I started reading John McLeish's Number, but I think I'm going to give up on it, as it's committed some errors and fostered some confusion in the first couple chapters that just make the whole thing suspect. One example that comes to mind is using the word quipu to indiscriminately refer to knotted strings used to carry numerical information, regardless of the civilization that created it. Speaking of a Chinese quipu just seems wrong. McLeish also credits the Venerable Bede for having "started the custom" of our current dating epoch, when that distinction belongs to Dionysius Exiguus. Other things about the presentation also bugged me. So I'm putting on my cranky pants and declaring this a bad book. Bad book!
The Knights of the Cornerstone, by James P. Blaylock - and a little Number
I started reading John McLeish's Number, but I think I'm going to give up on it, as it's committed some errors and fostered some confusion in the first couple chapters that just make the whole thing suspect. One example that comes to mind is using the word quipu to indiscriminately refer to knotted strings used to carry numerical information, regardless of the civilization that created it. Speaking of a Chinese quipu just seems wrong. McLeish also credits the Venerable Bede for having "started the custom" of our current dating epoch, when that distinction belongs to Dionysius Exiguus. Other things about the presentation also bugged me. So I'm putting on my cranky pants and declaring this a bad book. Bad book!
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Using your Baloney Detection Kit properly
Most of you know I spend quite some time battling the forces of ignorance and wrongitude in weird corners of the Internet. Young Earth Creationists,…
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The Scientific Attitude, by Lee McIntyre
subtitled: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience I was maybe suckered too much by the subtitle, hoping for some good hulk smash…
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You Look Like A Thing And I Love You / The Witchfinder's Sister
You Look Like A Thing And I Love You, by Janelle Shane The book seems to be a reworking of material Shane has shared in her AI weirdness blog. On…
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