October 2, 2007 – 2:57 pm
The latest NASA newsletter contained an unusual item: it’s a video clip of Comet Encke (looking for all the world like a plucky little spermatozoon), which, having passed too close to the Sun, has its tail ripped off by a “coronal mass ejection”. Have a look here.
October 2, 2007 – 10:35 am
Violence declined sharply in Iraq last month. This was such unwelcome news at the New York Times that the story, which opened with the sentence “The number of violent civilian deaths in Iraq dropped precipitously in September compared with the previous month”, was presented “below the fold” on page 10, having been knocked off the […]
October 1, 2007 – 11:12 pm
Well, it looks like John McCain is done. I don’t suppose that he had much of a shot at the Republican nomination anyway, but now he’s being roasted alive for some candid remarks he made during an interview at Beliefnet.org. What was McCain’s unpardonable offense? Being a Christian himself, he expressed a wish to have […]
October 1, 2007 – 12:10 pm
Since 9/11, there has been a steady drone of voices from the Left asking “why do they hate us?” ((No, it’s not for the reason this wag suggests.)), and supplying, lest we might be tempted to assign any blame whatsoever to our enemies, a litany of reasons why U.S. influence in the world is toxic […]
September 30, 2007 – 1:45 pm
Well, as we feared would happen, it appears that the peaceful uprising in Burma has been tamped down by ruthless violence. The UN has sent an envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, to speak with the ruling junta, and we can be sure that he will, at the very least, administer a stern finger-wagging — and if that […]
September 29, 2007 – 10:48 pm
I expect things to settle down a bit as of tomorrow, but writing at any length requires, for me at least, quiet time alone, which has been in short supply all week. So for tonight, I find myself reduced not just to “meta-blogging”, which is simply pointing readers to the work done by others, but […]
September 27, 2007 – 11:34 pm
I do apologize for the paucity of content around here this week. But don’t go away mad: here, with a hat tip to my friend Greg Estren, is some fabulous video footage of the exotic fauna of the ocean’s abyssal depths. Do have a look.
September 26, 2007 – 11:35 pm
Not having the time this evening for any long-winded jibber-jabber, I’ll share with you something nifty I’ve just run across: a new system that enables ordinary digital cameras to take multi-gigpixel panoramas. Have a look here, and zoom in all you like.
September 26, 2007 – 11:04 pm
For those of you who are interested, here is a transcript of the events at Columbia University on Monday. Looking back, I suppose little was gained, and perhaps something lost, by Mr. Bollinger’s caustic introduction, although for those of you who have only heard about it, it is worth reading, because it is much more […]
September 25, 2007 – 11:10 pm
We note with considerable interest the goings-on in Burma these days, where the military junta that runs the country — one of the most repressive governments in the world today — is finding itself in a bit of a cleft stick as Buddhist monks are waging an ever-bolder campaign of civil disobedience. Were any other […]
September 25, 2007 – 10:42 pm
Today’s Physorg newsletter (which, as always, I recommend to those of you who like to keep up with science news) contained a story about what looks to me like an important piece of medical research, involving the role played by tryptophan in cancer and other diseases. Have a look here.
September 24, 2007 – 11:32 pm
There was a predictable ruction about whether or not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should have been allowed to speak at Columbia today, and I must say that at the very least it was gratifying to see that he was given a chilly greeting. It was nice to see the academic community turning out to express their disapproval […]
September 22, 2007 – 9:52 pm
I have been busy this weekend with a two-day Iron Wire seminar (which is turning out to be one of the most interesting and esoteric experiences I’ve had in 32 years of kung-fu training), so for tonight I’ll just leave you with an engaging little diversion. It’s an online test of your ability to perceive […]
September 21, 2007 – 11:09 am
Further wisdom from the Sage of Baltimore.
September 20, 2007 – 10:41 pm
Ask anyone these days, and they’ll tell you that health-care services in Cuba are second to none. Despite the island nation’s having been so thoroughly beggared by almost half a century of totalitarian Marxist rule that people drown themselves in rickety boats in desperate attempts to flee, even the humblest son of the soil, when […]
September 19, 2007 – 5:23 pm
One hears a lot these days about a “right” to health care. I bristle at this, because I think the notion of “rights” as anything other than matters of human convention is rubbish. We may, as a society, choose to define our laws such that they include a “right” to those things we deem appropriate: […]
September 18, 2007 – 1:25 pm
On September 6th, Israel did something in Syria, something about which they have been rather uncharacteristically mum. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens, ex-editor of the Jerusalem Post, considers what it might have been.
September 18, 2007 – 10:33 am
Our pal The Stiletto takes a pointed look at farm subsidies. Here.
September 17, 2007 – 11:45 pm
I’ve been swamped, and have had no time for the sort of brooding and omphaloskepsis required for gestating these posts. But today my friend Louis Franzetti sent along a copy of some recent Darwin Awards, and to keep you occupied this evening I offer a link that pops up a randomly chosen example every time […]
September 15, 2007 – 9:21 pm
I’ve been spending a few days in our seaside shack, reading a little H. L. Mencken. The collection I have in hand is The Vintage Mencken: Gathered by Alistair Cooke (at a mere $11.96, you should go right ahead and buy it). In an essay entitled Mr. Justice Holmes, Mencken pauses briefly to assess our […]
September 15, 2007 – 4:34 pm
Our friend Kevin Kim has recently begun and ended a storm-tossed relationship with a fellow by the name of Zach Shatz, who has written a slim book in which he attempts to explain Ultimate Reality through the prism of, well, prisms. Kevin did an interview with Shatz about the book (which, judging by this interview, […]
September 14, 2007 – 11:07 pm
It startles me how differently people can see things. We all like to flatter ourselves that our opinions are guided by naught but sweet reason, but we overlook that reasoning is in general terms simply a manufacturing process, and like all such processes its output depends sensitively upon its input. That input, however, depends in […]
September 14, 2007 – 10:11 pm
From my son Nick, a splendid young man, restless Internet spelunker, and the prop of my dotage, comes a link to what looks like an worthwhile website: The Worlds of David Darling. I’d never heard of the fellow, but according to Wikipedia he is a well-known British astronomer who has written scads of books. Anyway, […]
September 13, 2007 – 11:35 am
To do physical science, one needs uniform references for fundamental quantities: length, duration, mass, and so forth. Over time, as the need for accuracy has increased, attempts have been made to place the fundamental units on ever more precise footing. For example, the reference meter, which was declared in 1791 by the French Academy of […]
September 12, 2007 – 11:39 pm
Here is some interesting reading for you all, courtesy of Edge.org. First up is an essay called Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion, by Jonathan Haidt, in which he takes the “new atheists” to task for failing to develop a subtle enough appreciation of the adaptive underpinnings of religion, and of morality. He draws […]
September 11, 2007 – 11:53 pm
I was saddened to see in today’s news that the great Joe Zawinul has died, of cancer, at the age of 75.
September 10, 2007 – 10:27 am
As a software engineer, and a techie all my life, I don’t get all that excited about most of the products that come down the pipe. But this could really be the Next Big Thing: Windows RG. Have a look here.
September 9, 2007 – 10:45 pm
Well, enough already, for now at least, with the religious stuff. I’m sure that readers are running for the hills after all that swooning about “numinous beauty and harmony”, etc. I had to make what I think is an important point, and I will return to it, I’m sure, before long, but for now, back […]
September 8, 2007 – 10:17 pm
In last night’s post I tried to make clear that disbelief in God need not be correlated with the sort of spritual tone-deafness that Dr. William Vallicella argued for in a recent essay.
September 7, 2007 – 11:55 pm
We have just passed the 10th anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa, and much is being made of letters, recently publicized, that indicate that she had grave doubts about the existence of God, and was deeply tormented by her own lack of faith.
September 7, 2007 – 12:20 am
I am not, nor have I ever been, a “morning person”. I enjoy the peace and solitude of the nighttime; it’s my only opportunity to think long, slow thoughts without interruption.
September 5, 2007 – 1:45 pm
From Reuters, by way of our friend Jess Kaplan, comes a reassuring item about airline safety. Have a look here.
September 5, 2007 – 12:29 am
We note with grave concern that the legendary Shaolin Monks, the state-sponsored Chinese “wushu” outfit, have got their saffron-hued knickers in a knot over some incendiary remarks made by an anonymous commenter in an online forum of some sort.
September 2, 2007 – 10:52 pm
In Kevin Kim’s excellent book Water from a Skull (which I will be commenting on in greater detail as time permits — meanwhile, follow this link and buy a copy), he quotes Mark Salzman’s book Iron and Silk, in which kung fu master Pan Qingfu says “live each moment as if it were your last.” […]
September 1, 2007 – 10:02 pm
I realize, to use an apt metaphor, that when it comes to sports reporting lately here at waka waka waka, we’ve dropped the ball. Sure, we’ve covered some important events from time to time (see here, here, and even here), but when the deadline arrives each day, we usually find ourselves running other material: a […]
September 1, 2007 – 12:46 am
It’s been a long day of work and travel, so we won’t be going to press tonight. However, please join all of us here at waka waka waka in wishing our friend Kevin Kim a very happy 38th birthday!
August 30, 2007 – 11:07 pm
Labor Day weekend is here, and while a lot of folks are moping about summer coming to an end, you won’t hear any griping from me. Just as the advancing weeks of May and June fill me with a gathering dread each year as the heat and fetor approach, when I get to the end […]
August 29, 2007 – 10:28 pm
As one who has taken, shall we say, a rather nonstandard path through life, I’m always gratified to see mavericks and autodidacts come through with the goods, and I’ve just run across a particularly noteworthy example. Inventor John Kanzius, of Erie, PA, who is battling leukemia, has developed a technique, using nanoparticles and radio waves, […]
August 28, 2007 – 1:18 pm
In a rather heated post a little while back, I railed against the notion that a merciful God would permit suffering such as that of little Abigail Taylor, the six-year-old girl who was recently disemboweled in a horrifying accident. The universal, reciprocal cruelty of the natural world also offers bountiful evidence that even if some […]
August 26, 2007 – 8:37 pm
With a hat tip to our friend the Big Hominid, we direct you to a remarkable video clip, of the apostate Muslim gadfly Wafa Sultan engaging in a heated debate on al-Jazeera television. Sultan characterizes the struggle between jihadis and the West: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of […]
August 25, 2007 – 10:40 pm
We are still more occupied with sun and surf than the glowing screen, but will be back in town, with nose reapplied to grindstone, this week. Meanwhile, a rather odd item from the frontiers of astrophysical research: it appears that there is an enormous hole in the visible universe, a billion light-years across. Lately it […]
August 23, 2007 – 4:52 pm
The publication schedule here at waka waka waka may be a little gappy for the next few days: we are off on a family vacation (a rarity these days, with both kids entering early adulthood), and squinting at the computer for hours on end fits poorly into our activities schedule. We will, however, post up […]
August 21, 2007 – 4:13 pm
A few days ago we made passing mention of the Oxford philosopher of science Nick Bostrom’s Simulation Argument, which makes the claim that we are probably living in some sort of Matrix-like computer program. This dismal notion, which we looked at a bit more closely back in May, was also the subject of a brief […]
August 19, 2007 – 10:20 pm
Many, perhaps most, fans would, if asked, name Sgt. Pepper’s as the greatest Beatles album of them all — and it was, without question, a work of coruscating brilliance. But many of us who grew up during that extraordinary period in musical and cultural history feel that it was the album immediately preceding that was […]
August 18, 2007 – 10:46 pm
We note with sadness, if not surprise, recent reports that the vainglorious popinjay Hugo ChÁ¡vez is further consolidating his dictatorship of Venezuela by seeking to eliminate Constitutional term limits.
August 17, 2007 – 12:07 am
Yale’s David Gelernter, the well-known computer scientist, has written an article in Technology Review on the problems that bedevil AI research. He has some interesting things to say — not only about AI, but also about consciousness itself — and it’s well worth your while to read it.
August 15, 2007 – 10:42 pm
Longtime waka waka waka readers will recall that I used to work for an outfit called PubSub. It was an immensely promising idea, with truly revolutionary potential, but despite the fact that first-tier VCs were lining up around the block to give us money, the company perished in a spectacular (and wincingly public) implosion. I […]
August 14, 2007 – 10:56 pm
I’ve been working long hours this week, and have had scant leisure for thinking or writing. I hate to send you away empty-handed, though, after you’ve made the effort to check in, so here, courtesy of our friend The Stiletto, is an online test of your ability to remember names and faces. I actually did […]