2016
Jan 2016 Feb 2016 Mar 2016 Apr 2016 May 2016 Jun 2016 Jul 2016 Aug 2016Jan
- Jan 4
- Reminiscing
Realizing how happy I am these days, and also how my cares and worries have evolved, I can't help but think back to the times when I was single and mired in desolation.
· Read more… - Jan 4
- Income Inequality
"Income inequality" is a neoliberal euphemism for "unjust distribution of wealth".
· Read more… - Jan 5
- El Niño
- Jan 6
- Election Season
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
· Read more… - Jan 6
- Panem et Circenses
"…bread and circuses…. I mean, tax cuts and unlimited streaming video…."
· Read more… - Jan 6
- Minerva
OH at the Starbucks counter:
· Read more… - Jan 6
- pro-automation
For some reason, I don't think this is what people who are pro-automation and pro-technology had in mind. #automationFTW
· Read more… - Jan 6
- Leakage
It's probably a bit late to worry about this, but I am hoping that I sufficiently caulked the very large 50+ year old window frame in my living room.
· Read more… - Jan 8
- Accidentally Predicting the Future
Hilariously, I totally foresaw the Apple Watch back in 2006.
· Read more… - Jan 8
- Uber for Doctor House Calls
I remember reading about Jay Parkinson, M.D. back in 2007 and it did seem like a perfect convergence of popular technology and medicine.
· Read more… - Jan 11
- Eyes on Your Own Paper
When your enjoyment of a thing depends significantly on the inability of other people to enjoy that thing, you probably need psychiatric help and shouldn't be allowed to implement policy regarding that thing.
· Read more… - Jan 11
- Bowie's in Space
I can't believe that David Bowie is dead.
· Read more… - Jan 14
- How to Remain Anonymous if You Win the Lottery
In case you need legal/financial advice on how to maintain your anonymity if you happen to have split the $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot with two other people.
· Read more… - Jan 14
- Bad Investment Advice
It would have cost ~$584 million to buy every possible combination of numbers in the Powerball lottery.
· Read more… - Jan 14
- Cry Havoc
So in the course of converting some of my old blog posts to YAML+Markdown (and adding more tags to them) I found myself wondering what the adjectival form of "havoc" would be.
· Read more… - Jan 14
- Polymorphism
It occurs to me that people who disdain nouning verbs and verbing nouns are probably the same people who insist on explicit static typing.
· Read more… - Jan 14
- Requiescas in Pace, Alan Rickman
By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!
· Read more… - Jan 14
- Etymology of Element Names
Reading about Poul Anderson's treatise on atomic theory written entirely in Anglo-Saxon-derived words (entitled "Uncleftish Beholding") got me thinking about the etymology of various element names.
· Read more… - Jan 14
- God's Final Message to His Creation
They rounded the foot of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains, and there was the Message written in blazing letters along the crest of the Mountain. There was a little observation vantage point with a rail built along the top of a large rock facing it, from which you could get a good view. It had a little pay-telescope for looking at the letters in detail, but no one would ever use it because the letters burned with the divine brilliance of the heavens and would, if seen through a telescope, have severely damaged the retina and optic nerve.
· Read more… - Jan 15
- Lightning Modeling for Louis Vuitton
Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII will be modeling for Louis Vuitton in the spring and summer of 2016.
· Read more… - Jan 15
- Sansa Stark as a Sith Lord
Always two there are, a master and an apprentice.
· Read more… - Jan 15
- Ta-Nehisi Coates' favorite poem
I can't remember where the original link is from, but Ta-Nehisi Coates was asked what his favorite poem is, and he answered that it was "Middle Passage" by Robert Hayden.
· Read more… - Jan 15
- Faster Than Light
I always liked the SDF-1's Space Fold Tech because it was such an important plot point in the Robotech Saga and I've always thought it was more plausible than Han Solo's space-contracting hyperdrive that somehow shrank the Kessel Run to 12 parsecs and with a better explicated mechanism than the Enterprise's warp drive with arbitrary warp factor settings.
· Read more… - Jan 16
- Curing Cancer and Shooting for the Moon
The POTUS likens curing cancer to the moonshot. The thing is, cancer isn't a single disease, it's a collection of heterogenous, vaguely-related diseases that have multiple causative effects, widely varying pathophysiology, and widely different prognoses.
· Read more… - Jan 18
- On the Climb from the Bottom of the Blast Crater
If you cannot imagine yourself whole while being alone, then it seems unlikely that you will be whole while being with someone else.
· Read more… - Jan 18
- Infinite Redemption
I would never say that anyone is completely irredeemable, but we are creatures of finite life spans and have to be practical about time scales.
- Jan 18
- MLK, Jr.
MLK, Jr. may have advocated using non-violent methods, but nevertheless his agenda was quite radically progressive, even for today.
· Read more… - Jan 19
- Elvis Presley Ain't Got No Soul
Rock rarely if ever acknowledges its intellectual and artistic debt to black musicians, so I always feel a small sense of justice whenever hip-hop reappropriates it.
· Read more… - Jan 19
- Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
· Read more… - Jan 19
- The Perpetuation of White Supremacy
Despite the well-documented existence of systemic/institutionalized racism that exists as a superset of overt racism, many naive antagonists still retort with "anyone can be racist regardless of skin color" as a way to deflect criticism of inherently racist structures.
· Read more… - Jan 19
- The Illegitimacy of the House of Telcontar
The Toast brings up the fact that Middle Earth is a post-apocalyptic ecocatastrophic feudal dystopia and that Aragorn's ascension to the throne was totally illegitimate.
· Read more… - Jan 19
- Inspirational Quotes
What goes up must come down. Entropy wins in the end and you're gonna die.
· Read more… - Jan 20
- Planet X
The guy who demoted Pluto from major planet status to dwarf planet status believes that there is an actual Planet X with 10x the mass of Earth lurking in the outer reaches of the solar system.
· Read more… - Jan 20
- Pronomial Adverbs
One of the things that going through all my blog posts from the beginning is that I find myself parsing text even more closely than I usually do.
· Read more… - Jan 21
- Invisible Hand
Anthropomorphizing (theomorphizing?) the free market is insane. The Invisible Hand is just a metaphor for the summation of stochastic processes appearing to have intentionality to the apophenia-susceptible human mind, not a metaphysical description of an actual sapient system really having intentionality. #ChurchOfTheAlmightyDollar
- Jan 21
- Super Earth
I was unaware that "super-earth" has a specific (although still informal) definition, roughly, a planet with a mass greater than Earth but less than a gas giant in the Sol system (i.e., less massive than Uranus or Neptune).
· Read more… - Jan 22
- Star Wars vs. Star Trek
In Star Wars, the State is the enemy and the Rebellion is a libertarian/anarchocapitalist-religious fundamentalist utopia that glorifies asymmetric warfare/terrorism while in Star Trek, the State is a (mostly) benevolent democratic socialist utopia that emphasizes diplomacy and peacemaking.
· Read more… - Jan 22
- Old Music
Old music now appears to be more popular than new music, but it relies entirely on how you define old music.
· Read more… - Jan 25
- The Persistence of Ephemerality
I am currently on a quest to rescue all the old comments to old posts on my old blog.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- Model Dependent Realism
As far as our senses and measuring instruments are concerned, the only thing that is real are the shadows. Whatever is casting those shadows is not directly accessible.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- There's More Than One Way to Think about It
I find it funny that the thing the scientific method and quantum physics and biology taught me is that duality, diversity, plurality is reality. There isn't one right answer to anything. Reductionism can be useful, but it's not reality. And anyone who says it is is trying to sell you something.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- Ptolemy and Empiricism
It's funny how people use the example of Copernicus and the heliocentric model as the archetype for scientific progress. The fact of the matter is that, at least initially, Ptolemy's geocentric model actually still made more accurate predictions.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- Wave-Particle Duality
I don't understand the math well enough to actually know, but isn't the reason why we even have a wave-particle duality because not only do we lack the precise language to describe the things that are waves-and-particles, but we also lack the precise equations to describe things as simultaneously waves-and-particles?
· Read more… - Jan 26
- Not All Knowledge is Science
Ethan Siegel points out the obvious that science is not the only form of knowledge and that non-science clearly has value.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- Incompetence or Cronyism?
So switching from getting water from Detroit's water district to the heavily polluted Flint River didn't actually save Flint, MI any money.
· Read more… - Jan 26
- Anticholinergic Drugs and Alzheimer Disease
Apparently there is an association between regular use of anticholinergic drugs and the development of Alzheimer disease.
· Read more… - Jan 27
- Genetic Correlation with Depression
Back in July 2015, a correlation between depression and two genetic loci was discovered. #CorrelationDoesNotImplyCausation
· Read more… - Jan 27
- Challenger Disaster
Tomorrow will be 30 years since the Challenger disaster
· Read more… - Jan 28
- Growth of Capitalist Economies
I honestly don't understand why everyone uses exponential curves for their models when sigmoidal curves seem to better model reality for lots of phenomena: population growth, language change, diffusion of innovation… and perhaps even the growth of capitalist economies.
· Read more… - Jan 28
- Clinton and the Dunning School
There's really no point in pandering to white supremacist neo-Confederates in the 21st century because there's no chance they'll vote for a Democrat anyway
· Read more… - Jan 28
- Fate Map of Stars
When I was a senior in high school, I read Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy by Kip Thorne and gave a presentation on it for my Honors Physics class (incidentally, in the same classroom that Jake Gyllenhaal attempts to have a cosmological discussion with Noah Wyle in "Donnie Darko")
· Read more… - Jan 28
- Challenger Disaster Revisited
I know Elon Musk and others are working on it, but remembering this tragedy also makes me feel especially sad that the U.S. doesn't have independent human space flight capability right now.
· Read more… - Jan 29
- Special Relativity
The faster and faster you go, the more and more energy it takes to continuing accelerating, almost, but never quite reaching the speed of light
· Read more… - Jan 29
- Dermatology
If it's dry, moisten it. If it's moist, dry it. If you're not on steroids, start using them. If you are on steroids, stop taking them. — almost everything I learned about dermatology, taught to me by a general surgeon
· Read more… - Jan 29
- Fear of Starting
Worried that if I start, then I won't finish
· Read more…
all these loose wayward threads
I am still shuffling, still scavenging
untying knots and burning frayed ends - Jan 29
- Artificial Emotionality
As I grew frustrated with wrestling with Foursquare's bizarre password reset system that either kept asking me for the password that I couldn't remember or asking me to log in first, I got to pondering:
· Read more… - Jan 29
- Eradicating Mosquitoes
Apparently, the only thing mosquitoes are really good at is spreading disease. Anything they do (pollination, serving as food for birds and fish) can be done by other species who don't bite humans and drink human blood.
· Read more…
Feb
- Feb 2
- Exercise Related Transient Abdominal Pain
So I finally figured out the technical term for a side stitch: exercise-related transient abdominal pain. Now to find the ICD-10 code….1
· Read more… - Feb 4
- Updated to Jekyll 3.1.1
I only just realized that Jekyll 3.1.1 had been released. (I've been running Jekyll 3.0.1 until today.)
· Read more… - Feb 5
- Pragmatism
Surrender to the status quo is a shitty campaign platform that isn't going to get people to vote1
· Read more… - Feb 5
- Rhyme Saves
Funny how a song can pull me back in time.
· Read more… - Feb 8
- Sturgeon's Law Meets Moore's Law
It's true that technology lets us produce products and content at a much faster rate and at a much greater volume but if Sturgeon's Law is correct (90% of everything is crap) then we're also producing almost a magnitude of order more crap vs. product/content at a much faster rate and at a much greater volume.
· Read more… - Feb 9
- Not Talking About Millenium
Thanks to the Internet, I now know I'm not alone in hearing the line "I'm not talking 'bout moving in" as "I'm not talking 'bout Millenium"
· Read more… - Feb 9
- Green Hill Zone
There's something about this song that makes me think of the first zone of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game on the Sega Genesis.
· Read more… - Feb 9
- Twitter's Fall from Grace
There have been a slew of posts documenting how Twitter is struggling. These are a couple of them.
· Read more… - Feb 10
- Velen
I wonder if Draenei faction leader Velen's name is an adaptation of the Russian god Veles?
· Read more… - Feb 10
- Common Idioms without Dedicated Elements in HTML5
Given how recently the HTML5 spec was approved (even though 15 months is ancient in Moore's Law years) I'm still working out how to structure certain common motifs.
· Read more… - Feb 10
- David Bowie • Discography
I still really can't believe he's gone.
· Read more… - Feb 12
- Gravity
Social media was abuzz with the news that gravitational waves have been detected.
· Read more… - Feb 16
- Planet X and General Relativity
Newtonian mechanics predicted that there should be a planet inside the orbit of Mercury which they named Vulcan to explain Mercury's anomalous precession of its perihelion, but it turns out that what was really going on was due to the curvature of spacetime predicted by General Relativity.
· Read more… - Feb 16
- Zika Virus, Microcephaly, and Pesticides
"No, we don't know if Zika is causing microcephaly. But we have no evidence it's pesticides, either."
· Read more… - Feb 17
- Scalia is Dead
It was quite shocking to learn that Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead.
· Read more… - Feb 17
- Apple vs. the FBI
Tim Cook refuses to build a backdoor in iOS for the FBI.
· Read more… - Feb 17
- The Selective Advantage of Empathy
While Ayn Rand's writing is an exercise in sophistry trying to justify utter, base selflessness as the highest virtue, it is not only morally abhorrent, but it goes against what we know of human behavior.
· Read more… - Feb 19
- 100 years
"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."
· Read more… - Feb 19
- Organic Food
It's well known that conclusions from scientific papers can be confusing and misleading, especially when filtered through the popular press.
· Read more… - Feb 19
- Nicolaus Copernicus
The irony is that Copernicus set forth his model of heliocentrism without any empirical evidence whatsoever, and his model was less accurate than Ptolemy's geocentric model in making predictions of planetary positions and he got the shape of orbits wrong (he thought they were circular and they're actually very slightly elliptical).
· Read more… - Feb 19
- Executive Order 9066
Seventy-four years ago, FDR issued Executive Order 9066, which rounded up Japanese Americans and imprisoned them in camps, against the advice of the Office of Naval Intelligence and despite the fact that the FBI felt confident they had already arrested any potential subversives.
· Read more… - Feb 19
- Donald Trump vs. the Pope
Donald Trump has decided to pick a fight with the Pope. This should be good.
· Read more… - Feb 19
- Fluoride Neurotoxicity
I ran into a post about how fluoride has been classified as a neurotoxin. This should make all the conspiracy theorists salivate.
· Read more… - Feb 19
- California Reconquista
Spanish-speakers are once again the majority in California.
· Read more… - Feb 19
- Hair Grooming Syncope
I am almost certain that this is the reason why one of my patients recently syncopized.
· Read more… - Feb 22
- American Populism and White Privilege
Full disclosure: I intend to vote for Bernie Sanders in the California Democratic primary, although it's likely the nomination will be locked down by then and it won't really matter.
· Read more… - Feb 22
- Dolores Huerta and the Nevada Caucuses
I really think that attacking major figures from the Civil Rights Era who support Hillary Clinton will hurt the Sanders camp far more than it hurts the Clinton camp
· Read more… - Feb 22
- John Lewis Clarifies His Response to Bernie Sanders' Civil Rights Record
I am getting the sense that Sanders supporters are grasping at straws to explain the fact that the Sanders camp can't seem to get significant numbers of people of color to vote for him. There is no Clinton machine conspiracy. The message that economic inequality is the root cause of racism just isn't resonating.
· Read more… - Feb 22
- Quiet and Polite
In what other country would randomly discharging a deadly weapon in a residential neighborhood where children might be present be considered "quiet and polite"? #wtf #murica
· Read more… - Feb 22
- Hitler's Genital Abnormality
Hitler's penis and (unilateral) testicle are trending.
· Read more… - Feb 22
- Life is Like a Garden
It's been a year since Leonard Nimoy posted his last tweet.
· Read more… - Feb 23
- Limits of Logic
The problem with relying on rationality and logic entirely is that it is, ultimately, binary: true or false.
· Read more… - Feb 25
- Into the Frying Pan and Out of It Again
In the face of the Republican Party's outright blockade of even considering a nominee for Scalia's vacant seat, there was some talk about Obama possibly nominating Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-NV)
· Read more… - Feb 25
- The Problem with Classical Liberalism and Classical Marxism
I already know Sanderistas will argue about whether or not Clinton is sincere about talking about white privilege and institutionalized racism, but I am certain that Sanders trying to fix the problems caused by racism indirectly by only trying to fix the problems caused by income inequality is going to fail hard and may even backfire horribly.1
· Read more… - Feb 25
- Statistically Improbable Phrases
Ideologically incoherent but Machiavellianly legit.
· Read more… - Feb 25
- Eleven and Twelve
It's interesting how different languages count from 11 to 20.
· Read more… - Feb 26
- Neoliberalism FTW
AFAICT, people on the radical left of U.S. politics (which is not that far left as far as international politics in industrialized countries is concerned) probably don't feel either candidate is very leftist. Essentially, the choice is still between two neoliberals so the main determiner is going to be name brand recognition and the resignation to the fact that a neoliberal is still better than a fascist or a theocrat.
· Read more… - Feb 26
- Communism and Imperialism
There were really at least two lessons from the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the U.S.S.R.:
· Read more… - Feb 26
- It's a Conspiracy!
Oh, the crazy shit that flows through my Facebook newsfeed.
· Read more… - Feb 26
- Hillary Clinton has no chance among young PoC
Clinton reacted badly to being interrupted by #BlackLivesMatter protester Ashley Williams. I think this is going to cost her among young PoCs. But she's not doing great in this demographic anyway.
· Read more… - Feb 26
- Effects of Raising the Minimum Wage
Raising the minimum wage has none of the dire consequences that conventional wisdom warns about and has all sorts of benefits.
· Read more… - Feb 27
- Angry Bukkake
OK, this comments on a Gizmodo post made me spit out my Diet Coke.
· Read more… - Feb 27
- Unintended Consequences
We're already seeing the consequences of having a SCOTUS that can end up in 4-4 ties.
· Read more… - Feb 27
- Sword Art Online
So ﾐA彡's niece is the one who introduced me to this anime.
· Read more… - Feb 27
- Taking America Way Back
There are articles asserting that 1 out of 5 Trump supporters oppose the Emancipation Proclamation.
· Read more… - Feb 29
- Leap Day
It's no exaggeration to say that my life has changed drastically since the last time February 29th rolled around.
· Read more…
Mar
- Mar 1
- Sleep Deprivation is Why You're Fat
It's been know that people who don't get enough sleep tend to gain weight. One possible mechanism is due to high ghrelin and low leptin levels.
· Read more… - Mar 1
- Garbage In, Garbage Out
An algorithm that assumes that a car (or bus, in this case) approaching on the left will slow down for you to allow you to cut in front of it seems like a MAJOR design flaw o_O
· Read more… - Mar 1
- Osama Bin Laden and Climate Change
For some, this is evidence that some causes cross all ideological lines and even a theocratic sociopathic mass murderer (no, I'm not talking about Ted Cruz) can care about the planet. For others, this is proof positive that acting against climate change is doing the bidding of terrorists.
· Read more… - Mar 1
- Campaigning in Massachusetts
In the event of a Clinton vs. Trump general election, there are probably going to be two large groups of voters who will be inclined to stay home: Sanders voters who think Clinton is too much like a Republican and Republicans who think Trump is too much of a fascist. Clinton has the capacity to get those groups to vote for her, but she's not going to do it by feeding the "I'm above the law" narrative.
· Read more… - Mar 2
- In Case of Recession, Break Glass
Maybe I'm being totally paranoid, but I'm worried about an October surprise, specifically, the stock market crashing and the economy collapsing again.
· Read more… - Mar 2
- Escaping Donald Trump
Dark thought after last night's results: How ironic would it be that when President Trump gets inaugurated and starts rounding people up, the rest of the world would refuse to accept refugees from the U.S.?
· Read more… - Mar 2
- Chris Christie as Reek
Chris Christie as Theon Greyjoy. Donald Trump as Ramsay Bolton. Perfect.
· Read more… - Mar 2
- Blaming the Victims
It's kind of victim-blaming bullshit that people are more angry with people who want to vote their conscience and choose the most progressive candidate than with the assholes who are hell-bent on installing a fascist dictator in the White House.
· Read more… - Mar 2
- I Think John McAfee Needs Help
#NotMedicalAdvice but it looks like John McAfee is in the throes of mania and needs in-patient psychiatric care.
· Read more… - Mar 3
- This Brave New Social Media World
I guess I can't really call this social media world "new" considering that I signed up for Facebook, Twitter, and Friendfeed in 2007, but—despite my reputation as an oversharer—I am still astounded what people post online for all the world to see.
· Read more… - Mar 3
- Sleep Deprivation and Obesity
More on that study that demonstrated that sleep deprivation makes you hungry by causing levels of 2-arachidonylglycerol—an endocannabinoid—to rise, mimicking the munchies caused by THC.
· Read more… - Mar 4
- Open Tabs
Trying to close down some of the open tabs in Chrome.
· Read more… - Mar 4
- Ben Carson Withdraws Care from His Campaign
Dr. Carson finally decides to withdraw care from his campaign.
· Read more… - Mar 4
- Mac OS 9 vs. iOS 9
Technology has advanced significantly and OS versions seem to be released at a faster and faster pace and it just occurred to me that iOS is on the same version number as the last classic (non-NEXTSTEP-based) Mac OS release.
· Read more… - Mar 7
- Back to China Again
Remember back in the day before the Twin Towers fell when George W Bush was sending spy planes into China's airspace and then one crashed into a Chinese fighter jet? I was certain this was going to be the beginning of the next global conflagaration.
· Read more… - Mar 7
- Trumpism
To be certain, the problem isn't Donald Trump. The problem is that a significant proportion of the population of the U.S. believes fascism and/or theocracy are perfectly cromulent solutions for the woes of our country.
· Read more… - Mar 8
- Malaysia and 1MDB
Today, NASDAQ has iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund (EWM) listed as the stock with the highest dividend yield at 65.95% and selling for $8.33/share.
· Read more… - Mar 9
- Tongvan Language
I was looking for the Tongvan (also known as Gabrielino) word for coyote (it's
‘iitar
) and ran across this article: · Read more… - Mar 9
- Nancy Reagan
It is surreal to contemplate the possibility that Nancy Reagan effectively ran the White House while Ronald Reagan was starting to become incapacitated by Alzheimer disease.
· Read more… - Mar 9
- Superdelegates
It is heartening that The New York Times has decided to separate pledged delegate counts from superdelegate counts.
· Read more… - Mar 9
- Beware the Ides of March
I feel like the March 15th primaries deserve a "Super" name. No one appears to be calling it Super Tuesday II or Mini Tuesday.
· Read more… - Mar 9
- Trumpism
The L.A. Times asks "Is Donald Trump a fascist?".
· Read more… - Mar 11
- Hitler vs. Stalin
It's interesting how Donald Trump calls for the registering and/or deportation of Muslims and Mexicans, the torture and killing of civilians whose family members are suspected of terrorism, more violence against protestors at his rallies and refuses to disavow white supremacist groups supporting him and people are quick to be apologists and say "He's not Hitler!" while Bernie Sanders calls for universal health care, free higher education, and increased regulation of the financial sector and people seem to immediately jump to "He's just like Stalin!"
· Read more… - Mar 11
- Nuclear Energy
I'm not against nuclear power per se, but I'm thinking thorium reactors are the way to go. While, yeah, uranium and plutonium reactors are generally very safe, when there's an accident (and there will always be accidents) it can be potentially unfathomably catastrophic and effectively permanent, at least as far as human timescales are concerned.1
· Read more… - Mar 11
- The Importance of Orthography
If you're going to be a bank robber when you grow up, you still need to learn how to spell correctly.
· Read more… - Mar 14
- Dreaming of the Rocky Mountain Free States
Even though Philip K Dick totally imagined Nazism in the United States, I think even he would be hard-pressed to believe that in 2016 a fascist and a democratic socialist were viable candidates for POTUS.
· Read more… - Mar 15
- Post-hegemonic Foreign Policy
Somewhat tangential to her post, but R makes a good point: what constitutes "progressive" foreign policy?
· Read more… - Mar 16
- Legitimacy of Democratic Institutions
Even when the margins are insurmountable, you still have to play out the whole game. That's what gives democratic institutions their legitimacy. Demands to short circuit the process are demands for invalidating the entire system.1
· Read more… - Mar 16
- Ford v. Reagan
In 1976, neither Ford nor Reagan had enough delegates to clinch the nomination, although Ford was leading.
· Read more… - Mar 17
- Merrick Garland
Given the present focus on police brutality, defendant rights, and mass incarceration, the Garland pick is definitely controversial among progressives, but (1) he's still going to swing the court to the left especially since he's replacing Scalia and (2) it's unlikely that Senate will confirm him anyway.
· Read more… - Mar 17
- Order and Stability
People talk about "order" and "stability" as if they're one and the same, but order isn't stable. Order always requires energy to maintain. It's the state of maximum entropy that's stable.
· Read more… - Mar 17
- Self-Hosting AI
When an AI beats a human, it's really a team of developers who beat that human.
· Read more… - Mar 18
- We're All Dying, Really
I know the rustling sound that Death makes as she wends her way to the bedside
· Read more…
the way the breath catches, the heart rate slows
measured by beeps, punctuated by alarms
it was all inevitable in the end
too weary for tears
that dull gnawing ache thrumming through your nerves
though close you lay with Death, so close you could touch
you know you're still alive, so very much alive - Mar 19
- Why Bernie Sanders Has a Right to Stay in the Race
Down by more than 300 pledged delegates, the calls to unite around Hillary Clinton and for Bernie Sanders to drop out have been growing louder.
· Read more… - Mar 19
- Generational Warfare
I forgot to post this when it happened but I thought it was important to bookmark it. It's kind of a microcosm of the intergenerational divide that animates a lot of the political debate between the Hillary Clinton camp and the Bernie Sanders camp swirling around in the context of post-modernism/post-colonialism and the increasing recognition of privilege.
· Read more… - Mar 21
- American Despotism
I think the fact that Trump will be a despot if elected and already has an obviously despotic personality is readily apparent to (1) anyone who grew up in a developing country (2) anyone whose parents are from a developing country and quite possibly fled to the U.S. because of despotism (3) anyone who actually paid attention in high school history class.
· Read more… - Mar 21
- Being Realistic about Hitler
Godwin's Law becomes extremely unhelpful when discussing actual fascism and despotism. The Nazis may have committed some of the greatest atrocities known to humanity (although the Communists under Stalin and under Mao killed more people) but Hitler is not some incredibly inhuman evil monster that we'll never see again. He may have been evil and monstrous, but his motivations were akin to the motivations of other politicians.
· Read more… - Mar 21
- The War on Drugs
Another example of how politics sometimes dictates policy:
· Read more… - Mar 21
- Hitler Political Timeline
The typical instinct on the Internet is to recoil at any comparison of a contemporary politician to Hitler (thanks, Godwin!) but sometimes you really can't avoid it when someone decides to run on an ultranationalist authoritarian platform.
· Read more… - Mar 21
- Democrats Abroad
Sanders gets 9 delegates while Clinton gets 4 delegates in the Democrats Abroad primary.
· Read more… - Mar 22
- Brussels and Istanbul
Fascinating how we're all Brussels now but we were never all Istanbul.
· Read more… - Mar 22
- Religion and Terrorism
The simplistic answer is that certain religions are inherently violent, but this is not that useful of a response, because in truth, every religion can be fashioned into a weapon which people can wield to justify murder and conquest.
· Read more… - Mar 22
- Ihre Papiere, Bitte
An anti-Trump protester with the last name of "Gonzalez" gets transferred to ICE custody. You can probably draw your own conclusions.
· Read more… - Mar 22
- Dengue Fever Vaccine
A trial with an experimental vaccine targeting the Dengue fever virus has gone very well.
· Read more… - Mar 22
- Lead Poisoning in Rome and in Flint, Michigan
While the reasons for the Fall of the Western Roman Empire are quite complex, a popular theory that has since been disproven suggested that high lead levels in the water supply due to the use of lead pipes was a contributing factor.
· Read more… - Mar 24
- RIP Phife
I first learned about the passing of Phife from friends' posts on Facebook.
· Read more… - Mar 25
- Robot Uprising
When Skynet finally decides that the only reasonable choice is to extinguish the human race, we will only have ourselves to blame.
· Read more… - Mar 25
- Bad Joke Meme: Fishy Edition
Q: Why can mackerel be holy but salmon can't?
· Read more… - Mar 25
- Friends and the Man in the High Castle
The lack of ethnic diversity in "Friends" despite being set in NYC makes more sense if you imagine that it's set in the same universe as "The Man in the High Castle"
· Read more… - Mar 25
- History of the Mac
The 15th anniversary of the release of Mac OS X 10.0 was yesterday.
· Read more… - Mar 29
- The Collapse of Capitalism
While the label of "Millenial" is ill-defined and overgeneralizes a demographic with a wide age range, the defining moments of this generation are definitely 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis, and the Great Recession.
· Read more… - Mar 29
- The Price of Gas
FOX 40 in Sacramento posted about the changes in the price of gas over the decades.
· Read more… - Mar 29
- Tone Policing at its Most Pathetic
We really have short memories. The idea that somehow the tone and vitriol in the arguments between Clinton and and their respective supporters is horrifically divisive and likely to cost the Democrats defeat in the general election requires totally forgetting the very-thinly-veiled racism of the 2008 Democratic primaries where leading Democratic establishment figures were blowing barely-concealed dog-whistles about Obama.1
· Read more… - Mar 29
- Bringing Balance to the Force
On one hand, yeah, privileged people with lots of resources can probably survive a Trump presidency (assuming he doesn't declare martial law and line up all his critics against walls, constitutional or not.) It's not going to hurt them as much if Trump and collaborators in Congress and the SCOTUS start dismantling the social welfare safety net, continue weakening civil rights, send soldiers off on futile wars, start destroying the environment at an even faster rate, etc., etc.
· Read more… - Mar 30
- Knowledge is Not Wisdom
It's not enough to know things. It's just as important to recognize what doesn't make sense and to know what you don't know.
· Read more… - Mar 30
- Errant Pedantry
Pointing out typos and grammatical errors is basically a derailment tactic. If you didn't understand the text, then ask for clarification, but disqualifying an argument that you clearly understood because it has a typo or grammatical error in it really is kind of assholish.
· Read more…
Apr
- Apr 5
- Self-Determination
Just because you "don't believe in labels" doesn't mean other people aren't free to identify themselves with communities they have a stake in.
· Read more… - Apr 5
- Playing a Bard in an RPG
· Read more…
- Apr 5
- Word Salad
Inexplicably, Sarah Palin is still being paid attention to.
· Read more… - Apr 5
- Berniebots
I thought "Berniebot" was just a pejorative term for Sanders supporters (akin to "Obamabot" in the 2008 election without the definite racial component.)
· Read more… - Apr 7
- Web Browsers
It makes no sense to me, but having multiple different browser instances open (like, literally five different browser instances right now) seems to use memory more efficiently than if I had opened everything in multiple tabs in a single browser.
· Read more… - Apr 9
- Hip Hop and Rock and Roll
That moment when people who hate sampling and remixes forget that rock and roll totally appropriated aspects of R&B, the blues, gospel, jazz, etc., etc., and mashed it all up into an ill-defined genre.
· Read more… - Apr 9
- Firefight
So apparently this happened about four blocks from my office yesterday.
· Read more… - Apr 9
- FriendFeed Death Anniversary
It feels like it was a really long time ago when Facebook finally pulled the plug on FriendFeed.
· Read more… - Apr 11
- To the Pain
Last night was the first time I can remember having a pain dream.
· Read more… - Apr 12
- Nitrogen Pollution
These days, carbon pollution is generally the headliner, but nitrogen pollution definitely has major environmental effects.
· Read more… - Apr 12
- Tab Cleanup
Collecting some of the open tabs in Chrome:
· Read more… - Apr 12
- Is Bernie Sanders a Democrat?
Especially from the Clinton camp, there has been much talk about how Sanders isn't really a Democrat.
· Read more… - Apr 12
- Ortho Nixes Neonics
Despite the controversy over whether or not neonicotinoid pesticides harm bees or not, Ortho has taken the step to phase out and eventually discontinue neonics in their home and garden products.
· Read more… - Apr 13
- Restoring the New Deal
While I totally agree that Clinton is closer to the center than Sanders is, they're still both far to the left of guys like Kasich, Rubio, or Jeb!
· Read more… - Apr 13
- Hugo Weaving
Since Middle Earth is really just supposed to be Earth, this means that The Lord of the Rings and "The Matrix" happen in the same universe. Agent Smith is really just Elrond after he went totally insane after countless millenia. And just like elves, agents cannot leave their plane of existence like humans can.
· Read more… - Apr 14
- Kilig
Another Tagalog word makes it into the OED!
· Read more… - Apr 14
- Sandy Hook and Tanks
Bushmaster Firearms is being sued for selling AR-15s, which was one of the weapons Adam Lanza used to mow down first graders in 2012.
· Read more… - Apr 15
- Texting in Movie Theaters
Alienating all the people who still go to movie theaters in a feeble attempt to draw millenials who don't really go to movie theaters sounds suicidal.
· Read more… - Apr 15
- The Robot Uprising Already Happened
Most jobs left that are front-facing (i.e., that require person-to-person interaction) will probably not be satisfactorily automatable until AI becomes much more powerful.
· Read more… - Apr 16
- Horses Not Unicorns
When you hear hoofbeats, don't think of unicorns. Everyone knows unicorns never really touch the ground.
· Read more… - Apr 16
- Folic Acid Fortified Corn Tortillas
Definitely do not read the comments on this one. The pseudoscience and scientism in the comments are out of control.
· Read more… - Apr 18
- Getting Rid of Andrew Jackson
It's kind of hilarious that the popularity of "Hamilton" seems to have ensured that Alexander Hamilton will stay on the $10 bill.
· Read more… - Apr 19
- Party Loyalty
Despite what Republicans say, the Democratic party isn't like the Communist party where you have to declare total party loyalty. It's always been an unruly coalition of special interests since it's inception as the Democratic-Republican party in 1799. Some special interests have bailed, others have joined, but the dynamic has always been the same. It's a big tent. It's within my living memory when politicians who supported segregation and states' rights caucused with politicians who kindled and propelled the Civil Rights Movement and politicians who were instrumental in preserve the welfare state enacted by the New Deal and the Great Society.
· Read more… - Apr 19
- Bernie or Bust
We don't really need to wonder whether the Bernie or Bust sentiment is real. We already saw it in 2010 when the Democratic electorate rolled over and let the Tea Party move in.
· Read more… - Apr 20
- Legitimacy
Assuming that existing polls hold (there is a paucity of polls in the remaining primaries—there's only really data for CT, MD, PA, CA, and NJ, and absolutely nothing from all of May) and using the national polling data as a guide for how the states without data will go (538 has Clinton at 49.4% and Sanders at 41.7% nationally which will be wildly inaccurate in a lot of states—a lot of those smaller states will probably go heavily towards Sanders—but it's all we've got) there's no realistic way for Clinton to get 2,383 pledged delegates before the convention (she'll probably have just under 2,000 pledged delegates by the end of the DC primary.)
· Read more… - Apr 20
- I Don't Trust Obi-Wan Kenobi
Since Obi-Wan Kenobi has revealed himself to be a terrible liar, it occurs to me that he might have been exaggerating about what he felt about the destruction of Alderaan:
· Read more… - Apr 21
- Dictionary Definitions and Disingenuity
Dictionary definitions are the last refuge of scoundrels.
· Read more… - Apr 21
- Prince is Dead
Oh my god 😞
· Read more…
May
- May 9
- The Center Cannot Hold
The problem with being pragmatic is that you tend to underestimate other people's frustration and anger. Because you could never imagine wanting to wreck the whole thing, you have a deep and abiding belief that no one would ever desire such utter and complete wreckage.
· Read more… - May 10
- Economic Injustice and Systemic Racism
I can't help but feel that reducing every problem to the problem of income inequality is one of the major reasons why Sanders really never made significant in-roads with older PoCs.
· Read more… - May 10
- Utopia
Since "utopia" literally means "nowhere", isn't every place that actually exists by definition not a utopia?
· Read more… - May 11
- Greatness
No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen. — Epictetus
· Read more… - May 11
- Uncertainty
The Source of Richard Feynman’s Genius • 2016 May 11 • Maria Popova • Brain Pickings
· Read more… - May 12
- Shrug Emoji
Facebook really needs a ¯_(ツ)_/¯ reaction button.
· Read more… - May 12
- Are More People Becoming More Aware of Neoliberalism?
While there are splinter factions that sincerely advocate a return to authoritarian and feudalistic politico-economic models, most influential people in the West advocate neoliberalism, which most Westerners don't recognize as an ideology and just accept as fact.
· Read more… - May 12
- Vaping
My gut instinct is that vaping is safer than smoking cigarettes and might actually be on par with inhaling polluted air, but it also seems obvious that it might have side effects.
· Read more… - May 12
- Stationary Phase
An example of the fact that exponential growth cannot continue forever simply because of the laws of thermodynamics.
· Read more… - May 12
- How to Obtain a Pet Fox
This article discusses Dmitri Belyaev's experiments with silver foxes and domestication (and discusses the major differences between domestication and taming.)
· Read more… - May 16
- Earthsea and the Great Underground Empire
In the Wikipedia entry about Infocom's Enchanter, it mentions that Enchanter's system of magic is based on the Old Speech of Earthsea in terms of mechanics.
· Read more… - May 16
- Etruscans
OMG. So the Etruscans were the B Ark of Lydia (a kingdom that encompassed Western Turkey)?!?!
· Read more… - May 16
- Google Tightening the Noose on Flash
Chrome will start blocking Flash by default.
· Read more… - May 16
- Consent
It is frightening that people who are purportedly doing science on human subjects have no concept whatsoever about the meaning of consent.
· Read more… - May 18
- Schisms
The caveat is, even if Sanders drops out and dedicates his fundraising efforts to Clinton's campaign, that's probably not enough to placate his most ardent supporters.
· Read more… - May 18
- It Depends on What You Mean by Elected
It never really occurred to me until now (since Trump = Hitler comparisons are rife) that there is some debate about whether or not Hitler was ever democratically elected.
· Read more… - May 18
- Obsoleting Computer Programming and Replacing with Machine Learning
When AI is more advanced and the next level of automation comes to eliminate service jobs, it's possible that programmers that aren't working on extending/maintaining AI will be among the first to be eliminated.
· Read more… - May 19
- The Tower of Joy
Lightsaber battles are OK, but adding an Ennio Morricone track is better!
· Read more… - May 19
- Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotic resistance isn't so much about humans vs. bacteria as it is about humans vs. laissez-faire capitalism, specifically Big Ag, but also the health insurance/for-profit health care industrial complex.
· Read more… - May 19
- The Destruction of the Republican Party and the Decline of the U.S.
Stepping back further in order to fully admire the spectacle, the whole narrative arc of the Party of Lincoln transforming into the Party of Trump is quite breathtaking.
· Read more… - May 19
- Bernie Sanders is the Only One Standing in the Way of a Trump Presidency
The bridge building probably can't really start until Clinton clinches the nomination, but if she doesn't succeed in reconciling with a majority of Sanders voters (the Bernie-or-Trump crowd is unreachable anyway) then we're definitely going to be watching Trump being inaugurated next January.
· Read more… - May 19
- The Reason People in This Country are Starving
Proponents and GMOs and pesticides like to point out that increased production is the only way to prevent massive starvation. While I am not anti-GMO or anti-pesticide, this is demonstrably false.
· Read more… - May 19
- Trump Leads Clinton
Caveats: yeah, it's a Fox News poll, the margin is well within the error range, polls this far out from the general election are mostly useless, Trump has already clinched the nomination while Clinton hasn't, etc., etc., but, still, it kind of freaks me out. [#AllHailPresidentTrump](/tag/all-hail-president-trump "tag: All Hail President Trump • mahiwaga"
· Read more… - May 20
- The Realignment of the U.S.
Matt Taibbi already deconstructed how absurd Andrew Sullivan's argument is—the problem with the U.S. isn't that it's too democratic—but I do think there's a chance that Trump will win and I do think the backlash might make our system even less democratic than it already is.
· Read more… - May 20
- Oklahoma
I am flabbergasted.
· Read more… - May 20
- Compared to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts
They're only counting sugar, not total carbohydrates, which is kind of silly since the starch in the doughnut will get converted into sugar by salivary enzymes in the mouth and pancreatic enzymes secreted into the small intestine.
· Read more… - May 21
- Real Science is Never That Certain
One of the problems of the Facebook/Twitter era is that all headlines are click-bait.
· Read more… - May 24
- Dominance and Submission
Returning to the dominance hierarchy framework and the concept of the alpha male, it's true that dominance and submission does exist. It's not a myth per se.
· Read more… - May 25
- Comprehensive Eye Exams
There is an app called Opternative that checks your visual acuity. For $40, an ophthalmologist can review the findings from the app remotely and write a lens prescription.
· Read more… - May 25
- Hate Voting
Historically, has there ever been a general election in the U.S. like this where both (presumptive) nominees were so intensely disliked by significant percentages of their own parties?
· Read more… - May 26
- Bionerd Thoughts
I switched radio stations and it was in the middle of playing the song that ﾐA彡 and I danced to for our first dance at our wedding reception.
· Read more… - May 26
- What's the Emoji for Mayhem?
Imagine an updated version of "Fight Club" where instead of blowing up buildings, Tyler Durden merely creats a botnet that automatically creats hundreds of billions of fake accounts with emojis in their nicknames based off stolen identities, and Project Mayhem's only responsibility is to answer phones and pretend to be the people whose identities were stolen… (I think I may have thought too hard about this….)
· Read more… - May 26
- Respectability Politics and Projection
Bill Cosby makes me think that the reason why some PoCs turn to respectability politics is that they're secretly terrible—possibly quite monstrous—people who want to convince other PoCs that if they get called out, it will make the whole race look bad, so it's in everyone's best interest to never call them out.
· Read more… - May 26
- The American Dream is Dead
The American Dream is officially dead (which is probably for the best, to be honest.)
· Read more… - May 26
- Corporal Punishment
While I am not a parent, my job does require me to regularly counsel parents on how they treat their children, and I try to make recommendations based on the best available evidence….
· Read more… - May 26
- Libertarian Utopia
Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan walk into a bar. The bartender serves them tainted alcohol because there are no regulations. They die.
· Read more… - May 26
- Pan-resistant E. coli
I remember apocryphal stories of pan-resistant E. coli at one of the ICUs I did my residency at. You had to wear outbreak suits to get in and out. I never figured out how they managed to end the quarantine. I can't imagine that every patient in that unit died….
· Read more… - May 27
- The Partition of California
Thinking about the fact that candidates are actually campaigning in California despite having a very late primary, I'm wondering how the state could have more of an impact on the rest of the country.
· Read more… - May 27
- Pan-Resistant E. coli Caveat
Turns out, the E. coli isolated from a woman's infected urine isn't actually pan-resistant.
· Read more… - May 27
- Antibiotic Resistance and Profit Motive
When you get right down to it, the antibiotic resistance crisis is mostly driven by profitability. It simply isn't profitable to invest all that money in R&D, clinical trials, and marketing of antibiotics. Despite their obvious critical utility, the demand for antibiotics that are effective against multidrug-resistant pathogens is, overall, not very high.
· Read more… - May 31
- Comeback vs Come from Behind
Bernie Sanders inspired some pedantry when he said that Golden State had a "comeback" victory.
· Read more…
Jun
- Jun 1
- Political Reality
Unless something catastrophic happens between now and June 7th (like a stock market crash or a banking scandal or a federal indictment or whatever), this is probably how it's going to play out. The more moderate Sanders supporters will resign themselves to voting for Clinton in November and the more radical Sanders supporters will stay home or vote for Jill Stein or Trump or do something else that's totally crazy and counterproductive, and Sanders' personal political future will depend entirely on whether or not he reconciles with the Democratic establishment.
· Read more… - Jun 2
- Who Needs Data Anyway?
I just came across a headline about how Donald Trump has no apparent interest in utilizing the IT infrastructure the Republic National Committee had built up with $100 million since Romney's failed campaign in 2012.
· Read more… - Jun 2
- Opioid Induced Hyperalgesia
While the headline mentions the bad news, in truth, this study is hopeful since they were able to restore baseline pain signalling.
· Read more… - Jun 3
- Unfavorability Ratings and Mob Rule
It does seem like one of the major reason why people don't like Clinton is simply because of the media perception of her character and personality and hardly anything to do at all with policy. Hopefully Trump will remain far more despised than Clinton until November. Democracy and mob rule FTW!
· Read more… - Jun 3
- Everything You Do to Stop Skynet from Happening Makes Skynet Inevitable
Hmm. What semicompetent AI isn't going to figure out how to disable the off switch first?
· Read more… - Jun 6
- Everything Happens for a Reason
Physicists are no longer allowed in history class.
· Read more… - Jun 6
- There's No Reason for Sanders to Quit Now
It really makes no sense to expect Sanders to quit before the tallies from tomorrow's elections are in.
· Read more… - Jun 6
- Name Collision
So I had created a custom Liquid tag called
· Read more…linkto make it easier to write citations to articles, blog posts, Wikipedia article, etc. - Jun 7
- Abandon Ship
Looks like Donald Trump is too disgusting for even some Republicans.
· Read more… - Jun 7
- Occam's Razor and Hickam's Dictum
Always remember that Occam's razor is primarily about the aesthetics of scientific theories and only secondarily about actually describing the complexities of reality.
· Read more… - Jun 7
- One Space or Two
The anti-prescriptivist part of me thinks you should be able to choose between one or two spaces. It's the prescription of either as the only correct way that's totally and utterly wrong. The Romans didn't even use spacing or punctuation for that matter or even the letters G, J, U, or W, and those guys conquered all of Europe and signficant chunks of N Africa and the Middle East, so clearly typography is a very infinitesimal concern for a burgeoning civilization ;)
· Read more… - Jun 8
- Election Memes
Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
· Read more… - Jun 8
- How Quickly People Forget
It seems like no one remembers how contentious and vitriolic the Democratic Primaries in 2008 were.
· Read more… - Jun 8
- Democracy and Republic Are Not Mutually Exclusive
While, yes, technically, the U.S. is not a pure democracy, but a constitutional republic, it's also clear that the U.S. was founded on democratic principles, and that democracy is critical feature of our government.
· Read more… - Jun 10
- Ochlocracy and Autocracy
Mob rule is just as terrible as autocracy (they don't call it the tyranny of the majority for nothing), but when the system is failing, the people really have no choice but to form mobs.
· Read more… - Jun 10
- Vitriol in 2008
While it's probably only a matter of time until the Democratic party manages to unite at least a majority of itself into a force dedicated to ensuring Trump doesn't get elected, Obama's endorsement of Clinton reminds me once again of how much more rancorous the 2008 Democratic primaries were.
· Read more… - Jun 10
- Polyphenol oxidase
I only just learned about Arctic® apples, marketed as non-browning apples. They achieve this by adding extra copies of the polyphenol oxidase gene, thereby inducing gene silencing.
· Read more… - Jun 10
- FDA and Antibiotics in Food-Producing Animals
Realistically, misuse and overuse of antibiotics in food-producing animals is just as much of a contributor to antibiotic resistance as misues and overuse of antibiotics in humans.
· Read more… - Jun 10
- Democratic Party on the Precipice
Honestly, if you think Clinton's presumptive victory is a sign that neoliberalism is totally fine and the majority of Democrats are all aboard and we should just keep on keeping on while the real wages fall and the rich get even richer and can get judges to merely slap them on the wrist for committing violent crimes, the aftermath of the next recession/stock market crash is probably going to be horribly shocking to you.
· Read more… - Jun 13
- Food Riots in Venezuela
Reading about the history of Venezuela, there was a similar period of instability when the neoliberal-aligned government imposed strict austerity measures to comply with conditions set by the IMF in return for a bailout. This instability was what allowed socialists to gain control in the first place
· Read more… - Jun 14
- Islamism and Scientism
The way I look at it, Islamism has as much to do with Islam as scientism has to do with science. (And before you argue that scientism never killed anybody, the victims of Social Darwinism and eugenics would probably beg to differ.)
· Read more… - Jun 14
- Donald Trump and White Supremacy
The sad thing is that if you think about it, white supremacy has been the concept of what it means to be American since before the beginning. Even in the early 20th century some types of white people were considered unassimilable. This didn't really change until the 1960s which saw the (almost) complete legalization of the citizenship of people of color. But I'm certain lots of Americans still think people of color are unassimilable.
· Read more… - Jun 14
- The Failings of American Culture
Improved mental health access is often touted in the wake of mass shootings, often in lieu of any meaningful anti-gun proliferation efforts.
· Read more… - Jun 14
- Islamism and Christianism
There are significant differences between Islamists and Muslims and conflating the two is a major category error.
· Read more… - Jun 14
- Was He Really an Islamist?
While Donald Trump harangues President Obama for refusing to label the Orlando gunman a "radical Islamic terrorist" and Hillary Clinton undermines the president by repeatedly using the term herself, it seems more and more like it's not particularly warranted.
· Read more… - Jun 14
- The Utility of Calling It Radical Islam
Like the POTUS, I would also like to know what people think the utility of calling it "radical Islam" is, other than giving people a shoddy excuse to discriminate against, beat up, or kill Muslims or people they think are Muslims.
· Read more… - Jun 15
- The Brokenness of American Culture
The way I look at it, the Orlando gunman was solely responsible for his actions. He had his own inner demons and his own murderous intentions.
· Read more… - Jun 17
- Orwell and Democratic Socialism
Orwell was anti-fascism and anti-totalitarian communism but pro-democratic socialism.
· Read more… - Jun 21
- ISIS was a Red Herring
Mentioning ISIS was a publicity stunt and everyone clamoring about "radical Islam" fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
· Read more… - Jun 21
- Screen Time Recommendations
It is difficult and probably impractical to have draconian limitations on screen time, and previous guidelines have been based mainly on passive viewing of TV screens, but I've seen enough kids showing up with back pain and with headaches due to eye strain as well as dry eyes and blurry vision from excessive use of mobile devices, not to mention difficulty with sleep onset, as well as the many adverse effects of being sedentary that it's clear that there should be some limitations.
· Read more… - Jun 21
- The End of Nuclear Power in California
What with all the uncontrolled natural gas leaks, the probably decreasing utility of hydropower as droughts become more frequent, the pollution caused by oil and coal, you would think nuclear would look more attractive. But these plants are ancient and it takes decades to get new ones built even if you get past the NIMBY factor, so I guess California is going all in with wind and solar.1
· Read more… - Jun 24
- SCOTUS Upholds Affirmative Action
SCOTUS rules 4-3 to uphold, with Kagan recused. Kennedy writes the majority opinion.
· Read more… - Jun 29
- Brexit, Neoliberalism, and Global Capitalism
Between Donald Trump and the Brexit (not to mention all the other ultranationalist populist movements in Europe) sometimes I feel like Western Civilization is in terminal decline.
· Read more… - Jun 29
- U.K. vs. E.U. on Xenophobia
From what I understand, no matter how you spin it, a lot of voters in the Leave camp are anti-immigrant.
· Read more… - Jun 29
- Two Months
ﾐA彡 and I have been married for two months now!
· Read more…
Jul
- Jul 1
- I Want A New Duck
So I woke up this morning for some reason with "I Want A New Duck" stuck in my head.
· Read more… - Jul 5
- The Stench of Cutting People Open
To me, the smell of a Bovie searing tissue is more disturbing intellectually than it is viscerally. It's the bacterial odors that incite involuntary disgust in me. Opening up abscesses—many of which I've done in a totally outpatient setting—have made me instantaneously nauseated. The stench of Pseudomonas and of Staph are instantly recognizable to me. I'm gagging just thinking about it.
· Read more… - Jul 5
- ISIS is an Enemy of Islam
The U.S. has never needed religious reasons for murdering indigenous people and killing people in other countries. So I kind of suspect it's not necessarily religion that promotes mass murder and I don't think anyone in the U.S. has the moral high ground here.1
· Read more… - Jul 5
- Like A Christian Bombing St. Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday
It's hard to imagine a real Muslim bombing and killing people during the second holiest Islamic city during an Islamic holy month right after he'd been offered breakfast by fellow Muslims.
· Read more… - Jul 5
- Islamophobia is Merely Racism
It's obvious that there's a racist component to Islamophobia. It's mostly just another excuse to hate brown and black people, especially when you consider that so many victims of Islamophobia in the U.S. aren't even Muslim.
· Read more… - Jul 5
- It Depends on Your Definition of Monster, I Guess
White privilege is being able to say that someone who owned people and likely de facto raped them wasn't a monster.
· Read more… - Jul 8
- The Howling Hobbesian Wilderness
I think one of the ways our culture contributes to ongoing violence is the way it consecrates and sanctifies Darwinian competition. So ultimately all our relationships are adversarial. You're either for us or against us. You have to pick a side. It's a zero-sum game. There's no room for more complex paradigms involving sincere cooperation and altruism. The idea that we're not just all selfish assholes looking out for #1 is looked upon with utter disdain and contempt.
· Read more… - Jul 8
- Don Quixote, Neo, and Tyler Durden
I've been binge-watching "The Expanse" and all the Don Quixote references have made me ponder how Cervantes basically anticipated a lot of the themes in "The Matrix" and in "Inception" and it's making my perception of "The Expanse" feel way more Philip K. Dick-ian than it might deserve.
· Read more… - Jul 8
- Not So Synchronous
In some tangential synchronicity to this post about Don Quixote I learned from digging through some Ruby documentation that Cervantes and Shakespeare did not in fact die on the same day, since Spain had already adopted the Gregorian calendar at that point while England was still on the Julian calendar.
· Read more… - Jul 8
- The Continual Whitewashing of Science Fiction
Whitewash all the things.
· Read more… - Jul 8
- It Was an Isolated Incident
Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent on Utah v. Strieff, a Fourth Amendment case about police searches:
· Read more… - Jul 8
- The Slippery Slope of Extrajudicial Killing
Yes, it's possible that blowing up Michael Xavier Johnson with a robot-delivered bomb saved lives, but at the same time, this is basically one more step down the road of relying on extrajudicial killing to maintain law and order instead of allowing the criminal justice system to work as intended. In addition to robotic bombers, it's not difficult to imagine LE relying on heavily armed drones to take out suspects. And if it's a human rights violation for the POTUS to take out suspected terrorists with drones without due process, surely it's also a violation of civil rights if local and federal LE do the same thing.
· Read more… - Jul 11
- The Ethics and Societal Ramifications of Adopting Robot Bombs as a Law Enforcement Tactic
Disclaimer: I unequivocally condemn the actions of Michael Xavier Johnson and I can't help but wonder if his actual aim was not just to terrorize law enforcement officials but also to discredit the Black Lives Matter movement.
· Read more… - Jul 11
- Incrementalism
If not revolution, then at least incrementalism.
· Read more… - Jul 11
- Automation and the Increasing Value of Social Skills
Automation has already happened. The robots have already taken over most of the jobs that robots can perform. And it's already had major effects.
· Read more… - Jul 15
- Sexualizing Imperialism
I don't know if this is really true, but it struck me that in that many cases, people describe the country that they're from as the "motherland" when they're immigrants or the children of immigrants. (And it's generally no accident that the country they currently live probably colonized the country that they or their parents came from.)
· Read more… - Jul 15
- At the Mouth of Monkeypatching Hell
For a while now, I've been trying to figure out a way to decrease the amount of time it takes [Jekyll][1] to render my blog. It now takes up to 6-8 minutes, which seems rather excessive.
· Read more… - Jul 18
- All Dogs Go to Heaven
I'd been contemplating death lately. Between the great tragedies of the world and the smaller tragedies of my friends and family, it's the only thing we know for sure.
· Read more… - Jul 18
- Post-Antibiotic Era
It's a slow rolling back of the tide, but at some point it will become difficult if not impossible to perform certain surgical procedures and to keep people with certain disease and conditions alive.
· Read more… - Jul 18
- Cold Weather and Cold Viruses
So maybe mom was right and going out in the cold is exactly how you catch colds.
· Read more… - Jul 18
- Fix the Distribution System Instead of Just Increasing Yields
Standard disclaimer: I am not anti-science by any means and I do not believe that GMOs are intrinsically toxic but I am wary of those who push GMOs without question and who are quick to label those who are wary of GMOs and Big Ag in general as anti-science, especially if they are (1) worried about a Malthusian catastrophe, (2) think that increasing yields is the only way to prevent starvation, and (3) think that laissez-faire capitalism is the only way to efficiently distribute food.
· Read more… - Jul 18
- Limitations of Thermodynamics and Weight Loss
Yes, weight loss is dependent on thermodynamic factors (energy expended must be greater than energy consumed) but any approach that ignores psychological factors and the neurohormonal profiles that impact these psychological factors is doomed to failure.
· Read more… - Jul 18
- Non-Complementary Behavior
On the way to Santa Barbara, ﾐA彡 and I listened to an episode of Invisibilia about non-complementary behavior.
· Read more… - Jul 18
- Justice vs. Antistatism
If you've decided to totally conflate people killing cops with people standing up for their right of due process and right to equal protection, that's really on you. You're the one committing a grave category error that will only ensure things will get far worse.
· Read more… - Jul 19
- Willful Stupidity
There shouldn't be such great shame with being stupid, but it's harder to be magnanimous to someone being willfully stupid who sincerely thinks they're smarter than you are.
· Read more… - Jul 19
- Hit the Dance Floor
Is it strange that this song with a tropical beat reminds me of my honeymoon with ﾐA彡 in Iceland, which is the first place I ever heard it.
· Read more… - Jul 19
- Master of Deflection
In Trump's America™, it's Hillary Clinton's fault that Melania Trump's speechwriters plagiarized Michelle Obama's speech.
· Read more… - Jul 19
- Unamazing
I can't explain it, but I never really liked the word "amazing". It's even worse now that I can't tell when people are using it to denote something wonderful vs. something bewilderingly awful.
· Read more… - Jul 20
- Ghostbusters AR
Does anybody remember the 8-bit C64/Atari 800 version of Ghostbusters released by Activision where you wander around the streets of NYC trying to make money and keep the PKE meter low? Pokemon Go makes me think they should release an AR version of this.
· Read more… - Jul 20
- Non-Standard Numbers
I'm sure "non-standard numbers" has a different meaning in the context of finance(?), but now I can't help but imagine that the Windows implementations of integers and floats is somehow bizarrely awry.
· Read more… - Jul 20
- Contemptible
Do people even have access to thesauruses (thesauri?) anymore?1
· Read more… - Jul 20
- Statistical Arguments For and Against the Existence of Finland
There is a 50/50 chance that Finland does not exist.
· Read more… - Jul 21
- They Will Shoot You Anyway
Jesus fucking Christ. At least Charles Kinsey isn't dead. And it is Florida. But what the fuck?
· Read more… - Jul 21
- Terakelvin
It looks like Stephen Hawking, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson are about to drop an album.
· Read more… - Jul 22
- Ignoramuses
While this is the actual dialog between Charles Kelsey and the cop who shot him despite Kelsey being on the floor with his hands up (and the cop was allegedly trying to shoot an autistic man with a toy truck instead), I can't help but feel like this can apply to a lot of things that are done in or by this country.
· Read more… - Jul 23
- Put Out the Fires First
It troubles met that on the same day that Hillary Clinton picked a centrist Democrat as her running mate, Wikileaks released documentation of the DNC actively trying to suppress Bernie Sanders' campaign.
· Read more… - Jul 23
- Enterprise is Still Canon
It really cracks me up that while the Star Trek reboot totally altered the Prime Universe from TOS and beyond, "Star Trek: Enterprise" is still necessarily canon.
· Read more… - Jul 23
- Angels Don't Let Me Down
The first time I heard "Don't Let Me Down" by the Chainsmokers featuring Daya was a couple of days before my and ﾐA彡's wedding and it immediately made me think of "Angels" by the XX.
· Read more… - Jul 23
- High as the Expectations
The radio has been playing the shit out of "Too Good" by Drake featuring Rihanna.
· Read more… - Jul 25
- Yes, People Die in the U.S. Because of Our Politics
It's ridiculous to argue that people in this country don't get killed for political reasons.
· Read more… - Jul 26
- The Case for Pessimism
Positive thinking has a downside.
· Read more… - Jul 26
- Foreign Influence
We've been influencing other democracies' elections for a long time now (Yay, Monroe Doctrine!) through propaganda, espionage, material support to our preferred regimes, and even overt military intervention. I suppose it was only a matter of time until what went around came around.1
· Read more… - Jul 26
- BoBs and PUMAs
There is definitely a contingent of Sanderistas who were never Democrats and who will never vote for Clinton, very similar to the PUMAs who refused to vote for Obama. Clinton will never win them over.
· Read more… - Jul 26
- Farewell, Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Honestly, the ousting of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was long overdue, well before Sanders started his campaign. It would've been only a matter of time before she ran the Democratic Party into the ground with her inept ground game and her active alienation of significant portions of the party membership. I can't help feel that if someone else more inspiring and diplomatic were at the helm, we might not have done as badly in 2012 and 2014.1
· Read more… - Jul 26
- Just Becase They Weren't Indicted for Corruption Doesn't Mean They Weren't Corrupt
Pet peeve: Whenever someone commits an act that is ethically/morally problematic and the first thing people say is "Well, it's not like it was illegal…."
· Read more… - Jul 26
- First Woman Presidential Candidate
Hooray, we're finally catching up with the rest of the Western world as well as a lot of developing countries!
· Read more… - Jul 26
- Are You Really as Pragmatic as You Say You Are?
Any approach to convincing people to vote for your candidate of choice that does not include listening and empathy is doomed to failure and likely to strengthen their opposition (see also: argumentative theory of reasoning and the backfire effect.) Proceed with caution.1
· Read more… - Jul 28
- America First vs. Russia and N. Korea First
Now that Donald Trump is officially the Republican nominee, the Democratic Party is the only major political party in this country that actually puts America first.
· Read more… - Jul 29
- Bernie or Busters and Moderate Republicans
It is interesting that there seems to be more venom reserved for Bernie-or-busters compared to moderate Republicans who think Trump is a disaster but can't stand the idea of voting for Clinton. Both these demographics' interests can at least be partially served by voting for Clinton, but for some reason, holding out because you're a Republican is more virtuous than holding out because you're a progressive.
· Read more… - Jul 29
- Crazification Factor
In light of all the people voting for Trump and all the people refusing to vote for Clinton, this seems apt.
· Read more…
Aug
- Aug 1
- In Other News
My brother is going to be a father!
- Aug 1
- Demogorgon
I never got into D&D enough to know about the Demogorgon appearing in an expansion to the first release of basic D&D, but apparently there are even references in Orlando Furioso, The Faerie Queen, and Paradise Lost. I only know about the Demogorgon because of the Commodore 64 game "The Forbidden Forest"
· Read more… - Aug 2
- Upside Down
ﾐA彡 and I finished "Stranger Things" last night, and one of the things that arrested me in the last episode was a song by Moby:
· Read more… - Aug 2
- What Is Your Major Malfunction?
I really like the idea of Private Joker getting twisted by Nam, Watergate, and Reagan and becoming a government scientist working for the CIA involved with MKUltra.
· Read more… - Aug 2
- Compromise
Bernie-or-busters have been posting this quote from HST lately:
· Read more… - Aug 2
- Maybe Trump Isn't Hitler
If you don't like comparing Trump to Hitler, maybe you can just compare Trump to Ferdinand Marcos?
· Read more… - Aug 4
- Anarchocapitalism and Medicine
Prior to Medicare and Medicaid and before employee-provided health insurance, health care was a luxury only the wealthy could afford, and most diseases and all cases of severe trauma were completely untreatable. I'm not sure why people think the era before the advent of antibiotics, modern emergency rooms, and positive-pressure ventilation was all that great.
· Read more… - Aug 4
- One of the Greatest Presidents
Assuming we avert the Trumpocalypse and manage to remain a democratic republic (at least for the rest of my life), I imagine Democrats of the future will talk about Obama the same way we talk about FDR and the same way that Republicans talk about Reagan.
- Aug 5
- Earwormed
I don't know what I did to deserve getting an Iggy Azalea earworm stuck in my head.
· Read more… - Aug 5
- Algal Blooms and Climate Change
I've wasted lots of time arguing with climate change deniers, but maybe they'll go swim in a lake someday.
· Read more… - Aug 5
- Wannabe Kleptocrat
Most of Trump's economic advisers run hedge funds or are major figures in the real estate industry. Oh, and he has a couple of actual economists, one of whom advised both Reagan and GHWB. Trump basically wants a group of foxes to watch the henhouse. So maybe I'm wrong. Trump isn't a fascist. It looks like he's just a straight-up wannabe kleptocrat.
· Read more… - Aug 5
- Anarchy in the Philippines
"My order is shoot to kill you. I don't care about human rights, you better believe me." — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
· Read more… - Aug 6
- Meta-Analyses
Aside from the overhyped and clickbaity headlines, one of the basic problems of popular medical journalism is that they generally elevate meta-analyses over randomized controlled trials.1
· Read more… - Aug 6
- Catholicism, Terrorism, and Global Capitalism
Pope Francis understands that the root cause of terrorism are the inequalities caused by the history of imperialism and colonialism and perpetuated by global capitalism.
· Read more… - Aug 8
- Philippines is a Terrorist Nation
I wonder how this is going to play out with the many reliably GOP faction of Filipino Americans?
· Read more… - Aug 9
- Trump vs. Duterte
After Trump declared the Philippines a terrorist nation, Philippine Congressman Joey Salceda has proposed banning Trump from the Philippines.
· Read more… - Aug 15
- The Demise of the Tea Party
I have always been skeptical that the Tea Party was ever really primarily a grassroots movement. Much like Trump, it always looked like an astroturfing corporate-funded money-making scheme meant to capitalize on populist anger (which manifests mainly as virulent anti-government sentiment, xenophobia, and misogyny).
· Read more… - Aug 15
- Obama Has a Time Machine
Twice now, Donald Trump and his campaign staff have accused Obama of using a time machine. Once to kill Capt. Humayun Khan in Iraq in 2004, and once to found ISIS in 1999. (To be fair, it was called Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad then, morphing into Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004, then finally becoming the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2013.)
· Read more… - Aug 15
- Frontiers
This last week in astronomy and physics seems really wild.
· Read more… - Aug 17
- Jekyll is Driving Me Crazy
*Attempts to optimize some code*
· Read more…
