Author: splicer

Posted onOpinionated Junk

Obama leaves a pile, GOP steps in it

by 4 Comments on Obama leaves a pile, GOP steps in it

The GOP is look­ing for ways to look stu­pid and pet­ty, and Oba­ma is all too will­ing to oblige with opportunities.

Oba­ma’s nom­i­na­tion for Defense Sec­re­tary is Chuck Hagel, the for­mer Sen­a­tor of Nebras­ka. Hagel has been crit­i­cized for being not-quite-enthu­si­as­tic-enough-about-Israel and for being in favor of engag­ing Iran and Hamas in direct talks. Hagel is also on record call­ing for cut­backs in the defense bud­get. Exact­ly the sort of nom­i­nee that repub­li­cans would want to block, and exact­ly the … Read the rest

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Posted onBlahg

Seventeen iOS apps worth a look

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This is not in any way an exhaus­tive review of apps for iOS. It is instead a list of apps I have per­son­al­ly found use­ful. I may not have tried alter­nates so while I wel­come alter­nate sug­ges­tions in the com­ments, please accept my apolo­gies in advance if I’ve made a choice in igno­rance of an app supe­ri­or to the one I’m rec­om­mend­ing. As I don’t have unlim­it­ed funds, I’ve made some of my choic­es based on user or edi­to­r­i­al reviews … Read the rest

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Posted onBlahg

Why would I want to put my cloud in the cloud?

by 1 Comment on Why would I want to put my cloud in the cloud?

Ever since Spar­row Mail went the way of the dodo,1 the search for a good email client has been on. Spar­row con­tin­ues to work, but it nev­er ful­ly matured as an email client and will nev­er again be sup­port­ed. Spar­row there­fore is not a good long-term option. I still use Spar­row on my lap­top and on my iPhone, but I’ve moved back to Apple’s Mail.app on my desk­top sys­tem. Mail.app’s inter­face has improved sub­stan­tial­ly in the time I … Read the rest

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Posted onOpinionated Junk

The GOP trainwreck

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Today I grieve for Amer­i­can politics.

I’ve been watch­ing my friends on var­i­ous social net­works as they react­ed to the results of last night’s elec­tion, and it has struck me odd to see how hap­py so many peo­ple are that Barack Oba­ma won. It’s alien to me not because I don’t under­stand — and to some extent approve of — the rea­sons he won. I do. I pre­dict­ed months ago that Oba­ma had the elec­tion pret­ty much sewn up. Mitt … Read the rest

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Posted onOpinionated Junk

The Electoral College has outlived its purpose

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I want­ed to get this out there before the elec­tion results start com­ing in, in case we have a sit­u­a­tion where the elec­toral win­ner of the elec­tion is not the same as the can­di­date with the most pop­u­lar votes. If that hap­pens, any­one com­plain­ing will be seen as a sore los­er and I want to be clear no mat­ter how this elec­tion goes, this cam­paign sea­son has con­vinced me that the elec­toral col­lege caus­es more prob­lems than it fix­es and … Read the rest

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Posted onBlahg

Sparrow Mail flips users the bird

by 2 Comments on Sparrow Mail flips users the bird

This morn­ing’s email includes an email by the mak­ers of my favorite email client for the Mac and for iPhone: Spar­row Mail. At the top of this email is a sim­u­lacrum of Spar­row’s logo, but drawn with Google’s trade­mark col­ors. The email starts off with this cheer­ful news:

We’re excit­ed to let you know that Spar­row has been acquired by Google! You can view our pub­lic announce­ment here, but I want­ed to reach out direct­ly to make sure you were

… Read the rest
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Posted onOpinionated Junk

How about a usually-balanced budget amendment?

by 1 Comment on How about a usually-balanced budget amendment?

Just think­ing out loud here for a moment. I’m sure that any flaws in my log­ic will be point­ed out in the comments.

My only prob­lem with a bal­anced bud­get amend­ment is that times of eco­nom­ic down­turn could be the worst time to cut back spend­ing. I’m not going to go full key­ne­sian and say that if the econ­o­my shrinks that it’s time to increase spend­ing, but I will con­cede that cut­ting back at those times is like­ly to be … Read the rest

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Posted onBlahg

Breaking a perfectly good fuel pump

by 3 Comments on Breaking a perfectly good fuel pump

My Moto Guzzi has been run­ning pret­ty rough late­ly. It would­n’t start on my trip into San Fran­cis­co for a doc­tor’s appoint­ment the day before Inde­pen­dence Day and I had to get it trail­ered back to Alame­da. A cou­ple of months ago I had a sim­i­lar-seem­ing issue which was an elec­tri­cal prob­lem, but this did not seem elec­tri­cal. The starter motor turned the engine over with vig­or but the darn thing would not catch.

Next on my list of usu­al sus­pects … Read the rest

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Posted onBlahg

The pin in the Brembo

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It’s way past time for the rear brake pads on the Guzzi to be replaced. I’ve been putting it off for too long think­ing that I don’t real­ly use my rear brake that much any­way. Of course, that’s ter­ri­ble rea­son­ing for at least three reasons.

First, it’s ter­ri­ble rea­son­ing because I ought to use my rear brake. The front brake is always going to do more work, but why not let the rear brake do its part too? Novice rid­ers … Read the rest

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Posted onOpinionated Junk

Rehabilitating Keynes

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The Amer­i­can right is fond of spit­ting the word key­ne­sian as an epi­thet, just as those on the left hold Keynes up to be some sort of sav­ior, res­cu­ing the mass­es from the tyran­ny of the wealthy. Today’s eco­nom­ic poli­cies that the left pro­motes and the right attempts to thwart rely heav­i­ly on the key­ne­sian idea that when a nation’s econ­o­my is stalling, the gov­ern­ment should increase spend­ing even if that means going into debt. Fur­ther it’s said that it … Read the rest

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