Saturday, November 15, 2025
Friday, November 17, 2023
“Design is How It Works” — Steve Jobs
In memory of a graphic-design figure who reportedly died
on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023 — images from a post on that date —
"The great aim is accurate, precise and definite description . . . . "
— T. E. Hulme, Speculations: Essays on Humanism and the
Philosophy of Art, ed. Herbert Read. London and New York:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. First published 1924.
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Monday, November 13, 2023
Philosophy at Scarecrow Press
"Scarecrow Press, June 21, 2000" — The above publication date.
That date suggests a synchronology check —
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Sunday, November 12, 2023
“Cum grano salis”
The above title is from the Black Mass performed by Boris Karloff
in a classic 1934 horror film. An illustration —
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“Si le grain ne meurt”
Leonard F. Wheat, Harvard Ph.D. 1958,
is said to have died at 82 on May 12, 2014.
Look upon his works, ye Mighty, and despair.
Also on Wheat's date of death —
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Friday, November 10, 2023
Logos
Related art —
(For some backstory, see Geometry of the I Ching
and the history of Chinese philosophy.)
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The Writer as Trickster: A Date for Loki
More "spots of time": "0915."
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Altman’s Monster* Version of Musk’s Grok Logo
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Cube Mine
In memory of a former president of Boston University —
Other posts now tagged Cube Mine.
Related entertainment —
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Saturday, September 29, 2012
B17
The New York Times on its print edition yesterday:
A version of this article appeared in print
on September 28, 2012, on page B17
of the New York edition with the headline:
John Silber Dies at 86; Led Boston University.
The Times 's Robert D. McFadden wrote that
Silber was "a philosopher by training but
a fighter by instinct."
That phrase was brought to mind today
by a Sept. 25 link in The Harvard Crimson
to Mumford & Sons singing "The Boxer"
in Providence on Transfiguration Day.
There was no Transfiguration Day post
in this journal. Here are parts of the posts
for the preceding and following days—
See also "The Count" from September 17.
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Friday, September 28, 2012
Empty Chair at B.U.*
Below: A New York Times "Fashion Week: Immerse Yourself" ad
with obituary of former Boston University president John Silber—
"a philosopher by training but a fighter by instinct"—
"I can't do that to myself ." — Clint Eastwood
* See a Sept. 1st CNN piece by Boston University
religion scholar Stephen Prothero—
"Give Me Bali's Empty Chair over Eastwood's"—
See also Prothero in this journal.
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Geometretos*
MEDEIS AGEOMETRETOS EISITO
— Inscription at entrance to
Plato's Academy, according to
an elementary introduction to
philosophy by James L. Christian
For Irving Adler, who reportedly
died on September 22, 2012—
|
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Background: See Sangaku in this journal.
See also the following, from a different
elementary introduction, by Adler—
Giant Golden Book of Mathematics,
illustrated by Lowell Hess—
.
(Detail of Flickr photo)
* See Liddell and Scott.
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Thursday, September 27, 2012
Kummer and the Cube
Denote the d-dimensional hypercube by
"… after coloring the sixty-four vertices of
alternately red and blue, we can say that
the sixteen pairs of opposite red vertices represent
the sixteen nodes of Kummer's surface, while
the sixteen pairs of opposite blue vertices
represent the sixteen tropes."
— From "Kummer's 166 ," section 12 of Coxeter's 1950
"Self-dual Configurations and Regular Graphs"
Just as the 4×4 square represents the 4-dimensional
hypercube
so the 4x4x4 cube represents the 6-dimensional
hypercube
For religious interpretations, see
Nanavira Thera (Indian) and
I Ching geometry (Chinese).
See also two professors in The New York Times
discussing images of the sacred in an op-ed piece
dated Sept. 26 (Yom Kippur).
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Mathematics and Narrative (continued)
In diamond-narrative news today…
"Among the low points of his career was his performance
in the disastrous 1985 remake of “King Solomon’s Mines….”
— David Belcher in today's online New York Times
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A Kenning for Thor’s Day
"A kenning… is a circumlocution
used instead of an ordinary noun
in Old Norse, Old English and
later Icelandic poetry." — Wikipedia
Note the title of Tuesday's post High White in the Dark Fields.
Related material, in memory of a composer-lyricist
who died Monday (NY Times ) or Tuesday (LA Times )—
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April 9, 1962
The "1961" Oscars ceremony shown above was for the films of 1961.
The ceremony itself was held on April 9, 1962.
For a different Tiffany, see Tuesday's Another Day.
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