It must be true

5/5/2010 5:52:00 AM

I'm sure you're asking yourself constantly whether science has made any great leaps forward recently. The answer is yes.

Robert A. Burton is doing what all the great scientists have always done, asking a basic question: how do we know what we know. His book On being certain gives the ultimate answer: we only think or feel we know what we know. He also explains, with frightening precision, why that is.

Manchild, will you ever win?

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=103

Divided we fall

4/28/2010 1:45:00 AM

Sometimes you run into a book that gives you this strange feeling that you're reading press clippings from yesterday, instead of accounts of events that took place twenty years ago.

The Euro by David Marsh is one of them. I can see him smiling.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/03/euro-politics-global-currency-david-marsh

Playing the angel

4/12/2010 7:41:00 AM

The trouble with economists, said one of my ex-bosses, is that, not only are their figures wrong, but so are their prefixes. So, instead of having 10 million of credit, we end up having 10 billion of debt (don't worry, I don't understand this either).

Leonard Mlodinov gives a gentle explanation to all this in his excellent book, The Drunkard's Walk. We, the economists, of course talk about the random walk since it came as a surprise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Johnson-G-t.html

I want to be well

3/26/2010 6:07:00 AM

Here's an interesting discussion with a seven-year-old about the This Is It DVD by Michael Jackson:
- Why did he die?
- He had the wrong medication.
- Who gave it to him? He doesn't look sick to me.
- A doctor.

That pretty much says it all.

Truth and dare

3/25/2010 6:26:00 AM

It's easy to make fun of Professor Brian Cox: an excited young man staring at a solar eclipse in India. That surely cannot be science. Where is the laboratory, where is the white coat?

The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qyxfb

No prophet in his own land

3/11/2010 3:22:00 AM

If you wanted to write a book on international affairs in the 20th century you needed a conspiratory mindset and a lot of words like hegemony, containment and détente. I'm glad times have changed. Chris Patten's latest book What Next? is full of stuff that you can see, smell and touch. More Tories to Southern France, please.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/oct/12/politics

World outside your window

2/19/2010 7:50:00 AM

A strange thing is happening in journalism: as first hand reporting is replaced with sloppy cuts from the web, the real story is reported by the photographers. The World Press Photo exhibition bears testimony to this every year.

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/

Showtime

2/12/2010 6:38:00 AM

The one thing I could never understand about music clubs is the three-hour gap between "Doors" and the advertised act. Concert halls and operas have survived for centuries without dragging their audiences into the night.

The playful evening with The Crappy Mini Band in all its incarnations at Recyclart showed that things can change. I much prefer Korean shadow theatre and blowbass solos to an empty stage.

All you need

2/4/2010 2:33:00 AM

My original idea of being a musician was an ES 355, a Twin and a microphone in front of a small audience. Bertrand Belin at Cook&Book showed me once again that the first ideas tend to be the best.

http://www.bertrandbelin.com/

In due course, as appropriate, and as soon as possible

1/19/2010 12:40:00 AM

We are glad to note that not even the tectonic forces are able to divert the unwavering determination of the EU Council. The time is surely ripe for a minute of silence and a glass of champagne.

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/112374.pdf

The dream is gone

1/6/2010 12:11:00 AM

Elvis Presley would have been 75 this Friday. That is, if his heart hadn't stopped on 16 August 1977, just before he was scheduled to fly out of Mephis to begin another tour. He was all alone and 42 years old.

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink+floyd/comfortably+numb_20108779.html

Annus Musicalis 2009

12/22/2009 5:22:00 AM

Here we go again. The objective list of the best gigs in 2009, in chronological order:

Oasis, Forest National, 13 January

Get over it, lads. A few cans of Red Stripe will surely do the job.

Kira Kira, Recyclart, 30 January

This girl seemed to emerge from some strange geyser. Amazing, relaxed charisma that filled the whole club.

The Do, Cirque Royale, 13 March

Paris-Helsinki all night long.

Morrissey, Elisabethzaal, 8 June

You've got everything now. Hold on to it.

Ghinzu and Soldout, Het Depot, 12 November

A Brussels tour de force. Sadly, the last chance to see you guys in a small club.

SUPERMASSIVE

12/17/2009 12:18:00 AM

I rarely get excited about news. But now I can't stop staring at the new photos of star formation provided by the Herschel telescope.

If you want to know why this is all so exciting read "Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines" by Jim Al-Khalili. It's a great book to keep on your bedside table. Read a chapter before going to sleep and your dreams will be amazing.

No, we can't

11/12/2009 6:53:00 AM

For no particular reason, I got an urge to cite a haiku:

Listening
as the wave retreats
into itself

- Geraldine Little