Master Tsêng said, The true Knight of the Way must perforce be both broad-shouldered and stout of heart; his burden is heavy and he has far to go. For Goodness is the burden he has taken upon himself; and must we not grant that it is a heavy one to bear? Only with death does his journey end; then must we not grant that he has far to go? — The Analects of Confucius Read more →
November 2012
Berkeley Voters Leave Something to be Desired as Parents
According to a new survey, just over 10 percent of Berkeley High ninth and 11th graders reported carrying a weapon onto school property, while about 35 percent of 11th graders reported attending class drunk or high. If I had a kid at Berkeley High, I’d be moving out of town yesterday, but I’m reading in the Daily Californian that this news has been “met with surprise and joy from administrators,” the reason being that a similar survey two years ago reported about 17 percent of ninth graders and 16 percent of 11th graders carrying weapons onto campus, and 48 percent of 11th graders attending class drunk or high. Progress! “We’re very pleased with the survey results all around,” said Director of Student Services Susan Craig, “and at the same time we’re not at all complacent.” If by “pleased” she means “horrified,” I couldn’t agree more. In other news, Barack Obama… Read more →
Rough Layouts Sell the Idea Better Than Polished Ones
This was written by an ad man but I can see it applying to other endeavors, like designing a software interface: If you show a client a highly polished computer layout, he will probably reject it. There is either too much to worry about or not enough to worry about. They are equally bad. It is a fait accompli. There is nothing for him to do. It’s not his work, it’s your work. He doesn’t feel involved. If he doesn’t like the face of the girl in your rendering, or the style of the trousers on the man on the right, or the choice of the car he’s driving, he’s going to reject it. He won’t see the big idea. He will look at the girl’s face and think, ‘I don’t like her, this doesn’t feel right.’ It is very difficult for him to imagine anything else if what you… Read more →
Lightning and Me Toast the Holidays with Trader Joe’s 2012 Vintage Ale
I Don’t Understand What Warren Buffett is Talking About
In an op-ed for the New York Times, Warren Buffett argues that higher taxes won’t keep the super-rich from trying to make money: Suppose that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. “This is a good one,” he says enthusiastically. “I’m in it, and I think you should be, too.” Would your reply possibly be this? “Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you’re saying we’re going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent.” Only in Grover Norquist’s imagination does such a response exist. — A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy – NYTimes.com Really, Warren? It’s an investment, right? It’s not a sure thing. It’s not a giveaway. I’m being asked to put money at risk. That’s the difference between… Read more →
IT Recruiter of the Day
From an actual job ad: Killer, Profitable, Stable and cutting edge technology company looking for genious!!! It’s funny when someone misspells the word “genius”! Why are random words like “Profitable” and “Stable” capitalized? Because the recruiter wanted to highlight the adjectives? Then why isn’t “cutting edge” capitalized? Why isn’t “cutting edge” hyphenated? Read more →
Stick Throwing Leads to Tragedy
EUREKA, Calif. (AP) — A couple died and their 16-year-old son went missing after being swept into sea in Northern California while trying to save their dog, authorities said Sunday. The family was at Big Lagoon, a beach north of Eureka, Saturday afternoon when the dog chased after a thrown stick and got pulled into the ocean by eight to ten foot waves, said Dana Jones, a state Parks and Recreation district superintendent. — Couple swept to sea in effort to save son, dog – Yahoo! News Hi, everybody! It’s me, Lightning! Folks: Don’t throw sticks into 10-foot waves. I’m not a stick-chasing kind of dog myself, but some dogs, like retrievers, are just born to fetch things. They can’t help it. So it’s up to you, the owner, not to throw something where it’s not safe for the dog to be. Another thing: the dog in this case actually… Read more →
Aside
Tim Ferriss: The Value of Aggression — Ode to Dan Gable
We Had Linguini for Dinner Tonight!
Humans Evolving to Become Less Intelligent?
Gerald Crabtree, a geneticist at Stanford University, suggests that humans are evolving to become less intelligent. Crabtree asserts that the safer life gets for humans, the less important it is for us to have good judgment for survival and mating. Thousands of years ago, human idiots were much more likely to be removed from the gene pool (i.e., die) as a result of their lack of intelligence and judgment. Nowadays, it’s rare for someone to die because they were unable to outwit a predator. Read more →
Modern Baptists
Mr. Pickens knew that once he got his preaching diploma, he would open a church for modern Baptists, Baptists who were sick to death of hell and sin being stuffed down their gullets every Sunday. There wasn’t going to be any of that old-fashioned ranting and raving in Mr. Pickens’s church. His Baptist church would be guided by reason and logic. Everyone could drink in moderation. Everyone could dance and pet as long as they were fifteen—well, maybe sixteen or seventeen. At thirty, if you still weren’t married, you could sleep with someone, and it wouldn’t be a sin—that is, as long as you loved that person. If you hit forty and were still single, you’d be eligible for adultery not being a sin, as long as no children’s feelings got hurt and it was kept very discreet. But you still had to love and respect the person; you couldn’t… Read more →
Ecclesiastes 1:1-7
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever. The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose. The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit. All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again. — Ecclesiastes 1:1-7 Read more →
Thomas Jefferson on the General Welfare Clause
[Thomas Jefferson] then considered the general phrase of the Constitution that identified the purpose of the taxing power as “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” Congress, he said, was to levy taxes only for these purposes, not for any purpose they pleased. “In like manner they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.” To interpret this provision in any other way would reduce the Constitution to “a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the U.S. and as they would be the sole judges of good or evil, it would also be a power to do whatever evil they pleased.” — Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson Read more →
No Surprises in Berkeley
Final election counts are in for Berkeley, CA, the most liberal city in America. Let’s start with the presidential election, where Mitt Romney was able to edge out Jill Stein for second place: Barack Obama, Democrat – 90.3% Mitt Romney, Republican – 4.6% Jill Stein, Green Party – 3.2% California ballot proposition results included: Proposition 30, a measure to increase state income tax rates for the wealthy – 90.7% Yes (passed statewide at 54.6%) Proposition 34, to abolish the death penalty in California – 86% Yes (lost statewide 52% to 48%) Proposition 37, requiring labeling of genetically engineered food – 92.4% Yes (lost statewide 52% to 48%) Read more →
Thanksgiving Ingredient Network Leftovers
Via Lada Adamic, whose Coursera class on Social Network Analysis I just completed and enjoyed: If you don’t have quite the right ingredients handy while cooking Thanksgiving dinner, here is a network of common substitutions as found in reviewers’ comments on a large recipe site (click to see a larger view): Read more →
Tedford Relieved of Duties, i.e., Fired
BERKELEY – Jeff Tedford, who has overseen the Golden Bear football program for the past 11 seasons, has been relieved of his duties as head football coach at the University of California, Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour announced Tuesday. — The University of California Official Athletic Site Tedford must have seen this coming back in August when he put his house on the market for a cool $5.35 million. He was saddled with a doofus quarterback as a throw-in on the Keenan Allen deal and the team’s 3-9 record speaks for itself. Tedford did a lot of good things at Cal. He took over a 1-10 team in 2002 and won seven games his first season. In 2004, Cal went 10-2, finished ninth in the final AP poll, and in 2006, the Golden Bears went 10-3. Tedford was getting NFL offers during that time and turning them down. He was… Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Paul Krugman
America in the 1950s made the rich pay their fair share; it gave workers the power to bargain for decent wages and benefits; yet contrary to right-wing propaganda then and now, it prospered. And we can do that again. — Paul Krugman I hardly know where to begin with this . . . First of all, what is the relevance of the 1950s as opposed to any other period of American history? America prior to 1913 had no permanent income tax and contrary to left-wing propaganda, it prospered. Why can’t we do that again? Of course we’re all in favor of fairness — right? — but why is it only important that “the rich” pay their “fair share”? I don’t remember ever hearing anyone, certainly not Krugman, use the phrase “pay their fair share” in reference to any group except “the rich.” If you’re concerned about fairness, isn’t it also… Read more →
If Everything Goes as Intended . . .
If [Affordable Care Act] implementation goes as intended and widespread utilization and automation are achieved, providers could save about $11 billion per year. — Reducing Administrative Costs and Improving the Health Care System — New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) You really can’t dispute something as vague as that but it does raise a number of questions: What does it mean for thousands of pages of legislation affecting the entire healthcare industry as well as every man, woman and child in America to go “as intended”? It’s a circular argument. If it goes as intended, we save $11 billion. If we don’t save $11 billion, it didn’t go as intended. Is “widespread utilization and automation” part of going “as intended” or is that a separate thing? Assuming that implementation does go as intended and widespread utilization and automation are achieved, the best we can say is that providers “could” save… Read more →
Language Poetry and Aleatory Poetry
The last couple of weeks in ModPo, we’ve been reading “Language Poetry” and aleatory poetry, including the work of Ron Silliman, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Charles Bernstein, Jackson Mac Low, Jena Osman and Joan Retallack. I have to admit it all seemed lazy to me. The reader has to do all the work. (See below for a differing opinion.) I didn’t like any of the poems enough to share one, so here instead are the lyrics to Randy Newman‘s “Marie”: You looked like a princess the night we met With your hair piled up high I will never forget I’m drunk right now baby But I’ve got to be Or I never could tell you What you meant to me I loved you the first time I saw you And I always will love you Marie I loved you the first time I saw you And I always will love… Read more →
The Audacity of 51%
“Maybe peace would have broken out with a different kind of White House, one less committed to waging a perpetual campaign–a White House that would see a 51-48 victory as a call to humility and compromise rather than an irrefutable mandate.” Yeah, well, shut up, you Republican losers. Obama won, which means a majority of Americans support his policies. Stop being obstructionist and get with the program. Oh wait, sorry. That quote wasn’t from a Republican but from a recently elected Democrat. It was referring not to Obama but to George W. Bush after the 2004 election. The author: Barack Obama, junior senator from Illinois. The book: The Audacity of Hope. — James Taranto, Best of the Web Today Read more →