Australian stuff Kinds of drivers 5 Mar 20246 Mar 2024 As a motorcyclist, I am acutely aware of other road users, and some patterns crop up which I am certain is unique to Melbourne, of models driven by those who have no concern for other road users, and especially not those of a two-wheeled kind. So, after some 40 years’ experience, and still being alive, if battered, here are the kinds of drivers to avoid. Continue Reading
Humor Begging that damned question 26 May 201426 May 2014 Something that bugs the hell out of me, literally, is the misuse of English. Of course, I was trained as a subeditor in the days when such things mattered even to journalists, so I am a fossilised dinosaur in this respect. I even try to use adverbs correctly. One thing… Continue Reading
Education Yeah, I’m teaching too 14 Feb 2013 As always, click through, and press the red button… Continue Reading
Chocosophy Tractatus Logico-Chocolatus 6 Feb 20136 Feb 2013 1. The world is all that is the taste. 1.1 The world is the totality of flavours, not things. 1.1.1 The world is determined by the totality of flavours, and these being all the flavours. 1.12 For the totality of flavours determines both what is the taste and also all that is not… Continue Reading
History Chocolate history 20 Jan 2013 Reader Jeb McLeish has brought to my attention an early attempt to do the metaphysics of chocolate: The Natural History of Chocolate by D. de Quelus (1730): The Spaniards, who were first acquainted with Chocolate after the Conquest of the new World, have laid it down for an undoubted Truth, that Chocolate is cold and… Continue Reading
Epistemology Evolution quotes: The English and theories 11 Dec 2012 ‘What I really like about the English is that they don’t have theories. No Englishman would ever have said, “I think, therefore I am.” Although possibly he might have said, “I think, therefore I am, I think.”‘ [Solomon, from Dodger, by Terry Pratchett, p219] Continue Reading
Epistemology Evolution quotes: On human nature and doubt 8 Nov 20128 Nov 2012 That Pyrot had stolen the eighty thousand trusses of hay nobody hesitated for a moment to believe. No one doubted because the general ignorance in which everybody was concerning the affair did not allow of doubt, for doubt is a thing that demands motives. People do not doubt without reasons… Continue Reading
Humor Metaphysics, a poem 26 Oct 201226 Oct 2012 It rains. It rains here and now. It rains on the possible fat men in that doorway. It rains in the desert. It rains in the jungle. It’s conventional. It rains in the holes. It rains in the shadows. It rains vaguely here, with a fuzzy edge to the drops…. Continue Reading
Chocosophy Chocolate causes Nobel Laureates 12 Oct 20126 Feb 2013 My research associate, Dr Malte Ebach, has brought to my attention an inadvertent proof of the truth of chocoholism. The New England Journal of Medicine, a most prestigious and scientific journal, has published a paper by Franz H. Messerli, M.D, which shows a strong correlation between the annualised national consumption of chocolate… Continue Reading