Category: Uncategorized

I agree with Sir Robert Winston here. The Royal Society has miscalculated if it thinks denying opportunities to even respond to questions about whacky alternatives does anything for the understanding and credibility of science.

Turbulent times for global finances, but interesting take here from the BBC’s Robert Peston.

Talking of accidental shocks to the system. OK, so the wind and water of a hurricane like Ike can cause danger, damage and disruption anywhere it strikes, but why does modern Texas and Houston, have such poor infrastructure that recovery requires a week of city curfews and a month to restore power supplies ?

Just collecting this link to a BBC Story about txt msg style being used to convict. Liked the formal language of the expert; “powerful enough attribution to discriminate”.

A BBC Story.

Keep coming across things I blogged years ago, totally forgotten, usually prompted by cross-hit reports, that seem “good” – if I say so myself.

This is an example from 2004. Nothing new under the sun.

I really MUST do some consolidated writing – from the blog and from discussion-forum contributions.

We weren’t really up for a late night this last Friday after an early evening Mexican meal featuring The Deltones at Madison (Al) Bandito Burrito – ’nuff said – we went into town (Huntsville) ‘cos I had a vague recollection I’d noticed an interesting gig at Crossroads, and I’m glad I hung onto that thought.

Both bands interesting – both different – like, different from much else I’ve seen or heard in a while. The opening band, were a two-guitar four-piece, playing very jazzy million-notes-a-minute arpeggio-picking style, trading licks and complex mixed pace structures, including reggae and calypso grooves – but endlessly changing – too complex to be entertaining without concentrating hard – but accomplished and different. Can’t for the life of me remember their name (Why do bands and venues not leave up recent events ? Damn MySpace – Post Note – sho’nuff – turns out they were local Huntsville band “Sandia”  … yeah, “fusion” sounds about right.)

Main act were Spoonfed Tribe. Wow. Different again, from Texas, and what a mixture. Hawkwind meets Beefheart meets Stomp meets Northern-Soul and eventually morphs into some seriously heavy guitar rock. 5 piece with at least 2 on percussion at all times. Dreadlocked flautist on vocals and PA loop effects, reminding me of Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall, stonking bassist with a huge range of effects, which allowed the masked guitarist to play around with vocals, cow-bells and loops before remembering his guitar. Varied, yes, but never missed a beat, and never lost your attention. A pity so few were there to experience them. Ones to watch.

Saw them again:

• Last Concert Cafe, Houston.
• Trees, Deep Ellum, Dallas.
• The Continental, Houston, where I seem to recall they were playing pool before the gig.

One in a series of many … the reversal of “sticks & stones“.

For every wise old adage there is an equal and opposite adage. Does that mean adages and old-wives tales are worthless – Nope; it means context is everything.

Uploaded a PDF copy of son Tom’s undergrad philosophy dissertation “On Incompleteness, Inconsistency and Moral Dilemmas.” By Tom Glendinning, Easter 2008, in which, after applying Godel to the problem he concludes:

“The future for moral debate … has to be concerned with the insurmountable dichotomy between complete and consistent moral systems. As we can no longer expect a unique answer to every situation, we have to decide which is more valuable.”

Only a couple of weeks before publication of Mark Richardson’s Zen and Now – 9th September – and here is an on-line Q&A with the author.

Finished Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” at last … a rather disrupted read over several months … I last blogged an extract when I was less than a third of the way through back in April. Despite the lack of quality time to devote to it, I somehow sensed this was an important one to finish. Glad I did.

The final page includes this …

“In place of dialectics life had arrived, and in his consciousness something of a wholly different nature must now work towards fruition. …

 … But that is the beginning of a new story�”the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.”

As Gav says, over on MoQ-Discuss highlighting that closing sentence, this is a lesson learned for “man” not just for Raskolnikov.

Overall the book is a complex study of Raskolnikov’s psychological struggle between emotional guilt and intellectual justification for the murder of “a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender” as an “audacious” academic exercise rather than the ostensible material motive of robbery. Some excellent passages on motives and virtues, not just Raskolinokov’s, also in the many characters and dialogues around him. More later hopefully. Three or four passages – on the psychological game-play on guessing what the other person knows and their motives in any dialogue – I will return to.

[Spoiler warning] Fresh in my mind is the final cliff-hanger (before the Eiplogue above) where we hear of Svidrigailov’s suicide and the note explaining his motives, of sound mind and body; We already know he was fully aware of and sympathetic to Raskolnikov’s higher-good intellectual motives in the “murder(s)” – does Svidrigailov’s suicide note plead the guilt, and let Raskolinikov off the hook ? No, the final confession is Raskolikov’s.