2024-03-29

Sleepy music for kids (and big people too)

Violet mentioned these lullaby versions of rock songs, which made me yelp and leap back in horror. Eeeek! Elevatorized versions of good music! Run away, run away! I am a huge fan of bizarre cover versions of things — Ozzy Osbourne doing “Staying Alive,” a cabaret version of “Darling Nikki,” Laibach doing “Sympathy for the […]

Scientific illiteracy, pt. 4003

There’s been a lot of coverage of the Bristol University study on rating various drugs’ potential for harm (BugMeNot will get you in). The intent of the piece was to develop a more objective rating scale — NOT to compare various drugs directly. A comparison of fourteen drugs was done by two different groups as […]

Choice

This is a US campaign, but I’ll leave out the Bush-directed stuff and join in anyway. Choice of all kinds is critical to our free existence as adults. I do not think I would have had an abortion if I had become pregnant accidentally. My biological clock went off when I was about 18, so […]

Book #11 – Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

by Steven D. Levitt with Stephen J. Dubner I wasn’t terribly impressed with this book. But then, economics of any sort rarely impresses me; what’s the use of something with next-to-no predictive value? Economists are forever assuming away anything that doesn’t work with their theories. As a scientist I found the whole subject appalling when […]

Book #4 – Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace

by Dale Spender I’m not going to link this one. I don’t actually like it. Amazon does carry it, though, if you feel inclined to pick it up. Dale Spender’s words from this book have been quoted widely in the ten years since its release. It seems to be the go-to resource for anyone looking […]