Blue Whale

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from inkycircus via pharyngula

Freedom of Expression in Action

The widow of a man killed in the Madrid bombings attended the trial of Islamic radicals with a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb on her T-shirt.

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Tule laban sa HIV

The World Health Organization and UNAIDS said circumcision should be added to current interventions to reduce the spread of HIV. Three African trials have shown that circumcision halved the rate of HIV infection in heterosexual men.

The recommendations largely apply to countries where rates of heterosexual transmission is high.

Experts warned that greater use of circumcision would not replace the need for other prevention methods, such as condoms.

Which may be a reason why HIV infection rate in the Philippines is relatively low. I had a previous post on this.


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Re-Elect AKBAYAN

Classical Music? Humbug!

via slashdot - Heavy metal 'a comfort for the bright child'

"The results of a study of more than 1,000 of the brightest five per cent of young people will come as relief to parents whose offspring, usually long-haired, are devotees of Iron Maiden, AC/DC and their musical descendants.

Researchers found that, far from being a sign of delinquency and poor academic ability, many adolescent "metalheads" are extremely bright and often use the music to help them deal with the stresses and strains of being gifted social outsiders."

Maybe pregnant women should expose themselves to metal rather than classical music.

Now I have an excuse :)

Have a Messy Desk? Congrats, You're More Productive

"We think that being more organized and ordered and neat is a good thing and it turns out, that's not always the case," said Freedman.

"Most of us are messy, and most of us are messy at a level that works very, very well for us," he said in an interview. "In most cases, if we got a lot neater and more organized, we would be less effective."

Masarap Huminga

Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years

from Tikistitch via Pharyngula

Put the ones you've read in bold.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (started not finished)
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett (looking for a cheap copy to buy)
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner (started, not finished)
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks (just started reading)
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

15 out of 50, not very good, at least I know the books I should be looking for now

30 Days with Ubuntu Linux

"Returning to the main thesis of the argument: Will the consumer really switch to Linux over Vista's annoyances? I believe a few will but the majority won't - this isn't an operating system for the easily frustrated. Certainly the group of people who get easily frustrated at the thought of increased DRM in the Vista system and the group of people who would get frustrated at the Linux learning curve probably overlap a great deal.

However, for those who stick it out throughout the learning curve period, the rewards are great.

Linux has some glaring flaws but it also has some amazing capabilities that can't be found anywhere else - at least without spending a hell of a lot of money.

I find that there are some things I just can't do in Linux – notably, gaming and Photoshop. For me, these are two very important tasks. I also find that there's much more that I can do in Linux that I can't in Windows. I'm mostly referring to the vast levels of consumer-oriented free software - software that I often didn't even know existed - whose equivalent often is price-prohibitive for most to obtain for Windows."

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AKBAYAN

WTF?

from MLQ3's blog

"WTF Department: Danton Remoto, according to an interview he had with Twink Macaraig, didn’t file his candidacy for senator. So he can’t run for senator. And the Comelec has rejected Ang Ladlad’s bid for party list accreditation. Which leaves Danton mulling over running for congressman in the 3rd congressional district of Quezon City. So that leaves me and faithful reader of this blog in the lurch, doesn’t it? Neither of us can vote for Remoto for senator. Which leaves me back to voting for Kiko Pangilinan, I guess…"

And I was glad Danton Remoto was running for the senate because that is the only way I can vote for him.

Update (3/5/2007)

It seems that Mr. Danton Remoto did file his certificate of candidacy with the COMELEC on time. Only the COMELEC disqualified him for being a nuisance candidate.

TUTA vs GAGO

I heard this a couple of days ago from somebody as confused as I with the latest alliances in Philippine politics. He referred to the administration group as TUTA (Team Unity, Team Arroyo) and the opposition as GAGO (Grand Alliance of Genuine Opposition).

I think the renaming is so clever that I will henceforth use these terms when I refer to them.:)