But for certain misfortunes, Robert Hooke would surely have been among the most celebrated of Englishmen. He invented air bellows for Boyle, built telescopes and microscopes, discovered stars and advanced our understanding of planetary orbit. He taught himself illustration for … Read More »
We all know Stalin’s Soveit Union was unrelievedly grim and sexually repressed, right? So what would you expect when Sergey Merkurov, People’s Artist of the USSR and creator of the three biggest statues ever of Uncle Joe, was asked in … Read More »
[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end] Saturday, Feb 7. The third unsourced statistic on this FB post is almost certainly false: [/ezcol_1half_end] Two days later an American friend, Daniel, posted his disgust at a homophobic quote allegedly by Ted Cruz. But others say it … Read More »
[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]A friend asked: were my images of Burbage Photoshopped? Absolutely. I edit all photos in Lightroom and/or Photoshop. In my days of teaching photography at the University of Sheffield, when students boasted that they never edited images after exposure … Read More »
[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]Thanks to Steve who posted this on FB. (More of John Macpherson’s Close to Home ‘toons here.) A man once played Blowin’ in the Wind as he drove his 5 year old to school. When it ended the boy … Read More »
[ezcol_1third][/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end]Thursday. I walk near Redmires with Sue. Here’s the conduit curving over the moors to the reservoir. Should’ve changed lens. Cutting ‘elbows’ is naff. A lazy snapper’s a bad snapper. We spoke of films, including Spotlight, due out next … Read More »
After my post on the MMR vaccine I had this reply from the originator of the thread: You are an academic Phil, to be blunt you have been brainwashed. I was fortunate enough to escape that. Do you see the … Read More »
[ezcol_1third]I stumbled on an anti-MMR discussion on FB last night. Couldn’t resist sticking my oar in of course. Human beings have wonderful brains but, untrained, we are hopeless at stats and not much better at any kind of rigorous thinking. … Read More »
SSC followers will recall a recent post in which I referred to Mick’s alarm at discovering he agreed with something Hitchens had written in the Mail on Sunday. Sadly, his worries have deepened, as an email just yesterday shows: Re … Read More »
I don’t believe an intelligent force is guiding evolution. I do believe, pace Marx, that the ways humans organise themselves to produce and reproduce the material conditions of existence – rather than ideas of any kind, let alone metaphysical ones … Read More »