I’ve gradually become addicted to Overcoming Bias, and specifically Eliezer Yudkowsky’s contributions to it. And it struck me, reading the reports on the de Menezes trial, that a good dose of this blog could have done the Metropolitan Police a power of good. Specifically, members of the police command staff recalled hearing a radio message…
Read More Death By BiasDavid Phinney notepads something interesting about the scandal-lapped Kuwaiti contractor on the US Embassy in Baghdad: From spring 2006: The general manager for the US Embassy contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting has two airplanes the company can’t register and is piloted by a German pilot named Wolfgang …. The general manager also has…
Read More Need a hand with that?OK, there are six days to go to the bloggers’ lobby of Parliament, which is being held to demand asylum for the British Army’s Iraqi employees. And guess what? There’s still time to get involved. Call your MP today (the Parliamentary switchboard is 0207 219 3000) and ask them what their position is, remind them…
Read More D-6: Call Your MP NowIf it looks right, it probably is right, as they say. So LockMart is looking into a seaplane design…but how did they come up with this? Surely that’s too ugly to fly? (hat tip: Aviation Week.)
Read More If it looks right…OK, so I’ve got a WinVista laptop – and it’s dire, at least the OS is. As well as lots of annoying crapware features well described here, it’s also got some really annoying bugs. For example, I quite regularly encounter an error condition in which the WLAN client goes out of kilter, failing to complete…
Read More Windows Vista is BuggyI recently read about a Zimbabwean refugee who was sent a letter by the Home Office, which stated that his presence in the UK was “not essential for him to enjoy family ties with his new partner and her family”. The letter went on to demand that he leave “without delay” and that this might…
Read More Yours, Very Sincerely IndeedGuess what? This study isn’t in today’s Independent.
Read More The Rays, againIt’s been bloody difficult to see anything of this year’s championship play-offs; apparently there’s some sort of rugby union event going on. But I did manage to see Hull and Wigan last night. Which posed a problem – which of them do I hate more? I still get abusive comments on this post from time…
Read More Blogging Rugby League: Hull 18 Wigan 21Strange signs and wonders are visible in the sky. Catalans Dragons beat Wigan. And Felix Salmon becomes an autogestionniste, in the auto industry to boot. Now the VEBA, according to the WSJ, is a union-run trust – which means that the UAW now controls more than enough money to buy GM. Of course, the VEBA…
Read More 2007: the subversion beginsI have no idea why “libertarians” would support this idea at all; especially not Jim Henley, who ought to know better. Briefly, “Direct Instruction” suggests that teachers should be given prepared scripts to use in class and instructed to follow them exactly, with classes streamed by ability and repeating courses until passed. First of all,…
Read More Another Brilliant Scheme