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Personal
 

Updated
 

Group photo of old Exonians who dined together recently in Zurich

List of my main publications since 1991, almost all with PDF downloads

Brief history of the facts of my life, presented as a chronology

17 photos of me taken in November 2007, 5 taken in January 2008

Outline for a speculative book on life, the universe and everything

Some aircraft at Yeovilton Air Day, July 8, 2006

Montreux, Switzerland, where I was on a business trip in May 2006

One-page reply to Christian de Quincey published in the JCS

Extended review of books by Penrose and Wolfram published in JCS

Zurich, on the occasion of an old boys reunion, June 24, 2005

Me at Exeter College Oxford in June 28, 2003, and October 1969

Introductory page for my 2004 philosophy book Mindworlds

Captain Pom vs the Grumians, text for a fun cartoon strip I wrote in 1999

Introductory page for my 1996 science-fiction novel Lifeball

 

2008-10-21

2008-09-11

2008-08-12

2008-01-25

2008-03-16

2006-08-05

2006-05-30

2006-05-21

2005-07-24

2005-07-09

2005-07-09

2004-12-05

2007-04-19

2006-10-21

 

Physics
 

 
 

A new catalyst is discovered for turning sunlight and water into hydrogen

John Updike, George Johnson, and John Derbyshire on aspects of Einstein

Do black holes destroy information or not? Leonard Susskind reports

The Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Geneva

Three physicists show how to reconstruct the universe from tiny triangles

Marcus de Sautoy on symmetry and the work of Thompson and Tits

NASA has found a practical way to build large telescopes on the moon

NASA finds more planets, news of the Kepler and James Webb telescopes

A. Garrett Lisi's "exceptionally simple theory of everything" based on E8

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor

Hugh Everett III and his relative state theory of quantum mechanics

Itzhak Bars has a new two-dimensional theory of time

Michael J. Disney's doubts about contemporary cosmology

Quantum theorist David Deutsch reviews Douglas Hofstadter's new book

QED pioneer Freeman Dyson ponders our biotech future

Lee Smolin reviews several recent books about Einstein

Christopher Isham and Andreas Döring present a topos foundation for physics

My review of a Springer book on the foundations of quantum mechanics

My reviews of two physics books in the Springer Frontiers Collection

My brief outline of a textbook by Barton Zwiebach on string theory

 

2008-10-20

2008-10-14

2008-09-13

2008-09-11

2008-06-26

2008-06-12

2008-06-11

2008-03-25

2008-01-20

2008-01-19

2007-12-04

2007-10-20

2007-08-20

2007-08-13

2008-05-27

2007-06-03

2007-04-16

2005-07-25

2005-07-25

2005-03-20

 

Social and Political Studies
 

 
 

George Soros explains the financial crisis with his new theory

Chris Hitchens laments Sarah Palin's ignorance of science

The American love-hate relationship with biker outlaws on chopped hogs

Quentin Skinner tries to explain Thomas Hobbes on republican liberty

The classical Greek virtues may be unfashionable but they are real

Neoconservative guru Leo Strauss and his philosophy and background

John Rawls published an influential theory of justice in 1971

Edward Luttwak argues that Bush 43 will soon seem as successful as Truman

Steve Stein tries to balance climate greenery and U.S. oil independence

Peter Thiel sees market implications in the risk of apocalypse

Roger Sandall on religion and violence

John Gray on apocalyptic religion and on environmentalism

Review of books by Mandelbaum and Reich on capitalism and democracy

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and his Mormon background

Global warming: how good is the evidence and what does it show?

Caleb Crain contemplates the decline of book culture

Richard Jenkyns and Jonathan Sacks ask whether we need a literary canon

A report on the world in 2030 and an account of Google in the cloud

Walter Russell Mead on Jews and Wasps

Robert Putnam considers diversity in America

Chalmers Johnson's apocalyptic trilogy on the American republic

Oil was the most convincing reason for starting the Iraq war

Ayn Rand was a key figure for many, including Alan Greenspan

Al Gore and his new book on reason and the environment

Norman Podhoretz makes the case for bombing Iran

Recalling Oswald Spengler on the decline of the West

Roger Scruton ponders the sacred and the human

A book by Sheri Berman as recommended reading for Gordon Brown

Wendy Shalit on the new phenomenon of girls gone wild

Theodore Dalrymple on Mark Steyn on America versus the world

My unimpressed reaction to Jimmy Carter's book on the Palestinians

Mark Steyn on the imminent end of civilization as we have known it

Tony Blair on Middle East policy, Los Angeles, August 2006

 

2008-11-09

2008-10-28

2008-10-21

2008-10-12

2008-09-20

2008-09-20

2008-08-26

2008-08-14

2008-05-10

2008-03-24

2008-02-09

2008-01-20

2008-01-11

2008-01-08

2008-05-27

2007-12-19

2007-12-11

2007-12-03

2007-11-18

2007-11-03

2008-05-03

2007-10-10

2007-09-15

2007-09-11

2007-09-11

2007-08-24

2007-08-14

2007-08-01

2007-08-01

2007-03-24

2006-11-28

2006-11-23

2006-08-06

 

SAP and Business
 

 
 

IEEE Spectrum Special Report on the Singularity

Intellectual Ventures CEO Nathan Myhrvold is the king of high-tech patents

The cloud and the grid, Google and CERN, the future of online life

Shai Agassi plans to deploy fleets of electric cars in Israel and Denmark

Sunseeker yachts are expensive and exclusive, and built in Poole

World-Wise Web: the semantic web, Tim Berners-Lee, Wikipedia, mashups

The new Aerion supersonic carbon bigfoot will thrill some businessmen

SAP is making a big push to embrace small and mid-sized enterprises

SAP in India and an essay on the Indian middle class

Photos of me representing SAP at an IBM workshop in Frankfurt

SAP Developer Network blog I wrote on natural language frontends

Group photo of my SAP NetWeaver TREX team in September 2006

SAP Labs SVP Ike Nassi on programming languages and computing

Abstract of a paper I coauthored on data mining with my team's engine

Photos of the 27th Annual International ACM SIGIR, Sheffield, July25-29, 2004

Photos of me at the SAP DKOM, SAP University, October 27-28, 2004

Photos of me and colleagues on a visit to SAP Labs, Atlanta, Georgia

 

2008-06-29

2008-05-18

2008-04-06

2008-03-31

2008-03-30

2008-03-12

2007-12-13

2007-09-18

2007-09-02

2006-11-29

2006-11-06

2006-09-27

2006-08-14

2006-06-16

2005-02-19

2004-11-14

2004-07-18

 

Islam and Islamism
 

 
 

On the censorship of a novel about the young wife of the prophet Mohamed

Two al Qaeda founding figures, Dr. Fadl and Dr. Zawahiri, disagree

Selection of 2008 press stories about Islam that provoked my ire

Nine new books on Jihadist fundamentalism help us analyze its dynamic

Stanley Kurtz reviews a book by Philip Carl Salzman on Arab tribalism

Geert Wilders is under pressure to suppress his new movie about Islam

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on a book by Lee Harris plus article by Lee Harris on jihad

Intriguing review of an apparently misjudged book about Islamic Spain

Reviews of Edward Said, Western Orientalists, and Ibn Warraq on Islam

Moez Masoud is a Muslim televangelist who offers a hint of hope for us all

James Pinkerton on Samuel Huntingdon on Christendom and Islam

Achievements and limitations of the historic Islamic pursuit of science

Ian Buruma attempts to make the liberal case for tolerating Islamism

Summary of authoritative lecture by Bernard Lewis on Islam

Richard Wolin on the problem of tolerating intolerant Muslims in Europe

Two critical reviews of a nasty book by Dinesh D'Souza on 9/11

 

2008-08-17

2008-05-31

2008-05-18

2008-05-16

2008-04-07

2008-03-15

2008-04-20

2008-03-03

2007-12-18

2007-12-02

2007-09-12

2007-08-10

2007-04-27

2007-04-16

2007-03-26

2008-03-16

 

Arts and Letters
 

 
 

Illustrated souvenir page on Amis, Fenton, Hitchens, McEwan, and Rushdie

Algis Budrys was an SF writer who wrote about deep human themes

Ian McEwan looks at the role of religious revelation in recent history

Martha Nussbaum reviews some philosophers' books on Shakespeare

Will Self has written a good body of literature including The Book of Dave

Paris Hilton is a self-created concept, an icon and a signifier for our times

Reviews of Martin Amis' collection of writings on 9/11 and its aftermath

My cuts of reviews of Shalom Auslander's memoir of growing up as a Jew

My illustrated cut of Colin McGinn's review of Oliver Sacks on music

Illustrated celebration of Ian McEwan's novel about Dunkirk and the movie

Remniscence by David Lodge of Malcolm Bradbury's famous television drama

Collection of press responses to Martin Amis' pronouncements on Islamism

Reviews of Martin Amis' fanciful novel about life in the Soviet gulags

Short cuts of some reviews of Tina Brown's book on Princess Diana

Review of Ian McEwan's uncomfortable novella about British honeymooners

My abbreviation of Martin Amis' review of a novel by Ed Hussain

Roger Sandall reflecting on the sexualization of everyday life

Page about Philip Pullman's trilogy for children and the resulting movie

My abridgement of Martin Amis' essay on "horrorism" (Islamist terrorism)

 

2008-10-28

2008-10-22

2008-05-31

2008-05-05

2008-03-23

2008-03-21

2008-03-02

2008-03-02

2008-02-22

2008-01-15

2008-01-12

2007-12-17

2007-11-19

2007-07-16

2007-06-05

2007-05-30

2007-04-23

2007-03-30

2006-10-21

 

Military and Security
 

 
 

Michael Eisenstadt asserts that Barack Obama will be a wartime president

Conflict in Georgia: news and analysis from the global press

Terrorist and weapons of mass destruction will converge one day

Oil hits $130, Iran has oil and gas, the U.S. or Israel may attack Iran

Counterinsurgency: the challenge for the U.S. Army

Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II to be reviewed by the Pentagon

New York Review essay on the nuclear arms race and the Pakistan bomb

Illustrated celebration of the 60th birthday of the United States Air Force

Illustrated cut of an essay advocating U.S. resolution on the  Iraq war

Hoover Institution Policy Review essay on U.S. foreign policy and Islam

My cut of an essay by Robert Kaplan on the U.S. will to win against terror

Illustrated discussion of military robots and their role in warfighting

Critical review of General Petraeus' counter-insurgency policy in Iraq

Christopher Hitchens reports on the death of a model American soldier

James Kurth on U.S. foreign policy in an age of limited manpower

Hoover Institution Policy Review essay on post-cold-war U.S. foreign policy

 

2008-11-06

2008-09-07

2008-08-31

2008-05-22

2008-03-29

2008-03-26

2008-02-18

2008-02-15

2008-02-03

2008-01-24

2007-12-12

2007-12-01

2007-10-17

2007-10-05

2007-09-01

2007-07-24

 

History
 

 
 

Ludwig Wittgenstein came from an extremely dysfunctional family

Andrew Roberts reveals new facts about Churchill's War Cabinet

Niall Ferguson reflects on the brevity of the Third Reich

Charles Darwin first publicized his theory of evolution 150 years ago

Adam Kirsch debunks another bad book by Pat Buchanan on World War 2

Wernher von  Braun made rockets from V2 to Saturn V: a new biography

Book review: Postwar Britain endured bitter austerity from 1945 to 1951

New books on Winston Churchill question his conduct of World War II

From 1941 to 1945 the Mufti of Jerusalem lived as an honored guest in Berlin

French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits the UK and addresses Parliament

Nicolson Baker's book on the origins of World War II is no good at all

Illustrated review of Operation Barbarossa and the Soviet defeat of Nazism

New York Review essay on the problem of evil and the Holocaust

Illustrated celebration of the ancient Greek gods and their advantages

Illustrated memorial of the early Chinese emperor Qin and his army

Harvard Magazine review of the life and works of Niall Ferguson

My cut of Francis Fukuyama on the history at the end of history

My own review of Niall Ferguson's big book on the Second World War

My critical review of "war nerd" Gary Brecher on the Second World War

 

2008-11-13

2008-09-20

2008-09-21

2008-08-03

2008-06-21

2008-05-25

2008-05-21

2008-05-12

2008-04-14

2008-03-27

2008-03-16

2008-02-12

2008-01-29

2007-11-02

2007-08-26

2007-05-04

2007-04-16

2006-12-31

2006-12-24

 

Psychology and Neuroscience
 

 
 

What Bill Joy, Bill Gates and the Beatles have in common is lots of practice

Emily Singer presents some stunningly detailed views inside living brains

Oliver Sacks reports on a well documented outbreak of manic depression

Belated report in English of the Haynes version of the Libet experiment

Israel Rosenfield and Edward Ziff on how the mind works

Hirnforschung: Berliner Prof. J.-D. Haynes bringt den freien Willen in Frage

John Derbyshire's blog of Toward a Science of Consciousness 2008

The IBM Blue Brain project to model a mammalian pyramidal column

Scientists have used MRI scans to predict which images viewers see

Report on production of synthetic DNA and artificial life

Fascinating speculation on the neurological roots of fundamentalism

Sigmund Freud was a premodern pioneer of paradigms for psychology

Some reviews of Henry Stapp's quantum physics of consciousness

Illuminating review of the psychopharmacology of love

The roles of erotic and platonic love in contemporary U.S. academic life

Response by Michael Zimmerman to my JCS essay on our robot future

Response by Stephen Robbins to my JCS essay on our robot future

 

2008-11-16

2008-11-16

2008-09-16

2008-06-28

2008-06-22

2008-04-20

2008-04-19

2008-03-13

2008-04-29

2007-12-17

2007-10-01

2008-04-27

2007-08-27

2007-08-03

2007-07-16

2008-03-16

2007-01-05

 

Religion and Atheism
 

 
 

Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg reflects on the decline of religion

Richard Holloway is a former bishop who writes popular books on ethics

Dan Dennett airs his views in Templeton journal Science & Spirit

Stuart Kauffman on the theme of his new book Reinventing the Sacred

Panpsychology 2: a supplement to the master class by AtheEisegete

Panpsychology: a polyphonic master class by AtheEisegete

My link-decorated cut of a review by John Gray of recent atheist books

Explaining Religion is a European science project to study religious belief

Alan Wolfe on the inexorable progress worldwide of secularization

Edited works by Theodore Dalrymple, including his review of atheist books

Report of a lunchtime chat with Christopher Hitchens in Washington, D.C.

Bruno Barnhart's review of Bede Griffiths' perennial philosophy

Miscellany of reactions to Richard Dawkins' book-length rant against God

Extended set of texts on and by Mark Lilla and Charles Taylor on religion

My cut of two reviews of Rémi Brague on the roots of divine law

Christopher Hitchens reports on his own best-seller, Richard Dawkins too

David Sloan Wilson argues that Richard Dawkins is wrong about religion

My pairing of an outraged review of Hitchens and a bland review of Jesus

Brief report of Niall Ferguson's prediction that Islam could sweep Europe

My cut of a long review of the God books by Harris, Dennett, and Dawkins

Mary Eberstadt on how the West lost both religion and big families

My own account, based on the "four horsemen" and others, of religion

My cut of an Edge page by Elaine Pagels on the Gospel of Judas

Reviews of Pope Benedict XVI on Jesus of Nazareth and on dialectics

Christopher Hitchens reports on Islamic penetration of his native London

New Yorker report on Christopher Hitchens and other militant atheists

My account of my own integrative philosophy, modeled on Barnhart on Bede

My own earnest statement presenting a secular answer to fundamentalism

 

2008-09-24

2008-09-12

2008-08-24

2008-05-22

2008-05-17

2008-05-16

2008-04-15

2008-03-21

2008-02-25

2008-01-28

2008-01-16

2008-01-13

2008-04-27

2007-11-08

2007-10-15

2007-09-06

2007-07-24

2007-07-17

2007-06-16

2008-04-27

2007-06-10

2007-06-03

2007-06-03

2007-05-22

2007-05-21

2007-05-17

2007-05-09

2006-01-29

 

On Faith Forum Comments
 

 
 

My comments on a Sam Harris target article he posted October 2, 2007, pt 3

My comments on a Sam Harris target article he posted October 2, 2007, pt 2

My comments on a Sam Harris target article he posted October 2, 2007, pt 1

My comments on a Sam Harris target article he posted April 18, 2007

My comments on a Sally Quinn target article she posted February 20, 2007

My comments on a Jon Meacham target article he posted February 18, 2007

My comments on a W. and J. Cohen target article they posted February 14, 2007

My comments on a Mohammad Khatami target article he posted February 12, 2007

My comments on a Jon Meacham target article he posted February 2, 2007

My comments on a Dan Dennett target article he posted January 30, 2007

My comments on a Sam Harris target article he posted January 22, 2007

My comments on a Sam Harris target article he posted January 6, 2007

My comments on a Sam Harris target article he posted December 29, 2006

 

2008-05-18

2008-04-28

2008-04-28

2007-05-02

2007-02-22

2007-02-19

2007-02-14

2007-02-14

2008-01-12

2007-02-09

2007-10-28

2007-10-28

2007-10-28

 

Philosophy and Consciousness
 

 
 

Michael Rosen on Allen Wood on Immanuel Kant

American philosopher Stanley Fish deconstructs French philosophy

My summary of my current stance on panpsychism, and Fodor on Strawson

Press response to the fight between Ted Honderich and Colin McGinn

Philosopher Saul Kripke turns 65

Martin Heidegger: his philosophy and Hannah Arendt

Chris Frith and others on brain scans and the new view of mind

Review of the philosophy of Richard Rorty

Review of Douglas Hofstadter's 2007 book on strange loops

An interview with 1970s cult philosopher Robert Pirsig

 

2008-11-01

2008-04-21

2008-03-25

2008-01-17

2007-12-13

2007-09-19

2007-09-02

2007-06-27

2007-06-12

2006-11-26

 

Middle East and Asia
 

 
 

A divorce in Israel highlights the risks of converting to Judaism

Israel news: F-22 Raptors, lame ducks, taking out Hamastan, ...

Love and marriage in Saudi Arabia and murder of a daughter in Iraq

Li Yang is China's Elvis of English and the founder of Crazy English

Saudi despots are shamefully successful at subverting justice in the UK

Some recent developments in the Gaza Strip

My cut of Tariq Ali on Pakistan at 60 and some notes on Benazir Bhutto

Pictorial celebration of the Chinese city of Dalian and its ladies

Analysis of the Chinese politico-economic system and comparison with Japan

Critical analysis of the environmental costs of Chinese economic growth

My cut of Avishai Margalit on Israel as a moral compass

Tariq Ali reviews Saudi Arabia and its corrupt politics

Discussion of the implications of joint Chinese-Russian military exercises

Gadi Taub on liberalism, democracy and the Jewish state

 

2008-08-31

2008-06-20

2008-05-12

2008-04-22

2008-04-13

2008-03-02

2008-02-24

2007-12-02

2007-11-20

2007-11-19

2008-04-27

2007-09-15

2007-08-26

2007-08-08

 

My Blogs
 
 
 

My weblog for 2008

My weblog for 2007

My weblog for 2006

My weblog for 2005

My weblog for 2000-2004

 
2008-07-30

2008-06-16

2008-03-22

2008-03-22

2008-03-22

 

 

Updated 2008-11-16