Danielle and Jessica very kindly made offers in the comments of a place to stay, each with a cat (which sounds just the thing to relieve the...

Since Zola, however, mental environmentalism has been stuck in a philosophical morass. To claim that advertising is metaphorically mental ...

Newnewspeak

Beyond the warped ingenuity of these Heath Robinson schemes to force ‘free’ competition to happen in closely controlled circumstances, such...

Readers of PP will be aware that Lightning Rods is coming out in October.  It looks as though I will be in New York from September 8 to 11 -...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

(I was reminded of the fact that there are people who honestly believe that if a speaker of British English had a moment of extreme emotion...

Kornél Esti and Haydn had one thing in common: he did not rail against his fate, he had the requisite sense of self-respect, but wasn't...

useful & cool (dulce et utile)

I was playing around on Khan Academy (as one does).  As one does if one is unable to block out the world and write a book because unable to...

God is good

The years go by.  One goes on a daily basis to the supermarket.  One comes home with a one cent coin, a two cent coin; one rarely remembers ...

useless but cool (ars gratia artis)

One R Tip a Day offers a package which enables one to display one's favorite strips from xkcd .  Here .

Andrew Gelman on the difference between information visualization and statistical graphics: When I discuss the failings of Wordle (or of Nig...

For David

I go to Sarotti and decide to have a baked potato. Which comes, this being Berlin, in foil moulded in the shape of a swan. Time passes. The ...

Anyone interested in coming to Berlin?  I'm leaving for the States on August 29 for three months, possibly longer, will be subletting my...