Was at an event only advertised on Twitter (how 21C is that?) I met some interesting people. One of them was the chief twitterer himself, Mark Carrigan (see post "coping with acceleration.") In a discussion about the ‘need’ for branding and the intensification of academic (if not intellectual) life, Carrigan approvingly cited the work of Will Davies,... Continue Reading →
"Some of you may have had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way, and here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the great Russian mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky a blog post! You have to stretch yourself, swim out of your depth on occasion. The seminar I... Continue Reading →
What does the ‘waste’ go when you flush? The citizens of Baltimore found out the ‘hard way’ in 1989, and again in 2014. Johns Hopkins Assistant Professor Graham Mooney (separated at birth from his identical twin) gave a thoroughly enjoyable seminar about something we don’t like to think about – “biosolids” (or, to you and... Continue Reading →
I don't know about you, but I make lists of things I don't know (from reading the FT or whatever) and when I have enough, I go on a google binge. Here is the latest... Adam Mickiewicz 1820 Ode to Youth Martin Amis' notion of “species shame” 1975 article by Steven Kerr folly of rewarding... Continue Reading →
I don't know. And I don't really address that in this blog post. Apologies if you feel click-baited or rick-rolled. I went to a seminar on Wednesday about “Social Innovation Futures: beyond policy panacea and conceptual ambiguity” It was good – clear presentation of relevant work, good questions (except perhaps the first one, which was... Continue Reading →
So there is a new National Academy of Sciences report on the idea of 'geo-engineering.' That's a soothing sounding term for "doing technical stuff at a global scale to escape/lessen the consequences of having ignored the climate scientists' generation of warnings to cut back on the carbs". For instance there's - mirrors in space to reduce... Continue Reading →
The inkosphere is "that place where people dive into words, concepts, theories and splash about, the size and sound of the splashes becoming the measure of all things." It kinda overlaps with the smugosphere - I'll do a Venn diagram some day. The smugosphere? - "is not a place you’ll find on a map. It’s... Continue Reading →
Fresh from a session on “Social innovation” (with a useful PhD writing interlude) I went to “What is… Policy Document Analysis?” These “what is…” events are put on by the methods@manchester folks.Sometimes ‘sage on the stage followed by q and a’ is okay. This was one of those occasions. Imma bullet point it, (#wearealldeadalongtime) Documents... Continue Reading →
Just the words, ma'am? Then skip the first two paragraphs. I have a glancing familiarity with some languages (French, Danish, Portuguese; minimal smatterings of others). One of the delights is learning words that have no direct translation (and then dropping them casually into conversations, in a puerile attempt at intellectual chest-beating. But I haven't done... Continue Reading →
Was on the stepper on Thursday, reading about the global coal trade (Thank you IEA Coal Information 2014 and World Energy Council survey.) And yesterday, reading about the Australian Coal Export industry (more on that soon). Today was broader, and perhaps more fun (!?) I started with a speech by the soon-to-be-former Prime Minister Tony... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 