Posted onOpinionated Junk

This guy read a headline. You’ll never believe what happens next.

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This arti­cle is an ongo­ing work in progress, not an arti­cle with a pub­lish­ing date. The list­ed date reports when the arti­cle was start­ed but con­tent here may be newer.

The Web is full of mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion. This is not new: old media was full of mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion as well, but old media did­n’t have the rapid dis­sem­i­na­tion that we do now so the com­pe­ti­tion for atten­tion has ramped up. Head­line writ­ing on web­sites has turned into an obscene craft where­by … Read the rest

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Posted onBlahg

You’re just wrong just isn’t right

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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

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Posted onOpinionated Junk

Why I’m not listening about vaccines

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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

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Posted onBlahg

Blockbuster burnout: or how I learned to stop worrying and love the subtitles

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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

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Posted onBlahg

No, Gmail is not HIPAA-compliant

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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

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Posted onBlahg

I just failed civics

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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

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Posted onOpinionated Junk

You can’t punish the… oh, right. Actually, you can.

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@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.»

«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

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Posted onBlahg

I blame Microsoft

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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

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Posted onBlahg

For fifty bucks I could probably make this go away

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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

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Posted onOpinionated Junk

Monochromatic Outlook employees must wash hands after contact with Washington Post

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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

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