March 28, 2014
Well, the premise sounded interesting, with an escaped slave teaming up with an anti-slavery white guy to seek his girl and justice. But with Tarantino involved, I guess I should have known better. I suppose if you like mindless violence and your definition of art is “lots of squirting blood” […]
March 26, 2014
Don’t get me wrong. I think Objectivism (the philosophy of Ayn Rand) is the best philosophy since before sliced bread. But it does attract its share of people who think that it’s their way or the highway. Now I am all for not tolerating immorality or evasion of reality. What […]
January 19, 2014
The ads for The Lone Ranger didn’t inspire me and Johnny Depp hamming it up as a terribly over-made-up Tonto almost turned me off from watching, but the movie was surprisingly enjoyable. As usual we can’t expect too much from a modern movie, except by luck or accident. Those of […]
December 20, 2013
I expected The Great Gatsby (2013 version) to be at least elegant and exciting. Unfortunately it is more like a visual essay on what is wrong with modern art. I’m not talking about the director’s irritating visual mannerisms (the zooms, the peculiar clarity of distant items, and so on) which I didn’t […]
September 14, 2012
The recent attacks on USA embassies by Islamists who cannot handle the thought that someone might <gasp> mock their irrational beliefs in a <gasp> film without being shot made me wonder: maybe we should just settle this by the traditional means. Islam is an Abrahamic religion so the Old Testament of […]
July 29, 2012
Three interesting advances in gene therapy have recently been reported. The first reports gold nano particles to deliver gene therapy directly to skin cells, simply by including them in commercial moisturising cream. This particular therapy uses siRNA to specifically target and silence disease-causing genes. Even more exciting is the discovery […]
May 30, 2012
There is a surprisingly unskeptical review in eSkeptic of Lawrence Krauss’s A Universe from Nothing. As an atheist I applaud Krauss’s intent to address attempts to prove the existence of a God by the “well, where did the Universe come from, huh?” argument. However his attempt to do so by arguing […]
May 4, 2012
The article “Freezing Time” published in The Scientist describes the development of extremely powerful enzyme inhibitors. Because of their vastly higher affinity for the enzyme, they can not only be used in much smaller doses for medical purposes, but persist for longer in the target enzyme but not the bloodstream: increasing […]
April 28, 2012
Continuing the grand tradition begun by the behaviourists of attempting to use the science of the mind to banish free will is Sam Harris’ opinion piece Free will is an illusion – and must be exposed (he also develops this theme in a recent book on the topic). No doubt it […]