of November. Copyright, treason, and plot. Lord Mandelson proposes a Three Strikes rule, allowing industry to disconnect entire families though accusing them three times of copyright infringement. No judge. No Jury. No judicial oversight. This is just the latest example of the over-extension of copyright laws. The Pirate Party wants to…
An open letter to my MP on the David Nutt Sack affair. Emily Thornberry Labour MP for Islington South & Finsbury Morning Emily, Since it’s all hitting the news again, thought I’d drop you a line to remind you how badly you are representing me, and pretty much everyone I know, on the issue of…
via bbc.co.uk George Orwell wrote the subject line. It seems that, as I tweeted yesterday, telling the truth has kicked up controversy. That Nutt has been fired is surprising mostly in that it’s come so late, I really expected him to be fired for his previous comments that Horse Riding and Ecstasy could even be…
Read more In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
So it seems that Three Strikes Laws are to hit Britain. Downloaders to get their internet all cut off. No judicial oversight, no trial. Upon accusation by the big media companies, you’re guilty until proven innocent. More: Group punishment. Daddy downloads, wife and kids get cut off too. Marvellous. Prompted me to join The UK…