Remarks on various subjects

From time to time, I may write something that seems worth preserving but that is either too short or too boring to be considered an essay. Here are some instances.

Lucas's "theorem"
Some people think that Gödel's theorem proves the impossibility of artificial intelligence, or refutes mechanism as applied to humans, or something. There's an error in the alleged proof, which I describe here.
Why the ontological argument doesn't work
There's a famous argument for the existence of God, attributed to Anselm of Canterbury. Unfortunately, it's no good. Here are some reasons why.
The advantages of Usenet's quoting conventions
I think, like most people, that the way in which most Usenet articles quote their predecessors is better than the available alternatives. Once upon a time I encountered someone who disagreed in a manner that annoyed me enough to write this.
A famous instance of "irrationality" reconsidered
There's a famous experiment that points out one way in which most people are irrational. I recently read an interestingly garbled presentation of the experiment and its results, which is discussed here along with the usual version.
The alleged verbosity of Lisp
Lots of people think Common Lisp is a verbose language. Here's a brief debunking of one more precisely expressed claim along those lines.
What makes a good church website
Someone in the newsgroup uk.religion.christian once asked "What do you look for in a church website". I don't think they were expecting such a long answer as I gave them.
Estimating remaining download time
Bram Cohen asked for an algorithm that estimates how long it will take for a download to complete, and that doesn't exhibit certain disagreeable artefacts. Here is one. (It could be used for things other than downloads.)
On Faith
Some remarks on the much-misunderstood notion of "faith", with particular regard to when it's rational and when it isn't.