Feb 2016

Feb 2

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

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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.)

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Feb 5

Pragmatism

Surrender to the status quo is a shitty campaign platform that isn't going to get people to vote¹

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Feb 5

Rhyme Saves

Funny how a song can pull me back in time.

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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.

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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"

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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.

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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.

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Feb 10

Velen

I wonder if Draenei faction leader Velen's name is an adaptation of the Russian god Veles?

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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.

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Feb 10

David Bowie • Discography

I still really can't believe he's gone.

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Feb 12

Gravity

Social media was abuzz with the news that gravitational waves have been detected.

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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.

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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."

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Feb 17

Scalia is Dead

It was quite shocking to learn that Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead.

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Feb 17

Apple vs. the FBI

Tim Cook refuses to build a backdoor in iOS for the FBI.

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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.

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Feb 19

100 years

"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."

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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.

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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).

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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.

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Feb 19

Donald Trump vs. the Pope

Donald Trump has decided to pick a fight with the Pope. This should be good.

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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.

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Feb 19

California Reconquista

Spanish-speakers are once again the majority in California.

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Feb 19

Hair Grooming Syncope

I am almost certain that this is the reason why one of my patients recently syncopized.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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Feb 22

Hitler's Genital Abnormality

Hitler's penis and (unilateral) testicle are trending.

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Feb 22

Life is Like a Garden

It's been a year since Leonard Nimoy posted his last tweet.

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Feb 23

Limits of Logic

The problem with relying on rationality and logic entirely is that it is, ultimately, binary: true or false.

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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)

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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

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Feb 25

Statistically Improbable Phrases

Ideologically incoherent but Machiavellianly legit.

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Feb 25

Eleven and Twelve

It's interesting how different languages count from 11 to 20.

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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.

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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.:

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Feb 26

It's a Conspiracy!

Oh, the crazy shit that flows through my Facebook newsfeed.

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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.

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Feb 26