Texas A&M has suffered a great loss: the resignation of Dr. Martin Peterson. First Plato, now Dr. Peterson! Out the Door at TAMU....

TIL despite the opening sentence of “Reasons and Persons”, Derek Parfit did in fact *not* own a cat.

Gizmodo says 'poems' but I think it's lines. The press release says 'verses' because there aren't any spaces in ancient Greek, and the meter is how you figure out where the line breaks are

"Eating the retributive version of skittles" is a good line

Shows that there's even a lower bottom to the Crazification Factor than the 27% previously reported. I guess that's a bit of a plus. kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunc...

my new theory is that once you have a certain amount of money and wealth you start to go crazy and detach from reality. that number is different for everyone. for me it's $20

i'm sorry but the moon is a complete boondoggle that should never have been put up there in the first place. we still have to send repair missions up there a hundred-plus years later all because taft was trailing in the polls and decided to learn magick. i don't know why he thought it would help him

Practical reasoning

1. How many of your ship’s planks did you replace since your last insurance payment? 2. How many of your ship’s planks did you replace since you first took out your insurance policy? 3. Have all the planks of your ship been replaced? buff.ly/yZoe2Ke

Here is my best Habermas story. I am grad student waiting in LONG line for Habermas talk. There is a tall man waiting in front of me. Line moves so we are eventually visible to organizers, a woman looks over & makes horrified face. Runs out: "Prof Habermas! You don't have to wait in line!"

"All the kids in Springfield are S.O.B.s."

My paper, "Hume on the Prospects for a Scientific Psychology," was accepted by the Journal for the History of the Behavioral Sciences, which is nice. It's on section 1 of the first Enquiry, both as a manifesto for a future science and as a guide to the rest of the Enquiry philpapers.org/rec/JACHOT-4

3/3 Michelangelo's grocery list. Because even great artists have to eat! Especially on their birthday, and his is today.

Americans: we live in a fallen state—embroiled by sin, cheating, lying, and evil. You cannot trust anyone, not even those who claim to know you best Canadians: I love my neighbors and my friends!

please enjoy these classic Moon Tweets™

You might think that 'homo sapiens' means 'wise human being,' but, really, it's a human being with taste

A beer bottle at the bottom of the Mariana Trench preview.redd.it/a-beer-bottl...

Franz, Duke of Bavaria, your time has come

Scholarship

I sometimes worry our advertising material isn’t as welcoming as it might be

Friends fear he's had to look up something on this diagram again.

I was behind George C. Scott at the DMV

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

Two things can be true. That's the first one. You're gonna want to choose the second wisely. Actually, hold up. Now up to thr... aww dammit.

Lion Albrecht Dürer (Albertina, Vienna)

The authentic sounds of musical instruments used in ancient times 🎶 #saturdayvibe 📹 Bilimtüel

An example of how impacts of interventions can differ at individual and population levels, and are conditional on other events. Given a car hits you, the helmet helps. But mandating helmets could lower the # of bikes on the road & thus might increase the chance of getting hit in the first place.

Bayesians are like listen up FUCKERS, we SOLVED epistemology. And it turns out you can believe WHATEVER YOU WANT provided it’s not LITERALLY INCONSISTENT and you CHOSE THE RIGHT OPINIONS before LOOKING AT THE EVIDENCE AT ALL

people keep telling me that llm hallucinations are decreasing, but I'm slightly concerned about a few of the women philosophers represented here

The Utah Historical Society just produced a new, excellent map of "The Peoples of North America in 1776." Great resource for anyone teaching, writing, presenting about Native peoples as part of their 250th work. america250.utah.gov/power-of-pla...

I suppose it's tedious for me to argue about whether or not something is weird, but it's worth noting that Poincaré would've found it weird. Here's him talking about Hilbert's program, from 1913. Wonder what he would've thought of today's "logic piano" !

why’s it called ‘trepanation’ and not ‘skullduggery’ ha ha words, amirite

Five College Classes: Stuart England Uncertainty and heuristics Minds and machines Real analysis Ancient Philosophy

"In this essay I will" - spoilers - over-confident - rigid, boring "In this essay I *might*" - creates suspense - nonchalant - adventurous, fun

Join us at Purdue for the 2026 Midwest Junto (17-18 April) -- submit your abstracts by 15 Feb: midwestjunto.wordpress.com

Writing something about ML and the Infinite Monkey Theorem and found this which made me laugh.

ages ago, when i had an ongoing beef with a real unhinged neoconfederate, he went to the trouble of finding out where my family cemetery plot is. he drove there & desecrated their graves. he went to all that trouble but didn't bother to find out the bones in some of those old graves were on his side

The River Rouge, which sounds fancier than it is

“These findings provide clear evidence that data collected on MTurk simply cannot be trusted.”

There's a session on Locke and Tyranny this evening at 7 at the Eastern APA. Holly Brewer will speak on Locke’s experience with tyranny and his reaction to it, Dan Layman on how a American revolutionary used Locke's analysis of tyranny, and Viacheslav Zahorodniuk on the Soviet reception of Locke

i hope this email finds whewell

Poor handwriting as a mark of status

Jupiter and the Moon just now. [Astronomer for scale]

If grok started spamming twitter with demands that Musk be arrested for producing child porn, that would be something interesting

Actions speak louder than words, especially if the action is playing the tuba.

Merry Christmas to all who are looking forward to sitting down with new books (and to everyone else too)!

Frohe Weihnachten to all the deadpan absurdists out there.

michael stipe: stand in the place where you live santa: ok michael stipe: now face north santa: fuck you