Category: recommended site

Sheffield is my planet

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This is… odd. But strangely interesting and rather revealing too.

It’s an autocomplete map of the UK – what Google thinks you’re about to ask when you put in “Manchester is…” or “People from Birmingham are…”. This shows us the stereotype of each city in the UK:

enhanced-buzz-wide-12918-1364222093-11

Of the places I’ve lived, Sheffield is my planet (ok), Newcastle is a hole (I disagree) and Oxford is hellish (it had its moments).

Have a look around, but a couple of highlights include “Swansea is the graveyard of ambition” (allegedly a Dylan Thomas line), “Worcester is the Paris of the ’80s” (apparently a T-shirt slogan from Worcester, Massachusetts) and, in the words of Hugh MacDiarmid, “Edinburgh is a mad god’s dream”.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Cape Town has the disappointingly predictable responses, “Cape Town is it safe” and “Cape Town is a racist city” – the latter just like Aberdeen. Maybe it’s something to do with granite.

As for the title of this post, Sheffield is my planet is revealed to be a city council initiative to combat climate change.
How exciting.

Heat > Blog

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It’s too hot to blog today. Somewhere around 40 of your South African Celciusses.
I can’t even think, let alone document any of those thoughts which I’m not having.

Thanksfully, once again, someone else is doing it for me. Today, it’s WTF, Evolution?,

Honoring natural selection’s most baffling creations.
Go home, evolution, you are drunk.

Like this:

slug

And the wonderful commentary that goes with it:

“I feel awful. I think I partied a little too hard last night. I have got to stop doing that.”

“Well, yeah, you’re not exactly 21 million years old anymore. Here, have an aspirin.”

“Thanks. I just wish I remembered what I — oh. Oh no.”

“What?”

“I think I may have made some animals last night.”

“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t.”

“Then why do I have ‘variable neon slug’ written on my hand? Oh god, what does that even mean?”

That, as you will no doubt be well aware, is a wonderful example of Nembrotha kubaryana.

I think it’s rather pretty. Well done, drunk Evolution.

Brian on the joy of religion needing to acknowledge science

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Brian Micklethwait has been prolific of late, for reasons detailed at the bottom of this post. That’s great for people like me, who enjoy his narrative style of blogging: I really like hearing about why he took the photo he took, what he likes about the photo he took, and why he was where he was to take the photo he took. It makes you feel involved, like a part of the story.

Last Thursday, he was on the new upper concourse at Waterloo Station in London (because he needed to use an ATM) when he noted (and photoed) these two billboards:

QuranAdverts2s    QuranAdverts3s

Bigger here and here

And he has responded to them. Rather nicely too, I think.

I was reminded of Dara O’Briain’s “Science knows it doesn’t know everything; otherwise, it’d stop” quote in Brian’s answer to the first question:

Science… has changed over and over again.  And this is a sign of science’s intellectual seriousness and intellectual vitality.  Lack of change, century after century, signifies the opposite.

There’s more, so go there and read, but I particularly liked this bit from his thoughts on the second ad:

The good news here is that the claim that the Qur’an is as scientific as real science is a huge concession to the acknowledged intellectual superiority of science.  “We have been right all along, and science proves it!” But if they really thought that the Qur’an was the last word on everything, they wouldn’t be dragging science in to back the claim up.  Science would be ignored.

Yes, good point. What exactly is the quranproject’s gold standard then? Are they really claiming that the fact that “we were here first” negates scientific theory? Or are they suggesting that scientific theory proves them right?

Either way, as Brian points out, comparing verses in the Qur’an to science’s version of the origins of the universe surely tacitly grants the latter a huge degree of legitimacy in their eyes, which is either a big step forward or a bit of an own goal.

Why not buy Zimbabwe?

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As Patrice Motsepe gives half his family fortune away to charity, 6000 miles… favourite Ben Trovato has some better advice for him (and a little poke at the ruling party):

If I were you, I’d buy Zimbabwe first thing Monday morning. Imagine the fun you could have with your very own country. Come to think of it, you could buy Jacob Zuma for a lot less and still have your own country. This might already have happened.

The rest of the post it well worth a read. It’s classic Ben.