Archive for August, 2002

What’s In That Glass?

By Dave Thomer | Filed in Philosophy

The linguists and scientists among you will hopefully find this of interest and/or amusement. One recurring topic in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, especially the analytic branches of those fields, is the question of what determines the meaning of the words a speaker uses. It should be a pretty uncontroversial assumption that a [… Read More]

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Something to Cry About

By Dave Thomer | Filed in Special Order Speeches

It’s been almost five months since our daughter was born, and it’s truly been a wonderful experience. One thing I’m quickly learning is that once you’re a parent, you need to come up with answers to a whole bunch of questions that were once easy to dismiss, and the process of finding those answers can [… Read More]

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Once More – with FEELING!

By Dave Thomer | Filed in Life in Practice

1996 Yours truly was a humble editor of low-budget TV commercials at a low-power TV station in a low-ranking market. It was an interesting enough line of work, trying to find new and different ways to show used-car salesmen waving at the camera and bleating a hearty “come on down!â€? There weren’t that many new [… Read More]

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It may be hard to imagine that any good could come from the recent scandals involving the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy, but, slowly and quietly, there has been some change for the better. That change is that many state legislatures are recognizing that the statutes of limitations for civil and criminal action [… Read More]

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