Saturday, July 15, 2006

Philosophy and the Humanities in the United States Today (J. Stanley). In my last few posts, I have been raising a contentious issue. Consider the CVs of philosophers in the United States working in the 1970s and 1980s publishing on core metaphysical and epistemological issues of the sort discussed by Plato,... [Leiter Reports: A Group Blog] 11:48:21 AM    comment []

Three from Cory: Canadian Nat'l Film Board puts 50 classic shorts online. Chris sez, "The National Film Board of Canada has put 50 of their brilliant animated short films on line for free viewing. The collection spans 60 years and includes Norman Mclaren's groundbreaking experimental films from the 1950s and some of the most hilarious cartoons ever created (personal favorite, Richard Condie's The Big Snit). The collection includes several Oscar nominated shorts, and it's a good demonstration of why the NFB has a global rep for nurturing brilliant animation." I agree on all counts -- especially about The Big Snit, which is unspeakably awesome in its awesome unspeakableness. Link (Thanks, Chris!) HOWTO build an analog watch. Gordon sez, "Extensive site documenting (with many interesting close-up photos) the process of creating a handmade analog wristwatch. Including the movement!" My grandfather was a watchmaker who learned his trade in the Soviet Union while he was a war-refugee. He had a huge desk full of tens of thousands of movements and partial movements and I loved playing with them -- he even taught me a little of the trade. I had thought it would be like computer programming, but it's really nothing like it -- more like building an incredibly elaborate game of Mousetrap through a microscope. Link (Thanks, Gordon!) Thousands of malware sites uncovered with Google. Goggle has a little-used feature that lets you search for arbitrary binary strings; a security company has used this to find thousands of sites that distribute malicious software to visitors: By taking advantage Google's binary search capability, Websense has created new software tools that can sniff out malware using the popular search engine. Websense researchers Googled for strings that were used in known malware like the Bagel and Mytob worms and have uncovered about 2,000 malicious Web sites over the past month, according to Dan Hubbard, senior director of security and research with Websense. Link (via /.) [Boing Boing] 11:48:06 AM    comment []