Category: Varia
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Happy Super π Day!
π day is 3/14. But today is super π day: 3/14/15. To celebrate it properly you must do so at 9:26 A.M. or P. M. Years ago, as a student of electrical engineering, I memorized π this far out: 3.14159. The decimal expansion is non-terminating. But that is not what makes it an irrational number. …
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Friday the 13th Cat Blogging! In the Foothills of the Superstition Mountains.
I Ain't Superstitious, leastways no more than Howlin' Wolf, but two twin black tuxedo cats just crossed my path. All dressed up with nowhere to go. Nine lives and dressed to the nines. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Superstition. Guitar solo starts at 3:03. And of course you've heard the story about Niels Bohr and the horseshoe…
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Happy Birthday, Jack
Sorry I missed your 93rd by one day.
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Kitty Genovese
Fifty-one years ago, today.
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Stupor Bowl or Super Bore?
Here is my annual Stupor Bowl Sunday rant. Enjoy. It is from 2009. The year before, the event was held in Phoenix. The damned thing is back again.
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Coffee!
No day without a post, so here you go. And that reminds me of a Warron Zevon number. I am working on a substantial post. I hope to upload it tomorrow.
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How Long May One Say ‘Happy New Year’?
Until the end of January, but no longer. This is the rule. If you violate it, then, like ACHmed the Terrorist, I kill you! Happy New Year! Related articles Bernie Goetz, 30 Years Later Conservative Marquette Poly Sci Prof Suspended for Blogging
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For the New Year
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book Four, #276, tr. Kaufmann: For the new year. — I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. [ . . . ]
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Posts of Christmas Past
Posts and Ghosts of Christmas Past: 'Merry Xmas' Egyptian Muslims Serve as Human Shields at Coptic Christmas Mass Socializing as Self-Denial Merry Scroogemas! Ebeneezer Scrooge and the Limits of Doxastic Voluntarism In the Interests of Prandial Harmony Minimalist and Maximalist Modes of Holiday Impersonality Of Christograms and Political Correctness
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The Hard Problem Now a Play
By Tom Stoppard. Via Daniel McInerny via Tom Coleman. I have always thought the 'hard problem' vs. 'easy problem' distinction in the philosophy of mind to be rather silly. See Intentionality Not a 'Hard Problem' for Physicalists?
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Who is Caius?
Robert Paul Wollf here replies with wit and lefty snark to a charming request by one Pamela N., a personal assistant, who wants to know who Immanuel Kant is referring to when he writes, "Caius is a man; man is mortal; therefore, Caius is mortal." Pamela confesses, I will admit, I have not read Kant's…
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Arizona and California Gas Prices
Big road trip last weekend: Phoenix, Barstow, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara and back by a different route. The Jeep Wrangler runs on unleaded regular. Paid $3.349/gal on 9/27 at Quartzsite, AZ off of I-10, one of the last Arizona gas-ups enroute to California. Wait 'til Blythe on the California side of the Colorado River and…
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Amazon Pricing and a Book Bleg
I'd like to get my hands on a copy of Maria Reicher, ed., States of Affairs (Ontos Verlag, 2009). I didn't find it in the ASU catalog and so I headed over to Amazon.com where I found a used copy for the entirely reasonable price of $9,999.99 plus $3.99 shipping and handling. I kid you…
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September
Summer once again subsides into the sweetness of September. This calls for a song, September in the Rain, not that there is much that could be called rain in these parts. But the Arizona monsoon looks to be over, the lambent light and delicious dryness have returned, and autumn's in the air. Life is good,…
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Theodore Dalrymple: A Man Who Had Never Heard of Robin Williams
Until he hung hanged himself, that is. Williams, that is. I knew who Williams was, though I have seen only two of his films, The Dead Poets' Society and Mrs. Doubtfire. From what I know of the others I have no desire to see them. The gushing over celebrities at their passing is as tolerable…