The Wine Bible , by Karen MacNeil. Perhaps not such an elevated subject but I have been browsing through An A-Z of Pasta: Stories, Shapes, Sauces, Recipes by Rachel Roody recently. Every entry has a couple of recipes some of them it seems inspired by her husband's Sicilian family. I used to go to t...

Faust Part 1 & 2 - Goethe While I was listening to it I found it entertaining and profound in places. After the fact, what was it about? Making a deal with the devil, of course. The protagonist, Faust ends up getting off, btw - which smells a bit off. I once considered it my favorite book, I'd have...

Barlaam and Josaphat by Gui de Cambrai. A medieval hagriography but extremely curious becuase... large parts of the story are basically the legend of the Buddha, imported and morphed into the tale of two Christian saints by centuries long game of Chinese whispers from India to Europe - via Persia, ...

My attitude with these sorts of problems has kind of been influenced more by the late Wittgenstein (of Philosophical Investigations fame). Language is largely a social game of interaction and shared meaning through repetitive actions. The idea there is some kind of 'essence' to words largely misses ...

It's funny to think 23 years ago when this was released the song amounted to an arch joke rather than a herald of the madness that is 2023.

I think a lot of maths education is quite rigidly focused around certain essential tools, which is understandable as these tend to be what you actually need for certain subjects. Recently though I've been finding myself interested in topics which are off-piste from the modern syllabus, like spherica...

Senseye wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 29, 2022 4:45 pm

why these pro authoritarian types never emigrate to the countries they seem to admire.

Ironically the one who did do this (Edward Snowden) did so on a specifically, and with reterospect hilarious, anti-authoritarian platform.

I Idefinitely think that the current world order is one of elites plundering regions of the globe to nobody's benefit but their own in the short term. Right so you want to return to a paleolithic hunter-gatherer tribal system without elites or power struggles. Except in Russia for some reason. Than...

Senseye wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 16, 2022 4:16 pm

Sure, they would have been quickly overrun without Western support and living in peaceful subjugation with Russian kleptocrats looting their resources. Not sure that is a good thing.

Not sure the subjugation would be peaceful. Prolonged guerilla war seems more likely.