Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle by Fiona Carnarvon Genre: Biography | History I spent a fair chunk of my 2018 Christmas break watching the hit series Downtown Abbey, and I thought I should pick up a book about the British aristocracy of the time. So, I did. The book Read More
One: Nubia, Mimesis and the Philosophy of Preferences I do remember, quite vividly, dancing to ‘Segun Akinlolu’s jagbalajugbu when I was in junior secondary school in my parent’s backyard, say age eleven, twelve. This was in the early 2000s. My back, slightly bent. Arms formed a V-shape. I made my legs take turn to split apart Read More
Sisyphus takes us back to school – Nigeria and Her Excesses – Marcus Crassus drinks a cup of molten gold – The Mathematical Approximation of Sisyphus’s Dilemma – Epicurus, Orgasm, and his friends. Happiness is expensive. If you don’t believe me, a quick call to a local psychologist will do, your eighty-something year old grandmother Read More
Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Goldstein (Philosophy) Machine Learning (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge) by Ethem Alpaydin (Computer Science/Statistics) An Introduction to Statistical Learning (Computer Science/Statistics) The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries (Entrepreneurship) Children of Blood and Bone Read More
One: Grad School Sounds Easy This semester I served as an ambassador of the Biochemistry Graduate Program at The University of Georgia. We met with a few prospective graduate students at lunch a few weeks ago; and of course, like most graduate student ambassadors, folks always fall into this trap of saying the good stuff. Read More
One: What is True? “To say of what is, that it is; or of what is not, that it is not, is true.” I didn’t say that, Aristotle did, and what do I think? I think that is true. Two: Does Truth Exists? Let’s battle an assumption head-on, if we can define truth, does that Read More
[1] Kurunmi (Three Crowns) by Ola Rotimi Genre: Historical Play Kurunmi is a historical war play staged sometimes in the 19thcentury. Aare Kurunmi, the protagonist, occupies the position of war-general-cum-defense-minister of the disintegrating Oyo empire of the West Africa. The author (knowingly or unknowingly) explores the skin-in-the-game philosophy, where leaders lead with their skin in the game. Read More
One: Black Professors and Molecular Genetics We do know for a fact that if you are born into a particular race today, at certain places in the world, or even certain places in an extremely tiny country, your chances of success can change dramatically. Given that no one chooses where to be born, I believe, Read More
One: The 2-ways of knowing. Friends permit me to start with Hume’s fork [1]. He pontificated that there are two ways of knowing (justified propositions), 1) ‘matters of facts’, and 2) the ‘relations of ideas’. In the latter, he means logic, mathematics, proof and everything in between – all bachelors are unmarried, that kind of Read More
One: Satan is Not Ugly Let’s be frank, forget about whatever you think, Satan is not ugly. Satan is a very good-looking man (or woman, if you like). In the Yoruba pantheon in West Africa, one of the gods that is widely believed to be analogous to satan is called Eshu (this is not quite Read More