|
|
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 |
