I encountered this amazing place …: … on account of it being advertised at, of all bizarre places, This Is Why I’m Broke. Not the whole thing to buy, you understand, just a stay there for the night. It’s a late nineteenth century concoction. Fake Ancientism, in other words, at its considerable and Scottish Baronial … Continue reading A Fake Ancient bridge with buildings on it in Scotland
Ronald Forbes, for The Conservative Woman: WHY is it that almost every conservative defence of Donald Trump begins by disowning him personally like a distasteful object held at arm’s length? Sure, they say, Trump gave the economy and the job market an electro-shock that Obama said wasn’t possible and didn’t even try, but … Sure, … Continue reading Trump did this good thing, but …
Here. I don’t agree that Trump is defeating The Virus, as he claims. I think it is fizzling out of its own accord. I therefore think that he overdoes the criticism of China, on this particular score. But otherwise, amazing. I was particularly interested in the bit near the end, where he said: As President … Continue reading Another remarkable Trump speech
Today I photoed this guy and his bike, with his permission: But not his face, although he didn’t seem to mind about that. I went to the Pedal Me website, but am still none the wiser about the exact relationship between pedal power and e-power that is going on here. What I think is happening … Continue reading A bike and a back ache
Tomorrow, Patrick Crozier and I will, all being well, recording a conversation about the Industrial Revolution, aka The Kink. Too busy re-remembering what they said to be able to write about that now.
I get emails from Google telling me what the internet has been saying about robot cars, and the most recent such email concerned a Forbes piece, entitled Full Self-Driving Cars Are Still A Long Way Off – Here’s Why. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a robot car believer in the long … Continue reading Robot car thoughts
My go-to guy for creature postings, which I like to do on Friday, is Steve Stewart-Williams, and he has recently tweeted about plenty of impressive creaturely behaviour. There’s this shark, jumping out of the sea. There’s this butterfly pretending to be leaves. There are fishes doing social distancing. There are lions and hyenas having a … Continue reading The great upward kink in the graphs of human creature comforts
Paul Graham: There has been a lot of talk about privilege lately. Although the concept is overused, there is something to it, and in particular to the idea that privilege makes you blind — that you can’t see things that are visible to someone whose life is very different from yours. But one of the … Continue reading Thoughts provoked by a Paul Graham piece about privilege
All of these arrived today, from Chateau Samizdata, where nobody cons their way past the front door and nicks stuff: Looking forward to reading this one especially. It has been warmly received. The C.S. Forester one I never knew existed, until Tom Hanks made a movie based on it. I wonder how it’ll compare with … Continue reading Incoming from Amazon
Monday before last, on July 20th, Patrick Crozier and I were fixed to do another of our recorded conversations, about France’s military activities and ordeals during the two world wars, and especially the first. However, there was some kind of problem with the kit and we had to postpone. Which suited me because that was … Continue reading When podcasting clashes with the cricket