“Cap & Trade” is ostensibly a policy for controlling climate-change. Like many other bright ideas, while it is technically feasible on paper, it is unlikely to satisfy any of its purported ecological goals when actually used. Like communism or capitalism, it’s a system that only works if human beings don’t get involved. It won’t even get out the door before it’s corrupted to serve power and generate wealth for the already wealthy instead of actually controlling carbon output.

This may not be... [More]

We all do it. We all commit certain behaviors to habit so that we don’t have to think about them anymore. We don’t think about how we get to work in the morning or home again in the evening. We just take the right exit, the right stairway or get on the right train without a second thought, our bodies taking us where we need to go without any intervention from the brain.

So we all have these well-worn grooves along which we coast, using the energy we spare for other things—perhaps thinking... [More]

To egregiously paraphrase the Pascal quote cited later:

“A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

There is all too much substantiating evidence for this adage these days, especially if one spends too much time wallowing in what is often designated the MSM or [M]ain[S]tream [M]edia. Learning a little about something and beating everyone over the head with it is nothing new. Nor is the phenomenon wherein those who know the least make the most noise. It is very likely that things have... [More]

10/GUI by R. Clayton Miller documents a design proposal for a way to better incorporate multi-touch technology into everyday computing.

10/GUi by R. Clayton Miller

Executive summary:

• Your arms are too heavy to be able to multi-touch on-screen.
• Your arms and hands are not transparent.
• The mouse has only a single point of contact (not counting mouse-gesturing, which offers more degrees of freedom).
• What about putting the multi-touch surface on the table instead of on the screen?
• Manipulating classically clipped and overlapped windows is... [More]

Cultures that haggle[1] have a rule-of-thumb when making deals that is approximately: “If the customer/shopkeeper is smiling, you got screwed.” On the other hand, if you’re walking away with purchases under your arm and you can just hear the sound of someone cursing you and your ancestors over the sound of your whistling, then you got a good deal.

The title says it all: Healthcare industry stocks explode as bill progresses by Glenn Greenwald (Salon.com).

Wall Street has been doing a frenetic jig, rubbing itself to new heights... [More]

It’s actually not complicated at all, if you’re willing to open your mind to logic just a little bit and suspend your belief that Iran is a double-boiler of barely suppressed rage and killing mayhem. The post, Iran Isn’t The Problem, Stupid by Evert Cilliers (3QuarksDaily) sums it up in three sentences:

“Why might Iran want the bomb? Well, some damn foreigner invaded Afghanistan and Iraq on either side of Iran, killing and maiming people for nine years now. You’d have to be Amish not to look into a deterrent.”

When you put it... [More]

There’s a keyboard viewer stashed away in a very unintuitive place. These instructions assume you are using OS X English, but include steps for both Leopard and Snow Leopard (versions 10.5.x and 10.6.x respectively). Click the footnote links to jump to the screenshots below.

1. Select “System Preferences…” from the Apple in the top-left corner.
2. In Leopard, select the “International” icon in the top row (in Snow Leopard, it’s called “Language & Text”)
3. In Leopard, select the “Input Menu” page.... [More]

So, there’s this show on the Discovery Channel called Dirty Jobs starring a fella named Mike Rowe. He’s got an all-American blue-collar image and he’s popular enough with the geek crowd to have attracted the attention of Reddit, which invited him to answer some questions. The final question in this video involves his obvious appeal for the ladies: “Is there any chance you’ll stop having sex with my wife in her dreams?”

His answer is absolute comedy gold, from the writing to the timing to the... [More]

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out years ago and stunk up the place big time. Most of us just agreed that it sucked and that it spent way too much time on the stupid little kid and the even stupider Jar Jar Binks. The movie below builds a 70-minute thesis on the suckiness of SW:TPM with copious examples of how the older movies did everything better and a startlingly insightful analysis of plot devices and movie-making, in general.[1] You almost have to feel sorry for the older Lucas, because... [More]

Seventeen years ago, the nations of the world got together in Kyoto and agreed to a scheme that would bring climate change under control. After a round or ten of glad-handing and slapping one another on the back, they spent the intervening years ignoring all of the targets that they’d set, with some nations even backing out of the treaty entirely (I’m looking at you, GWB). The first world careened onward, pursuing “bigger, better, faster, more” without regard for the effects on the third world... [More]

So, after at least half a year of intense debate, political haggling and a spirited back-and-forth, we have the following ground-breaking legislation to transform the American health care system. In short, our legislators have determined that what we need is almost exactly that which we already have, but that we would like to pay much, much more for it.

1. It will cover more people.
2. It will be illegal to deny coverage for preëxisting conditions.

Negatives

1. It won’t be... [More]

The citation above was linked into a discussion on Reddit about the death penalty. At a guess, 90% of the participants... [More]

The New York Times thinks we’re mentally challenged; from today’s NY Times Front Page podcast:

“The MTA will be eliminating the W and Z lines.”

So far, so good. That’s the informative bit. They followed up with:

“As a result, some commuters will have to wait longer for trains.”

With a bit of editing, they could chop the podcast in half without losing any information at all.
 

The place: Norway; the occasion: the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech from the Master of Rhetoric.

Shorter Obama:

“Until America gets everything it could possibly want—which includes unlimited resources and a continuation unchanged of the lifestyle to which our richest have become accustomed—there’s gonna be war. Until America doesn’t experience pants-shitting terror every time another nation achieves even 1% of our glory, there’s gonna be war. Anyway, thanks for the award and thanks... [More]”

These are just rough notes to accompany the citations; the book was in German, but yours truly does not yet feel comfortable enough with his grasp of that language’s grammar to formulate the accompanying notes and thoughts in it. So, English it is. Apologies to all those who can only read half.

This small book quickly—so quickly—establishes the gulag life as normal that one hardly notices how restricted and miserable the lives of the inmates actually were because Schuchow’s[1] attitude was... [More]

This three-minute visualization of the relative sizes of four empires—France, Portugal, Spain and England—from the early 1800s to the present is mesmerizing. Once you’ve seen it, you want to see Holland, Russia and the U.S. as well. Definitely watch until 1960 so you can see the wonderful explosion of the French empire!

Visualizing Empire's Decline (YouTube)
 

The post Grammar Challenge! by Amy McDaniel includes a quiz written by David Foster Wallace that she obtained during a writing course many years ago. Each of the sentences has one major fault—not necessarily a grammatical one—though there may be other, smaller ones as well.

The full text of the quiz is included below; the footnote for each line links to its answer.

In matters military, the Obama administration has followed closely in the footsteps of the Bush administration. The Bush administration, in turn, only really innovated in brazenness and speed of execution, but also pretty much hewed to the military policy of the 50 years before it. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Obama administration decided not to sign the most recent ban on land mines. Perhaps Carter would have signed it, but he’s proven to be a much stronger former president than he... [More]

Fabio Viale’s Hyper-realistic sculptures are all marble, but of everyday objects and with exquisite detail. Click on the images for more detail. Check out the site for much more. (Including a marble boat!)

Two Tires (Infinito)Popcorn (Big Bang)Styrofoam Skull (Skull)

The title of the article, The Big Squander by Paul Krugman (NY Times), neatly illustrates the deferential interpretation of the financial robbery it describes.

“About the A.I.G. affair: During the bubble years, many financial companies created the illusion of financial soundness by buying credit-default swaps from A.I.G. — basically, insurance policies in which A.I.G. promised to make up the difference if borrowers defaulted on their debts. It was an illusion because the insurer didn’t have remotely enough money to... [More]”

The following citation from That Couple by Tom Schaller (538) applies to so much in popular American culture today.

“No, you’re not famous; you’re infamous. You’re situated squarely at the bottom of an already too-deep and increasingly murky barrel of celebrity culture, celebrity journalism, and (un)reality TV, the depths of which are probably making even Andy Warhol cringe in his grave. I want this to be your fifteenth minute. I want your egg timer to ding now, so you can exit our national discourse as swiftly,... [More]”

This user streams comments that come, purportedly, from his father. Some are quite pithy.

The following picture is from a photo essay, Ian Fisher : American Soldier (Denver Post) following a young American from his initial recruiting to deployment in Iraq and return to America.

Child Soldiers

The picture of the four recruits during basic training makes them look remarkably young, far less than the 18 years each of them must be. The two to the right—with Ian, the star of the essay, on the far right—really look like they dressed up in Daddy’s war togs.

To be honest, Ian’s story is neither particularly... [More]

This article was originally published on the Encodo Blogs. Browse on over to see more!

Perforce servers have a checkpointing mechanism in order to back up the server metadata. That checkpoint, along with the depot data and a journal file (for changes made since the checkpoint was taken) are enough to restore a Perforce database.

Here at Encodo, we take a checkpoint every evening right before the depot files are backed up. We retain a few days worth of these checkpoints, just in case. Since... [More]

Christ almighty, does America suck.[1]

We’re so politically moribund it’s hard to see how anything significant will change without a revolution.

Consider the following citation from the column, The Defining Moment by Paul Krugman (New York Times):

“For this is the moment of truth. The political environment is as favorable for reform as it’s likely to get. The legislation on the table isn’t perfect, but it’s as good as anyone could reasonably have expected. History is about to be made — and everyone has to decide which... [More]”

Psst, Anglican clergy!

Listen up.

Is your church way too liberal for your tastes?

Are you tired of the homos and broads cluttering up your ranks?

Are you tired of having to live in a world run by liberals with their annoying need to make everything equal for everyone even though everyone knows they’re not?[1]

Well, has the Catholic church got an offer for you!

Act now and you can get back into the good graces of a real church; one that has no room for homos or broads and with the added bonus... [More]