Zephyr has just moved up my favorite coffee place list. Now they have free wifi, comfier patio chairs, and a hookah.

These trees were part of an art installation in old town.

There was a semi-yearly IQI get together last night at Johnny P’s. As usual, the ping pong and swimming pool basketball competitions were intense. 

One conversation revolved around comparing marginalized subjects in various fields: Farah speaking of non-western texts in political philosophy and John talking about Garrett Lisi and Lee Smolin in physics. In retrospect, I think there was some “talking past each other” of these two experts.

I think Farah was saying that understanding philosophical texts requires an understanding of different cultures, customs, and ways of thinking which are neglected by experts in the field (all trained in the west), and remedying this deficiency will take serious introspection.

John, on the other hand, was suggesting that in physics, marginalization is quite different and less severe. I thought he was saying: any marginalized person or topic could be understood and appreciated by an “established” expert in an afternoon, and eventually will be if it really is worthwhile (though it may take a little extra time for someone outside of the mainstream to get the right person’s attention). And, furthermore, it is the responsibility of outsider to make a clear, compelling case in “mainstream” terminology.

In the case of non-western texts, the point is that the basis for understanding is fundamentally different, and you can’t expect the value of those texts to be translated into the preferred academic language which already includes an inherited western bias, nor understood by someone who is unaware of those biases.

I guess it’s a classic argument over how much subjective human perspective guides two different fields. Did the experts portray their respective fields accurately?

I read the entire page. Great memories and a nice discussion of the philosophical brilliance of Bill Watterson.

C Universal Press Syndicate

Five years in and I finally feel an earthquake worth writing home about. This one was 5.4 and only a few miles away, near Pomona.

7-29 earthquake map

Now that I have a blog, I have an outlet for revealing my procrastination.

Coffee place in eagle rock. Free wifi, nice environs.

This is from a place heather recommended. Good cheap food, but I guess all you can eat sushi is too often abused. My favorite part is that you have to eat all the rice or they won’t bring more sushi.

Apparently my rss feeds are still working the same, even though I switched from Paul’s hosting service to Mike’s (wordpress.com). I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out who I had used for my domain host and then 10 more figuring what I had used for a login name. I finally got things working (while I was on campus), and then when I came home I thought I was going crazy because I got this for my web page. It turns out my provider’s DNS is cached, and I just have to wait until it refreshes. Or tunnel through caltech. Or not waste so much time worrying about my web site.

Just a trial run for moblogging.