Author: geoff

Wind, rain, floods, trees

A huge storm has been pummelling New England for the last couple of days, and isn’t going to move out until later tonight. (There’s a low of around 995 hPa that’s been stuck just south of Nantucket, blocked by a Greenland high.) The folks at the National Weather Service office in Taunton, MA, say that it’s the most severe storm in late May since 1967. Just down the road there’s a huge tree (a London plane, Platanus x acerifolia) uprooted, leaning at 45 degrees and resting on the roof of a house. This means that my street is blocked off while things are cleared up. Elsewhere around the Boston area there are numerous reports of flooding, power outages, trees down, and other storm damage. In our neighbourhood, we’ve had about 3 inches of rain; last night we experienced sustained winds of over 35 MPH, with gusts around 50 MPH.

A good day to work at home, I think.

Liverpool! Liverpool!!

GO REDS!!!!Liverpool What a stunning performance by Liverpool tonight in the Champions League Final. 3-0 down to Milan at half-time, they looked crushed. Then in the second half they came back to make it 3-3 at full time. They survived several near misses during a goalless extra time, and won the penalty shoot-out 3-2 to win the title. Sheer determination. Congratulations!

(And now as the officials prepare for the medal ceremony, the Liverpool fans are singing “You’ll never walk alone”….)

Blogspam: good news and bad news

I just checked out the Activity Log for my blog. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the MT-Blacklist module that I installed back in February has been doing its job. The bad news is that in that time it has detected and blocked 5,109 trackbacks and 854 comments. (In the last 30 days alone, it’s nailed 1,012 and 60 respectively.) Just think about the bandwidth involved, and then remember all of the unprotected blogs out there….

A conservative admission over the filibuster issue

Professor Stephen Bainbridge (a law professor at UCLA) points out, correctly, that “The filibuster is a profoundly conservative tool. It slows change by allowing a resolute minority to delay – to stand athwart history shouting stop. It ensures that change is driven not ‘merely by temporary advantage or popularity’ but by a substantial majority.” That, certainly, is conservatism as I understood it – the conservatism of Burke (who would probably have felt that today’s neoconservatives have more in common with Jacobins than with true conservatism).

But Bainbridge’s key point is this: “BTW, any honest conservative must admit that the only reason we’re having this debate over filibusters is because of Orin Hatch’s changes to the Judiciary Committee rules and procedures on matters like blue slips, hearings, and so on, which deprived the Democrats of the tactics that the GOP used to bottle up a lot of Clinton nominees in committee.”

Of coure this merely provokes the hard right into accusing him of being a traitor and allying himself with “Demo-Rats”. Yet another example of what Andrew Sullivan has described as the tension between “Conservatives of doubt” and “Conservatives of faith”.

(Via Sully – to whom I offer best wishes – see Me and my virus.)

How do you find interesting new single malt Scotches?

Over the years I have gradually expanded my horizons where single malts are concerned. I started with Macallan, went down-market with Bowmore Islay (excellent value), then ventured into the salty mysteries of Laphroaig and Talisker. Glorious! And I’ve tried various others, never straying far from familiar territory. A few were disappointing, but none were undrinkable.
Last week I was in my local liquor store picking up gin and tonic, and I decided on a whim to get a bottle of Springbank, a 10-year old Campbeltown. I naively expected that a Cambeltown might be comparable to an Islay: peat, brine, a hint of iodine. After all the two are practically neighbours.
It was AWFUL: a cloying, honey-like sweetness that just wouldn’t let go. I tried with and without water: it was no good. So yesterday I picked up some Laphroaig and started looking for recipes using whisky. Any suggestions? And how do I avoid this embarassing mistake in the future?

Whither Pat?

One of my favorite ex-Sun execs seems to have been ousted by her new employer, Salesforce.com. The Register reports Prez Sueltz leaves Salesforce.com: “One source said Sueltz was ‘devastated’ over the parting of the ways with Salesforce.com. Sueltz joined the firm believing she would be groomed for the CEO position. Sueltz did not return our call seeking comment.”

Although I didn’t work directly for Pat in Sun Software or Service, our paths crossed frequently; several of the Town Hall meetings that she held here in Burlington turned into Geoff’n’Pat shows. During the stressful uncertainty that accompanied the big layoffs at Sun in the years after 9/11, I always felt that Pat understood the human side of things better than any of her colleagues.

When Pat first joined Sun, I was a little surprised (and a bit concerned) to see that she was was less confrontational and assertive than some of her peers (and certainly less than her predecessors – anyone remember JanPieter?!) Gradually I came to appreciate how effective she was in working behind the scenes, achieving her goals by patient persuasion, loyalty, and coalition-building. In talking with her it was clear that, despite her relatively low-key style, she cared passionately about what she was doing. I hope this latest event is only a temporary setback.

UPDATE: Looks like I was slow on the uptake – this story hit two weeks ago. I guess El Reg only just picked it up.

Book recommendation: "Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness" by John Perry

During my recent Philosophy of Mind course I acquired a number of fascinating books in the field. In a couple of cases I read the book immediately from cover to cover; for most, I merely dipped into the book when I bought it, promising myself that I’d return to read it properly when time permitted. Well, time now permits, and I’ve had a wonderful time over the last week reading John Perry’s Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness.
Obviously the most important thing about the book is the argument: a careful and detailed account of a stance, which Perry dubs antecedent physicalism, that addresses the recent neo-dualist arguments such as Chalmers’ zombies, Kripke’s modal C-fibers, and Jackson’s Mary. Now these are targets that many philosophers have been taking aim at over recent years; what makes this book so delightful is the elegance and economy with which Perry mounts his particular attack. I found his treatment of knowledge as including both subject matter content and reflexive content more satisfactory than, for example, the idea of distinguishing between “know that” and “know how”. The way that he adapted the “centered worlds” argument (which I think originated with Chalmers) has caused me to re-evaluate my attitude towards issues of possibility and conceivability: I think that centering worlds (by agent and time… but what else?) makes some kinds of modal argument much more plausible. (But conceivability still feels like a very slippery notion.)
The thing that really sets this book apart, however, is the quality of the writing: simple, clear, and direct. Perry avoids both over-cautious pedantry and hyperbole. So far I have encountered relatively few philosophers that can achieve this clarity: Christopher Hill and Fred Dretske come to mind.
Highly recommended.

Monaco Grand Prix

Just finished watching the Monaco Grand Prix. Traditionally, this is a race where it’s almost impossible to overtake, because the streets are so narrow. Not this year – just ask Villeneuve, Alonso, Heidfeld, Webber, Schumacher…. Congratulations Raikkonen and McLaren (sponsored by Sun).
BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Live: Monaco Grand Prix
Lap 78: Raikkonen crosses the start-finish line for his last lap. And sure enough he cruises to a lights-to-flag victory.
Heidfeld snatches second, with Webber third – his first podium place.
One place back, Montoya tries to force his way past Alonso but he fails to make it count in the dying few hundred metres of the race. A thrilling finish to the Monaco Grand Prix.