Ed Dowding

DNA / Europe rocks the free world!

DNA database ‘breach of rights’ — Two British men should not have had their DNA and fingerprints retained by police, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7764069.stm

Monbiot has the answer.

Seriously everyone, what’s stopping this? Are we worried that the implications of destroying the entire world aren’t really large enough to make it worth it? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/02/climate-change-lord-turner

Peace breaks out

I watched a very good Horizon from 1986 a few nights ago which, whilst not saying anything particularly new (not least because it’s 22 years old..), was a good reminder and layered on one or two details, about cooperation and its biological imperatives. I knew, for example, that tit-for-tat is always the best strategy for ...

Darwin spins again

Life seems to keep favouring everyone who is silly or unlucky, and I’m getting quite upset about it, because I’m smart and lucky and so not getting anything. I deliberately didn’t invest in property because I saw the evident bubble. I sold all my shares in January because this was clearly unsustainable. But it turns ...

If Adam Buxton had written Obama's acceptance speech

2 mins. Funny.

I'm stunned, or 'Why I'm outta here #874'

It’s tough to know how to react to the two headlines which appeared adjacent on the BBC News website today. Downs’ Syndrome screening seems to be a technology which has backfired. The well meaning people who developed it thought that people would see the quality of life experienced by those with Downs’ Syndrome vs those ...

Happy people dont watch TV

“We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. “TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and ...

The slippery slope of evil

7 social processes that great the slippery slope of evil: 1. Mindlessly taking the first small step. 2. Dehumanisation of others. 3. De-individualisation of self (anonymity / being part of a crowd). 4. Diffusion of personal responsibility. 5. Blind obedience to authority. 6. Uncritical conformity to group norms. 7. Passive tolerance of evil through inaction, ...

Left, right, and centering

We have two hemispheres to our brain, and they seem to be quite independent people. Your right brain is a parallel processing device which deals in imagery, the here and now, and the connectedness with all things. The left hemisphere is serial and concerned with the creation of and preservation of identity, placing us within ...

Make/Shift Shelving System

Via MoreInspiration comes this rather brilliant shelving system: The shelving system is ideal for awkward sized spaces where you want to add shelves without doing custom work. The Make/Shift Shelving system is made of a flexible foam-like material, that you wedge together and squeeze into place. Nice.

Abandoned towns

Hmmm maybe we should go claim one? http://weburbanist.com/2008/10/19/ghost-town-abandoned-city-examples-images/

No free papers

A small victory for audiobooks and podcasts, and against free papers: http://www.pledgebank.com/no2freepapers

Your life

“This is your life, it doesn’t get any better than this. This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.” Fight Club.

London is Free

http://www.londonisfree.com/

If only…

Here’s a spoof NY Times that was distributed around NYC today… http://www.nytimes-se.com/2009/07/04/todays-paper/ A) Fantastic B) If only!

Economic Reform

Another good article from the NEF (www.neweconomics.org), this time on practical, simple, realistic steps we can take towards economic reform to create a fairer, more stable system. It breaks down into issues of scale, distance, stability, diversity, value, and participation. Amongst the nice ideas in here is a sliding scale of regulation so “the smallest ...

This is Now

http://now.sprint.com/widget/

Vicarious fame

http://someoneoncetoldme.com/gallery/06112008

Things to do with my life

In no particular order: Get a base with space. Be fit & healhty. Read more. Paraglide more. Get married, have children. Make the world better. Save the environment. Write a book on better business models. Prepare for Armageddon. Work out how the Californians are so bouncy. Culture the meme that >2 children is socially unacceptable. ...

Nudge: Rational man

I’ve been reading Nudge of late. It’s a book about rational man (doesn’t really exist) vs irrational man (does exist, is us). To demonstrate these points it presents a few examples and mental exercises to show how we should behave vs how we do behave. And in each of these I choose the rational answer. Which is odd, ...