Category Archives: uncategorized

On Monday I attended the Math Ed Ph.D. defense of my former colleague Veda Roodal Persad, but although I had had some earlier discussions with Veda I have to admit that I hadn’t actually seen and read the full thesis, … Continue reading →

There is a plague upon the  Earth! Every day of our lives your blood and mine is being sucked by a growing army of parasitic drones. You may barely notice their effect right now, but if the drones are not … Continue reading →

I never felt comfortable with “Born This Way” as I had no objection to people being gay by choice. So even though I have no actual skin in the game, I am happy to read Brandon Ambrosino in the New … Continue reading →

I don’t know if I should be called an atheist so I’m certainly not an atheistocrat but I’m sure as hell against all forms of theocracy so I’m happy to identify as an atheocrat. I had thought all  loyal citizens … Continue reading →

A math major talks about fear – YouTube A commenter objected to the statement that “math is hard” and I had to respond as follows. Some math is hard is and some is not. Memorizing 3+4=7 is not hard, but … Continue reading →

3quarksdaily points to this bit of nonsense about Richard Feynman (which in turn re-opens a number of earlier versions of the same “news”). What a pile of crap! Feynman was certainly “guilty” of occasional meanness, and of self-mythologizing to an almost absurdly … Continue reading →

Howard Knopf is right of course in his objection at EXCESS COPYRIGHT: Just Say No to Copyright Term Extension – Why More is Less: My Views on #TPP. But I would go further. No copyright on any work should ever be … Continue reading →

Are the Authoritarians Winning? by Michael Ignatieff | The New York Review of Books is a disappointingly vapid piece by Michael Ignatieff in which he reviews a number of recent books about the global situation. Authority is just a matter of … Continue reading →

Kennan Malik provides a fairly nuanced response to Nicholas Wade’s recent book (advocating the idea of cognitive differences between races), and (of course) I think he is right to join those who condemn the second half of Wade’s book. But … Continue reading →

Some late comments on Richard Carrier’s blog post re ‘Is Philosophy Stupid?’ raise interesting questions about the relationship of science to philosophy. While I have always been inclined to share Richard’s view that science (aka “natural philosophy”) is actually a … Continue reading →

Sean Carroll says that Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy, but physicists are not the only culprits. Some of the best philosophers have been at least as critical of “philosophy” as the most strident of physicists. And some … Continue reading →

Two quite distinct sources in my news and info feed coincidentally raised the issue of looking askance at philanthropy at the same time this week. On May 11 Nassif Ghoussoub’s ‘Piece of Mind’ on the dark side of philanthropy addresses … Continue reading →

It’s nice to see Google continuing to honour female figures in science. Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dorothy Hodgkin is the latest such, and it is no adverse reflection on Dr Hodgkins that her status as the only female British Nobel Prize … Continue reading →

There’s been plenty of critical analysis of modern capitalism especially since after the latest crash so the I am curious to see why Thomas Piketty’s version is getting so much attention.

It may not be surprising that many of those shocked by recent news reports of a threat to ‘Net Neutrality’ are the same ones who object most strongly to ‘Usage Based Billing’, but it is nonetheless a bit odd. After … Continue reading →

This article (series) in The Tyee brings up, and actually slightly confounds, two important questions. One is the issue of carbon “credits” in advance of the sequestration that they are purported to buy. This points up what to me has … Continue reading →

Ahmed Humayun at 3quarksdaily writes of The Shadow of Militant Ideology over Islam. He thinks that “it is clear that the greatest danger of militant ideology is posed to Muslims living in Muslim majority societies”, but although that may well … Continue reading →

Interesting observation from someone who wrote in 1944 Contrary to libertarian economists from Adam Smith to Hayek, Polanyi argued, there was nothing “natural” about the free market. Primitive economies were built on social obligations. Modern commercial society depended on “deliberate … Continue reading →

Radia Perlman is another woman with a major place in the history of computing – whose spanning tree algorithm greatly facilitated the creation of the internet. This interview with Rebecca J. Rosen in ‘The Atlantic’ includes a number of interesting … Continue reading →

Why?