September 1, 2009 – 11:49 am
Here in Cape Cod, as everyone looks back on the life of Ted Kennedy, the tone, has been, to put it mildly, approving. It’s bad form to speak ill of the recently dead, so one has hardly heard a peep about the darker aspects of Mr. Kennedy’s life, or the skeletons in his closet (not […]
August 30, 2009 – 10:33 pm
I must say there has hardly been a time in the last ten years or more that I have disconnected myself more thoroughly from the welter and bustle of the world. I have hardly glanced at a newspaper for weeks now, and aside from switching the radio on every so often to check the weather, […]
August 26, 2009 – 2:53 pm
While everyone else is moping about the death of Ted Kennedy (well, maybe not everybody; Mary Jo Kopechne, for one, could not be reached for comment), here at waka waka waka we are enjoying some good news, courtesy of our friend and esteemed colleague The Stiletto. We all know, of course, that binge drinking is […]
August 25, 2009 – 11:57 am
Required reading: an outstanding essay on the Obama presidency by Fouad Adjami in today’s WSJ. I’m working today, so can’t comment at length myself just now, but readers are invited to weigh in below. The gist: Mr. Obama, carried into power on a tide of anxiety and guilt, misjudges the fundamental nature of American politics […]
August 23, 2009 – 10:24 pm
Regular visitors to these pages will know that, in sharp contrast to the shallowness and frivolity of most weblogs, we concern ourselves here only with serious matters of the utmost philosophical import and urgency. In particular, we know that many of you turn, sometimes in bleak existential despair, to waka waka waka as place where […]
August 23, 2009 – 2:14 pm
From my daughter ChloÁ« comes a link to a dazzling video showing the state of the art in robotic manipulation of small objects. Here.
August 23, 2009 – 1:55 pm
Though I am languishing on vacation and producing next to nothing (aside from an efflorescence of unshaven whiskers that a friend referred to yesterday as “beach fuzz”), our friend H. Jeffery Hodges, the Gypsy Scholar, has been doing exactly the opposite, offering some excellent posts on a variety of consequential topics. Here, here, here, and […]
August 20, 2009 – 2:13 pm
In response to a recent post about the persistent backwardness of the Arab world, commenters and correspondents have suggested that the problem is not Islam itself, but the “culture of honor” that prevails amongst Arabs (and which has been shown also to be at work in the American South, with arguably similar retrograde effects). Non-Arab […]
August 18, 2009 – 12:19 am
Here’s a heartwarming item: it appears that 95% of the dollar bills circulating in Washington, D.C. carry traces of cocaine.
August 17, 2009 – 11:56 pm
Now and then a blip appears on the screen that just might be something awfully big headed our way; on reading about this just now, I’m wondering if the name “Tim Palmer” mightn’t be a lot more familiar ere long.
August 16, 2009 – 11:07 pm
We’ve relocated to the narrow land of the Outer Cape for the next three weeks or so, and unfortunately we have such a full schedule that these pages may be updated only sporadically. There is simply too much else that needs doing: oysters must be gathered, beaches lazed upon, drinks prepared, friends entertained, photons absorbed, […]
August 15, 2009 – 12:12 am
A few weeks back there was an interesting article by Natalie Angier in the science section of the Times, about a familiar word whose meaning, as it turns out, is not at all clear.
August 13, 2009 – 11:58 pm
We mark with sadness the death of the venerated guitarist and technical innovator Les Paul, who has shuffled off the mortal coil (was that dual or single?) at the age of 94. I owe more to him than most, as he was the inventor of multitrack recording, an arcane craft by which I earned a […]
August 13, 2009 – 12:02 am
Our friend H. Jeffery Hodges, who writes thoughtfully about the problem that Islam poses to the rest of the world, has been doing so again lately. In posts here, here, and here, he discusses the book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, by the Weekly Standard’s Christopher Caldwell.
August 11, 2009 – 3:36 pm
There’s a dark but timely discussion underway at Mangan’s, kindled by this Washington Post item. Here.
August 10, 2009 – 7:27 pm
Back in 1994 or thereabouts, it was my pleasure to spend a few weeks recording and mixing the Bobby McFerrin album Bang! Zoom!. The album, a collaboration with the band the Yellowjackets, has remained one of my favorites — not only because of the high quality of the music, and the fun I had recording […]
Here’s a strange relic, from a century ago, that was mentioned in the Times recently: The Anglo-American Telegraphic Code. Back when communication-by-wire was new and edgy technology, its users devised, as a way to keep messages small, a mapping of thousands of words — some of them ordinary English words, others made-to-order — onto various […]
August 7, 2009 – 11:48 pm
A very short distance from my house, just inside Prospect Park up at the end of the block, is the 9th Street Bandshell. Every summer it is home to the Celebrate Brooklyn concert series, and it seems that each year the lineup gets better and better. Tonight the lovely Nina and I strolled up there […]
August 6, 2009 – 11:40 pm
According to reports, a U.S. airstrike may actually have killed the Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, the de facto ruler of South Waziristan. Confirmation is still pending, but if true this is news that will be received with grim satisfaction in many quarters. Baitullah was one of the most brutal and dangerous men in the […]
August 5, 2009 – 11:37 pm
In today’s New York Times, Tom Friedman comments on the U.N. Development Program’s Arab Human Development Report, which first came out in 2002, and which has just been updated. Apparently the news is not good; it seems that, for some reason, the Arab world is rather a depressed and backward place.
Bill Clinton, who has always had a gift for picking up women, has done it again, even if this time he had to travel a bit farther afield. I’m certainly glad that the two hostages, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have been released, and I suppose it would be churlish of me not to give […]
YouTube has just launched what looks like an wonderful resource for the insatiable autodidact: an educational site where users can find free online videos from colleges and universities. Read all about it. Meanwhile, for you videophiles whose preferences lean more toward matters military (or if you just like to watch stuff blow up), reader JK […]
Forgive me for beating a dead horse, but British physician and writer
August 3, 2009 – 12:48 pm
There’s an item at CNN today about a mechanical music-maker called Cybraphon. It’s the product of a few months of work by a Scottish artist’s collective, and I think it’s rather a nifty bit of work. Automated music-making is obviously nothing new — music boxes, band organs, and hurdy-gurdys have been around for ages, and […]
With a hat tip to bassist Alex Wan, here’s something enjoyable and instructive: Queen’s Bohemian Rahpsody, arranged for the classical guitar by one Edgar Cruz. Most impressive.
Dennis Mangan calls our attention to an article in Newsweek, by Sharon Begley, that takes aim at the burgeoning science of evolutionary psychology. Begley effectively pronounces the field dead, which will certainly be news to its practitioners. Anthropologist Dan Sperber writes that the evo-psych community knew this broadside was coming, and that its publication in […]
According to an item over at CNN, former Procol Harum keyboardist Matthew Fisher has won a lawsuit seeking a portion of the royalties for the band’s classic tune “A Whiter Shade of Pale”. This certainly seems fair, though I wasn’t present as the song was being written: Fisher’s plangent organ-playing is the soul of the […]
David Pogue, the personal-technology columnist for the New York Times is hopping mad. Why? It’s those annoying little messages you have to listen to before you can leave voice-mail for a cell-phone user. You know: “At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for […]
In the news lately has been a New Zealand climatologist who has been looking askance at received opinions regarding anthropogenic global warming. His name is Chris de Freitas, and he is a member of the faculty of the University of Auckland. I recently ran across an article of his, in which I read the following: […]
Here’s an Indian tribe that, for some odd reason, I have the feeling I ought to do a post about. Can’t really say why, though.
Today we direct you to an excellent post by Bill Vallicella about the putative “right” to health care. A little while back I mentioned that left-leaning governments tend always toward acting in loco parentis; Bill’s post offers the Democratic health-care initiative as an illustrative example. Bill makes the important point — seldom acknowledged — that […]
This just heard over the P.A. from our office-building’s fire superintendent, after a series of tests of the alarm system: “Please disregard any further instructions.”
Recently President Obama, in what he must have known would be a controversial choice, selected the geneticist Francis Collins to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Collins is an eminent scientist, and a capable administrator — indeed, his professional qualifications for the post are unimpeachable — but he has also […]
Here’s an Escheresque curiosity from the Web. I’m sure there is some simple trick to creating things like this, but I have no idea what it is.
A few days ago we remarked on a CNN item about the differences between men and women. Might some of these differences be innate (as I think is almost certainly the case), or are they all just the result of cultural conditioning? This has has been an enormously contentious issue of late, so it would […]
It’s been a busy day of roistering at the wedding of a friend, and the little grey cells are in no shape to get behind the keyboard. So for tonight, all I can offer is a diverting little link, sent our way by reader JK. Here.
I don’t buy a lot of gadgets, but featured in today’s Personal Tech newsletter from the Times is a review of one that I might just have to spring for. It’s an alarm clock — a watch, actually — that monitors your movements to determine where you are in your sleep cycle. You give it […]
Tonight we have an item from a few days ago that offers, perhaps, a little insight into Kim Jong-il’s heir apparent, the youngest of his three sons. Apparently the boy may have been educated, under an assumed name, at a Swiss school a few years back. It seems he really likes basketball. Story here.
At CNN today is a pop-science puff piece that breezily summarizes some of the natural underpinnings of what we all know to be true: men and women are different. The article touches, blithely and matter-of-factly, on differences in body chemistry, brain anatomy, emotions, and cognition. You’ll certainly get no argument from me; I’ve always thought […]
I’ve linked to a few essays by Pat Buchanan recently, and have another for you today. There is much that I disagree with Mr. Buchanan about, both culturally and politically — his paleoconservative isolationism comes to mind, as well as his doctrinaire opposition to evolutionary theory, the scientific bedrock of modern biology (see, for example, […]
If there are a thousand shocks that flesh is heir to, I must be nearing my quota. After working at the office until 1 a.m. yesterday, I arose this morning with a large project before me, involving the movement of many of our largest pieces of furniture and the assembly and installation of an enormous […]
In 1972, when I was 16, I took a drive across America with my good friend Tom “Toby” Sherwood (peace be upon him). Toby was the older brother of Evelyn, a girl I had been orbiting, and although he was a few years older — at 21, he had just emerged from Harvard with a […]
For years now I’ve been reading, and occasionally commenting, over at Bill Vallicella’s website, The Maverick Philosopher. Bill’s a grumpy old cuss, and an unrepentant dualist, but he’s the real deal, and an excellent writer to boot. A philosophical amateur and autodidact like myself can learn a lot there (which I certainly have). Bill’s blog […]
An engaging item in today’s Physorg Newsletter reported on a recent study, published in Nature Geoscience, that examined the Earth’s carbon chemistry during a period known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM. During this torrid interval, which took place about 55 million years ago, the Earth’s average temperature shot up by 7° C. over […]
Readers will, perhaps, recall that I detest hot weather. I am not designed for it: I have a large stocky frame built on a Scottish genome, and in the ordinary course of my routine metabolic business I generate far more heat of my own than I can easily discard. In the winter, when everyone is […]
There’s an item in the news today about “neurosecurity”: the need to protect “neural devices” — computerized electronic machinery designed to interact directly with the human brain — from unauthorized manipulation. The creation of technology to provide direct interfaces betweens computers and brains is a rapidly evolving field, but the effort so far has concentrated, […]
If you are in New York City today, you can take in a twice-yearly astronomical phenomenon: Manhattanhenge. Learn more here.
When you have a lot of links on your blogroll, it’s hard to keep up with them all. One of the links on our sidebar is the website of military correspondent Michael Yon, who provides excellent independent coverage from the world’s strife-torn regions, some of them extremely dangerous and remote. Reader JK reminded us to […]
The history of the world is essentially a long, dolorous tale of ethnic and religious animosity and violence. Little has changed in the modern era; president Hu Jintao of China has just left the G-8 summit to address a rising tide of ethnic slaughter in Xinjiang. Now Pat Buchanan reminds us, in a cautionary essay, […]
From a “news” item at CNN regarding the recent death of a noted pop star: His was a “six life path,” [Los Angeles psychic Glynis Jants] said, meaning he was magnetic and drew people to him. That, coupled with the fact that he was born on a two day made him irresistible, she said. “If […]