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Studies in Mediumship
As someone who spends a fair amount of time reading philosophy, I find that I have pretty strong commitments to physicalism/materialism (i.e. the physical world is all that there is, and all non-physical things can be reduced to physical objects). I’m also extremely confident that any forces that can affect objects over long distances have…
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Laundry and Anxiety
I did laundry today. I can appreciate that this seems like a minor thing. ‘Seriously, Brian? Posting about doing laundry? Ffs…..’ My anxiety has been pretty bad the last couple of weeks. The threat of job loss hanging over my head, alongside dealing with incompetent and unprofessional HR staff (I know, I know, ‘HR staff’…
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The Irrelevance of the American Presidential Race
[Edit, Jan 28th, 2017: given the executive orders that have gone out over the last few days and the resultant clusterfuck, I am completely wrong on this point. Consider this entire post retracted. I’m not deleting it, as I prefer to keep my mistakes visible.] At this point, it’s agreed across the political spectrum that…
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Medication
The slightly bitter wetness on my lips, The sharp cold in my throat; All preceeds a warming glow In my centre. The numbness spreads, My mind calms. My medication; My saviour; My beer. Follow Brian on Twitter! [GARD]
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Philosophy of science. Again.
I wrote about philosophy of science back in 2012, and a recent spat in biology has brought this up again. The Wired article “Twitter Nerd-Fight Reveals a Long, Bizarre Scientific Feud” explains the details of that fight pretty well, and I just want to dig into a particular comment that seems to represent the core…
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Heroes of the Storm, and Statistics
I’ve had a bit of writer’s block recently, so I thought I’d try writing on a lighter topic: Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm (HotS). I’ve been playing this game for several months now (just under 1000 games played so far), and I enjoy it a lot. Especially since Blizzard instituted some penalties for trolls, my ingame experience…
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The Conservative Party and the Upcoming Canadian Election
To briefly post on this: The choice here in Canada seems to be between the entirely corrupt Conservative party, and pretty much anyone else. Are they corrupt? Well, here’s a list of Federal scandals in Canada, half of which are under the current leadership. More details can be found by googling, and more citations of…
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“Go Home Irish” is just Bigotry
I’m Irish. I migrated to Vancouver, BC, in May 2006. I’ve spent a lot of time learning about the imperialist and colonial history of Canada, mostly because I felt I had a responsibility to understand where I was living. I’m a citizen of both Ireland and Canada, the former by being born there, the latter…
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“Marriage is Between a Man and a Woman” is Dishonest
Sometimes you really have to wonder what people were thinking when they did something. But then, sometimes that thing is quite extended, and you realise that a *lot* of people were involved, and they *all* had to go along with it for the complete production time. And you start to realise that it wasn’t like…
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Vegetarianism, Skeptics and Cognitive Dissonance
We all have blind spots in our thinking, and sometimes they can be pretty interesting. Other times, not so much. I’ve noticed that when I post an article about vegetarianism on facebook, a number of people can’t help themselves but make ignorant comments, people who I’ve had fairly informed conversations with on other topics. I’m…
