One side effect of the pandemic is that I’m out and about less, so I hear less programmed Christmas music. Here’s a flashback to pre-pandemic times, when I did a series of posts about my favorite holiday songs. I’m not sure the list would be any different this year.
I recently signed up for the free trial of Apple Music. It’s like the old days in some ways. Less so in others.
Current music: Little Simz, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Current mood: nostalgic
Continue reading “🍏🎵”In a remembrance of his friend Rob Aldridge, Rick Beato recounts being in a band with him. They were playing Christmas songs in a bar. The proprietor interrupted their set and said that he thought they were going to play covers.
Aldridge replied, “What are you talking about? We didn’t write these songs!”
Unamused, the proprietor paid them for the gig on the condition that they stop playing immediately.
“I say, Holmes, how did you know that the crucial evidence would be in the galley of the yacht?”
“It was an elementary inference, Watson. As you were so quick to point out, the locked room showed that the murderer could not possibly have committed the crime and escaped. Yet the body of the victim and the absence of murderer showed that they had done so. I was puzzled until I remembered that everything follows from a contradiction, and this allowed me to conclude that the crucial evidence would be wherever I looked.”
“I see,” I said, although I really did not see. “But why the galley of the yacht?”
Holmes looked at me as if I were missing the obvious. “Because I was hungry. If I could find the evidence anywhere, then I might as well find it somewhere I could also make a sandwich.”
“Right then! But what about relevance constraints on logical consequence?”
“Watson, you disappoint me. If there were relevance constraints on consequence, then I could not have solved the crime. I did, so there are not.”
Then I realized that I, too, could derive anything from the contradiction Holmes had exploited. So Holmes conceded that I was clever, poured me a cup of tea, and left me alone for the rest of the afternoon.
My open access logic textbook, forall x, has been forked into numerous custom editions. This means that problem sets which I wrote years ago have been picked up and adapted.
The formal exercises are not especially distinctive, but the exercises translating from English into formal logic are about specific topics. Some of these were arbitrary inventions, like the sentences about Eli and Francesca who might or might not be bringing guacamole to a potluck. Guacamole was salient to me when I was writing the book, but I think I chose Eli and Francesca just because they started with E and F.
Continue reading “Let slip the dogs of logic”This is evidence for the hypothesis that I am not a cartoonist, a conclusion which would be a great disappointment to my third-grade self.1
Continue reading “On aliens, inductive risk, and disappointing my earlier self”I’ve been reading web comics for almost 25 years. For most of that time, one of my daily reads has been Howard Tayler’s Schlock Mercenary. Many years ago, when everybody’s homepage had a page of links, I described it this way: “Schlock Mercenary is a space opera named for an amorphous blob who wanders the galaxy and shoots things. Jocularity abounds. It seems reminiscent of the Star Frontiers games I used to play, so it merits a nostalgia bonus.”
Tayler is an anomaly in several ways. He updated on a regular schedule for more than two decades, whereas most independent creators miss updates or go on hiatus at least sometimes. And he actually finished his grand narrative, rather than leaving it unfinished. Recently, the story came to a close with the eponymous hero’s dark matter apotheosis.1
The title of this post also points to the fact that webcomics really aren’t a thing anymore. I’ve had a half-written post about this in my drafts for over a year.
Continue reading “On the end of webcomics”When I write a comment on Facebook or Twitter, I often start with one thing in mind but end up coming up with a different take half-way through. Either one would be nice and punchy, but I like them both. So I mash them up in a way that doesn’t effectively make either point.
Continue reading “Bifurcated musing”Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual sponsored content links!
DEADLIEST SPECIES YOU NEVER WANT TO MEET
9 WAYS YOUR DOG WILL LOVE VISITING NEW YORK CITY WITH YOU
I read an interview recently with a Buddhist priest who was (in 2007) living in New York City. I was taken with this bit:
I think the best appeal of New York is that you can experience many kinds of cultures and meet with many kinds of people from all over the world.
I’m totally Japanese and came from Japan so I stick to being a “100% pure Japanese” here in New York. I believe that is a real New Yorker. New Yorker and “Wannabe American” are totally different. I want to be a New Yorker.
I haven’t lived in NYC, but this general idea appeals to me deeply— not just as a conception of New York, but as a conception of America. Any national pride I feel is for that America, the country that allows people from all over to meet, to contribute, to make something new and wonderful without demanding that they check their differences on the way in.
