Comments on: Best of 2007 – a personal choice

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:37:59 +0000

The philosophical paper that strikes me right away is Tim Williamson’s “How Probable is an Infinite Series of Heads?” or whatever it’s called, though I’m sure plenty of other philosophers have absolutely no interest in this. But still, it’s an argument against the use of infinitesimals in probability (one of David Lewis’ pet ideas that he never really fully worked out) that anyone should have been able to come up with nearly 40 years ago, as soon as infinitesimals were around. And yet it took until now, and Williamson.

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:31:07 +0000

Film of the year: 4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days, by Cristian Mungiu. Someone here at CT should have blogged about it.

By: roger

roger — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:19:59 +0000

Chris, man, the Decentpedia is the bomb. Thanks for that link!

By: JP Stormcrow

JP Stormcrow — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:13:49 +0000

Time-sink of the year: Facebook .

Hah! That comes as no surprise you Internet-mongering lackey of the corrupt British Empire. Facebook and MySpace and online games appear to be the latest (or perhaps Scott can tell us if there is precedent) target of the LaRouchians – and you’ll be shocked to know that the Brits are behind it all. And it seems to have forced the Larouche Youth Movement (LYM) off of the high-road of bel canto singing:

A final presentation by the LYM’s Lewis Whilden, attacking the Facebook culture of today’s youth, concluded with the LYM, in four-part polyphony, singing the following lyrics, adapted to Felix Mendelssohn’s beautiful, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”:

“Murdoch wants you in your place/firmly planted in MySpace./While you’re walking to your class, out/ comes a bomb from Cheney’s ass./This you do not want to see,/ while the Dick gets whipped with glee, We/can’t afford to bomb Iran,/Bush’s Dick, he thinks he can./That’s if you stay in your place,/firmly planted in MySpace.

“When you’re fondling your mouse, the/bank forecloses on your house./From the crash you cannot flee, at/least you have your HALO 3./Homeless in the streets you roam, a/cardboard Xbox is your home./Santa gives the gaming toys,/to 20-year-old little boys./Games will keep you in your place,/nothing real in your space.”

There’s much, much more. There’s a summary of a pamphlet The Noösphere vs. The Blogosphere: Is the Devil in Your Laptop? at this link. If you want the detail, download the full pamphlet linked in the article (warning 22 MB pdf). Find out why Bertrand Russell looms in the background on the pamphlet cover. [Hint: What nationality is he?]

By: Eszter

Eszter — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 03:32:54 +0000

Yay for Project 365!

On a completely personal note, I finally took up regular exercise and am doing pretty well averaging 10K/day (about 5 miles). I’ve been meaning to blog about this.. in any case, this means that gadget of the year for me is the pedometer.

By: Sam C

Sam C — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:48:06 +0000

This has mostly been a year of old stuff for me. Old books (mostly by or about Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill); old music (mostly jazz piano trios); old poetry (Wordsworth for his relevance to Mill; Philip Larkin because I read some at a wedding); and I got entirely out of the habit of going to see films. But for whatever it’s worth, here’s some ‘best of 2007’ music:

Battles – Mirrored
The Dead C – Future Artists
Paul Motian (with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano) – Time and Time Again
Radiohead – In Rainbows (I paid nothing, but will eventually get round to making an Oxfam donation; what did you pay?)
Tarentel – Ghetto Beats on the Surface of the Sun
Black Dice – Load Blown

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:58:09 +0000

The Encyclopedia of Decency is very good, but this href=”http://decentpedia.blogspot.com/2007/08/change.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://decentpedia.blogspot.com/2007/08/change.html surely owes some writing credit to Michael B. …