Weeknote
§1 Quotations “Sometimes the most interesting aspect of a scientific or cultural product is not its overt content but rather its unexamined assumptions.”—Andrew Gelman “Why would anyone go skiing when they could sit in the comfort of their own homes and break their kneecaps with a hammer?”—Dylan Moran
Weeknote
§1 A song lyric “You can put your cards out on the table But if nobody wants to play Well, you haven't got a game, you got a mess” -- Patty Larkin
History
The last 3 times the US armed forces went into combat for a campaign without air superiority were: The Philippines 1942 (largest surrender of US forces outside of the US Civil War) Guadalcanal 1942-1943, (First months of the battle, US forces dont have air supremacy and have to hold on)
Weeknote
§1 An evolving understanding of evil As a kid, Twilight Zone episodes scared me, but Perry Mason episodes didn't. As a 50-something, it's the other way around. §2 A writing prompt If you'd been the kind of person to save the leather jacket, then
Weeknote
§1 “Listening” The Southern Poverty Law Center doesn't listen to me when I ask it to take me off its mailing list. Why would I think it would care about any survey response I sent back? §2 Quotation “Being cool is the enemy of doing cool.”—Wayne Coyne
Weeknote
§1 I'll Have What This Is Giving A great New Wave throwback from the British band Wooze. §2 Quotation “The authors of research papers have no obligation to share their data and code, and I have no obligation to believe anything they write.”—Andrew Gelman §3 Consider the
Weeknote
§1 The humility of the solver Working a crossword puzzle can be humbling. There is simply no way around the fact that if I knew Subject X as well as I thought I did, then I could easily fill in the answer given that clue. §2 Who's the
Economics
[I]n response to complaints on the right that the crimes of right-leaning authoritarian regimes are somehow over-taught and left-leaning authoritarian regimes are under-taught [...] I should note that I took my Russian and Chinese history courses at the University of Massachusetts located in the beautiful People’s Republic of Amherst;
Weeknote
§1 Der Kommissar Having learned that "Der Kommissar" was the title of a cult-favorite German TV series several years before it was a song title (in German and English), I now wonder if the TV series inspired the song. (Side note: If someone wanted to write a clickbait
Media
The best part of my New York Times subscription is access to not just the last 30 years of its daily crosswords (about 10,000 puzzles in all), but to a well-designed interface for solving them online. I have started from the start and am playing my way forward. The
Weeknote
§1 Quotation “I’m not interested in doing research and I never have been, I’m interested in understanding, which is quite a different thing.”—David Blackwell §2 Everything is a Remix Kirby Ferguson's "Everything is a Remix" is every bit as good as advertised as
Weeknote
§1 Autumn in New York Allison Young and Josh Turner perform a delightful rendition of one of my favorite American Standards songs. §2 Typists (Part 1) A lesson I learned during Usenet days is that some people think before they write and some people just type. An exchange with a