Posts by Naadir Jeewa

Google kills Anonymous AdSense account

Time to bring out your WristStrong bracelets

We need Colbert!

Smith plans 300-strong force to tackle UK radicalisation

Less police, more radical ideas please

When they say targeting mosques, they're not talking about weeding out imaams. They're the least likely to peddle radicalist ideas - Abu Hamza is very much the exception. Instead, it's usually young radicals whispering in your ear or standing outside with some anti-imperialist leaflets. Those are the ones to watch out for.

What imams do tend to do, is practice social exclusion. Their often puritan, unwilling to give sermons in English, and when they do, peddle strict conformance to cultural norms (which often don't flow out of core Islamic texts in themselves). There's also hierarchies of power: minority Indian imams may control mosques where disaffected Pakistanis are the majority.

So, not sure the police are the right people for the job. Perhaps give greater resources and power to Islamic NGOs. Reduce their Saudi-sponsored funding through state subsidy so they can have more (liberal) political clout.

Just an idea...

Earth to Ofcom: They're our airwaves. Give them back

Group think to anti think

It should be noted that another problem with group-think movements is the inability to form cross-identity consensus. As Matthew Nisbett (a science communication prof.) keeps repeating on scienceblogs, the Dawkins movement is alienating religious moderates with whom liberals share most of the same values with, i.e. pro-science, pro-choice, pro-AGW-action, etc...

I've also seen a growing group-think on this very site. Andrew has posted a nuanced article that goes far beyond the rhetoric of "free-market fundamentalism," as it is, at the end of the day, about public services. We don't need to reify the article into some summary of Adam Smith ("rent-seeking" is more to do with Ricardo and the Friedman generation of economists anyway).

The question for me is, how do we stop money being used to increase groupthink with even more powerful media? There seems to be a lot of literature on how deliberative practices *within* groups seem to polarise them further (Sunstein, Why Societies Need Dissent, 2003)). We need to find ways for competing groups to communicate to each other without debates degenarating into slagging matches, as they do now.

Al Gore's green job bonanza - can we afford it?

Has anyone at the Adam Smith Insitute read Adam Smith?

Great lobby group articles for The Register. Cool!

Soot almost as bad as CO₂ for global warming

What the article actually says

If you read the article, the conclusion runs as such:

* Soot is as bad as CO2 in the short-run.

* CO2 is a greater long term problem.

"It is important to emphasize that BC reduction can only help delay and not prevent unprecedented climate changes due to CO2 emissions."

UK postal vote system 'not fit for purpose'

What we need is...

I say we call Diebold to solve our problems.

Mine's with the brown paper envelope to give to the lobbyist.

How the BBC plans to save your ISP

Multicast vapourware

Is the problem with the long-fabled multicast technology that it was designed for the broadcast era, not streaming on demand. Still, couldn't multicast be utilised for those who use Kontiki to download iPlayer content?

Odeon kicks Rambo in the 'nads

Odeon listens to Radio 5

Maybe Odeon's "commercial decision" was based on Mark Kermode's ranting last week:

"It's like watching somebody who is down on their knees saying 'Give me a pile of money and i will do absolutely anything, I have no moral fibre what-so-ever, I have no narrative fibre what-so-ever, I have no political understandong what-so-ever'" and "I can't remember recently being so depressed"

Taliban demand night-time cell tower shutdown

For all your Taliban current affairs needs

Maybe Panorama was aired on BBC World?

HTC Magnum rumours rife following giant phone gag

In a patent office somwhere...

Darn. I know I should have patented the tablet phone.

Bond stamps mark Fleming centenary

Good prices

£3.32 being the price to send a few CDs with the personal details of a few million persons.

Dell's laptop customisation options not very customisable

Dell lies

At a certain institution, we get Dell to configure all of their computers with 1 DIMM, even if their website doesn't allow it. They obey.

Judge rules Gore's film an inconvenient catalogue of errors

A clarification on a clarification

9 assertions which aren't supported in a mainstream science film is hardly bad going, and certainly isn't a catalagoue of errors.

The fact that IPCC contributors over at RealClimate praised the general scientific accuracy of the film is still encouraging.

Israeli futurologist predicts terror horror

The nanotech fallacy

We already know what nanobots do. They're called cells. There are physical constraints on nanoengineering, and biology has already optimised most of these processes.

So what's in a URL? The Reg URL?

.co.uk

Being .co.uk gives The Register is part of the great British brand of no punches pulled criticism, of which the likes of Mark Kermode and Charlie Brooker are also a part of.

Staying .co.uk doesn't reduce your global appeal, but becoming .com might make you seem none other than another CNet.