Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Exposing “Travel Charlatans”

    This is not the first time I have talked about THE LIE – the fallacy of the “travel the world” cool-aid that is being promoted on the internet. But it is the first time I have a name for them. And that name is “travel charlatans.” Travel Charlatans Definition: People (often on the internet) who […]

  • A thought on truth and Robert Pirsig

    For my high school international baccalaureate program I had to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I offer this quote from page 6 of it for your consideration: “I’ve wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it and yet we didn’t see it. Or rather […]

  • What is a pioneer?

    “The word originally had a military connotation, relating to a soldier, though not an ordinary foot soldier. It connoted a military engineer, one who preceded the main body and built bridges, roads and trenches. Hence, “to pioneer” came to mean to prepare or open the way, and a “pioneer” was one who took the lead, […]

  • Alexa plugin retiring!

    https://support.alexa.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410503838999 It’s hard to believe that such a widely used service is ending… It’s one of many services that I used long before it was bought by a giant. (For example: grandcentral before it was bought and made into Google Voice) I have often been an early adopter. There is hardly a google product I […]

  • 幫助記憶的詞句 – a glace at the use of mnemonics by the Chinese

    I was recently looking for websites that teach Japanese hiragana to Chinese speakers using mnemonics. There are sites like tofugu that have mnemonics for English speakers who want to learn hiragana and katakana, but any for Chinese? I wondered. Let’s see

  • Communication tools

    A very quick, but hopefully interesting post about communication. (I hope I will have time to expand on it one day.) What do GIFs, Emoji, Character Maps have in common..?

  • How to use Windows Chinese IME and toggle between English and Chinese

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft-traditional-chinese-ime-ef596ca5-aff7-4272-b34b-0ac7c2631a38 I do a lot of typing in Chinese. (I also use a Japanese IME regularly. This is how to use a Japanese IME.) To switch between Chinese and English you could switch using “windows key + space bar” But, as the above link shows, when you are in the Chinese IME you can just […]

  • Life in Asia Cookbook: Frypan Pizza

    Pizza dough: 2 table spoons yeast 1 teaspoon sugar 1 cup warm water (110F) 2.5 cups flour 2 tablespoons oil 1 teaspoon salt Directions: Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let sit a few minutes. Stir in flour, salt , oil. Mix until smooth. Rest 5 minutes. Make into pie (or pies). Brown one […]

  • For whom the bell tolls

    No man is an island… https://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/by-region/russia/anatoly-vasilyevich-pchelintsev-interview/

  • Ode to Odd Jazz – a B.O.S.S

    “Ode to Odd Jazz; or What Instrument does Rahsaan Roland Kirk Play?” (A poem by Tori Taiyo Johnson, part of Benfii Original Short Stories – B.O.S.S. ©2021 Eagle Land Grace, LLC) ~ Poem ~

Got any book recommendations?