Musings Amusings Bemusings Unamusings 2022

Sixteen wonderings of the mind.

How the Maritime Enterprise of Britain spurred the Industrial Revolution 2022

The Newcomen engine and the Harrison clock

America the Benevolent Beast 2021

What America has meant for me and my travels

Ernest, Lillian and Ernest

Novella about a love triangle, betrayal, tragedy in bourgeois Budapest in the 1930 leading up to the War 2013 (much of this is from a true relationship) 2013, Kindle: ASIN: B00IDEQVAI Amazon:  Ernest, Lillian and Ernest by Sandor Vaci

Stalin’s Knee

Personal account of cutting into the patella of Stalin’s bronze statute toppled during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (2002) Stalins Knee.pdf

Our public face in the public space

As soon as we leave our home, shut the door behind us, we present our public face to others in the shared environment we call the public space. We give out signals with our appearance to be read by others in the public space and in turn read the signals given by them. Our social […]

Nation and State

The nation is an ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historical, culinary belonging, not necessarily within a continuous geographic area. It is an ethos, the subject of loyalty. the ‘I am a….’ The state is a legal, economic, defensive, internationally recognised entity. Complying with the law and taxation support the state. Several nations can exist within a state; […]

The Cost of Free Will is in its Consequences

What I am really interested is the mechanics of choosing and cost of the Consequence of Free Will. This is not an academic attempt, it is trying to follow a rational argument without particular references to others. The subject of Free Will has been widely analyzed but mostly in the context of allowing freedom to […]

The success of the West

open-mindedness unconstrained by (religious) dogma; healthy skepticism about what we are told; democracy, acceptance of majority rule because the system is more important than to be right at all the times (and in the knowledge that the majority shall not abuse the minority because above all is the rule of law); belief that our fate […]

The Will and the Instrument

The success or failure of any work of architecture or civil engineering is contingent on the quality of both who commissioned and who executed it. Perhaps a better way to describe them is the Will and the Instrument. Once both are in place a creative synthesis takes hold. The Instrument may lead to solutions beyond […]