rantings of a random scrub...

Someday...

2012-01-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

... when I eventually own a house and have the space, I am building myself one of these:

Okay, if I have kids that are Doctor Who fans, I might build it for them, but I want one in my house in some form!

Board Gaming 2011: Five and Dime List

2012-01-05T13:17:00.000-08:00

It's become a tradition in the online circles I run in to publish what games you've played the most over the past year, in the form of a "Five and Dime" list. (Games you've played at least 10 times, or at least 5 times, in the preceding year.) So, here's my list for this year:

2011 Dimes
Race for the Galaxy 38*
Innovation 24
No Thanks! 12
At the Gates of Loyang 10

2011 Fives
Dominion 9
Jaipur 9
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game 8
Dice Town 7
Magic: The Gathering 7
Perry Rhodan: The Cosmic League 7
Carcassonne 6
Stone Age 6
Aquarius 5
Arkham Horror 5
For Sale 5
Memoir '44 5
Small World 5
Ticket to Ride 5

A lot of these were two-player games with my wife - particularly Innovation, which has given me the most bang for my gaming buck of any purchase ever, and At the Gates of Loyang, which is her current favorite game. Most of the RftG was played using the excellent Keldon AI program, so that might deserve a bit of a caveat there...

Recent Board Gaming - Lots of it!

2011-11-28T09:30:00.001-08:00

I've had a lot of time to play games lately, including several new (to me) ones, and decided I'd share my thoughts and experiences with y'all. Enjoy!

Thursday 11/17
Some friends invited us over for Indian take-out and games. Here's what we played (all games with 4p).

For Sale (3-6 players)
This was my first play of this classic filler game, and it was a remarkable amount of fun for such a short game. We busted it out while giving the take-out restaurant time to get our order together, and it proved the perfect length.

The game is composed of two halves, each of which revolves around a different auction mechanic. In the first half, people are bidding on the rights to the best of a pool of properties (one for each player), and as players drop out of the bidding, they pay half of their current bids and take the lowest-valued property in the pool. Once all of the properties have been sold to players, the second half begins. In this auction, a number of checks are revealed (one for each player), and all players simultaneously (and secretly) choose one of their properties to sell. All properties to be sold in the turn are then revealed, and the highest value property sells for the highest check, lowest for the lowest check, etc. The player with the most money (checks plus leftover cash from the first half) wins.

This is a great fifteen minute game for some light fun, and it would work great as a family game. As you'll see in some of my later plays, this is good fun even for non-gamers.

Dixit (3-6 players)
The winner of the SdJ for 2010, this game is a bit like Apples to Apples or Balderdash, but with art. Each player receives six cards with some very whimsical and surreal art (imagine some sort of Dr. Seuss/Salvador Dali collaboration). On your turn, you place a card face-down on the table, and give a clue. This clue can be a sound, gesture, word, phrase, sentence, or basically anything else you want. Each other player then submits face-down a card from their hand they think will match the clue. These are shuffled and flipped face up, and all other players must guess secretly and simultaneously which one was submitted by the current-turn player. These guesses are then revealed. The catch in the scoring is that if nobody (or everybody) guesses your art correctly, then they all get points, and you get nothing. Thus, the goal is to submit clues that are sufficiently vague that some will be lost, but not so obscure that you're the only one who has a clue.

We played this while eating dinner, and had a great deal of fun. It's a bit light for my taste, and it needs some more art. With the right group and some expansions (which do exist), it looks to be good fun.- just don't expect to get too deep into it. Another great one for non-gamers.

Arkham Horror (1-8 players)
After dinner, our host decided he was in the mood for some serious gaming; while we only got through a partial game, I was glad we got this one to the table. I'd been itching for an Ameritrash dice-fest for a while, and Arkham Horror delivers on that front. My wife had never played Arkham before, and so while it took some explaining, most of that could be done on the fly. We seemed destined to lose, as our Eldritch God of choice was requiring us to muster 8 clues to seal a portal and we continually found ourselves falling behind, but we'll never know for sure. We had to pack it up when the night got a bit too late.

If you want a more detailed description of the game itself, you'll have to look elsewhere - it's a little more complex than I care to go into here.

Saturday 11/19: Game On! Game Day
This day of gaming was hosted by the duo behind the Game On! Podcast: Cody Jones and John Richard. The podcast is based in Indianapolis, and so, living in Lafayette, I was definitely in range to participate in the day of gaming. Many thanks to them for putting it together! You can see a list of everything that got played here.

Small World (2-5 players)
As I walked in, a group of three was looking for more players for Small World. It's one of my favorites, so I jumped at the chance. And proceeded to get my butt handed to me, coming in 3rd of 4. I got some sweet racial/special power combos (including Marauding Skeletons!) but that made me a bit too conspicuous to the other players, who took any chance they got to prune back my empire-building. I had a blast.

Alien Frontiers (2-4 players)
After finishing Small World, I suggested we play Alien Frontiers. They had all played before, so we jumped right in. This is one of my recent acquisitions, and it's quickly become my favorite euro-ish game for four players. Players are competing to be the most influential in the settlement of a new planet, the planet Maxwell. It's mechanically a combination of worker-placement (in the form of dice, which represent your ships), with area control elements when dropping your colonies on the planet. The retro-sci-fi theme really resonates with me, and the game is really very tight, with the lead changing several times in the final few turns.

Alien Frontiers manages to give excellent strategic choices, while preventing the brain-burn of games like Agricola by having the values rolled on your "ships" each turn restrict where you can place them. For me, it's providing a satisfying amount of strategy-gaming, while being accessible to lighter gamers. I love it, and can't wait to see what the Factions expansion (which I backed on KickStarter) has to add.

Tumblin-Dice (1-4 players)
Following Alien Frontiers, I drifted for a while, watching some guys play Dungeon Run and seeing what was going on. Then I saw Cody teaching Tumblin-Dice, and knew I had to get in on that. This was an incredibly light dexterity game that was very fun. Players toss dice down along a terraced track, and get points equal to the value of the die times the multiplier of the step it's on. But it's not scored until the end of the round, leaving the chance for other players' (or your own!) dice to knock yours around to different steps and faces!

I played twice and lost horribly each time, but enjoyed the heck out of the whole process. Highly recommended, and I need to see about tracking down a copy. This looks like it would be great for family events and kids as well. I would have loved to have it a Thanksgiving.

Crokinole (2 players)
Cody then taught some of us the classic dexterity game Crokinole, which is apparently quite popular in Canada. I managed to eke out a victory in game one, and then got a string of good luck to run away with game two. I'd love to acquire a set, but the wooden boards and pieces cost a pretty penny, so it's not in the cards at the moment.

Crappy Birthday (4-8 players)
My opponent then invited me to participate with his group in a game of Crappy Birthday. I reluctantly allowed myself to be persuaded. This was a mistake. Crappy Birthday is like Apples to Apples, minus the fun! You get cards with terrible or quirky birthday gifts on them, and each player submits what they think is the worst present from their hand to the person whose turn it is. That player then chooses. You get points if they take yours. I only lasted three turns before I couldn't take it any more. I know others like it, but I found this game to be absolutely dreadful.

Trans Europa (2-6 players)

After that dreck, I was in the mood for a new game that wouldn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, and found someone willing to teach a train game. We decided Steam might be a little too long for our current mood, and settled on Trans Europa. In this game, players are assigned randomly and secretly five cities from five different regions of Europe, which they must connect via rail. Rails can be laid along lines of a predetermined triangular grid, and each player can lay two sections of track each turn. The first player to connect all five cities wins the round, with a vicious scoring system that causes other players to lose points based on how far they were from finishing their connections; the game ends when a player reaches zero points. If this sounds a bit too easy and a bit too random, that's because I haven't told you the twist - all players' track is identical (it's all black). You don't care who connects your cities, so long as they get connected. This means that you're constantly trying to piggyback on others' work while concealing what your true destinations are and avoiding connecting cities unnecessarily.

We finished our game in about half an hour, and I found it quite enjoyable, though not a home-run. I ended up winning by a comfortable margin, so I that may color my impression. It's about the same difficulty level as Ticket to Ride, but it feels much more cutthroat, which would scare away lighter gamers. I'd give it a recommendation to try before you buy.

For Sale (3-6 players)
I then suggested to the group that we play some fillers while others were finishing some games, and brought out For Sale. It went over well, and though the group thought it was a bit light, they enjoyed it. I had a blast playing it (again) despite losing. The final scoring was tight, with all five of us finishing within a $5k range.

No Thanks! (3-7 players)
Another classic filler, which I think I've discussed on the blog before. This one has an even easier rules set than For Sale, but can be played more cutthroat than For Sale, and this group proceeded to do exactly that. They even gave the game the ultimate compliment of requesting a second play immediately after finishing the first! The first game was spent learning the strategies, and so had a wide scoring spread (though I, the experienced player, lost by a decent margin). In the second game I eked out a one-point victory, as others failed to assemble the straights they were hoping for. This one is a great (short) game for gamers and non-gamers alike. I recommend it for everyone's collection.

Kingdom Builder (2-4 players)
My final game of the day was my first play of the so-new-it-squeaks release from Donald X. Vaccarino, the designer of SdJ 2009 winner Dominion. Kingdom Builder seems to be a light Eurogame, but appearances can be deceiving. In this game, a modular board with regions composed of hexes of several different terrain types is assembled, and then the players settle it. The core mechanic is that each turn you draw a terrain type card, and are then required to build three settlements in that terrain type, contiguous to one of your previous settlements if possible. Throughout the game you can acquire special actions by building next to specific landmarks (i.e. build an additional settlement on the end of a row of three preexisting settlements). The scoring system is rather novel, and lends itself well to replayability. There is a set of 15 kingdom cards, each of which propose different scoring rules. You select three at random during setup, and they determine how points will be awarded at the end of the game. In our case, we had one area-control-like goal that awarded points for having the most and second-most in a "sector", one that awarded points for waterfront settlements, and one that awarded points for each horizontal line you had a settlement on. There are also four castles on the board that you can get points for settling adjacent to.

My opinion of the game is somewhat mixed. It starts out as a light Eurogame, but as the turns progress it begins to feel heavier and heavier, until on the final few turns your actions are extremely restricted. This leads to the turn being reduced to a solvable problem, and you feel the intense Agricola-like pressure to play the optimal turn, because you know you can find the optimum if you think hard enough. Combine that with how easy it is to build yourself into a corner with a combination of poor early-game planning and bad luck, and I don't think this is the game for me. I'd play it again of someone asked, but I won't seek it out. This was a bit of a disappointment.

Following that, it was time to call it a night and head home. (Well, okay, I made a stop to swap my Lord of the Rings LCG set for Shadows over Camelot on the way home.)

Thanksgiving!
We hosted Thanksgiving this year, and had lots of family around for the weekend. My wife's entire immediate family, plus grandmother and cousins, as well as my brother, all descended upon us for the duration. Twelve people in a 2 bedroom apartment is a tight fit, even in one as comparatively spacious as ours. (No, not everyone slept here. Most had hotel rooms.) It was a blast, but I'm still recovering. As I'm somewhat known in the family for my board gaming hobby at this point, it was almost required that I bust out the games with everyone around. And, well, nobody had to twist my arm to make that happen...

Wednesday 11/23
7 Wonders (2-7 players)
The family all came to town, and after the elders and tired people retired for the night, we were left with seven people in the mood for a board game. What do I have for seven that takes about an hour? 7 Wonders, of course. This being my third play, I've mostly internalized the iconography on the cards by now. Two of the non-gamers found it to be a bit much, but even they managed to play reasonably competently. My brother, who had never played before, managed to trounce us all by virtue of a good military, a lot of blue VP cards, and some good luck in the final round.

Thursday 11/24 (Thanksgiving Day)
After we finished cleaning up from our turkey and carb feast, it was time for some relaxation. Some of us just sat around while others decided it was game time.

Betrayal at House on the Hill (3-6 players)
While I was busy relaxing, the rest of the family was busting out this old favorite: Betrayal at House on the Hill. (This is the older Avalon Hill printing, not the recent reprint with so many component issues.) The game is a straightforward Ameritrash game that is actually mechanically quite similar to Arkham Horror. The players begin as explorers in a haunted old house. They wander all over, revealing tiles and building the house as they go, all the while encountering freaky events and omens. Eventually the Haunt is triggered, and one player (determined by how the triggering omen and location) turns traitor. The heroes are given one book, and the traitor another, and they separate to strategize. Each team knows their own victory condition(s), but have only what gets revealed by gameplay to guess at what the other is trying for.

Two of the non-gamers got roped in and while they seemed to enjoy the first half of exploration, once the haunt happened, they quickly got overwhelmed by some of the fiddlier rules and poorly written objectives. In this scenario, the traitor was trying to go "Alien" on a poor hero and breed giant spiders in his abdominal cavity (eeeew!). The heroes needed to (1) free him from the web, (2) destroy the eggs inside him, and (3) get someone out of the house. The poor egg-laden hero was killed, which seemed to render goal (1) really, really, stupid, but the rules failed to address whether he could be abandoned or needed to be carried out. The family for whom this game was already a favorite still enjoyed it, but it failed to win any converts.

Dixit (3-6 players)
Following that overwhelming game, they decided to do something a bit simpler for the non-gamers, and brought out Dixit. This one went over extremely well. I think at least two people left with the intention to buy themselves a copy, and it got so raucous at one point that I couldn't even hear the conversation I was trying to have.

Sentinels of the Multiverse (2-5 players)
Having just gotten Sentinels of the Multiverse for my birthday, I was eager to try it out. I convinced two of the guys to sit down and give it a run with me. Sentinels is a cooperative card game where players take on the role of comic-book style superheroes to battle a villain with dastardly intentions. Each player gets a fixed deck corresponding to their hero of choice (we went with Legacy, Absolute Zero, and Tempest), then you choose an environment (Megalopolis) and villain (Omnitron). This villain/environment combo was supposed to be easy, and so we chose it for the first play. The villain plays mechanically, so you don't need a player to actively control it. In the game the villain gets a turn (play a villain card and then do anything the villain's character card tells you), then each hero gets a turn (play a card and use a power from one of your cards in play), and then the environment gets a turn (play one environment card).

While this turned out to be a fairly easy opponent, the game itself is awesome. The theme is all-encompassing and it really feels like you're acting out a comic book. The Omnitron is ravaging the city! It has mechanical drones everywhere! Watch out for the falling monorail! The Tempest uses his weather powers to damage all the drones at once! It was great. Unfortunately, without going into a three-page essay, I can't give much more detail on the game than that. Because each hero, villain, and environment is so individualized, describing this game would be so idiosyncratic as to be unhelpful. If you want more, I suggest oyu go read this review. Suffice it to say: fun!

For Sale (3-6 players)
We played this one late at night, when we were all a little too tired to do anything complicated. The non-geeky non-gamer cousin loved it, and we all had a good time. Again, it only took about 20 minutes, including teaching. I'm really liking this one.

Friday 11/25
This is the traditional post-Thanksgiving Christmas-cookie baking day. I took on a logistical support role (i.e. errand boy), while competent bakers did their thing. As cookies were being frosted and then left to dry, it was time for gaming!

Wits and Wagers (3+ players)
I corralled five others to play my first game of Wits and Wagers, and they all seemed to love it. This trivia game presents questions that can only be answered numerically. Each player (or team) submits an answer, and the answers are ordered on the playmat. Players then bet on which answer they think is correct, with answers at the ends of the distribution paying better odds than those in the middle. The answer that is closest without going over is the winning answer, and that slot pays out winnings, as well as awarding the player who submitted it. After seven questions, the player with the most chips is the winner!

We played two games, with my brother and I each taking one, and then I left the game while they continued to play a couple more. It wasn't quite as big a hit as Dixit, but it seemed to scratch the trivia-game itch without the tedium of Trivial Pursuit's category crapshoot. After all, in W&W you can always just bet on the answer submitted by the person you think should know the subject. (I do have to lodge a complaint, though. One question asked how many elements were on the periodic table, and the answer given was clearly incorrect; they said either 110 or 111, and there are currently 112 named elements, with a few more having been discovered but just numerically named up to 118. Not sure how that happened.)

Sentinels of the Multiverse (2-5 players)
This time we had a five-player game, with Ra, Bunker, Legacy, Wraith, and Tempest battling Grand Warlord Voss in The Ruins of Atlantis. It was again intensely thematic, and our choice of environment proved fortuitous - the kraken kept eaten the bad guy's minions! I think it's a bit too easy with five heroes, but it was still a ton of fun - enough so that I've already backed the Rook City expansion on KickStarter. The replayability of the game with so many heroes and villains to choose from looks to be immense. The only complaint is that the box doesn't contain any HP tracking mechanisms, which are required to play. I recommend a pile of d10s.

Memoir '44 (2 players)
My brother was looking for something confrontational, so we pulled out this two-player war game and I taught him how it works. He was confident in his ability to beat me and so, despite my warning that the introductory scenario was quite unbalanced in favor of the Allies, he took the Axis side. He proceeded to lose, but no worse than the Axis usually does in that scenario. After that, bedtime.

Saturday 11/26
Small World (2-5 players)
I'd promised my brother-in-law that we'd get a game of Small World in, after having taught it to them last Christmas, so we pulled it out and got a 5 player game going late on Saturday. Two had never played before, but they learned fast. Again, I made myself too conspicuous, getting a few good turns early (leading wit Stout Ghouls helps in that regard), but getting cut back fairly quickly by the others. It turned out to be a runaway victory for the brother-in-law, as his first race of Commando Trolls proved too hard for us to root out in decline, and he racked up a lot of points in the mid- to late-game. I still love this game, even though I'm winning much less frequently now than in my first few plays.

The next day, everybody shipped back out, and the wife and I collapsed into a much needed day of relaxation. My gaming itch has been well and truly scratched of late, and so we'll see how much gaming I get in the near future.

Links Roundup for 11/08/2011

2011-11-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

1) An awesome map of Twitter languages - it looks a lot like the world at night photos.

2) It's like Toy Story with board games! The Secret Life of Board Games

3) WTF: Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses

4) KHAAAAAAAN!

5) PDQ Bach is pretty amusing. Though, as the blogger notes, it's got a lot of classical music inside baseball to appreciate it fully.

Of Table Saws and Lawsuits

2011-10-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Many of you know that I do a little bit of woodworking in my not-so-copious free time. As an amateur woodworker, I've been following the progress of a recent table saw safety lawsuit rather closely. It turns out that a huge cash award verdict was just recently upheld on appeal. A good summary of the circumstances of the suit can be found here.

The case basically boils down to the fact that in 2004 Osario (the plaintiff) was using a table saw and cut his hand badly, almost losing several fingers. Because there exists technology that would stop and retract the blade upon flesh contact, saving his hand, Osario claims Ryobi (the saw manufacturer) was negligent for not including it in the saw in question.

Now. Please allow me to drag out my soapbox and begin raging. I was certain this case would be overturned on appeal. Anyone who has ever used a table saw was immediately horrified when they read how Osario (the plaintiff) was using it. My immediate reaction was that it would have been a miracle if he didn't injure himself. Allow me to number the issues:

The blade guard and splitter had been removed
Rip cuts were being made freehand, without the aid of a rip fence
When he encountered resistance, he simply pushed the board harder

This is insanity. The blade guard helps prevent your hand from contacting the blade. The splitter helps prevent the wood from binding on the blade (preventing kickback). Freehand cuts are suicidal - without a guide, you are likely to twist the board around the blade, causing it to bind and/or kickback. Finally, when the board did bind (as we all knew it must), he just pushed harder - which anyone will tell you will end badly. If the board is stuck, you lose your grip and take a trip to the blade (which happened), or it will bind on the back of the blade and the whole board gets thrown at you (not much better). The safety equipment was removed and ignored, and Ryobi should be liable?

Okay, time for dispassioned analysis.

Let us set aside for the moment the negligent fashion in which the saw was being used. Let's talk about the table saw market. The on-site contractor market is served by, appropriately enough, a class of table saws referred to as contractor saws. Cabinet saws, destined for dedicated woodshops, are the beefiest and most powerful class, and can easily run $3K. Tabletop saws, which are small, portable, and light-duty, can be found for as little as $100. Contractor saws live in the middle ground, needing to be powerful enough to handle decent sized jobs, but mobile enough to easily move between work sites. Contractor saws generally run anywhere from about $500 to $1800, depending on the specs of the saw. The saw-stopping technology adds about $150-$200 to the price of a saw (plus you need a new blade if it ever goes off accidentally, which they do). This is a non-trivial price hike (10%-20%) for what could be considered a dubiously necessary increase in safety. Again, I find it hard to condemn Ryobi as negligent for refusing to include safety technology that would likely have just priced them out of the market.

Let's also look at the development timeline of the blade-stopping technology. It was developed by Steve Gass in the 1999. He then proceeded to shop it around to many table saw manufacturers, but failed to find anyone to license it. Seeing that, he proceeded to found his own company (SawStop) and begin manufacturing his own saws, the first of which shipped in late 2004. These models were cabinet saws; they did not introduce a contractor saw until 2008. (These details are from the SawStop website.) So, in April 2004, when the injury occurred, there existed no table saws on the market incorporating blade-stopping technology. In fact it took until 2008 for there to even exist a saw incorporating that technology that would have been suitable for the job Osario was performing. I find it hard to find Ryobi negligent when there was no saw on the market at all that incorporated the technology in question. The technology existed, and nobody in the industry used it, so therefore Ryobi was negligent for not implementing it? That's downright silly.

When I look at the totality of the facts (that I have access to) on this case, I find Ryobi blameless. Honestly, Osario may have a case against his former employer for negligence, since it seems clear that he had no idea how to use the saw on which he injured himself. It seems, however, that he has chosen to go after the deep pockets, rather than anyone who might reasonably be held to be negligent. That's appalling, and it's even more appalling that he has won this case. Twice.

Links Roundup for 10/14/2011

2011-10-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

1) This hilariously geeky parody music video, "Roll a D6," is remarkably well done, both in terms of the quality of the parody, and in sheer production value:

(Parody of "Like a G6")

2) Only if you want to scar your child for life - it's like Horton Hears a Cthulhu. (via)

3) These tools exist, so they must be useful for something, but I can hardly imagine what - miniature handplanes.

4) Peter Sagal has possibly the only NPR appeal that has ever even made me consider donating to a pledge drive. (I still say that they can ask me for money only after they get their broadcasting butts off the government dime.)

5) This is clearly a gag, but I can't figure out if the gag extends to the point of actually producing the product:

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.

6) Awesome animated GIFs generated from stereoscopic photos of Japanese life circa 1900 or so. Here's a sample:

7) Apparently Firefly now has its own rap tribute album. Huh.

8) 17 injured during zombie movie shoot:

Emergency workers at the scene said their jobs were made more difficult by the fact that the injured were dressed like zombies, which made it hard to determine which injuries were real.

9) For all you video-game haters out there: 5 Real Skills Video Games Have Secretly Been Teaching Us.

Links Roundup for 9/28/2011

2011-09-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

More links! (Many of these owe credit to SB7, who you should be reading anyway.)

1) Pet peeves about the language of environmentalism. I especially like the thoughts on "green" stuff (the label):

The bigger problem actually is that they are bypassing the actual argument to be had: the argument over what is “green” (meaning, good for the environment). Just because you call something “green” doesn’t mean it’s actually good for the environment. You have to make an actual argument.... But because [items] have the “green” label, thought is bypassed. This label serves as a substitute for actual rational thought; in a sense, labeling things “green” makes people stupid.

2) If you can hijack an airliner with nothing more than a set of fingernail clippers...

3) Mike Rowe just became my new hero. Why "safety first" is, and always has been, BS:

Is [safety] important? Of course. But is it more important than getting the job done? No. Not even close. Making money is more important than safety – always – and it’s very dangerous in my opinion to ignore that. When we start to believe that someone else is more concerned about our own safety than we are, we become complacent, and then, we get careless. When a business tells you that they are more concerned with your safety than anything else, beware. They are not being honest. They are hedging their own bets, and following the advice of lawyers hired to protect them from lawsuits arising from accidents.

I've always maintained that anyone who actually believed in "safety first" wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

4) Quote of the Day.

5) A mini-Manhattan carved out of a marble slab. So cool.

6) A graphic illustrating why I reflexively distrust governments.

7) Dogs on a surfboard! (via)

8) Another reason to distrust government spending-cut numbers.

9) SB7 on censorship, browncoats, and most importantly, context. See also: I Swear By My Pretty Floral Bonnet, I Will Censor You.

Links Roundup for 9/23/2011

2011-09-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

More links! Though mostly more serious this time.

1) Adam Savage demonstrates the effects of non-air gases on his voice. Hilarious!

2) Why US poverty statistics aren't very useful.

3) For the "Why I'm not excited to be moving to California" files: the city of San Juan Capistrano is fining a group of people for holding “a regular gathering of more than three people.” What is this gathering? A bible study. Not exactly public nuisance material.

4(a) An interesting response to those who argue that because government protects property rights, it has unlimited claim on one's property. My Dog Owns My House?
4(b) A more detailed (and analytical) response.

5) Speed limits aren't always about safety.

6) Somebody's building the Babbage analytical engine. So cool...

Capital Punishment

2011-09-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

Since all of the internet seems to be aflame with discussion of the Troy Davis execution, I figure I can weigh in on where I stand with respect to capital punishment. I do not believe that the death penalty is, in principle, immoral. I believe that there are crimes which should merit death as punishment.

I do not, however, trust the state and the criminal justice system to either correctly discern which crimes merit such punishment, or appropriately determine the guilt of people accused of such crimes. Death is permanent, and mistakes happen in this fallen world. Therefore, I come down against the death penalty with one exception: the guilty should be executed only if (a) they are clearly - to everyone - guilty of the crimes of which they are accused (is there a higher standard than "beyond a reasonable doubt"?) and (b) the very fact of their continued existence poses a threat to the welfare of the citizenry (e.g. a revolutionary leader who has been captured, but whose army/mob/etc will likely try to break them out of prison and continue a war).

As this is an exceedingly rare combination, I think it's safe to say that I am (in general) against the death penalty.

Links Roundup for 9/16/2011

2011-09-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

Here's another roundup of notable or amusing things on the internet:

1) Oscar Wilde was hilarious.

2) I have no idea how a map could have made it through editing this messed up.

3) Tax theory is complicated, or Why Warren Buffet's Real Tax Rate is over 90%.

4) This is a compelling case for reforms in how Hollywood performs movie accounting:

The actor who played Darth Vader still has not received residuals from the 1983 film "Return of the Jedi" because the movie, which ranks 15th in U.S. box office history, still has no technical profits to distribute.

It's clearly a sham as it's done now.

5) This really shouldn't be allowed to happen, and I think it should be a pretty bipartisan issue:

Imagine that President Obama could order the arrest of anyone who broke a promise on the Internet. So you could be jailed for lying about your age or weight on an Internet dating site. Or you could be sent to federal prison if your boss told you to work but you used the company's computer to check sports scores online. Imagine that Eric Holder's Justice Department urged Congress to raise penalties for violations, making them felonies allowing three years in jail for each broken promise. Fanciful, right?

Think again. Congress is now poised to grant the Obama administration's wishes in the name of "cybersecurity."

The little-known law at issue is called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It was enacted in 1986 to punish computer hacking. But Congress has broadened the law every few years, and today it extends far beyond hacking. The law now criminalizes computer use that "exceeds authorized access" to any computer. Today that violation is a misdemeanor, but the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to meet this morning to vote on making it a felony.

The problem is that a lot of routine computer use can exceed "authorized access." Courts are still struggling to interpret this language. But the Justice Department believes that it applies incredibly broadly to include "terms of use" violations and breaches of workplace computer-use policies.Breaching an agreement or ignoring your boss might be bad. But should it be a federal crime just because it involves a computer?

6) What HPV and smoking have in common:

I am told that some people are of the opinion that vaccines against STDs "encourage promiscuity" by lowering the costs of sexual activity.

This seems to be an opinion held by socially conservative Christians. [Many] Smart Liberals seem to think this is absurd.* But I want to point out that our very own FDA, as well as liberal anti-smoking groups, apply the exact same thinking to electronic cigarettes. (See here, here and here.) Just last year the FDA attempted to ban them because they reduced the harm from tobacco use.

7) And today's award for unintentional hilarity goes to... We’d Like You To Anonymously Donate to Our Efforts To Expose Anonymous Donations.

8) This looks like a pretty genius idea for busy international airports:

Food Deserts: Your Data Needs Work

2011-09-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

While perusing twitter, I discovered this tweet on the topic of food deserts:

So, I decided to take a look at where the food deserts are in my adopted town of Lafayette, IN. Before we go any further, let's see how the USDA is defining food deserts:

The HFFI working group defines a food desert as a low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store:
To qualify as a “low-income community,” a census tract must have either: 1) a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher, OR 2) a median family income at or below 80 percent of the area's median family income;
To qualify as a “low-access community,” at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract's population must reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles).

So, back to Lafayette: according to the food desert locator, apparently there is a "food desert" that begins less than half a mile from the grocery store I personally shop at. This suggests that they need additional granularity in their data - defining the deserts by census tracts presents the problem as much larger (geographically) than it is, and prevents us from seeing where the true problem areas lie. Because I know the area, I know that at least 1/3 of that "desert" is less than a mile from a supermarket, and one block past the north edge is the location of a truly fine farmer's market. This makes me distrust people on the subject of the magnitude of the food desert problem. Get me better data, then we'll talk.

Board Game Givaway!

2011-08-18T05:32:00.000-07:00

No, not by me - my collection isn't big enough for that (yet). But over at Board Game Reviews by Josh the proprietor is giving away a bunch of games due to the much-lamented closing of a local game store. I highly recommend you check it out, and if you haven't seen his site before, I also recommend taking a look at his game reviews - he's one of three or so blogs I always check out my prospective game purchases on.

Hilarious Indictment of the Hogwarts House System in Harry Potter

2011-07-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

This is too funny and spot-on not to share (language warning, SPOILERS for Deathly Hallows Pt 2):

[T]here are still a lot of problems that I have with the world in general. The second-worst, which this movie highlighted, is the implicit caste-system of the Hogwarts Houses. I can never tell if this is supposed to be a scathing indictment of the education system, or just a thing that Rowling kind of thought up in the first book without really considering the implications, but I am always ALWAYS bothered by the fact that there’s one house that’s just full of all the shitty kids.

Sure, it’s always a Slytherin who turns out to be the asshole, but when ONE kid says something asinine after Harry Potter comes back — one stupid kid who wants to grab him — the WHOLE SLYTHERIN HOUSE gets sent to the dungeons. They didn’t even do anything! She said to grab him, but no one moved or anything! They were just standing there, being good, why did McGonagal send them to the dungeons?

Except, obviously McGonagal was right to do that, because apparently the Sorting Hat just puts all the shitty kids together into Shitbag House, so if they weren’t doing something shitty now, they were probably going to do something shitty in the future. But again, can you blame them? Hogwarts doesn’t make any attempt to reach out to the shitty kids, and should we wonder that the Gryffindor kids are always better adjusted?

“Oh, hello kids! We’ve looked into your soul, and determined that some of you are brave, so you’ll get to go live in this awesome tower and get supervised by one of the cool teachers, a hilarious ghost, and also hang out with our world’s only celebrity. You guys, on the other hand, are slimy cowards, so we’re putting you in this basement that’s haunted by some kind of psychotic murderer ghost, with that one teacher who’s a complete fucking asshole, and also sometimes you’ll think you’ve won the house cup — by being good at sports but also not having discipline problems and just generally excelling at your studies — except then Harry Potter will do some fucking bullshit and we’ll literally take it away from you to give to him and his house (remember, the one with the kids who AREN’T slimy cowards?), because god fucking forbid the celebrated Harry Potter should have to suffer the ignominy of NOT getting all the awards.”

Yeah, no wonder everyone in Slytherin is an asshole....

(via SB7)

Why I don't Understand the Current Debt Ceiling/Budget Debate

2011-07-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you all know, my political instincts align with the Republicans on this issue - higher taxes and bigger government are things to be avoided, not encouraged. But the thing that puzzles me is why the Democrats are so intransigent on the subject of a cuts-only solution. (I know, this already sounds like some sort of partisan hit-piece, so please just read the rest; I honestly want to understand their position.)

Allow me to lay out the reasons for my confusion. The US Federal expenditures for 2007 were a total of $2.8 trillion. The US Federal expenditures for 2010 were $3.55 trillion. This is a more than 25% increase. Where has all of this increased spending gone, and why are the programs it went to fund so critical that cutting them is not a serious option? It's not like 2007 was the dark day of anarchy, lawlessness, and starving seniors. Originally the increase was "stimulus spending" of various kinds, but it seems to have morphed from "temporary increase" into "permanent budget baseline," and any talk of serious cutting is treated as beyond the pale by the media and the Democrats alike.

I'm of the opinion that going back to the 2007 budget (adjusted to account for population growth) should be a viable option, and would save something like $5-6 trillion over 10 years. It sounds (to me) both simple and feasible. What am I missing?

(No, telling me that the "Liberals are evil and want to destroy America" is not a valid answer to my questions. Political opponents may be wrong, biased, and ignorant on occasion, but they will almost never be evil. Their intentions are as good as mine - I'm just looking for more info on the source of our disagreement on methods here.)

Recommendations for 2-player board/card games

2011-07-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

One of my friends asked me for game recommendations, and I think I'll post my response here in public, so that all may "benefit" from my pretensions at gaming sagacity. My friend is looking for a game that:

Takes 30-60 minutes to play
Works well for 2 players, though more is nice
Avoids common party-game antics (singing, charades, dancing, icebreakers, etc)
Is not a heavy strategy game
Does not have long turns
Does not have a war or fantasy theme

Additionally, they already own a few mainline Eurogames, and are looking to branch out away from the bean-counting and efficiency-maximizing focus of those games, toward something more whimsical and luck-based. This being the case here are my recommendations, starting with those that closest fit what I believe match the criteria, with the caveat being that these are restricted to game I personally have played as 2-player games:

(My first recommendation would be Carcassonne, but they already own it. Moving on...)

1) Ticket to Ride, with the USA 1910 expansion: While purchasing both would set you back about $60, this is the holy grail in meeting the above criteria. The "Big Cities" variant included in the 1910 expansion turn the game into a tight 2-player experience that takes about 45 minutes. Turns often take less than 30 seconds, the theme is light, and the set-collecting is moderately luck based. The only downside is that it it a light Eurogame, and thus there is point-scoring done to determine the winner. However, there is not the ruthless emphasis on efficiency that is often present in Eurogames, and so it is much less competetive-feeling (and less math-filled) than other Euros.

Additionally, if you have more people than 2, you can always add in the rest of the destination tickets and play the 3-4 player versions. I can honestly say that I have played this game with at least 20 different people, and have yet to meet someone who didn't enjoy the experience.

2) Jaipur: It's an inexpensive card game for two, where you are competing to become the personal merchant for the local maharajah. This competition is based on collecting sets of cards and then selling them to the market, with the focus being on the tension between getting paid more for the first goods of each type sold in the round and getting bonuses for selling larger sets of identical goods. A typical game lasts about 30 minutes, and it's light enough that it doesn;t require intense thought and concentration for most actions. You can find a detailed review here. The only real downside is that it's limited to two players.

3) Dominion: This is a somewhat heavier card game for 2-4 players, which I covered a bit here:

In this game, players are feudal lords of a few small estates, scheming to enlarge and enrich their respective "Dominions" by whatever means possible. Each player starts with a deck of ten cards containing three estates and seven coppers. During gameplay, players have the opportunity to purchase from 10 different piles of kingdom cards, which contain things like moats, smithies, markets, thieves, or witches. When cards are purchased, they go directly to the player's discard pile, and then eventually get shuffled into their deck. They can also purchase copper, silver, and gold (which are later used to purchase bigger/better things) or they can go straight for purchasing estates, duchies, and provinces, each of which is worth victory points. The game ends when three stacks of cards (or the stack of Provinces) run out, and the player whose deck has the most VPs wins. Since the game comes with 25 stacks kingdom cards, of which only 10 are used each game, the replayability is excellent. This game is fairly light and plays quickly, but is a great deal of fun. Simple enough that just about anybody can play, but deep enough to be fun for everybody. This game works for 2-4 players, and work well (if differently) with any of those numbers. There are many expansions available; none of them are necessary to enjoy the game, but if you like Dominion, you'll probably want to pick one or two up eventually.

I'll add a couple of notes to address specific concerns. Typical games last 30-45 minutes, maybe an hour with 4 players. The theme is pretty standard medievalist fluff, but does stray a bit into era-appropriate fantasy and war, with witches and curses, militias and watchtowers. The theme is, however, rather pasted-on, and so I think this shouldn't be an issue, as it doesn't feel anything like a war game. It is a bit efficiency-focused, as one must have a strategy around which one is building the deck, but it's pretty light.

4) Innovation: This is one I'm hesitant about including on the list, because it will either be a hit, or will bomb badly. I'll link to a review here - please read that, and then I'll add my notes here. It typically runs 60-75 minutes, so it's a bit long for the criteria, but not outrageously. It is very chaotic and luck-driven, but also manages to feel pretty intense, so I'm not sure how they'd feel about it. I will note that it currently holds the record for most "plays per dollar spent" of any game I own, most of which were 2-player games with my wife.

Other games I might recommend, that don't fit the criteria quite as well, but I enjoy as a two-player game:

Pandemic or Forbidden Island (too much thinking, too little luck)

Stone Age (standard Eurogame, so too much bean counting)

At the Gates of Loyang (long turns, too much thinking and bean counting, too long of a game)

Race for the Galaxy (efficiency focused, steep learning curve)

ADDENDUM:

I just remembered another good two-player game - Perry Rhodan: The Cosmic League. I suspect the theme would amuse the original advice requester, as it's a German pulp scifi adventure from the heyday of space opera. The game itself is a light pick up and deliver card game with a substantial luck element and a misguided view of how orbital mechanics work (but that only bothers me). I'd probably put it #4 above Innovation. It's cheap, quick to play, and not too intense. Unfortunately, it is only for two players.

To be honest, I've heard good things about most of the Kosmos 2-player line, but this is the only one I've played myself.

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Lutheran?

2011-07-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

I must, reluctantly, draw some attention to this asinine headline:

Michele Bachmann's Church Says the Pope Is the Antichrist

And respond with two points:

1) As noted in the article (buried deeply in the text) Bachmann is no longer a member of the WELS congregation she once attended. What, if any, congregation she is currently a member of is unknown. So I am puzzled how the Wisconsin Synod is considered "her church."

2) Leaving that aside, the main point of this article seems to be that it is politically beyond the pale to be a confessional Lutheran. After all, the Smalcald Articles are pretty specific on the subject:

This teaching shows forcefully that the Pope is the very Antichrist, who has exalted himself above, and opposed himself against Christ because he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing, and is neither ordained nor commanded by God.

As was pointed out by a commenter, the existence of this story "is right up there with those vintage 1959/1960 stories that since John F. Kennedy was Catholic, as President he would take orders from the Pope."

As a Lutheran, I'm a bit puzzled that this position is controversial. We're friggin' Lutheran. Of course we have problems with the papacy! Asserting that this is somehow surprising and notable betrays a remarkable amount of historical ignorance.

(Headline stolen shamelessly from a response to the article over at getreligion.org. Thanks for the pointer, Karl!)

Links Roundup for 7/7/2011

2011-07-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

Here's another round of things I find amusing, engrossing, or appalling on the internet:

1) The law is being an ass in Australia. A ruling like this has the potential to kill the concept of telecommuting.

2) The bizarre story of a suicide attempt that ended with a kiss(?).

3) A doctor telling the tale of how she finds comfort in Grimm's fairy tales. They creep me out, personally.

4) Why you should never trust the government about a "temporary" tax. (If the 2008 "temporary stimulus" spending becoming the new baseline wasn't enough to convince you...)

5) "How I got a company to stop giving out our number as tech support." It's a riot!

6) A fascinating dialogue on cheating in higher education, between a professor and a dude who does others' homework for a living.

7) Apparently Uncle Sam is fining oil refineries for being unable to magic cellulosic ethanol into existence.

8) The only logical conclusion: "not only are Tampa’s children comically precious and vulnerable to suggestion, they also apparently can’t read."

9) Parametric cookie baking!

10) The funniest internet video I've seen in ages. If you click no other link here, click this one.

11) What if Sauron built with LEGO?

12) This reminds me of our honeymoon trip to Dollywood, except this video is far funnier.

Libertarianism and God

2011-07-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

When wandering about the internet, I seem to have stumbled across another instance where someone is declaring that libertarianism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible. As a man who considers himself both moderately libertarian and devoutly Christian, I'd like to take a moment to defend those of us who believe that they can be reconciled. First, I'll let the article in question state its objection:

In their book The Declaration of Independents, authors Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch argue for a Libertarian ethic based on the Declaration of Independence, a document they describe as “the most influential English-language formulation of liberty written during the 1700s” (ix). They focus on what they consider to be “the refreshing blast of radical Enlightenment thought contained within” the following “three dozen words” (ix):

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I was surprised that the authors would begin their defense of Libertarians by an appeal to this section of the Declaration that specifically links Inalienable rights” with a “Creator.” A Creator assumes the existence of God. The existence of God presupposes a law-giver, and yet Libertarians almost never reference God in defense of their worldview. They can’t and be consistent. It’s one thing to appeal to a Creator in defense of inalienable rights and the undefined “pursuit of happiness” to keep politicians from ruling our lives, but it’s another thing to ignore the Creator when it comes to moral particulars given that the Declaration also states that the He is “the Supreme Judge of the world.”

...

Once God is gone, everything becomes permissible and possible, whether it’s consented to or not.

While this is just an excerpt of a longer piece, I believe it to be a fair representation. The objection seems to boil down to the fact that the author can see no way to reconcile (1) not wishing for the state to ban certain things, and (2) the Bible clearly condemning many of those things as sinful. Also, the author seems to think that the absence of religious references in defense of libertarianism means that we libertarians know that they cannot be reconciled, and seek to conceal that knowledge.

Allow me to tackle the latter question first. Libertarianism, in general, is founded upon the principle that the liberty of the individual should be the primary value of a political system. Whether we believe that the "unalienable rights" of which such liberty is composed were bestowed by a benevolent deity, merely exist independently of the existence or nonexistence of any deities, or simply think it sounds like a pragmatic way to structure a society is immaterial. The source of the liberties is not the basis for the movement, so why bring it up? I believe, as a Lutheran, that the natural law from which our unalienable rights are derived was written on our hearts by the triune God of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But I would only piss off the atheists who share my political goals by bringing it up. So long as we agree on the route and the destination, I am not of a mind to complain about others' reasons for trying to get there.

But, the first question still remains - how do I reconcile my personal Christian beliefs with libertarianism? Specifically, why don't I want to ban sinful things? While I have several reasons, my primary two are merely pragmatic. First, I have a long list of things that I believe are sinful, and that good people ought not do. I believe that in the world that conforms with God's law, none of the things on that list would occur. Other people (e.g. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc) have very different lists of what does not conform with God's (or gods') law. They believe that their list is correct just as strongly as I believe mine is, and I do not believe any earthly authority is capable of justly adjudicating which list(s) are correct. As the price for being safe from a theocracy forcing me to live under Old Testament law or Sharia law, I am willing to also forego banning everything I think is sinful.

Second, and equally pragmatically I believe that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Accepting, arguendo, that we can all agree on what constitutes the perfect system of governance and all laws that are fully in accordance with God's law. I do not believe that any earthly person or system can be trusted to justly implement such a system (that would, of course, strive to ban all sinful actions). The more things the state is granted power over, the more opportunities we sinners have to bend others to our will using the mechanisms of the state. Any system that attempts to be perfectly just must be administered by people who are perfectly just. Therefore, I am again willing to accept a system wherein the state's ability to force people to act justly is reduced, in order to reduce the abuses that will inevitably befall those who do not control the levers of the state.

Finally, God has commanded us "do not judge, or you will be judged." In this fallen world, such a standard is impossible for a state to live up to while fulfilling its obligation to protect its citizens' rights. But that is where the state's obligations end. A state restricted to protecting our unalienable rights is what libertarians are striving for.

This is basically how I arrive where I do. I believe that this world and its people (including myself!) are deeply flawed and sinful, and cannot be trusted with the power that necessary to implement God's law, nor can we be trusted to determine it in the first place. If such is attempted systematically, it will inevitably fail in its aims, and in such a way as to make us wish the attempt had never been made. When it is attempted piecemeal, it does not fail so spectacularly because those who are abused as a result of any individual act or law are neither so numerous nor so prominent that the majority can be made to care.

Independence Day

2011-07-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

I'm reposting in full my meditation on part of the Declaration of Independence from last year. Enjoy some food for thought.

----------------------------------------------------

Nobody actually agrees with the Declaration of Independence anymore

Well, that's putting it a bit strongly, but saying "<20% of the American population agrees with the Declaration of Independence" doesn't have quite the same punch to it. Every July 4th, people intellectually genuflect in the direction of our founding documents, but nobody actually thinks about the meaning of these words:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

These words mean that, in principle, secession from a political state is both possible, and sometimes necessary. But mainstream opinion has it that secession from the USA is both unthinkable and immoral - tainted by association with the Confederacy's battle to preserve slavery. But if you take these words seriously, the Declaration of Independence implies that it should be possible for states to secede peacefully if the people no longer believe that the federal government is securing their "unalienable rights".

Some food for thought on your independence day.

Something tells me someone at Amazon...

2011-06-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

... has been watching too much HBO if they think #3 qualifies as Nonfiction:

Links Roundup for 6/11/2011

2011-06-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

Here we go again!

1) FDA Dietary Guidelines of the Past; or, When Butter was a Food Group.

2) A stop-motion short made with knitted figures.

3) It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it: mocking anyone using the term "chemical free".

4) Basic Instructions continues to be my favorite webcomic. Here's a classic for you.

5) A Softer World is still funny. (Bonus points if you catch the mouse-over text reference!)

Speaking of web-based humor, there now apparently exist two Doctor Who mashup blogs worth following:

6a) A Doctor World (based on A Softer World, as referenced above)

6b) Texts from the Tardis (combines Doctor Who screencaps with actual texts from Texts from Last Night). NOTE: very NSFW texts!

And now a bonus bunch of links I've already tossed up on twitter and/or facebook, but repeat here for people who didn't catch them that way:

7) If I had to choose a form of graffiti to support, I choose the one in red.

8) An amazing personal story of an ER doctor on duty in Joplin during the massive tornado.

9) Never mess with a Gurkha.

10) Muppet/Star Wars action figures exist? Awesome!

11) Guaranteed to be the cutest thing you've seen in ages: a little kid racing an otter at the zoo.

12) Finally, the only reasonable explanation for those infernal Star Wars prequels.

Doctor Grumpy

2011-06-06T18:31:00.001-07:00

I know I've pointed him out before, but Doctor Grumpy has been on a roll lately. Read him on:

Read it. All of it. The doc's hilarious!

Libya

2011-05-26T05:48:00.000-07:00

Well, the deadline for obtaining congressional approval under the War Powers Act has passed, and it is clear that our President doesn't give a crap that he currently has our military engaged in an illegal war with Libya. This pisses me off too much to speak reasonably. See here and here for more info/opinion.

This isn't about the war per se, it's about following the damn law. The President needs some form of congressional approval for a war within 60 days, or he has to remove the troops from the conflict. He's chosen instead to just pretend the law doesn't apply. And our pusillanimous Congress is too cowardly to call him out on it. Every time I think I'm too cynical about politics, stuff like this happens. Sigh...

Links Roundup for 5/25/2011

2011-05-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

More links! (Blogging while hiding in the bathroom due to another Tornado Warning. Welcome to the 21st century!)

1) An awesome slow-motion x-ray video of How Dogs Drink.

2) I love this list. I want it on a poster.

3) I want this age verification screen to be real so very much.

4) You really need to see the customer images for this toy. (via)

5) Best description of Disney EVER: (via)

[P]eople thought Walt Disney was crazy, and in fact, he was. He bought some orange groves and said, "I'm gonna make tourists from all over the world come here." He wanted to carpet part of it. The story is his wife had to talk him out of it.

After that succeeded, he set up a secret cluster of fronts/companies and secretly bought huge tracts of uninhabitable, gator-infested swampland in Florida to do the same thing again, only bigger.

He hired engineers to build robot pirates. How does it get any cooler than robot pirates?! The original Pirates of the Caribbean (before they PC'd it up) was little more than a musical salute to rape and alcoholism, and we all bought into it as family entertainment.

6) A scathing attack on Capcom's DRM that locks out game owners while the PlayStation Network is down.

7) Best use of LEGOs ever? I report, you decide!

Amusing Links Roundup for 5/17/2011

2011-05-17T18:06:00.001-07:00

Another batch of amusing links for your consumption:

1) The name says it all - Shit My Students Write.

2) What if IKEA wrote the manuals for all of my favorite sci-fi gadgets?

3) How would one explain the Kindle to Dickens? Like this!

4) How to identify zombie types. Heh...

5) I can't remember if I've posted this before, but this is awesome: by deleting the final panel of Peanuts cartoons, they become illustrations of existential despair.

6) A hilariously NSFW video involving Michael Bolton hijacking a rap video.

7) Heh: Reasons Why You Might Want to Run for President.

8) I may not speak Hebrew, but this comic needs no translation.

Links Roundup for 5/5/2011

2011-05-05T15:58:00.001-07:00

Another round of tab-clogging goodness from around the internet:

1) More cool art-photography style GIFs.

2) Caustically "honest" versions of corporate logos.

3) The most unsettling thing I've ever seen on the web.

4) Abandoned Yugoslavian monuments. It looks like some crazy depopulated dystopian future.

5) Why Chrysler's announcement of paying back the Federal loans isn't all it appears to be. (Hint: they had about $4 billion forgiven or discharged in the bankruptcy.)

6) Fighting the TSA "freedom grope" by making the pat down process as awkward as possible. The soundtrack makes it even better.

Links Roundup for 4/25/2011

2011-04-25T06:01:00.000-07:00

Another batch of fascinating/irritating/brilliant links from around the web.

1) A great video illustration of why people who are vociferously anti-vaccination are total morons. (NSFW language in video at link.)

2) Empire Strikes Back retold in icons.

3) The story of how two random Celtics fans became busom buddies with Kendrick Perkins. Odd.

4) A counterintuitive discourse on password security.

5) Dueling pricing algorithms drive fly genetics book price through roof on Amazon.

6) A thought experiment on running supermarkets like we run public education.

7) Applying the economic way of thinking to analyze the Imperial strategy embodied in the Death Star.

8) This story makes California labor law sound even more screwed up than I thought it was.

9) A brilliant set of GIFs. Seriously, you need to see these.

Economic Nonsense

2011-04-22T07:56:00.001-07:00

While listening to the radio yesterday, I heard that the local city bus corporation is installing wind turbines at its administrative HQ. From the story:

A $2.18 million federal grant to the Greater Lafayette Public Transportation Corp., which does business as CityBus, is funding the project. The money is part of a federal program aimed at reducing emissions from public transit providers.

Once fully operational, Sennett expects the turbines will cut electrical costs by $30,000 to $40,000 per year.

In addition, up to $250,000 in revenue could come from selling tax credits associated with the project, Sennett said.

According to the local NPR affiliate, the money is some form of federal stimulus funds. Let us assume that these numbers are correct.

Under the most optimistic of all possible assumptions: the turbines save $40K per year, and the $250K is realized immediately upon completion (essentially lowering the overall investment to $1.93 million). The annual return on investment is 2.07%.
Under a more realistic set of assumptions: the $250K is meaningless, as selling tax credits is not a truly value-producing activity; the power generated saves $30K per year. The annual return on investment is 1.38%.

You can get better rates of return off a 5-year CD at the local bank. Add in the fact that these calculations assume that (a) the turbines require no maintenance, and (b) last forever, and you begin to see how idiotic this is. If one factored in capital depreciation (as the turbines deteriorate over time just like a car) it would become even clearer that this is an asinine endeavor. This is what our tax money is paying for? I want a refund.

But the Fifth One...

2011-04-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

I just started watching Babylon 5 (via Netflix streaming), which I remember fondly from my childhood (I was 10 or so when it started). I couldn't help but notice an amusing parallel. Read this description of the Babylon project:

The Babylon Project began in 2248 after the resolution of the Earth-Minbari War, the war itself and it's start being inspiration for the projects foundations. The Babylon 1 was the first of the Babylon Stations, and was being constructed by the Earth Alliance when it's infrastructure collapsed due to sabotage. Babylon 2 began shortly after, and was also destroyed during construction when it exploded due to sabotage. A third attempt at the Babylon Project, Babylon 3 had also been sabotaged, and exploded during construction as Babylons 1 and 2. Finally, Babylon 4 was constructed and brought online in 2254 when it disappeared a mere twenty four hours later. The last of the Babylon Stations, Babylon 5 was constructed and placed into orbit of Epsilon III, thanks to the substantial assistance from the Centauri Republic and the Minbari Federation. Babylon 5 came online in 2257 and ultimately served it's purpose, being decomissioned in 2281, effectively ending the Babylon Project; there was never another Babylon Station.

Then watch this:

Coincidence? I think not!

Twitterbot

2011-04-12T07:20:00.000-07:00

Via Shamus, I have discovered a hilarious website that combs through your Twitter Feed and mashes it up to form new tweets: That Can Be My Next Tweet! Some samples of what it thinks my next tweet should be:

Fondant isn't a warm fuzzy: Crap.

Bah.

Awesome hashtag of those at the Katanas: Time to do something detrimental to learn the riskiness of Erik?

My wife and poor education are intimately tied up with FedEx.

Did the time. GAH!

Drug-sniffing dogs: not quite performing the Econtalk podcast. Good grief I'm hoping to learn the chaos?

And my personal favorite pair:

I need a tensorial compliance matrix in NY.

RE cats: I need a culinary abomination.

Links Roundup for 4/4/2011

2011-04-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I did a links roundup, but my browser may crash if I don't offload a few soon.

1) Computational Complexity profiles a bizarre voting scheme, and asks (and answers) the question:

Which of the following is true?
This is a real scheme that was really used.
This scheme was part of a BREAKTHROUGH!!!! result.
This scheme is a counterexample to a conjecture about voting schemes.
This scheme (with parameters) is an example of a voting scheme that is NP-hard to manipulate.

The answer is fascinating.

2) I kind of want one of these cutting boards. Is that a bad thing?

3) Using (and/or abusing) the "special request" box when ordering Domino's online. (via The Consumerist)

4) CBS News runs a segment on modern board gaming. It's all kind of old hat to me, but as a somewhat avid board gamer, I'm glad to see the hobby getting some additional exposure. (One question, though - whence the GenCon footage? GenCon is in early August, so have they really been sitting on this segment for nine months?)

5) Gang fight with a gimmick - to tell would be to spoil it. (via Borepatch)

Challenge?

2011-03-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

I see over on the Al-Dente blog (via Insty) that there is a "Hunger Action Challenge" which challenges one to:

Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner spending only $7 ($12 for two, $18 for three, and $22 for four) per day.
Salt and pepper don't count but all other seasonings, cooking oils, condiments, snacks, drinks, and everything else do.
Don't use food you already own.
Don't accept food from family, friends, coworkers and others. Not even the free samples from Costco!
Try to include fresh produce and healthy protein each day.

(I have highlighted the family-of-two cost, as it is just my wife and I.)

Now, let me introduce you to our new, recently spiffied-up monthly food budget (now with more money and new fruit and veggie category!):

General Groceries: $192.50

Fruits and Veggies: $55.00

Coffee: $7.00

Alcohol: $7.00

Date Night: $25.00

If you include the maximum of $50 or so of our respective fun money that ends up going to Starbucks, McDonald's, or subsidizing a date night in a given month, we have a total of $336.50, or $11.22 per day for a 30 day month.

I hereby declare victory over this not-particularly-challenging challenge.

If my wife and I can manage to eat what we believe to be a balanced diet, complete with dinner at Outback and a few fast food runs, on less than the maximum food stamp benefit for a family of two, it would seem that hunger just isn't that big of a problem. This challenge has backfired - I'm more skeptical than I was going into thinking about it!

I realize that I live in a fairly low-food-cost area here in Indiana, but all it takes is skipping date night and fast food, and all of a sudden the food budget stretches much farther. What am I missing here?

Bullying

2011-03-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

Patrick over at Popehat points me toward a video that's got the internet all atwitter (I've since seen it pop up through two other unrelated blogs). This video shows a kid getting bullied. The bully throws no less than four punches, at which point the kid on the receiving end decided he wasn't going to take it any more and bodyslams the much smaller bully, probably breaking his ankle in the process. It appears that according to the newsies I'm supposed to be disturbed. As someone who spent years of my life receiving similar abuse, all I can find it in myself to do is cheer - the little twerp had it coming.

Schools as currently run do little to nothing to stop bullying, and I'm not sure that there is much they really can do. If we expect the school administration to come down hard on any suspected bullying, they'll inevitably be conned into punishing kids who have done nothing. The current accepted method of waiting until the bullying escalates into full-on "fight" and then punishing all participating parties, however, is asinine. The only way it becomes a "fight" is if the bullied kid defends himself. That's how I got detention several times in sixth grade - I wasn't about to let myself get pummeled. Unfortunately, I don't have a better idea for how schools should handle it.

On the other hand, I do know that the best way to stop bullying is for the bullied kid to defend himself in a way that scares the pants off the bully. I never found myself forced to fight hard enough to do lasting damage to the bullies (unlike the kid in the video). But I did find that my life in junior high got a lot easier after I pinned one little shit of a bully to the wall of the locker room by his throat and explained to him that I was sick of his crap; I didn't actually hurt him, but I did demonstrate that I was both capable and willing to do so if he continued.

Libya

2011-03-18T06:38:00.000-07:00

I'm very confused about current calls for US and/or European military intervention in Libya. Didn't our last military intervention against a third-world autocrat end badly? And lead to about a bajillion protests? What makes this different?

Not the reference they were going for...

2011-03-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

Going to ESPN.com, I find the headline on the main page to be as follows:

His Pen Is Mighty

Screenshot:

Has nobody on their copyediting staff seen SNL celebrity Jeopardy? *snicker*

Police Encounter

2011-03-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

I find myself wondering why, in the only two occasions I have had interactions with local police in their official capacity, they have been total assholes. This is the story of the most recent interaction.

Today, the parking lot I typically use on campus had the overwhelming majority of it marked off with cones, and a squad car driving slowly within that area. I pulled into that parking lot and began driving around the outside of the coned area toward the area at one end where I could see several cars parked.

As I drove along the narrow strip left between the cones and the edge of the parking lot, the squad car rolled up from the other direction. I rolled down my window, with the intent to ask where or if I was allowed to park in the lot. The officer, without waiting for me to say a word, proceeded to berate me, asking rhetorically "Didn't you see all the cones and the squad car?" He then proceeded to both call me an "idiot" and tell me to "turn your brain on." He continued, declaring that I should have used a very specific lot entrance (where the other cars were), even though there were no signs declaring such, nor were there any indications that the entrance I did use was intended to be closed. (It's not like they had a shortage of cones to close entrances with.)

I received this verbal abuse despite the fact that at no point had I crossed a line marked out by any cones, nor had I been anything but respectful to the officer. I think from now on I will cease calling police officers "sir" by default, since they clearly feel no duty to be respectful to me. I know a few individual officers who are great people, but I'm getting a bit jaded on the population as a whole.

To the unknown officer I unfortunately met at noon today: You are an asshole, and you have greatly diminished the respect I have for people in your profession. If you want civilians to cooperate with police at any time in the future, it may behoove you to at least be civil to us. Being an ass is only undermining your own authority.

To the Purdue University Police Department: I can only assume that Officer Asshole is one of yours. Please discuss with him the virtues of attempting to model respect and professionalism in interactions with civilians, which help to bolster rather than undermine the authority of police everywhere.

Statistics: How not to use them

2011-03-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

Two recent articles on how statistics can be (mis)used to mislead people about the thing being discussed. This really gets at the heart of one of my pet peeves about news: just because you can toss a number, ratio, or percentage out does not make it helpful to understanding the issue in question.*

Here are two cases in which statistics may actively obscures the issue:

1) A general post on When is an Average Not an Average? It does a great job pointing out why averages don't actually mean anything in a large number of situations.

2) A much more controversial post, wherein the author looks deeply at a statistic that failed the sniff test, and discusses the statistical implications of the fact that concentration of the incidence within a small group distorts the statistic being applied to the entire population.

Interesting to the math geek in me.

*On a related note, a group of grad students I took a Finite Element Theory class with had a running joke that the analyses the presenters showed us had to be right because they had pretty color pictures of the results. The implication of course being that no matter how pretty the analysis/picture/statistic looks, it's only as good as the foundational assumptions on which it is built. Having a number/picture/whatever does not make the analysis correct. Different point, but related.

War on Babies/Women

2011-02-27T16:51:00.000-08:00

I'm seeing a lot of chatter on facebook from people who are questioning the GOP-proposed cuts in child-care funding and their move to deny federal funds to Planned Parenthood (and doing so in very inflammatory terms, as in this post title). My response can be succinctly provided by the wonderful Frederic Bastiat (substitute "liberal" for "socialist" and the shoe fits in this case - it was written in the 19th century):

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

The only reason that this appears to conflict with a pro-life position (e.g. the argument that Republicans are pro-life but anti-baby/woman) is that you do not share my priors. Not wanting the state to do something does not mean disapproval of the thing being done by someone else.

Twitter

2011-02-24T11:41:00.001-08:00

I seem to have channeled my blogging energy into Twitter of late. Feel free to follow me at @random_scrub.

Why being a libertarian is depressing

2011-01-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

I turn this over to Radley Balko:

And you thought libertarians were being hyperbolic when we said the same logic behind the Four Loko ban would soon have regulators and Nanny Statists gunning for Irish coffee. Well... away we go.

Depressing

2011-01-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

I agree with what Ken has to say here, particularly with respect to how "the story inspires a white-hot impotent fury that would leave me unable to write anything but a string of epithets," which is why I've not blogged more than a mention before. Just go read what Ken has to say on the subject, and suffice it to say that this crap is the main reason I oppose the war on drugs: there's far more collateral damage to people's lives and liberty than can possibly be justified by any good denying people recreational drugs can do.

More Reasons to Hate the United States Postal Service

2011-01-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

I put a hold on my mail while visiting the in-laws for Christmas, and needed to pick up the accumulated mail today. Here is what I found out:

1) They still delivered some of my mail while I was gone. So they can't properly implement a hold on my mail.

2) I tried to call the local post office this morning to make sure that this specific location was the one holding my mail. Hours that they are open: 7:30 AM to 7:00 PM. Hours anyone will answer the damn phone: 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. WTF? All I got was a recording at 8:30 this morning, and was forced to call the national 1-800 number.

3) Picking up the mail was easy enough, but just now going through it, I found six pieces of mail addressed to five different addresses that are not even remotely similar to mine. Given that two of them are medical-insurance related, I'm betting I have everything I need to steal two different identities here if I were so inclined. So when stopping my mail, they mucked up the mail of a bunch of other people as well.

There's no way this level of incompetence and/or disregard for customer service would be tolerated from a private service like FedEx or UPS.

Three Great Videos That Are Essentially Unrelated

2010-12-17T06:42:00.000-08:00

1) How the internet works, for the non-techie layman:

2) A hilarious/disturbing reinterpretation; Mario meets Boondock Saints. The Brothers Mario: Thug Life: (via)

3) What Happens when an Alligator Bites an Electric Eel?

Words Cannot Convey the Sheer Quantity of Awesome

2010-12-10T09:01:00.000-08:00

... that is in this video. Behold, the LEGO Antikythera Mechanism:

UPDATE: And of course, I forgot to give proper credit to SB7 for pointing this out. Oops...

Mini-Reviews: Board and Card Games

2010-11-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year when I'm generally struggling to figure out what to buy my friends and family for Christmas. Given that I've recently been playing a lot of new (to me) board and card games, and also given that many of my friends enjoy them as well, I thought I'd post a brief rundown of what I think. Maybe this will give you a gift idea for someone on your list.

(List ordered by how much I personally like the games)

Great Games:

1) Small World: Covered briefly here. Finally a wargame everyone can enjoy! Players control fantasy civilizations with racial powers and randomly assigned special powers, and compete to conquer and hold the most territory for the longest time (the number of turns is fixed). When your current civilization inevitably grows overextended, you can tip your current one into decline and come back with a new one next turn. This mechanic means that no player is ever really out of it, as they can always abandon ship and hope for better luck with their next go-round. The theme and artwork are both fun and whimsical (with race/power combos like "Flying Halflings," "Seafaring Trolls," and "Merchant Amazons"), and the mechanics are simple enough to grasp that a bright 8-year old could play with a little help explaining the rules. This game is mediocre with 2 players, good with 3, and an absolute blast with 4-5 players. The game possesses a unique map for each number of players to ensure that you're cramped enough to force direct conflict. Currently my favorite game for 4-5 players.

2) Pandemic: This gem is a cooperative game where players are working together against the game to save the planet from four diseases that have broken out across the world. A theme everybody can approve of! Players must efficiently and effectively treat cases of diseases that spring up each turn, trying to keep them in check long enough to win by discovering the cures for all four. Each player is randomly assigned a role which comes with its own special ability, which lends the game a lot of variety. The rules are probably complex enough to take a single "practice" game to grasp if no one has played before, but it is well worth the effort. The game works has several difficulty settings, but is plenty challenging on Easy to keep me entertained. Pandemic is for 2-4 players, and works great as a two-player game. The more players you add, the harder the game gets on a given difficulty setting, so sometimes 4 players is a bit tough. With the addition of the On the Brink expansion, you get a bunch more roles, rules for a 5th player, and three game variants that can lend the base Pandemic almost infinite variety (including a bio-terrorist challenge that pits one player against the rest). Also, the expansion comes with petri dishes to store the pieces, which is just thematically awesome. Currently my favorite 2-3 player board game. (My wife would probably rank Pandemic #1, or possibly #2.)

3) Race for the Galaxy: This is a few years old, but I just discovered it this summer. In this quick-playing card game for 2-4 players, players compete indirectly to build the biggest, baddest interstellar empire on the galactic block. It takes only 20-30 minutes to play, but still manages to give an epic empire-building feel. The strategic depth is astounding; I've played it something like 200 times, and I still keep coming back for more. There are two downsides. The first downside is that the game is complicated. The very compact iconography on the cards is almost impenetrable to new players, and has little text to explain it without using the reference sheet. Also, the turn-phase choosing mechanic means that only some parts of the turn happen each round, depending on what the players choose. This is strange and hard to grasp at first. The second downside is that the learning curve is incredibly steep; it took me ~10 plays to really get the game, and decent strategy depends on knowing all the cards decently well. If you're geeky and/or dedicated enough to make it past these barriers to entry, you'll be rewarded with a game that manages the feat of being fun, strategically deep, and quick to play - an almost unheard-of combination. Currently my favorite card game for 2-3 players. Note: the first expansion, The Gathering Storm, is almost a necessary purchase to "fix" the base game - it includes a few cards that increase the viability of strategies that were very hard to pull off in the base game, as well as rules and cards for adding a fifth player, and a goal-based variant. The rest you can take or leave, depending on how much you like the game. You can find a free computerized AI implementation here (recommended, but the AIs are hard).

4) Dominion: This card game beat out Pandemic (above) for the prestigious 2009 Spiel des Jahres award. In this game, players are feudal lords of a few small estates, scheming to enlarge and enrich their respective "Dominions" by whatever means possible. Each player starts with a deck of ten cards containing three estates and seven coppers. During gameplay, players have the opportunity to purchase from 10 different piles of kingdom cards, which contain things like moats, smithies, markets, thieves, or witches. When cards are purchased, they go directly to the player's discard pile, and then eventually get shuffled into their deck. They can also purchase copper, silver, and gold (which are later used to purchase bigger/better things) or they can go straight for purchasing estates, duchies, and provinces, each of which is worth victory points. The game ends when three stacks of cards (or the stack of Provinces) run out, and the player whose deck has the most VPs wins. Since the game comes with 25 stacks kingdom cards, of which only 10 are used each game, the replayability is excellent. This game is fairly light and plays quickly, but is a great deal of fun. Simple enough that just about anybody can play, but deep enough to be fun for everybody. This game works for 2-4 players, and work well (if differently) with any of those numbers. There are many expansions available; none of them are necessary to enjoy the game, but if you like Dominion, you'll probably want to pick one or two up eventually. (This is the game that would probably vie with Pandemic for my wife's #1 game.)

5) Battlestar Galactica: This game is one for the super-geeky. The gameplay is complex, the rules are challenging to grasp, takes 3 hours to play, and the gameplay is almost too open-ended in the early game. But... it's a load of fun in a group of 4-6 players. I've never seen the show, so that's not a huge barrier to enjoying the game. The players are cooperating against the game to survive Cylon attacks and jump the Galactica to a new, safe home. Except that one of the players is a traitorous Cylon infiltrator! Each player is a unique character from the show with their own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities. In the right group, this game is a load of fun; in the wrong one, it will crash and burn right out of the box.

Good Games:

6) Tobago: While I enjoy this game, it looked from the outside like it would be more fun than it really is. Players take on the role of treasure hunters on a mysterious island. By piecing together treasure map cards, treasures are located and brought up. The player who ends the game with the most loot wins. The treasure-locating works by players playing cards into treasure maps. Each card contains a logical assertion about the location of the treasure (e.g. not in jungle, within one hex of the beach, or within sight of a palm tree). For each card a player plays into a map, they will recieve one share of that treasure. The player who gets their Jeep to the treasures location and actually retrieves it gets an additional share. Then the treasure is distrubuted. Each player gets to look at a number of treasure cards (each worth 2-6 coins) from the deck equal to their shares, and then these are shuffled with one additional unseen one. They are then revealed one at a time and players are given chances to claim it based on when they added cards to the map. But watch out for the curse cards! If one comes up, the rest of the loot vanishes, and anyone with any claims left loses the highest-value treasure card they already had! Additionally, magical amulets appear periodically around the island, which can be used to protect against curses, gain extra turns, and other things. This game is nominally for 2-4 players, but is pretty boring with only 2. The modular board and mobile landmarks means that it can have essentially infinite configurations, and the components are positively outstanding. Tobago is an enjoyable game, but it's just not quite as good as those in the first category.

7) Dungeons and Dragons: Castle Ravenloft: This is a cooperative board game where players take on the role of a D&D adventuring party and are given a scenario (e.g. "find out what's causing the chaotic magic that's ruining the town and fix it", "escape the dungeon", or "kill the dracolich"). As players explore the crypts beneath Castle Ravenloft, they encounter monsters, traps, and magical items. The monsters and traps each have specific "programming" that they follow, which obviates the need for someone to control the monsters/traps/etc. I find it entertaining, but it certainly won't be to everyone's tastes. I suspect that any teenage boy with a working imagination would find this one fun, as it is mainly based around tactical combat using a very simple d20 system. The game is listed as for 1-5 players, and though I've only gotten a chance to play it solo thus far, I suspect it will work best for 2-4 players. It comes with 12 or so scenarios, and one can find a whole slew of additional fan-created ones online. The plastic minis the game uses are fun, but they are unpainted monochrome figures, so it's not the most visually appealing.

8) Aquarius: This is a very simple card game from Looney Labs (the makers of Fluxx). This is actually intended to be a family game, and comes with simplified rules that claim to be playable for children as young as 3 years old. This is a card-laying game where each player is tasked with assembling a group a seven connected cards containing the element that is their secret goal. There are also some cards which let you rearrange the current layout, swap goals, etc. This game plays in 20 minutes tops among adults, and is surprisingly fun for gamers and non-gamers alike. The artwork is cute, and has a bit of a hippie flower-power theme to amuse the adults. For the price (about $12 on Amazon), it's highly recommended. For 2-5 players.

Mediocre Games:

9) Chrononauts: In this time-travel themed game for 2-6 players (also from Looney Labs), players are trapped in our timeline and struggling to return to their own by rearranging events to come out the way they "should" have happened. The "board" is a 4 x 8 grid of cards composed of linchpins and ripplepoints. If a player flips a linchpin to its alternate outcome, the related ripplepoints become paradoxes, which can then be patched with their own alternate outcome cards. For example, one can flip the 1936 linchpin card, and Hitler gets assassinated at the Berlin Olympics, which then paradoxes the 1939, 1942, 1944, 1945 ripplepoints related to the European theater of WWII and the 1948 ripplepoint - the foundation of Israel; then a player can play a patch on 1945 wherein instead of dropping A-bombs, the Allies invade the Japanese home islands. But watch out for the unpatched paradoxes - too many paradoxes will cause the universe itself to unravel and everyone loses! Players also have missions to collect some tongue-in-cheek artifacts while traveling through time, like a Betamax Video of the Creation of the Universe, a Sports Almanac from the Future, or a Beatles Reunion CD (only playable if Lennon wasn't assassinated). A player can win by restoring their "home" timeline or by collecting their set of 3 artifacts. I love the theme, but the game just doesn't quite do it for me for some reason. I think it's just a bit too slow-paced for my taste. They've just released a reworking of the game which licensed the Back to the Future movies for the theme, and it's supposed to be better, so I may have to give that a shot.

10) Infernal Contraption: This game is fun, but for me the shine has worn off, revealing some deep flaws. Designed for 2-4 players, the players take on the role of goblins attempting to build the best kludged-together machine from whatever parts they can find. These parts remove cards from your opponent's deck and/or hand, add cards to your deck, or mess with your opponent's machine. The last player with any cards left in his deck wins. The mechanics of playing cards into the machine and needing to match part connectors, and keep devices powered are a blast, and I love the theme. Unfortunately, the game is far too spiteful for my taste in group play, as it's very susceptible to ganging-up issues. Also, one of the cards is ludicrously overpowered. With this lack of balance, I can only endorse it as a two-player game, with a couple house rules to help balance it.

Repeal Amendment

2010-11-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

Looks like the Repeal Amendment may be getting some (a little) traction:

The Repeal Amendment calls for allowing states to band together to repeal, or overturn, federal legislation. As it is written now, if approved and ratified, two-thirds of states’ legislatures would need to vote in favor of a repeal.

The proposed amendment reads: “Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”

I'm in favor, as it would help restore the role of the states as a check on the federal government that was lost with the passage of the 17th amendment.

Dear Airlines

2010-11-18T06:40:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts I left in the comments here:

Dear Airlines:

You may have noticed I've been avoiding you lately. True, we didn't see each other all that often to start with, but ever since that TSA you hang out with started getting paranoid over smelly sneakers and bottled water, I've found your attitude more than just a little bit degrading. Now that I hear that TSA is forcing anyone who wants to travel with you to be either (a) frisked or (b) seen naked, you'll be seeing even less of me. Or, well, at least seeing me less often.

Sure, I'll still need to fly occasionally. Traveling between Indiana and California just isn't practical without your help. But do you really think I'll put up with that crap just to shave three hours off my travel time? My dignity is worth more than that. For any travel that can be driven in less than twelve hours, we're through. I'd already had that set at nine hours due to your inability to get planes to their destinations on time, the extreme discomfort of your tiny seat space, and the general annoyance of being treated like sentient cattle. But was it really necessary to let that TSA jerk compound the problem?

So yeah. Visiting those friends on the east coast? Driving. Seeing my family in Minnesota? Driving. I just don't need you that badly.

But Airlines, let me know if you ever decide to ditch that TSA punk whose been forcing this on you and your friends, let me know. Traveling with you isn't all that pleasant without that TSA crap, but it is fast and convenient relative to the alternatives. But like I said before, retaining a little dignity is worth the inconvenience. Traveling with you is just not worth being treated like this.

History Education

2010-11-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

On a sort of related note to that last post, A Call to Wings has a truly glorious rant about the state of history education (which I can very much relate to). Here are a few choice bits, but you really should go read it all:

Will you kindly explain to me why I had to go look up what "crossing the Rubicon" meant on my own, and it was well over a decade after I gained the franchise before I even knew why that might be significant to my vote? Or maybe why I was over thirty before I even heard of the Grachhi, despite a so-called liberal arts education? Why Cincinattus and Cromwell were dusty names without meaning?

No. Wait. Perhaps a better question is why in hell are there youTube videos explaining what a republic even is that are aimed at American adults?

...

No... I'm pissed at my educators. There have been a few good ones here and there, especially in the classroom itself. But the ones designing the curriculum? The ones who said "okay, you're eighteen and breathing, go out and Make a Difference."

*blink*

Good God - I feel like you handed me a bottle of 'shine and the car keys and said have fun.

...

And Mr. and Mrs. School Administrator?
Yeah, you with the curriculum sheet? You know that quote you were always telling me, about the German guy saying "no... the American Hitler will look like John Wayne?"

I'd just like you to know, when that guy shows up? Yeah. He's there because you didn't do your damn job, and thought "Civics" was the dummy class to be squeezed in between gym and the pep rally - to say nothing of you undergrad profs spending more time apologizing for Western Civ to us than actually explaining it.

Like I said, a glorious rant. (With an equally awesome subject line reference.)

Weep, because these people vote

2010-11-02T06:42:00.000-07:00

This video makes me want to cry:

(via TJIC)

Thriller House

2010-10-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

Via SB7, the greatest Halloween video EVER:

Links Roundup for 10/22/2010

2010-10-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

1) Earth and moon as seen from Mercury: A Double Planet.

2) What if Superheroes were hipsters?

3) 20 year old becomes police chief in Mexican city - because nobody else wanted the job.

4) Why I'm skeptical of the social contract theory of government.

5) This video is one of the best defenses of anonymous political speech you can get in 45 seconds.

6) If you do this in an email, I hate you.

7) The perils of miscommunication, in humorous video form.

8) An amusing song about Civilization.

9) The revenge of Little Bobby Tables.

10) Thoughts on the breakdown of cultural norms.

11) The Obama administration, as a text adventure.

More Irony!

2010-10-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

Union jobs edition:

Postal Union Election Delayed After Ballots Lost in the Mail

LOL!

(via)

Political Phrase of the Week

2010-10-06T09:25:00.001-07:00

Incumbents delenda est.

Ha!

Your Daily WTF for 10/01/2010

2010-10-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

Phrase of the day: Barely Legal Sea Bass.

Irony, defined

2010-09-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

Segway CEO dies in Segway Crash

Amusing Links

2010-09-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

1) Phil, this one's for you: a music video about "squirrel rights."

2) Why you should read Science Fiction.

3) Selling knockoff ShamWows at a flea market, a hilarious Bazaar of Despair.

4) Awesome rant complaining about the existence of the penny. I agree.

5) Hyperbole and a Half: a great webcomic.

6) This also is a funny blog. I envy his ability to deadpan preposterous conversations like this one.

7) My inner Star Trek geek loves this pun.

8) I find this baffling, mysterious, and somehow mesmerizing.

Small World Game Review

2010-09-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

I was going to post a review of Small World, but Geek Insight over at GFBR did the job better than I could.

Just allow me to add my endorsement: Small World has recently become my favorite board game for 3-5 players (it's okay with 2, but less fun than with more players). Try it!

2010-09-22T09:42:00.001-07:00

Brilliant.

Another reason to love football

2010-09-07T11:32:00.000-07:00

Ha! I love TMQ:

Note: During the preseason, TMQ uses "vanilla" items designed to confuse scouts from other sports columns. Beginning next week, I will come at readers from all directions with multiple-adjective sets and unorthodox grammatical structures.

Also, The Onion has published today their hysterical team-by-team preview for the NFL. Highlights:

St. Louis Rams:
Weakness: Battle for the quarterback position seems to be heating up, as neither starter A.J. Feely nor first overall draft pick Sam Bradford wants to be blamed for the upcoming 2-14 season

San Francisco 49ers
Player To Watch: Veteran Brian Westbrook is always a threat to explode into a cloud of ligaments and bone

Minnesota Vikings
Biggest Question: The Vikings still have many unanswered questions in the secondary, such as "What's a cornerback?" and "Who was supposed to cover that guy?"

Houston Texans
Intangibles: None, as the Texans continue to be a manifestly corporeal team

It's only slightly marred by being preemptively obsolete as Leinart was cut by the Cards and signed by the Texans over the weekend, but makes an appearance in their Cardinals preview.

Your Daily WTF for 8/30/2010: World Leaders Edition

2010-08-30T17:52:00.001-07:00

1) Hipster Hitler

2) Obama Humor

3) Kim Jong Il + Monty Python = WTF

Silly Japan

2010-08-18T05:08:00.001-07:00

Heh. Japan discovers that many of its supposed centenarians have disappeared or been dead for years (while their kids keep collecting their pensions):

[P]olice found the body of a man thought to be one of Japan’s oldest, at 111 years, mummified in his bed, dead for more than three decades. His daughter, now 81, hid his death to continue collecting his monthly pension payments, the police said.

...

In a more typical case that took place just blocks from the Mr. Kato’s house, relatives of a man listed as 103 years old said he had left home 38 years ago and never returned. The man’s son, now 73, told officials that he continued to collect his father’s pension “in case he returned one day.”

Three Music Jokes in Video Form

2010-08-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

First, a lovely rant on Pachelbel's Canon in D. Being a cellist, I can relate.

Second, a demonstration of all pop songs being basically musically identical.

Finally, a Sesame Street version of Let it Be.

Link Roundup for 8/11/2010

2010-08-11T05:50:00.000-07:00

A list of interesting things that I need to clear out of my browser tabs:

1) Woman with whiteboard quits job in hilarious fashion.

2) Ridiculous, funny, and surprisingly apt: an analysis of US party politics through Starcraft.

3) I don't know if this describes American culture, but it certainly describes me.

4) Bad pun, but so funny.

5) Further proof that governments are filled with compulsive liars.

6) Add this to my list of reasons to never get an iPhone. Creepy!

7) I can't really figure out why this wasn't a more common reaction to the health inspectors shutting down a 7 year old's lemonade stand:

Are you gratified by the apology? Or are you wondering why, if it’s clearly bullshit to shake down a 7-year-old girl for $120, it’s somehow acceptable to shake down “a grown up selling burritos out of a cart” for $120?

8) This makes me very happy. I may not approve of the lifestyle, but awkward neighbors is part of the cost of living in an open society. Also, this is a great way to put that "building bridges" and "cultural understanding" into practice.

9) Further evidence that Congress is filled with idiots:

It appears that our friendly Senators were in such a rush to get this bill through that they forgot to name it. Jim Harper noticed this when the bill showed up as the oddly named The XXXXXXAct ofXXXX on his always excellent WashingtonWatch site. Apparently, the Library of Congress' Thomas reporting system converted the underscores into X's. And, yes, even The Congressional Record (pdf) notes that "This Act may be cited as the "_______Act of______".

In the words of Instapundit, "Forget reading the bills, now they're not even naming them.

10) Insight into why businesses aren't hiring - fears of increasing liabilities to the government's capricious taxation power play a large role:

A life in business is filled with uncertainties, but I can be quite sure that every time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government's message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.

11) Finally, flash opera in Philly:

Ugh

2010-08-04T10:42:00.001-07:00

File this under "Why I don't think the ADA is all it's cracked up to be."

Exhibit A: "The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that customers in wheelchairs are being denied the full "Chipotle experience" of watching their food being prepared because Chipotle's 45-inch counters are too high."

Exhibit B: "Did you know the Justice Department threatened several universities with legal action because they took part in an experimental program to allow students to use the Amazon Kindle for textbooks?"

No, I don't hate disabled people. Please don't go there. I just think that these things aren't proper fodder for the legal process. Public shaming and boycotting of companies is in my opinion a far better solution than lawsuits, and subject to far less abuse.

Link Roundup for 8/4/2010

2010-08-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

Clearing many random browser tabs for your enjoyment:

1) Ouch... How not to use a table saw: a tale told through a series of stock photos...

2) Tickling my Roman history itch, archaeologists appear to have discovered the biggest canal ever built by Rome (which appears to make their massive grain imports make a lot more logistic sense).

3) Cool/creepy photocomposites of sites with their WWII selves. It's an odd juxtaposition of modern civilian and older military that's a bit shocking for someone my age, who has never known that kind of all-encompassing war.

4) An amusing article on the phenomenon of Euro-style board games in the Financial Times (it's a couple weeks old, so sue me). I was amused to note I own all three of the pictured games, until I realized that they're the three most popular Eurogames of the last 15 years.

5) Amusing. Adorable. Clearly the product of a mother with too much time on her hands.

6) Add this to my list of reasons even constitutional monarchy is (or can be) a really stupid system.

Why I Don't Particularly Trust Police

2010-08-02T11:05:00.001-07:00

Because some are assholes willing to pull crap like this. Seriously - watch the video.

I fear that some police officers (much like most politicians) are attracted to the job because of the power it gives them over others. The responsibility for making sure they can't successfully abuse that power lies on their supervisors, the courts, and ultimately, the citizenry. All three seem to have been asleep at the wheel for a while now...

Funny, Harsh, and Probably True

2010-07-29T18:12:00.001-07:00

On America's disinterest in Shanghai's World Fair:

World’s fairs are designed for people from homogeneous cultures who are still impressed by electricity and foreigners. In 2010, that means the Chinese.

(via)

Your daily WTF for 07/27/2010

2010-07-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

Jane Austen's Fight Club:

(via)

You know you're a geek when...

2010-07-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

...you get the urge to pedantically correct the accuracy of the arms and armor of a Roman-military themed playmobil display.

Well, come on! The legionaries were all carrying sub-rectangular scuta, placing it in the early- to mid- imperial period (~ AD 0 to 300). Most of them were wearing the appropriate Gallic-style helms (well, minus cheek-guards), but a few were running about in what were clearly spangenhelms, which were never western Roman issue, and weren't even that popular outside central Asia until after the fall of the Empire. And then they had chariots in there? They were obsolete as anything other than a spectator sport by the time Rome was more than mud huts! And then, to top it off, one of the cavalry had a scutum strapped to his horse, which is just silly, as they were solely used by the Roman heavy infantry (a semi-cylinder that large would be impossible to use while mounted).

Normally I wouldn't be that irritated by this, but the photos I saw of this were apparently from a set used in a Roman ruins museum. So they should know better!

And yes, I do realize I'm silly to be irked by this at all, much less displaying it on the net for all to see. So sue me.

Heh.

2010-07-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

Watch this:

Now think for a sec.

Now watch this:

Brilliant!

Well, THAT was unexpected...

2010-07-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

Currently reading Kevin Roose's The Unlikely Disciple. File this one under "things I did not expect Jerry Falwell to say":

Listen up, students. Now, I made sure there were five thousand girls here on campus, and five thousand boys. I don't know how much more I can do. Folks, we need more Liberty babies for Christ. Let's get going!

--Jerry Falwell, addressing the students of Liberty University

I'll admit that one had me laughing aloud.

I'll have more comments later for anyone interested as a buddy and I read the book and post some discussion online. I'm only 1/4 of the way in, but it's good reading thus far, and relatively fair to the people involved. Three cheers for promo copies!

Link Roundup

2010-07-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

Just a bunch of interesting things I've seen on the web lately:

1) Via TJIC, a video with truly impressive special effects: Guns don't kill people, cardboard kills people!

2) Woot turns the tables on the AP in hilarious fashion. Excellent!

3) Via Radley Balko, an excellently silly video combining Star Wars and dogs.

4) I can barely believe this exists.

5) Via SB7, this video is so hilarious I almost fell out of my chair!

6) These two photos pretty much sum up my reaction to World Cup soccer:

7) Soylent green is FAIL!

8) This facebook post is sufficient to make anyone come down against welfare.

Nobody actualy agrees with the Declaration of Independence anymore

2010-07-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

Well, that's putting it a bit strongly, but saying "<20% of the American population agrees with the Declaration of Independence" doesn't have quite the same punch to it.

Every July 4th, people intellectually genuflect in the direction of our founding documents, but nobody actually thinks about the meaning of these words:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

World Cup Soccer

2010-06-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

After having watched a few games from this year's World Cup, and having read write-ups on several more, the one thing that stands out to me is how totally unaccountable the referees are. They've made several terrible, game/tournament-changing calls, and don't really have to answer to anybody - even FIFA, apparently. The referees can call a penalty without being required to declare (a) what the penalty was, or (b) who committed the penalty. That's totally absurd.

I think this has cemented my opinion of soccer as an only-if-I-really-have-nothing-better-to-do sport to watch. I'll probably only be watching World Cups from here on out, and not particularly closely.

Kindle vs. Nook

2010-06-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

There's a pretty good head-to-head comparison here, if you're interested. Honestly, if I were buying one today I don't know which I'd go with. The Kindle wins on organization since they've now implemented a "collections" system to help organize the books, which is necessary fe to keep my library easily accessible on the device. But... The Nook wins on price (for the WiFi-only version, anyway) and because it uses the industry-standard ePub file format (which helps avoid platform lock-in).

If you're thinking of picking up an e-reader (the cheap Nook is only $150 now) then you really ought to read the comparison.

As if I didn't already dislike the EPA...

2010-06-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

The sheer stupidity of this is mind boggling:

New Environmental Protection Agency regulations treat spilled milk like oil, requiring farmers to build extra storage tanks and form emergency spill plans.

Local farming advocates says it’s ridiculous to regulate a liquid with a small percentage of butter fat the same way as the now-infamous BP oil spill....
The EPA regulations state that “milk typically contains a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil. Thus, containers storing milk are subject to the Oil Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure Program rule when they meet the applicability criteria ...”

As they note at Marginal Revolution: "the issue is not even regulation of milk spills; it's regulation of milk under the oil spill prevention law."

(via SB7)

Your Daily WTF for 6/24/10

2010-06-24T20:42:00.001-07:00

A trifecta from FailBlog:

1) My brother would have loved these as a kid:

2) I want one of these RIGHT NOW. Sacrelicious!

3) This is so inappropriate that words fail me:

Awesome Title

2010-06-24T06:12:00.000-07:00

Best title for a post about "Toy Story 3" ever: Toys are Born Free, And Everywhere They are In Boxes.

Ha!

(For those of you that don't get the joke... see here.)

You have no idea how happy this video made me

2010-06-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hilarious!

Funny because it's (terrifyingly) true...

(via)

Kindle Price Drop

2010-06-22T06:14:00.001-07:00

Amazon just dropped the price of the Kindle by another $80 to $189.

For those of you keeping track at home, this makes it $170 cheaper than when I bought it a little over a year ago.

*sigh*

Your Daily WTF for 6/20/10

2010-06-20T07:19:00.001-07:00

This picture made my day:

It's all about the spelling. And the cunning hats.

(via)

Overthinking Little Kid Stuff

2010-06-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is hilarious:

Couch Cushion Architecture: A Critical Analysis

Funny car photos

2010-06-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

1) The existence of this boggles the mind:

2) I don't know how this happened, but I'm somewhat alarmed that it did:

Tab clearing

2010-05-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

Amusing and interesting links from around the web:

1) Best. Correction. Ever.

2) This is a sweet watch, with a totally unique interface.

3) Slate has an absolutely fascinating article on tuning (instruments). Find out why 90% of music is written with <= 3 sharps or <= 2 flats, and what "The Well-Tempered Klavier" really means.

4) Video Games + Categorical Imperative = Overthinking It

5) Angry Norwegians in scuba gear chase after Google Street View car

6) A graph accurately reflecting my opinion of people who wear Che t-shirts.

2010-04-30T18:34:00.001-07:00

Agreed.

Ovation Inflation

2010-04-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

I just went to see a touring production of Avenue Q here at Purdue, and I've been struck by something I've noticed out here in Indiana. Apparently the audiences here are willing to give even average performances a standing ovation. Tonight's show was good, but it certainly was not extraordinary. I've even seen the ovation given to below-average performances (e.g. the orchestral piece based on "Flags of Our Fathers" where the balance was so far off one couldn't hear the narrator half the time). I feel like if I ever see a performance that is truly amazing, I'll lack an appropriate way to express it, with the standing ovation having been so severely devalued. Grump.

Also, those dang kids need to get off my lawn. *brandishes cane menacingly*

This is my life

2010-04-27T10:03:00.001-07:00

From PhD Comics:

Except the last frame should really have a "(sort of)" appended to the end of it.

Quote of the Day

2010-04-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

This is what I think of pretty much all Congressional hearings:

The statements from the Senators make it clear that they are not holding this hearing in order to find out what happened; that's the SEC's job. They're holding this hearing in order to be televised yelling at investment bankers.

Just an excuse for populist grandstanding.

Color me unsurprised

2010-04-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

File this one under "shocking reports nobody could have seen coming":

Report: Health overhaul will increase tab
Health and Human Services experts say plan falls short of controlling costs

Funny, and yet not

2010-04-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

I think if I went to a workshop like this, I wouldn't be able to keep from laughing at it.

You have got to be kidding me...

2010-04-01T05:33:00.000-07:00

Good grief:

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) is afraid that the U.S. Territory of Guam is going to "tip over and capsize" due to overpopulation.

What a moron.

Your Daily WTF for 3/30/10

2010-03-30T18:06:00.001-07:00

This the most disturbing school play I've ever seen in my life...

(via)

UPDATE: This too is odd. Those census ads are getting creepier all the time.

Attention All You Graduate Students

2010-03-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

One of my office-mates has just pointed out to me the most ingenious piece of software I've ever seen for organizing, reading, and annotating PDF files of academic papers: Mendeley. Seriously, check it out. It's even free!

It bills itself as being "like iTunes for research papers," and that description is quite accurate, even up to allowing you to assemble groups of papers into collections (playlists), copying all the files into a single organized directory, and automatically importing metadata (though that's a bit iffy on a lot of them). You can read, highlight, and annotate papers directly in the program. You can sort your entire collection by title, author, publication, keyword, etc. It can even search the body text of your entire collection for terms! (Well, as long as they're native PDF files rather than scans.) And possibly coolest of all, it stores up to 500 MB of your collection online for you to access from anywhere (and act as a library backup).

My only complaint is that it's a bit resource-intensive for my old laptop, which leads to some stability issues. But even with that, it's increased my research productivity immensely. I can't recommend Mendeley highly enough. Check it out!

Wow

2010-03-26T13:57:00.000-07:00

This, apparently, is what happens when Fido finally catches that car he's been chasing:

Consider My Cynicism Warranted

2010-03-26T13:29:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I remarked upon the passage of the Healthcare Reform bill:

It passed the House with 219 for, 212 against. They clearly needed Stupak's vote, and I find myself wondering what they really gave him to get it, since the executive order BS is so weak, and he had so much leverage.

Well, guess what headline I saw this afternoon:

After health care vote, Stupak 11 request billions in earmarks

With Stupak himself requesting over $578 million in earmarks, no less. [cough]vote buying[/cough] Some "most ethical congress in history."

(via)

Your Daily WTF for 3/25/10

2010-03-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

A double dose:

1) The best equipped military in the world? Indeed.

2) Cows with Guns:

(via)

Social Security Runs out of Revenue...

2010-03-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

... and begins drawing on the general treasury this year. One of the main reasons I opposed the healthcare reform bill was that the thing's adding more oomph to our existing financial powder keg, despite protestations to the contrary:

Every since the early eighties, when the Greenspan commission kicked the can down the road with a combination of tax increases and later retirement ages, analysts have been awaiting the day when the [Social Security] system would finally go into deficit. That date has been sliding around between 2016 and 2020 for some years now, but the suspense is finally over: the system is going into deficit this year....

This is the canary in the coal mine; if Social Security's finances are in trouble, Medicare's will also be looking worse. While I was at the Kauffman Foundation's economics blogger forum last Friday, a show of hand indicated that about 80% of the people there thought America would have a serious fiscal crisis in the next two decades. This is how it starts--not with a bang, but with a moderate decline in revenues.

As I've said ever since I started thinking seriously about entitlement spending: anyone my age (or really under the age of 40) planning their retirement around getting anything from Social Security is going to be sadly disappointed.

Hilarious!

2010-03-25T05:54:00.000-07:00

And so true.

My Head Asplode

2010-03-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

... from the sheer awesomeness of John C. Wright's "current project."

Seriously, if you follow only one link this week online, make it this one. You won't regret it.

(post title reference)

And this...

2010-03-22T13:16:00.001-07:00

... is why mail-in rebates are scam-tastic. Don't ever base a purchasing decision off of one.