Cairo Metro Line 3

The third Metro line finally opened last week, but today was my first chance to try it. Currently it only covers five stations, from Attaba at the edge of downtown to Abbasiya further east. But eventually it’s going to run from Zamalek (actually, even a few stops west of Zamalek) all the way to the airport. And it has that “airport express” feel to it already, with fast and shiny trains from Mitsubishi– 11 trains with 8 cars apiece, to be precise. (See the photo below.)

It feels a bit science fictionesque to ride in a familiar city along a previously non-existent underground train route with 4 of its 5 stations having never existed on any line at all before. I made sure to get out at Abbasiya and walk around a bit, simply to have the sensation of another Cairo neighborhood being Metro-accessible.

Unfortunately, someone tells me that the American University in Cairo sits on the planned Line 13. (!) It’ll be awhile, though they did just close a deal to start building Line 4. And man, does this city ever need additional Metro lines.

Cogburn on Braver’s NDP review of Moore

HERE. 

why it’s time for college athletes to be paid a little bit

A nice outrageous story college basketball story can be read HERE. (Hat tip, J. Protevi.) The kid took $200 from a former coach to help feed his family, and was ruled ineligible by the NCAA. $200! As an unpaid worker in a multi-billion dollar industry!

We pay graduate students fairly livable stipends, and I don’t see why we can’t do the same for athletes (generally poorer than graduate students) when these athletes are generating corporate levels of profit for their universities. (Though frankly, I’m in favor of clearing all these sports out of the universities to begin with, and putting them in European-style sports clubs. Cash cow sports programs, much though I’v enjoyed watching them over the years, simply bring appalling levels of corruption into higher education.)

*19* written but unpublished articles

I was again surprised this morning when counting the number of already written but unpublished pieces on my computer. There are now 19 of them, and two of them were written at the AUC Tahrir Campus, which we left in 2008.

Look, I’m not saying there’s no benefit to anthologies or to special topic journal issues. There are certainly some benefits to this, and some editors may be especially skilled at compiling such collections (I was the third editor myself on The Speculative Turn, and I do think it was nice to put all those pieces together in one volume).

But remember, the LP record album also has advantages. Nonetheless, it was born in a different technological era that has been superseded. I want to be able to buy songs individually, and thanks to the MP3 revolution that is now quite easy. And by the same token, there is really no compelling reason why an article should still be unpublished 4 years after it was completed, and perhaps 3 years after final proofreading. This happens due to some of the following reasons:

•many projects work at the speed of the slowest contributor

•many academic publishers are too slow

•articles are still treated as though they must travel in convoys (an artifact of the paper-and-glue era), when in most cases it would be perfectly fine just to post articles individually as they are accepted.

If I were founding a journal right now, that’s how I’d do it: As soon as an article is accepted, it goes on the website, and website subscribers receive immediate free notification. Page numbers (needed for academic c.v. seriousness purposes; some Deans and Provosts think you’re pulling a scam if no page numbers are involved) are to be assigned sequentially during each calendar year. I wouldn’t charge anything for the articles. You’d probably need a tough review process to help counter the continuing perception that web-based journals aren’t tough enough given how cheap it is to post something online.

Intensive Thinking commenting on Metzinger

Some interesting thoughts from Jon, HERE.

The strength of Metzinger lies in reminding us of the possibly stunning complexity of the self, which is too often viewed as a simple and unique ontological pole utterly different from everything else. But then Metzinger ruins it by advancing into a baseless ontological darkness that in no way follows from his philosophical points (actually, he already ruins it in the introduction, so the reader isn’t misled for long). The motto “There is no self!” has the ring of  shattering intellectual revolution about it, but in no way does it follow from anything Metzinger says.

The strange unstated premise of Metzinger’s mammoth tome is this: “If something is made of components, then it cannot be real.” Why not? And he doesn’t even bother making the case. Instead, he just makes dismissive remarks about anyone who doesn’t immediately take this point for obvious.

I’m also glad that Jon mentions DeLanda, because he’s a great mood tonic for Metzinger. DeLanda takes science every bit as seriously as Metzinger does, and for this reason I’ve often wondered why some of the more scientistically inclined Deleuzians aren’t bigger DeLanda fans than they are. But the reason is ultimately quite simple: DeLanda isn’t dark enough for some people. He doesn’t like smashing stuff. Instead, he likes showing how things are created (thunderstorms, for instance). And if your entire temperamental commitment to philosophy is a commitment to smashing stuff, and if in addition you have no real argument that composite or generated things cannot be real, then your only option is to walk around proclaiming your opponents to be idiots while affecting an extremely grim and ultra-serious demeanor that henceforth replaces argument as proof of your supposed philosophical incisiveness.

I spent a good long time with Metzinger’s gigantopiece a couple of years ago, and in case you missed my long review of the book, it can be read HERE.

joint review of After Finitude and my book on Meillassoux

It’s by Clayton Crockett, and it appears in the International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion.

HERE.

interesting election coming up

The news of the day in Egypt was the death of Pope Shenouda of the Coptic Church at age 88, having served in that position for 41 years.

This evening I realized that I had no idea how they choose a new Pope, and to what extent the process resembles or differs from that of Roman Catholics. I’ve found two web sources which say that it works like this:

1. The Coptic leadership settles on three candidates.

2. The name of the winning candidate is drawn randomly by a blindfolded boy.

It’s a fascinating system, and apparently the late Pope Shenouda was chosen in precisely this manner in 1971. Then as now, the Pope died in March, and in 1971 the election for his successor was held in October. Whether or not that’s the normal waiting period, I was unable to determine from reading either of the two web sources I found.

busted bracket

The one year that I’m too busy to follow college basketball, and then too lazy to do any research while filling out my bracket, and then out of laziness the only time I ever picked Duke to win the tournament even though I knew they wouldn’t win it (I’m well aware that they were recently pummeled by North Carolina) is the first time since God-knows-when that Duke was eliminated in the first round.

To make matters even more ridiculous, the other team I had in the final was Syracuse, and when I heard about the key suspension to one of their star players, I didn’t even bother to go and change the bracket. Out of simple laziness and lack of interest.

All right, what do I do now? Just sit back and root for Iowa State, I guess. Though I’ll be shocked if they can beat Kentucky in Louisville today.

13th anniversary

Today is the 13th anniversary of my dissertation defense, and every year I’m glad to be reminded that I never have to be a graduate student again.

The defense actually occurred under difficult circumstances. My grandfather was suddenly in intensive care, it didn’t look good, and I flew down to Kansas City to see him for what I thought would be the last time. (Fortunately he recovered and lived another 5 years.)

I was set to fly back to Chicago at something like 7 P.M. the night before my defense (which was scheduled for something like 10 A.M.). The flight was a cheapie on the no-longer-extant Vanguard Airlines, something like $195 to fly Chicago-Kansas City round trip. And guess what? The fuel nozzle was jammed open and we couldn’t leave. 

I thought I was going to miss my own dissertation defense. Actually, I was determined after a certain cut-off point to leave the gate area, rent a car, and simply drive all night back to Chicago. That would have been something like a 9-hour drive, I think. I’d have gotten back to Chicago with no chance to sleep and no chance to write an opening statement.

Instead, they somehow fixed the fuel nozzle, and the flight left just a couple of hours behind schedule. We landed at Midway Airport, I took a taxi back to the North Side (much more expensive than the L, but time was precious that night), and from about midnight I started writing my opening statement. Can’t remember what time I finished it, but probably around 3 AM or 4 AM.

I must have had a few hours’ sleep, and somehow woke up on time. The defense itself went much better than I expected it would. In fact, I really enjoyed it.

neutrinos not faster than light after all

There seems to have been something wrong with the measurements that suggested otherwise. HERE.