Attention Firefox 2 user: your browser is out of date. Please visit http://getfirefox.com to get the newest version!

webbunny tumblelog

 

The BBC programme Virtual Revolution summed up my thoughts on Internet-naysayers (at least this is my interpretation):

Older people have always been afraid of every big change, if the web had been around when they were young it would not be a problem. “Generation web” are growing up not knowing what life was like without the web, just like the last generation couldn’t imagine life before the printing press, or cars.

Big changes mean lots to get used to, and the web is only 20 years young, who knows what the next 20 years will bring. Bring it on!

 
“ The first intriguing finding is that there is a lot of overlap between the brain areas activated during feelings of romantic love for a partner, and those involved in maternal love for own children. The brain cells implicated are the same as those we know become active whenever an extremely rewarding activity is being undertaken. These are precisely the same neurological locations which are implicated when we consume food and drink we like, take drugs like cocaine, and when we are given monetary rewards. So love is indeed like a drug.

Love really is blind… - Telegraph

This is a great article about how the brain reacts to love (and how your brain deactivates clear thinking and critical judgement when thinking of loved ones).

More than ever it is obvious that human emotion is a chemical reaction in the brain, and there is no ‘soul’.

 
Caring for Your Introvert

The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books—written, no doubt, by extroverts—regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward.

Ha! This is so true.

 

The Democratic process fails for minorities

As I read the reports about Maine, a U.S. state where people have voted to overturn a law legalising same-sex marriage, my blood begins to boil.

Firstly, why on earth do people feel the need to control other people’s lives like this? In what way do same-sex marriages harm “traditional marriage”?

Right now, if I wanted to, I could marry a woman - even one that I had just met today - for money, for social status, strictly for tax purposes, or worse - simply because I had gotten her pregnant. “Traditional” marriage is in no way sacred - 50% of all marriages in America end in divorce.

So why then do people think they should stop gay marriage? How will the fact that a gay couple got married possibly affect the validity or importance of a “traditional” marriage?

The answer is simple: it won’t. This is just about bigotry and ignorance.

My second problem with this is: since when do people vote on civil rights? Should be put slavery up for vote? How about women’s rights? Oh wait, women might have a chance to protect their rights as they make up 50% of the population (so long as they are allowed to vote).

But voting on the civil rights of a minority is wrong. Democracy is 2 wolves and 1 sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

I am glad to be in England, where at least we have civil partnerships available for all gay couples (but not to be called ‘marriage’). But there is still a long way to go in my country, in America, and in the rest of the world before we can truly say that gay people have equal rights.

“If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, “Tyranny of the Majority,” Chapter XV, Book 1, Democracy in America

 
“The ancients thought of this as a “celestial sphere”, thinking that everything in the heavens was on a huge, fixed sphere that rotated once a day.” Does this explain what the bible means when it says “God created the heavens and the Earth”? And when they said there was a firmament in the sky? And all the nonsense about waters? Does this show that the people who wrote the bible were terribly misinformed about astronomy, and so can we conclude that it was not God who wrote the bible? Food for thought. Learning from a Huge Past Mistake : Starts With A Bang

“The ancients thought of this as a “celestial sphere”, thinking that everything in the heavens was on a huge, fixed sphere that rotated once a day.”

Does this explain what the bible means when it says “God created the heavens and the Earth”? And when they said there was a firmament in the sky? And all the nonsense about waters? Does this show that the people who wrote the bible were terribly misinformed about astronomy, and so can we conclude that it was not God who wrote the bible?

Food for thought.

Learning from a Huge Past Mistake : Starts With A Bang

 
Playing catch-up I am desperately trying to read everything in my Google Reader—trying to catch up on everything while I was away for two weeks. Most sane people would probably hit “mark all as read” and carry on. But I cannot do this: there is some driving force that makes me need to read them all, as if I will miss out on something. The blogs and news has been fantastic, as usual, but I could probably have skipped a vast majority of it and been no worse off.

Playing catch-up

I am desperately trying to read everything in my Google Reader—trying to catch up on everything while I was away for two weeks.

Most sane people would probably hit “mark all as read” and carry on. But I cannot do this: there is some driving force that makes me need to read them all, as if I will miss out on something.

The blogs and news has been fantastic, as usual, but I could probably have skipped a vast majority of it and been no worse off.

 
“ Obama gets 30 death threats every day, according to Ron Kessler, who recently wrote a book about the Secret Service. That’s a four-fold increase over the number that George W. Bush—the most reviled president in modern history—received.

But why does Obama get more death threats, when Bush was so reviled? Why does Obama get the death threats when he won by a landslide victory and Bush’s election win was actually quite controversial?

Oh, it’s because many Republicans are crazy lunatic religious nutcases who believe Obama is the antichrist and such nonsense.

This makes me proud to oppose the GOP.

(via GOP: Pay No Attention to Our Crazy Supporters Who Want to Kill Obama - Barack Obama - Gawker)

 
“ One possible scenario involves Apple leveraging the e-commerce potential of the iPhone by allowing users to pay for real-world items in-store using their mobile devices in combination with their iTunes account. If an iPhone could replace cards, wallet and cash, that would definitely become a selling point for many.

Rumor Has It: Apple Set to Go Toe-to-Toe With PayPal

Oh yes, most definitely. If I could pay for shopping / bus and train fares / etc. wirelessly with just my iPhone, that would be awesome. Very futuristic.

about shaun…

Name: Shaun Robinson

Age: 24

Occupation: Web Designer / Developer

Location: Ipswich, United Kingdom

Living with: My partner Andrew, and two kids Elliot and Oliver.

extras

contact me