Crashes and pileups at the Tour de France are not that rare. This is not surprising since we have riders going at high speeds while bunched close together and weaving in and out and even the most skillful riders can occasionally make a wrong move that causes a crash. Last year the Tour de France was held with fewer spectators lining the streets because of covid-19 restrictions. This year the crowds were back in full force but the presence of one particular fan caused a massive pile up of riders.

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Philosopher Stephen Law examines how words get their meanings. He says that when I say “It is hot today”, it is at one level just a process by which sounds are articulated. A parrot saying the same thing is also just a process. But the difference is that when I say it, I am conveying meaning in a way that a parrot is not. From whence does this meaning arise? Law says that Ludwig Wittgenstein took a different view of this question than John Locke (1632-1704)
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In the comments to the post about the cartoon with the cosine pun, many people recalled the mnemonics that they were taught to remember how sine, cosine, and tangent were defined. In the comments, Rob Grigjanis mentioned the mnemonic he learned for the color spectrum as “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain” and that reminded me of this story that I have written about earlier that happened when my older daughter was in third grade.

She came home from school one day and told me excitedly how the teacher had explained how white light was made up of different colors. The teacher had also told her that the great scientist who discovered this was Roy G. Biv! To say I was surprised is putting it mildly. I tried to gently correct her about who the scientist was without seeming to disparage her teacher, but my daughter was skeptical about what I was telling her. Who was she more likely to believe: her teacher, a fount of authoritative knowledge, or her dopey old father, often prone to making jokes? She was too young to appreciate the implausibility argument that it was highly improbable that the scientist who discovered the color spectrum just happened to have a name that matched the initial letters of the colors in the right order.
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Most petty criminals are not that smart, and this dognapper is no exception

A Bengal tiger was spotted strolling around a neighborhood in the city of Houston.

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As long time readers know, I am reluctant to ban commenters but have done so on two previous occasions when it became clear that the people were not interested in a conversation with others but in merely repeating the same points over and over again, thus creating an unpleasant haranguing tone that spoiled the cordial nature of the discussions that I seek to encourage here.

The situation has arisen again with transgender issues where commenter Holms has created a similar problem. The issue of transgender rights is a very important one and there are many issues concerning it that I seek to highlight, partly as a learning experience for me and partly to create a broader awareness. But it has come to the point where I almost dread preparing a post that relates even tangentially to this topic because I know that Holms will once again create the exact situation in the comments that I seek to avoid.

Hence I have made an editorial decision that stops short of an outright ban. For details, please read my comment on the post An in-depth look at the trans experience.

I have not made this kind of partial ban before and am not sure how well it will work. I do read every comment that is posted and will continue to monitor the situation closely to see if any further action is warranted.

We have all heard of stories from fiction and real life of infants switched at birth. But the radio program This American Life had a true story with an unusual twist to this familiar tale.

Jason and Randy are identical twins, with Jason being born first and Randy emerging five minutes later back in 1972. Randy had to spend the first few days of his life in an incubator but after that the twins were identical, so similar that even their parents could not tell them apart. To keep track of which was Jason and which was Randy, their mother Annette dressed Jason in blue and Randy in red. As a backup, she would use blue diaper pins for Jason and pink for Randy.

All went well until they went for their six-week check up to the doctor. Annette dressed them in identical fancy outfits an aunt had sent them but kept the diaper pin system in order to tell them apart. But then the nurse took them from the mother, presumably for weighing, and when she returned she proudly told Annette that they had just started using pin-less disposable diapers (disposable diapers that used adhesive fasteners only came out in 1968) and she had put the boys in them, thus making them indistinguishable to their mother
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It appears that reports of the death of the new European Super League following the announced intention of withdrawing by the six UK clubs from the project may have been premature.

The Real Madrid president, Florentino Pérez, said the 12 clubs announced last week as founders of the European Super League cannot abandon it due to binding contracts and promised the project would return soon.

Pérez, whose club is one of three along with Barcelona and Juventus yet to withdraw, said it was not so simple for clubs to leave. “I don’t need to explain what a binding contract is but effectively, the clubs cannot leave,” Pérez told Spanish newspaper AS. “Some of them, due to pressure, have said they’re leaving. But this project, or one very similar, will move forward and I hope very soon.”

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After posting yesterday about the dog Holly’s performance in a 4×200 m relay, I became curious about running phenomenon Usain Bolt’s career, and this brief retrospective of his running history was fun to see.