Carl Sagan / Stephen Hawking auto-tune Tribute

There's no argument with Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking being giants of our age, in the understanding and explanation of our universe. But that their thoughts and speech could be turned into a song tribute to their work like this just kind of makes me giddy. That said, whoever did this definitely has too much time on their hands...and thank goodness.

Odds On God.

Actually, I think this is sort of a fascinating exercise, even beyond the first-level irony inherent in the concept... because when you think about it, this is simply the same concept of gaming eternal damnation, except the medium involved is far more tangible. Does it sort of negate the whole idea of the fire-and-brimstone god-fearing? Sure. But if these people aren't going down that road anyway, it certainly can't hurt. And it forces one to examine the question of a deity's "existence" under a whole new light, really.
Long and short, I'm all for it.

Governments Explained

http://www.sjgames.com/illuminati/politics.html

Evolution vs Religion

You know, with all the anger and conflict involved in the evolution vs intelligent design battle, it’s refreshing to see someone step outside the battle lines a little bit with a fascinating take on the difficulty many people have with accepting the concept of evolution.

And besides that, it’s a fascinating article in other respects, of purely mathematical and statistical interest…

Media-Undefended

Man, these guys are sure taking a beating. I have to admit, though; i'm sort of on the fence about this kind of thing. I have a soft spot for the sort of vigilante justice that some of these hackers are executing, but by the same token these acts on their own are not something we would want to encourage. This eventually leads to the idea of balancing the age-old question of do the ends justify the means, and as usual the answer is fairly nebulous. I detest the stupid stupid fair-use rules and RIAA/MPAA bullshit that pushes these companies and their questionable practices into existence; but as we develop a counter-culture to run interference against them, at some point it seems almost inevitable that those retaliatory acts will become more atrocious and damaging than the original problem was. If this argument seems familiar, it should; it's really some of the same questions we have to ask ourselves in national security, schoolyard bullies, police brutality vs. violent crime, and a hundred other balances we are asked to assess throughout our daily lives. I don't think there's a silver bullet, be-all-end-all answer; the solution is simply one of never accepting the status quo and continuously questioning the processes and initiatives that are put in place. It is that dialog that will maintain the oversight required to keep these movements in check.