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flemn8r.bsky.social
tom flemming
@flemn8r.bsky.social
230 followers 540 following 930 posts
There's very little we know about how people would have voted if things had been different

Recovering philosopher
West Riding the A63 East

*Bring back the Internet*
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flemn8r.bsky.social
Hear hear!
A sleepy blue roan cocker spaniel rests his chin on a blanket on his second favourite sofa
November 15, 2025 at 3:47 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
I learned a lot more from the book on the right.
Two books: on the left, Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach; on the right, Introduction to Mathematical Logic by Elliot Mendelson
November 5, 2025 at 12:39 AM
flemn8r.bsky.social
I think blueskyism requires that somebody leave this here, and nobody else has?
Image of WW2 plane with red dots representing bullet holes - "survivor bias" meme
November 1, 2025 at 10:00 AM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Teenage me felt the same about this in O level physics. It was *offensively* wrong, 1+1>2 wrong.
Linear Thermal Expansion—Thermal Expansion in One Dimension The change in length ΔL is proportional to length L. The dependence of thermal expansion on temperature, substance, and length is summarized in the equation ΔL = αLΔT,where ΔL is the change in length L, ΔT is the change in temperature, and α is the coefficient of linear expansion, which varies slightly with temperature.
October 23, 2025 at 9:56 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Mr Hotelling, I presume?

people.duke.edu/~dbr1/resear...
Text reads: Later, Chamberlin (1933) showed that there is no equilibrium when a third firm is added to the market. If there are three firms clustered at the mid‐point, the firm in the middle has an incentive to move away. The basic Hotelling model also fails to account for strategic pricing. D’Aspremont, Gabszewicz and Thisse (1979) showed that when firms choose both price and location, firms move apart to decrease price competition.
October 21, 2025 at 7:51 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Also out East. Driven off the bike and back onto the Machine for the first time in a few months...
Concept II rowing machine display post mediocre workout in garage
September 20, 2025 at 7:44 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Try! Just behind the posts
August 24, 2025 at 6:13 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Nuraghe Asoru, Muravera

www.donnanuragica.com/siti-archeol...
A stone tower on a rocky platform silhouetted against the sun and blue sky A rocky path upwards
August 7, 2025 at 3:13 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Will never tire of
Cover shot of "The Captive Mind" by Polish writer, poet, academic and Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz.
July 22, 2025 at 11:54 AM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Tapped, Ainsty-wise.
4 pint brown plastic growler next to pint of golden Ainsty Ale on round table outdoors. More drinkers in background...
July 18, 2025 at 6:41 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
I wonder about the case of Britain 1700-1760: debt climbed to 100% GDP, growth was minimal.

If low growth comes with low borrowing costs, high debt burdens are quite serviceable. I think growth expectations push borrowing costs up?

articles.obr.uk/300-years-of...

warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/econ...
Chart showing British govt debt and borrowing 1700-2000. Debt climbs to 100% of GDP by about 1760, carries on to 200% by 1820... falls and then has a huge spike in WW1, climbing even higher over WW2 before falling again Table: British GDP in current prices; 1700: £77.7m 1759: £103.6m
June 12, 2025 at 10:26 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
A bright morning here... Domino eyes deer warily!
A spaniel on the edge of a field watches a deer feeding a few yards away along a tall hedge of trees...
May 21, 2025 at 10:18 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Lovely! Saw these guys just hangin' out on Givendale yesterday...
two large black cattle in a field with trees behind and hazy blue skies above
May 11, 2025 at 11:00 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Happy Easter from the bluebells!
a black & white spaniel dog close up in a bluebell wood with tree trunks behind...
April 20, 2025 at 10:15 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Did you perhaps order this then??
Book cover: "I really like Slop!". Pig holds a bowl of green slop attended by flies, while elephant looks on, puzzled. By Mo Willems
April 13, 2025 at 10:13 AM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Exactly. This passage seems to be saying candidly: we're "just" interested in this factor, so we need to zoom in on that, rather than taking a broad enough view to see if, all things considered, that factor matters.

Nice epistemology you have there, Professor!
But at least that's out in the open?
Times article extract: But not every mention of ethnic minorities involves an invidious general comparison. Sometimes we just need to better understand criminal offences in a relatively circumscribed cultural context, particularly where it is a matter of accountability and learning lessons...
April 13, 2025 at 10:09 AM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Fun? Поехали!
👨‍🚀👩‍🚀🚀
Band on stage silhouetted by lights against dry ice.. guitar, keyboards, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, bass lurking behind. Plus 2 people dancing in space suits (Gagarin!)
March 29, 2025 at 10:37 AM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Love the alt.text...

Ainsty Tap, Acaster Malbis
Cheers!
Half empty pint of blonde on a barrel in a barn of a tap room
March 21, 2025 at 7:23 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
This from Milosz's Captive Mind stuck with me... warmth, crowds, red faces
Text reads: To belong to the masses is the great longing of the “alienated” intellectual. It is such a powerful longing that, in trying to appease it, a great many of them who once looked to Germany or Italy for inspiration have now become converted to the New Faith. Actually, the rightist totalitarian program was exceptionally poor. The only gratification it offered came from collective warmth: crowds, red faces, mouths open in a shout, marches, arms brandishing sticks; but little rational satisfaction. Neither racist doctrines, nor hatred of foreigners, nor the glorification of one’s own national traditions could efface the feeling that the entire program was improvised to deal with problems of the moment. But Murti-Bing is different.
March 19, 2025 at 11:13 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Every time the plumber starts to pronounce on the fact/value distinction and the side on which her work sits, I brandish my inherited copy of Quine's From A Logical Point Of View, open at this page...
Chapter 2: Two Dogmas of Empiricism (WVO Quine)
March 16, 2025 at 4:02 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Nice paper (I hadn't seen before) and thread. And I think Putnam's emphasis on Practice is relevant to the start of the "dispute" (side note: he wrote, and changed his mind, a lot; other Putnams are available...)

bsky.app/profile/adsq...
March 15, 2025 at 11:48 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Spot on - this is pretty much what the Quine-Duhem thesis claims: you're *always* testing a bigger theory than you had in mind...

plato.stanford.edu/entries/scie...
Quote from Quine via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. But the total field is so underdetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to reevaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole. (1951, 42–3) "
March 15, 2025 at 10:42 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
Though the policy rationale had moved on by the time the school where I was a parent governor started conversion in 2017? I remember this part (from assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/u... )
Document excerpt: "1.42. We will take new powers to direct schools to become academies in local authority areas which are underperforming or where the local authority no longer has capacity to maintain its schools; or where schools have not started the process of becoming an academy by 2020. This process will be complete by the end of 2022, by which point local authorities will no longer maintain any schools, so they can focus on delivering their core functions. 1.43. When every school is an academy, groups of schools will be able to span geographic boundaries, with the best MATs expanding to run schools in our toughest areas in a way that no high-performing local authority ever could. This provides real accountability, competitive pressure and choice – improving performance, enabling innovation and scaling success"
March 3, 2025 at 12:51 PM
flemn8r.bsky.social
"historically top 20-30" seems Confidently Wrong based on the shape of this chart (Scotland may vary?)
Chart of popularity ranking of "George" from 1920 20 2020. Starts close to 1st, dips down to 80th qround 1970, back up to top 20 and climbing since 1990. Based on ONS baby names data, England and Wales
February 27, 2025 at 8:33 AM
flemn8r.bsky.social
A fair challenge... How about Lyotard (translated)?
I mean even if it's wrong it's pretty comprehensible?
Lyotard, The Post-Modern Condition, p3. Our working hypothesis is that the status of knowledge is altered as ·societies eprer what is known as th�.agc..and culwres enter what is known as the p0stmodem age 1 This transition has been under way since at least the end of the 1 9SQs, which for Europe marks the completion of reconstruction . The pace is faster or slower depending on the country , and within countries it varies according to the sector of activity : the general siruation is one of temporal dis- junction which makes sketching an overview d ifficult. 2 A portion of the description would necessarily be conjecrural. At any rate, we know that it is unwise to put too much faith in fururology. 3 Rather than painting a p icrure that would inevitably remain in- complete , I will take as my point of deparrure a single fearure, one that immediately defines our object of srudy. Scientific knowledge is a kind of discourse. And it is fair to say that for the last forty years the "leading" sciences aJ1sf..l��hnologies have h ad to_ do with language : ph onology and theorits.. of linguistics,+_pio blems o-f communication and cybernetics,5 modern_. theories of algebra and informatics,6 computers and their languages,? problems of translation and the search for areas of compatibility among computer languages, 8 prob- lems of information storage and data banks,9 telematics and the
February 22, 2025 at 10:29 PM