Two Front Teeth

I’m sorry, but this makes me smile every time I see it.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Your Highness - Restricted Trailer

This looks very very good.

More Your Highness Videos

Transformers

For those in the know, this is THE Transformers movie.  The abominations created by Mr Bay may be action entertainment, but the below YouTube clips show parts of the real thing…

I came across these on reddit.com here

Web Designers vs Developers

Found this on the old intertubes last week, having spent some time recently playing with web development it seems to sum things up quite well.

Web Designers vs Web Developers is brought to you by Wix.com
Use creative design to make a Free Website
You are most welcome to share this infographic with your audience.

The Mass Libel Reform Blog — Fight for Free Speech!

This is a message from Simon Singh:

This week is the first anniversary of the report Free Speech is Not for Sale, which highlighted the oppressive nature of English libel law. In short, the law is extremely hostile to writers, while being unreasonably friendly towards powerful corporations and individuals who want to silence critics.

The English libel law is particular dangerous for bloggers, who are generally not backed by publishers, and who can end up being sued in London regardless of where the blog was posted. The internet allows bloggers to reach a global audience, but it also allows the High Court in London to have a global reach.

You can read more about the peculiar and grossly unfair nature of English libel law at the website of the Libel Reform Campaign. You will see that the campaign is not calling for the removal of libel law, but for a libel law that is fair and which would allow writers a reasonable opportunity to express their opinion and then defend it.

The good news is that the British Government has made a commitment to draft a bill that will reform libel, but it is essential that bloggers and their readers send a strong signal to politicians so that they follow through on this promise. You can do this by joining me and over 50,000 others who have signed the libel reform petition at http://www.libelreform.org/sign

Remember, you can sign the petition whatever your nationality and wherever you live. Indeed, signatories from overseas remind British politicians that the English libel law is out of step with the rest of the free world.

If you have already signed the petition, then please encourage friends, family and colleagues to sign up. Moreover, if you have your own blog, you can join hundreds of other bloggers by posting this blog on your own site. There is a real chance that bloggers could help change the most censorious libel law in the democratic world.

We must speak out to defend free speech. Please sign the petition for libel reform at http://www.libelreform.org/sign

Guess Who? … Is Britain’s Most Credulous MP

Just came across this over at Crispian Jago's 'Science, Reason and Critical Thinking' blog, it is, as is always the case, rather amusing and well worth a look.

The article is here and the full size pic with hover over text is here. Do please have a look, and remember to bookmark his page.

Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip

Just dropping this link here, it’s pure brilliance.

That’s all, move along.

It's A Small World After All

I don’t remember where I first came across this picture. I think it shows perfectly how unimportant we are to the rest of the universe. 

You’ll need to click it to open the full pic in your browser.  i would say it’s well worth the look.

Edit… I have uploaded this blog post a couple of times but either WLW or Blogger are stopping the full size image from being uploaded.  the best way to see the image is to do a Google search for “frLHu.jpg” and find a full size (896x5704 pixels) version.

Morality v’s Religion

 

I’m not sure anything else needs to be said.

And So You Code

Found this via Reddit…

When people ask me what I think of Islam...

I found this quote on the always brilliant reddit.com.  It's by 'TheBananaKing' and can be found here.

The way I see it, Allah is basically the Godfather. He's a murdering bastard - but he's an honest murdering bastard. He doesn't pretend to be anything else. You do like he tells you, you pay your protection money on schedule, you don't unduly piss him off, and he's a very charming individual, not above having dinner with your family and complimenting your very beautiful wife, you're a very fortunate man. Of course, fail in this regard and he'd have to get his business associates to educate you in the consequences of not paying sufficient respect and it would be such a shame for that to happen on this very fine carpet you have here.

The christian god, on the other hand... is the corrupt mayor in the shiny white suit. He does all the same things, except he manages to make it all everyone else's fault, and insist that you praise him for being so fucking wonderful.

HTC Desire and Facebook contacts

For anyone out there using a HTC Desire, like me, you may have recently gone from proud owner to frustrated owner.  The reason… Your phone appears to have added ‘44’ to some of your contacts, which when called fails.  It would appear the issue is Facebook related.  When people register for Facebook mobile it automatically adds ‘44’ to UK numbers.  It should add ‘+44’.  Replacing 07123… with 447123… makes the number unrecognisable to telephony system.

After a little searching I came across the following solution, I’ve trued it and it works like a dream.  I can now call myself a proud HTC Desire owner again.

With much thanks to the author of the article here.

I do hope he won’t mind me quoting part of the solution below.

First, if you have the ‘Friend Stream’ widget open on one of your home pages, you must remove it. Go to the home page the widget is open on, press and hold your finger on the top of it, and drag it  down to the ‘remove’ button.

Next you must remove your facebook account from the sync menu. To do this, go to:

Settings > Accounts & Sync.
Click on the facebook for HTC Sense app.
Click remove account and confirm it.

Next, while you are in the sync menu:

Untick ‘Auto-sync’.
Untick ‘Background data’ and confirm.

Click Add account.
Click Facebook for HTC Sense.
Enter your Email and password.
Click ‘Sign in’.

Right, now this is the slightly tricky part so read this part carefully before you rush into it, otherwise you will have to do it all again.

Tick the ‘Background data’ check box.

Get one finger ready on the button that currently says “Sync All” down the bottom left. When you tick the ‘Auto-sync button’ this button will change to ‘Cancel Sync’. You need to tick the  ‘Auto Sync’ and then INSTANTLY press on the cancel sync button ONCE.

Next click on the Facebook for HTC Sense logo.
Untick ‘Sync Contacts’.

Note: There should be no date or time information written under either ‘Sync Live Feed’ or ‘Sync Contacts’. If there is, you need to remove the facebook account again and start over. It means it has allready synced which is not what you want.

Next, untick ‘Sync contacts’ but leave ‘Sync live feed’ ticked.

You can press the ‘Sync Now’ button if you want to sync the live feed now.

You can now go back to your home page. Check the phone menu and it should not contain any of your facebook contacts. Again, if it does, try doing it again (it’s never failed for me personally and I’ve done it a few times to show people).

You can then add your friend stream widget to the home page again by clicking the ‘ + ‘, Selecting Widget, and then selecting the friend stream widget.

The author suggests using a free app call ‘Sync My Pics’ which can be found in the Android Market.

Compare the Ideology

I've just seen this post by the always entertaining Crispian Jago.  I'd recommend his blog (Science, Reason and Critical Thinking) as a worth while read.
Anyways, below is the quite amusing comparison chart...

Meta Tags ?

Being pretty new to blogging I’d not got around to working everything out when I jumped in with my first few blog posts. 

Well I’ve recently decided to look into meta tags.  It appears they’re actually pretty important if you want your site to appear on search engines.  While looking around I found this site, which has a nice explanation of what they are and an easy guide to applying them to your site.

So I’m posting this blog post mostly as a reminder to me so I can refer back to the site in the future.  But hopefully it’ll prove useful to others who come across here in the future.

Another site which is good is this is meta tag analyzer which can tell you whether you have done a good job of tagging your site.

The Copenhagen Declaration

So a while back some prominent atheists grouped together to come up with a declaration of their wants and aims.  Well Atheist Ireland have made a few amendments and improved upon the original.

I found this through the always brilliant Pharyngula blog on Science Blogs (which appears to be going through a bit of turmoil at the moment).

Anyways, here it is

We support this amended version of the Copenhagen Declaration on Religion in Public Life. We invite other people and groups to also support it.

 

Personal Freedoms

• Freedom of conscience, religion and belief are unlimited. Freedom to practice religion should be limited only by the need to respect the rights of others.
• All people should be free to participate equally in public life, and should be treated equally before the law and in the democratic process.
• Freedom of expression should be limited only as prescribed in international law. All blasphemy laws should be repealed.

Secular Democracy

• Society should be based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Public policy should be formed by applying reason to evidence.
• Government should be secular. The state should be strictly neutral in matters of religion, favoring none and discriminating against none.
• Religions should have no special financial consideration in public life, such as tax-free status for religious activities, or grants to promote religion or run faith schools.

Secular Education

• State education should be secular. Children should be taught about the diversity of religious beliefs in an objective manner, with no faith formation in school hours.
  
• Children should be educated in critical thinking and the distinction between faith and reason as a guide to knowledge. Science should be taught free from religious interference.

One Law For All

• There should be one law for all, democratically decided and evenly enforced, with no jurisdiction for religious courts to settle civil matters or family disputes.
  
• The law should not criminalize private conduct that respects the rights of others because the doctrine of any religion deems such conduct to be immoral.
  
• Employers or social service providers with religious beliefs should not be allowed to discriminate on any grounds not essential to the job in question.

I certainly add my support (for what it is worth).

How to set MP3 as custom ringtone on HTC Desire android phone

I just recently upgraded my phone to the new HTC Desire, I’m very happy with it.  The only issue I’d had was setting personalised ringtones, which really shouldn’t be difficult.  Anyways, a little Goggle’ing and I came across this brief article giving the easiest of answers.

The general gist is you need to have a folder structure like so; media/audio/notifications on your SD card.  You can then place any MP3 files you want within the ‘notifications’ folder.  These will then appear when choosing a ringtone.

I’d like to give my thanks to the guys at the above site.

Don’t

Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t get one.

Don’t like abortions? Don’t get one.

Don’t like drugs? Don’t do them.

Don’t like sex? Don’t have it.

Don’t like your rights taken away? Don’t take away anybody elses.

 

Copied from he-is-she-is-he./dont

NewSpring Church appear to be a little bit in the wrong…

So some guy writes a blog, here, criticising the way in which the NewSpring Church leaders carry out the business of their church.  the church gets leaders get upset and encourage their security team to go after him!

Now, I had not heard of a a church requiring a security team before so that’s new on me.  The rest of the story appears to come straight from a Scientology “how to deal with dissenters” guide.

I found out about this through the, quite brilliant, reddit.com.  To quote two comments…

covertPixel

TLDR: Church members including those working for the church create a fake twitter account parodying a man who criticizes their methods. They use this to suggest he's a homosexual. They then find out he's trying to adopt a child and use their influence to sabotage the adoption.

Read it, it's ruthless.

physicsnick

Suggesting he was a homosexual is hardly the worst thing they did. They invited a serial killer to his house, and put out an open invitation for a swingers party, posting his home address. They sent a forged resignation letter to his boss. They gave his phone number to dozens of telemarketers. They signed him up for homosexual magazine subscriptions. They harassed his son. And the church denied any knowledge of these events, despite the fact that several church leaders and many church-goers were following the fake twitter account.

The part that bothers me the most is how the people who attend that church did nothing. If I found my church and pastor was doing this shit, I would, I don't know, find a different church? Maybe read one of the dozen Bible verses where Jesus promotes private prayer and do that instead? At the very least, stop donating money?

Anyways read the full story here.

Super churches… Scary things if you ask me.

Agora: The Great Atheist Film?

Just a quick post to recommend reading the following two articles...
Pharyngula
Movie City News

Both are about a new(ish) film, to copy a little from from PZ Myers...

It's called Agora, and it's about Hypatia, who was a kind of non-Christian martyr, murdered by a religious mob. Here's one account of her death:

And in those days there appeared in Alexandria a female philosopher, a pagan named Hypatia, and she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through Satanic wiles...A multitude of believers in God arose under the guidance of Peter the magistrate...and they proceeded to seek for the pagan woman who had beguiled the people of the city and the prefect through her enchantments. And when they learnt the place where she was, they proceeded to her and found her...they dragged her along till they brought her to the great church, named Caesareum. Now this was in the days of the fast. And they tore off her clothing and dragged her...through the streets of the city till she died. And they carried her to a place named Cinaron, and they burned her body with fire.

I think I might be keeping a look-out for this.

HDTV, is it really that good?

XKCD... it says stuff so much better then ever I can.

Turning Japanese ?

I am so far undecided as to whether this is great fun or I need to check into some sort of rehab.

Anyways…

How low can they get ?

When even they're not a fan...

For those who don’t know about Westboro Baptist Church

Purely advertising myself.

Just in case the accidental reader should be interested I also have a great blog all about computing.  More specifically about automating MS Office (Excel, Access etc).  Please pop over to the Zypher-blog.
I (we actually, a friend and I) also have a business site at zypher.co.uk, again please have a browse.
Probably enough self-advertising, for now at least ;o)

I would like to second this...

This, I think is yet another brilliant blog post by the ever so good Jack of Kent.  In it he simply asks why the police haven't strolled in to the Catholic church and started prosecutions.  Anyways, heres the link.

Charles Chilton Moore (1837-1906)

I recently came across this blog and in turn read about Charles Chilton Moore.  It would appear he was possibly one of the first atheist newspapermen.  This in itself may not be all that amazing, but Charles started up his newspaper in Lexington, Kentucky, surely one of the holes in the Bible Belt as VorJack puts it.

Below is what I consider a rather good quote.

Fifteen hundred years ago, Constantine, who murdered his own wife and children, started the Christian religion. 

From that day to this that religion has been the greatest curse that ever afflicted the earth.

This religion teaches that 6,000 years ago God made the first man out of dust – not even mud – and the first woman out of a bone; that God cursed the whole human race because a snake made the woman eat an apple; that God had a son by another man’s wife, and that he had this son murdered in order to keep himself from sending all the human race to hell.

This son taught that any man who did not believe that piece of ignorance and priestly lying would go to hell and burn eternally in fire and brimstone.

The Bible, in which these things are taught, favors drunkenness, murder, slavery, lying, stealing and lechery.

I think I’m a fan.

Symphony of Science - The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)

Loving these autotune YouTube videos.  Found this one via PZ Myers’ Pharyngula blog.

Homeopathy and the Parliamentary Sci Tech Committee

At last, what appears to be a sensible approach to homeopathy.  The SciTech committee have published a report which says, quite rightly, that as there is no evidence for the magic water / sugar pills and that it should no longer be payed for by the NHS.  It also recommends that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) should stop licensing it.

Ben Goldacre has an article up highlighting the important parts here, the BBC have an article here and the select committee's report is available here.

It's a start, next we need the government to make the right decision and remove homeopathy from the NHS fully.

Quite Funny

Lily Allen just tweeted this and I’d have to agree it is rather amusing…

Be careful of the woo

Two posts in the same day, it's a record for this site already.

I'm not sure on the science behind the claim that 'Chinese herbal pills gave woman cancer' reported by the BBC here but I consider it a story worth sharing.  We do really need to educate people better as to what 'alternative medicine' is.  As per the great Tim Minchin:

"...You know what they call “alternative medicine”.
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine...”

A follow up story is here.

If you’re an atheist, a skeptic, a freethinker, or just annoyed by hippies, I'd recommend looking for Tim's stuff on YouTube, you’ll love it.

Edited to add Storm video below…

Christopher Maloney is a quack

Being an avid reader of PZ Myers' blog, Pharyngula, how could I not respond, even with my first post of this new blog, to the request in this post.  I strongly recommend the whole blog, it's always entertaining and you'll probably learn something too.