How to make The Breakfast

I wouldn’t have posted this if the comment thread on “The sad truth about toasters” hadn’t extended to an almost ridiculous length, but… I dearly love classic American breakfast food. I delight in the kind of cheap hot breakfast you get at humble roadside diners. I think it’s one of the glories of our folk… Continue reading How to make The Breakfast

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The sad truth about toasters

I bought a toaster today. I didn’t want to buy a toaster today. About ten years ago I paid $60 for what appeared to be a rather high-end Krups model in accordance with my normal strategy of “pay for quality so you won’t have to replace for a good long time”, an upper-middle-class heuristic that… Continue reading The sad truth about toasters

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Respect can be hard

I had a good sword class today. There was much sparring with many different weapons. At one point, Sensei Varady and I faced off, him with paired shortsword simulants, me with a longsword simulant. It went pretty well for me; sensei is bigger, faster, at least 20 years younger, and more skilled than I am… Continue reading Respect can be hard

The critical fraction

I’ve seen analyses of the long odds the U.S. government would face if it ever attempted to confiscate civilian firearms before. The Mathematics of Countering Tyranny seems like a particularly well done example. The authors compute that under very generous assumptions there are about 83000 door-knockers available to perform confiscation raids. Dividing that into the… Continue reading The critical fraction