Ramble, Part 75: Exclude This!

In our last episode, a couple of months ago, we discussed the Intuitionists, and in particular their view that mathematics takes place in the human mind and, therefore, must be founded and justified in mental terms. This has enormous consequences.

( Goodbye, Mr. Boole )

Ramble Contents

Miscellany

1. It is, in fact, possible to mow an overgrown lawn with a push-mower. Sort of. It's time consuming, and it takes a while to recover, and there will be a few clumps that need to be handled with a different tool, but it is possible.

2. The barking of dogs in Sophie B. Hawkins' "Blue" does not bother Buster and Gracie, but the ringing of a doorbell on TV does.

3. Firefox has been behaving oddly lately. Every once in a while, I'll have a couple of tabs open, and without warning FF will split them off into separate windows. If there's something I'm accidentally doing which could cause this, I'd like to know; more, I'd like to know if there's some way to re-merge them.

4. Also in the odd glitch category: my computer seems to get confused about whether it's connected to my ISP. I'll be online, websurfing, and the "Connect To :ISP:" dialog box will come up. I glance down; the connection has not dropped, and data is flowing. I hit ESC to cancel the box; after anywhere from five seconds to five minutes, here it comes again. Sometimes I'll have to hit ESC three or four times in less than a minute. It started happening after I set up the LP converter, but there doesn't seem to be a direct connection.

5. I've been alternating my Pratchett reread with previously-unread fiction. For some reason, most of it has been non-USAn stuff: Keri Hulme's The Bone People, Alan Paton's Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful, Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, Mario Vargas Llosa's The Storyteller. (OK, I snuck Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist in there too, but four out of five's a pretty high fraction.)