April 2008

Book clear out

| | Uncategorized

I’m having a tidy and the following books are in the to go pile. Free to a good home. Email me or comment if you want them:

Evolution by Douglas Futuyma (Hardback – the first 90 pages are not bound into the book but are there. I removed them for easy carrying to read when in England).

Step into Xcode by FritZ Anderson

Learning Cocoa with Objective-C by James Duncan Davidson

Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds (I have this in Sony eReader format so don’t need the paperback copy. It’s in perfect condition.

I’ll have other books to give away over the next few weeks so check back. It’ll be next weekend before anymore are posted.

Russell Blackford on “framing”

| | Science

The has been a bit of a kerfuffle in the science blog and science communication communities recently about how to deal with creationists, and their apologists. Basically there is a camp that thinks that those of us who are outspoken in our anti-religion rhetoric, should shut up and let those with a gentler message more amenable to those who are religious, frame the arguments in a way that doesn’t offend or frighten off the moderate religious types.

I’m in the camp that says that we need to have people of all views, expressing said views in any way they feel like. If this offends some people then that might be unfortunate but its not a reason to silence those with strong views. I advocated this position when I was a member of the DebunkCreation mailing list.

Russell Blackford has written a very interesting blog post on this topic. It’s well worth a read.

I Am Legend

| | Uncategorized

I missed the I Am Legend film when it was on release in the UK. One of my work colleagues lent me the Blu-ray version last week. I watched it last night. I watched the alternate ending version then the theatrical release ending. The alternate ending is much better than that shown in theatres. The latter is the proverbial happy ending that was probably used after test screenings. The alternate ending is much more satisfying.

More from The Hot Puppies

| | General

I’ve written about The Hot Puppies before. They’re excellent. They have some new stuff out and a new album forthcoming. The new stuff isn’t on iTMS yet but there are 4 new tracks on their MySpace site. Well worth a listen. I love a lot about their music. The vocals are exquisite. But the good thing is that the rest of the music complements the singing really well. I see they are playing a gig in Cardiff on May 10th. I’ll be in that general area working. I might stay for the Saturday and go see them. Here there are live performing Shoot em in the head –

Change to comment settings

| | General

I’ve changed the settings that govern comments here to remove the requirement for registration before comments can be made. I had the registration set to guard against spam. Several people have told me that they have had trouble registering, or that they don’t like to register on blogs. So from now on people can comment without registering. Comments from new posters will be held in moderation until I approve them. A name and email address (that will not be published) will still need to be entered as per most other sites. 

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