Deja Vu All Over Again

Check out the four video clips here. Plus ça change and all that. Clinton is especially interesting, though no one later accused him of lying.

How to Spot Bad Science

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The series of posts on the hazards of model-building has proven to be goat barbecue. The more TOF chews it, the more it swells in size. The next episode, covering various uncertainties regarding the choice of Xs and the model structure will be along Real Soon Now. But today in a paroxysm of sheer will-power we will discuss....
Will Power
TOFs ( Read more... )

Okay, this is a hoot. The link gives the summary of the play, which involves such things as the Shroud of Turing and the Mathematical Pirates as well as an encounter with St. Thomas Aquinas.  The tunes I found hard to hear, but the YouTube site has the lyrics printed.  Herewith, three of the immortal songs:
The Mathematical Pirate Shanty
Thomas ( Read more... )

Back in the Olde Days, when TOF was a practicing Quality Engineer, there was a popular three-step process for implementing the techniques known as "statistical process control" -- or better yet: SPC.  (The benefit of TLAs is that you don't have to think about what the words mean.)  The three steps were:

1. The massive training of everyone in sight
2. The ( Read more... )

...you'll have a hard time painting your ceramics.

Ed Feser, over on his philosophy blog, makes the following useful observation:

[T]he problem [of consciousness] is a problem in principle, and ...it isn’t going to be solved by further application of existing methods precisely because the problem is generated by the application of existing ( Read more... )

No, no, not those kinds of final remarks; rather remarks about finality.

You may either express relief or horror as the spirit moves you.
Final Word


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A reader at the Auld Blogge on LiveJournal who goes by the caligosian name haunterofmists has engaged in an extended conversation on form, spinning off the orthodox reaction to Nagel's Darwinian heresy, the gist of his questions, like the fogs he haunts, appeared inchoate. Suspecting that the disagreement -- if there even was one -- was due to ( Read more... )

Yes, it's that time again.  Clearing out bunch of ends and odds.

• The Little Ironies of Life
• Life Used to be So Much Simpler
• The Music of a Generation
• Hot Enough For Ya
• Return of the Quanta

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