I’ve just read the thoughtful opinion piece No, It’s Not Your Opinion. You’re Just Wrong by Jef Rouner at the Houston Press. I don’t find much to disagree with in the text of the article, but there is a subtext I find troubling. While Mr Rouner and I are in agreement that asserting something as one’s own opinion should not used as a shield against logic or facts, I’m troubled by the implication that anyone has a monopoly on … Read the rest
I don’t claim to know the truth about vaccines. I am not a scientist, or a doctor, or a researcher of any kind. So far the available numbers overwhelmingly indicate that they do a lot of good. Would we be better off if we brought back polio? Do I even need to write it out? No.
Yet it keeps on coming up, even among people I’d otherwise thought of as intelligent. I’m getting tired of following up on these conversations, because … Read the rest
I remember enjoying the Mad Max movies from the 80s,1 though truth to tell I don’t remember actually caring about them very much. I don’t think I ever saw the Thunderdome one, which I’m not bothering to even look up the actual title of.
Still, post-apocalyptic desert, guns, and explosions, and Charlize Theron all add up to a movie that was made for me. Yesterday the new rebooted Mad Max film arrived in theaters and it’s all over my … Read the rest
Google has made a big deal out of selling Google Apps as a way for health-care providers to securely store patients’ medical records. As of this writing Google will sign Business Associate Agreements for their Google Apps for Business customers — about five dollars per month.
This is great. While I can’t vouch for Google’s security practices firsthand, I assume that they keep their networks pretty well tied down. I’m not sure how appropriate Google Apps are for the purposes of … Read the rest
In a recent Facebook conversation I bemoaned the fact that most United States residents cannot name even one of their State’s senators, and less than a third can name two.1 That got me thinking about whether my own knowledge of our political landscape is any good. So I gave myself a simple test: to write a list of all fifty states, and identify the junior and senior senators from as many states as I could.
I didn’t do very well. … Read the rest
@TheDemocrats1 are trying to discredit Rand Paul by tweeting a picture of him next to what appears to be an out-of-context quote: «You can’t punish rich people.»
The troubling aspects to this are almost too many to count. But I’ll give it a try.
First, it looks like the Democratic Party now openly considers having wealth a crime. Otherwise, «punishment» wouldn’t be warranted, and defending the rich from being punished wouldn’t itself be any kind of indictment of character.
Second, … Read the rest
All right, it’s only sort of Microsoft’s fault. But right now you really ought to be reading a great article about how the Portage County, Indiana Sheriff’s Office is a disgrace to the law enforcement profession, and how the District Attorney for that same county ought to be fired without delay. The article was researched and footnoted. I had timelines and even a link to confirm that 3 April 2015 was a state holiday in Indiana.1
It was literally … Read the rest
Note: an unfinished version of this note was presented to Cynthia (whose surname I’m still not sure of) at about 9:15 AM on April 7th 2015, along with money orders in the full regular amount of rent for my apartment for April ($1,250.00). I did not give her the additionally-demanded fifty dollars, and I received no receipts for the money orders, as had been given last month. (This fact does … Read the rest
For the record, I am in favor of handwashing, especially prior to the preparation and/or handling of food.
I’m also good with laws that require restaurants to post signs declaring that employees must wash their hands.
That said, those are not the same two things. Which makes the teaser for the Washington Post article Senator says maybe restaurants shouldn’t make employees wash their hands a falsehood. Frankly, I find it more offensive than any of the remarks attributed to Senator Tillis in … Read the rest
I’m not sure which fact is more hilarious (or sad): that I have a three-line function with twenty-eight lines of comments, or that the function exists at all.
At some point I was instructed not to use public variables and to create getters and setters for everything. Encapsulation is a good thing, but for values that just need to be accessed it makes just as much sense to make the variable public and not waste a function call to return the … Read the rest