So I finished Daniel C. Dennett's Consciousness Explained, and it's a fantastic read. Really, everyone who has even an inkling of wonder about what the mind is should pick up this book. It's long (447 pages, I think), but relatively quick. The exposition is textbooklike: slow enough to grasp, but still interesting, and including a number of ( Read more... )

Nemo ergo ex me scire quærat, quod me nescire scio, nisi forte ut nescire discat.

St. Augustine, The City of God

Two nights ago I read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Good read.

I usually have an annual reading of this poem, but with my grandfather dying1, Riemannian geometry, and Tartuffe this evening2, I didn't quite get that together.this year. But I've made it up to you all:

Ash Wednesday
T. S. Eliot

I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that ( Read more... )

Just wanted to pass on a little poem written by Longfellow at Christmas, 1864. Try, if you will, not to imagine it as a happy carol. Don't chintz it out. Just read it.Christmas BellsI heard the bells on Christmas Day ( Read more... )

( On 'Palestine: Peace not Apartheid' )

I watched Yojimbo a bit back and haven't posted about it.

It's ephing metal, just like Galois. Seriously. Anyone who's ever seen a western has probably noticed some elements:

• the low shot looking up at the hero's face, just catching the top of the buildings lining the one street in the town
• the hero is always chewing a piece of straw
• the bad guy ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Antibiotics make me feel so much better. A little too much better, I think, for I'm afraid I was a bit of a jackass at nathanielbee's premiere. I did enjoy a number of the pieces, though about half were rather amateurish ( Read more... )

So, I received my P1510d in the post yesterday.

Immediately followed the instructions on the Ubuntu wiki for installing Dapper Duck from a USB card, since the P1510d is too small to have an optical drive. Everything went well, up to about 75% through installation, when the installer hung up. I repeated the procedure, and it happened again. A ( Read more... )