Author: mongreldogs
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The power of the dark side
[amazon_link asins=’0785192557,0785192565,0785199772,0785199780,0785197893′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’gilroy0-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’0a4327d5-eb7a-11e7-a142-c169eec473c4′] No, this is not a political post. 🙂 I absolutely tore through the omnibus Kindle editions of the Darth Vader comic (one of several in the rebooted Marvel line). I guess it really paid off for Amazon to make Volume 1 free to Prime members because it hooked me fast. I…
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Happy New Year and Happy 2018
Just a quick maintenance post. In the new year I intend — as anyone who writes does — to write more frequently and more broadly. I don’t expect it, but I intend it. 🙂
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Facetious blueprint
An AI researcher (Kai-Fu Lee) has written an article (“A Blueprint for Coexistence with Artificial Intelligence“) that fails at its own goal, spectacularly. He assures us we need not end up in the dystopias so common in movies and literature. And I wanted to his assurances to be convincing, because I happen to feel the…
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Looking for hive mind help on a course
Actually, on two courses. The school I’m at (Newark Academy) ends the year with a nine-day “June Term”, wherein students take one class for six hours a day. June Term classes are supposed to be experiential and rigorous, and maybe a bit weird. All teachers are supposed to suggest courses; I made three idea proposals and…
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Unintended ironies
A GOP Congressman (Clay Higgins, LA) decided to film a selfie movie in the gas chamber at Auschwitz (no, really), in which he tells constituents that the horrors really spoke to him: “A great sense of dread comes over you in this place,” Higgins says, leading the viewer on a five-minute, nine-second tour of the…
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I woke up to a country I didn’t recognize
I am stunned. Although I spent the last week cautioning people from assuming a Clinton victory, although I told myself it’s never over until the ballots are cast, I realize now that I never actually entertained the possibility of a Trump victory. I had too much faith in the basic decency of the American people,…
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In which Dinesh D’Souza proves he doesn’t know the difference between past tense and present tense.
(written in response to an insipid Facebook post by the — thankfully — inimitable Dinesh D’Souza, showing the idiotic comic copied above) “Is” is not the same as “was”. But, hey, what would you expect from a hack? I think it’s actually hilarious that defenders of the modern GOP think they can win…
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Three thoughts on the FBI’s bite at the Apple
I had three thoughts after reading about the brewing conflict between Apple and the FBI.
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Lost Worlds and A Strange Visitor From Another Planet
I just re-watched the pilot of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1996). It is actually pretty good, especially for a late-1990s superhero show. It’s sly and clever, and does a nice job working around its obviously-inadequate effects budget. There’s real chemistry between Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher, as well. Hatcher really sells Lois…
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“Morning” After Blues?
I had the same thought as Steve Bennen when he penned A generation later, Rubio flubs ‘Morning in America’: Maybe the whole “morning” metaphor was a little too subtle for Marco Rubio. He’s not pitching Reagan’s message; he’s offering the literal opposite. The point of “Morning in America” was that things had turned a corner and…