On BookTok the cycle goes: rating books, simping over them, bringing ‘overrated’ books down a peg, and then rehabilitating them when the backlash goes too far. But there is a worry that we’re all being taken for a ride.
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Now the gap between the lowest and highest paid in the UK is one of the highest in the OECD, Iain Overton looks at the role of public sector pay in widening the disparities
Peter Kim Schotch, emeritus professor of philosophy at Dalhousie University, has died. The following memorial notice was written by Gillman Payette (Calgary): Peter Kim Schotch, age 76, died on December 22, 2022 at his home in Brookside Nova Scotia. Peter was born on July 26th, 1946, in Montreal, Quebec. He attended the University of Waterloo, getting a BA and finally a PhD in Philosophy writing a dissertation in modal logic in 1973 under the supervision of J.S. Minas. (Interestingly, his external examiner was C. West Churchman). In 1972 he was hired by the Philosophy Department at Dalhousie University and only fully retired in 2019. At the end of his time at Dalhousie he had reached the rank of full professor and was the Munro Chair of Metaphysics. Despite being a logician or perhaps because of it, Peter liked teaching existentialism, philosophy of literature, and philosophy of art. He was also a dedicated union-supporter, serving on the Dalhousie Faculty Association’s bargaining team for the second, third, fifth and sixth collective agreements and sharing duties as Chief Negotiator for the 1984-87 agreement. He also shared the position of DFA president in 1997-98. P. K.
There has been a fair amount of concern over the threats that ChatGPT and AI in general pose to teaching. But perhaps there’s an upside? Eric Schliesser (Amsterdam) entertains the possibility: Without wanting to diss the underlying neural network, but ChatGPT is a bullshitter in the (Frankfurt) sense of having no concern for the truth at all… I have seen many of my American colleagues remark that while ChatGPT is, as of yet, unable to handle technical stuff skillfully, it can produce B- undergraduate papers.
New data from the Metropolitan Police shows the scale of sexual violence in London's hospitals
In a recent post, we introduced the Multivariate Core Trend (MTC), a measure of inflation persistence in the core sectors of the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index. With data up to February 2022, we used the MCT to interpret the nature of post-pandemic price spikes, arguing that inflation dynamics were dominated by a persistent component largely common across sectors, which we estimated at around 5 percent. Indeed, over the year, inflation proved to be persistent and broad based, and core PCE inflation is likely to end 2022 near 5 percent. So, what is the MCT telling us today? In this post, we extend our analysis to data through November 2022 and detect signs of a decline in the persistent component of inflation in recent data. We then dissect the layers of inflation persistence to fully understand that decline.
Why Ukraine may be under even more pressure than Russia to Do Something when the ground finally freezes in Ukraine.
Looking at the oft superficially discussed population and consumption levers in the climate change debate.
Patsy Stevenson believes the country's largest force must be held accountable for its conduct at the event to remember the 33-year-old woman murdered by a Met Police officer
The Marc Sanders Foundation has announced the winners of its 2022 Early Modern Philosophy Prize and its 2022 Philosophy of Mind Prize. The Early Modern Philosophy Prize was awarded to Gabriel Watts, a graduate student at the University of Sydney, for his “Hume’s Gambit: Irreligion, Animals, and Truth”. Here’s the abstract of the paper: In this paper I develop an irreligious reading of Hume’s decision to return to philosophy after his sceptical crisis at the end of Book One of A Treatise of Human Nature. Any irreligious reading of Hume’s epistemology must articulate Hume’s epistemic grounds for preferring his experimental science of human nature to sophisticated superstitious anthropologies. I argue that Hume believes his use of animal analogies to confirm his hypotheses offers him the best possible “security” against positing false causal claims about the nature of our “mental operations”, and that the superior security of this experimental method of reasoning provides him with epistemic grounds for preferring his science of human nature to superstitious metaphysics, even though both have title to our assent.
Big energy companies are piling money into increasingly inefficient oil and gas investments, reports Thomas Perrett
Andrew Gronek and many young FTX investors were tricked into believing the crypto exchange was as stable and protected as a typical bank account.
I watched Keir Starmer give his 'vision speech' this morning. My initial reactions were tweeted as follows: The sound quality throughout this broadcast was dire:
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Democrats fear the committee on "Weaponization of the Federal Government" will become a partisan cudgel.
The post Republican Freedom Caucus Pushes for New Committee to Investigate the Surveillance State appeared first on The Intercept.
- by Carolyn Eichner
Thursday is the most Thursday of days. Also I have a dentist appointment.
New research suggests that declining asset values in 2022 may have prompted older workers to return to the labor force.
In September 2022, Open Rights Group convened a discussion between privacy and data protection experts and other civil society professionals exploring the nexus between privacy, protection from online abuse and freedom of expression. THE ONLINE SAFETY BILL –SECTOR SUPPORTROUNDTABLESummary ReportOctober 2022 1. On 27 September 2022, Open Rights Group convened a roundtable to discuss how […]
The Second Doctor, Ben and Polly face a world-destroying black hole in a brand-new seven-hour enhanced Doctor Who audiobook The Dead Star, released today by Big Finish Productions. Michael Troughton, son of Patrick Troughton and the new voice of the Second Doctor, brilliantly performs the 1960s audio novel, written by prolific sci-fi author, Kate Orman. […]
The post BIG FINISH: Michael Troughton narrates Doctor Who: The Dead Star appeared first on Blogtor Who.
With a remit of keeping inflation at 2%…. Halving inflation is the top item on Sunak’s wish list below. Of course his personal target of halving inflation should be a sure fire winner as the prices of same period in the previous year end up gradually nearer to those of ‘today’ – the inflation has... Read more
As the NHS crisis intensifies, a look at how the once esteemed service got there.