"this raises a number of questions: Q: though i wouldn't be surprised if it's true for most articles it can't be true for all articles. can it? Q: what's the distribution of distances (measured in "number of clicks away") from 'Philosophy'?
Q: by this same measure what's the furthest article from 'Philosophy'? Q: are there any other articles that are more common than 'Philosophy'? Q: what are the common paths to 'Philosophy'?"

"Mr. Cooper starts to make a point - that allowing same sex couples marriage equality would also entitle opposite sex couples to domestic partnership equality - but he can't actually say what would be wrong with this, just that nobody can prove that it *wouldn't* be harmful so maybe it would. The judge doesn't buy it. You don't have to prove that same sex marriage is harmless any more than you have to prove that freedom of speech or the press is harmless, which it sometimes isn't.

(Aside: I didn't realize that the Prop 8 people want to discriminate against gays *and* straights. It's not just important that gays can't have marriage; straights also shouldn't have civil unions.)"

"People who read the nonsensical story checked off more letter strings –– clearly they were motivated to find structure," said Proulx. "But what's more important is that they were actually more accurate than those who read the more normal version of the story. They really did learn the pattern better than the other participants did."

"Singularity discussions seem to be splitting up into three major schools of thought: Accelerating Change, the Event Horizon, and the Intelligence Explosion."

"Certainly not! That’s the beauty of our approach! Machine translation has never been “Artificial Intelligence”—that’s where your natural language intelligence is sorely needed! Five centuries of “papers” make a truly enormous bulk of machine-searchable material. The Semantic Web has made profound advances! So today our stochastic ontological schemata have dissolved hundreds of so-called “scientific disciplines,” and their millions of paper “journals,” into one vast Google-soup of navigable, searchable, ontologically linkable “language product.”"

"Objectivism-oriented programming is a software development methodology originally created by members of Ayn Rand's Church of Objectivism, and should not be confused with Object Oriented Programming. While considered by many to be extreme, it is also not in itself a form of Extreme Programming, although extreme programmers might make use of its techniques from time to time. "

"An apparently scientific argument is said to be not even wrong if it is based on assumptions that are known to be incorrect, or alternately theories which cannot possibly be falsified or used to predict anything. The phrase was coined by the early quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or sloppy thinking. Peierls (1960) writes of Pauli, "... a friend showed him the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'That's not right. It's not even wrong' ". In science and philosophy, it is known as the principle of falsifiability."

"The watered-down evolutionary psychology prevalent in pop culture enables some men to rationalize sexist double standards about relationships."

"director of Christian Voice"Any bus which allows itself to be abused in this way will spend eternity in the company of Satan's bus. They will burn alongside gay buses, buses that have had abortions and buses that knowingly took people to see Jerry Springer: the Opera."

"The most senior judge in Saudi Arabia has said it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes."

"I didn't let my kid watch television until he was old enough to talk to. Then I sat down with him, told him the rules for watching it, and emphasized one point: "This is fun to watch, but remember - people lie. ... He is grown now, and has one awesome bu

An attack/search on/for identity.

"Blind love is not the way to choose a spouse. Here are practical tools for keeping your eyes wide open."

"The Taxonomy is more useful than the alphabetical index for studying the logical relationships between fallacies."

"There's something wonderfully naive about the ancient Greeks because they were right at the beginning of it all," says Mr Worley. "There's something that the children can identify with - it is at the same level as themselves, but it is also sophisticated

An interesting list of books to check out.

"A friendship-building football match between Muslim and Christian clergy in Norway was called off after a row over the participation of women players. Muslim Imams had refused to play against women because it went against their beliefs about close physic

"New research from Dundee University suggests learning philosophy raises children's IQ by up to 6.5 points and improves their emotional intelligence. ... He said: 'The critical thing about it is that it allows the youngster to move to a level where inform

"Thousands of volunteers have been out on the streets trying to persuade people to wait in line in order to present a better image to visitors. The campaign was launched under the slogan: 'It's civilised to queue, it's glorious to be polite.'"

"You say you can't deal with all this stuff? My reply is that you can't afford not to. Why choose - yes, choose - to create a painful life? Why work so hard...to get so little? You deserve so very much more..."

Brief article on "The legacy of Robert Anton Wilson."

A basic list of tips on how to live.

Well duh.

An argument for the aestehtics of windfarms.

Why the Asimov's three laws are immoral.

"Not a branch of Christianity, not a form of Christianity, but something with absolutely no connection to Christianity at all. It's a separate religion."

More motivational posters.

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours"

Kharijism and Cultural War

Dance, Monkeys, Dance

What would a lads mag produced by feminists look like?

Heteronormativity is a term used in the discussion of sexual behavior, gender, and society, primarily within the fields of queer theory and gender theory to describe (and frequently to criticize) the manner in which many social institutions and social pol