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Recent Posts
- Reading Nov-Dec 2025 and Jan 2026
- AI as an existential threat – Kevane preliminary draft
- “What can it do?” A living list of computational problems that deep learning/AI/neural nets can or seems likely to “do” (at varying cost and efficacy)
- Reading August-September 2025
- The typical popular sci-fi version of AI posing an existential risk?
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Friends of African Village Libraries (I post regularly here)- Photos from Gowrie Kunkua community library during the night session, Ghana
- Sumbrungu Community Library nighttime reading
- Résumé du livre Une grande mère criminelle
- Organisation d’une séance de discussion autour d’un livre à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy
- Librarians of Tuy monthly meeting January 2026, Burkina Faso
- Impressions sur la production de livres CMH au Burkina Faso
- Compte rendu de la première rencontre des gérants de la zone du Tuy
- Science fiction books for libraries in Burkina Faso and Ghana
- Animation d’une séance de lecture à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy
- Nyariga Community Library in Ghana, photos January 2026
Category Archives: Burkina Faso
Some university lecturers are amazing!
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Non-academic reading and viewing and listening
I have been remiss in not regularly posting. Here’s my suggestions for your leisure time. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, that just won the Pulitzer Prize. I read it about a month ago and enjoyed it. I think it has … Continue reading
Tangled connections: From Victor Jara to Monika Ertl
I love browsing, and sometimes I do too much of it. Today, listening to Inti-Illimani mix on Youtube, next in the lineup was the song Vientos del Pueblo, written by Victor Jara, but sung here by Carlos Puebla. Then since … Continue reading
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When the new generation’s way of talking becomes mainstream
Only people of my generation and older find the expression, “Does that even work?” to be slightly odd.
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I wish more people would read Frans de Waal
Increased respect for animal intelligence also has consequences for cognitive science. For too long, we have left the human intellect dangling in empty evolutionary space. How could our species arrive at planning, empathy, consciousness and so on, if we are … Continue reading
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UC Santa Cruz to vote whether to cut NCAA program
Students wiser than administrators? Look at the last line of the section reproduced here. Two years ago, campus Provost Alison Galloway informed the athletics office that it would need to transition from central campus funds to a funding model that … Continue reading
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Am I only one who has noticed that “Memorial” by Michael Nyman is based on Inti Illimani’s “Canto a los Caidos”?
Probably they are both based on some earlier piece. But what an interesting connection. Listen to “Canto a los caidos” starting at 2:35: Then listen to “Memorial” starting at 1:00:
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A song to drive to work with: Emily Wolfe, White Collar Whiskey
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Nice summary of the Puerto Rico debt issue from Politico
But I have one objection: many of those quoted in the article probably have conflicts of interest because they are lobbyists or consultants to the various parties. Journalists should ask and report these potential conflicts. To those creditors, the draft … Continue reading
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Sidwaya interview with Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré
Very interesting for its overview of national policy issues. I will summarize some of the points relating to economics. Some interesting political issues addressed were the Guillaume Soro and Yacouba Zida “scandals”. The full interview in Sidwaya is here. Government … Continue reading
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What about the faculty salaries to teach those newly recruited basketball players?
This … the Sendek hiring … is the first major test of Engh’s commitment: Sendek is receiving a substantial raise over his predecessor, Kerry Keating. That’s partly to be expected because of his resume — Keating was a UCLA assistant … Continue reading
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Yes I agree with my colleague’s assessment of Trump
A bad egg. From Bill Sundstrom’s Blog: Based on his words and behavior as a candidate, if Trump were a kid in my son’s seventh-grade class, he’d be the kid my son would have to send (repeatedly) to the office … Continue reading
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Piketty => Trump => back to engravings?
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So interesting: The mortality consequences of distinctively black names
Race-specific given names have been linked to a range of negative outcomes in contemporary studies, but little is known about their long-term consequences. Building on recent research which documents the existence of a national naming pattern for African American males … Continue reading
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Trump: Low-cost fuel for bloviating
How long can people keep repeating the exact same analysis, as if there was someone who didn’t understand why 30% of the Republican Party votes for Trump? It is not a mystery. Nor is there a mystery about how likely … Continue reading
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Why is Hillary Clinton so vulnerable….? Jeff Greenfield from Politico sums it up.
It doesn’t matter if you think it is true, untrue, fair, or unfair… what matters is that practically everyone agrees that indeed, these are the vulnerabilities. There is no similar agreement about Sanders, I think. He has vulnerabilities, but his … Continue reading
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China, trade, and income distribution issues in the U.S.
I will definitely be listening to this on my next long run! Russ Roberts interviews David Autor on China and labor markets. Scott Sumner has asked a few times why Autor’s work is so important. I think it shows that … Continue reading
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The Geography of Trumpism
What sometimes surprises me sometimes about my very liberal friends is how much they seem to care about this marginalized population, to the extent that they want a whole set of trade and competition-regulating policies to protect and support them, … Continue reading
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Pinkshinyultrablast – Comet Marbles
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Roch Marc Christian Kaboré after two months as President of Burkina Faso
This opinion piece reviews the first two months of the new Burkinabè administration. Notable is that every “fact” is an action by some actor other than the government. Not a single “act” by the government in the first 60 days … Continue reading
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