The article, Union claims Royal Mail postmen are being told to walk faster, clears up the confusion surrounding the claim that the Royal Mail in England will be “requiring delivery staff to walk at four miles an hour”. It’s amusing that the claim is taken at all seriously. People are notoriously bad at judging numbers. They hear the claim and think nothing of it, thinking that the number—which a “new software system, Pegasus” calculated is anything but a complete fairy tale. It may also show that... [More]

Say you’re hiking. In the cold, in the snow, but moving right along, moving quickly enough to partially fog your sunglasses. Yet still, despite your ferocious pace and partially obscured view, you spot a lovely photo opportunity. Decelerating, you unhook the loop of a hiking pole from your left hand, then clamp said pole under your right arm while you dig around in your left pocket for your cell phone camera. By now, you’re stopped and trying desperately not to drag anything else out of your... [More]

The phrase “to beg the question” has become much more popular outside of philosophical circles. In almost all cases, it is being used incorrectly. When you hear someone say the phrase, then follow it with a question, they are doing it wrong. Consider the following cartoon about Obama’s involvement in the Blagojevich scandal:

Stuart Carlson − Obama, Republicans and Blagojevich

In this case, the reporter actually means, “which raises the question”. It is common practice for people to dress up their language to make what they’re saying sound more... [More]

I’ve dabbled with graphics tools for a long time, starting with Super Paint on Apple’s System 6 & 7 way back in the day, moving through a succession of icon and bitmap editors and settling for several years on Macromedia Fireworks. It was one of the first applications with a focus on producing web output and one of the first that was capable of saving compressed PNG files with alpha transparency. It also marked a transition to vectorized graphics from the more traditional rasterized graphics.... [More]

It is rather difficult to conceive of the person capable of writing the following passage from Dreams from My Father as being particularly open-minded vis-a-vis the unknowable “other” that threatens our fair shores with its mindless desire to wipe us from the face of the earth (to borrow a popularly misquoted phrase):

“Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into... [More]”

The names that Barack Obama has consistently thrown into the ring for his cabinet and other important posts throughout his administration have been primarily center-right in their political views. The Obama Transition Team ™ (OTT) has explained this away so far by pointing out that Obama is stressing a “team of rivals” approach similar to that taken by Lincoln in his presidency. He is choosing the most qualified and experienced people for the job, it is said, and will remain the undisputed... [More]

From the article, Farewell to the Windfall Profits Tax by Ken Silverstein (Harper's), there’s this news about the Obama campaign’s promise to “make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we’ll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills”. The Obama Transition Team™ (or OTT) has a much more practical approach that involves a lot less boat-rocking than the campaign team promised in order for the OTT to even come into existence. That’s why the “language... [More]”

Though much-vaunted for being the bastion of liberalism in America, California is actually a very divided state, with the hippy-dippy liberals living amid the swirling, crenelated parapets in the north and the closed-minded, stone-age thinkers manning the bastions of the massive, hulking fastness that is the Orange County Wall. It is a state that elects a remarkably high number of Republican governors and the one that bestowed the benighted rule of Ronald Reagan on an unwitting America.

They... [More]

Election day.

Whom to choose?

John McCain?

McCain’s policies, his clarity of thought and the cohesiveness of his vision leave a lot to be desired. He is anything but cool when cornered and anything but well-read or well-versed on the major issues facing the nation today. He runs on his record, which has some impressive interludes, like his fight against pork spending or his alliance with Feingold to reform campaign finance. For every feather in his cap, however, there are several... [More]

Dear Barack Obama,

Judging from a few of your more recent interviews, you seem to have a good sense of humor—even after such a long, brutal campaign. If you are elected president, a wonderful gift to the “hard-core Sean Hannity fans”[1] would be to, starting on election day, grow a luxurious beard for your inauguration on January 21st. A well-trimmed, Muslimy-as-all-get-out beard.

As for background music? How about anything off of The Best of the Black President by Fela Kuti?

Liberalism has, for at least the last few decades, been equated with evil in American political discourse. The media and politicians alike have bent over backwards to assure Americans that they are not liberal. Communist was an epithet from the 50's, during the reign of Joe McCarthy. Terrorist became all the rage after 9-11 as the muzzle of choice for those seeking to shut down an rational— or, god forbid, intellectual—discussion. Barack Obama, with his superstar status, clearly deserved... [More]

Designating 9-11 as a pinprick is an incendiary characterization. It was, however, an entirely appropriate,... [More]

After what seems like weeks of interviews that ranged from overly defensive to outright hostile, campaign ads that, at times, transgressed all bounds of logic and good taste and stump speeches that, one after the other, flamed out in flustered desperation, John McCain came back strong on Saturday night with a solid, funny, genial six-minute skit on Saturday Night Live. He was joined by Tina Fey—for those who have seen more of Tina than Sarah, it’s hard to tell the difference—and his wife,... [More]

The eyeballing game is an interesting game that challenges you to “eyeball” distances and angles for fabulous prizes, fortune and fame. You have as much time as you like to perform each of the following tasks three times:

• Make a parallelogram by dragging one corner to the correct position.
• Identify the midpoint of a line
• Bisect an angle
• Find the center of a triangle
• Find the center of a circle
• Make a right angle out of two line segments
• Find the point of convergence for three line segments

... [More]

Christopher Buckley made an appearance on the Daily Show last week. He’s actually quite an entertaining fellow and not at all arrogant and full of himself like his father (was). His father—William F. Buckley—was very intelligent and had an enviably large vocabulary, but behaved like an ass whenever he dared to speak to anyone just as intelligent who was simultaneously in possession of irrefutable facts that contradicted his deeply-held beliefs (check YouTube for interviews with Noam Chomsky... [More]

If you’re faced with a pile of data that needs to be sorted, you can use the Animated Sorting Algorithms by David R. Martin to decide, based on what kind of data you think you’re going to have. Click a little green refresh symbol in the rows to watch the algorithms race on the same dataset or click a column header to watch the same algorithm attack best- and worst-case scenarios simultaneously.

The presidential debates are over and none too soon. Obama’s adherents probably thought their candidate kicked McCain’s ass all over the stage and McCain’s probably thought their candidate looked forthright compared to Obama’s blasé information-rich stream of prose. McCain spent the three debates designating Americans as “his friends” whereas Obama addresses “folks” all the time. True believers are on-board, but does this work with the undecided? Why are people so eminently manipulable? Why... [More]

In discussions between two opposing viewpoints, people tend to choose a “winner” based on who’s willing to raise the volume and lower the level of discourse. If they can identify with one side’s points—or have no reason not to believe them—they tend to identify that way. Simplistic and specious reasoning, straw-man logic and outright, bold-faced lies often carry the day. Check out any Bill O’Reilly interview[1] and you’ll see a master of the form at work.

Now, the right-wing version involves ... [More]

So, suddenly everyone cares about macro-economics. Suddenly, we’ve upgraded our interest in the magic, money-making machine—this financial Perpetuum Mobile—from non-existent to frantic. For the longest time, very few of us cared exactly how it worked or why. No one bothered to ask why it was a given that investing in the market made sense—be it through funds, pensions or directly[1]—that’s why it’s called a given. (Duh.) We ignored clear signs that some were making out like bandits—and... [More]

GYWO was great when it was just a two-dimensional, two-color comic. Now, it’s absolutely hilarious as a video. The latest installment is The Debate (GYWO), where two office buddies banter about the town-hall debate last Friday.

“You watched the debate?

“Yes, and it was another victory for war-hero and country-first-putter, John McCain. […] Total mastery of the issues!”

I laughed. Out loud. But, that’s me. Your mileage may vary. The video is linked below.

The Debate (GYWO)

As of the weekend, we heard that the Dow industrials [was] down over 5,500 points, or 39%, from year-ago peak (MarketWatch). It’s strange, though, because doesn’t crash mean that everything stops working? Crash means bread lines and digging holes and filling them in again to pass the time. At least, that’s what happened during the last crash. What does crash mean today? The internet clearly still works. Jets are still flying on time... [More]

The Daily Show and the Colbert Report aren’t the only games in town anymore. The Onion, which started as an actual physical newspaper before migrating online, has a lot of audio and video content available, as well. The video content is incredibly well-produced and is designed to inspire the same “wait a second…is this real?” feeling as some of its better news articles do.

They have a few recurring themes, covering sports, political news and even a morning show. Here are a few of the better... [More]