Thinking about it
In school we are mostly taught to take in information and then give it back in an exam. And that’s important to learn to do in order to have a backlog of knowledge and the ability to negotiate the world. … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Getting philosophical: life, love, the universe
This past Wednesday was the fifteenth anniversary of FredHJr’s death
[NOTE: The following is a somewhat revised version of a post that has appeared previously on this blog.] Unbelievable that it’s been fifteen years since commenter FredHJr died suddenly and tragically. As time passes, the number of readers here who … Continue reading →
Black hole wakes up
How? Why? Here’s what I’m talking about: Suddenly, in late 2019, the previously unremarkable galaxy SDSS1335+0728 started shining brighter than ever before. To understand why, astronomers used data from several space and ground-based observatories, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very … Continue reading →
Abortion, the law, and morality
Some issues came up about abortion in the comments yesterday, and I think I’ll briefly take up two of them. (1) From “R2L”: I wonder why the standing of the father is so seldom mentioned in these cases and discussions. … Continue reading →
Rules for pro-Hamas radicals: the circle dance revisited
A number of people have suggested I read this Substack essay by Richard Pollock, a left-to-right changer who was an Alinskyite leftist radical back in the 60s and 70s. My impression on reading that one essay is that he’s something … Continue reading →
Events both inner and outer: how’s it going?
For the past few months not only has a lot of the news been extremely depressing, but it’s been appearing on so many fronts that I have at least thirty stories to choose from each day for my blog posts. … Continue reading →
Equality versus freedom
It’s been said many times by many people. Solzhenitsyn: Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free. And then there’s Robert Frost (in the … Continue reading →
The slide down the euthanasia slippery slope continues: The Netherlands
The Netherlands has been a leader in this particular trend. Here’s the latest: Zoraya ter Beek is one of a growing number of people across the West choosing to end their lives rather than live in pain. Pain that in … Continue reading →
Is the universe twice as old as previously thought?
This guy certainly thinks so: Last year, theoretical physicist Rajendra Gupta from the University of Ottawa in Canada published a rather extraordinary proposal that the Universe’s currently accepted age is a trick of the light, one that masks its truly … Continue reading →
Let there be light: the Webb
According to the Big Bang theory, in the beginning of the universe there was darkness. The Webb telescope is shedding some light on how light came to be: According to data from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, the … Continue reading →
Does AI dream of electric sheep?
AI may not dream of electric sheep*, but it certainly has an active imagination. Matt Taibbi found Google’s Gemini to be spinning yarns about him, and even making accusations of anti-Semitism. The more times Taibbi asked Gemini to tell him … Continue reading →
It’s Groundhog Day – again!
[NOTE: What could be more appropriate on Groundhog Day than a repeat of an old essay about the movie? The film is a huge personal favorite of mine: very funny, mysterious, and touching. This essay has been slightly edited, of … Continue reading →