Linkspam o' doom (part one)

[matgb]

OK, the thing is, now I'm working in a job that doesn't allow me much time online, and the journey home is fairly long, by the time I'm in and caught up, I've less time (currently) to post. So here's a backlog of links for you, because I know you've all missed them...

Firstly, linkfrenzy is back, despite drjon's insane interpretation of Aussie copyright laws, and is also catching up with a massive backlog of Links From The Dawn Of Time, including three methods of making tinyy Daleks. How cool is that?

jonnynexus has a bit of gaming history with a scan of the contents page of White Dwarf #77. The last one before Ansell moved it to Nottingham. Pay close attention to the words spelt out by the first letter of each line. Of course, this humble non-RPGing gamer thinks better to have a miniatures based White Dwarf than no White Dwarf at all, and better to have a Games Workshop making products still than a dead company and some 'good old days', but I'm very aware that most gamers will remain of the GW = EEEVIL mindset no matter how many times actual real facts are presented to them. Yes, I'm biased, but I do not in any way regret the years I spent working for them. Although Ansell was an arse, they're right on that point.

Next up, LJ polls! Everyone likes a good poll, right? Ongoing discussion of 'best SF film ever' is added to by bagrec who first asked his readers for nominations and then put upa poll of the finalists. talvalin, who I met [properly] for the first time Friday, had a similar poll a few weeks back. And yes, I had meant to link to Richard's first nominations post while they were still open, I acquired one of those 'life' things and forgot, sorry...

pickwick has a poll about knowledge of scientific theories and experiments, and asks What other experiments and theories should everyone know about? So go tell her, mm'kay? Also, can anyone else out there confirm that Occam's "simplest possible solution" for pretty much everything was in fact "God did it", or am I talking out of my backside with miss remembered facts again?

Met the_vin Saturday at the Imperial War Museum, and a look through his archives gives this Zombie!Christ video that is, well, disturbing in its hilarity.

Now, how about a bit of filth? Political point making, Belgian style, in which a rather nice looking young lady offers the world 40,000 blow jobs in order to get publicity for her campaign. Umm, yeah. Well, she certainly got my attention. Then we have, well, not to put too fine a point on it, Muppet Porn. Yeah, um, even I found that one a bit disturbing. Amusing, but a bit weird.

Finally, for those complaining about the Eurovision block voting, a proper academic study of the voting patterns, revealing something we sort of know anyway. Besides, Anglophone nations tend to vote for songs in English, why is it a surprise that slavonic countries like to vote for slavonic songs?

Yeah, that's folder one cleared out. More to follow at some point.

Comments

[nwhyte]

Actually you and talvalin were both at this dinner!

[matgb]

Yes, something I'd realised when we actually met, we'd been talking on the Culture mailing list for ages without me realising I'd met him, but then there were lots of people there I'd not met and I was all over the pace that day after the journey anyway, so didn't actually speak much to many people.

Need to arrange to do that sort of thing more often if I've the chance, especially while I'm working in the central area anyway.

[tlingel.livejournal.com]

The usual formulation of Occam is," Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity", but in latin. No God involved, although it could be applied there too, I suppose.

[matgb]

True, that's the razor itself, I was thinking more along the line of how he applied it for stuff he was solving; I know I've been told/read that his preferred simple answer was 'God' but can't seem to source it online. Matters not, just curious really.

[paulatpingu.livejournal.com]

I think I'm the one who told you.

It's Orson Scott Card from Xenocide. A quick google on those search terms should provide enough info, although clearly it's a claim by Card himself rather than a substantiated truth.

[matgb]

Ah yeah, that makes sense and rings bells now, wonder if there is any substance in it. Mattes not, really, but...

[lokean.livejournal.com]

Substance galore! My bumper book of pointlessly intellectual quotations has this as the actual William of Occam version:
"For, in all things, nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident, known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture"
While the 'multiply entities' version is actually a product of Betrand Russell's work on logic.

Occam strictly believed that there was only one entity with self-evident existence (God)cause and that everything else had to have some external cause (usually, eventually, God)

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the epithet.

Nice to know the intelligence levels of my readers is so high.

*sigh*