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Your Mother's Congress
Oct 01 2008, 10:24 EDT [updated Oct 01 2008, 10:33 EDT]
If congress wants to be taken seriously about all the "emergency" talk it really needs to start acting like there is an emergency. Instead on a normal budget bill we get business as usual:
"very few people have any idea what's in it." Cornered House m
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John/Jack and the Origins of Nicknames
Sep 30 2008, 05:47 EDT [updated Sep 30 2008, 06:09 EDT]
It has been years since I wrote what continues to be our most search-engine referenced post John's and Jack's over time. It described why I stopped being a John and started being a Jack and included some history and nifty graphs (Mmm, graphs).
The reaso
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Winter Sport Bowling: Bedshitting Edition
Sep 30 2008, 01:43 EDT [updated Sep 30 2008, 02:19 EDT]
159, 123, 118. Youch. Thankfully my teammates took up the slack and we won 16/21 points.
Only in America
My landlord showed up. Sorta. He was on the team of Department of Public Works guys repairing the water main break in front of the bowling alley
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German Anti-Fascists Shutdown Rally by Throwing Rocks, Punches (1 image)
Sep 30 2008, 00:34 EDT [updated Sep 30 2008, 01:00 EDT]
Wait .. what? 40,000 "antifas" Germans stopped a rally of "right wing extremists" by throwing rocks, shutting down the railways, and beating up the few "reactionaries" who managed to show face. I'm doomed to never understand the political labels of Euro
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That That
Sep 29 2008, 23:16 EDT [updated Oct 01 2008, 07:31 EDT]
I've consciously been trying to cull every use of the word "that" in posts. By some stylistic defect I use the word almost as often as "the." Eliminating thats doesn't hurt readability much but reduces length. For example [or "by way of for example" fo
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Dear John
Sep 29 2008, 22:21 EDT [updated Sep 29 2008, 22:22 EDT]
Dear John McCain,
Please stop sending me mail. Although I appreciate the weekly status updates I'm not going to give you any money.
[Of course the RNC knows what it is doing so spamming households must work, on average. In my last incarnation my com
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Econ Blogging?
Sep 29 2008, 20:32 EDT [updated Sep 29 2008, 23:33 EDT]
petedied: I'm surprised that my brother (jackdied) hasn't blogged about the economy yet.
Mrs. petedied: He's probably too busy looking for his wallet.
[jackdied]
My response is entirely predictable: there are two sets of morons in the equation; fi
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Your week in Quickies
Sep 29 2008, 06:13 EDT [updated Sep 29 2008, 07:19 EDT]
A linguist on Palin's Accent
[jackdied]
Sep 27 2008, 04:23 EDT
There are two kinds of linguists: one believes that there is a ri
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Is Obama Trying to Lose the Election?
Sep 26 2008, 01:36 EDT [updated Sep 28 2008, 20:30 EDT]
Threatening TV stations with license revocation for running anti-Obama ads is not a grown up thing to do. Then again this is the guy who won his first election by suing all his opponents names off the ballot.
With the help of the Dobrys, he was able t
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HOWTO: Get a New Passport, Same Day
Sep 25 2008, 21:15 EDT [updated Sep 26 2008, 03:40 EDT]
My well worn and much loved passport disappeared, and on the day I needed it. It turns out you can get one in just a few hours (instead of weeks or months) by following these steps. But first some general advice.
Smile, Dammit
Smile, and be polite. C
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First Sununu Sighting
Sep 25 2008, 19:39 EDT [updated Sep 25 2008, 20:04 EDT]
An anti John Sununu (New Hampshire Senator) ad just appeared on my Boston peacock network. New Hampshire abuts the Boston media sphere so it must cost big bucks (or at least bucks wasted on non-voters) to run political ads. New Jersey (North Jersey is N
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Anathem Halftime Report
Sep 25 2008, 16:34 EDT [updated Sep 26 2008, 04:28 EDT]
I'm 500 pages into this 1000 page tome. The stage is set in the first 50 pages; The world is pretty much like ours but 4000 years in the future. The narrator is a monk in one of the dozens of abbeys that have kept the world stable and knowledge alive o
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Boston Population Stats
Sep 24 2008, 03:09 EDT
Internet128 always has interesting things to say about Boston/Mass population surveys - at least when he isn't talking about the Patriots. The newest ACS data is out, here is a table of Suffolk county data which comprises Boston (600k) plus a little extr
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GOP Fundrasing Letters
Sep 24 2008, 02:17 EDT [updated Sep 24 2008, 02:18 EDT]
I've received a half dozen letters in the last week from various offices (RNC, McCain, etc).
They can send as many as they like but it is a waste of their time and money: I refuse to vote for McCain so I'm certainly not inclined to give him money eithe
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Note to Lehigh University
Sep 18 2008, 11:44 EDT [updated Sep 19 2008, 01:10 EDT]
Please stop inviting me to "Young Alumni" events. I graduated more than ten years ago, get over it. Also, keep the interns away from the keyboard. This is getting absurd:
Shiver me timbers!
Young Alumni Reunion is right around the corner,
Oct.
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Neal Stephenson's Anathem
Sep 17 2008, 23:35 EDT [updated Sep 17 2008, 23:39 EDT]
I have nothing to say, yet. Just that bobsalive says A-nay-thum and I say Uh-nath-um. If we each read 50 pages a day one of us will be finished by Christmas. Not this one, the next one. Stephenson really needs to get back to the brevity of his earlie
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Sep 17 2008, 20:10 EDT [updated Sep 17 2008, 20:14 EDT]
The league continues to exist but the hoped for two extra teams didn't materialize so it is down to six teams and 18 bowlers. It would have been better for my team if I had stayed home but instead I went there straight from the airport. 155, 117, 134.
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Book Review: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Sep 17 2008, 16:48 EDT [updated Sep 17 2008, 17:27 EDT]
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a Robert Heinlein novel with a tooth-achingly sweet libertarian theme so naturally I loved it. It was one of his earlier works (Amazon has it out of print, sometimes) and was written in intentionally bad prose so it only
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Vegetarians Can Go Screw
Sep 17 2008, 13:11 EDT [updated Sep 29 2008, 05:52 EDT]
I received a wedding invitation in the mail today*. The dinner options read:
__ Filet Mignon with Merlot Bordelaise
__ Grilled Salmon Filet with Oriental Glaze
__ Vegetarian
It must suck to be a vegetarian, but really, you have no one to blame but
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East/West Coast Jaywalking
Sep 17 2008, 01:27 EDT [updated Sep 17 2008, 01:52 EDT]
In case any of my East Coast friends thought I was kidding that any jurisdiction would give tickets for jaywalking I'll reference this article:
I walked across a street when it seemed safe to do so, regardless of distance from lights, or their chroma
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Almost Have Passport, Will Probably Travel
Sep 12 2008, 13:41 EDT [updated Sep 16 2008, 22:21 EDT]
My new passport should be ready at 3:30pm. Now all I need is a plane flight...
[to be replaced shortly with a more informative and less harried article]
I did get there and my talk was well received. I made it back too. I can't give an accurate descr
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Winter Bowling: Errata
Sep 12 2008, 04:23 EDT [updated Sep 12 2008, 04:26 EDT]
One of the pleasant things about life is the people you meet. There are a lot of them and some are interesting. Double that for bowling. This week we played a team that included Bob. I asked Bob what kind of engineer he was which was presumptuous bec
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Gone Baby, Gone
Sep 11 2008, 19:01 EDT [updated Sep 11 2008, 20:25 EDT]
My passport is not here. Fuck.
As a small grace I have friends who know things and I hit a bingo on the first call. It turns out all I have to do is get proof of intent-to-travel from the airline, go to the Boston passport office in the morning, and th
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9/11
Sep 11 2008, 17:05 EDT
Evil does exist in this world. Maybe you didn't have any funerals to go to after the fact but I did and today will never be "in the past."
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Your week in Quickies
Sep 11 2008, 12:25 EDT [updated Sep 12 2008, 02:35 EDT]
World Names Profiler
[bobsalive]
Sep 11 2008, 12:25 EDT
Nifty plots of the popularity of surnames in various countries.
I enj
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Let's Play a Game
Sep 11 2008, 11:58 EDT [updated Sep 11 2008, 19:04 EDT]
Called "Where the fuck is my passport?" Normally a very good guess would be in the sock drawer next to the title to my car, birth certificate, and expired passport. Today, not so much.
Not a total disaster, I still have eight hours to turn everything i
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Go Screw
Sep 11 2008, 01:31 EDT [updated Sep 11 2008, 01:41 EDT]
Two months ago I was in Lithuania, giving a technical presentation. Tomorrow I'm in the UK, doing the same. Next month I'm in New Hampshire receiving a hunter safety lecture. All voluntarily.
Not to put too fine a point on it: no one represents me.
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A History of Good Ideas
Sep 10 2008, 23:48 EDT
As opposed to the unknowable history of why popular ideas were popular the history of good ideas would be much easier to write. Good ideas can be judged by their evolutionary fitness: if they survive ten generations - call it 200 years - then you can put
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A History of Popular Ideas
Sep 10 2008, 23:07 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 23:10 EDT]
It is a popular notion, a very human notion, that the good will out, light is the best disinfectant, and that the meek shall inherit the earth. The last two are promulgated by Christianity but also predate Christianity. If Christ isn't your bag, Karl Ma
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Winter Bowling: Sport Scoring
Sep 10 2008, 22:08 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 22:13 EDT]
The scoring system in the Sport/PBA league is slightly more detailed than in the normal leagues. The normal scoring is out of 7, 2 points for most team pins in each game and 1 point for overall team pins. The sport league has a more detailed scoring sys
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Defending Obama
Sep 10 2008, 21:52 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 21:54 EDT]
May I? Obama's recent remark about the McCain-Palin campaign being like "putting lipstick on a pig [of their policies]" was in no way offensive and I find it impossible to read it as such. I think this is a case of McCain-Palin supporters overreaching.
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Voters are [still] Idiots
Sep 10 2008, 21:40 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 21:45 EDT]
The WaPo published the editorial 5 Myths about smart voters. The five myths are variations of: voters know about politics (they don't) and that, no, your demographic isn't any better informed than the others.
This is worth repeating again and again beca
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Amazon's Red-Blue Book Sales
Sep 10 2008, 19:37 EDT [updated Sep 11 2008, 14:14 EDT]
Amazon has a State-by-state heat map of book sales by ideology and state.
I love graphs more than the next guy but I don't think this is useful because there are so many confounding factors. First, are some areas more likely to get books from Amazon/a l
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In The Mail
Sep 10 2008, 14:36 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 18:10 EDT]
Neal Stephenson's Anathem and Amity Shales' The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. If Forgotten Man is a chunky book at 500 pages then Anathem is an unabridged dictionary wrapped in a new dust jacket. I have a 12 hour plane ride tomor
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