Colossal squid defrosting blog from Te Papa. You can watch them dissect it live!

Billytea just experienced true happiness, though he knows not why.

And I'm not the expert because I don't have a daughter, but I'd probably okay a 12-year-old wearing a little makeup for a truly special occasion.

I was allowed to wear makeup when I turned 13. Since this coincided with my exposure to MTV, there were a lot of days I went to school looking like I escaped from an Adam Ant or Duran Duran video.

Zombies have invaded... some philosophy blog....

An Anti-Zombie-Argument Argument

I don't know why, but I just love this paragraph:

The zombie argument gets its plausibility not from anything about the argument itself but from a variety of positions pre-argument that give it an antecedent probability. The best thing to do is not to play the zombie game at all; where argument is needed, attack not the zombie argument but what makes it seem plausible that zombies are conceivable and therefore possible. Or, to put it in other words: the best strategy is simply to refuse to countenance Cartesian assumptions about the mind (the pretense that self-knowledge is easy, the pretense that we have a thorough understanding of the physical side of the equation, indeed, the pretense that the physical is all on one side of the equation and the mental all on the other, etc.) and let the argument fade on its own.

That was in response to this post o' zombies: Zombie Invasion, which contains a shitload of links to other philosophy/zombie stuff....

On Chalmers' view, wherein the 'psychophysical laws' are contingent, it seems that across possible worlds most brains like ours will be zombies or at least have 'associated' qualia that don't 'match' the information processing in the brain. So sophisticated brains proceeding according to ordinary standards of rationality should zombie-conclude that they probably are not conscious (as they don't have access to any non-material qualia), despite their zombie-perceptions of being conscious (shared by both zombie and non-zombie brains). Yet Chalmers thinks that in our actual world the psychophysical laws lead to conscious experience mirroring the information processing in the brain. So, upon hearing the argument, shouldn't Chalmers' brain zombie-conclude that it is probably a zombie brain, and 'phenomenal Chalmers' consciously think the same?

So FontShop just emailed, heralding a font called "Borges" and I was in seventh heaven waiting to see what that would be like, until I read:

the vibrant scripts of Charles Borges de Oliveira. Charles comes from a sign painting background, and you see evidence of that training in each stroke of his collection

bummer. I wanted a script from The Book of Sand

t / typeface dork

My sister, in fourth grade, once tried to go to school with blue eyeshadow that started at her eyelids and went down her cheeks, copied from something she'd seen in a magazine or on MTV. She was apparently under the impression that, if she came out of her room like that just as it was time to leave for school, then Mom wouldn't make her wash it off, because washing it off would make us late. Um, no.

She was apparently under the impression that, if she came out of her room like that just as it was time to leave for school, then Mom wouldn't make her wash it off, because washing it off would make us late. Um, no.

My parents were remarkably unfazed by the Adam Ant warpaint stripes across my nose. I think they figured that since I was playing with makeup for my own amusement, and not to make myself look like a teen tartlet, they didn't mind.

IF my niece was okay with it, I'd allow it to go forward, but only if I had veto rights.

Yes, exactly. And it would really depend on the kid in question and their maturity level.

I don't remember my parents having any makeup restrictions. Of course I never had a curfew either. I wore makeup in 7th grade sometimes, I think.

I wasn't allowed to wear makeup or get my ears pierced until I was 13. I didn't care much about the makeup thing but I really wanted my ears pierced.

I think I was allowed to get my ears pierced when I was five, but didn't want to until I was eight. They did it with the needle, not the gun, and I remember looking in the mirror and noticing a pool of blood on the shoulder of my t-shirt. (Several years later, they got infected, and then I got scared to wear earrings for a while, and eventually the holes closed up. I put off getting them repierced for a while, because I remembered the blood from the first time, and then when I finally went a few years ago and they did it with the gun, I was really surprised at how easy it was.)

philosophy/zombie

"I think, therefore I....brainnnnnnnnnnnnsssssssssss...."