Author Archives: Anton

place-names and personal-names

In my county there’s a village named Van —–. I think that if my name had a Van or equivalent, and someone proposed to name a town for me, I’d prefer they drop the particle. On another hand, Jan van … Continue reading

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how {e|p}lastic was my valley?

If you had never seen a nonhuman mammal, would a dog’s face fall in your uncanny valley?

Posted in psychology | Leave a comment

I’m just sayin’

A free market would not say to the poor, “It’s cute that you want to earn money by providing a service, but first we need you to save up for a license.”

Posted in economics, politics | Leave a comment

adrift in a sea of time

In Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992), the narrator says or implies that the events happened many years ago; so I’ve been watching for details that date it. Oprah Winfrey, whose show premiered in 1986, is mentioned; I think that’s … Continue reading

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Awake how often?

The protagonist of the TV series Awake lives in two worlds: one in which his wife died in a car crash, and one in which their son died instead. As we see it, he spends a day in Hannah’s timeline … Continue reading

Posted in cinema | 3 Comments

elusive avoidance

I’ve been designing printable models of the Lawson-Klein surface w = cos(u) cos(2v) x = cos(u) sin(2v) y = sin(u) cos(v) z = sin(u) sin(v) As you can plainly see, this figure lives in S3 (positively curved 3-space), so stereographic … Continue reading

Posted in mathematics, merch | 2 Comments

self-referential

A recent comment on this blog from someone named ‘air jordan 1 ebay’: Hello, i read your blog occasionally and i own a similar one and i was just wondering if you get a lot of spam responses? […] Yes. … Continue reading

Posted in spam | 1 Comment