Category Archives: history

size did matter

. . to Marie-Antoinette. Hm. Of course The Saga of Burnt Njal was kicked off by a similar incompatibility.

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same but not same

Some say rebuild the towers exactly as they were. Some say leave their footprints bare. Seems to me you can have both: rotate the plan by a quarter-turn.

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vote with your tectonic plate

GPS sparks boundary wars. New measurements tell Rhode Islanders that they live in Connecticut, and so on. (Thanks to Monty Solomon for the link.) If it were a question of private property, I believe the rule of adverse possession would … 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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“. . . if you can keep it”

Mourn on the Fourth of July: A National Day of Protest The goal, if any goal is possible to us, is no longer reform or restoration: it is resuscitation or reincarnation. This Fourth of July is no longer a holiday. … Continue reading

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the official cult

I applaud the Ninth Circuit for recognizing that teaching schoolchildren to recite “one nation under God” is an establishment of religion; though without the offending phrase the tots are still being taught that their first duty is to “the republic … Continue reading

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whiz, pop

Someone’s having fun a little early: I just heard the unique sound of a display rocket.

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