If you make your life an interesting life, the confluence of events, the collision of unforeseen consequences, will make it an unique life — a life that will not fit in an academician’s box, a life that will not constrain you to climb into a box.
Author: Kilgore Forelle
Planned Retrogression
I have been teaching computer literacy since the last millennium (since 1997 in layman’s terms), and I am amazed at the volume of innovation that we have seen in those 2+ decades. I am amazed in two ways: 1) at the progress, and 2) at the lack of progress. I will not belabor you with a discussion of the progress, since it is all around you. But I will try to explain my contention that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Science “Knows” Nothing
The object of the process is to make educated guesses toward future probabilities, and that those educated guesses will still, in an ongoing fashion, be the subject of splitting and clumping. A knowledge set produced by science is a transitory thing — a mass that is soon to be split and re-clumped.
Learning Machines
We often observe that young children are amazing learning machines, motivated by boundless curiosity. But we forget that all humans are amazing learning machines, they have just been tampered with by more-or-less well-meaning sticklers. Walk around the sticklers.
Words Poorly Used #144 — Emolument
Arcane words, those wearing dated but courtly finery, are difficult to process, but especially so when they are pounded into the Constitution, like a round peg into a square hole. These are odd interlopers of unfamiliar mien.
Upheaval, Back to School, 1984
A confluence of at least 3 elements brings this blog post to you — it is a mosaic of Jared Diamond, a new school year, and George Orwell.
Words Poorly Used #143 — Nation
According to Reason’s online publication, Benjamin Franklin once said, “No nation was ever ruined by trade.” Then a Facebook friend and I engaged in an amicable dispute about Franklin’s intent relative to the word “nation.” My friend said it was a stand-in for “government.” I responded.
A Reminder
The picture below shows an animated electric sign located in, I believe, New York City. It is a readout of The National Debt Clock. I don’t know how long ago it was photographed, but a check today says that the big number is now over $22.5 trillion.
The Fallacy Fallacy Redux
Just because someone argues about a thing by using a logic fallacy does not make the thing itself untrue. In fact, citing your antagonist’s logic slip, then claiming victory thereby is just another instance of the appeal to authority. The authority in this case are the tandem of your fallacy guru and your argumentation guru.
Facial Recognition Fantasy
I have no idea how sophisticated FR really is, but I do know that those who propound its magic have no incentive to tell us its limitations. Just as a car salesman will romance us with purported positives all day long, while neglecting potential flaws, script writers and law enforcement officials have vested interests in our belief in the wonders of science.