alex 
I was looking at the 1801 edition of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads in the Australian National Library the other day and was amused to find it heavily annotated by Alaric Alexander Watts, the English poet from the 19th century with whom I curiously share my name and birthday. Anyway he didn’t like Wordsworth – here is … Read more
i saw that strange couple on a tram again today. They were still discussing philosophy. “the theory of all possible worlds being actual concrete worlds is just fantastic. I mean, i don’t personally find this a challenge to my conception of existence at all” said the man. “oh really?” said the girl “how so?” “well, … Read more
Overheard when i was on a tram the other day, a man with no hair but tattoos all over his body talking to a short girl in a bowler hat and torn jeans: “I have a philosophical idea that i’d like to run past you. It seems that unlike in the sciences where there are … Read more
Mars is so kinky. I like mars. We all need to move there right away! Mars is a cool neighbour to have in this dusty dry old galaxy. I had a dream that I was on mars the other morning.. I think it was partly from all the lovely drugs I have been taking since … Read more
I was lucky enough to hear Bob Brown, former Senator and Leader of the Australian Greens party, speak at the ANU Crawford School yesterday evening. I always admired Bob’s lonely contributions of sanity to parliamentary debates and have always voted Green in past Australian elections. He is an interesting man with a very special story. … Read more
i am all about massaging egos, so i suppose the concept of self reference appeals to me naturally. Descartes said “Cogito ergo sum” – “I think therefore I am”, which is a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. Douglas Hofstadter’s works on self reference have been influential to me in developing these thoughts (qv Godel Escher … Read more
Bit of a wander through nostalgia.. here are some images which capture the ’16 bit’ decade for me. The timespan i am thinking of is about 1989-1998, when i first got my teenage hands on computers and was instantly transfixed by the games and the fun in getting into the guts of the OS. The … Read more
Readings about Corso et. al. lead me to discover Harold Chapman’s photos of the Beat Hotel. Shame they are all locked up behind a paywall, I wish they could escape and fertilise the minds of artist poet shamans everywhere. I would like to read the article by Kali Smart in the Beat Hotel magazine if … Read more
I think there are only two religions left in the world today, they are STEM and HASS. These are acronyms borrowed from university speak – STEM stands for Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics; HASS is Humanities Arts & Social Sciences, and they are capture an essential division in intellectual society. I have tried to reconcile … Read more
I was talking the other day to old Roger, at a Canberra Speleological Society trip to Wee Jasper, who was telling me about his first job in Australia working at the Orroral tracking station. I have long thought it is a tragedy that Orroral and Honeysuckle creek tracking stations, which were such an interesting piece … Read more
Having a coffee before my first Earth sciences lecture, I watch some workman cutting up bike racks with a battery powered angle grinder and hacksaw. The sulphry burnt smell of the blade cutting through steel reminds me of dad’s workshop and the pipe saw, a strangely pleasant smoke I have inhaled since earliest memory, awash … Read more