Wuh?

Every time I try to get onto a Blogspot blog* I'm getting this:


It was working fine earlier, and I haven't downloaded anything for weeks.

Is this happening to anyone else or should I be slightly worried?

(*Except those with custom domain names, like this one)

UPDATE: Never mind. Seems to be working fine now.

123

I've been tagged (by Snoopy) with the fifth sentence meme.

1. Pick up the nearest book
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you

So here goes:

If the Ch'in dynasty had lasted, the political effects of the Book Burning Edict would have been far-reaching. Legalism might have been permanently established as the state doctrine, and men of other persuasions excluded from government careers. The Confucianists have never tired of blaming the First Emperor for this attempt at intellectual restriction, conveniently overlooking the fact that they themselves suppressed their opponents as soon as they had the power to do so.

Purely out of curiosity at what books people have near their computer, I'll tag Tom, David, Ario, Alex and Incitatus. But none of them should feel any obligation to respond. 

A bit of Mitchell and Webb

And they said I'd never amount to anything!

This is currently the 691st most influential blog in the UK blogosphere, according to the rankings at Wikio.

Want to watch 'Doctor Who' on your iPod?

Step 1: Download a Youtube to iPod converter.

(Note: Any downloading from the Internet is done at your own risk and I accept no responsibility whatsoever for any viruses, malware or sentient digital lifeforms that come with it.)

Step 2: Find the numerous copies of the 'Doctor Who' episode on Youtube

(Note: I'm not condoning what is clearly a grievous breach of copyright by these people. Uploading is naughty. Very naughty.)

Step 3: Download these videos with the converter.

Step 4: Arrange them, in order, in a playlist with iTunes.

Step 5: Copy the playlist to you Ipod nano.

Step 6: Watch them on your iPod nano.

(Note: 1. I haven't actually done this, so I don't know if it actually works. It should. In theory. 2. I accept no responsibility for any damage done to your eyesight trying to watch a 45 minute episode on that tiny screen.)

UPDATE: Tried it. iPod went slightly mental. Might not be due to this though and it's working fine now.

Easter

"It's easy to find something worth dying for. Do you have anything worth living for?."

Guess what I've been doing today...

I can't remember who, but someone once made the point that atheist writers (Joss Whedon, Joe Straczynski, Russell T Davis, etc.) are often the best at appropriating Biblical tales and themes for their work. (Possibly because they approach it as literature?).

I can think of no better example of this than the death and resurrection of Sheridan at Z'ha'dum ('Babylon 5'). Although, as with the others, Straczynski manages to recast it with much more humanistic themes:






Of course, the main reason the events at Z'ha'dum are so memorable (to fans of the show at least) is that they led to this great exchange on Sheridan's return to his old command:

"Captain, I'm sorry... we thought you were dead."
"I was. I'm better now."

Babylon 5: Epic storylines. B-movie dialogue.

This is what the Internet was designed for

The Earth Alliance civil war from 'Babylon 5' in ten minutes:

Bill Bailey on Vegetarianism

Hours can be wasted

Hours, I tell you...







I can has cheezburger?

Tell us what you really think

Gracchi on Rambo 4:

Some people think that there is no objectively bad art: well there is, its called Rambo and at 120 minutes long, it is 120 minutes too long. Put simply, nothing in this film is any good- a better budget means that it just passes the Hills have Eyes 2 in my refuse collection- but apart from that it has no redeeming features. Sylvester Stallone who stars in and directs this movie should be thoroughly ashamed of himself- he has stunningly managed to craft a film without the least shred of a redeeming feature, in which the contest for worst performance is only won by the actors playing the Burmese army because their depictions are comically racist, whereas his of Rambo is just comically crap. The film is awful- do not rent or buy this movie or go and see it- any popularity it gets demonstrates that Western civilisation is truly in trouble and deserves to decline and fall.

The rest of his review is just as good...

The Appliance of Science

The New Scientist 'Last Word' blog takes on that age old question: Will eating my bogeys do me any harm?

From the comments:

Firstly, nose pickers should not feel isolated or guilty about the activity. A survey of 100 adults in Dane County, Wisconsin, USA concluded that the activity “is an almost universal practice in adults.” (J Clin Psychiatry. 1995 Feb;56(2):56-9). Another survey of adolescents in India found that the median frequency of pickage was 4 times a day. (J Clin Psychiatry. 2001 Jun;62(6):426-31)

Too much of a good thing however can be a problem. Rhinotillexomania, or compulsive nose picking, can lead to epistaxis (nose-bleeds) and even septal perforation. The cause of compulsive nose picking is unknown but in extreme situations may transcend habit and be a sign of a psychiatric disorder (J Clin Psychiatry. 1995 Feb;56(2):56-9). The previously mentioned Wisconsin study identified one individual who spent over 2 hours a day digitally excavating their nasal cavities.

So now you know.

UK Libertarian Party

As someone sympathetic to the libertarian outlook (even if I disagree on certain practicalities) it's great to see British libertarians getting organised - even if the UK Libertarian Party fails to rise above minority status it's still good to have groups opposed to statist tendencies involved in politics, on any level.

However, could they not have chosen a better heading for their website's opening page?

Seventeen Million People Can't Be Wrong

Yes they can, actually. Quite easily and quite often.

Ethics Bites

Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds, the guys behind the always interesting Philosophy Bites podcasts, have just launched Ethics Bites, opening with a 16 minutes interview with controversial ethicist Peter Singer on the subject of our treatment of animals.

Worth checking out if you're looking for something meaty to listen to on the way to/from work. (Or whenever).

Civil Serf

Via Dizzy, I've found an interesting "new" blog providing an insider's view of the civil service*:

Every organisation has a memory. Some of them (like Guinness) build museums to celebrate their heritage. Others (like Nestle) try to bury it out of shame for all their past wrong-doings. Then there's the civil service, who try to remember (because it would be very useful if they could) but they can't, because they've not filed anything correctly and they keep forgetting what they’re looking for…..

The sheer scale of the civil service is mind-boggling so the effort required to keep track of all its outputs would make the NHS look like a mere hobby. Consequently we’ve all but given up and we work tirelessly to reinvent the wheel everyday.

In short there is strong stench of deja-vu in the land of serfdom. We recycle the same policies with different names; ministers repeatedly make the same announcements; the same political foot-balls get kicked around the office…

(*Okay, I know it doesn't sound that interesting, but it is)

My tuppence worth

David Thompson has a great post up on attacks against rationality:

Cultural equivalence underlies the current fashion for religious protectionism, whereby reason and scientific methodology are depicted as equivalent to faith and merely a matter of lifestyle choice, as if logical enquiry had no attributes that set it apart from religious ideology and a priori belief. But to equate these very different phenomena requires one to flatten values and empty the mind in the ostensible interest of ‘fairness’ - perhaps to spare the blushes of the less capable among us.

As I see it:

Everyone should be entitled to an opinion.

However, an opinion is only as valid as the arguments used to support it.

The validity of these arguments rests on how rational they are. If, as some do, you challenge the validity of reason then you effectively rule yourself out of the debate - as all you can do without reason is stand on the sidelines and make a lot of unconvincing noise.

You choose

US Presidential nominations

or

Star Wars battles in Lego

My Human Rights have been breached!

iTunes's new movie download service is only available to its US customers. Why? What difference does it make if the $3.99 comes from a US or British bank account?

I could be watching 300 right now. Not that I want to. But I could.

It's a small world

The video takes a little while to load... but then the universe is, as shown, really quite big.

Best of Blogpower, 2007.

In light of Blogpower reaching the one year point, JMB has put together a 'Best of 2007' compilation, in which various BPers have nominated what they felt was their best post of the year. Being the eclectic bunch we are, the nominations cover free speech, British identity, divorce, air travel, Harry Potter, mother-in-laws and much more.

So many wonderful posts all in one place! What are you waiting for?