• No sense of humour at all – “Personally, I’d love to see the Pope in a debate on abortion, where he would actually have to address difficult questions and defend his own ideas. Best idea yet would be a debate on various controversial topics, like birth control, abortion, the role of women in the church, and homosexuality…with the Pope on one side, and Stephen Fry on the other. It could be perfectly respectful, and it would be hilarious.”
• Audio slideshow: Hubble’s first 20 years – Amazing. Beautiful.
• Do liberals read only liberal blogs? – The dangers of the “long tail…” I deliberately go read Daily Mail headlines on a regular basis just to check that I’m sane. The moment I start to agree, please shoot me.

• Rejoice this day! – My sentiments exactly!
• Lost labels for your DHARMA Initiative needs – This is great. I think I’m going to have to re-label everything in the cupboard at home!
• It must have been a slow news day at ZDNet – These arguments against iPhone development come up all the time on places like StackOverflow. This is a great explanation of why they mostly make no sense.

• Evolution Test – I just don’t get it. Is evolution really that hard? How can you misunderstand it so badly that you can come up with this list of questions and think it proves… well, anything? (Part of me hates to single out this site as there are dozens, if not hundreds, of similar ones.)
• Crash Could Free Up Wall Street’s Grip on Bright Young Minds – “But the big paychecks came with what economists call opportunity costs. Instead of spending their days searching for exotic trades, some of these Wall Street wizards could’ve been creating drugs, imagining software, or solving energy problems.”
• The Norway Lesson: The Benefits of Good Financial Behavior – “Norway made it a point to budget, to save, and to protect against unnecessary risk. Then, it went on to buy when everyone else was selling.” Any other country would have spent all earnings from oil on tax cuts (that’s what happened with North Sea Gas in the UK), but Norway did the smart thing.

• Confessions of an Introverted Traveller – “We introverts have a different style of travel, and I’m tired of hiding it.”
• Towel Day – Celebrating the life and work of Douglas Adams – Do you have your towel with you today?
• Jews: No Jesus, No Reason, Just Whining; They’re Motivated by Anger and Boohoo Victimhood – “Now… if I actually believed that, I’d be called every name in the book. And rightfully so. Those are ignorant, bigoted, hateful remarks. They’re also wildly stereotypical and extremely inaccurate. When Charlotte Allen says the exact same things about atheists, however, she gets published in the Los Angeles Times.”

• New Zealand Launches Hookup Airways – Not sure whether this is a good idea or a bit creepy. An intercontinental flight is a long time to spend cooped up with a bad date!
• Scientists put psychic’s paranormal claims to the test – If you can prove a paranormal claim under controlled conditions you can win $1mm. The prize has gone unclaimed since the 1960’s.
• A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages – “Bjarne Stroustrup bolts everything he’s ever heard of onto C to create C++. The resulting language is so complex that programs must be sent to the future to be compiled by the Skynet artificial intelligence.” Despite the title I’d say it’s mostly correct, and funny if you’re geeky enough to understand the references!

• Coming to an ID Card Near You: Your DNA – “Can there be any doubt that the UK government will, at some point, try to add DNA to the other biometrics on the card?” Scary stuff.
• How to spot a hidden religious agenda – Apparently this article was pulled from the New Scientist website shortly after it was published which is a bid odd as there’s nothing scientifically objectionable.
• Tea really does taste better from your favourite cup – “Your daily brew tastes better from your favourite mug.”

Apparently today is “Atheist Pride Day.” You are supposed to “change your Facebook profile picture to the [Out Campaign Logo] And change your status to something like ‘I am an atheist’ (or whatever).” I’m not on FaceBook so you’ll have to make do with this little post.

It turns out that the timing is quite good, too. Last night I went to a British Humanist Association talk by Daniel Dennett called “A Darwinian Perspective on Religions: Past, Present and Future.” It was chaired by Richard Dawkins. Here’s a fuzzy iPhone picture of the Q&A session at the end. (If only I’d brought my 50D!)

• Pro-God buses for London streets – Anyone feel like complaining about these Christian ads on the ground that they make unsubstantiated claims?
• House Approves Whitelist of People Who Aren’t Terrorists – The solution to the errors and inconvenience of the no-fly list is… drum roll… another database! How could that possibly go wrong?
• Exclusive: ID cards are here – but police can’t read them – After spending shed-loads of money on ID cards, apparently the police and immigration officers can’t read them.

A Tibetan monk spends a lot of his time meditating. Unfortunately I didn’t get a good picture of one so this weeks PhotoFriday, “Meditation,” is a picture of the many people who meditate, pray and prostrate outside the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “White.” I’m entry 266.

I recently went to a BCS talk entitled “Eight Significant Events in Computing.” In the question and answers session at the end, one attendee noted that most innovations were Western in general, from the USA in particular. There are a good number of exceptions but, okay. He continued: the result of a Capitalist system and not Communist or Fascist. Again, I’m not sure that this is entirely true.

But it was his final point that floored me: IT innovations were mostly Christian. A few confused looks made him clarify with the line, “There are no Buddhist Computer Systems.”