The Porcupine: A pilgrimage to Popper. by Adam Gopnik [Got CALICHE?]
Karl Popper. We’re still wrestling with Popper. Still, this review has some good broad statements about the nature of scientific inquiry.
from the review: "Science, Popper proposed˜first in conversations with members of the Vienna Circle, later in his first published book, “Logik der Forschung” (”The Logic of Scientific Discovery”)˜didn’t proceed through observations confirmed by verification; it proceeded through wild, overarching conjectures, which generalized “beyond the data” but were always controlled and sharpened by falsification, by refutation, by the single decisive experiment, or swan. It was the conscious, purposeful search for falsifications, and the survival of theories in the face of them, that allowed science to proceed and objective knowledge to grow.
In the real world, as Popper knew perfectly well, the response of the scientist who has proposed that all swans are white when a black swan appears is not to say, cheerfully, “Wrong again!” It is to say, “You call that a swan?” The principle of falsification would begin an argument rather than prove a point. But the argument was the point. The argument that the black swan would produce˜an argument about what evidence was crucial, and why˜was different from all other kinds of argument. Science wasn’t a form of proof. It was a style of quarrelling. The reason science gave you sure knowledge you could count on was that it wasn’t sure and you couldn’t count on it. Science wasn’t the name for knowledge that had been proved true; it was the name for guesses that could be proved false." (more)
Several hours later:
For some strange reason if you don’t mark the categories in Quicken as deductable items, they won’t import into TurboTax. Funny how that works. Or rather, doesn’t. I like the final interview process in the tax software. TurboTax: "We noticed you declared one thing, but then didn’t claim any associated deductions…" Me: "DOH!"
and the taxman taketh away…
I’m doing the 2001 taxes for those of us here at blivet World Headquarters. Thank Ghu for Quicken and MacInTax^M TurboTax. Still, even with the addition of Ian, the final result is looking painful. Not insurmountable, just painful. We had other plans for that stack of Franklin portraits. I think I’ll reduce my deductions to 0 for the remainder of 2002.
"Kuro5hin: Introduction To Personal Finance Part 1 and Part 2." (url corrected) [Alwin]
papascott and mamamaus have moved to PapaScott, now powered by Movable Type. Scott moved their complete EditThisPage site over. Must find out how to do this…
Happy Easter to those who celebrate it on this day, and a Happy ongoing Pesach (also known as Passover).
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Congratulations! This just in from Mike (blackholebrain): Matthew McDevitt Donellan was born on Wednesday, March 27.
Saturday is Ian’s day with Dad, and it is always a joy. I have yet to figure out how this happy little person could be related to me.Of course all I need do is look at him to know that he is. Still, this sets my pea brain off on the ‘nature versus nurture’ path where I always seem to find dragons when I sift through my own dim archaeology. Was I ever this happy? I mean just plain happy? Oops, I hear incipient fussing from around the corner. Gotta go.
Neil Young is a god.Crosby, Stills Nash & Young were amazingly good. This was definitely not a nostalgia tour, though only six (I think) of their songs were new to this tour. CSNY played two sets, the second one was almost two hours long. Neil Young is nothing short of a music shaman, ridden by the guitar loa who takes all within earshot to a series of amazing places.
This should not be construed to imply that the rest of the band was lacking in any way, far from it. They can still hit the notes and harmonies (though Steven Stills did strain a bit on one song-like I could do better) and have a catalog of some of the best popular music ever made. IMHO, of course and a good time was had by all. Now I must retire and nurse some strained vocal cords. I taxed them a bit during Rockin’ the Free World. 
special thanks to Dr. Liz for watching Ian while Mom and Dad went out to play
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We have a splendid evening planned…
One of the (admittedly few) advantages of living in Las Vegas.
A personal note:
The last two weeks have seemed to fly by, with no time for anything beyond moving to the next item in the queue. My apologies to you. Tomorrow should see the beginning of the return to "normalcy".
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This my first time seeing my Manila site in the Windows version of Internet Explorer. Very different.
I’m attending a GIS class (ArcView 3.2) today and tomorrow.
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Not to be confused with ‘passing from this vale of tears’…
Two gifted talents pass through the veil today:
Actor Dudley Moore, actor, dies at 66. [garret]
Comedian Milton Berle Dies at 93. [Craig] Thanks for everything, Uncle Miltie.
Good Morning. Our routine begins to reassert itself here in the northern Mojave. The sky is cloudless. You could toss a chunk of high-grade turquoise into the sky and it would disappear.
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That is as much as I can cover tonight…
The computers at work were all upgraded to Windows 2000 wile I was away. A good thing overall. My own personal complaint (because it’s all about me) is there was no effort to save anyone’s browser bookmarks or cookie files. Or anything else on the C: drives. I don’t know about you, but my bookmark file and associated cookies for all sorts of things were extensive. I pity the tech’s task in an enterprise-wide thing like a system upgrade, but they had specifically said "we will save your files". Renewed admonition: Never drop your paranoia about data loss. I had backed up the local copies of my database, word processing, and graphic files. "Fortune favors the prepared." It is my own damn fault.
Happy Birthday, Brent!
Dori sums it up pretty well for me too. Fiscally responsible rather than conservative perhaps. I think I’m getting a twitch about the "C" word. [Doug]
my word, CAPS on dangerousmeta!
Anti-CBDTPA Links [Doug]
Blogging tools get a mention on the "Got Caliche?" SW Archaeology list. I had the good fortune to meet Brian, the list owner, at the SAAs this year. He said he "knew" it was me. Must be those Aloha shirts.
Trying to get caught up (like that is realistically possible) on the postings of the last 10 days. Some of you are really prolific.
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There is no place like…
Home. We have made it back from Colorado with relatively few weather problems. Ten days away, it seems like a lifetime. But first, unpacking, apeasing the cat, petting the dog, digging through a mound of snail mail, and I don’t even want to talk about the email backlog including 98 spams. Hayduke obediently fetched my mail while I was gone, which runs Mac OS8.6 and going the whole time without a reboot. Way to go, Hayduke! Details to follow…
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Well, we are just about ready to head out to Colorado tomorrow. The only internet access would be through an AOL dial-up, which I think I’ll pass on. I expect blivet to be dark until the 25th or so. Not much to add except be good to each other.
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"Do you remember the show, My Mother the Car?" [Susan] Wow. Yes I do. I remember that I had a model kit of the car that included a little plastic figure of … the male actor, whatever his name was. A 1928 Porter, that’s my Mother Dear.
"It’s Einstein’s birthday today." [Andrea]
Congratulations to John and TIna on their tenth wedding anniversary! [VFIH]
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garret, I’m so sorry to hear your sad news.
‘Afghan Girl’ Mystery Solved
"After 17 years of looking, photographer Steve McCurry has finally relocated the subject of his most famous photo: the young Afghan girl whose green eyes stared out from the cover of National Geographic.(…)
The story of McCurry’s search for Gula will be featured in the April issue of National Geographic and is the subject of a National Geographic EXPLORER documentary on MSNBC Friday at 9 p.m. ET." [Alex Chadwick on NPR’s Morning Edition]
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