Not Really Music Monday: Pi Day

It’s 3.14. Also, 3.1416. Perhaps celebrate with some pie?

In Closing: still fake; still bad for real Americans who like to have jobs; sounds like a wild goose chase to me; not having money is not actually a crime; and just maybe the FBI misjudged this and people have figured out that 24 was a TV show.

Blood from a Turnip

This morning when I woke up, I had 67 email messages in my inbox. Over 60 were asking for donations: this candidate, that political movement, charities and whatnot. There were more in my spam folder, and yet more that had already been filtered to a “political” folder.” Another half dozen begging messages or so have arrived every hour since then. More than a few have tried to guilt me into giving, imploring me to help unlock matching funds, defeat political bad guys, or simply implying that my lack of giving must surely be a mistake. Yes, I did a bunch more “unsubscribes” today. Part of me wishes I had thought to add up the minimum recommended donations for each one of these emails.

Let’s just say for the sake of argument that I have a total 80 begging emails today — remember, that’s just today, and that’s a bare minimum. And let’s say that on average each one asked for “only $5.” In real life, some asked for only $3, and others asked for $20. So, 80 emails times $5 each is $400.

Yeah, not gonna happen.

I do declare, I have no use for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or Reince Priebus.

EDIT: 4 more emails asking for contributions arrived while I was writing this post!

For the record, the other emails were almost exclusively asking me to buy stuff. At least I would have something at the end of that transaction.

In Closing: hush now; Japan has always had a knack for making things smaller; let’s do this over the Holidays and hope nobody asks a bunch of questions; well, being forced to buy a product from highly profitable corporations is better than nothing, I guess; Unintended Result; nothing to hide, in a world where buying gardening supplies can get you a SWAT raid; and thank goodness Radley Balko is out there telling the truth.

Uber Continues to Not Care What the Law Is

Nope, they wouldn’t even tell the county if they plan to maybe follow the law.

Meanwhile, they went live the same day. The “independent contractors” don’t seem to know (or honestly, care) whether they need a state and county (or city, if they live in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, or Henderson) business license. If they are like any other independent contractor in the whole damn county, then yes they do. And yes, if Uber wants to do business in Clark County, they need a business license.

But any attempt to make these people follow the law is derided as being a pawn of Big Taxi Companies. That’s great spin, but I hope the rule of law catches up with them.

And all the promises of being cost effective are nothing more than more spin. If you come to Vegas, remember that we have plenty of inexpensive and unambiguously legal ways to get around town.

 

Back to School Repost Post

As our school and college students prepare to head back to school, I thought I’d go ahead and round up some things I’ve said over the years (mostly, with a couple new links too) for your entertainment:

Have a great school year.

In closing: I think this BlogHer post might have been talking about this one!

Shorties: The Reawakening

Sorry for the tab dump here. I’m in the progress of migrating RSS readers and all is madness.

Gee, I wonder why that would be!: These big events tend to inspire copycats. Well maybe if we didn’t glorify the asshats who do this stuff….

On Bad Trade Deals: Um, yeah, we need to keep paying attention.

It’s All Greek to Me: No?

On the Redditpocalypse: I was beginning to think the place was too big anyway. I have yet to evaluate alternatives.

On with the body count: Our police violence problem has gained international attention.

YSK: Ponzi and pyramid schemes.

Meanwhile: How dare people — particularly young people — want jobs that pay a living wage! Particularly in these 10 states…

An interesting view: On consent.

Lemmings: Well, I suppose inasmuch as illegal immigrants are by definition here illegally, sure. But by that standard, lots of people have “bad intent.”

Finally: Via my old and dear friend Rachel, a misplaced dominant seventh chord was once all it took to land you in jail. Listen for yourself near the bottom.

Shorties Box

Congrats to Jon Keeyes and Nightmare Box on its multiple nominations in the Winter 2015 Macabre Faire Film Festival.

Serial: High school students may be more, er, connected than they thought. And not in a good way.

The ugly truth: The NYPD work stoppage is showing how little what they do impacts public safety.

Economic Noble Truths: Who knew that Buddhism and economics had anything in common?

Fly Like an Eagle: To Lake Mead.

I’ve only been saying this since 1991: Colleges have no business whatsoever prosecuting crimes.

Pattern of Misconduct: Ferguson isn’t the first time that prosecutor presented a misleading case against a cop.

Republicans and Social Security: interesting.

And Finally: The Big Fat Book of Offensive Religious Cartoons.

See everybody tomorrow!

Hard Habit to Break

Today I’m actually using the official prompt:

Have you ever tried to break a habit and failed? What made it so difficult to break?

Ok, this is a weird one. I’m still not quite over this habit: I have a hard time passing up things that are cheap or free.

I’ve got dozens of books on my Kindle that I don’t know when I’ll have time to read them, but they were free! I’ve got canned food in my pantry that I only have because it was on sale — and theoretically I’ll use it eventually. I’ve been known to buy clothes that fit but aren’t really my style because they were so inexpensive.

Why is this a hard habit to break? Well, because it’s easy to think I’m being thrifty. In the case of free ebooks, it doesn’t actually cost me anything. In the case of food, well, I guess I’m well prepared for an emergency. In short, one person’s bad habit is another’s good habit.

Oh hey, and just the other day I got this free ebook on how to break bad habits!

In Closing: the case of the blonde MIT student; Ha Ha Harvard; not entirely sure how one solves problems without strong reading and math skills; crime, security, and privacy; and the intellectual heirs of MacHack.

Moment of Silence

December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor.

Last week, I did see one of these on the road:

IMG_20130420_135727

 

These guys are still out there.

In Closing: having a hard time working up sympathy for the lady who’s so scared of being a “bag lady” that she buys a fur coat. Thank heaven at least one person — Rep. Loretta Sanchez — had the good sense to ask the right question. And an accidental flash of common sense (don’t worry, we won’t let any of that near a school again!).

Music Monday: October 31

Sure, that’s Halloween. It’s also the anniversary of the founding of the Great State of Nevada. And there’s an interesting story concerning that. It involves lost documents, the most expensive telegraph ever sent, and Republicans trying to steal elections garner additional electoral votes.

So in honor of Nevada’s 150th birthday, please enjoy some Nevada items.

In Closing: how dare victims call sexual assault what it is; sugar; Russians turn back time (in a way); some nice juicy NSA items; wages; Israel; War on Drugs; some random global climate change (formerly global warming) items; maybe they’re not overpriced after all; diversity; smile, you’re on cop camera; fixing COLA would require admitting that inflation is higher than most people know; and American cat cafe.