Today is the 10th anniversary of this blog, so I’ll celebrate with a bunch of random items. Interesting post suggesting that the creation of life can be explained in thermodynamic terms. A great series of old John Cleese commercials for Compaq. Can …
Sometimes we just want to be alone, to meet the self, to commune with nature, to hope to glimpse that ineffable; to let our thoughts run shouting down halls that we’ve never seen, unthreatened by the jaws of other peoples’ …
In my woodworking days I learned how to sharpen knives on a stone, so when invited to Thanksgiving or Christmas, I would offer to sharpen the host’s knives. The offer was always well received, but such a high proportion of …
I’ve always had a secret liking for split infinitives. Today I found a perfect example. Therapists are trained not to tell you exactly what to do, no matter how much I ask. I would much rather see (using brackets to …
Here’s what the corporate state has come to: You need a college education to get a job; You have to pay for it; You can’t escape that debt (it’s high interest, and not dischargeable in bankruptcy); Therefore you have to …
The existence of elections, civil law and free speech gives the appearance of a functioning democracy, but in practice they are not acting as intended. 1. Voting is not Representative Voting is skewed in America in many ways. Districts are …
The NYTimes reports that how Supreme Court Justices vote on 1st Amendment claims depends on their political leanings. The worst liberal bias is 1.3, whereas the conservative biases range from 3 to 7. This is unsettling enough by itself, but …
Political bias measured in Supreme Court Decisions Read more »
I just ran into this sentence in Six programming paradigms that will change how you think about coding You’re probably used to type systems in languages like C and Java and marveled at its ambiguity. “Used” and “type” have several different …
The Electoral College. Disproportionate Senatorial representation. Gerrymandering. Congressional inaction on higher taxes on the rich, military spending cuts and removing marijuana’s Schedule 1 classification. All are disquieting signs that we may be living in a society that only pretends to …
Nice article in Salon suggesting that Republicans adopt a religious mantle to capture voters in the South for whom religion is so important that it trumps their economic interests.