Danny Frederick (1955-2021)

classical liberalism

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Danny. Danny was a star example of the gentleman philosopher, beholden to no-one, following an existential calling that he saw through with absolute integrity and dignity to the bitter end. For more about Danny’s life see his autobiographical notes here. See a mutual friend of ours’ Mark Friedman’s thoughts on Danny. See his book Freedom, Indeterminism, and Fallibilism, his essays commemorating the 25th year of Popper’s passing, and his coauthored paper The Liberal Defense of Immigration Control. We shared a deep concern with the Left’s now fashionable, Jew hatred and with the associated corrosion of liberal values in an age of mass undifferentiated migration. But perhaps our biggest shared bond was for the glory years of Black Sabbath (’70-’73) and the band Budgie. Below is a clip of Danny, in a great deal of pain, speaking from his bed.

Satchmo Slogan: Leave It All Behind Ya

Louis Armstrong

Marking 50 years since Pops’ passing. For all things Pops, there is no better resource than Ricky Riccardi.

Herzl’s Bicycle

Israel

(This repost marks Herzl’s death on July 3rd). The top photo is of a mini sculpture near the Budapest synagogue and is based on the second photo on display in the Vienna Jewish Museum. The third photo is of the actual bicycle, also on display in the Vienna Jewish Museum. Read Herzl’s The Jewish State here; an audio book is freely available here.

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What termites and cells have in common

stigmergy

Here’s a press release for an open access technical paper.

This shows that morphing of cells is not solely guided by an unidirectional information flow from extracellular cues, but is also determined by the morphology of the cell itself as shaped by prior events.