The ever-excellent Ben Goldacre has a review of Gillian McKeith's phony disreputable Ph. D. thesis. Which stretches to all of 48 pages and is filled with insane suggestions about chlorophyll inside human digestive tracts (seriously, just think about that for more than five seconds) and highly reputable sources like "a few of my mates' poo samples" and "Health Store News" magazine. I wouldn't be surprised if when this thesis comes shooting out of the arse-end of an Inter-Library Loan, it comes with an 8x10 glossy. 

Why is it that religion gets away with censoring the secular world but the secular world never gets a chance to parry? Oh, wait, we're not supposed to talk about that bit. 

Oh, and I don't believe that 28% of online Americans tag content. Here's why. 

On the flip side, this is great news. Teach those kids early that life has absolutely no purpose at all except for unending suffering. That'll learn 'em. 

I pass this Slashdot thread on with only a few comments. Firstly, we'd be in better shape if school IT in this country wasn't five to seven years of "here's how to use MS Office". Secondly, I'm not totally sure that the BCS or DMU are in a position to get too stroppy about the 'death of CS'. Thirdly, what is needed is more people who are well-trained in programming (or at the least, able to get their ideas hacked together in to some form) and have the ability to dream up crazy new ideas that shouldn't work but will. Programming is important, and the important thing is not to be snooty about it. It doesn't matter whether one is writing low-level C programmes, itsy-bitsy J2ME code, JavaScript widgets or anything in between. The important bit is that you've come up with some idea and you are executing it. 

Grazrheads: good news ahead! Mike sez custom skinning is happenin' a real soon now. "Next few weeks". I've got a few Grazr surprises hidden away waiting for the right moment (rather, waiting for me to finish them). The ability to make them look prettier would be great. 

Usually us lot are having a good giggle at the expense of the Templeton Foundation. Rightly so. They believe in magic and faeries and so on. But they've gone and done something absolutely brilliant. Right on, folks. It may not be philosophically sensible, it may be sophistry, it ma be silly. But it's great that you are kicking the ID folks while they're down.