Tonight (Monday, 7 April, 2014), Professor Charles Raab is giving a lecture on Surveillance, Social Values and Human Rights to the Edinburgh Group of the Humanist Society of Scotland. The HSS website relates that the
“…talk will focus upon contemporary surveillance and the challenges it poses to range of social values and rights.”
And now, at last, the blog is here for you:
It’s feet are light, and look! It’s rhyming, too.
Continue reading Iambic Pentameter
It’s Saturday, 15 February as I write this, sitting in Loudon’s Cafe. I’m listening to early Billy Bragg, when — and he’s doing it again recently — his fascist-killing guitar machine did the job of all four members of The Clash. And this is from a John Peel session, so it’s got that fab “Billy live” sound.
Continue reading Valentine’s Day Is Over
Have you had enough time to recover from the last sex-themed post? Do you want some more? OK…. A couple of weeks ago, apoplectic.me contributed to the tsunami of sexual content on the internet, in a fairly G-rated (or U-rated, depending on your location) post. Well, maybe not a tsunami. It’s not like sexual content has suddenly burst onto the interwebz like a firehose, spraying effluvia all over your laptop. No, it’s more like the Great Pacific garbage patch — an endless build-up of material that’s probably in excess of 5,800,000 sq mi.
[The environmentally-conscious recycling of that metaphor reminds me —
there are exciting times ahead at apoplectic.me.
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Continue reading After The Refractory Period
Long-time readers of the blog may remember the meditative trilogy of posts (1, 2, 3) from this past summer, sparked by Alan Spence’s imagining of the life of the Zen Master Hakuin in his novel Night Boat. Others of you may recall my more recent discussion of empathetic imagination. This week, those threads resurfaced and wove themselves into this post.
I wasn’t particularly science-y in senior school or high school or secondary school or whatever it’s called where you are. By the time I sat my Highers (the major secondary school exams in Scottish education in 1991), the only one of my five subjects that touched on that group of topics was Computer Studies.
Continue reading Pseud Science
Last week on apoplectic.me, in episodes 1 and 2 of the sixth Digesta Plaga, I wrote about the latest developments in blood pressure guidelines, and the news in cyber assistance for stroke patients and survivors of traumatic injuries. In the dramatic conclusion of part one, we left real world creator of the Cybermen, medical scientist Dr Kit Pedler, discussing the nature of life with his wife over the dinner table.
Continue reading Digesta Plaga #6, Part Two — Is There Life On Earth?