The female editor of a major daily newspaper has been forced out of her position.
Archive for the ‘Sarcasm’ Category
News of the world.
Thursday, May 15th, 2014Big dismal science.
Thursday, October 31st, 2013Happy Halloween, everyone.
Dean Karlan lives in New Haven, Connecticut. He gets a lot of trick-or-treaters in his neighborhood: “Residents say the area’s popularity is because the houses are so close together, minimizing the door-to-door travel time for trick-or-treaters.”
Dr. Karlan is also a behavioral economist. So why not combine the two and do science experiments on children?
In other experiments, Karlan has found that the more generic the costume is, the more likely it is that the child will choose a see-through bag with candy in it over a non-transparent bag. Karlan has also found that…
I’d like to see a follow-up to this experiment where children get equal amounts of candy, but those who identify as Democrats have more of their candy confiscated by the researchers.
One more thing I’d like to know: why isn’t Dubner interviewing Karlan, instead of doing a re-run this week? With all due respect, guys, it seems like you’ve been doing a lot of re-runs recently, and that doesn’t really motivate me to give you money.
(This also reminds me that my youngest niece has gotten to the age where I can start doing science experiments on with her. She’s still a little young for the economics based ones, though.)
That ’70s post.
Wednesday, October 30th, 2013Ah, the 1970′s. What a time.
Remember Alexander Calder, the noted sculptor? Died in 1976? Well, he had a dealer, Klaus Perls, that he worked with exclusively. It was, by all accounts, a close and very friendly relationship.
Was.
It looks like the Perls family stipulates at least part of these claims, specifically the parts about the Swiss bank accounts. But they also claim that part of the reason Perls had a Swiss bank account is so he could transfer profits to Calder’s Swiss bank account.
I knew there was a reason I liked Alexander Calder’s work.
The 1970′s were also a time when it was much easier to get your hands on explosives. Especially if you were 17 years old. And if you were peeved at the California Department of Water and Power.
The blast ripped apart a 4-foot-wide steel gate that regulates the flow of water to the aqueduct. Windows were blown out of the gatehouse atop the spill gates and its concrete floor buckled.
About 100 million gallons of water meant for Los Angeles were instead flushed into Owens Lake, which had been dry since the Department of Water and Power opened the aqueduct in 1913.
Nobody was injured. Mark Berry, one of the two men responsible, spent 30 days in juvenile detention. And he now works for the DWP.
(I love this telling detail: “The air was filled with the banana-like smell of nitroglycerin.”)
(And this one: “Berry said his father, as yet unaware that his son was one of the culprits, boasted to a neighbor, ‘If I ever find out who bombed the gates I’ll buy him a steak dinner.’” Gardner Dozois and Edward Abbey, please call your offices.)
(Since I made a “That ’70s Show” reference, I believe I have to link to this Penny Arcade. Especially since I am all about fish out of water prison dramas.)
TMQ Watch: September 24, 2013.
Tuesday, September 24th, 2013“Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.”
Thursday, September 19th, 2013There’s an interesting post over at the Cryptographic Engineering blog about Duel-EC.
The post itself is pretty wonky, but a couple of scattershot points:
Flaw #3: You can guess the original EC point from looking at the output bits.
…
Flaw #5: Nobody knows where the recommended parameters came from.
So does all of this amount to a backdoor? Quoth Matthew Green,
…including some kind of hypothetical backdoor would be a horrible, horrific idea — one that would almost certainly blow back at us.
You’d think people with common sense would realize this. Unfortunately we can’t count on that anymore.
(You know, I’m halfway tempted to start a Kickstarter for a truly random random number generator. Something based off atomic decay, perhaps. What’s stopping me is:
- I have no electronics design skills or ability. Of course, I could hire someone, but…
- I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t already done this.)
(Edited to add: You could just get your random numbers from here, of course, while you’re waiting for the revolution. Nothing wrong with that plan, is there?)
(Speaking of Big John von Neumann, I just finished Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe
Cause.
Monday, July 22nd, 2013I haven’t gone crazy since I got the new job. I did purchase a few things: I bought a couple of DVDs during the Criterion 50% off sale. And I bought myself a snazzy new lunchbox, because I really needed one to take my lunch to work in. (I can’t use one of those plastic grocery bags, after all.)
I haven’t bought any guns, yet. (One of our local gunshops had a really nice US property marked Mossberg 44, at a reasonable price. But first I had to leave town, and then I dithered some when I got back, and when I went back Saturday they’d already sold it.)
There are a few other things I have on my agenda, but those may wait either until I get paid or until I empty the change bank. (I don’t really need the money in the change bank that badly, but it has actually gotten so full that the coins in it are interfering with the mechanism and keeping me from adding more coins.)
There’s one thing that I was glad to be able to do before time ran out: donate to the Evict Lyme FUNdraiser.
I don’t know Bonnie of Squeaky Wheel Seeks Grease. I’ve never met her in person, and if I did, I suspect she’d want to punch me in the nose. But she has a problem of the kind that requires expensive and extensive surgery, and she needs help paying for it.
I don’t know Jennifer, of In Jennifer’s Head, either. I’ve never met her in person, and if I did, I suspect she’d want to punch me in the nose. (If you think you’ve detected a theme here, you’re right. I pretty much assume everyone wants to punch me in the nose until proven otherwise.) But I feel pretty confident in saying that Jennifer is a good and decent person. Why? Because she’s running a raffle to help Bonnie out.
Not a charity, a raffle. With some pretty nice prizes. I like that leather range bag from Brownell’s (and I like the fact that Brownell’s donated it; it makes me feel all squishy inside when I think about them. Or that may be the enchilada burger making me feel that way. I can’t tell.) And that’s a swell looking holster from Dragon Leatherworks. (If I don’t win that one in the raffle, I’m planning to order a holster from Dragon soon-ish.)
There’s other nifty prizes as well. Would you like a shot at a pen and a bottle opener made from spent 50 BMG brass? A nice rifle sling? Wind chimes?
Go over and check out Jennifer’s post for rules, instructions, and a full list of prizes.
As I’ve said before, I don’t like using this blog to beg folks for money, so I try to keep the number of charitable solicitations down. I also don’t like asking you to give to a cause I haven’t given to myself, which is why I waited until I had a job and could chip in before posting here. In a way, I kind of feel that being employed now is sort of like being touched by grace, and giving money for Bonnie is kind of a thank-you prayer, or a way of paying that grace forward.
(Yeah, my theology is probably a little messed up. But this is the theology I have, and which is mine.)
“Firing” watch
Sunday, May 5th, 2013P.J. Carlesimo out as coach of the Brooklyn Nets.
I put “firing” in quotes because Carlesimo was acting as an interim coach: as you may recall, the team fired Avery Johnson in December. (Wasn’t he great in “Spenser: For Hire” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”?)
Carlesimo went 35-19 as interim coach, and the Nets did go to the playoffs. But apparently that wasn’t good enough, and the team is looking for a change.
When I take over and declare martial law…
Friday, April 19th, 2013Theremin expert Jon Bernhardt has been at MIT’s WMBR since 8am, under lockdown but DJing defiantly wmbr.mit.edu
— Alex Ross (@alexrossmusic) April 19, 2013
…the radio stations will be all theremin, all the time. Except when I want to provide the people with important updates on the progress of our flying monkeys.
Random notes: April 19, 2013.
Friday, April 19th, 2013Heard on the CBS coverage: “How do you lock down an entire city?” (Nobody had a really good answer to that question.)
More:
(CBS, or the local CBS affiliate – I’m not sure which – just ran a commercial featuring an exploding air conditioner. Bad timing, guys.)
I may come back to this later. I want to do some research and possibly talk to Lawrence. In other news:
Jimmy Haslam recently bought the Cleveland Browns. Haslam made a pile of money off of the Pilot Flying J chain of truck stops and “travel centers”. Yesterday, the FBI raided the Pilot Flying J headquarters:
More:
The Browns just can’t catch a break, can they? It will be interesting to see how this plays out as we get closer to the NFL season.
(Heard on CBS: “I was going into this thinking there was some connection to somewhere.” No s–t, Sherlock.)
Edited to add: Since folks are distracted by Boston at the moment, let me note here: the confirmed death toll in West stands at 12.
According to the association, one of those firefighters was from Dallas: all of the others were volunteer firefighters with the West Fire Department.
High speed low drag tactical stuff.
Monday, April 8th, 2013So Lawrence and I watched the latest SyFy channel disaster, “Chupacabra vs. the Alamo” Saturday night at the home of our friends who shall remain anonymous. (Thank you, anonymous friends!)
I’m hoping Lawrence will write a review so I don’t have to, but there’s one thing I did want to highlight.
Have any of you tactical operators given any thought to how you’re going to perform your tactical operations with an iPad (or other tablet) in one hand?
Are iPad operations something that’s covered in training these days? (Karl, I sense a great need.)
As an Austin resident…
Friday, March 29th, 2013…let me just say this: I agree with Iowahawk.
Dear North Korea: if you are going to nuke Austin, please do it during SXSW statesman.com/news/news/aust…
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 29, 2013
Blog meet: Saturday, March 23rd.
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013It looks like we’re still on for the blogmeet at Mangia’s on Mesa this coming Saturday (the 23rd) at 6 PM.
Lawrence says he’s heard from five or six of his readers. I haven’t heard from any of you. Perhaps you all read Lawrence’s blogs as well as mine, and just decided to reply to him directly. Perhaps all of my readers hate me (well, okay, with one exception, and she has small children to deal with). Perhaps you all hate pizza. Perhaps Ken White promised you a pony if you didn’t show up.
That’s okay. I’ll just sit in the corner nursing a soda and a massive grudge against humanity in general.