Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Sklyarov on winning the case and the DMCA
An interview with the programmer who successfully beat the prosecution against him under the controversial DMCA. Glad to see he won, even Adobe dropped the original case because of the public outcry.
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Kissinger and his past
David Ignatius writes on why Kissinger resigned as one of the investigators into the events surrounding Sep 11 2001.
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We have a date?
For the last couple of months I have been saying that the war on Iraq will happen, and that all the hooplah over UN inspections was nothing more than a prelude to the inevitable. And so it seems I, and many others, may have been proven right. What Iraq says or does not say is…
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Nobel prize winners have figured it out, but didn't we all know that the markets are really based on irrational behaviour?
The celebrated economist, who wrotes some excellent stuff in the Atlantic a while back writes a riveting piece in the Guardian. I had thought that markets can also be based on mob or herd mentalities, but he also gives us several other ideas. A good primer on ecomomic psyhcology – if I can call it…
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Gavinsblog gets there before the BBC
Much to my delight, yesterdays story “Take it out and zap it” about liver transplants being used to treat cancer made it on the news headlines of the BBC’s 6 o clock news, and I think the 9 o clock news too. There were some differences in the reporting, and I believe some mistakes, at…
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Short memory Clinton
I guess now that he is no longer in office means the Bill Clinton can say pretty much say whatever he wants to say. His article in the IHT talks much about utopian ideals and the future of international relations, and even as far as the future of humanity. How nice. It is a pity…
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Smallpox vaccine will kill more than a few
The planned vaccination of millions of US citizens against smallpox will likely lead to death of some according to New Scientist. With so many being innoculated it is thought that some people will have adverse reactions and may die. You can read the story here.
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Office of Strategic Influence – alive or dead?
“This raises the logical dilemma of whether an agency which admits to lying can be believed when it says it doesn’t exist. Is the agency’s supposed non-existence the first piece of disinformation?” Does the OSI really exist? I would say so!
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Take it out and zap it
A year ago doctors in Italy took out a man’s cancer ridden liver, gave it high doses of radiation, and stuck it back in. This meant that none of his other organs were affected by the damaging radiation, but his liver tumors were successfully cured, and have not come back. They are hoping to start…
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Finally the answer to a very interesting question – concerning the menstrual cycle
Why do groups of women living in the same household have synchronous menstrual cycles? At last my question has been answered, and it is as I thought – to do with social groups and our evolutionary past. I speculated that it may be chemicals like pheremones that cause the synchronisation, but I did not know…
Got any book recommendations?