Blogcoven

• Forks
• Kodak’s Problem Child
• The NSA
• Should you take your vitamins?
• First Taste
• The Secret Life of Cats

Read the rest of this entry »

• REBIRTH of GAEA
• Euro-speak
• How the Romans Swore
• Banishment Rooms
• I’ll take Manhattan
• Philosophy in Schools
• Flying in Somalia
• Sailing Hydrofoils
• Dialect Maps

Read the rest of this entry »

Breadmaking

I enjoy cooking very much. I really want to try baking bread, it seems almost magical. This video is one of a few excellent ones by the same baker. In this one, he makes a no-knead bread that makes my mouth water.

Søren Kierkegaard

I’ve long searched for some chewable access to Western Philosophers. I think I’ve found a part of the puzzle in Nigel Warburton’s Philosophy: The Classics. In a strange coincidence, the subject of the Aeon magazine essay this week was Søren Kierkegaard, so I was intrigued by both sources on the man. He seems like a fascinating fellow, and the either/or conundrum feels like something I have experienced recently, in moving from a life of indulgence in food and drink to one of calories counted and meals earned.

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/julian-baggini-i-love-kierkegaard/

Even his name emanates romantic darkness. ‘Søren’ is the Danish version of the Latin severus, meaning ‘severe’, ‘serious’ or ‘strict’, while ‘Kierkegaard’ means churchyard, with its traditional associations of the graveyard.

Mad Irishmen

Irish people seem to have a tendency toward mad adventure, and not just for nationalist or criminal causes. For religious, ,military, social, or even just for the hell of it, it seems that our forefathers have gone out into the world and made it a far more chaotic place. I don’t know why the rest of the world puts up with our regular out-pouring of so many apparent lunatics, but I hope it helps to bring balance to the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Dhammaloka

U Dhammaloka (c. 1856 – c. 1914) was an Irish-born hobo (migrant worker) turned Buddhist monk, atheist critic of Christian missionaries, and temperance campaigner who took an active role in the Asian Buddhist revival around the turn of the twentieth century.

Titled Property

This is interesting, and probably quite timely for Ireland. Our property tax registration deadline passed this week, and there is a big question about who will ‘get away’ and for how long. There’s a deep contemplation of the psychological effects of the Irish tendency to want to own land, and the historical overtones.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/05/titling-of-property.html

… less than 7 percent of the country has been properly mapped, officials say. Experts say that even the Balkan states, recovering from years of Communism and civil war, are far ahead of Greece when it comes to land registries attached to zoning maps — an approach developed by the Romans and in wide use in much of the developed world since the 1800s.

Bad at Estimating

This is something I struggle with a lot. I have noticed that I tend to underestimate what I have eaten if I do not pay careful attention. Other people I know over-estimate, they tend to be thinner. Because of this, I tend to stick to things I know the caloric value of, for the most part. It’s also a handy bulwark: I don’t go to the chipper, and in part I make the excuse that I don’t know how to work out how much I have eaten. I’ve been thinking about how framing affects perception of food. If you are, like me, trying to be careful about what you eat, there are a lot of traps out there. Also, the last line of the article is interesting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/study-subway-sandwiches-are-worse-than-we-think/276244/

RESULTS: The average meal was 836 calories for adults, 756 for adolescents, and 733 for kids. Two-thirds of people underestimated that. One quarter underestimated it by at least 500 calories.

Cup of Joe

I’m always interested to hear the history of curious idioms

http://qz.com/88453/why-coffee-is-called-joe/

Joe is, of course, short for Joseph. And in American English, “joe” can refer to an average guy, a soldier, or—somewhat strangely—coffee.

Earthquakes

I am often thankful that I live in a country almost totally barren of climactic or ecological dangers. There are no snakes, no (significant) poisonous plants, no scorpions, camel spiders, jellyfish, or worse nightmares. Admittedly, even in dangerous places, the headline-grabbing creatures often do less harm than more mundane events. Geologically, we’re also pretty secure, no volcanoes and no earthquakes, or maybe I spoke too soon…

http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/recent_events/20130529031610.html#page=summary

Lessons for the UK
How would central London cope with a large earthquake during rush hour?
One might think that this is not an issue in countries like the UK, but although the scale of the problem is far smaller, similar issues arise. Most people have no idea of the earthquake history of their country, and have no knowledge of past earthquakes beyond the scope of living memory. And the same issue of increased exposure to earthquakes applies just as much to Britain as to the rest of the world.
One of the strongest earthquakes to have affected Britain occurred on 6 April 1580; the magnitude, estimated from the size of the area shaken, was about 5.5, and the epicentre was in the Dover Straits. Although it was some distance away, London was quite strongly affected, probably because the soft Thames clays are more susceptible to being shaken. Nor was this an isolated event; a very similar earthquake occurred in 1382, which also caused damage in London.
What has happened twice can happen a third time; what will be the effects on the London of today? In 1580, two people in London were killed. Modern London has about 40 times as many people living in it and while a comparable earthquake would certainly not cause a disaster on an international scale, the level of shaking would come as an unpleasant shock in a country that tends to think of itself as immune from earthquakes.

Nuclear War: Closer than we thought?

We can be very thankful that imminent nuclear war between the US and the Former USSR no longer seems to be an issue. The sheer number of close-calls and near-misses is terrifying. It’s also crazy to think that it might have been on the whim of men like these to decide our global fate.

http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/the-ussr-and-us-came-closer-to-nuclear-war-than-we-thought/276290/

I have begun posting longer articles on medium. The first one went up a little while ago. I don’t know yet what I should do with regards to what I post where, but for the moment, personal stuff goes here, longer/semi-professional stuff goes on medium, and technical stuff will go on my own blog. Mostly, I’ll probably just be tweeting.

• Containerisation
• Clans and Culture
• Story vs. Statistics
• Dublin in 50s
• Why (otherwise) Rational People Believe Conspiracies

Read the rest of this entry »

• Bureaucratics: A Global Portrait of Red Tape
• What panhandlers do with money
• Bloomberg Hacking
• Engineered Meat

Read the rest of this entry »