Miscellaneous updates

I will no longer refer to partisans and activists of the left in North America as liberals (I stopped using that ill-fitting label years ago) and progressives ("progress" lol). They are neither. They are more of the same predictable, anti-individual freedom, authoritarian left that started when Lenin took power. As the labels "socialist" and "Marxist" change definitions depending on who you ask and don't really capture all the non-economic leftist characteristics currently in abundance, I will unfortunately resort to using the broad, but fitting term, leftist.

Last summer I remember Australia going full tyranny with the Covid mandates. Canada is now  making Australia look like the little leagues. Before the trucker protest, I could not imagine a well-established liberal Western democracy enact emergency powers, threaten, arrest, and seize bank accounts of people for having "unacceptable views." And those views are totally understandable and quite reasonable for people who actually have to live with the rules the elites created, and have been for 2 years. Now that it is illegal, I feel the urge to donate.

They are building the border wall. They, as in the Dominican Republic. I only mention this because I am interested to see the both the reaction and the results. Do physical barriers impede physical movement? The experts the TV told me to trust disagree with each other! But we'll find out soon enough! 

Inflation is hitting me pretty hard, and I just got a big raise. I was trying to save up for a car, but those prices went way up and I think I'll try to wait it out. I have been wanting to buy a house for over a decade, but since I don't want to buy a piece of trash fixer-upper in a bad neighborhood, everything in the area was prohibitively expensive. Now that I have nearly tripled my income, new houses (including many 35 year-old houses) are still prohibitively expensive. I live in Utah, not California. And now the weekly grocery bill is getting out of hand. I very rarely eat out, I save as much as I can, and I thought I was being more or less frugal. But I'm going to have to find new ways of frugality while maintaining my sanity. I have the strong but vague sense the country is going to shit, while acknowledging the fact that every aging man has said that at one point; I know I may be wrong--but I really want to and want to know how to hedge against the shit-country scenario (cryptocurrency is still experiencing growing pains, faces significant government pushback, and is not yet up to the task, sadly). 

Am I being part of the problem? Not sure, but my small real-estate investments are one of the few paying good dividends. If you can't beat them, join them? A guy has to look out for his own; I can't fix the world by myself. Less so if I am poor. What am I gonna do?

It's been shown to be the case before and it will again: with high confidence, I predict leaks in the coming years showing big tech has cooperated with government to silence, censor, deplatform, and/or freeze financial tools/assets of those with "unacceptable views." That this kind of cooperation was without the backing of law.

Been busy

Life has been busy. I've been wanting to blog about many things, but just haven't found the time. I hope to change that this year. I plan on taking and making more me time, which means more family time, and a little more blogging time, hopefully.

Until then and as always, let's hope we don't stumble into another war.

Happy Thanksgiving

I know I'm a bit early, but I won't have much free time over the next week or so. Still busy. If only I could blog for a living (I'd be interested in earnestly trying that and just seeing how it went, but the risk of little-to-no income is too much for me right now).

We can't all get what we want, but we can be thankful for those we love and the things we have.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Enjoy some royalty free Thanksgiving images:

Status update

Light-to-nonexistent blogging until further notice (life sucks).

Here's a couple things for now:

This is brilliant: Software engineer got tired of getting rejected by automated screeners and tested a theory.

Real resume: 0% success

Obviously fake resume stuffed with buzzwords: 90% success rate

Calls from from Notion, AirBnB, Reddit, Dropbox, Robinhood, etc pic.twitter.com/m80GUnPsr2

— Coding Career Community (@Coding_Career) October 30, 2021

Here’s Why Rapid COVID Tests Are So Expensive and Hard to Find. It's empty shelves for reasons unrelated to the supply chain issues. 

Thursday blend: eh-dition

It's already Thursday. I'm just going to phone it in today. Not sorry.

Democrats Put Out 'Help Wanted' Ad For Submissive, Obedient Woman To Replace Sinema

Local Man Prays That Wife's Text Message Of 'OK' Really Means OK

'I'm A Little Worried About What My Son Is Learning In School,' Says Dangerous Domestic Terrorist

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A student group at @EmersonCollege was suspended and is under investigation for handing out these stickers critical of the Chinese government.

Emerson promises free speech, but those promises are now kinda "SUS" — “suspicious.”https://t.co/U2hOKhppMl #FreeSpeech pic.twitter.com/kk5CoZJmau

— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) October 5, 2021

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Officially designated "whistleblowers" demanding more censorship get the red carpet treatment, along with a professional PR tour, because their "whistleblowing" doesn't challenge any orthodoxies -- just provides additional fuel to what establishment factions wanted to do anyway https://t.co/r2SKb3IIKJ

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 6, 2021

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There's a Pulitzer Prize waiting for some investigative journalist who finds out why this took so long in the United States.

I'll bet it wasn't because of incompetence. And I'll bet it wasn't lack of knowledge or know-how or production capacity or money.

Guess what's left. https://t.co/4WtCdAA2nu

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) October 6, 2021

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The great office refusal:

Driven partly by fear of infection, and by the liberating rise of remote work, Americans have been increasingly freed from locational constraints. Work continues apace in suburbs and particularly in sprawling exurbs that surround core cities, while the largest downtowns (central business districts, or CBDs) increasingly resemble ghost towns.

This shift has made it more practical for individuals and particularly families to migrate to locations where they can find more affordable rents, and perhaps even buy a house. But such a pattern may be countered by investors on Wall Street, who seem determined to turn the disruption to their own advantage by gearing up efforts to buy out increasingly expensive single-family homes, transforming potential homeowners into permanent rental serfs and much of the country into a latifundium dominated by large landlords. ...

The shift of work from the office to the home, or at least to less congested spaces, threatens the strict geographic hierarchy of many elite corporations. Some corporate executives, like Morgan Stanley’s Jamie Dimon, are determined to force employees back into Manhattan offices, like it or not. It’s now a common mantra among like-minded executives, especially those connected to downtown office development, that workers are “pining” to return to the office. Some have even threatened employees who do not come back in person with lower wages and decreased opportunities for promotion, while offering to reward those willing to take the personal hit of coming back on-site every day.

Haha. I'm not going back to the office, not without a massive (25%+) raise and more and better perks. That's how much working at home is worth, and I might be low-balling it. They can fire me and dozens of like-minded employees if they don't like it. We are in the position of strength. I'd be happy to remind them of that.

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Last but not least,

The list of major Biden administration failures

• The Del Rio Haitian border crisis.
• Don't forget Afghanistan.
• TBA: I'm thinking about adding unity here. Yeah, every president fails on this, but maybe we should start holding them responsible. Especially when they explicitly promise it (even if they know they will fail miserably).

Thursday blend: calling in sick

I've been feeling weird and rather sick the last three days. It's been hovering at this odd threshold of do I work or stay in bed? Maybe I should see a doctor, but maybe I shouldn't, am I just being a baby? It's not that bad, but it kind of is. Maybe I just need to rest. But I'm well enough to work from home, mostly. And back and forth.

So the blog has been and will suffer for the time being.

---

Here's a thing: The ongoing Nicki Minaj Covid/Twitter/Swollen balls saga.

And RIP Norm MacDonald. I really liked him and wish there was more of him in movies, comedy shows, etc.

Financial independence part 0.5

So I've set some goals recently. Well, they're probably every person's goals, but intensified. I got a late start in life, as in getting a decent job and settling down. While my situation has improved, the future is still not nearly as hopeful as I'd like if things stay the same (pretty much meaning financial independence and retirement before I go crazy from working for cheap jerks). And well, not having enough money is increasingly something I very much do not want (plus being consistently angry, frustrated, and depressed from working).

I should quit, but I'm not that crazy and people depend on me and my income. Thus, I have begun to heavily research other income options, investments, cryptocurrency, side-hustles, anything legal I can do to get that F-you money and live comfortably the rest of my days.

I'll try to provide consistent updates; another one of my goals is to blog almost daily. Right now I'm in phase zero-point-five. Still researching, made some minor investments, and job-hunting (for a temporary income boost, and to leave one cheap company for another--hey, they need consequences for cheapness). 

Tomorrow I'll have something more.

via coinmarketcap.com

No time to blog. Microblog?

The older I get, the more I try to organize and simplify my life. And I always end up with less free time than before. What the hell is up with that?

I miss blogging. But sadly and regretfully, I don't have time to do basic, simple, even half-assed research. Or form coherent thoug..

Anyways, I do have time to microblog. Kind of like Twitter, except nothing like Twitter. Fuck Twitter. And Google (I'm too lazy to move the blog to some other place).

Also, fuck Facebook.

I never, ever, tied any of my internet accounts to my Facebook profile. I deleted my real Facebook profile years ago and am still happy I did. I keep a fake one (despite their ToU) for a handful of my internet friends who demanded I have one.

I haven't even linked that profile to any of my accounts. I'm glad. Because we should have expected this (I did): Facebook let tons of companies get info about you, including Amazon, Netflix, and Microsoft

I'm increasingly of the opinion leviathans are by their very nature, impossible to be benevolent. They might have been cute innocent baby leviathans once upon a time, but they aren't good after a certain size, nor could be if they tried.

Also, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and have a happy new year!

Return of the red eye

Lately it seems like my only free time is an hour or two in the wee hours, or an hour or two in the morning when I'd rather be sleeping (and sometimes do). So in order to try not to devolve into a lazy waste of space during my free time, I'm going to attempt to occasionally post something here again.

So, to recap what I've missed and what's in the news today, here are some observations and links.

I don't think Trump or any meaningful part of his campaign colluded with Russia. But there is probably a tantalizing something, maybe small, but something. Otherwise I don't see how the FBI and Democrats--which is seemingly redundant these days--can justify this perpetual investigation with virtually nothing to show for it, and survive with any credibility intact. I think, to a significant degree, they're operating on the sunk cost fallacy.

Charles Krauthammer has "weeks to live." I always appreciated his typically thoughtful commentary. You'll be missed, Charles.

I am almost in disbelief at the North Korean summit. I don't expect it to produce miracles, or much of anything in the way of denuclearization, but the summit alone is quite remarkable. Trump keeps surprising.

Tariffs. I am a believer in free trade, but I also believe in fairness. And I am not opposed to using tariffs as temporary measures to further encourage freer and fairer trade agreements. Naturally, the recipients of increased costs (whether it's from tariffs or fairer trade agreements) don't like it, and are trying various things to stop it. I think the Trump administration expected some push back, but I kind of doubt they expected so much. But one thing I've learned is that Trump, for better or worse, plays chicken quite well. He may yet surprise us again.

Due to new living conditions, I have cable tv now. There is still nothing on. CNN and MSNBC have lost all credibility with me long ago and generally suck; this is still the case. Fox News is getting worse. They always leaned a bit right on most of their shows, especially relative to other news networks, but now it's more blatant, unapologetic, and sloppy. I miss the kind of shows with the integrity and perspective Meet the Press had under Tim Russert.

Pardons. It's about time a president used the power in the middle of a term, and with such frequency. I'm aware it's a slippery slope, especially when it involves political allies, but I think it's worth freeing a few guilty partisans if the innocent and overcharged also go free.

I'm also trying to be more polite while communicating via text, email, or other online media. It's too easy to read something and post your knee-jerk reaction in the heat of the moment. This is partly because my new job involves a lot of emailing and texting, and I've had to force myself to wait a while before responding. Your tone, perspective, and articulation all improve after waiting, even just a few minutes. This precious time also lets you reconsider and reinterpret the possible tone of the text you just read, which is usually very important.

The world (and the internet) is crazy

I suppose it's not a good sign when you start to think everyone is crazy except you.

I jest, somewhat, but we're back where we were. Of course, as it has always been, we're seemingly getting worse regarding civility, political toxicity, hyper-partisanship, etcetera (although I think humanity tends to succeed despite itself--as if we repeatedly fail upwards, and are nevertheless continually disheartened by the failures--but that's a topic for another day).

So, in this era of #FakeNews, misleading commentary, political hackery, censorship, and other lame hashtags, your mostly absent host here at the Daily Mud will dust off his degree and try to get back to the basics of politics.

Think of it as a public service. I won't be arguing, explaining, nor defining political issues, rather I will attempt to list the concepts behind them and adequately summarize how they work with respect to our political processes--at least in my as yet unnamed series of upcoming blog posts. Maybe something like Modern Political Theorems, or some similarly pedestrian title. While politics is both science and art, I think it will still be useful to provide a sort of guide or reference for why politics is the way it is. Especially for anyone who was smarter than me by not majoring in Political Science.

In other news, I have recently suffered the loss of a family member, and shortly after became ill. The loss was rough, but I've been through it before and am coping fairly well. The illness is nothing too serious, but I've been out of commission for a couple weeks now. I think for some reason my immune system was not nearly up to par and just couldn't handle the flu (I didn't get flu shots because I never got the flu, until now). I'll try to get more sun and exercise in the future.

Comments have been temporarily disabled because I mostly get spam and don't want to deal with it. I will re-enable them soonish, I think.

Dear webmasters,

This:

is unacceptable.

It's nearly 2016. The endless tentacles of javascript and hordes of third party crap NEED TO DIE (I have a soft spot for flash, but that really needs to die as well)

HotAir is just an example, and yes, it is pretty bad, but it's hardly the worst offender. A lot of seemingly reputable sites are chock full of this kind of shit, not to mention what the more shady sites are like.

I was guilty myself, but I'm rectifying it by deleting most of the ad scripts here--don't care about a few potential bucks anymore--and pointless, obsolete javascript, but some of it is baked in embedded media (of which I'll be more careful about).

Recommended and related links*:
Ghostery
Adblock Edge Apparently Adblock Edge was discontinued and has since stopped working. For now Adblock Plus will do for that extra layer of security and ad-free browsing, just be sure to uncheck "Allow some non-intrusive advertising" in the filter preferences if you're so inclined.
NoScript

*I don't know if any of these work in non-Firefox browsers, likely not. Firefox-based browsers are better anyways, in certain important ways, such as if you like total control of your browser (old, but relevant article here).

Plus, of course, the obligatory Motherfucking Website
and Better Motherfucking Website

Improving Democracy

There's a fascinating back-and-forth between Joseph Heath and Alex Tabarrok on democracy and its rationality, or lack thereof.

I'm tired and my brain has mostly given up critical thinking for the day (I should vote on something now!), so I'm just going to link all of it.

Tabarrok gave a critical review--which was good--of Heath's book (which I haven't read).

Heath responded to that review, which was also very good.

Tabarrok then sort of responded to Heath's response.


I look forward to more of this.

I'm reluctant to comment on this at the moment, given my current tired state, but reforming democracy, at least American democracy, has occupied my thoughts in the past. Lately, however, it just hasn't felt worth my time. Politics in general hasn't felt worth it.

Truthfully, they're not worth my time, or any one person's time (which is discussed in the links). I've thought about this tragedy-of-the-commons phenomenon in democracy too.

All of which urges me in the general direction of less centralization and more localization of politics. Of course, localizing more state power and democracy is fraught with its own problems I'm sure. But on that level at least, voters have more influence and control, more incentive to be rational and informed.

And yet a part of me is vaguely wary of localizing politics: why did Western civilization move toward centralization if localization was better? For many good reasons, like economic efficiency and war for example. Perhaps a better balance could be struck.

Just checking in

Sometimes I go for weeks (or months) without really wanting to write. Well, I want to, just not bad enough to log in and write something minimally intelligent and fairly coherent. It's like twitter is too short and weird, and a blog is just too formal (not really--that's just how I perceive it, which probably inhibits me from writing more frequently). I guess it's a psychological hurdle I should just plow through more often.

Like so:

Hey guys, I'm gonna share a video because I thought it was kinda funny, and stroked my ego because I, too, am a grammar nazi (all you 80s kids & nerdy types will probably particularly enjoy this as well):

By the way, I did finish the book I promised to review. I took notes, bookmarked several pages, have sort of a draft in my head, but never got around to writing it when it was still blogospherically relevant. So, unless I'm stricken with acute debilitating lethargy, it will be up soon.

Time to close some tabs

I've been wanting to write about most of the stories behind the following links, sometimes starting a draft, sometimes leaving my browser open for days just to avoid extending my already absurdly long list of bookmarks (sleep mode is my new friend).

Hours, days, a week goes by and I just can't force myself to write about something a week old. It's odd how something seemingly so important is considerably less so a week later. But that's the nature of blogging, and news in general (I never claimed to be a great blogger). Also, distraction.

Image from Toolfools

In no particular order, some interesting stuff, even if a few are a bit old:

First, a few links related to what I'm reading. Glenn Greenwald's new book, "No Place to Hide," so far, is okay. I should finish it tonight.

• UPS Insists That It Is Not Helping The NSA 'Interdict' Packages To Install Backdoors
• This review of Greenwald's new book, "No Place to Hide" by the NYT's Michael Kinsley is inept, almost comically so (I will offer a review of the book soon).

'800 dead babies: if it could, the religious right would bury this story in the same septic tank.' Ignore the tactless linkbait phrasing: this is a big and awfully tragic story. Via The Prussian.

'The 'Miracle' Berry That Could Replace Sugar' and help millions effectively fight obesity.

Remember the Gibson Guitar raids? There may be more to that story.

This piece is over a month old, but I remember wanting to discuss it. I just don't remember why, exactly (obviously something to do with the ousting of the Mozilla CEO, Brenden Eich). It's still a good read however.

• But if you read this blog post from Mozilla, it is maddening. What are they talking about? I'm so sick of vague language--it probably was mostly read as an apology for letting Hitler run their business. BUT, because it's so vague, it can just as easily be read to suggest that they are very sorry for their intolerance--evinced by ousting a man for having an opinion. Even though it was a very common opinion, one shared by Barrack Obama at the time.

Three links from Slate Star Codex:

• 'Weak Men Are Superweapons'
• 'Infinite Debt'
• And 'Nerds can be Bees Too,' which led me to this old post by Bryan Caplan, where he is excoriated in the comments (mainly because people freak the hell out over someone wanting open immigration--which wasn't even mentioned in that post).

I always wanted to try something like this. I tend to think I could easily succeed, but if my Thanksgiving experiences are any indication, probably not.

I want to write a post about anonymity on the Internet, which was partly inspired by this post from the Last Psychiatrist. I will write that post one day.

So VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and White House press Secretary Jay Carney resigned. Why does everything feel like it's all heavily scripted, like a bad TV show? Probably because it is.

• Is it just me, or are presidential and senatorial politics are feeling very Orwellian, almost Soviet when it comes to appearances? I know congressional politics is highly susceptible to populism, but at least it's a lot more transparent--which makes me reconsider term lengths for the other two (but that's not about to happen).

Comcast, Netflix, and data caps... If you, like me, have given up watching TV through traditional means, be afraid, be very afraid. Relatedly, I've found if you spend enough time searching for channels you like--and they probably all exist--YouTube can all but replace your entire visual entertainment diet. Some people say YouTube is a bubble about to burst; I say it's just getting warmed up.

Possible blog post spoilers (lol, like anyone cares). Stuff I found in the last day or two I kinda want to write about:

'GOP House Votes To Leave States Alone On Medical Marijuana.' Despite the headline, note that the GOP votes in favor were decidedly a minority of GOP votes. At least they allowed a vote on it.

'Scientists Report Finding Reliable Way to Teleport Data'

'It's Time to Stop Babying Mars'

Sunday Miscellany

So I've been reading a few Neoreactionary blogs. Frankly, because they are several standard deviations more interesting (wild, really) than your ubiquitous conservative or liberal blog. Also, a dark-libertarianish blog, some Cathedral (according to neoreactionaries, Cathedral refers to the media-academic-politcal complex, but as an adjective it usually means mainstream) blogs. And an eco-something blog--haven't got too far into this one yet, but talented writing so far.

Jump down the blogospheric rabbit hole with me, it's a fun ride.

In no particular order:

Outside In

Marginal Revolution

Archdruid Report

Conversable Economist

Slate Star Codex

Vox Popoli

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Occam's Razor

Unqualified Reservations

Farewell PopSci

The Popular Science website/webzine whatever decided that the solution to bad speech is more speech. Just kidding, they're stomping down dissent because they don't like it.

What do you say when you ban something you don't like? You say it's for the greater good, especially since that bad thing is poisoning the water supply!

Comments can be bad for science. That's why, here at PopularScience.com, we're shutting them off. . . .

Another, similarly designed study found that even just firmly worded (but not uncivil) disagreements between commenters impacted readers' perception of science.

If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. [emphasis mine]

What the hell is a "scientifically validated topic"? I was under the impression a topic was a subject or range of similar subjects up for discussion or observation--basically everything under the sun, including the sun. I wonder if they meant to say scientifically validated hypotheses or better yet, popular areas of research? Popular in the sense that it's an easy pretense to suckle Uncle Sam's tit.

If you guys are having a difficult time finding some tax-and-spend Democrats to throw some money your way on the Holy Grail of celebrated lefty causes, then you're doing something horribly wrong. And it aint the goddamned comments on your amateurish articles.

It's not like we have reason to be skeptical of scientific studies.

I used to visit PopSci on a somewhat regular basis. The comments were occasionally childish, but often informative. I think the real problem was that a significant portion of their articles were poorly written, like they were straight from the mouth of a troubled adolescent communist with daddy issues. One of their regular contributors felt the need to continually blame Republicans for what happened to be wrong in the world that day. That guy always got raped in the comment sections, and rightly so.

I could say something about heat and a kitchen, but no. They have every right to piss on their commenters. I was not a commenter there, and now I'm not a reader. 

Via Ace.

Random Detective Work

I have no dog in this fight.

I just happen to enjoy reading the educated fringes available throughout the blogosphere. Since I started opening up my browser to the more alternative, nuanced, reactionary, and what I might call the unusually highly analytical and skeptical mainstreamers my mind continues to be blown. And (regretfully) I have a degree in political science: the fringe should not be so alien to me. Not only that, but I used to blog a lot a few years back; why did I not know of these blogs and/or viewpoints? Perhaps my mind was closed; or through cruel fate I was denied the addictive mind blowings. You cannot help but ask, what are we missing out on today? (And no, the sites to which I'm referring are not conspiracy oriented nor bigoted--although some, sometimes closely approach those boundaries. They would have to on occasion I would imagine, or they wouldn't be so interesting.) I digress.

Apparently sci-fi/fantasy writer Mr. Vox Day (Beale), has a grievance against a Mr. John Scalzi (another sci-fi/fantasy writer--although that is apparently debatable). Mr. Scalzi is allegedly, if not self-admittedly, a rapist. I don't really care about any of that. It's just obligatory background for you, precious reader. Furthermore, Mr. Scalzi it appears, had a hand in ousting Mr. Beale from the SFWA. Now since I'm getting this all from Mr. Beale, my information is one-sided. Since I don't care, I'm fine with that. I read for entertainment and enlightenment--all the personal disputes in the world easily fit in the former category.

So before I commit the sin of verbosity, shall we get down to what inspired this random detective work?

Apparently Mr. Scalzi brags about having 50k readers a day on his blog. That appears to be a big fat lie. Like most self-promoting douchebags, exaggeration and lying are as essential as oxygen. Sorry to cut you off Mr. Beale, but I'll take whatever motivation to blog I can find, however spiteful, pointless, or childish.

This is what I found looking into Mr. Scalzi's blog traffic:

From Compete.com:

As you can see, only once in the last year did he even come near 50k readers, in a month. If you take the monthly uniques from this you can extrapolate the average daily uniques. On July 20th it counted 22,096. Divide that by 30 and you get 737. I wouldn't mind having that many readers, but I don't think I would tell a blantantly discoverable lie about it.

How about a second opinion? From TrafficEstimate.com: 

Note that it only displays visits per month, not unique visits. As it disclaims in small print, "the number of visits differs from visitors." One visitor (or unique visit) may refresh the page multiple times, resulting in larger numbers of visits or pageviews vs. visitors. That said, according to this, Scalzi is averaging 7523 visits (pageviews) per day.

To be fair, these may not be totally accurate, so I will link the most generous traffic analysis of Scalzi's site I found. From Quantcast.com:

From Quantcast we get a closer look. He's averaging approximately 6027 unique visitors per day (last month's uniques divided by 30). Unless you count every unique visit as 8 and a half readers, this is much more than the occasionally excusable exaggeration. Even for self-promoting douchebags.

Did I mention I don't care. I care only to the extent I needed something to blog about to get over my procrastination/blogger's block. This seemed to work. More (hopefully interesting stuff) to come.

Coming soon: actual content

I have a sort of notebook of things I've been jotting down to blog about, but when it came time to actually blog, my brain just says, "wouldn't you rather do X?" And no matter what X is, it always seems like a better use of my time, at that time. In retrospect, X seems qualitatively about the same as A-Z.

A few things I may discuss might be dated (in internet years), but fairly relevant still. And of course, there are a bunch of random things that are pointless/timeless.

See you soon. All 3 of you dear readers.

Summer's here

It's been a while since my last post.

Sometimes we're just lazy. Deal with it.

So there's a ton of scandals in the news. I'm unsurprisingly not surprised. Yeah it's unsettling, but hey, you know we're just going to vote them all back in next time. The only gov't or former gov't employee who might see any jail time is that young whistleblower, unfortunately.

What was I going to say? Nothing really. Just hello I guess. I'm not dead.

Anyway, read this guy's blog. Wonderful writer, and he makes me feel smart. And as a contrarian, I particularly appreciate his thoughtful refutation of libertarianism, here.

And this blog makes me feel smarter too.

After you're brain is tired, try watching this guy play games (he's remarkably entertaining). Watching other people play games is nearly as fun as playing yourself, and sometimes just as frustrating.

Linkdump

If I had time, I would probably blog about these and make you dumber for having read it.

Latino population rising. Yes, really.

Oregon Law Prof goes full retard.

Where Higher Ed went wrong (great read, even though I wouldn't know--havent read it yet).

The Onion brings out the best of the Darwin award hopefuls.
 
Hollywood without guns.