March 2012
13 posts
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"The Places in Between" by Rory Stewart
An incredible journey.
It’s as good as travel writing gets. Rory Stewart (his profile by Ian Parker in the New Yorker) is not ashamed of being an outsider, yet his cultural insights are unique. Footnotes in this book are as important as they are in Arden Shakespeare editions.
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"The Feast of the Goat" by Mario Vargas Llosa
Tremendous novel.
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Bayes' Theorem and the Existence of God
I talked to an Anglican priest at a drinks reception. He mentioned that theologians have a debate about the applicability of what he called “Bayes Theory” (meaning, I think, the Bayesian interpretation of this famous Theorem) to the existence of God. I haven’t verified whether this debate is, in fact, taking place, but it did remind me of the following Bayesian paradox.
Suppose...
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"Thinking the Twentieth Century" by Tony Judt with...
Erudite conversation on the history of ideas in the 20th century. Judt’s biographical sketches and the historical discussion of intellectual circles before World War II are sublime. A lot of the economics is entertainingly misguided.
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"Chess" by Stefan Zweig
This story - a great childhood memory - accompanied me on best return journey from Ladbroke Grove to Piccadilly Circus I’ve ever had.
Iron Lady lost in Russian translation →
guardian:
Is The Iron Lady the new Downfall?
“Speaking to a crowd of supporters, Margaret Thatcher, as played by Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, explains what she would do as prime minister: “Crush the working class, crush the scum, the yobs.”
At least that is a scene from a pirated version of the film in Russia, which has been inadvertently reviewed by one of the country’s top film critics...
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David Hockney at the Royal Academy
This is less a show of paintings than a show of the very idea of show.
— Daniel Soar writing in the London Review of Books.
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Research abused
In the New York Review of Books William Nordhaus takes on the scientists who cite his economics research as evidence that nothing ought to be done about climate change:
We need to approach the issues with a cool head and a warm heart. And with respect for sound logic and good science.
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Russian Ballet Icons at the ENO
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Citizen Poet
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How to eat 4/9 of a pizza →
