Category Archives: sciences

the other structure of scientific revolutions

Current reading: Freeman Dyson, Imagined Worlds (Harvard, 1997). [Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)] misled a whole generation of students and historians of science into believing that all scientific revolutions are concept-driven. The concept-driven revolutions are the … Continue reading

Posted in history, sciences | Leave a comment

muppet mystery

HIV comes to Sesame Street, and Tim Blair wonders how: How will the character’s contraction of the disease be explained? Sharing a needle with Oscar in his squalid street dwelling? Sex can be ruled out — Muppets don’t have genitals. … Continue reading

Posted in cinema, medicine | Leave a comment

a third eye may help

Java stereo hypercube. Now where did I hide those red/blue filters?

Posted in mathematics | Leave a comment

recycle life: eat meat

The recent report that a high-carbohydrate diet is Bad for us naked apes, it suddenly occurs to me, takes some oomph out of the altruistic argument for vegetarianism.

Posted in medicine | Leave a comment

paperless MMF

A first! Got a spam today of the classic chainletter type (send $5 to the first name on this list . . .) — using Paypal rather than snail-mail.

Posted in economics, technology | Leave a comment

one horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms

Bon mot from Objectionable Content: I have a somewhat detailed refutation of this notion, but if you’re pressed for time, here’s the abridged version: oh, come on now.

Posted in economics | Leave a comment

Alan, meet John

Too cool! A Turing Machine in Conway’s Game Life, extendable to a Universal Turing Machine. Thanks to Andre Uratsuka Manoel for the link. (Link corrected 2004 Oct 6.) 2006: And the newer link is now dead. Never mind, just search … Continue reading

Posted in mathematics, neep-neep | Leave a comment