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Changing Minds
I’ve long felt that most people do not change their minds about things that are important to them, including areas like religion and politics. I think most people seem to pick a set of beliefs sometime in early adulthood or before and stick to them. It’s not that people are necessarily close-minded as such. It’s…
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Medical Side-Effects
My aunt died 12 days ago. I don’t want to write about my personal feelings about this, but I do want to write something about the events that led to her death. I don’t know all the details, but this is the basic story I heard as it evolved. Two or three years ago, at…
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Clever Machines
I’ve always found it easy to deal with machines, as I expect is true of most computer programmers. The interface to a machine is not always logical, but it is normally consistent in the sense that it always behaves the same way given the same inputs, and it is normally unambiguous in the sense that…
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Living with the Past
I’m in Stockholm for a few weeks, which is why I haven’t been updating this blog. I’ve been in Sweden many times before, but one thing I’ve noticed particularly this time is the way that old existing buildings have been adapted for modern times. It’s quite common to see stone steps which look positively ancient…
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Afghanistan
I don’t have a well thought out view of Afghanistan. But General McChrystal’s counter-insurgency plan never made much sense to me. The plan by definition requires a government which the people can trust. But all reports are that Hamid Karzai is not trusted by the people in Afghanistan. The election last year was a total…