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Links for Today
Sad world. The Day of the Witch
This is another attempt at increasing the state led oppression of the black male. Calling someone a ‘bitch’ in Massachusetts could lead to jail time under new proposed bill
Kids these days must be dumb. I figured out that math was oppressive without any help. Seattle Public Schools Will Start Teaching That Math Is Oppressive
A lot of times, hypocrisy is the only tribute that humans can make to virtue so I guess we should not talk trash about it. Justin Trudeau—Illegitimate Premier?
The Future Is Now Links
Best break down on the quantum supremacy dispute between IBM and Google that I have seen yet. Quantum supremacy: the gloves are off
Increased copyright protection is almost always a bad idea. No one yet has shown that it benefits society as a whole and even most proponents don’t even try to make that case. The CASE Act’s goal is to make it simple and fast for copyright holders to get paid for infringement claims. The method it employs is to create a quasi-judicial body in the Copyright Office called the “Copyright Claims Board,” which would be able to award damages as high as $30,000 per proceeding, while also strictly limiting the ability of parties to appeal the decisions. $30,000 judgments issued by people who are not judges but rather officers of the Copyright Office, who see copyright holders—not the general public—as their customers, are not “small claims”. These are judgments that could ruin the lives of regular people; people who are engaging in the things we all do when we’re online: sharing memes, sharing videos, and downloading images.
I would put more focus on the idea that increasingly the State’s only commonly accepted justification for existing rests on ever increasing material befits. It is a short jump from there to think that if I am doing poorly, the state is no longer legitimate. Protesters Are United by Something Other Than Politics
More amusing and sly then the headline suggests. I think it strongly overstates its case though and in general it does not seem like it is written by someone who is deeply familiar with the past: How single men and women are making politics more extreme
Amusing Links
This is where we all gather around and chant “fight, fight, fight” or whatever they do these days to cheer a schoolyard fight on. IBM says Google may not have reached quantum supremacy after all
Same as above, different context. Everyone Is a Russian Asset
Purdyville is safe from a German invasion. Germany: ‘Highly aggressive cow’ sparks lengthy police chase in Bavaria
The funny thing about the below is that it seems that the free runners really thought they had a chance (I say runners because it was group the gave the legion the challenge even though they only sent one runner to represent). At first I thought it was a publicity stunt from the legion but as best I can tell it was a real challenge from the free runners and one that they would go on to repeat in a more tedious context. Not speaking the language and not having spend a lot of time chasing down leads, I am sure that I could be wrong. On the other paw, I guess you have to say the free runner in this case did pretty well considering how the odds were stacked against him.
Justin Offers A Link
In a comment on this post, Justin offered the below video as a comment on this link.
I will make the following observations……
1. It is stories like the above that lead to socialism, communism, and other associated ideas having continued support in spite of their bad track record.
2. It is common for people who are good at something to think that they can therefore lead or manage a project that encompasses things that they are good at. But often, leadership skills don’t come with other strong skills. In particular, my own experience would lead me to believe that strongly artistic people are rarely good managers. A lot of Mr. Kern’s bad decisions as laid out in the above video strike me as a classic example of an artistic person let off the leash with no oversight. Computer gaming history is filled with similar stories of developers who were an integral part of strong teams but absolutely failed on their own in such spectacular fashion as to make you wonder if they were ever truly good at anything. In my judgement, the common thread in those tails of self-destruction is giving an artistic person a pot full of money with no controls.
3. It is common for people to exaggerate the evil nature of poor leaders and forgive the evil deeds of good leaders. That is to say the failure of leadership skill is often attributed to moral failings while successful leaders are forgiven moral lapses because they get things done. We all have moral failings and I am sure that Mr. Kern has more then his fair share. But I think a lot of what is laid out above is rooted above all else in lack of managerial talent and not some particularly black heart compared to other people in the same industry.
4. It is common for people to point out someone’s hypocrisy or other moral failings as if they demonstrate that that person does not have good points or sincerely held beliefs. A classic case of this is the attempts to delegitimize everything Winston Churchill did because he was a supporter of imperialism. In this case, nothing in the above video really has anything to do with Mark Kern’s points about China or the current management of Blizzard except to warn against turning Mr. Kern into some kind of hero.That is always a good warning to have, but no one should go in the opposite direction and think it demonstrates more then it does.
5. A broader hypocrisy of the west in general is the focus of things seen on TV instead of any kind of tangible yardsticks. For example, what has been done over the years in Tibet have been and continue to be far worse then anything currently going on in Hong Kong. And yet, Tibet has not developed into nearly as big of an issue as Hong Kong is becoming.
6. That said, I think it is truly alarming how determined China is to use its economic clout to regulate what is being said in other countries. It is one thing to control your own country’s internet. It is another thing to try to control what everyone else is saying all over the world. And that does seem to be what China is seeking to do. Imagine the outrage if the American government worked as hard as China has been working to get sport’s people fired for being critical of US policy.
Science Links
Hat tip to Grumpy for some of the links this time around…..
We all expect to the big one to happen tomorrow but at the same time most act like it never will. How many people have food and water on hand for more then a couple of days? A California Fault Line Has Started ‘Creeping’, And We Don’t Know What to Expect
I did not know they already had more then one: Mathematicians Have Discovered an Entirely New Way to Multiply Large Numbers
You would think that if this really happens that it could create problems for ships. Seems to me that jury is still out though I don’t really doubt that volcanoes could do this: Some Volcanoes Create Undersea Bubbles Up to a Quarter Mile Wide
A lot of passes for modern medicine is poorly supported. Massive marketing muscle pushes 3D mammograms, despite no evidence they save more lives, investigation shows.
Links for Today
From the department of unintended consequences. ‘Fear Of Falling’: How Hospitals Do Even More Harm By Keeping Patients In Bed
Riots everywhere: Chile. Lebanon. Spain. Holland. And of course, Hong Kong. If they do this when the grass is green, what will they do when the real trouble starts?
Your daily dose of a white non-Muslim man explaining to you what you should think about Sharia law. It is only mansplaing if it is not goodthink. Sharia law is already here — the IRS must respond
Remember California and their rolling blackouts. They think they can do these things without consequences New York State Attorney General (AG) Letitia James takes Exxon to trial this week, for alleged climate fraud.
It is kind of unfair that only Mexicans get to get into the US by crossing the border: Mexico flies 300 Indian migrants to New Delhi in ‘unprecedented’ mass deportation
Science Links
I am old enough to have been taught as fact that this never happened: Inherited Learning? It Happens, but How Is Uncertain
A good explanation of an iffy study. My money is this is just a variation of the common sense wisdom that stress and worry shorten your life: The More Active Your Brain, the Shorter Your Lifespan May Be, a New Study Says
Shocker: Poor People Are Still Sicker Than The Rich In Germany, Despite Universal Health Care
From what I have heard, they don’t need much encouragement: Public university tells professors not to grade based on merit
Stock up on bacon:A terrible pandemic is killing pigs around the world, and US pork producers fear they could be hit next
If I was him, I would not go home again even if I had a Canadian Passport. UBC student uses satellite images to track suspected Chinese re-education centres where Uyghurs imprisoned
Sad World Links
This is also one of the reasons we can’t have a flat tax: Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free
Everything in this article seems like standard communist practice. The world has forgotten or never really wanted to remember that this is what they are like. A Million People Are Jailed at China’s Gulags. I Managed to Escape. Here’s What Really Goes on Inside
Just to be clear, the whistle blowers are the ones on trial: Body Parts Buyers Were ‘Scalping the Babies,’ Planned Parenthood Trial Reveals
The Mexican Government Lost: Mexico’s president on Friday defended releasing a son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman after security forces were outgunned by drug cartel members when the fugitive was captured.
The below is what you will not see on TV. Not sure how long it will even be on YouTube….
Links For Today
My main thought reading this is why does anyone in this day and age still think it is a good idea to store nukes in Turkey? Seems like the US can destroy all the likely (and unlikely) targets just fine without them. Belated Realization: The Old World Order Is in Shambles
Average users believe a lot of wrong things: Undercover agents in Washington D.C. monitored the site, filled with images of child rape, and were able to deanonymize the Bitcoin transactions, something that average users often believe is impossible.
Kinda funny if you have a sick sense of humor: Riot police blast firefighters with water cannons during Paris protests
Possible Brexit deal is all in the news. Events are moving to fast for anyone to give any useful information but for what it is worth here is two non-US based perspectives. What’s new in this Brexit deal? and Brexit: madder and madder
Reading this story makes me think that the US has resorted to spaming countries it does not like and calling it cyber attacks to make it seem like a bigger deal. U.S. carried out secret cyber strike on Iran in wake of Saudi oil attack: officials