chez pim

There is a new book

There is a new book about the notorious Sokal Hoax. Reading a review of the book got me thinking again about the infamous incident.

Yes, that one that so fascinated the popular press, when a leftist alternative magazine Social Text published an essay written in the aureate "academic" prose, quoting a number of celebrated postmodernists: Foucault, Derrida and the likes. The article was subsequently exposed by Lingua Franca as a fake, written by one Alan Sokal, a (previously obscure) Physicist hell bent on making a mockery out of Social Science.

The popular press, in a mad scramble to appease the anti-intellectual American popular culture, jumped all over the report. Once and for all they had in their hands *the* evidence exposing the hot air that was the Academy.

But in so doing the press missed a number of important point. One being that Social Text was a popular lieftist magazine, not a peer-reviewed social scientific journal as portrayed in the hoax reports. Using an example from Social Text to dispell the validity of Social Science is akin to picking apart a scientifically weak exposition published in Wired magazine and pointing to it as evidence against the cogency of all Scientific inquiries.

Ludicrous, no?

I am not saying that Postmodernism doesn't have its share of carefully prosed PC rubbish. Of course it does, as do all other disciplines.

What I am saying is, Postmodernist philosophy has its well-deserved place in the world. After all, was it not the deconstruction of previously substantiated "truth" that supplied much of the progress in the world? And is it not deconstructionism that lies at the very heart of Postmodernist inquiry?

If we were to take all widely upheld beliefs as vérité absolu, there would be no progress, no advancement of scientific or any sort of inquiry. Where would we have been had Galileo Galilee not questioned the vérité absolu of his day by using his theory of projectile motion to substantiate that our earth in fact orbited the sun, and so provided future scientists with a new basis on which to ponder the state of the world.

This propensity for short-sightedness and arrogance in the Scientific world, as so aptly portrayed by Sokal, is evidently what is wrong with the Academy today, "hard" or "soft" sciences alike. Not the turgidly prosed rubbish on either side, nor the barely contained mutual hostility, but this arrogance that will be the Academy's own undoing.

In the meantime the popular press roars, ridiculing the frivolity of academic research.
And making yet a bigger mockery of our collective intelligence, Everybody Loves Raymond.

I went bar hopping with

I went bar hopping with Val and Dave last night. Yes, on a thursday night.

It's not all that intentional really.

First I went to meet Dave at an art opening by Peter's (a freind of Dave's) dad. It turned out we got there a bit early. Just about a week early. Yes, Dave is a dolt. (but we love him anyway)

Then the two of us met Val for dinner at this little Italian place in Hayes Valley. We had a plan to rendezvous with our friend Don later that night at the wine bar. So off we went with bellies full of pasta and Chianti (the ratio of which you can guess), only to discover that Hayes and Vine was closed for an oh-so-private party until 9.30. We tried the famished children look with our respective noses pressed against the glass window begging to get in. Didn't work.

So we hurled ourselves across the street to Absinthe where I consoled myself with la petite morte. Oh, contain yourself, it's just a drink! Really it was :-) Val and Dave went with our old standby, Sidecar.

We tried to call Don to let him know we're across the street, but only managed to leave a garbled message on his cell phone. (Really what's the point of having a cell phone, people, if you're not gonna answer it.) According to Don later, it said something about upjohn or up your john or some such things.

Knowing full well that the message we left probably told Don to go play by himself in Timbuktu, we decided to cross the o-mighty Hayes yet again back to the wine bar to beg his forgiveness. In the meantime Don finally managed to ungarblized the clue we left on his phone, and was on his way to Absinthe. Fortunately he spotted Dave as he was flying by Hayes and Vine in his flashy chien-scented sports car, and decided that there couldn't, or shouldn't, be that many Dave-looking people in this wolrd. Don, who appeared to be the only person with a functioning brain last night, hence found us trying with all our collective might to sit up straight at the place we said we weren't gonna be..

So ended our school night odyssey with Perfection and great, if a bit disheveled, company.

Apparently I have learnt little

Apparently I have learnt little from the Vipassana classes I attended. Yesterday after meditation, we talked about attachments to likes and dislikes, and how these attachments were a main source of our sufferings in this world. It was demonstrably a popular subject, so the class ran a bit long.

All the while, I was watching my wrist watch, getting nervous that I would be late meeting Joe at the wine bar to pick up my favorite teas he had been kind enough to bring me from Mariage Fr貥s.

I guess I'm no where near Nirvana, huh?

waiting, waiting, waitng for Volvo

waiting, waiting, waitng for Volvo Roadside Assistance to jump start my car.
This is the second bloody time in two weeks.
I must be losing my mind.

Yet another example of an

Yet another example of an ingredient in search of a cuisine in the tech world.
What would you do with an illuminated keyboard?

The Register had a contest for the best use of this marvel. Here's the hilarity that ensued.
This one is my favortie:
"We have an employee who generally has his head up his ass.
Maybe he could take the keyboard with him and get some work done for a change."

I know of one myself. :-)

Anke made me this

Anke made me this cute card today. thanks anke

The monster Milosevic is at

The monster Milosevic is at last at the Hague, answering for all the atrocity he committed.
Justice is finally on the come back, or shall we say, justice is pulling a Capriati. :-)

I wonder when they are going to put that other war criminal Kissinger on trial.