Philosophy
Tightening up the index for Einstein's Jewish Science. Last item before it goes to the printers. It will be released in mid-April in both hardback and e-book formats. If we are moving towards an all e-book world in the next decade or so, will indices be necessary? With the ability to search for any term you choose, is there still a function for the list of names and terms the author thinks make up the essence of the book? Is the index about to go the way of the 8-track or does it have some special standing?
- Bookstore Censorship?
Crispin Sartwell plays with a good one concerning a commercial form of censorship. In Tunisia, the wife of the deposed dictator -- both of whom are rightly despised -- has written a memoir. Bookstores labored under state-sponsored censorship...
- Group E-mail Vs. Spam
Is there a difference between sending an e-mail to a group of people and spam? Is the difference based on the number of people contacted? If so, where is the dividing line between contacting a bunch of folks and sending spam? Or is it...
- Historians, Archaeologists, And Scientists
Are historians scientists? They frame hypotheses about the causes and effects of real events and use empirical evidence to support their accounts. But they don't do not look for regularities to make into laws; to the contrary, they account...
- Are Recipes Intellectual Property?
The Food Network has dropped dessert chef Anne Thornton when it was discovered that recipes in her cookbook were, but for small alterations, the same as those in cookbooks by others. The word "plagiarism" is being used for the case. It is,...
- Ownership And Access
The notion of intellectual property has never been made fully consistent. It is an attempt to marry an Enlightenment era notion about possession of things and land to a changed notion of "the fruits of one's labor." I remember as an undergraduate...
Philosophy
Indexical Obsolescence?
Tightening up the index for Einstein's Jewish Science. Last item before it goes to the printers. It will be released in mid-April in both hardback and e-book formats. If we are moving towards an all e-book world in the next decade or so, will indices be necessary? With the ability to search for any term you choose, is there still a function for the list of names and terms the author thinks make up the essence of the book? Is the index about to go the way of the 8-track or does it have some special standing?
- Bookstore Censorship?
Crispin Sartwell plays with a good one concerning a commercial form of censorship. In Tunisia, the wife of the deposed dictator -- both of whom are rightly despised -- has written a memoir. Bookstores labored under state-sponsored censorship...
- Group E-mail Vs. Spam
Is there a difference between sending an e-mail to a group of people and spam? Is the difference based on the number of people contacted? If so, where is the dividing line between contacting a bunch of folks and sending spam? Or is it...
- Historians, Archaeologists, And Scientists
Are historians scientists? They frame hypotheses about the causes and effects of real events and use empirical evidence to support their accounts. But they don't do not look for regularities to make into laws; to the contrary, they account...
- Are Recipes Intellectual Property?
The Food Network has dropped dessert chef Anne Thornton when it was discovered that recipes in her cookbook were, but for small alterations, the same as those in cookbooks by others. The word "plagiarism" is being used for the case. It is,...
- Ownership And Access
The notion of intellectual property has never been made fully consistent. It is an attempt to marry an Enlightenment era notion about possession of things and land to a changed notion of "the fruits of one's labor." I remember as an undergraduate...