September 2011
31 posts
Thoughts on Law Enforcement
We appear to have 3 camps in this country: those who think all cops are bastards, those who think cop-haters are simply upset children who want to break the law, and those who don’t care. As usual, abstention wins, so we’ll talk about the other two groups.
I don’t think cops are the optimal way to run society, and I don’t think that legality is equivalent to morality....
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i updated my wobsite →
I can have my cake and eat it, too →
Vegan "Fried Chicken" →
The batter is the best part of this recipe. Enjoy!
“Who cares who you fucked, when you end up coming that fast?”
– Y Tu Mama Tambien
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http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/ →
Apprenticeships
I was talking with a co-worker today about education, and I got myself into a little rant of which I want to clear my head.
The education system is broken. People view education as boring and stupid, and anybody who has been through a public school would agree that a lot of it was, indeed, boring and stupid. The very best research into pedagogy suggests that conventional schools are boring and...
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Lovelace's Leap →
Ada Lovelace is widely considered to be the first programmer. She was the daughter of eminent poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, the author of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” “Don Juan,” and numerous other memorable poetic works. She was his only legitimate child.
In contrast to her father, who had a genius understanding of thought, emotion, and the written word, Ada was...
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But seriously
“Birdhouse in your soul” is the most beautiful song and it’s blowing my mind right now.
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“Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little...”
– “Birdhouse in your soul”
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Oyster
I haven’t stopped working on the “code Perl in your browser” experiment. Life has its way of getting in the way of such tasks but it’s coming along. I’ll have updates soon. I want everyone to be a programmer!
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”
– George Orwell, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
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Stevie Wonder came to Texas and spoke out for gun control. Agree or disagree, the man has balls.
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Introducing Oyster
Recently I’ve been on this binge of writing Perl tutorials. I realized, however, that they’re going to be hard to follow because learning the command line AND learning to program at the same time is probably a bit much.
Plus, setting up your own text editor (and configuring it to be usable), moving around directories, etc can make what should be a fun process just awful.
Thus, my...
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How to program - Part 1
Yesterday I wrote a post introducing my intention to teach you to program. You made it this far, so congratulations!
If you read the previous post, you should have Perl installed on your system. If you do not, you can get it from the official website with ease. The good news is, if you’re on Mac OS X, Ubuntu, or a Unix-like system, you already have a version of Perl installed. If...
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How to program - Introduction
At my job, I’ve been given the task of teaching people how to program. Or, if they know how to program, the task of teaching them to program better. This is kind of what I wanted to do with my teaching aspirations except they serve beer on Fridays here. Also, cursing is not verboten.
I am going to try to teach you, anonymous readers of my blog, how to program. Teaching people to program is...
Just bought ice cream. For freedom. Happy America Day.
Walked down Lamar, had good food, bathed in the creek next to Barton Springs, and tried to read “The Stranger” in French. I am completely and totally free.
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Texas cut fire department funding →
Rick Perry = Leadership
Today, after nearly 1000 homesteads have been destroyed by out-of-control wildfires, Governor Perry flew on a private jet to California to interview for a new job.
Damn Fool Idea
My friend Alex and I had an idea: why not live on a sail boat? I think a floating cooperative would be a wonderful experiment in human living.
The short answer is that sailing is very complex and hard. However, it’s also something people have done for a long time. It’s clearly feasible.
As I see it, there are the following problems:
Food;
Equipment;
Financial independence;
...
There was haze on I-35 today. The sky was grayed and I could smell burning wood, reminiscent of barbecue. That barbecue is a bunch of peoples’ homes. That was very eerie.
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A visual description of Bayes' Theorem →
Bayes’ Theorem is a very powerful and simple tool for understanding joint probabilities. This is the clearest explanation I have seen.
