Yes, books are quite good like that.

To take the Tooth Fairy example further, if we accept it is reasonable for a person to say "The Tooth Fairy does not exist" in day-to-day language without needing to add the disclaimer "of course, in a strictly scientific sense there is a small possiblity that the Tooth Fairy does exist so I am not ruling it out completely", is it not also reasonable for somebody to say "God does not exist" without having to add a similar disclaimer?

If somebody says "I was ten years old when I found out Santa Claus doesn't exist", nobody nitpicks them on the principle that you can't disprove something entirely. Why the special allowance for God?

Let's hope the hinges on his coffin lid don't snap off.

My vision is as good as the next guy's, but when I saw Avatar, although I thought the 3D effect 'cool' like most people, there was a small portion of my vision that was always on the periphery and which felt 'glassy' or 'haloed' as though a bit on each of the lenses was finely scratched or smeared with Vaseline. It was noticeable enough that I tried polishing the glasses on my shirt several times throughout the movie to no avail. It may have been a dud pair of glasses, and I have not seen a 3D film at the cinema since to compare, but it was an irritating distraction irrespective of its cause.

I'm very sorry, I don't know what I was thinking.

My computer at work is licensed for Acrobat 8 Professional. After upgrading Microsoft Office 2003 to 2010, I can no longer create PDF files from Word documents. Looking online, the solution to this issue from Adobe appears to be "upgrade to Acrobat X". Yeah, thanks.

He finds the characters contrived, the jokes laboured, and the acting sub-par at best.

I'm curious. At what point does this breakdown in cultural output appear?

Your argument, if I understand it correctly, is that when piracy becomes widespread, nobody will make any real money from writing, film or music, so any professional output in these areas will die off. Well, piracy is already quite widespread, yet the film-makers, music artists and popular novelists appear to be making as much, if not more, money as they were 5/10/15 years ago. How many more Pirate Bays are required until cultural output declines to a statistically significant level?

Are you serious?

Let's hope you're never on trial for a crime you didn't commit and someone bribes the jury.

For that to happen, cognitive dissonance would need to be virtually eliminated, and seeing how prevalent it is in the human psyche, that won't be happening for a long time.

Seriously, read this book. It will make you rethink why people behave the way they do, and how they justify their beliefs and behaviour. It is eye-opening but rather depressing at the same time.

Sounds like a money-making scam to me, but then again I don't have enhanced auditor perception and recall.

Well, if we didn't become our own species through gradual evolution (whether naturally, assisted by God or by aliens) and if we didn't become our own species by being created in our present form from scratch (whether naturally, assisted by God or by aliens), how else can you explain homo sapiens? What is the missing third way?

If a cake has not been made from ingredients, and a cake has not appeared from nowhere fully formed, how else do you explain the cake, the nature and character of the baker aside?

I remember the good old days when I first dabbled with online gaming, playing Duke3D on TEN (remember that?). This was at a time when MSN Gaming Zone was popular for playing commercial multiplayer games such as Outlaws, Outwars, Jedi Knight etc.

TEN had a 'Mr Bandwidth' character, an alien whose eyes would change colour according to your connection quality. I never got better than orange with my shitty internal modem, but it was still good fun to play a few games of Duke3D, and the idea of playing online with real people was a hugely novel and awesome concept to my young teenage self. I still play online occasionally these days but the magic is not there anymore. I remember one new year's eve, playing Red Light District as the clock struck twelve while my parents hosted their dinner party in the other room. Good times.

I'll have to fire up xDuke and YANG or whatever the kids are using these days for a trip down memory lane.