My First Dictionary

Hilarious!
My First Dictionary blogged by Ross Horsley. A very witty, very dark blog. Sort of like Edward Gories' sunnier, sociopathic fraternal twin, at least in respect to his creative output.

Not so shy

Hi!
Yes you who are reading this page. You know who you are. You know why you visit.
You can leave a message, as response.

But what will I say in return to your comment? That depends- my view is that you should write nothing that you've haven't the courage to say to someone's face. But leaving a note, perhaps with a question, why not?

It would only be a question, just a question. So, ask me, mysterious visitor- you are one of... several that drop by.

Shyness is still charming when most can make their subtlest intimacies a matter of public record, and don't understand the difference between fame and honour on the one hand, and notoriety and vulgarity on the other.

So say "hello". I don't bite unless asked(or provoked).

Why the economy failed: An irony

Richard Posner a supreme court judge published this assessment of why the current financial crisis could not have been avoided. My reading of his argument is that it is an appeal to ignorance which is one of the informal fallacies you learn in a first year critical thinking class. Perhaps that is why we are in a mess. A lawyer(not an economist or even a business person) with enormous power and prestige can make economic pronouncements- and people listen.

(BTW Lawyers only have to make persuasive arguments- Philosophers have to make convincing ones.)

Graduate students, robots and limited intelligence

I read today that researchers have developed a robot, which rejoices in the name 'Adam', that can develop and test hypotheses . Although this constitutes a breakthrough in machine intelligence, " Will Bridewell, an artificial intelligence researcher at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, says Adam is operating only at the level of a graduate student".

A little humiliating, but what does that say about BA's?