How the D candidates would introduce themselves at the next debate if they were honest

Hi, I’m Joe Biden. I’m the perfect apparatchik – no principles, no convictions, and no plan. I’m senile, and I have a problem with groping children. But vote for me anyway because orange man bad. Hi, I’m Kamala Harris. My white ancestors owned slaves, but I use the melanin I got from my Indian ancestors… Continue reading How the D candidates would introduce themselves at the next debate if they were honest

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Categorized as Politics

Contra Gelernter on Darwin

David Gelernter recently wrote an essay on Giving Up Darwin that is not obviously stupid. Dr. Gelernter, in many ways an astute thinker, does not commit obvious stupidities – but I have had to call him out before for allowing himself to be blinded by a hunger for epistemic gaps that fit the shape of… Continue reading Contra Gelernter on Darwin

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Categorized as Science

The Rectification of Names

The sage Confucius was once asked what he would do if he was a governor. He said he would “rectify the names” to make words correspond to reality. He understood what General Semantics teaches; if your linguistic map is sufficiently confused, you will misunderstand the territory. And be readily outmaneuvered by those who are less… Continue reading The Rectification of Names

Loadsharers has a logo

Nobody stepped up to design a Loadsharers logo, so I did it myself. Here it is: Yeah, I’m not much of a graphic artist, but I can do a semi-competent job of whacking together a simple logo when I need to. If you’re an actual pro and think you can fix this or do better,… Continue reading Loadsharers has a logo

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Categorized as General

A libertarian rethinks immigration

Instapundit recently linked to an article at the libertarian Reason magazine with a premise I found – considering the authors and the magazine – surprisingly dimwitted. No, a border wall is not necessarily morally equivalent to the Berlin Wall, or anywhere near it. Consider Hadrian’s Wall, or the Great Wall of China. Sometimes there are… Continue reading A libertarian rethinks immigration

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In a blatant attempt to attract more Institutional supporters…

Anybody who has visited my Patreon page should know that I have two special support tiers. At Bronze ($20 per month) level, you get included in the credits of the project pages for all my solo stuff. Here’s a recent example. Today I’m announcing two new perks for Institutional ($100 permonth) supporters. This tier is… Continue reading In a blatant attempt to attract more Institutional supporters…

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Fear of COMITment

I shipped the first release of another retro-language revival today: COMIT. Dating from 1957 (coincidentally the year I was born) this was the first string-processing language, ancestral to SNOBOL and sed and ed and Unix shell. One of the notational conventions invented in COMIT, the use of $0, $1…etc. as substitution variables, survives in all… Continue reading Fear of COMITment

The dangerous folly of “Software as a Service”

Comes the word that Saleforce.com has announced a ban on its customers selling “military-style rifles”. The reason this ban has teeth is that the company provides “software as a service”; that is, the software you run is a client for servers that the provider owns and operates. If the provider decides it doesn’t want your… Continue reading The dangerous folly of “Software as a Service”

The low-down on home routers – how to buy, what to avoid

Ever had the experience of not realizing you’re a subject-matter-expert until someone brings up a topic on a mailing list and you find yourself uttering a pretty comprehensive brain dump about it? This happened to me about home and SOHO routers recently. So I’m repeating the brain dump here. I expect I’ll get some corrections,… Continue reading The low-down on home routers – how to buy, what to avoid

Spotting the wild Fascist

The term “fascist” gets thrown around a lot by people who have no actual clue what Fascism was about. I know what it was about because when I was about 11 or 12 I read Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of of the Third Reich and became fascinated by the question which has driven my… Continue reading Spotting the wild Fascist

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Categorized as Politics

Gun voodoo and intentionality

There’s a recent article about gun violence in Haiti that features the following quotes: But the anthropological lesson from Haiti is that the truth is more complex. It isn’t just the technological lethality of guns that makes them dangerous: They also exert a power on human agency. They change us. It is both the technology… Continue reading Gun voodoo and intentionality