Here’s a radio exchange between CNN legal analyst Areva Martin, a black woman, and Sirius XM radio and Fox Nation host David Webb: WEBB: I’ve chosen to cross different parts of the media world, done the work so that I’m qualified to be in each one. I never considered my color the issue, I considered my qualifications the issue. MARTIN: That’s a whole, another long conversation about white privilege, the things that you have the privilege of doing, that people of color don’t have the privilege of. WEBB (dumbfounded): How do I have the privilege of white privilege? MARTIN: David, by virtue of being a white male you have white privilege. WEBB: Areva, I hate to break it to you, but you should’ve been better prepped. I’m black. Wait, so you mean “white privilege” is just a generic insult to throw at people you know nothing about?! Martin’s response: “I… Read more →
CNN Runs “Breaking News” From BuzzFeed
On Thursday, BuzzFeed reported that President Trump “directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.” Robert Mueller’s office, which in 20 months has never issued a comment on a media report, then released this statement: “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.” By this time, CNN had actually run with the BuzzFeed report as Breaking News. For some reason, CNN objects to being called “fake news,” but a real news organization (I can’t think of one offhand) doesn’t broadcast an unconfirmed report from a clickbait site, no matter how bad it makes Donald Trump look, and no matter how much they would like it… Read more →
Bucket List: Total a Car and Walk Away From It
Clerks at rental car counters always use the same phrase to push the collision damage waiver: You can total the car and walk away from it. Unless totaling the car renders me unable to walk. I’ve added that to my bucket list: total a car and walk away from it . . . Read more →
Mary Oliver, 1935 – 2019
Mary Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She died today of lymphoma at the age of 83. The Poetry Foundation has a biography and a selection of poems, although I prefer the selection at the Peaceful Rivers site. Her work had a Whitmanesque love of life. I’ve included one of my favorites here: The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full… Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Priorities
When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren. — Albert Shanker, President of the United Federation of Teachers (1964-1984) and President of the American Federation of Teachers (1974-1997) It’s a problem in my profession that the number of schools that want to teach computer science far exceeds the number of computer science majors who want to teach computer science. The opportunity cost is too high. Computer science majors can earn a lot more working as software engineers than working as teachers. I volunteer a couple mornings a week to help with computer science instruction at a local high school. This school has a teacher, originally hired as a math teacher, who must be well into her fourth decade of teaching. She now teaches computer science classes — poorly, but she teaches them. Because of her professional longevity, she makes a six-figure income with… Read more →
The Interests of Schoolchildren
More than 30,000 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) went on strike this week. LAUSD serves 640,000 students and is the second biggest school district in the country. The mean annual wage for LAUSD teachers is $75,000. In the local reporting I’m seeing on the strike, teachers and union reps are unanimous in saying that they’re striking for the benefit of the schoolchildren. I’m reminded of something Albert Shanker — former president of the United Federation of Teachers (1964-1984) and the American Federation of Teachers (1974-1997) — used to say: When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren. I can’t say for certain that the LA union reps are being disingenuous but it does make sense that they’d be representing the interests of the people who are paying them. Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: The Garden of Words
The Garden of Words is a beautiful short film about loneliness and love and longing, inspired by verses from the Manyoshu, an anthology of ancient Japanese poems: A faint clap of thunder Clouded skies Perhaps rain will come If so, will you stay here with me? A faint clap of thunder Even if rain comes or not I will stay here Together with you. Rain is a central motif in the film. Like the force of love, it can’t be controlled or stopped. Highly recommended! Rating: Director: Cast: IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →
How the Bezos Divorce Rewrites the World’s Richest People List
Current Jeff Bezos, $140 billion Bill Gates, $90 billion Warren Buffett, $84 billion Bernard Arnault, $72 billion Mark Zuckerberg, $71 billion Future Bill Gates, $90 billion Warren Buffett, $84 billion Bernard Arnault, $72 billion Mark Zuckerberg, $71 billion Jeff Bezos, $70 billion MacKenzie Bezos, $70 billion Read more →
Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?
— Thomas Sowell
In Defense of Apple Crunching
Commercials That Don’t Fit the NFL Audience
These Verizon and Sprint commercials I see on NFL telecasts, where beta male milquetoasts dispense advice on cell phones, seem misdirected toward what I imagine to be the pro football-watching demographic. Also off target: the Dove for Men commercials where metrosexuals meet up to lament the demoisturizing effects of their skin care products. Read more →
Profanity in Book Titles
Powell’s Books emailed a list of self-care titles aimed at making readers happier and healthier and saner. A surprisingly high (to me) percentage of the titles — 3 out of 25 (12 percent) — contain the word “fuck.” One title includes the word “shit” but it’s also one of the titles that uses “fuck” so I’m not going to double-count it. Is this a new publishing industry strategy to reawaken people’s interest in reading? Personally I don’t care for it . . . Read more →
Competitive Programming: TopCoder – Marketing
[Link to problem] Problem Statement You work for a very large company that markets many different products. In some cases, one product you market competes with another. To help deal with this situation you have split the intended consumers into two groups, namely Adults and Teenagers. If your company markets 2 products that compete with each other, selling one to Adults and the other to Teenagers will help maximize profits. Given a list of the products that compete with each other, you are going to determine whether all can be marketed such that no pair of competing products are both sold to Teenagers or both sold to Adults. If such an arrangement is not feasible your method will return -1. Otherwise, it should return the number of possible ways of marketing all of the products. The products will be given in a compete whose kth element describes product k. The kth element will be… Read more →
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Caveat: The book advises against saying things like “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” So you can be an influential person with lots of friends but you’ll have to listen to a lot of nonsense . . . Read more →
2018: The Year in Books
These are the books I read in 2018, roughly in the order listed. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion. Books of the Year: Middlemarch by George Eliot (fiction), Lincoln in the Bardo by George Sanders (contemporary fiction) and Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling (non-fiction). My Library at LibraryThing Read more →
How Our Careers Affect Our Children
Mothers spending time on themselves — on relaxation and self-care — and not so much on housework, was associated with positive outcomes for children. It’s not just a matter of mothers being at home versus at work, it’s what they do when they’re at home with their non-work time. If mothers were not with their children so they could take care of themselves, there was no ill effect on their children. But to the extent that mothers were engaged in housework, children were more likely to be beset by behavior problems. — “How Our Careers Affect Our Children”, Harvard Business Review We’re studying the effects of working mothers, mothers spending time on themselves, mothers engaged in housework . . . I wonder what is the effect of mothers actually spending time with their children? Read more →
Competitive Programming: UVa 612 – DNA Sorting
[Link to problem] One measure of “unsortedness” in a sequence is the number of pairs of entries that are out of order with respect to each other. For instance, in the letter sequence DAABEC, this measure is 5, since D is greater than four letters to its right and E is greater than one letter to its right. This measure is called the number of inversions in the sequence. The sequence AACEDGG has only one inversion (E and D) — it is nearly sorted — while the sequence ZWQM has 6 inversions (it is as unsorted as can be — exactly the reverse of sorted). You are responsible for cataloging a sequence of DNA strings (sequences containing only the four letters A, C, G, and T). However, you want to catalog them, not in alphabetical order, but rather in order of “sortedness,” from “most sorted” to “least sorted.” All the strings… Read more →
Heaven’s Door
Did you know Bob Dylan has a line of American whiskeys? Merry Christmas to me! (From me.) Read more →
Student Loan Debt Sets Record
U.S. Student Loan Debt Sets Record, Doubling Since Recession — Bloomberg What happened to parents saving up to pay for college? Is that not a thing anymore? I don’t find it morally defensible to encourage a kid to incorporate academics into his or her life from an early age, to emphasize the importance of education, then when the kid is admitted to college to say “Congratulations, here’s your student loan application. Have fun paying that off till you’re 60.” Read more →
More Christmas Songs That Should Be Banned
A pair of hop-a-long boots and a pistol that shootsIs the wish of Barney and BenDolls that’ll talk and will go for a walkIs the hope of Janice and Jen — “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” Baby dolls for little girls and guns for little boys?! Continuing to segregate and advertise toys based on gender just works to perpetuate nasty sexist stereotypes, plus it severely limits the development of all young people. Be sure to engage in a conversation about sexism with your friends and families over the holidays! Read more →