Colbert

Full episodes of The Colbert Report are now available online the day after broadcast. If you have any interest in American politics and a sense of humour then you can't not enjoy this programme.

Goog-le-ogo

I'm just going to come straight out and say it: I really don't like the new Google logo.

Sorry Google.

Letters To The Illogical

I was watching a documentary on Channel 4 the other day about the rise of the fundamentalist Christians in the UK. It was pretty worrying to be honest – I'm starting to agree a little more with Richard Dawkins (although he's still going about things the wrong way). But one of the things that really upset me about it was the way some House of Lords idiot gave an "argument" against gay adoption that people then seemed to agree with. His argument was as follows:

Do you know any gay couples that have brought up a child? No? Exactly.

So he's saying that before gay people are allowed to legally adopt children none of them have brought up children. Should we be surprised by this? It's like someone back in the 60s, before home computers were invented, arguing that home computers are evil because, well, does anyone know anyone with a home computer? No? Exactly.

That's the most retarded argument I've ever heard. Coming from someone with power. That's a worry.

So I propose we set up a group that sends letters to such people who publicly make horribly flawed arguments. The letters will explain why their argument is illogical and ask them to stop using it.

Delivering Dehydrated Hot Water To Bottled Babies

I love this sound clip (although, to be fair, it makes a bit more sense in context):

Burning Books

At the end of exams we had a bonfire down on the beach. We decided it would be appropriate to burn the book we used for Research Methods as it caused all of us much pain.

It's odd. Before it seemed like a good idea. But then, as it was burning, I started to feel like I'd done something quite wrong. And now it just feels like it was definitely the wrong thing to do.

It's odd. We'll happily burn newspapers, printed-off documents, and many other things. But burning books just feels wrong. Possibly because of the bad history that goes with it. Or maybe because it's a product of a substantial amount of someone's life. It's a mystery.

So I won't be burning any books again. I'll move onto flags instead.

Xbox 360

I got an Xbox 360 a few weeks ago (just before exams in fact – surely the best time to buy one). Now people often accuse me of being anti-Microsoft, but this is simply not true. I'm anti-Windows (but then anyone who has used Windows is probably anti-Windows), I think that the Zune is ugly and hard to use, Steve Ballmer is a nut-case, and Internet Explorer and Office are both horrible programs. But Bill Gates is a pretty cool guy (albeit a little nerdy) and I think some of the things Microsoft does are pretty cool – like Surface and the Xbox.

I had a first-generation Xbox when I was an undergraduate. I thought it was ace. It beat the pants off the Playstation 2 in my opinion. It was much more powerful and, the thing that really did it for me, it had analogue triggers on the controller – this is something that the Playstation 3 also lacks. For someone who likes car-based games (Burnout and GTA in particular) that analogue trigger was the most useful thing in the world: by pushing it in different amounts you could control your speed pretty accurately. Without them I find car-based games impossible: GTA on the PS2 was impossible because you had no control over your speed – you were either accelerating or stopped. This made driving round slowly (when you're in a fragile lorry full of explosives) idiotically difficult.

It's obvious that the people behind the Xbox 360 can't have done any work on Vista. The 360 is incredibly simple to use and, dare I say it, even intuitive. This is something so much technology lacks. It's the reason I like Apple so much. You'll think to yourself "This feature should work like this" and then it does. Like on the 360 pairing up the wireless controller with the console works exactly how you'd think it would: I didn't need to read the manual. That's good design.

Having said that, the 360 is not perfect. The DVD drive is so loud it can be heard on the moon – through the vacuum of space. The power-brick also makes a horrible whining noise, even when the console is not on – it's also the size of a baby elephant. For some reason they decided to give a metallic finish to the DVD drive – the only bit of the machine you really touch – which collects fingerprints very quickly. And the power button's graphic is set for a vertically aligned console whereas all the other graphics are there for horizontal positioning – an odd inconsistency. Oh, and you have to pay to play games online.

But I really like my Xbox 360. And, thus, I cannot hate Microsoft totally, even if they do insist on selling Windows.

US 2008

So, Obama won the Democratic nomination finally; and Hillary Clinton has stepped down. I expected the former, but not the latter. This leaves plenty of time for McCain to make a complete mess of things (and hopefully convinced the Clinton supporters who said they'd vote for McCain if Obama won that they should still vote Democrat).

I honestly think that this election is probably one of the most important in American history (although, to be honest, my American history is pretty poor – so I have no idea what that statement is based upon). If McCain gets in then it is almost inevitable that America will invade Iran at some point: this would piss off Russia and China, who have ties with Iran; it would possibly result in the use of nuclear weapons; and, comparatively, it would make Iraq look like a really really good idea (which would be good for McCain as he seems to want Iraq to last for the next hundred years). This would be bad for America and bad for everyone else too.

If Obama gets in then he's promised to actually go and talk with Iran; people without health insurance (and those with it) may stand a chance if they get ill; and the national debt might go down a little (although when your debt is almost $10 trillion it's hard to make a dent in it).

Sure, Obama ain't perfect. He is inexperienced; some of his policies aren't great; and he's possibly too idealistic. But he probably won't blow the world up – and that's a good thing.

Movie Mistake

I was watching Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker today. It's not a great film – I've never been a huge fan of Coppola, but I didn't realise it was one of his when I started watching it. Check out this clip:

Did you notice the guy walking into the shot on the left, realising he's on camera, and then backing off? For some reason I found that hugely entertaining.

I'm pretty sure the use of this video is covered under Fair Use, but if someone from Paramount asks me to take it down I will happily do so.

The Two View Brew

I now seem to have two main ideas within my philosophy (and I think they're linked):

1. Pragmatics: Usefulness should guide our philosophical theories. For example, I wish to formulate a pragmatic conception of knowledge.
2. Neo-Sophistry: Philosophy does not get at the truth, so we should argue for any position that we can.

I think that Rorty had similar ideas on some things. I'll be reading some of his stuff over summer hopefully.

How Technical Should Philosophy Be?

I'm not a fan of overly technical philosophy (I'm also not a fan of radishes, but I'll save that for another post). My problem is this:

• Science can be very technical, and thus hard for the layman to understand, but it makes up for it by being useful.
• The arts tend not to be technical as they are meant to provide some sort of enjoyment to Mr Normal Person.

Technical philosophy fits into neither camp: it is too technical for an average person to get anything out of and it is not useful. This is why I think when philosophy starts to get too technical it has probably lost its way.

Horribly over-simplistic I realise, but I think there's something to be said for such an argument.

Graffiti Animation

This must have taken ages to do: