Subscribe to Blog via Email
Join 296 other subscribers
Archive:
Month: April 2017
Would you listen to a 5-hour symphony?
I sat through the 1992 revival of Einstein on the Beach, which goes for five hours, and which is much more static (as hardcore minimalist music) than a symphony would be. I had no problem sitting through the entire thing—even though the opera creators imagined you could walk in and out as you pleased. And […]
In your opinion, do most people who think they are too smart to get arrested end up getting away with their crimes?
I will instead volunteer Lt. Columbo’s opinion. From the pilot episode. You’re probably right. He sounds just too clever for us. What I mean is, you know, cops, we’re not the brightest guys in the world. Of course, we got one thing going for us: we’re professionals. I mean, you take our friend here, the […]
What does your happiness routine involve? What kinds of things do you routinely do to keep your sanity, or to treat yourself to something nice?
I don’t do enough of this, especially right now. But I’m more of an introvert than I like to think, and I’m happiest when I’m walking down a street, late at night on my lonesome; or (as tonight) when I stay back in the office, in the quiet, and with the lights off. It’s calm. […]
I Am Porthos
Nick Nicholas’ answer to What happened when your friends found out about you being a famous Quoran? Well, the prize for this goes to a friend of my wife’s, who took to saying “Oh My God, you’re, like, the Beyoncé of Quora”. I mean, obviously. Steve Theodore, https://www.quora.com/What-happe… My response: … Wow. Who knew that […]
What do you look like with and without eyeglasses?
I don’t wear glasses much any more; just for driving or concerts, really, and I don’t do much of either. In fact, I had to go back one and a half years to find any photos of me with glasses at all. So, Answered 2017-04-24 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-do-you-look-like-with-and-without-eyeglasses/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
How is your experience of reading a text in a language other than English different from reading the same text in English?
Reading English is just flowing water to me. The information just snarfs up. Reading Modern Greek, I’m hyper-aware of stylistic differences; every concession to Ancient Greek or opening up to dialect was a political act up until the 70s, and I learned my Greek in the aftermath of that. Journalistic rigid syntax dismays me; I […]
What’s the difference between Res extensa and Res corporea?
Not a philosopher by any stretch, but if I can decipher my Googlings of Heidegger’s interpretations of Descartes correctly: The res corporea “the bodily substance” is defined in opposition to the res cogitans “the thinking substance”. Applied to people, it is the human body as opposed to the mind. The defining attribute of the res […]
Do you think it is reasonable and useful to social justice for a white cis man to refrain from expressing his perspectives too often or too forcibly?
This is contentious, and ideological. I’ll just give my answer, as a middle-aged white cis het male. I have judgement. I have opinions. I am not disenfranchised from having opinions or judgement, simply by accident of what privilege I have inherited. I am entitled to discuss those opinions, and so long as I do so […]
Australian Republic Movement Ad
How do you remind Australians on Australia Day that they should really be a republic after all? By getting them to sing the Australian Royal National Anthem in an ad. You know the one. ‘God save the Queen’: Royal anthem gets republican twist in new ad campaign https://youtube.com/watch?v=2RQ_M55Jhaw Good work, Australian Republican Movement. You didn’t […]
Why are the Black people in America called African-Americans but we don’t have French-Americans or any other nationality Americans?
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Polish+-+American&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CPolish%20–%20American%3B%2Cc0 Am astonished that the obvious answer hasn’t been uttered yet. There was a longstanding practice in America of referring to white ethnic minorities as hyphenated Americans. (Something Teddy Roosevelt famously decried.) There were, and are, French–Americans, Italian–Americans, German–Americans, etc etc. Blacks changed their description from racial terms to a hyphenated American term in the […]