Category Archives: sciences

mad cosmology

Some entertaining notions in Susan Stepney’s notes from a panel at Eastercon 2001: Maybe we’re surrounded by fake scenery, living in a “planetarium” – what are the required capabilities of civilisations that can fool us? info is needed to generate … Continue reading

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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

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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?

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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.

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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