ProfRon.net

Nice illustration of a good illusion:

The folks at the Sci-Fi news site io9 have a cute poll about Poll: What Happens When You Kill Your Own Grandfather As A Baby?

As I’ll be teaching Philosophy in Science Fiction in the Fall, you’ll be getting more of these. Chaospet has a nice little bit on Trek-style transporters and worries about personal identity here.

You know I like illusions. Especially when I’m teaching Phenomenology, I’m the prop philosopher, with all sorts of illusions and other perceptual phenomena to show. So how can I resist this frenetic and funny presentation of 10 optical illusions in 2 minutes?

Again, PHD Comics captures the essence of grad school in Going Green:

OK, I’m not quite convinced the “the number of undergraduate philosophy majors is ballooning“; but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to have the NYTimes act like studying philosophy is the thing to do: In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined.

There’s some talk that’s swirling around in popular linguistics about the question of whether ‘yo’ is emerging as the new gender-neutral pronoun. See the issue at Language Log here: Yo.

As I’ve noted before (hey, read the “Recently Viewed” links to the right), I think we already have a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun in American English: it’s “they”. We always use it in actual speech when we don’t know the gender of the person already: “Somebody drove my car, and they left the mirrors all screwed up.”

Just a nice little bit on attention and what we don’t notice.

Unfortunately, these excellent buttons are currently sold out.