I wonder if the face of the young man I used to be still lives on in someone’s memory?
Sarcasm Detection Technology
Quartz: Researchers have developed an extremely effective “sarcasm detector”
Sure they have . . .
Why Don’t Asians Care About the Oscars?
From the Washington Post:
Very white Oscar nominations leave Academy president ‘heartbroken and frustrated’
From the Los Angeles Times:
Oscars 2016: It’s time for Hollywood to stop defining great drama as white men battling adversity
From the Wall Street Journal:
Why don’t Asians seem to care about the Oscar whiteness crisis that continues to rage unabated? Maybe they’re too busy with jobs and school . . .
Aside
FlowingData: How You Will Die
The 30 Most Anticipated TV Shows
My fellow Americans —
I just saw a link to The 30 Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2016. How many TV shows do you people have if thirty of them are the most anticipated?!
Some despotic regimes around the world rely on starvation and threats of violence to keep the people in a state of submissive compliance. Here in America, the same collective stupor is effected via mindless entertainments and gadgetry.
I’d like to see my countrymen raise themselves out of depression, paralysis and failure and resist this massive government/corporate dystopia — But I might miss my TV programs, said the serfs and lackeys.
Tony Robbins’ Wealth-Building Tips Seem Pretty Useless
Tony Robbins has 6 tips for Building Wealth Now. Let’s look at each of the tips and apply the “would anyone advise the opposite?” filter to assess the value of Robbins’ advice.
- Don’t lose money. I’m not kidding, that’s the first tip. Would anyone advise “Lose money”? No. So this “tip” is useless.
- Look for investments in which rewards far outweigh risks. Would anyone advise “Look for investments in which risks far outweigh rewards’? No. Robbins recommends using “the 5-to-1 rule,” in which the potential returns on an investment are 5 times greater than the potential losses. Why 5? Why not 10? Or 100? Where do you find these investments? I have no idea.
- Don’t overpay taxes. Would anyone advise “Overpay taxes”? No.
- Diversify. Would anyone advise “Don’t diversify”? Possibly. There’s a couple of schools of thought on diversification: 1) Don’t put all your eggs in one basket; and 2) Put all your eggs in one basket, then watch that basket. So there’s a tip for you: Diversify.
- Watch out for mindless spending. Would anyone advise “Spend mindlessly”? No. Robbins says if you spend $40 a week on restaurant meals, consider inviting friends over for a low-cost dinner at home instead. “In a year, you’ll have saved $2,000. If you invest that $2,000 every year, in 40 years you’ll have half a million dollars.” No, in 40 years you’ll have $80,000. Maybe. Given some assumptions about your rate of return, you might have half a million dollars, but on the other hand, you might make some bad investments and wind up with nothing.
- Stop sabotaging yourself. Would anyone advise “Sabotage yourself”? No.
Hillary Clinton, Angry Landlady
[Hillary Clinton] is especially poor at the podium, where, when she wants to emphasize an applause line, her voice becomes loud, flat and harassing to the ear. She lately reminds me of the landlady yelling up the stairs that your kids left their bikes in the hall again. Literally that’s how it sounds: “And we won’t let them roll back the progress we’ve made. Your kids left their bikes in the hall.”
January 15, 1559: Elizabeth Crowned Queen of England
We’re talking about Elizabeth I of course, not the current queen, Elizabeth II.
The reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603), now remembered as the Elizabethan Era, coincided with the flowering of the English Renaissance and is considered the golden age of England. The reign of Elizabeth II, meanwhile, has coincided with the decline of England into irrelevance and is unlikely to remembered by name in a fond way.
Another Thing I Like About Donald Trump
Democrats don’t like him and Republicans don’t like him either.
The overarching theme of American politics is Democrats vs. Republicans, Team Blue vs. Team Red. It’s a freakishly expensive clown show for which we pay trillions of dollars a year to watch the Red clowns and the Blue clowns throw pies in each other’s faces.
Nobody really cares about truth, substance or common sense, only whether their team is winning.
When Obama replaced Bush, Democrats didn’t care that Obama kept all the same wars going and started a few new ones, kept the torture programs going, kept Guantanamo open, ramped up drone warfare, cozied up to Wall Street, etc., etc., etc. All the things they hated when Bush was doing them were okay now because their team was winning.
Elect Hillary Clinton and we’ll get four to eight years of trench warfare against Republicans. Elect a Republican candidate (other than Trump) and we’ll get four to eight years of trench warfare against Democrats. At a cost of trillions of dollars per year.
This election offers a unique choice — Trump — the best chance we may ever have to blow up the system and start over, which is long overdue.
Angel From Montgomery
Just give me one thing, Lord
That I can hold on to
To believe in this livin’
Is just a hard way to go
The Savvy Clinician
It’s a little hard to read the subtitle on the book cover but — “Savvy”?! I don’t think I want to work with clinicians who consider themselves “savvy.”
Being “savvy” sounds like a poor substitute for actually knowing something.
Aside
Even at this late hour, I set myself to be a better and simpler man . . .
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated. — Poul Anderson
January
Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.
Affinities Can Kill You
Boy, 9, mauled to death by dogs in Yuba County — The Sacramento Bee
Hi everybody! It’s me, Lightning!
This article says that a 9-year-old (in human years) boy was killed by 3 pit bulls that belonged to his older sister. It says that his sister has an affinity for pit bulls because she thinks that pit bulls are not dangerous even though a lot of people say they are dangerous and that is not fair to pit bulls.
I don’t what an affinity is but it must be something that can kill you or your little brother.
Wait — my owner says “affinity” means something you like, like he has an affinity for pugs and because he has an affinity for pugs, all of his family members are still alive.
If you own a pit bull, you also need to have a pug to keep the pit bull in check.
— Lightning 
Happy New Year!
Time marches on!! We are all dying!!! We are coming to the end of our lives!!! Happy New Year!!!
2015: The Year in Books
These are the books I read in 2015, roughly in the order listed. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion.
Books of the Year: Hotel World by Ali Smith (fiction) and Humans of New York: Stories by Brandon Stanton (non-fiction).
Honorable Mention: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Disgrace, Lament for a Maker, Nothing.
A Problem Like Maria
I’m an engineer. If you ask me to solve a problem like Maria, I’ll solve it.
Aside
Confess, ye miscreants, sight unseen, the truth of what I have proclaimed, or meet my vengeance in the field of battle!
Lover of Life, Singer of Songs
I know the lyrics to a lot of songs . . . not current hits so much but if we’re listening to an oldies type of radio station, which we, the Epps family, are doing in the car right now, I pretty much know every song they play.
“I should be a singer,” I announce. “I would have a tremendous repertoire of songs.”
“But you can’t sing,” my son says.
“Hmmm . . . that’s a legitimate point that I don’t really have an answer for.”