This is interesting (to me), as it tries to explain the big overlap between SF and Libertarianism.

"Libertarianism as a philosophy, a poetics and a praxis in SF is popular for the same reasons as emerging magical powers are in fantasy: both are fundamentally literatures that emerged from and remain embedded within the almost universal, semi-magical ( Read more... )

biscuits and sweets ( Read more... )

I went to a Fall gig recently, the first one since The Time My Band Were The Support, three lineups ago. When I was younger, I used to wonder about the slightly milky milky older blokes you saw at Fall gigs and never saw anywhere else. The other week, I was one of them.

Despite never posting, I visit Livejournal pretty much every day, mainly to see ( Read more... )

A bloke at work came up with this alternative voting system while driving home from Ikea the other night (hey, it's as good a place to have ideas as any). I'd be interested to know what people think? It goes like this:

The country is divided into constituencies, as it is now. The parties register before election, naming their candidates for each ( Read more... )

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If I were the kind of Mondeo-driving, 2.4 kids type that political parties supposedly try to 'triangulate' around, who would I be thinking of voting for next month? Dunno - far too many hypotheticals there.

The fact that I live in one of the UK's safest seats means that my vote is one of the most worthless in the country. Even if I lived in a "key ( Read more... )

I'm a big fan of OK Cupid's blog articles, where they number-crunch their own data and, in doing so, expose fascinating patterns of behaviour among daters.

This recent post on the benefits of dating older woman (something that guys on OKC don't seem that inclined to do) is a case in point.

What I found really interesting though, was that the median ( Read more... )

2010 has seen me catch some kind of decluttering bug. I've recently been selling some of my CDs and books on Amazon. It doesn't bring in a lot of cash (sometimes just pennies per item), but I think selling things on to people who want them is a more sensible way to operate than dumping Stereolab's back catalogue in my nearest charity shop, where it ( Read more... )

...but it should be.

I like this:
"Intellectually, the debate between religion and secularism is an arid one; there’s barely a single point made by Ditchkins [Dawkins & Hitchens] or their interlocuters that wasn’t made 80 years ago by Bertrand Russell and his opponents. So why is the mass debate - the mots juste - so lively? It’s because what’s at ( Read more... )