Really curious to hear how people on US university hiring commitees are planning to respond to the 100 000 dollar H1-B bribe rule. There isn't a junior academic in the world with that kind of cash to throw around, and I don't imagine many departments would enjoy it either.

You know, the narrator in 'I've been everywhere' never actually specifies whether he's seen a road with as much dust and sand as the Winnemucca road he's currently on. He names many other roads he's been to, but doesn't make any ruling on their comparative dustiness or sandiness.

Last night, the frat house on my street threw a very loud party (as is their right). But the weird thing was, the music they played at this very loud party in 2025 was at least 80% the exact same music I heard at frat parties in 2012. That's weird, right? Hypotheses?

There's a store in this airport in which you can buy vinyl records. That famously travel-friendly, small, durable, and easy-to-use music delivery method, vinyl records

"But what about the implications? How will this all conclude?" I cry, as I am escorted away from the premises

"There's no platonic explanation for this", I say, looking at one of the dialogues that ends in ἀπορία

In the final judgement, I supplicate before God: "Tell me, please, before I learn my fate - what is the rulebook of the universe? Is it GURPS? Rolemaster?" God turns his ineffable face to me and says "I've been pretty into Thirsty Sword Lesbians lately"

I find myself with one of those rare and beautiful things tomorrow: a day on which I have zero things to do. I'm near Stockholm. Any suggestions?

Being a normal-type gym leader call that neutral monism

I now think that all philosophy talks should be accompanied by a brass band. If you can still be taken seriously in the presence of goofy Sousaphone, you're doing the real philosophy

Nothing sums up Austrian philosophy like having your Wittgenstein conference crashed by a brass band celebrating the feast of the assumption

I'm thinking about starting a project where I publish one short essay every week, starting in September. For those who do similar things, what are the advantages of the platform that you use?

Slightly diminish a band: Maybe

My rap style involves the use of syllables from my very own private language, so it's no surprise you can't understand it. I call it 'beetleboxing'

Bluesky needs to implement polls so we can start doing Ordinary Language Philosophy on here again. Can any currency be 'bucks', or is it just USD?

When I taught at Pitt I often taught in the Italian Room (one of Pitt's weird novelty nation-themed classrooms, like academic Epcot) and the classroom featured a bust of Dante looming over the board at the students. I called him 'Dante Allegheny'. Students didn't think it was funny. I did.

On the one hand, it's clearly good for Tom Lehrer that he got to die peacefully of extremely old age after living his life exactly the way he wanted. May we all be so lucky. But it's almost too bad he didn't die in a nuclear explosion. I think he would have found more fun in it than most.

On an unrelated note I have this really good idea for a podcast

See, I'm at a different, cooler conference called ISHPSSBFOMO

Daily Affirmations: - You are very wise - You speak truly - It must be as you say - That is surely correct, Socrates

I could make some sort of argument about how PhilSci journals enforce the notoriously bad historical practices of the discipline with hard journal submission word limits, but I'm busy trying to somehow remove a quarter of this paper without libeling the dead by omission

What if we dared to dream of a kinder world. What if we changed our clocks to Greenwich Nice Time.

And to think. People still say that the dialogue form isn't relevant anymore.

Why be such a SIMP when you could be a SAGR, or even a SALV?

I think we should put a complete moratorium on superhero movies just so I don't ever have to see people debating the the personality of the 'real' Superman ever again.

I support the Orca in its campaign to do that which the team that bears its emblem does best: make it all the way to the final round and then completely croak under pressure

Man, I hate virtue signalling. Even people driving cars feel the need to put on a special little light to tell you if they're left or right

I'm currently accepting job offers, by the way.

Who up stroking they sword while lamenting social realities

Anyone have recommendations for good new nuclear armageddon party music? I'm obviously familiar with the classics of the genre from the 80s, but I've been wondering if there have been any great new offerings recently for no reason

Discovered that Word had turned back on some of the autocorrect settings I had turned off, so now guess who has to trudge through a whole paper looking for all the places Word decided that no, Galileo's magnum opus is actually called 'Dialogues concerning the Two New Science'

I wonder if the reason every tech exec seems to think we all want to control everything in our house with our voice is that it's what you see on sci fi tv Because, if so, do they realize that the reason everyone uses voice commands on tv is because it makes for better tv than watching someone type?

It's weird how Europe is in general quite good at providing stuff for vegans and vegetarians (and that labeling is pretty solid as well) but I still cannot persuade anyone to give me (not vegan but lactose-intolerant) coffee without milk in it.

I guess it's not really on the founders that they didn't anticipate two of the pillars just giving up

The people of Vancouver have not done enough with the fact that 'Dude Chilling Park' scans to 'Pink Pony Club'

The philosopher contemplates only the deepest of questions, such as 'should the subtitle of this talk be a dumb Star Trek joke or a dumb 80s music joke'

"Dear students: we are sorry to announce that, due to funding restructuring at the university, the department of Arts and Humanities will not be able to offer our planned course on 'The Art of War'. Perhaps consider enrolling instead in 'The Business of War'"

Dropped a jar of sauce on the floor of the Spar and had to try to explain the situation to the store worker in my shit german. Fumbled around with words until I found one that seemed ok. The store worker gave me an odd look As I left, I realized that I had described a broken jar as 'very cancelled'

We had hoped to have this event with Helen present, but we intend to go ahead with it despite yesterday's news. The event is a celebration of Helen's work, not a memorial. No one is dead while their name is still spoken. So let's speak it.

A sad day for all of us who call Helen a friend.

One thing you, an academic, can do to help those affected by the cuts to US higher education is proactively decide to be way less interested in letterhead or CV gaps.

There's an archetype of the Movie Science Guy - the MSG is emotionally reserved, speaks in probabilistic terms (often completely implausibly - how are you modeling that, Spock), and is typically some type of consequentialist. My question: who is the first MSG, and why is he a consequentialist

Hi everyone: next tuesday I will be participating in an informal celebratory discussion of the philosophical art of Helen De Cruz. The meeting will be online and open to all, and we hope you will join us! Here's a link for more information: www.georgigardiner.com/helen

Maybe the move for us displaced historians of science is to try to get jobs in the med schools. I can teach the miasmatic theory. You want humours with that?

Croatia's bizarre fascination with song covers claws one back with today's early morning taxi ride to the Dubrovnik airport featuring a truly bizarre chillhop take on 'San Francisco', which, despite all odds, made for a pretty good vibe

My travel this summer would be way more impressive if it wasn't all in the service of sitting in rooms talking about what words mean.

One of those fun little thought exercises I like to do is 'if a nuclear war started right now, how would I come to know about it?'

I have only now seen the cover for Mark Wilson’s Imitation of Rigor and…what?