The crime: refusing to take medication.
The suspect: a 95 year old man.
The legal process: no need for that, the cops are judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.
The sentence: death, by electrocution and assault.
Mark Steyn reports.
What the hell is happening to my country?
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Filthy Filner: Number Eleven...
I cannot bear popcorn, but I wish I liked it – I like the mental image of having a nice, big tub of popcorn while we watch the Filner Follies...
Yesterday, the eleventh woman to publicly charge Filthy with sexual harassment came forth. The story here sounds very Filneresque at this point: Filthy offered to help a Marine with PTSD – but only if the nurse asking for help agreed to go on a date with him.
What a schmuck!
But I don't like popcorn, so I'll just sip my tea and keep reading the Filthy Files, and Google News...
Yesterday, the eleventh woman to publicly charge Filthy with sexual harassment came forth. The story here sounds very Filneresque at this point: Filthy offered to help a Marine with PTSD – but only if the nurse asking for help agreed to go on a date with him.
What a schmuck!
But I don't like popcorn, so I'll just sip my tea and keep reading the Filthy Files, and Google News...
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Obamacare: Consequences...
One of the “features” of Obamacare is an absolutely enormous transfer of wealth from the young (through their mandate to purchase health insurance) to the old (the dominant consumer of health care, and therefore dominant cause of health care expenses). In other words, Obamacare purports to solve the problem of healthcare expenses for the elderly by making the younger folks pay for it.
Many opponents of Obamacare imagine that in the long run this theft of young people's money will drive young people away from the Democratic party. Since this is one of the Democrats' key constituencies, this possibility is seen with some glee by the Republicans (the likely beneficiary of youth disenchantment with Democrats). This would then give the Republicans the legislative and executive authority to repeal Obamacare.
Personally, I think it's more likely that if the Republicans ever gain the political power to repeal Obamacare, they won't (all their campaign promises notwithstanding). Instead, I suspect they'll modify Obamacare in ways that retain the popular part, make some nominal (but electorate appeasing) adjustments to the wealth transfer aspects, and keep every bit of the opportunity for regulation and exception carve-outs – so they can keep the lobbyists coming, cash in hand.
But something I hadn't considered before is that there is a completely different solution to the wealth transfer problem. Think about this from a younger person's perspective. They're getting taxed, heavily, to pay for older people's health care. Why not just get rid of the older people? No old people, no healthcare expenses to pay for. Problem solved! And apparently, there's solid support for this idea:
I think I'll do a little preliminary research on other countries Debbie and I could live in...
Many opponents of Obamacare imagine that in the long run this theft of young people's money will drive young people away from the Democratic party. Since this is one of the Democrats' key constituencies, this possibility is seen with some glee by the Republicans (the likely beneficiary of youth disenchantment with Democrats). This would then give the Republicans the legislative and executive authority to repeal Obamacare.
Personally, I think it's more likely that if the Republicans ever gain the political power to repeal Obamacare, they won't (all their campaign promises notwithstanding). Instead, I suspect they'll modify Obamacare in ways that retain the popular part, make some nominal (but electorate appeasing) adjustments to the wealth transfer aspects, and keep every bit of the opportunity for regulation and exception carve-outs – so they can keep the lobbyists coming, cash in hand.
But something I hadn't considered before is that there is a completely different solution to the wealth transfer problem. Think about this from a younger person's perspective. They're getting taxed, heavily, to pay for older people's health care. Why not just get rid of the older people? No old people, no healthcare expenses to pay for. Problem solved! And apparently, there's solid support for this idea:
I think I'll do a little preliminary research on other countries Debbie and I could live in...
NYT Editorial Takedown...
Every time – every time – I read a New York Times editorial on a subject I'm informed about, I end up getting angry about their ability to shovel pure bullshit down the maws of their less-informed readers. They often don't even make a token effort to be truthful or objective – they just change the “facts” to suit the progressive narrative, and run with it as if it were true.
Most of their readers, presumably, swallow the lie whole without ever knowing they've been lied to.
Kent Scheidigger does what I wish I'd done: takes one of these propagandatorials apart, meticulously. Kudos, Kent.
Jeff Bezos (who is openly libertarian) just bought the (quite liberal/progressive) Washington Post for $250M. At the rate the NYT business is declining, he could buy them for the same price pretty soon.
That could be interesting...
Most of their readers, presumably, swallow the lie whole without ever knowing they've been lied to.
Kent Scheidigger does what I wish I'd done: takes one of these propagandatorials apart, meticulously. Kudos, Kent.
Jeff Bezos (who is openly libertarian) just bought the (quite liberal/progressive) Washington Post for $250M. At the rate the NYT business is declining, he could buy them for the same price pretty soon.
That could be interesting...
Everything You Need to Know About Obamacare...
...on a single entertaining web page. A sample:
When Obama promised everyone making under $250,000 a year that he wouldn’t raise our taxes, I was like:
But then he introduced Obamacare and it had 18 tax hikes…
When Obama promised everyone making under $250,000 a year that he wouldn’t raise our taxes, I was like:
But then he introduced Obamacare and it had 18 tax hikes…
RRAM...
Crossbar says it can put a terabyte of nonvolatile Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM) on a single small chip. Access times are 20 times faster than flash. The structure of the chip is three dimensional, meaning that the storage capacity is proportional to the volume of the chip, not the area (as is true for conventional DRAM or flash memory). This offers the potential of fully electronic nonvolatile RAM with capacities equaling or exceeding those of rotating magnetic memory.
Hard disks and tape are gonna die. The only question is when...
Hard disks and tape are gonna die. The only question is when...
Triple Play...
A book review in the Wall Street Journal (my favorite newspaper), written by Bruce Schneier (my favorite security commentator), about a book by Radley Balko (my favorite libertarian writer). Sweet!
Dead Penguins...
Via my lovely bride:
You really didn't believe I know anything about penguins, did you? In the Dilatush family, the correct response to something like this is: “Sigh!”Did you ever wonder why there are no dead penguins on the ice in Antarctica? Where do they go?
Wonder no more!!!
It is a known fact that the penguin is a very ritualistic bird which lives an extremely ordered and complex life. The penguin is very committed to its family and will mate for life, as well as maintain a form of compassionate contact with its offspring throughout its life.
If a penguin is found dead on the ice surface, other members of the family and social circle have been known to dig holes in the nearby snow, using their vestigial wings and beaks, until the hole is deep enough for the dead bird to be rolled into, and buried.
The male penguins then gather in a circle around the fresh grave and sing:
"Freeze a jolly good fellow."
"Freeze a jolly good fellow."
Monday, August 5, 2013
Pre-Emptive Cringing...
Yesterday, throughout the Muslim world, American embassies that are normally open on Sunday were closed because of a rise in the level of terrorist “chatter” picked up by the NSA and other intelligence-gathering organizations.
Mark Steyn finds this “pre-emptive cringing” to be unseemly for a great country.
I agree with that (though asymmetric war is full of awful choices that must be made), but wonder if we're still a “great country” in some ways that matter, at least to me.
I don't think there are easy answers for the challenges the Middle East poses for itself and other countries in the world. I don't believe there is any one “right answer”, either. But I do believe there must be a myriad of better paths than the one our country is currently embarked on, and this response to “chatter” is a great example. The only messages this response sends to the terrorists are bad ones: that we can be cowed, that we respond to threats like little girls, that victory may be achieved over us very easily.
Want examples of responses that would have been preferable? Ok, here are two:
In those countries where we had reason to believe our embassies were threatened, close those embassies, permanently. Ban all travel by Americans to those countries. Ban all business by Americans with those countries. Stop all foreign aid to those countries. And so on. Make the threat have a cost.
In those countries where we had a reason to believe our embassies were threatened, station a significant contingent of U.S. Marines there, and deploy our significant intelligence resources in support of their mission. Subtract the cost of this protection from our foreign aid to that country. Make the threat have a cost. Then, if we are attacked, retaliate with overwhelming asymmetric response (in crude terms, if they kill one American, kill a hundred of them). Make the attack have a cost.
The response we have chosen has only good consequences for the terrorists. Brilliant. “Smart power” is hard at work...
Mark Steyn finds this “pre-emptive cringing” to be unseemly for a great country.
I agree with that (though asymmetric war is full of awful choices that must be made), but wonder if we're still a “great country” in some ways that matter, at least to me.
I don't think there are easy answers for the challenges the Middle East poses for itself and other countries in the world. I don't believe there is any one “right answer”, either. But I do believe there must be a myriad of better paths than the one our country is currently embarked on, and this response to “chatter” is a great example. The only messages this response sends to the terrorists are bad ones: that we can be cowed, that we respond to threats like little girls, that victory may be achieved over us very easily.
Want examples of responses that would have been preferable? Ok, here are two:
In those countries where we had reason to believe our embassies were threatened, close those embassies, permanently. Ban all travel by Americans to those countries. Ban all business by Americans with those countries. Stop all foreign aid to those countries. And so on. Make the threat have a cost.
In those countries where we had a reason to believe our embassies were threatened, station a significant contingent of U.S. Marines there, and deploy our significant intelligence resources in support of their mission. Subtract the cost of this protection from our foreign aid to that country. Make the threat have a cost. Then, if we are attacked, retaliate with overwhelming asymmetric response (in crude terms, if they kill one American, kill a hundred of them). Make the attack have a cost.
The response we have chosen has only good consequences for the terrorists. Brilliant. “Smart power” is hard at work...
3D Printing....
Lots of press are all agitated about 3D printing. You can see all sorts of doomsayer predictions for the technology – just like you can for nearly any disruptive new technology. Stories about 3D printed guns and 3D printed keys are typical.
What's missing in most of the stories is that 3D printing doesn't actually make something possible that used to be impossible. Anything you can make at home with 3D printing could be made at home before using other techniques. What's different is this: 3D printing is cheaper and easier than the other techniques. It's especially easier – you don't need much in the way of skill to run a 3D printer, whereas milling a gun from blocks of metal requires significant machine shop skills. However, even conventional techniques are getting easier: you can now buy a quite good computer-controlled milling machine with 6 degrees of freedom for under $10,000 – and that cost is going nowhere but down.
So when you're reading the breathless stories about 3D printing, just remember that it's really no different than the entry of digital computer technology into other areas. It's disruptive, it makes things cheaper and easier, and there will always be people who object. Remember film cameras? Remember dumb cell phones? Remember car engines before they got computerized? Remember slide rules? All these technologies were overwhelmed by their digital competition that did things faster, better, cheaper – and all of them had hordes of naysayers predicting various and sundry dire outcomes.
Never happened. Things just got better. I wouldn't trade my digital camera even for my favorite film SLR (The Minolta SRT-101). I certainly wouldn't want my dumb cell phone back – I use my iPhone every day for email, text, camera, maps, etc. Car engines without computers? No way, Jose – I remember all too well carrying a toolbox and overalls with me in those cars, so I could make adjustments and repairs on the road – and I needed to do so quite frequently. Slide rules? I collect them, and I know how to use them – but for my real computational work I use calculators and spreadsheets, or software I wrote myself.
I don't remember the world ending after the introduction of any of those things...
What's missing in most of the stories is that 3D printing doesn't actually make something possible that used to be impossible. Anything you can make at home with 3D printing could be made at home before using other techniques. What's different is this: 3D printing is cheaper and easier than the other techniques. It's especially easier – you don't need much in the way of skill to run a 3D printer, whereas milling a gun from blocks of metal requires significant machine shop skills. However, even conventional techniques are getting easier: you can now buy a quite good computer-controlled milling machine with 6 degrees of freedom for under $10,000 – and that cost is going nowhere but down.
So when you're reading the breathless stories about 3D printing, just remember that it's really no different than the entry of digital computer technology into other areas. It's disruptive, it makes things cheaper and easier, and there will always be people who object. Remember film cameras? Remember dumb cell phones? Remember car engines before they got computerized? Remember slide rules? All these technologies were overwhelmed by their digital competition that did things faster, better, cheaper – and all of them had hordes of naysayers predicting various and sundry dire outcomes.
Never happened. Things just got better. I wouldn't trade my digital camera even for my favorite film SLR (The Minolta SRT-101). I certainly wouldn't want my dumb cell phone back – I use my iPhone every day for email, text, camera, maps, etc. Car engines without computers? No way, Jose – I remember all too well carrying a toolbox and overalls with me in those cars, so I could make adjustments and repairs on the road – and I needed to do so quite frequently. Slide rules? I collect them, and I know how to use them – but for my real computational work I use calculators and spreadsheets, or software I wrote myself.
I don't remember the world ending after the introduction of any of those things...
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Weiner's Campaign Flag...
I didn't even know campaigns had flags! This one seems especially appropriate:
It Gets Worse...
Watching this instantly brought me back to the two horrible experiences I have managing customer support teams. One was to support professional business owners who bought our industry-specific product. The other was to support (usually non-technical) consumers who bought our (very technical) product.
In both experiences, the support team had a long list of “worst customers ever”. In both experiences, the job of dealing with the worst of the worst was mine.
I know exactly how these people feel...
In both experiences, the support team had a long list of “worst customers ever”. In both experiences, the job of dealing with the worst of the worst was mine.
I know exactly how these people feel...
I Heart James Delingpole...
He has a wonderful post called “Why there's no point arguing with lefties.” He concludes thusly:
It’s often said that lefties hate righties because they think they’re evil, but that righties despise lefties because they know they’re stupid. There’s a lot of truth in this. I hate passing few, if any, of my many left-liberal enemies because to hate them would be to grant them a respect they just don’t deserve.Do go read the whole thing...
Mostly, I just feel sorry for them. I see them as tragic victims. Whether through the intellectual impoverishment of their upbringing or the failures of the education system or the brainwashing of the BBC or peer group pressure from all their Guardian-reading chums these piteously Gollum-esque troll creatures exist – or semi-exist – in a world where they will never know the giddy thrill of clever ideas, lucidly and wittily expressed, yoked within a logical framework within which, by many delightfully sinuous digressions and soaring flights of fancy, we finally reach the provocative, satisfying pay off which tells us that, yet again, the free market solution is the right one.
Poor loves.
Competency Testing...
As many of my readers already know, I didn't graduate from college. I took a few courses, most especially an extension course at UCSD called EPSE, but I never obtained a degree in my chosen engineering fields (electronic hardware and software).
Usually one considers competence in the field to be a prerequisite for hiring an engineer. Competence isn't the only measure of an employee's worth – some personality traits can make a competent person useless as an employee, and others can make up for a great deal of incompetence. But in general, competence is high on the list of requirements when hiring someone.
An engineering degree is a proxy for competency – if someone has managed to get such a degree from a reputable school, one can assume a high probability that the degree holder has at least some competence in the chosen field. That's not always true, of course: there are people with degrees who are in fact incompetent. But still, possession of a degree at least increases the probability of competence.
Some companies will accept other evidence of competence for an engineer. I've noted in the past that this tends to be very company-specific; some, especially larger companies, have apparently inviolable policies requiring engineers to have degrees. Others are much more flexible.
I got my start as an engineer at just such a flexible company: a relatively small company (< 100 employees) who was willing to take a chance on a deal I offered them. I proposed to work for free for 90 days (something you couldn't do today!), and at the end of that period they would either let me go or hire me. They hired me long before the 90 days was up. Once I had employment experiences to show on my resume, and the engineering community in San Diego got to know me, the question of my competency never seriously arose again. I had side-stepped the engineering degree hurdle.
I have the impression that getting started in engineering without a degree is increasingly difficult, though I have no concrete evidence to support that. A market is forming, however, for something I wish had been available to me: competence testing. This would allow a non-degreed, but competent, engineer to prove his or her competence in a way that ought to satisfy many employers. I hope this takes off. As someone who has hired many engineers over the years, I certainly wish this tool had been available to me when hiring!
Usually one considers competence in the field to be a prerequisite for hiring an engineer. Competence isn't the only measure of an employee's worth – some personality traits can make a competent person useless as an employee, and others can make up for a great deal of incompetence. But in general, competence is high on the list of requirements when hiring someone.
An engineering degree is a proxy for competency – if someone has managed to get such a degree from a reputable school, one can assume a high probability that the degree holder has at least some competence in the chosen field. That's not always true, of course: there are people with degrees who are in fact incompetent. But still, possession of a degree at least increases the probability of competence.
Some companies will accept other evidence of competence for an engineer. I've noted in the past that this tends to be very company-specific; some, especially larger companies, have apparently inviolable policies requiring engineers to have degrees. Others are much more flexible.
I got my start as an engineer at just such a flexible company: a relatively small company (< 100 employees) who was willing to take a chance on a deal I offered them. I proposed to work for free for 90 days (something you couldn't do today!), and at the end of that period they would either let me go or hire me. They hired me long before the 90 days was up. Once I had employment experiences to show on my resume, and the engineering community in San Diego got to know me, the question of my competency never seriously arose again. I had side-stepped the engineering degree hurdle.
I have the impression that getting started in engineering without a degree is increasingly difficult, though I have no concrete evidence to support that. A market is forming, however, for something I wish had been available to me: competence testing. This would allow a non-degreed, but competent, engineer to prove his or her competence in a way that ought to satisfy many employers. I hope this takes off. As someone who has hired many engineers over the years, I certainly wish this tool had been available to me when hiring!
Quote of the Day...
This one is epic for its clear revelation of the progressive mindset:
Here he states rather baldly what libertarians and conservatives have always suspected: progressives want to steal as much of the citizen's money as they can. To spend on what they decide, not you. After all, it's much more fun to play with other people's money than with your own...
The bottom line is we’re not broke, there’s plenty of money, it’s just the government doesn’t have it.Ellison is a Democrat, of course.
Minnesota Congressman Kieth Ellison
Here he states rather baldly what libertarians and conservatives have always suspected: progressives want to steal as much of the citizen's money as they can. To spend on what they decide, not you. After all, it's much more fun to play with other people's money than with your own...
Filner's Sexual Harrassment Course...
Slate has obtained a copy of the online sexual harassment course Filthy Filner was required to take (hat tip to reader and friend Simon M.). Here's a sample question
5. What might you suggest an employee do to improve the quality of her work?Read the whole thing – but put down your morning beverage first!
(a) Eat breakfast.
(b) Get more sleep.
(c) Take off her panties.
(d) Spend more time in a headlock.
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