weltschmerz

Work starts in four days. I spent the afternoon polishing shoes and gardening. Very Zen, I know.

The mood isn't as bleak as the title suggests; in fact, quite the opposite. I was informed of -- and hurriedly booked tickets for -- The New Pornographers' visit to London on 2nd November. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I have no idea whether they're playing any more dates in the capital; the official website currently mentions only "UK/EU shows in November and more in December". Anyway, a perfect birthday present (from me to me). Twin Cinema is a definite grower; "Use It", "The Bleeding Heart Show" and "Sing Me Spanish Techno" have buried themselves in my head. My brother is furiously deliberating the possibility of travelling back from uni for the gig. Classes? Pah!

And of course there's Sigur Rós a week later. My limited edition copy of Takk... has arrived, replete with beautiful packaging, additional artwork and -- fine, I'll stop drooling now. "Hoppípolla", an obvious highlight, is on repeat on the CD player; of the songs I hadn't heard already, "Saeglopur" was immediately striking in its intensity. I eagerly await the live performances.

Out with the old; in with the new. Submitted the dissertation today; start work on 3rd October.

Critics of Bayesian confirmation theory point to the problem of old evidence as a weakness of the account. Traditional attempts to resolve the problem include the counterfactual strategy and the humanised Bayesian strategy; I argue that these approaches are not entirely satisfactory. I then turn my attention to plausible reasoning in mathematics, focussing particularly on the problem of old evidence in mathematics, and argue that some form of humanised Bayesianism can contribute to our understanding of confirmation and old evidence in mathematics.

So there.

Congratulations to Antony & The Johnsons, who've won the Mercury Music Prize 2005. I was rooting for The Go Team! or maybe M.I.A., but what the hey, at least Coldplay didn't get it. Antony's voice (and appearance, I suppose) is definitely an acquired taste. I've warmed to tracks such as "Cripple And The Starfish", "Fistful Of Love" and "Hope There's Someone", but I can't help feeling that "You Are My Sister" (the current single?), which has been getting airplay, is horribly sappy and over the top. There's a whole bunch of mp3s here for your sampling pleasure.

So I was browsing through my Bloglines account, while stuck on a philosophical difficulty in my dissertation, when I discovered that I have a subscriber! It's Jeff McIntire-Strasburg over at sustainablog, and I reckon I ought to big him up (i) in order to encourage this kind of fine behaviour (subscribing to my blog, that is), and (ii) because he does a great job in covering sustainability issues (how does he find time to sleep?).

Bloglines is also highly recommended; it aggregates feeds from your chosen blogs to save you checking each one individually. The only danger is information overload, to be honest.