Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament - Charlie’s Diary Charles Stross argues against renewing Trident.
(tags: trident nuclear disarmament charles-stross war) Coding, Fast and Slow: Developers and the Psychology of Overconfidence "I’m going to talk today about what goes on in inside developers’ heads when they make estimates, why that’s so hard ( Read more... )

FactCheck: Case dismissed on employment law reform | The FactCheck Blog "The Beecroft study as it appears in the Telegraph contains little in the way of factual evidence as it stands, so it’s difficult to support the venture capitalist’s assertions that a change in the law on unfair dismissal is needed." Via andrewducker.
(tags: dismissal factcheck ( Read more... )

The Fireplace Delusion : Sam Harris "I recently stumbled upon an example of secular intransigence that may give readers a sense of how religious people feel when their beliefs are criticized. It’s not a perfect analogy, as you will see, but the rigorous research I’ve conducted at dinner parties suggests that it is worth thinking about. We can call ( Read more... )

New Statesman - Faith no more "Earlier this year, Andrew Zak Williams asked public figures why they believe in God. Now it’s the turn of the atheists - from A C Grayling to P Z Myers - to explain why they don’t "
(tags: atheism richard-dawkins philip-pullman daniel-dennett sam-harris)
Pompous Theist You've seen Advice Dog and Courage Wolf, now enjoy ( Read more... )

YouTube - Tim Minchin's Storm the Animated Movie Tim Minchin's beat poem about New Age bullshit has an official animation to accompany it. I'd not seen it before: thanks to gjm11 for linking to it.
(tags: funny religion new-age science)
The Daily Mash - Biblical apocalypse leaves much of Britain unchanged Mother-to-two Emma Bradford lives in Penzance ( Read more... )

"Don't Talk to the Police" by Professor James Duane Of course, in the UK, we don't have an unqualified right to silence, but this stuff's interesting anyway. There's a follow-on video where a police officer responds and says the professor is right :-)
(tags: law video police legal lectures rights)
Try Thinking | Here lieth the thoughts of SiânyB "I ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

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Friends have been playing with Spotify, which it turns out has a whole load of Matt Redman songs (imagine U2 singing about how Jesus is their boyfriend, and you've got it). I heard Redman at Soul Survivor when I went, many years ago. Though the charismatic services were a little bit scary at first, the whole thing fired me up to the extent that I ( Read more... )