Don't forget that Wide Scope is now at www.andrewcullison.com - I just posted a Roderick Chisholm Desktop Wallpaper over there.

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Wide Scope has Changed Directories

www.andrewcullison.com

I just installed Word Press at my main homepage, and I'll now have everything (homepage and blog) under one roof.

My homepage and this blog are both going to be at www.andrewcullison.com

Those of you who subscribed through my FeedBurner feed won't have to do anything (that's one of the nice features of FeedBurner).

More posts at the new site will be coming soon.

Awesome. Story here.

I've decided that I'm switching to Ubuntu (Linux). I'm also switching to LatTeX. They are both awesome. Here are some reasons why.

Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings
A while back, during my open access rants, Jeremy predicted (in this post) that I would become a Linux user soon. Jeremy, it seems, is a bit of a prophet. At the time, I had already partitioned my hard drive so I could play around with it. I finally got some of the kinks ironed out, and now I think I'm ready to make the full switch.

Ubuntu is great, and you don't need to be a computer hacker to use it. It's Linux for Human Beings.

Many of the reasons for pushing for open access in journals seem like they ought to push one toward open source software. I think that's right, and I think that explains Jeremy's prediction. In fact, Richard Chappelle over at Philosophy Etc. has a great post that is sort of related to this issue here (Although his post is limited to open source word processing).

Philosophical reasons aside, there are other some pretty good practical reasons to switch to Linux(Ubuntu)

1. Security
   Linux was made with security in mind. The Linux system is WAY more secure. You don't have to use anti-virus software.
   
   
2. Speed
   You don't have a bunch of anti-spyware/malware/anti-virus software/crummy software you'll never use that comes loaded with your windows machine. In Vista, it takes 2-3 minutes minutes from the time I push the power button to the time I'm actually doing something online. In Ubuntu - it's 30 seconds (that includes the time it takes to enter my username and password).
   
   
3. Cheap
   In the future, all that I will need to pay for to get a nice machine - is the machine! Everything else I need is FREELY available - including great open-source alternatives to many of the cool proprietary windows programs.
   

LaTeX
I've also been playing around with LaTeX. I know a lot of philosophers out there have been hip to LaTeX for awhile, and I'm sad that I am only now just discovering how great it is.

Making the sbit more in the future.witch can be a little odd for someone unfamiliar with markup languages, but there are so many template TeX files out there, that even someone with very little experience with these can jump right in.

I love LaTeX. I'll probably stump for LaTeX a bit more in my next post.

In one of Ted Sider's recent papers, he's got a nice section trying to explain why philosophers should care about the metaphysical possibility of time travel. Here's a passage.

Before expending too much energy on the topic, it is worth thinking a bit about
its point. Beyond the (perfectly legitimate) desire to set the record straight, is
there any reason to care about time travel?

The most straightforward reason to care is that today’s physics community
cares. Whether the actual laws of nature permit time travel is a live debate
in contemporary physics journals (Earman, 1995). Suppose the arguments
to be discussed in this paper against the possibility of time travel (without
shackles) succeeded. Then, given that many physicists tell us otherwise, that is
a problem! Whatever else metaphysicians must do, they should at least try to
make metaphysical sense out of what physicists take seriously.

I started to wonder exactly how seriously the physics community cares. That led to this post last week.

I found another interesting news story this week. The article is a bit sensationalist, and it's a little older - but it does report on a physicist, Amos Ori, who explains how he thinks we could make time travel happen. I assume this is the Physical Review article the newspaper is referring to. (Note: Amos Ori has an even earlier article here)

Too bad you can only read the abstracts online.

Here's a funny story about two friends. They formed a group called TEAL (Typo Eradication Advancement League), and they travel the country correcting typos.

SUNY-Fredonia's own, Neil Feit, has a book coming out this summer.

OUP has a description - plus some nice blurbs from Andy Egan and John Perry on their website. I'm pasting all of that below.

Description

Philosophers typically suppose that the contents of our beliefs and other cognitive attitudes are propositions-things that might be true or false, and their truth values do not vary from time to time, place to place, or person to person. Neil Feit argues that this view breaks down in the face of beliefs about the self. These are beliefs that we express by means of a first-person pronoun. Feit maintains-following David Lewis, Roderick Chisholm, and others-that in general, the contents of our beliefs are properties. Unlike propositions, properties lack absolute truth values that do not vary with time, place, or person.

Belief about the Self offers a sustained defense of the Property Theory of Content, according to which the content of every cognitive attitude is a property rather than a proposition. The theory is supported with an array of new arguments, defended from various objections, and applied to some important problems and puzzles in the philosophy of mind.

Reviews

"Feit's discussion of the arguments for and against the property theory of content is philosophically sophisticated, generous, and fair-minded, and he finds some extremely interesting applications for his version of the property theory."
--Andy Egan, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan

"Belief about the Self is an important contribution to the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, and useful for the broader field of cognitive science."
--John Perry, Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University