Procrastination has its Virtues
I’m presently working on remodeling the upstairs bathroom, and have been for some time. In order to do this on the cheap, I planned to replace the doors a...
Author: Will Cox
Modern Architecture at its Peak
The full measure of an architectural style can be taken when there is no life in the buildings, when what purpose they served has left, and we are no longer dis...
Dear Diary
I’m reading George Orwell’s diary and Samuel Pepys’s diary one day at a time in Google Reader, as the entries are published. The two diaries a...
Observations Made While Waiting for an Oil Change
Are the anchors on Fox News trained in rhetorical technique, the use of logical fallacies, and paranoid sarcasm? Or do they just come by it naturally?
Parrots
The differences between American media and the BBC World Service in treatment of the financial situation with the automotive industry, or anything really, are j...
Electronic Medical Records
On Marketplace this morning, they mentioned that Obama wants electronic medical records. Why is it any of Obama’s damn business? I haven’t noticed a...
DirecTiVo, your return can not be too soon
Our DirecTiVo was dying. Every now and again, frequently at times, it stopped, hung. Maybe it waiting on a bad block on disk. Maybe it was just the heat. But th...
Comments Disabled Until the Internet Gets a Life
O you spammers, may the fleas of a thousand camels nest in your pubic hair.
Grandmother’s Fruit Cobbler
1 c. sugar 1 c. flour 1 c. milk 1 stick butter 3 tsp. baking powder 1 qt. fruit, sweetened Heat sweetened fruit in saucepan. Melt butter in deep baking dish (at...
Naming the Institutions
Do you think people would be more attuned to the operation of governments if the branches were called the Rulemakers, the Deciders, and the Enforcer?
Sometimes the Graphical Interface is Non-Optimal
mysql> delete from wp_comments where comment_approved = 'spam'; Query OK, 1758 rows affected (0.16 sec)
Die, Spammer, Die!
Dear Spammers: I sincerely hope you all die a horrible death. Have a good day. Yours,
Pointless Distinctions: barriers to entry to Real Journalism
Journalists can obtain a copy of this publication via the Password-protected Web site for accredited journalists or from the OECD’s Media Relations Divisi...
Of the Character of one Mr. Brownlow
From There’s Pippins And Cheese To Come, by Charles S. Brooks (Yale University Press, 1917) By some slim chance, reader, you may be the kind of person who...
Speaking of Hate
I really hate that the rhetoric of liberty is perverted in the service of illiberal causes. And I hate this not just because of the hypocrisy of it. I hate this...
On the Nature of Power
Like electricity in the grid, use it or lose it.
Bobby Dunbar
I’m listening again to This American Life‘s story “The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar.” The story is remarkably affecting, sad, and hard to imagi...
What, Me Worry? I’ve Done Nothing Wrong.
One thing I’ve never quite understood is how advocates for expansive government power never quite seem able to imagine themselves as being on the unpleasa...
Footprint per Capita
The newspaper had a map of each country’s carbon footprint per person. Something like this one from Wikipedia. This is one of those graphics that misleads...