Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

A photo I took yesterday. And an image I created the day before.  

A friend of mine was touting the marvels of solar energy in Hawaii. So I wrote him something to try to get him back to reality. Hawaii has always had very high energy costs. They can afford the high cost of “Green”. That is mitigated to some extent by the tropical climate moderated by oceans.…

Reading about the humongous asteroid that had a near miss. Or at least, the astronomers lost it: Last night, a giant asteroid was supposed to streak by the Earth, close enough for us to catch a glimpse as it zipped by. Except it never showed, and now astronomers say they have no idea just where…

“They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” If the above quote from Mark 16:18 is LITERALLY true, then I guess it means that Pastor Coots was not one of “them” (meaning, apparently, he was not enough of a believer). From the New York Daily News:…

Typical. Environmentalists have hit out at a giant new solar farm in the Mojave Desert as mounting evidence reveals birds flying through the extremely hot ‘thermal flux’ surrounding the towers are being scorched. After years of regulatory tangles around the impact on desert wildlife, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened on Thursday but environmental…

Every feminist academician should be made to watch this video. A politically savvy female Egyptian lawyer is calmly advocating sexual harassment of Jewish women by Arab men as a tactic. (I would call her hateful, except I know that oppressed people are simply incapable of hate.) The more I think about it, the less this…

“The practical form of a capitalist is a capitalist. The practical form of an anarchist is a terrorist. The practical form of a socialist is a thief.” – Aaron Haspel. Stolen from a Facebook friend of a friend.

It may be February, but here’s a classic rare doowop from Little June and the Januaries, titled “Oh What A Feeling.” This is a good one. I’m amazed to find it on YouTube. They knew how to get the endorphins flowing in those days… (The comments are good too.)

Via Reason, I found a fascinating slice of what passes for life in the modern Kafkaesque world — from the point of view of a naive leftist who got thrown into the slammer by San Francisco’s finest for being a good Samaritan. The title is “Good Samaritan Backfire or How I Ended Up in Solitary After…

A teenager’s life has been ruined by a sarcastic but tasteless remark on Facebook meant in humor: Approximately one hour after Justin Carter posted a sarcastic comment on a Facebook thread, his life began to ­unravel. The first reaction occurred behind the scenes, in another country. The 18-year-old Carter had no way of knowing that,…

Guy with flower pot on head robs gas station with chainsaw No, seriously. They even have a picture: The story doesn’t say whether the chainsaw was actually running, and I don’t see evidence of exhaust in the picture. But the chainsaw was not the only thing he brandished: Police allege the man then used the…

And I believe it involves taking it. The savings of the European Union’s 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says. The EU is looking for ways to wean the 28-country bloc from…

And what is surprising is that it continues to decline after mass shootings. My theory is that people are getting that gun free zones give shooters free reign.

Earlier I was treated to the Orlando Consort (a vocal early music group) at a local church here in Ann Arbor. They are from England and barely made it (minus their luggage) to the concert because of weather related traffic delay, but they were wonderful. Here’s a recording of them performing a favorite medieval composer…

From a person in a nursing home. ”Organized capitalism is an evil thing in itself,” he said in an interview in a shady courtyard of the Spanish-style residence home. ”It’s profits versus people.” I’d like to see a country where everyone operated at a loss. A people’s country.

Penn and Teller on circumcision (embedding disabled because you have to go to YouTube and declare you are 21): I have been unable to get through it, which is odd, because this is one of those topics I don’t have strong feelings about either way. And even if you can’t stand to watch it, by…

Transmission And Distribution World Magazine tells us: Three more leaders in demand response and smart grid have joined the Association for Demand Response & Smart Grid (ADS), the national DR and smart grid organization. They come aboard as ADS prepares for the upcoming National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid (http://www.demandresponsetownmeeting.com). The new…

These little prehistoric plastic beasties seem all upset about the plastic parts I’ve been printing. (I not only don’t blame them, I downright identify with them!) With any luck (and assuming I can manage to set up the software and get it to work), those parts will soon be at the heart of a metal…

Government derives a lot of its power from secrecy. Open the secrets and government loses power. But it is worse than you thought given this comment from Reason. Interestingly enough, when you look at WikiLeaks, that’s the whole point behind it. Assange wasn’t trying to get all this information out there — he was trying…

When you say “there ought to be a law” do you realize what you are saying is that “there ought to be violence”? Just how many laws do you want?