Today I Learned

Charlie Chaplin, in The Great Dictator, 1940, via Wikimedia Commons Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about fascism. While I already had a fair degree of familiarity and understanding of the big picture, I’ve been picking up (and often blogging about) items which are new to me. Predictably, most are disturbing, but I occasionally come across something wonderful. Charlie Chaplin  was an immensely influential figure in the history of cinema, and his “Tramp” character has been an

The School of Athens. Print by Giorgio Ghisi, of painting by Raphael, via Wikimedia Commons What most people call “debate” really is not. I found the Wikipedia article quite amusing. My favourite bit was where it says: “...debates emphasize logical consistency, factual accuracy, and emotional appeal to an audience.” I guess one out of three isn’t bad? Even so-called “formal” debate, where there are rules, judges, and guidelines for acceptable conduct, are more about competit

42 and Douglas Adams – Numberphile, via YouTube I suppose it’s not surprising that I’ve mentioned The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy...

Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody, Mist (2007) Sometimes, it’s hard to see what is true, when everything is shrouded in fog. Fog? You...

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, via Wikimedia Commons Am I being too harsh in what I say about Robert F Kennedy Jr ? I’ve mentioned him several...

Louis Raemaekers – To your health, civilization, 1916 The subversion of expectations is an interesting tool, used by artists of all...

Jason Zhang, CC BY-SA 4.0 < https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 >, via Wikimedia Commons Many years ago, I was sitting in an...

Karunakar Rayker, CC BY 2.0 < https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 >, via Wikimedia Commons Seashells  are really quite amazing,...

Hitler’s “Memorandum Authorizing Involuntary Euthanasia”, 1-Sep-1939, via Wikipedia World War II is generally considered to have begun...

Joni Mitchell, 1983, via Wikipedia I’ve been hearing the song Both Sides Now  since earliest childhood, but I had no idea just how many...

Skeptical Science, John Cook, via Wikimedia Commons Words are fun! Today, let’s ask whether the words “equivalence” and “equivalency” are...

Thomas Bayes (maybe), via Wikipedia The portrait above might be that of Thomas Bayes ... but probably not. Perfect! I wanted to talk...

One of my all-time favourite songs is Welcome to the Machine , by Pink Floyd. While the song appeared on the 1975 album Wish You Were...