tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-234007502024-03-08T14:47:42.264+00:00Thought Experiments : The BlogBryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.comBlogger2805125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-80291449366302149072010-05-19T21:09:00.000+00:002010-05-19T21:09:39.125+00:00This Blog Has Moved******If you are looking for my blog it is now here.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-51613269612243588762010-03-14T19:20:00.002+00:002010-03-16T05:01:35.109+00:00Shove in 3DIn The Sunday Times I interview John Gerrard about the fascism of efficiency - I'm very much in sympathy - and discuss the replacement of Nudge by Shove for Obama and Cameron.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-39386535829122773902010-03-07T10:53:00.002+00:002010-03-08T22:10:49.624+00:00AliensIn The Sunday Times I meet the people looking for aliens in Silicon Valley - SETI.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-21012998282360703082010-02-21T07:39:00.001+00:002010-02-21T07:40:50.863+00:00ConnectedIn The Sunday Times I talk about shrinking penises, obesity and networks. The book is Connected by Christakis and Fowler.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-62065750889916434642010-02-14T07:30:00.001+00:002010-02-14T07:31:36.303+00:00The Old Will WinIn The Sunday Times I discuss the wrinkly revolution - demographic and cultural.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-1327029315151469842010-01-31T16:41:00.000+00:002010-01-31T16:42:12.463+00:00Peter CareyIn The Sunday Times I interview Peter Carey in New York.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-62320766410869018252010-01-24T03:51:00.003+00:002010-01-24T03:53:54.663+00:00God, I Love AmericaBolinas, California.From where, I discover, Bill Berkson originated. He was the, at least, partial inspiration of a great poem - Frank O'Hara's For the Chinese New Year and for Bill Berkson.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-35954906450678022872010-01-22T18:51:00.004+00:002010-01-24T00:47:23.646+00:00AchebeHello from San Francisco. In The Sunday Times I interview - or, rather, sit at the feet of - Chinua Achebe. Link later. Here it is.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-11356460357758031902010-01-16T14:53:00.003+00:002010-01-17T01:47:11.308+00:00Jaron LanierHello from New York. Tomorrow in The Sunday Times I interview Jaron Lanier. Link later. Here it is.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-31846616618901992302010-01-10T10:10:00.003+00:002010-01-10T10:13:17.115+00:00On GamesIn The Sunday Times I review Tom Chatfield's book on computer games Fun Inc.. My conclusion is that Jason's Rohrer's Passage is the greatest game of all. Do not, however, get involved with Rohrer's Primrose. Your conscious life will end.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-64942780434028579212009-12-27T07:25:00.003+00:002009-12-27T07:29:52.715+00:00Destruction, the Past and the FutureIn The Sunday Times I wrote about the world in the noughties, compulsively destructive artist Michael Landy and science and technology in the next decade.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-47755687634510895192009-12-24T22:37:00.001+00:002009-12-24T22:40:25.863+00:00On a DonkeyYou waste your time wondering what it's all about until, one day, it rides past you on a donkey and you don't notice. Luv 'n' peece, guys.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-33544634127113859392009-12-21T16:41:00.003+00:002009-12-21T16:51:50.505+00:00SnowNorfolk roads have been made beautiful and unfamiliar by the snow. No, that should be 'beautiful but unfamiliar'. The beauty of Norfolk lies in being Norfolk. But snow neutralises. I drive down lanes overhung with branches bending under the white weight that could be in Russia or Scandinavia. It's thrilling but wrong. One of the most perfect poems I know was written about this strange Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-53570206885825153682009-12-21T16:21:00.004+00:002009-12-21T16:26:03.879+00:00The Copenhagen TriumphI am, frankly, baffled or, indeed, frankly baffled about the generally negative response to the Copenhagen global warming thing. Here in Norfolk it is apparent that it was a raging success. It demonstrated the power positive thinking. They issue a statement along the lines of 'we don't like you, global warming, go away' and, bingo, just like that it went away. And, yes, that is Denis the Menace, Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-2007429231120573372009-12-18T15:42:00.003+00:002009-12-18T15:47:57.688+00:00All About the LoveI just downloaded Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine. I hope you will too. It's not my normal sort of listening but anything to help pause the Simon Cowell juggernaut. Apparently he said the campaign to knock his latest accessory, Joe McElderry, off the top of the Christmas charts was 'cynical'. 'Yeah, right,' said Ironic Daughter, 'like X-Factor's all about the love.'Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-9002862561483880692009-12-18T09:23:00.004+00:002009-12-18T11:29:49.342+00:00Seb and Kirsty Miss the JokeJust now I caught a moment of Sebastian Coe on Desert Island Discs. He was remembering walking to the hall where the host city for the 2012 Olympics was to be announced. His mobile rang, it was the Prime Minister - Blair, but it could just as well have been Brown. Blair asked who had won. Coe said the announcement hadn't been made. Blair said, 'Yes, but who's won?' Neither Coe nor Kirsty Young Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-82381505140598746282009-12-17T10:16:00.004+00:002009-12-18T11:30:44.991+00:00BA and Union HistoryIt seems to be quite a high life working for British Airways. The management has put all the evidence out there in the Daily Mail. This changes the image of the dispute. Now it looks as though BA staff are more like the printers in the good old days of Fleet Street. A tear springs to my eye when I remember how they used to pour oil on the web (paper) so that it broke and halted production. Or howBryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-32938538447574037182009-12-15T20:19:00.002+00:002009-12-15T20:24:27.155+00:00The Higgs OmenOh the Higgs Boson could be found by the Fermi Satellite and not the LHC. This seems to be yet another omen of the end of Europe.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-27656797895367484552009-12-15T07:13:00.003+00:002009-12-15T07:38:43.303+00:00You, Robot'The hard question, of course, is how we could tell that a robot really was conscious, and not just designed to mimic consciousness. Understanding how the robot had been programmed would provide a clue - did the designers write the code to provide only the appearance of consciousness? If so, we would have no reason to believe that the robot was conscious.'Peter Singer and Agata Sagan.Hmmm. How doBryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-57796947652577179882009-12-14T14:48:00.002+00:002009-12-14T15:02:31.524+00:00The British Love of Petty AuthorityI've noted before some disturbing anti-freedom trends in Norwich, one of my favourite cities. Now there is this. Little people - employed by the unelected and unaccountable company EventGuard - dressed in a little authority will be able to stop, question and harass me and even have access to police files. At least some policepeople have seen the light. People should not get questioned for Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-87037526476910307142009-12-14T14:41:00.001+00:002009-12-14T14:43:35.474+00:00Two Good ThingsThanks, Frank, for this clip of the sublime Jacques Brel on fear. Only a Belgian could so thoroughly out-French the French. Then there is this - the perfect scam. At last it feels like Christmas. Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-41829579087516250252009-12-13T06:59:00.000+00:002009-12-13T07:00:34.482+00:00PrizesIn The Sunday Times I write about the power of prizes.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-85059483966607574242009-12-10T15:53:00.003+00:002009-12-10T15:55:32.509+00:00Danny and the LafferGreat Danny produces one of those perfectly satisfying arguments. The Laffer Curve is meaningless because its reverse is also true. The Fink, as he is also known, really is one of the sharpest knives in the hack box.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-16460441971343461492009-12-10T10:20:00.005+00:002009-12-10T10:45:08.887+00:00Man in SpaceWhen I was talking to Chris Rapley about that warmist piece, he said he had worked with the astronaut Bruce McCandless. Rapley was very moved by this picture from 1984. It shows McCandless in orbit wearing a Manned Manoeuvring Unit. It is extraordinarily beautiful, perhaps because its content and form are one. The awkward angle between man and horizon and the way his left foot just crosses the Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-32479318949757643882009-12-10T09:12:00.003+00:002009-12-10T09:41:02.778+00:00Killing GaysSome Ugandan politicians want to kill gays because homosexuality is 'not natural in Uganda'. In this, they appear to have been encouraged by American advocates of conversion therapy. Both the Ugandans and Ahmadinejad in Iran, where being gay is a capital crime, identify homosexuality with Western influence. Leaving aside the savagery of the application of such ideas, what is striking is the sheerBryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com8