Jul 2016
- 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…