Month: December 2007

Just added “Freedom of Science” to the blogroll. Pretty whacky style, but a very similar agenda to mine, in this case aimed at “Newtonism” specifically as the problem rather than “scientific objectivism” more generally in my case. Freeing knowledge from academic categories.

But very similar rationale too, about the easy option associated with the immensely successful “marketing and branding” of Newtonism, or in my case the memetics of the hyper-rational.

No human identity, but “Freedom” responded to Island’s post mentioned in my previous post below.

(Post Note – Dec 19th – I see Domenic has picked-up on Island’s conjecture and is following the logic of where the maths exists to support it …. comment thread ensues … all that is required is one open mind.)

An October 2007  post here from “Island” (Rick Ryals) guesting on “A Quantum Diaries Survivor” (That’s a serious physics blog … so not for the faint-hearted.)

Just collecting the link because, I don’t know why, but I need to understand what Island is on about, even if he’s wrong ;-).

 I hit the link on a search cross-hit, but Island also included it in his last thread of comments. See various comment threads involving “Island” (very hard to pin down in a search, thanks to that name) as well as his own site and blog already linked in the side-bar as “Science in Crisis”.

Interesting. I guess the fact that we all post in public (like, Doh ! blogging on the web) means we expect (nay hope) to be picked-up, linked and copied, directly or from feeds, but I hadn’t though of this – people scraping feed content and “passing off” without linking or attribution.

As ever, it’s the “passing off” that is immoral. [via Geo Hancock]
BTW did you pick up on “Kindle” Geo, see previous post.

I’ve been following e-Paper / e-Ink developments, but this mainstream event almost passed me by. I see Amazon sold out their entire “Kindle” production in five days in late November. A few days later Wikipedia already records the “November 2007” event as history.

I’m interested, particularly if the subscriptions can be extended beyond the US and to the web via a browser rather than just the registered publications. Watch the video demo half-way down this official Amazon page.

Last night a colleague recalled the scene from “The Simpsons – The Movie” where Homer questions “Aawww, why do I have to go to church on Sundays. Why can’t I just pray like hell in the final minutes of my life, like everbody else does.” – being scarily close to the truth for some significant proportion of the populace down here in the bible belt.

Unlike Sam, I wouldn’t like to bet against too high odds that these people are from a real church community, who see this as valid comment, albeit in some level of humorous parody (or god forbid, maybe not).

Things are rarely what they seem, which after several cycles of paradoxical irony, may be not, not … not what they appear to be. Now that is the sign of our times … (too) many a true word.

In the good old days the jester wore the silly outfit, so you could tell spoof from reality even if, in fact precisely because, many a true word could be spoken. The loss of innocence arrived “while the king was looking down, the jester stole his thorny crown”. The difference between irony / humour and hypocrisy / lies is in the intent, not in the words or ideas expressed. The memes have us mere mortals over a barrel.

The problem of brutal language, (from 1897).
“Unmailable” – Via Language Hat, so I kinda trust its authenticity … worth reading the thread … authentic language from the time, but probably a contemporary spoof – to make the point. ‘Twas ever thus.

Compare and contrast with Sam’s “Youth of Today” post.

Is, paradoxically, its endurance. Political systems come and go … so the values of faith (any faith) are those that can be preserved through culture. Johnathan Sacks (UK Chief Rabbi, BBC R4 Today, “Thought for The Day”) echoing Parmjit Dhanda (Sikh, UK Ministerial speech) on the need to celebrate the UK’s Christian heritage. Interesting angle.

Effectively the same pragmatic debate I’m having with Sam as to whether any secular institution can ever match that. I guess my position is that the religious who see enlightened promotion and preservation of values as the point of their “faith” would get very little argument from a “humanist” or other secularist if the faithful didn’t bring their literal (or misleadingly reified metaphorical) theistic baggage with them into inappropriate walks of life. Sam ?

Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble (Not to be missed … no, really, do take a peek. God is a fan of JakobAndJulia.com apparently, which is by the by. Hmmm, now there is a subliminal meme – blink and you might not miss it.)

Single Barrelled Madness.

The Smelly Tasteless Onion.

Standing invitation to visit Lindsay Marshall’s Bifurcated Rivets. Never a dull moment. (Dave Snowden also picked-up on the Bubble Burst Vid.)