* Tanasije Gjorgoski gives his list of Top 10 Appearances of Kant in (Not So) Popular Culture. One of those appearances in not so popular culture looks very familiar. If you like philosophy and haven't heard the Kant Song, by the way, you should. It should be in the toolbox of everyone who might possibly teach Kant (or have to explain Kant) under some circumstance.
* Douglys of "Armchari Investigations" on the Boolos-Smullyan 'Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever'.
* Johnny-Dee considers the principle of credulity.
* The 41st History Carnival is up at "Clioweb". Some lovely stuff as always; blog carnivals are by nature uneven, but I think the History Carnival tends consistently to be one of the best, in the sense of both quality of the posts and general accessibility. Other carnivals tend to do better on one than the other (e.g., the Philosophers' Carnival tends to be fairly consistent about quality, but I doubt many people not in philosophy find it very readable, and this is, I think, common to most of the more heavily academic carnivals).
* Mark Chu-Carroll has had a number of really great posts recently on what we might call tangible math or manual calculation (in the literal etymological sense of 'manual' -- using one's hands):
The Slide Rule
Manual Calculation using a Slide Rule
Using the Slide Rule Part 2: Exponents and Roots
The Abacus
Arithmetic on the Abacus: Part 1
Using the Abacus Part 2: Multiplication
Division on the Abacus
Computing Square Roots on Paper
Square Root on the Abacus
Finger Math
No Abacus Handy? Use Your Hands
Binary Fingermath
Multiplying with Your Fingers
I find it all very fascinating. I've always liked this aspect of math; in elementary school I loved reading about Napier's bones; I still like reading about dactylonomy (calculating with the fingers), e.g., the Venerable Bede's system, which allowed the representation of numbers up to 9,999 (his primary mathematical interest, of course, was in keeping track of years and dates, where you need to be able to keep track into the thousands, but don't usually need operations more sophisticated than basic arithmetic). I have a book on (basic) chi-san-bop somewhere; it's a neat little system. I wish more of what we were taught about in mathematics, at least early on, was of this tangible sort; even though people would still forget as much as they do now, in the meantime they would have become acquainted with the same mathematical operations in several different physical forms, which is the perfect preparation for understanding the abstract theory.
