Advent 07 — Michael Shermer on Believing Strange Things

Alun Life 1 Comment

I like Michael Shermer’s book Why People Believe Weird Things. There has to be a bet­ter explan­a­tion for why people believe weird things than “they’re stu­pid” or “it’s about the money”. This talk is a reminder that there are good evol­u­tion­ary reas­ons why you might make mis­takes. It also has a fin­ish with Katie Melua who was on yesterday.

Michael Sher­mer on Believ­ing Strange Things.

Advent 06 — The best Christmas song ever

Alun Life 1 Comment

This was the last entry to be chosen. I knew some­thing was miss­ing but couldn’t work out what. Then I real­ised I left out the best Christ­mas song ever. There’s a good chance you’re already sick of it, so this is a slightly dif­fer­ent ver­sion. It is the Pogues, but it’s the Pogues as they were in 1987, but as they were 20 years later.

Fairytale of New York by the Pogues.

Advent 04 — Parrots, the Universe and Everything

Alun Life 2 Comments

This is the longest video in the advent cal­en­dar by a looooooong way. It’s Douglas Adams talk­ing about his best book Last Chance to See. It’s a stun­ningly good book. The fol­low up for the TV series 20 years later, also called Last Chance to See, isn’t quite as good, but it’s still bet­ter than the vast major­ity of books you can buy on Amazon.

Par­rots, the Uni­verse and Everything by Douglas Adams

Advent 01 — Jacob Bronowski on Science and Dogma

Alun Life 3 Comments

Inspired by Robin Ince’s Nine Les­sons and Car­ols for God­less People, I’ve decided to put together an advent cal­en­dar of songs, ser­mons and sci­ence for the Yuletide sea­son. Like all good advent cal­en­dars it’ll end on the eve of Mithras’s birth­day. I’m mix­ing my myth­o­lo­gies, but I’m being inclusive.

The first choice is Jacob Bro­nowski on Sci­ence and Dogma from his series The Ascent of Man. I don’t know if it’s simply that I’m becom­ing older, or if the sea­son is becom­ing more bit­ter. This is reminder that human­ity really should be all on the same side instead of cer­tain in their oppos­i­tion to the Others.

Jacob Bro­nowski on Sci­ence and Dogma

This month I’ve mainly been working on Project SOAR

Alun Digital Academia, Life, Links, Science 2 Comments , , ,

Pro­ject SOAR is a rethink of what stu­dent read­ing lists mean. My con­tri­bu­tion to has been fid­dling with the code. Some of it has been adapt­ing the lay­out and some o it is behind the scenes like tying entries on books to other sites and plug­ging in the review sys­tem. It’s been a good pro­ject to work on. Partly because Alan Cann has inter­est­ing ideas about what can be done with read­ing lists. More prac­tic­ally he’s also been very clear on what he wants done with the site, so I’ve never felt like I’ve been aim­ing at a mov­ing target.

It’s also been very fast. My role was sched­uled to start Novem­ber 1. I actu­ally star­ted as soon as I heard fund­ing had been approved, but even so it’s been a short pro­ject with a clear goal. Because it’s his pro­ject, you can read more about it at his site.

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