Year: 2010

Unorthodox Physics

Another to add to the collection: Spherical-Scalar-Wave-based Matter. So simple – action at a distance explained, no multiverses to hide in.
Milo Wolff  http://www.quantummatter.com/ and
Geoff Haselhurst http://www.spaceandmotion.com/
(Thanks to Adrie over on MD)

[Post Note : Got an interesting cross-hit on Hillary Lawson’s “Closure” that reminded me of the “aetherial” monism inherent in this kind of physics is exactly the post-modern metaphysics about which Geoff seems to have such strong negative opinions …. this is an integrative solution surely ?]

Great Final

As a footie fan I have to say that was a great World Cup Final. Webb had a great game. 9/10 says Graham Poll too. Both teams got what they deserved. Only one reff’ing mistake – the free-kick massively deflected off the wall but given as a goal-kick. Plenty of judicious application of the rules – great efforts to preserve the game, avoiding sending-off half the Dutch. Suspect he must have missed the de-Jong foot in Alonzo’s chest – I did from that viewpoint at normal speed.

The Spanish showed how despite the Dutch tactics they could really play the game; control, turns and passing. Don’t believe those tactics were as callously pre-meditated as some pundits suggest, just their natural abilities leading to their natural style, faced with a better team. “Top class” football is generally pretty dull, professional celebrities going through the motions, but this was anything but. A great showcase for the game. Well done Spain, South Africa and Howard Webb. Firm control, whilst “having a ball”.

Talking of professional celebrities, kudos to pundit Alan Hansen, who told it straight. The whole of football needed Spain to win that game.

(Only criticism of the Spanish team …. their tendency to demand cards, and other unsporting remonstrations …. so unnecessary with a good ref. Still even with these non-play tactics, their actual play was always excellent – they can tell the difference between playing-the-game and gamesmanship, and fortunately don’t see one as a substitute for the other.)

[Post Note : Glad to see I’m not alone in my opinion of Webb’s game.]

[Post Note : Howard Webb reflects on a great final performance.]

Music as Fuel

I was digging up the Hunter S Thompson quote on living life to the full …. you know the one … “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

When I came across this one close to my heart:

“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”
— Hunter S. Thompson

The Wrong Stuff

From the Slate, a piece by Kathryn Shulz interviewing ex-astronaut James Bagian on relative risks and relative attention to risks in bleeding edge exploration and business-as-usual.

[Post Note :  I have since read the complete article and it is really very good, on the human psychology side of “error” and risk, and between error and harm, proximate individual causes and fixable systemic causes, etc. One side connection – Bagian mentions the little appreciated fact that the Challenger crew hearts were still beating when their cockpit escape module hit the ocean – reminded me of a comment I made recently on the F111 Wikipedia page, where the crew escape module was mis-captioned – since corrected on the main page.]

[And whilst we’re here : That Kathryn Shulz post is just one of a series of blogged interviews on the subject of “wrongology”.]

Fairy Tale Football

Brilliant.

Whether Capello is given the chance to manage the team through the next Euro tournament (or not) he himself should resign, if he cares one iota, and save the FA (ie fans of English football) having to pay to make a decision. BTW, never mind Roy Hodgson for Team Manager, we need people like him managing the FA’s football affairs.

Barbara Herrnstein Smith

An incomplete review, notes only from this excellent article. Hat tip to Sam Norton in his comment below. And some good links in the piece, eg to Stanley Fish.

Explanation … avoiding reductionism.

Terry Lectures on video – nb Terry Eagleton joke ?

“It was I felt, characteristic of the delightfully informal nature of American society that I should receive a letter from Yale inviting me to deliver the Terry Lectures. I had of course long been accustomed to the instant-first-name culture, but this long-range intimacy nevertheless came as something of a surprise.”
Terry Eagleton “Reason, Faith and Revolution”
The Terry Foundation Lectures, Yale, 2009

Flattening out “important differences” … finding difference is easy, synthesising common value is harder – Mary Parker-Follett.

Determinedly symmetrical. Refusing to take a stand on big issues “of our time”. (see also Zizek’s Empty Wheelbarrow.)

Keep mixed groups (with important differences) talking on common ground – Mary Parker-Follett again and conflict resolution (integration, as opposed to compromise)

James & Nietzsche, Metaphysical Poets and the Poetics, B.F.Skinner (vs Chomsky “impoverished”), Dewey, Hume, Burkert, Gombrich, Meyer, Sokal (“mischief, unrepresentative”, “mutual ignorance and caricature”, “demonizing”.)

Cognitive science of religion … “The New Naturalism” Distinction between New Atheism of Dawkins and New Naturalism of Dennett, though even Dennett limited – a misunderstanding – “correspondingly dubious conception of beliefs—religious and otherwise—as static, discrete items of cerebral furniture” – far from static or discrete, just useful …. misplaced reductionism again.

Excellent piece.