September 2009
1 post
nom nom
New fave restaurant: Leong’s Legends in chinatown. Bitter melon, spare rib and preserved vegetable soup was very refreshing and not nearly as bitter as the name suggested. Fried oysters wrapped in egg, an omelette with spinach, onions, and the aforementioned oysters, topped with a sweet sauce, was a fascinating medley. The pork meatballs were a bit disappointing, being only one single giant...
May 2009
1 post
dirty buggers →
Whole sordid story of the five-year campaign to free the information on MPs expenses.
January 2009
2 posts
December 2008
1 post
“Accidental condom inhalation.
Arya CL, Gupta R, Arora VK.
Jaswant Rai...”
– http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14870871
November 2008
2 posts
October 2008
6 posts
September 2008
8 posts
AC Grayling has his critics but he’s my favourite of the “new atheists” - less of a tool than Dawkins, and a much better read. Here he gives the smackdown to ID apologist Steve Fuller, not once, not twice, but thrice.
BEHAVIOR OF YOUNG CHILDREN UNDER CONDITIONS... →
Title says it all. From a more innocent time, where “innocent” = “relaxed towards research ethics”.
evil japanese iq puzzle solution (spoilers, duh)
> police thief, < police > police boy, < police thief > dad boy, < dad > dad mum, < mum > police thief, < dad > dad mum, < mum > mum girl, < police thief > police girl, < police > police thief
the key is using the policeman to transfer the first and last child, and getting the thief over to the...
The U2 bridge puzzle →
A companion to the Japanese puzzle below.
Real time worldwide simulation of births, deaths, and CO2 emissions. Kinda scares the crap out of me.
http://www.breathingearth.net/
Evil Japanese IQ puzzle →
Click the blue circle to start.
The following rules apply:
Only 2 people on the raft at a time.
The Father cannot stay with any of the daughters, without their Mother’s presence.
The Mother cannot stay with any of the sons, without their Father’s presence.
The thief (striped shirt) cannot stay with any family member, if the Policeman is not there.
Only the Father, the Mother and...
August 2008
12 posts
The Decline and Fall of Science Journalism →
in the mainstream media; as evinced by the MMR controversy, expertly dissected by Ben Goldacre.
Think yourself thin… →
placebo effect applies to exercise too. amazing and fascinating. maybe not entirely cut-and-dried, but still amazing and fascinating.
Passengers trapped in lift at Elephant & Castle... →
“This incident underlines why we believe it is irresponsible to leave scab managers in charge of any Tube station”
The Register in climate change booboo. →
Don’t read The Register much these days, didn’t know that it had (allegedly) jumped on the climate change denialism bandwagon. (Comments in link especially elucidating.)
make a cordless table lamp for 20 bucks - er, quid →
if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing... →
Pretty terrifying story of one normal guy’s two year struggle against a false accusation of drug offences. (First part, five are up at the blog at time of writing.)
Closely related is this excellent lecture, don’t talk to the cops, which explains why, if it comes to it, you should always exercise your right to remain silent no matter how innocent you are and and how helpful it might...
smart people saying stupid things
From a piece on impossible experiments:
Musical Storks I would collect all newborn babies and randomly reassign them to new parents. I’m confident that we will confirm the 50-0-50 rule: Adult personality is roughly 50% genetic, 0% how they are raised by their parents, and 50% socialization outside the family by peers and friends.
Said by an evolutionary psychologist, who one would hope...
The elephant of Canada pulls out the clam stabs... →
And on a similar note, some extraordinary machine translations on a chinese menu
nb Apparently some of these are actually fairly faithful translations of the poetic names of dishes. Surely not the elephant though…
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Excitement! →
Yet another Garfield repurposing - this time translated to chinese and back.
pathological science →
Decent lecture (text of) about how not all Bad Science is dishonest, and even decent upstanding scientists can deceive themselves into measuring effects which don’t really exist.