The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Author: mongreldogs

  • The Political Asymmetry of Weather

    So, the East Coast is in the middle of a record heat wave.  How come we haven’t heard any hyperventilating media types announce that this “proves” global warming is true?  After all, when we had a little snow in February, it was declared “snowmageddon” and offered as the final nail in the coffin of the “global warming conspiracy”.  So now that the thermometer is over 100 several days in a row, all those people will admit they were wrong, won’t they?

    ‘Cause otherwise, it’s a tacit admission that they made those statements only to score political points, degrading our discourse and endangering our children’s futures for nothing more than transient political advantage. And a disingenuous selfishness of that magnitude is too awful to be true, isn’t it?

    Isn’t it?

  • The Perils of Positive Thinking

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo

    I think the major point — that a unquestioning devotion to “positive thinking” is both dangerous and immoral — is a good one. We definitely allow suffering because we think everyone has a shot, so if they’re suffering, it must be their fault. It’s pretty easy to see how comforting this is, to people on top.

    There are poor people who are poor because they are lazy or bad.  There are rich people who are rich because they have worked hard and applied intelligence.  What we don’t like to recognize, however, is that there are also poor people who are poor despite living right and working hard, and there are rich people who are rich despite being lazy or stupid.

    Luck plays a huge role in our lives.  The part of our lives that result from forces outside our control — luck, history, social mores, etc. — probably dwarfs the fragment of our lives we can directly influence.  And that terrifies people.  It means that maybe, just maybe, their success isn’t really deserved.  Maybe the fact that they have a giant house and three cars and five iPhones doesn’t mean that they’re better people than someone who struggles to find food every day.  And if that’s the case, then maybe they should help out those who are struggling.

    But no one wants to hear that, so they prefer to imbibe The Secret and believe that they are the root cause of all they have.

    We are a sad, little species.

  • Classic no-win situation for the President

    Apparently, the Pentagon has recommended that a Medal of Honor be given to a living soldier, for the first time since Viet Nam.  The Washington Post article speculates that

    The presentation of a Medal of Honor to a living soldier would be an important moment for President Obama, whose relationship with the military has been complicated in recent months by controversy over the administration’s Afghan war deliberations in the fall and the recent firing of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal for remarks that belittled senior Obama administration officials.

    But I’ll make a prediction here:

    (a) If the President decides to not give the Medal, the rightwing media will erupt in feigned outrage and real fury over his “snub” of our valiant troops.

    (b) If the President instead decides to follow the Pentagon’s advice and give the Medal, the rightwing media will erupt in feigned outrage and real fury over his attempt to co-opt a military honor for political ends, thereby mocking the sacrifices of our valiant troops.

    It’s impossible for the President to make a call that won’t be mocked, denounced, or vilified.  So here’s to hoping that he chooses whatever he thinks is right, rather than expedient, and that he allows himself to be guided by the better angels of his nature rather than shouted down by the petty demons of his detractors.

  • A little political humor, a little late

    A little political humor, a little late

    As soon as I read John Boehner’s characterization of financial regulation reform, I was inspired to make the following.  Unfortunately, this-and-that kept me occupied until today.

    Here’s a link (https://adfinemfidelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/poster.jpg) since Facebook inexplicably strips images(!) from imported RSS feeds…

    I made the poster using a tool located at Big Huge Labs.  I had wanted to use the similar took at despair.com but it did weird things to the scale and I couldn’t seem to make it work.

  • Why I have no respect for design behaviors at Microsoft

    I’ve received my new laptop and am working on getting it outfitted and up to speed.  (This process, by the way, is distressingly like moving to a new home and is equally as frustrating and potentially as traumatizing.)  After logging in for the first time, the system helpfully suggests that you create a system backup.  This is a wise and useful thing to do, so that you can restore to original conditions, and I was impressed that Microsoft offered it.

    Except…

    It takes fiendishly long to generate the system image — after about two hours of waiting, I gave up last night and went to bed.  During the night, the other “helpful” feature of Windows 7 kicked in, which was automatic downloading and installation of updates.  As anyone who works with Microsoft knows, you can’t even think about an update without Windows needing to reboot, which it did … automatically.  This interrupted the system backup, of course; and since the system has changed, the backup can’t even just pick up from where it left off.

    Net result?  I must begin the backup again and wait another two hours for it to run.   I will have had my laptop for over a day without being able to run a single program on it.  What is the overwhelming temptation, of course?  To skip the backup “for now” and just dive in.  So these two choices for Microsoft have the combined effect of discouraging proper computer hygiene — and for many users, probably taint the whole idea of backups in general.

    Way to go, Microsoft!

    (By the way, I have of course also now turned off the automatic install option, as it’s insane to let anyone just drop stuff into your operating system without at least some chance at review.  Once again I am reminded of a mantra I’ve had since at least Windows 95:  Whatever default behavior Microsoft settles on, it’s the wrong one.  We could call their philosophy “default-to-fail”.)

  • Excellent headline explaining why we’re headed for the next Great Depression

    Bravo, Paul Krugman!

    “The Invisible Bond Vigilantes Continue Their Invisible Attack”

    Could we call this the phantom menace?  🙂

    The Invisible Bond Vigilantes Continue Their Invisible Attack

  • Ethics and Economics in Journalism

    Via Ezra Klein, a well-argued piece by Timothy Lee on the recent flap over the forced resignation of Dave Weigel from The Washington Post.  If none of those names mean anything to you, then this is unlikely to be very interesting…  Lee’s thesis is that reportorial objectivity is more a function of the economies of scale of a major newspaper than any unquestionable principle of High Journalism.  And now that the economics of reporting have shifted, so too must our understanding of what is appropriate.

    And yes, I didn’t link to the Post because I happen to think they’re wrong on this one and I’m just petty enough to deny them the infinitesimal traffic I might contribute.

  • Lego-mania

    This is a mostly-pointless TED talk that celebrates the vast Lego culture … It’s fun even if it isn’t all that deep.

  • The first truly honest campaign ad of the season

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gwr8KJO0Fc

    I possess a sort of socialpathic narcississism.

    … in this beautiful state that I’ve grown to love, since I moved here… 18 months ago.

    All of my motives are ulterior.

    Vote Clint Webb!

  • Days of miracle and wonder, indeed

    For about ten years, I’ve been running a project in my Honors Physics course called Days of Miracle and Wonder (yes, title taken from a Paul Simon song).  In it, the students are asked to create a business case for a product or service not available today but likely to be so by 2030.  Although they are expected to construct a likely technological path from today’s state-of-the-art to that future product, they aren’t expected to actually build their device because, after all, it’s supposed to be 20 years away.

    In one of the early years, a team chose as its device a free-standing holographic display a la the chess scene on the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars.  They presumed it would involve some sort of fast-spinning mirror.

    Today, I came across this — a SIGGRAPH paper and video demonstrating a free-standing three-dimensional display utilizing a fast-spinning mirror.  It’s about 20 years early.

    I guess I have to revise my project rubric.  😛