Category: Interesting Tidbits

Yet More Things I Learned This Semester

Yes, the semester is almost over and that means it’s time to share a few choice thoughts.

In General:

  • There are people who are willing to wait for a spot 100 feet closer to the building, even in nice weather. In the meantime, I’ve parked in the next lot over, locked my car, walked to the building, and made it to the 3rd floor while That Guy is still waiting for an ever-so-slightly closer parking spot.
  • You’d be surprised how many people don’t show up to class regularly and still expect to do well in that class.
  • Sorry, I already knew that time management is important.
  • Cleaning staff never notice graffiti on the back of a bathroom stall door.

In Spanish:

  • Spanish has two verbs that translate “to be.” Use one to ask “What kind of person is Juan” and the other to ask “How is Juan”. Use one to ask “Where is Maria” and the other to ask “Where is Maria from”. Use the wrong one, and you may well say “Teresa is boring” instead of “Teresa is bored.” Teresa would be understandably upset.
  • It’s alarmingly easy to mix up the verbs “to go” and “to see“.
  • You can do a lot with cognates. The one thing you can’t do is be sure you understand the correct thing.

In Microbiology:

  • Not only can viruses infect bacteria, they can accidentally take bacterial genetic material to the next bacterium when they leave.
  • The entire family of Penicillin related drugs works by pulling out the “molecular nails” that bacteria use to build cell walls. Resistant bacteria have an enzyme that breaks up the “nail-puller.” Viruses don’t have cell walls, and that’s why these drugs don’t effect them.
  • Look, you’re never ever going to wash every single germ off your hands. What’s more, you wouldn’t want to. The germs that normally live there help keep “opportunists” — that’s bad-guy germs — from setting up shop. So for pity sake, stop using that damned anti-bacterial soap.

In Anatomy:

  • If you are trying to remember a whole bunch of acronyms (say, hormone names), you are better off memorizing the long version. Otherwise the “alphabet soup” will drive you mad. Besides, often the long version tells you what the darn thing does!
  • How much carbon dioxide you have in your body determines a lot more things than the amount of oxygen. It effects your respiration rate, the pH of your blood, and more.
  • The first thing your body does with any carbohydrate you eat is turn it into a simple sugar. So, should a diabetic be eating a lot of pasta?

There you go. Now let’s have some In Closing: GOP is upset that their Nevada organization doesn’t want to keep fighting a lost battle; on debt; it does at least put a roof over head; I wish I could refute this; even Mitt “Rmoney” thinks that the minimum wage is too low!; death penalty follow up; Subway CEO tosses owner operators under the bus; the ACLU on NSA reform and letting cops hack your computer.

Boobs on a Plane

So apparently Delta Airlines told a breastfeeding mother that she would need to cover up or pump ahead of time. This started a flamestorm on the Twitterverse. Delta quickly backtracked, apparently remembering  that “Breastfeeding without a cover is legal in all 50 states” and that would include over those states. Oh yeah, and remembering that lawsuit from a few years back. But that didn’t stop the controversy from being further ginned up by idiots who think “modesty” has anything to do with this. Breastfeeding: made by nature, endorsed by the Bible.* So you want to call it obscene? Tell it to the hand of nursing Baby Jesus.

Now stay with me on this. Plane trips with a baby are no fun at all for anybody — not the parents, not the other passengers, not even the baby — but sometimes they are necessary. Part of the problem is that the baby’s ears have pressure issues on take off, just like a grown-ups do, but babies can’t chew gum or anything like that to equalize the pressure. But here’s a stroke of genius: a feeding baby is not only making those jaw motions that will soothe the ears; what’s better is that the baby’s mouth is full and therefore not screaming! Sounds to me like everybody ought to be happy with that outcome.

Speaking of boobs on a plane, it looks like that new Liam Neeson movie is just ghastly.

In Closing: aw, let’s just close it out with some NSA, privacy, spying, anti–crime/terrorism efforts, and related links.

* Heh, yeah, I know I’m assuming that the people who think OMG TEH BOOBZ WILL DESTROY SOCIETAY UNLESS THEY ARE PROPERLY HOLSTERED are probably Christians. When was the last time you saw an atheist argue that breastfeeding is somehow obscene?

A Couple Follow-Ups

Little Dogs in Big Trouble: Remember this post? The picture was taken in front of the Prince and Princess Puppy Boutique in Las Vegas. Well, there’s been some trouble in the Doggie Kingdom. The owner of the store and her companion are accused of trying to burn the place down with 27 dogs inside. Yeah, if you’re going to try and burn your own business down, you really ought to disable your security cameras first, ya know?

Mystery Solved: Last semester I was confused by this Crosswalk to Nowhere. I figured it was a vestige of some campus roadway plan that never came to pass, but I was very wrong! This week I saw it used for it’s actual purpose. It’s hard to tell in my picture that the “crosswalk” is probably as wide as a 6-lane road. However, remember that there’s no road? This crosswalk is for rehab: a (supervised) patient can learn or relearn to cross a street in the amount of time allowed by a typical crosswalk with no stress and no actual traffic.

Ok, now on to In Closing: NAFTA and TPP (pay attention to TPP and tell your friends!); NSA, DHS, privacy, and NSA; on logic; oh did He? Never heard Jefferson and his crew referred to as “God” before; unexpected; and where is the money coming from??; keep calm and ask a question; economy, CPI, and economy; Descartes; “to him, it was science possibility” (Ron McNair was also going to perform the first saxophone solo recorded in space); if Howard Hughes had his way, the west quarter or so of the Las Vegas Valley would be a giant aircraft plant; and I can’t help but notice that the world didn’t end today. I consider that a Good Thing.

The NSA Scandal is a Gift that keeps on Giving

So, let’s get started. No particular order here.

The NSA is apparently tracking a lot of information about where people are based on their cell phones. I’m not sure whether this makes it better or worse, but this appears to be a big deal overseas, where Bad Guys might want to follow American spies “case officers.”

More and more people of note are publicly saying that “surveillance” of personal data is wrong, and that would include what the NSA’s been up to. In fact, 8 major American tech companies have asked the Feds to please stop already. Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that they stand to lose money. Security experts have already said they can no longer trust Intel’s crypto technology, and that means companies that actually need secure data have to migrate off systems that use it — potentially migrate off Intel hardware altogether.

I think the Feds honestly want to catch some terrorists. Even though the job is tough. Even though so far, they’ve had to manufacture terrorists in order to actually catch one. Of course maybe if they stopped playing World Of Warcraft it would be easier.

Despite all this controversy, it looks like the Government wants to do as much as possible to make it look like they are making changes, while in fact changing as little as possible.

Merry Freaking Christmas.

In Closing: Some thoughts on the minimum wage and the wages of workers in general (and lookie here, education turns out not to be a magic bullet); Duhpartment of Research says keeping your body healthy might keep your mind healthy; food lies; shadow inventory is a crock; funny how you have to have money for taxes to matter; the stimulus did work, but not like you can tell; good analogy; about time.

Clarity

Ok. There are some people — millions of them to be honest — who are unhappy that their insurance policies are being cancelled. The policies were reasonably priced, the consumers argue. What these consumers fail to understand is that they were crap policies that were inexpensive because they didn’t actually cover much of anything! If any of these people ever actually had a claim, they would have discovered just how bad those policies were, and would probably be far less satisfied. Obama’s claim that if you liked your insurance you could keep it? That assumed you had coverage rather than an insurance fig-leaf.

So getting mad at the government for forcing predatory insurance companies to stop issuing “insurance” that didn’t actually cover much of anything is like getting mad about a crib recall notice because after all, your kid didn’t die.

And for the record, the real way forward is still Medicare For All.

In Closing: cars; problem; recession; some choice NSA, spying, and privacy links; statins; Republicans; Geometry; poor babies; Iran; Too Many Secrets; debt; trash; and an awesome art collection.

“Don’t Worry Little Lady, I Won’t Let the Democrats Kill Your Cat!”

A couple years ago, I mentioned the Sea Stone wait I mean Hotel Baja California Restaurant. Guess what? It closed.

The rather expensive building sat vacant for a while before displaying a new banner: “Coming Soon! Boca Park Animal Hospital.” Another expensive build ensued. I found this rather curious. Repurposing serially failed restaurant space with a veterinary clinic? Who had deep enough pockets for this to be a good idea? The other day we found out.

His name is John Ensign.

Remember Nevada Senator John Ensign? He’s the one that was having an affair with his administrative aide’s wife and then had to cover it up by seeing to his future employment? The one whose replies to emails told me not to worry because he wouldn’t vote with the Democrats (scroll down)? Well, before he went to the Senate, he was a veterinarian who owned the West Flamingo Animal Hospital. It’s the kind of place that will try to talk you into hundreds of dollars of tests to determine that the reason your elderly cat has lost a quarter of her body weight in the last 2 months is that she’s elderly (in the interest of disclosure, they did send me a card upon that cat’s passing). He was forced to sell, but I understand from multiple sources that they were happy to have him back after he was forced to resign his Senate seat.

Now, Sen. Dr. Ensign is not a man without money. His step/adoptive father is a gaming executive, and Dr. Ensign has done well with his own ventures — to say nothing of his Congressional pension. So it’s no problem for him to put lots of money into a swank new animal hospital “with luxury suites for pets and treadmills for hefty canines,” and a “four or five star resort” feel.

He sounds very happy about this new business, and I do wish him well. Nevertheless, I think I’ll stick with the nice vet lady on the corner who squealed with joy when she saw my kittens.

In Closing: Your latest dose of NSA, government spying, Ed Snowden, and encryption links (make no mistake, this means anything sent over the internet for any reason must be assumed to be insecure); a nice healthy set of links about the Syria situation; unemployment is only going down because the labor participation rate is going down (that is, fewer people working) and by the way most of the new jobs are low wage; I love this minifigure; how exactly is it cost effective to ship chicken to China for processing and then ship it back again??; it pays to shop around; the gluten free fad; unpaid internship; and one man’s forest.

ShortWoman’s Super Simplified Campaign Finance Plan

Over the years, I’ve talked about tax simplification and campaign season streamlining. Today I share my idea — singular — for simplifying campaign finance. Since it’s clear that we are unlikely to get to a place where campaigns are publicly funded and each candidate is sharply limited on what he (usually he, sometimes she) can do and since McCain-Feingold has been perverted beyond repair, it’s time to add my virtual two cents. It’s very simple:

To contribute to a candidate’s campaign, you should have to prove that you can legally vote for that candidate.

This can be easily done by attaching a photocopy of the donor’s voters registration card to the contribution voucher. This has several key benefits:

  • Neither corporations nor unions could contribute to campaigns. Neither one can legally vote. Conservatives and Liberals? This is detente.
  • It affirms that the results of an election are primarily the business of the constituents. I like Elizabeth Warren, but why should I be allowed to meddle in Massachusetts politics by sending money? Why should somebody from another state be able to manipulate my local elections by infusing capital?
  • It limits the influence of big donors. Sure, Sheldon Adelson will still have a lot of sway in Nevada — along with Steve Wynn and Irwin Molasky  (why not) — but except for Presidential campaigns, influence stops at Primm.
  • It would reduce fraud.

The powers that be clearly have a vested interest in keeping elections a giant slush fund. However, We The People deserve better.

In Closing: More on the NSA, the TSA, and wisdom from Bruce Schneier; what decade is this again?; making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got (and sometimes a bunch of credit to cover what you don’t got); duh; the real Lone Ranger?; and a giant virus.

A choice selection of NSA and spying on citizens links

So much for “We’re only using it to track bad guys overseas. Ok, well maybe Americans but only if they’re terrorists.” Turns out the DEA, CIA, FBI, and IRS got a piece of that action too. And then they tried to cover it up. Here’s a hint folks, government officials don’t try to cover up good and perfectly legal things.

Oh, and it turns out that they are only willing to go on the record about 13 “contributions” to an arrest. How much is this program costing taxpayers — in an environment where at least one party is constantly screaming about the national debt — per arrest? Any sensible CEO would have pulled the plug.

When CNN notices that 1984 is uncomfortably close to what we are experiencing, you have to wonder.

Cloud computing is now dead. After all, if you can’t trust that the government doesn’t have your data, how can you possibly trust that your competitors, enemy, or ex-wife doesn’t have it?

They know when you are sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know when you’re downloading porn so be good for goodness sake! No, actually they just know the IP (internet protocol) address of every site you visit.

And they’ve hacked a major internet anonymizer to keep track of you when you don’t want it. Wikipedia is trying to lock them out. Good luck with that, seriously.

The frosting on this rotten cake? They won’t even tell Congress what they are up to.

Over 100 organizations think this is a bad thing that needs to stop now.

“A matter of national security — The age old cry of the oppressor.” — Jean Luc Picard.

Follow Up: Americans cars are getting older.

In closing: to do list; on pregnancy; lefties against Obama.