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A couple of good articles from Alternet . First, it seems that for neo-conservatives, anyone who refers to the Bush administration's "lies" about weapons of mass destruction is a " Bush-hater ". They're just talkin' trash. But in an entirely different context , that's a good thing to do!

To me, perhaps the greatest mysteries concern consciousness . For example, I wonder if, perhaps, consciousness is the bridge between the physical and the spiritual. Consciousness is wrapped up in concepts like the mind and self awareness . On this last point, various questions arise. Why are humans self aware? To what extent are animals (like the dog in the cartoon above) self aware? Can computers become self aware? (Assuming they're not already!) I recently rented A.I. Artificial Intelligence , a 2001 movie directed by Stephen Spielberg and based on ideas by Stanley Kubrick. I have to say that I was disappointed. Although aspects of the movie were quite impressive, it didn't give me much to chew on. So once again, I appeal to you, gentle readers for enlightenment, or at least some opinions! Update 14Feb2006 : After writing this post, a friend suggested that I look at work by Karl Pribram, an eminent brain/behaviour researcher. So I sent Professor Pribram an e-mail — and he v...

Hooray for the weekend! And what better time to think about good stuff? I've been saving up items for this list for a while ... First up: Chance magazine , co-published by the American Statistical Association and Springer-Verlag, is about statistics and the use of statistics in society. Go to their site and click on "Feature Articles" in the left-hand panel. There's a bunch of interesting stuff. For example, an article presenting research on whether automobile airbags save lives (it suggests they may not ). And with the Winter Olympics on, how about an article on testosterone abuse among athletes ? Next on the good stuff list, check out one of my favorite blogs — it's funny, thought provoking, and well written . You know, if you look at the TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem , you'll see that a few blogs are hugely popular. But it's been my experience that there are some hidden gems out there. Many people who don't read blogs seem to think that it's a bi...

The following things drive me crazy . Ambiguous date formats . What does 06/05/04 mean? Would that be June 5th, 2004? Or maybe May 6th, 2004? Or maybe May 4th, 2006? From time to time people say&#8212with a straight face, no less&#8212"... but that's the international standard!" Enough already! Dates should be written in an easy-to-read, unambigous format like 05-Jun-2006, and software should default to this. I wonder what the cumulative cost to humanity of ambiguous date formats has been? (Perhaps similar to the total cost due to the MS-DOS convention of having filenames with no more than 8 characters followed by a 3-character extension? How much frustration could they have saved by making it 16 characters instead of 8?) Speaking of dates, how about the fact that the boxes videotapes and DVDs come in don't usually list the year the movie was released. Or if they do, it's in microscopic print. I guess they don't want you to realize the movie is 10 yea...

And tonight's flic ... Enemy of the State , a 1998 movie starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman. I picked it up the other day for $7.99 (Canadian dollars, eh). The link above is to reviews of the movie at Rotten Tomatoes (an excellent site if you're not familiar with it). On the Tomatometer it scores a 70%, which would suggest that it's a reasonably good movie. Which it is. But given the recent revelations about NSA monitoring of telecommunications within the USA and internationally, the Tomatometer needs a little recalibration ... say an additional 20%? So rent this movie ! Don't worry, it's lots of fun. You gotta love Will Smith, and Gene Hackman is--as usual--top notch. John Voight plays the baddie with verve. And several other well-known actors (like Jack Black and Gabriel Byrne) have minor parts. It's a Jerry Bruckheimer co-production, so there are some wicked action sequences. Woo-eee! Stealing from the box, it's "a dynamite thriller" (Rolli...

There were some excellent comments on my recent post about ethical investing . Following up from one of the comments, I learned that the term "socially responsible investing" is considerably more popular (Google count about 453,000) than "ethical investing" (Google count about 169,000). See, for example SocialFunds.com . A related buzzword, more from the environmental perspective, is "sustainable"; see, for example this blog . In the course of my web surfing, I learned about the World Economic Forum , who describe themselves as "... an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Incorporated as a foundation in 1971, and based in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum is impartial and not-for-profit; it is tied to no political, partisan or national interests. The Forum is under the supervision of the Swiss Federal Governme...