Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Sarah told me about an outfit called “US Uncut.” Sounds funny in a sexy way, right? It sounded funny to me too, but Sarah warned that it is “not nearly as much fun as the name makes it sound…” Wow, was Sarah ever right! If the people quoted here are any indication of the mentality…

Time for another update of the Fukushima Follies. Gov’t mulls raising consumption tax to 8% for reconstruction. But as is usual almost every where these days some are more equal than others. Japan studies easier capital rules for quake-hit banks and Japan mulls hiking power charges to help cover damages payments. The government is considering…

Today is one of those days when I just don’t feel like writing about anything, and when that happens, ordinary news and opinions fail to trigger my urge to blog. And even though I am always on the lookout for annoyances,they have to be especially annoying and touch on a pet peeve to interest me.…

Instapundit ran a blurb That reminded me of Offutt Air Base. RAND SIMBERG IS live-blogging a space-law conference. “I’m attending the fifth annual conference on space law hosted by the law school at the University of Nebraska, which has a program in space law, partially sponsored by USSTRATCOM (fifty miles up the road at Offut…

One of the signs of success is when you drive your enemies batshit crazy. And one of the signs that leftists are being driven crazy is when they let down their guard and reveal themselves to be the very sort of bigots that they condemn. In John Hawkins’ interview with Andrew Breitbart, I found a…

Does anyone still remember the Fourth Amendment? Here’s the outmoded, out-of-style text written by dead white men who owned slaves: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by…

Very nice map of the radiation plume from Japan. And you can pick your poison. I-131 or Cs-137. Plus you can make it go fast or slow and pick out individual frames. Frames 33 to 51 are quite interesting. “Loop” to get started. Tokyo will get smacked. As well as Osaka. Hot times. Note also…

Just saw the movie, loved it, exceeded my expectations. Theatre was about half-full on a Sunday afternoon, there was applause at the end. It looks like they’re still #3 in per-screen average. The production values weren’t 100% — you can tell this is a small-budget film. And if you haven’t read the book, it’s probably…

How about that hole? I think it is a case of more rubble, more trouble. Video #2 Video #3 OK. By now you have seen the nice hole – you did look didn’t you? So what about the 69 months? I’m afraid that is either a typo or a projection based on past performance. One…

While I don’t have much time for blogging today, as it’s tax time I wanted to make a brief observation about our president’s remark about the nature of government: Republicans plans to shrink the reach of government is “not a vision  that’s impelled by the numbers” but a “choice” to give a trillion  dollars in…

Well our friends the Japanese have screwed the pooch again. They forgot to turn on the water. “The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan emitted a new burst of radioactive material this week after a bungled cooling effort apparently affected spent atomic fuel in the site’s No. 4 reactor cooling pond, the Associated Press…

I was rereading my post Worms Autism and since I referenced one comment from here I thought I ought to read them all. Just in case I missed something interesting. And it looks like I did. Several somethings in fact. Let me start with a bit that interests me personally since I have a close…

What exactly do worms have to do with autism? Good question. As faithful readers know, in the first of my many previous lives I was occupied as a clinical psychologist (preparation for dealing with engineers [ain’t it the truth – and I’m an engineer – ed.] on a full time basis in my current life).…

If you will forgive the Socratic dialogue and the cheapshot classical allusion, I’ll give a hint. The answer is not Socrates! (You will just have to read on.) I live in a college town, and I have lived in one college town or another for most of my life. I don’t know how related it…

Reading that the woman who sent Rep. Peter King a pig’s foot (apparently as some sort of protest) was a Muslim fascinated me. So did an earlier incident in which she sent Georgia State Senator Greg Ball a “Curious George monkey with a label saying it was bound for Auschwitz” “I knew the Jews were…

“Perhaps we need to build nuclear power plants to keep the potheads happy.” Sounds like the sort of thing I might say if I wanted to give M. Simon a chuckle, but Clayton Cramer said it. Potheads (more accurately, marijuana growers) are apparently using more than their fair share of electricity to grow the stuff,…

Sounds pretty amazing to me. According to Carnot the efficiency of an ideal engine is 1 – Tc/Th. Where Tc is the exhaust temperature and Th is the burning temperature (this is somewhat simplified). The temperatures are absolute (i.e. Kelvin scale in the metric system). The Wave Engine according to some designs operates at a…

In the interests of preserving what is left of my mental health, I need to find some way to avoid the temptation to click on links to things that irritate me. Sure, it’s a minor irritation to see these Drudge headlines: UPDATE: PARENTS FURIOUS AFTER TSA FRISKS 6-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER… ‘Such pretty hair, you have’… VIDEO……

Commenter Jeremy at “Fukushima Update 14 April 2011” sent me via e-mail a link to the below map. And some supporting evidence. Links below for the source of the map and the supporting evidence. The source of the map. Why there is an exclusion zone around the other Fukushima plant. The situation now is such…