Gratitude and humility 25 Oct 201125 Oct 2011 I sent this out this morning to a slew of folk: Dear all I am sending this to you as a mass mailing because I have been overwhelmed by the sheer number and generosity of donors since my pathetic begging letter. God, by the way, has told me that he has no plans to take me to heaven at this time. I am sure you are all relieved. Donors have included friends, colleagues, students and readers, but also people, courtesy of PZ’s note, who do not usually read me. I am particularly taken by the fact that students, who as everyone knows live lives of penury by definition, have contributed. Donors have come from Europe (including Finland!), the United States, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand. The American donors come from either coast and the midwest, the north and the south. Many donations merely say something like “donation to a philosopher”. I don’t think there has been a philosopher yet who has had such broad and international support. I am very humbled. The reason for my lack of recent blogging, apart from my financial situation, has been that I have had a number of papers and chapters to revise and resubmit, and also that it is Jobs Time in philosophy, so just working out who to apply to has taken a lot of time (they include four American universities, and one Canadian). But I have been working very hard on the Rise of the Planet of the Moralists series (itself to become a chapter in a book), so fear not, there will be more coming soon. In the meantime, take consolation is knowing that the world is full of good people who are not exploitative and who value thought. I have long propounded the 95:95 Rule: “95% of people are decent 95% of the time”. I may have to adjust those figures upwards. Many thanks, my friends Administrative
Administrative Vote now! 3 Jun 2010 I have a couple of posts nominated (one by me – it’s time to stop being humble) at the 3quarksdaily Science competition here. I won’t win, because that torrent of good science writing, Ed Yong, is nominated, not to mention Carl Zimmer and sundry others, and the Pharynguloids will of… Read More
Administrative I want 23 Sep 2007 … an email archiver that sorts through the several tens of thousands of emails I have received in the past fifteen years and makes it all a nice searchable archive. If it would automatically archive from the current folders, that would be nice. On the Mac OS X. Any ideas Read More
Administrative Envall troll has his own blog 17 Feb 2009 Once upon a time, I made mention, simply a mention, of a paper by one Matts Envall, which I said I would later comment on. I did so because a friend of mine, Malte Ebach, told me about him and the paper. I have yet to appropriately thank Malte. My… Read More
Susan Silberstein: Well, it was either you or Michele Bachmann. Oh shit! I just realized that I sent my check to the wrong person.
I’m very glad your situation is much better now. I’ve been through a similar situation (while finishing my Ph.D. and starting my first postdoc) and know how badly that stinks. As in your case, I would have never made it if it wasn’t for some helpful friends.
Susan Silberstein: Well, it was either you or Michele Bachmann. John is much better looking. On second look, maybe not. John has no neck.