a thaumaturgical compendium

This is hella-funny: Kim Jong Il (the illmatic)’s Journal. (via Sam)

The department has invited several people to give job talks this week and next. No, I won’t say how many. No, I won’t say who. No, I won’t say where they are from. But I can tell you that there were job talks, and there will be more of them.

It’s not as though this is really private information. In fact, we have been desperately trying to get as many grad students in the department as possible to attend so that they can give us their impressions. So, there are fliers that I printed up and posted all over the department saying who’s coming and when. All of the candidates therefore know who is visiting, at least in this round.

And I so want to write about today’s talk. The person is looking at some interesting things, and seems like he (ah, a single bit of information—or more if you see gender as more than binary) would be a good fit to the department. Too early to say where he stands, but certainly he was worth inviting out. His presentation is online, and I could tell you the URL, but I won’t.

Why not? I suppose I could ask him if it was OK, and he might say yes (though, naturally, there is a potential power dynamic there that might compel him to respond this way). Increasing the information flow can work to the disadvantage of either party, or sometimes both. If everyone was frank about their interest in a candidate, it would provide that candidate with a nice bargaining position. On the other hand, though none of the candidates we talked to asked specifically for us to keep their applications quiet, I suspect that some might prefer it that way.

Folks seem so interested in what people blog. I find perhaps more interesting what they won’t. Liz’s recent post about not blogging personal family events describes one part of her taxonomy of the unblogable. Others might find such stories fair game if they wrote them in a way that was not personally identifiable. Very little seems unblogable to livejournalers.

This entry has no clean ending. I am wondering, at this point, whether I consider tired, unedited ramblings blogable. I guess I do.

Update: Just after posting this, I find a related item on Invisible’s blog. He (I can’t remember why, right now, but I think I ran into something that would suggest it is a he) warns those who send email about the academic market that, unless otherwise indicated, he will consider the stories fit for public consumption.

Wonder if Bush will push for “faith-based initiatives” in Iraq.

It would be hard to miss this news, but Scaled Composites has officially announced the existence of SpaceShipOne, which has quickly become a front runner for the X-prize.

I am a big fan of Burt Rutan. When I first took flying lessons, years ago, my aim was to eventually build and fly one of his Long-EZs. Many years later, the ideal has changed to a Boomerang (and lasik along the way :), but the designer has not. Rutan has a history of succeeding where he shouldn’t, and I wouldn’t bet against him.

Barbara’s comment below regarding Prada reminds me that I need a new bag. The one depicted to the left, the Isaburo 1889 model City 1-2-3 is a frontrunner. Unfortunately, it is literally priceless. OK, that’s not entirely true, you can purchase it in Tokyo (for a “mere” ¥28,000), but I contacted them—no I don’t have that much money to spend on a bag these days!—just to see if they would ship me one. They very politely answered that until they had the design trademarks and patents in place, they could not ship to the US.

Barring that, I suppose I could go for one of the classics, but pedestrian, like a bag from Cartier, Coach, or preferably Pineider (along with some of their engraved paper mmmm). Or I could go neo-industrial, with a wafer-thin aluminum case, a Pelican case, or a lead-lined custom roll-aboard. Or neo-environmental with a bamboo case, or less-so with a birdseye maple or zebrawood and ebony attaché case. See! Im not picky.

Every year I make a Christmas list and Jamie doesn’t. It’s not that I would buy her anything on her list, or that I expect anyone to buy anything on mine for me. I didn’t realize this when I was younger, but making the list is often more fun than receiving the items.

I could do an Amazon Wishlist, but until Target starts carrying the 246 Dino, that’s just not going to work for me. So, in the mean time, I’ve started a new category instead.

And the first item (except, I suppose, the aforementioned automobile) is a pair of these Konami Combat DigiQ tanks. They are tiny, and—get this—they actually shoot (IR beams) at each other. Man, when (if) I get tenure, the first thing I’m going to do is go out and buy me a pair of these puppies… (via gizmodo)

It seems I am more ethically aligned with Kant than with Nietzsche. News to me! This according to the Ethical Philosophy Selector (via, most immediately, Joshua). The full lineup:

1. John Stuart Mill (100%) 2. Jean-Paul Sartre (86%) 3. Kant (83%) 4. Jeremy Bentham (79%) 5. Ayn Rand (74%) 6. Epicureans (71%) 7. Aristotle (67%) 8. Prescriptivism (62%) 9. Aquinas (61%) 10. Spinoza (59%)

11. Thomas Hobbes (50%) 12. Ockham (45%) 13. Nietzsche (44%) 14. Cynics (43%) 15. David Hume (40%) 16. St. Augustine (38%) 17. Plato (28%) 18. Stoics (23%) 19. Nel Noddings (13%)

My suspicion is that Mill comes out near the top for everyone. I was much happier to have managed to make it through the Battleground God quiz unscathed: my views on the existence of Nessie do not conflict with my views on God—in fact, they bear a lot in common (via Eszter).