Alameida writes:

Occasionally a well-meaning friend will look at my bedside table and say, “wow, you’re taking so much medicine! Maybe you’d feel better if you just stopped taking so much! I’d feel bad if I was taking all those pills.”

I’m going to talk slowly, but here’s the thing: people take medicine because they’re sick. Why on God’s green earth would you imagine I am so stupid as not to have tried not taking medicine? The “not taking medicine” state is the very state in which I ever came to the doctor about a given problem, as a little thinking would make clear. “Oh, but maybe that’s gone now and you should stop taking them again!” You know what? I tried that too! Again, not a complete moron over here.

I am myself somewhat medicine-resistant. Not in the biological sense (that I have a tolerance), but in the temperamental. I twisted my back something irksome, and though I vaguely know I would feel better if I took some Alieve, I still haven’t done so. I have the vague feeling that medication is something to be avoided except when you really need it. I don’t take a real position on our “over-medicated society” (except perhaps as it pertains to antibiotics), though a lot of people do.

There is, however, a difference between saying “There are too many people on ADHD meds” and suggesting, to someone you don’t know really well, that they shouldn’t be taking whatever meds. This isn’t an appeal on the basis of “don’t judge me if you haven’t walked in my shoes” but rather an appeal to not personal judgments on relatively limited information. I had a… friend named Sally on anti-depression medication. Sometimes she would go off them. I could tell when she had. She would become erratic. She would become paranoid. She would, all of the sudden, be really bitter. Even on her meds, there was always a Good Sally and a Bad Sally. Off the meds, Good Sally would go to hibernation. There are other people I have known really well who talk about going back on meds where I think “This is less an inflammation of your depression and more just being sad and/or bored.” Sometimes I’ve been right (the medication didn’t help) and sometimes I’ve been wrong (it did). In the event that I was right, comparatively little was lost, in my view. In the event that I was wrong, I would have (if I’d said anything) told them not to do something that genuinely helped. It’s easy for me to say that they should grin and bear it.

This all ties into my original Unsolicited Advice.

Moving from the general (too many people taking medication, too many people going to law school) to the specific and universal (someone taking medication should consider stopping, don’t ever go to law school except under the circumstances I outline) is not just offensive to some, but often counterproductive. The better part is listening. And, if not directing (and definitely not directing), informing (”a lot of people think that going to Southeast State Law School will get them a good career. Sometimes it might, but a lot of those people are going to be very disappointed.”) A degree of humility is warranted, when you’re making guesses at someone else’s life.

In a previous linky-post, I pointed to the odd confederate subculture in Sweden. Dr. Phi responded:

As much as it warms my heart to see Swedes waving the Stars and Bars, I sincerely doubt they have a full understanding of, let alone embrace, its full cultural context as understood in America by either its supporters or its detractors.

This is absolutely right.

There was an episode of Daria wherein Daria’s friend Jane started dating a guy who was into swing dress and mores. One doubts that this character really wanted to live in the swing era (despite some protestations that they “had class” and such). Though technically it was an American style of dress (Mostly? I think?), the past is a foreign country, as they say. The further away you are removed from something, the easier it is to take a more superficial look at something. You can talk about how, during the swing era, they had class, without talking about how various segments of the population was treated. It’s more easy to imagine a way that things are - or were - without being confronted with some of the uglier details.

We do this all the time with pirates. There have been various attempts to dignify who the pirates were and whatnot, but mostly we don’t really think about it. We think about the way that we would have them speak, maybe the freedom of life at the sea, and in essence invent our own context for it.

Being from the South, the use of Confederate symbology has a much more specific meaning and context. Now, this meaning varies from person to person. Phi says that the Swedes don’t have the full cultural context, but to be honest not even Americans agree. If the flag meant what its detractors say it means, very few people would want to be associated with it. If it meant what its supporters say it does, there’d be a lot less in the way of objections. But though it means different things to different people, southerners know - or ought to know - more precisely how it is going to be received. Swedes, really, have no reason to care. They are unlikely to ever be confronted with someone who believes in means slavery (or a proto-nation built on slavery), Jim Crow, and so on. Just as Internet geeks have no reason to be concerned about old-timey pirates (they’re not impersonating the Somali ones, after all).

I don’t actually know Swedish culture very well, so it may well be the case that these folks are what we would consider white supremacists. It could actually represent a sort of anti-Americanism (chosing the symbols of a subculture that was at war with Washington, literally and figuratively). It’s difficult to say. But, even to the extent that this is true, it’s all still rooted in abstract notions and vagueries. Picking the parts of the culture and deciding that exemplifies the culture.

By modern standards, the lifestyles of neither the Athenians or the Spartans is something we would be remotely comfortable with. But we pick sides anyway. We conceptualize what they are really about. It’s easy to do because it means less to us than America’s Civil Rights struggles mean to Swedes.

It’s been a while now since studies have started suggesting that Project Self-Esteem was doing more harm than good by appraising kids on who they are instead of what they’ve done. It looks like people are finally starting to take note. I remember when my grades started to skyrocket in middle school. How did I feel? Terrified. I felt it was some sort of fluke that would be exposed to my own humiliation. Read the article to see how that relates.

Energy costs to suppliers declines 50% as shale assists energy growth. My energy costs have not decreased by 50%.

Note to Microsoft: OSes should get better and not worse over time. I have a dedicated NAS, so I don’t use Windows Server, but I have been annoyed at how anemic Vista/7’s photo slideshow screen saver is compared to XP. No, it’s not a big deal (there are freeware alternatives), but features should get better and not worse. On the other hand, every version of Windows Search was worse than the previous until Vista came along. Good show!

Does Facebook demonstrate that the Web is not as polarized as we think? No, but it does suggest that we are not as segregated as we think. I know this because of all of the arguments I see about how Obama and/or the Republicans are destroying our country (Note: this is not an invitation to talk about how Obama and/or the Republicans are destroying our country.)

My wife and I were married for three years before I gave her my password. Kids today are dumb.

I am naturally attracted to the idea of employee-ownership. But it might be a bad idea.

Buffalo is paying its teachers to have plastic surgery. This is such an embarrassment that the teachers union itself is willing to drop it at the next round of negotiations. But they don’t want a new round of negotiations. In the current environment, that’s understandable.

Men want sons and women want daughters. I will have to read the whole report at some point, but society’s girl-preference would mean that either (a) women want daughters in larger numbers or (b) women are more insistent on their desire for daughters.

Cue the ominous music. Mitt Romney has sent millions to an organization believed by many to be anti-gay and with a spotty racial history. Namely, his church. It’s actually an interesting article (without the ominous music, for the most part). I wonder if this is how the Obama campaign might run against Romney’s Mormonism without being accused of religious bigotry. Assuming Romney wins the nomination, of course.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: If you think that smoking should not inconvenience you, you are a prohibitionist. You logistically can’t allow smoking to be a legal and not allow people a place to actually smoke. Smokers will simply ignore the rules. Just as they do now, but in larger numbers. If they’re breaking the rules by smoking at home, they might as well break them by smoking in a place you are more likely to have to breathe it.

The record labels have been forced to pay $45M for claiming music that isn’t theirs.

According to the EFF, CNET has not been living up to its standards with regard to bundled ware:

The blogosphere has been buzzing about revelations that CNET’s Download.com site has been embedding adware into the install process for all kinds of software, including open source software like NMAP. For the unwary, some of the ads could have been read to suggest accepting the advertised service (e.g., the Babylon translation tool bar) was part of the installation process. Users who weren’t paying attention may also have clicked “accept” simply by accident. In either event, after their next restart, they would have been surprised to find their settings had been changed, new tool bars installed, etc. Gordon Lyon, the developer who first called public attention to Download.com’s practices, found a particularly egregious example last night: a bundled ad for “Drop Down Deals,” an app that, once installed, spies on your web traffic and pops up ads when you visit some sites. It’s hard to imagine that many users would choose that app on purpose.

This practice is not only deceptive, it directly contradicts Download.com’s stated policy, which promises users that it has “zero tolerance” for bundled adware and that “when it comes to fighting unwanted adware . . . Download.com has always been in your corner.” Indeed, that promise was one reason users and developers had come to trust Download.com as a reliable source.

CNet was really a pioneer in anti-bundling efforts. I remember when they first announced that they were no longer going to be accepting anything that relied on adware being bundled in. It was a questionable decision because some people (like me) wondered how these freeware providers were going to be able to make money. But it worked out splendidly because the freeware kept on coming and they either made money by having a beefier version that you had to pay for or they didn’t care that they weren’t making money.

I am increasingly loathed to pay for software. It’s not that I can’t afford it. It’s not just that there are free alternatives most of the time (this is necessary, but not sufficient - sometimes the paid stuff is really better). Rather, it’s because I don’t want to have to buy the product several times over. I keep a fleet of four operational desktops and regularly use about four laptops. I seek for a degree of consistency for what’s installed on them. I never really know, when I purchase software, whether I can install it on all my computers or only a limited number. Even when it starts off the first way, sometimes it converts to the latter. Then, further, I don’t know if when I upgrade to Windows Vista or Windows 7 whether it will continue to work or if I will have to buy it all over again.

With free software, I don’t have to worry about it. I can install my free version of TeraCopy anywhere I choose. Or OpenOffice/LibreOffice.

The major exception to all of this is Windows itself. If I ever make the transition to Linux, it’s not because I can’t stand spending $150 on an operating system. Rather, it’s because I can’t stand it when I want to do an F&R, can’t, and have to go to the illegitimate well I should be able to avoid buy paying for the license in the first place.

To bring this back to the subject at hand, what CNet’s policy normalized was making free software less hassletastic than the paid alternative. Even though they seem to be ignoring their policy, they normalized it so that I don’t have to just assume that any free software I get has something bad bundled in with it.

I sometimes frustrate my dear wife when I leave crucial words out of sentences. It’s genetic. Mom does the same thing. So, without much in the way of context, I will say something like “I’m thinking we should use 53.”

“Absent words.”

“Oh. Sorry. When we go to Alexandria tonight, we should go on State Highway 53 instead of through Redstone.”

Absent Words replaced “What the hell are you talking about?” as a conversational lubricant.

Having been married for a while, though, she is increasingly able to fill in the blanks. Yesterday, I asked, “Is that thing going to be with those other things?”

“Yes,” she answered, “the ovulation kit will be with the feminine products.”

And so off to Safeway I went. It turned out that the ovulation kits were not with the feminine products. I know this because I spent a good half hour looking over every kind of tampon, cream, and gel that I never knew existed in search for it. Finally, I had to do what I always have to do when I am looking for something like an ovulation kit. I had to ask customer service.

It turned out that the ovulation kits were in a separate part of the store. Right by customer service, in the wide open front of the store. With the condoms, pregnancy tests, and just about everything else that kids would not want their parents or neighbors to know that they are buying. I am thinking that this is not coincidental.

Ordinarily, something like an ovulation kit - or condoms - wouldn’t bother me, but this is a small town and not a visit to the pharmacy went by when I was picking up my wife’s birth control where the pharmacist didn’t say “You’re still not trying?” For some reason, announcing that we are trying (by way of purchasing an ovulation kit) is more private than the fact that we’re trying not to. It’s not logical. The check-out girl (who lives five houses down from us) looked pleasantly surprised to see the kit.

My only other real experience purchasing feminine products (except birth control) was in college, when my then-girlfriend Julianne needed me to go to the campus convenience store and pick up tampons. And so, of course, the conversation ended with the clerk saying, as I stood in line in front of about five people, “Now did you want the tampons in the blue box or the green box?!”

During my last trip down to Colosse, I found The Cigar Box. TCB was a box of a brand of cigars that my somewhat famous Great Grandfather endorsed. Inside TCB was a bunch of old knick-knacks. I may talk more about the box in the future, but I wanted to share one of the findings, which I referred to once before:

Somewhere in the boxes of my parents house is something I call The Bizarro Letter. She wrote me a letter in marker that was at best vaguely comprehensible. I found it amusing and showed it my friends, none of whom had any idea what message she might have been trying to convey. It had profound passages like “In 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 years I will beeeeeeeeeee (buzz) 21 21 21 21 21″ (21 was written 21 times) and between talking about her cat and her mother burst out with “I SAW THE STRANGEST SHADE OF PURPLE TODAY!”

That was how I remembered it, but it wasn’t quite right. The above might have been from a mock-up that I wrote up once, while the letter was missing. Anyhow, he was the letter that Fever sent me:

Front of the Envelope - Nothing special here, and most of it is blacked out for privacy reasons. I mostly included it because I included…

Back of the Envelope - This was how I knew it was from her before I saw who it was from.

Page One - My name, her name, and a unique name are blacked out.

Page Two - A couple black-outs without explanation. They would require a story that would not be worth the time to write and read, but might be recognizable to the right person.

Back of Page Two - Not much here. Just a little… weirdness.

Can we use data to improve education? Most assuredly, and this is one of the things that makes the Khan Academy give me so much hope. However, it only works if we accept the validity of metrics. A lot 0f people are bothered by the concept.

Nine famous movie villains who were right all along. Some of these I had actually already come to the defense of (Senator Bill Kelly). Others had never occurred to me (The Wicked Witch).

As most of you know, I have long been bearish on China. I don’t believe that they are going to maintain the edges that they have as they continue to industrialize and I am skeptical that they have been doing enough right to create a new edge. So you knew I would have to flag this article.

From NPR, a modern look at manners.

Shortly after we first met, my wife told me that my drinking habits made me a borderline alcoholic (it was an observation, not a condemnation). That, to me, suggests that the definition for alcoholic is absurdly broad. I thought of that when I read Confessions of a Binge Drinker.

A really odd look at Sweden’s confederate subculture. As in… Confederate Flag and KKK shirts. It would be insanely weird to be in Sweden and run across that.

The communion wafer industry. My church back home switched to actual bread for a while. I thought it was kind of cool. Anyway, the quote of the piece: “Advertising our altar bread is a positive thing for Cavanagh Company. We take a lot of pride in putting our family name on a product that will eventually become the body and blood of Jesus.”

A story of a disgraced weatherman, a con job, and the Russian mafia.

100 Incredible Views Out Of Airplane Windows. My favorites are London, Rio, Qatar, and the one from Hong Kong that looks like a screaming face (#75), though really almost all pictures of Hong Kong are cool.

Why do we have so many firemen?

A long while back, Abel wrote about and linked to a piece on stray dogs in Eastern Europe.

Old-school readers of Hit Coffee and associated blogs will remember Sheila Tone’s “Prole Test.” Originally posted on Bob’s old blog, it went down when his old site did. However, as Charles Murray causes a wave with his Bubble Thickness Test, I thought that it was high-time to reproduce it.

—-

A few weeks back, Bob wrote a sweet little post about how people should be more sympathetic to my woes. (sniff) But he gives me too much credit, saying I was poor. I wasn’t. Not by any government definition anyway.

But I wasn’t middle-class, either. So what am I talking about? I hope the little quiz below helps clarify things.

The best term I’ve been able to come up with is working-class, which leaves some loopholes. How about semi-prolehood? Whatever it is, it describes an important difference. It means you’re not poor, but there’s still a big difference in what you get to do for a living, where you get to go to school, and how you live.

Remember, this isn’t about being in the underclass. That’s why many serious hardships aren’t scored. It’s about how you might eventually graduate from college, but you’ll never get to work for the New York Times. You could maybe be a lawyer, but you’ll never work for one of those big firms. Definitely a schoolteacher, but probably not a professor. And for God’s sake, don’t try to get into screenwriting or directing. Yes, I know about Quentin Tarantino, but name three others who are under 60. Finance or politics will also be rough (but good luck, Dizzy).

The following are a few telltale characteristics of the non-middle-class:

1. Military service.

This obviously only applies at times your family was in the United States, so apologies to recent immigrants. Did anyone in your family serve? As an enlisted person? No points for officers. One prole point for each grandparent, uncle or cousin. Two for each parent. Three for each sibling or yourself.

2. Professions.

Is anyone in your family a medical doctor? Minus three points for the first, one point for each additional. Minus two for the first lawyer or university professor (must be an accredited university), one for each additional. Either parent work for the government in a non-management, non-elected position? One prole point — unless it’s your mom and she was a teacher. Then no points, because women from higher classes often become teachers.

3. Education.

How many people from your graduating high school class went to an Ivy League university? Any? Minus one point for each, up to a maximum 3 points. Edit: Add one point if you had to travel more than 30 minutes to get to that high school.*

How many people in your immediate family (counting grandparents, parents, siblings and spouses) have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited, non-online institution? Minus one point for each — but only if they got the degree prior to age 24. Minus two points for each USNWR first-tier. Don’t count anyone you already counted as a professional in Number 2.

Two prole points if no for both parents and all grandparents. Three prole points if your answer is zero for all immediate family besides yourself, and you have at least one sibling.

Minus one if you graduated from any accredited college before the age of 24. Minus one more if it was a USNWR first-tier.

Notice there are no points assigned based upon who paid for your education. This is not an oversight. Many non-middle-class parents and grandparents — cops, aerospace workers — proudly pay for their descendants’ attendance at USC, Loyola Marymount, University of LaVerne, and Cal State whatever.

4. Health Insurance.

Growing up, was your health insurance HMO or private? One prole point for HMO or none.

I remember in a political science class, we were going on a class trip and needed to provide our medical insurance carrier. A list was passed around. I was last to sign. I saw that every other student had either Blue Cross or Blue Shield. And that was even at my crappy state school. (The polisci kids tended to be future lawyers, and seemed younger and wealthier than the general student population.)

5. Travel.

Prior to age 24, how many times did you travel outside the continental United States by airplane or boat? Minus one point for each time — but no points if it was to visit relatives. One prole point if your answer is never.

6. Discipline.

Did your parents physically discipline you after the age of 7? One prole point. Three points for after the age of 12. Minus one if your answer is never — unless you’re Jewish, then no deduction. My understanding is that Jewish people in the United States never physically discipline regardless of their economic status.

7. Inheritance.

Prior to age 30, did you inherit money? If so, minus one.

Yes, choosing 30 is a bit arbitrary. It’s an age when you’re still in the youth demographic and at least one parent is usually still alive. How much you got doesn’t matter. You’re either from the type of family that does that, or you’re not. A semi-prole could easily have a parent die prior to 30, but the parent either would have died with no money or left all assets to the other parent, probably passing by intestacy. If both your parents died I’ll let you decide if the point is fair.

More likely scenario is that your grandparents left you money. That kind of estate planning is for the upper classes.

8. Traditional family.

Were your parents divorced or estranged prior to your entry into high school? If so, one prole point. Same if they weren’t married at the time of your birth. This does not apply if at the time of your birth, your parents lived in either California or New York and were working in entertainment or the arts. Those people live by different rules.

One point if a parent died prior to your entry into high school and the surviving parent failed to remarry within five years (speaks to economic problems and lack of social ties).

Do you know the full names and maiden names of your grandparents? If not, plus one. Great-grandparents? Minus one. Got any pictures of the greats? Minus one. Edit: Unless they’re still alive, then plus one. OK, no points either way if they’re over 100.

*******************************

If you ended up with any points, you’re on Sheila’s side of the wall. Sorry. Have a Happy Meal, it always makes me feel better.
_______________________________

* Like in Half Sigma’s high school, probably half the class went to Ivies, but he had to take a boat every morning to get there. That should count for something.
________________________________

Clarification: If you are married, include your spouse and his family in your the answers to 1, 2, 3, and 7. Those are about current status. Don’t count your spouse in 4, 5, 6, and 8. Those refer to your individual background.
______________________________

Addendum: Earn up to six additional points for Native American heritage!

A while back, there was a Guardian article on corporations claiming ownership over videos in the public domain:

But one titanic problem with ContentID has received little attention: the use of ContentID by those who falsely or incorrectly assert ownership over public domain works – works that have no copyright at all – and then either block access to the videos, or collect the advertising revenue from these videos.

FedFlix is a charitable project launched by Carl Malamud, a “rogue archivist” who raises funds to digitise and upload videos created at US government expense. Under US law, government creations are in the public domain and can be freely used by anyone, but the US government is remarkably lax about actually making its treasures available to the public that owns them.

Malamud’s group pays the fees associated with retrieving copies from the US government – sometimes buying high-priced DVDs that the government issues, other times paying to have unreleased videos retrieved from government archives – and posts them to YouTube, the Internet Archive and other video sites, so that anyone and everyone can see, download, and use them.

Malamud’s 146-page report from FedFlix to the Archivist of the United States documents claims that companies such as NBC Universal, al-Jazeera, and Discovery Communications have used ContentID to claim title to FedFlix videos on YouTube. Some music royalty collecting societies have claimed infringements in “silent movies”.

Here is more on FedFlix.

One of the ostensible reasons for SOPA and Protect IP is that it provides an undue burden on content IP owners to find and locate every single instance of copyright infringement. One of the main pushbacks against SOPA and PIPA is that it would apply an undue burden on the part of user-generated sites to approve each and every piece of content that someone uploads. And what we have hear can validate each argument. The content producers’ recklessness can at least potentially be attributed to having to scan over so much material that they get some things wrong (if we are to take the most benign explanation). And the burden that the sites face make it so that they simply don’t have time to straighten things out (this benign explanation is, I believe, more reasonably applied here).

But what jumps out at me here is the difference between a right you have and a right that is respected. I’ve mentioned this before with regard to the TSA. It doesn’t matter what kind of rights you have if they are arbitrarily ignored. In fact, it makes it worse because at least rights you are denied have to be justified somewhere along the chain. To use the TSA example, if they are going to force all milk-bottles to go through an X-Ray machine, the TSA has to make the case that this is safe and necessary. If you have the right to have your milk bottle not go through the machine, but they penalize you for ever asserting this right, then they have effectively made a rule without justifying it.

So here we have a case where videos that CBS and Discovery do not own are being flagged. Their ability to claim ownership over these videos has never been justified. The ability to post these videos is, at least in theory, granted because they are in the public domain. In practice, however, there is simply no way to actually assert this right without being severely penalized. This applies to more than YouTube videos. You are theoretically in the right if you choose to make and release a Little Mermaid video. However, if you choose to do so, Disney can turn around and claim that you infringed not on the Little Mermaid that exists in the public domain, but their variation of it. They may have absolutely no case, but if ABC/Disney sends you a letter saying that they are going to use all of their legal might to run you out of business, are you going to risk it? Are you going to pay thousands and thousands in legal fees to emerge victorious… and broke?

I am considering a superhero project. In it, I would love to use some of the (few) superheroes that have fallen into the public domain. But these have been used by the Big Boys. The Big Boys can make all sorts of arguments (similar to Little Mermaid), and once they get to court, I’ve already lost. And so while I have the right to use these heroes, I am not free, in any meaningful sense, to actually assert that right. And so I won’t.

Copyright carries with it loads of ambiguity and logistical problems. Either they have rights that are extremely difficult to enforce, such as a proliferation of videos on YouTube that they have to have taken down one by one or thousands of BitTorrent downloaders that they have to single out (and get a lot of bad publicity in the process)… or we have rights that are difficult to assert. The theoretical, but constantly challenged, right to back up content that we own. The ability to actually own, rather than merely rent, works that we buy. The right to upload material that nobody owns the right to. This creates a real zero-sum environment wherein either content producers have insufficient ability to enforce their copyrights, or an ability so broad as to create real headaches for people tagged with false positives.

And where you sit is where you stand. It becomes worthwhile to ask questions about how much we - the consumers - can actually trust the content owners to behave ethically. Their apparent entitlement to endless copyrights, and their willingness to engage in shoot-first-ask-questions-later tactics, and their propensity use the money they make to lobby for laws that reduces access to the public domain, makes me inclined to restrict their power as much as possible. Even if, as they claim, it has a detrimental effect on the arts in the long run.

The SOPA protests represented a rivalry between northern and southern California, movies and technology. Good for them, because heaven help us if they start really working together. There was a movie some time back called Anti-Trust, with Tim Robbins as a Bill Gates figure. The moral of the story was that software-for-profit was wrong and that “information wants to be free.” Well… what about movies? Do they want to be free? If not, why not? It was best, in the context of this movie, not to ask that question.

Also, a look at modern media piracy and its actual effects. I have always found the claim that piracy enables crime syndicates to be odd. If anything, the opposite is true, because, as this points out, they can’t compete with free any more than the studios can. Less so, since a lot of people will feel better buying legit copies. If you’re going to go illegit, why pay for it?

Kodak has filed for bankrupcy. Its future is in doubt, but it does have some patent revenue streams. They also are looking at doubling down on printing. Which is a brilliant place to go as we move to a paperless society. Should we ever meet, valued commenters, buy me a drink and I will tell you about my professional dealings with Kodak. In addition to the whole film thing, they are one of the most toxic corporations I have ever seen (and I have seen some doozies).

Apple is looking at getting into the textbook business. But who is going to pay for it? This is beyond the scope of what we usually ask teachers to supply. Personally, I think this is something that Amazon should be doing. They’d be more price-conscious. Either way, though, I do wonder how they’re going to get around the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has fought Kindle readers for being insufficiently friendly to the blind. Tablets are only going to be moreso.

Speaking of Apple and iBooks, their EULA is really quite disturbing. I mean, more than most EULA’s.

Again… the problem with news organizations “fact-checking.” Facts, in order to become (useful) information, require context. Context is open to interpretation. Therefore, “ObamaCare is Socialism” and “Republicans voted to end Medicare” ended up as Lies of the Year. Neither were lies. Both were subjective subjective judgments that we either agree with or disagree with.

Norway authorities took away an Indian couple’s kids for “feeding them wrong.” What happens when the Nanny State meets Multiculturalism.

The St. Louis Rams are going to be playing some games in London. Costa Tsiokas thinks that this may be a prelude to relocating the team back to Los Angeles (hurting their ticket sales). I don’t know about that, but the article goes on to mention that there is a fan club for the New England Patriots out there (the Patriots have also played in the UK). Does anyone else get a kick out of the irony of Brits rooting for a team called the New England Patriots with a colonial captain on their helmet?

A French diet guru wants to grade people on their weight. Using BMI. Sigh.

A look at the 1% and what they majored in. I actually do find it quite surprising that nearly 1 in 20 history majors become 1%ers. Almost 1 in 10 economics majors is less surprising. One imagines that it’s still not a good idea to go to North By Northeast State U and major in history, though. One imagines that a history major that becomes a 1% was bound for there regardless of what they majored in. Still: surprising.

A look at the DEA and the Adderall Shortage.

South America deserves an aware for finding a use for mimes.

A little while ago I wrote about how, if you have cell phone conversations in public, you have a very diminished expectation of privacy:

I was at a tire place this morning. In the waiting room was a woman talking on the phone. She talked about all of the gossip going on around her (maybe the local) LDS church. She was actually quite witty and I cracked a smile at some of the things she said. This got a Look Of Death from her for listening in to her conversation.

Turns out that this made the news:

While on a train Thursday, Bob Salladay, a senior editor at California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting, realized he was sitting near Santa Ana City Council member Michele Martinez. He listened to her talk on the phone and then started tweeting what she said about her campaign. He also tweeted that he was “99 percent sure it was Michele Martinez.”

It turns out, it was. In an email statement, Martinez responded: “I don’t know what’s worse; someone secretly listening to a private conversation without consent or misrepresenting that conversation publicly. It’s disrespectful, dishonest and downright creepy.” Salladay tweeted in response: “There is nothing secret about an elected official talking loudly on a public train.”

Quite so. There are some questions about whether Salladay should have taken some extra steps to verify who was talking. But other than that, I think he’s in the clear. Doug Mataconis comments:

Of course, all of this raises the question of why Martinez (who has not denied that it was her on the train or that Salladay reported what she said accurately) would have a conversation like this is in public to begin with. We’ve all been in some public area where people talk on their cell phone far louder than they need to, forcing at least one side of their conversation upon us whether we want to hear it or not, and I’ve personally been surprised at the number of times you can hear people talking about things out loud that one would think they wouldn’t want anyone else to know about. Martinez’s outrage here would sound a little more sincere if it weren’t for the fact that she was dumb enough to talk about this on a train where anyone around her could here what she’s saying. The fact that one of those people happened to be a reporter is really just her bad luck.

Quite so. As I said in my post, there is no expectation of privacy if you are talking in a public area to where other people can hear you. It was Salladay’s good luck that it was a conversation that he wanted to hear, but more often than not it’s more along the lines of LDS gossip that I listened to.

Doug goes on:

What if the conversation that Salladay had overheard hadn’t had anything to do with the campaign, though? What if it was some kind of personal conversation that revealed, or appeared to reveal, something embarrassing of a personal nature? Would it have been appropriate, from a journalistic standpoint, for him to “live tweet” the conversation in that case? Admittedly, it becomes a more difficult question at that point, and it’s hard to make the case that the private life of a state representative is really all that newsworthy unless it involves something illegal. The fact that Martinez might have been having a fight with her husband, for example, doesn’t strike me as something the public needs to know. At the same time, thought, it’s a tough line to draw and it’s hardly an invasion of privacy if someone is speaking so loudly in public that everyone around them can hear clearly.

This, to me, is a broader question of journalistic ethics that is unrelated to how the information was obtained. If it’s not right to report it because a staffer says so, it’s not right to report it because you overheard it on a train. The same standard applies in both cases. I have no idea why overhearing something would be less valid than talking to a staffer who overheard something.

How elite Asian students are cheating on US college applications. There is, apparently, a booming industry around this.

Ever since a childhood fixation with Atlantis, I’ve been fascinated with the concept of lost cities.

Would Americans be healthier if they spent more on food? I think Doug makes a really good point here that in some ways it’s the availability of food rather than cost. Even if natural food is better, and even if it weren’t more expensive, it would still be less convenient. In my more severe moments, I consider the war on salt to primarily be a war on convenient foods. Not as a byproduct, but as the point of the proposed ban. Meanwhile, the problem with blaming food deserts.

The court case that almost made it illegal to tape TV shows.

Bill Gates has saved six million lives since 2007. He’s spent $28 billion from his fortune. That makes a lot of money per life saved if all of it were going to live-saving. But I don’t think that’s the case. I would be interested in a breakdown of how much his life-saving efforts have cost per life saved.

Los Angeles is apparently the favorite destination for Europeans looking to move to the US.

The top 1% of mobile users account for 50% of the world’s wireless bandwidth. Meanwhile, 5% of Americans make up 50% of health care spending.

This puts a cramp on my designs of putting an NFL team in Riverside.

The inbreeding coefficient of superheroes. Meanwhile, superheroes in Salt Lake City! And lastly, the favorite superheroes of Republican politicians. Any of them who names Ted Kord has my vote. Okay, not really.

Felix Salmon complains about a pricing innovation I had not yet heard of: ATM’s working off a percentage fee rather than a flat fee. Or, as these things generally go, whichever fee is greater. In the case he cites, it’s $3 or 3%.

Look, I’m not going to get all market-worshipper on this, but as far as price gouging goes, this is far less of a big deal than what we put up with at sports arenas, amusement parks, and so on. If I don’t like Holiday Inn’s charge, I really, genuinely can go elsewhere. Maybe this will take up like wildfire and all of them will be doing this and so at some point in the future I won’t have a choice.

Even then, though, the pricing model itself doesn’t seem particularly outrageous. In order to trip up to the percentage-based fee, that means that you have to be extracting more than $100. If you’re extracting more than $100, maybe you need to find the nearest branch of your bank. If anything, I think this fee is to guide people to do just that. Extracting large sums from an ATM machine actually does cost them more money. It means more regular restocking. So I can very easily see why they would be cool with people taking out $40, but wanting those who intend to take more out to think twice, go elsewhere, or pay extra.

Of course it does not cost them $3 per small transaction or an extra $3 for a transaction of $200. But the ATM, the security involved, and restocking all do cost money. Is Holiday Inn making money off the ATM? I would imagine so. Maybe it would be better if they provided it as a cost-neutral convenience. Maybe we should go to hotels that do just that.

But really, there has never been a better time for a consumer as far as this stuff goes. More and more places offer cash-back on purchases to the point that I almost never use an ATM anymore (not even my own bank’s). But more to the point, we need cash a lot less than we used to. $100 in cash goes a lot further than it used to with credit card swipers everywhere. And if there is one benefit to the increasing consolidation of banks, it’s that it’s more likely your bank has an ATM nearby just in case you happen to need one. The last couple of times I did use an ATM it was while traveling. A quick google and a quick drive and no ATM fees at all.

Now, maybe it’s not worth it to get in your car and drive for ten minutes in order to save $3 or $6. If so, that only suggests that the Holiday Inn’s convenience charge is reasonable.

Apparently, someone reached my original Trumanverse map by googling images for “map of the usa with state names”.

Relatedly, I wrote this on LoOG yesterday:

With Wikipedia down, Timothy Lee points out that this could be Wikipedia-alternative Citizendium’s chance to shine. I tried to use it, but it’s pretty… thin. Personally, I thought that this was Uncyclopedia’s turn at the wheel. They joined the blackout, though. Shame. That would have made for some awesome term papers.

Another month, another article on the imminent demise of the laptop. Look, the desktop isn’t even dead yet. Beyond that, the notion that because laptop design has been perfected means it’s dead is a pretty dumb argument.

The case for saving ugly buildings. Go brutalism! More seriously, I ultimately take an “out with the old…” perspective, provided that it makes economic sense to replace a particular building. I just don’t trust what the tastemakers call cool or ugly.

When you define half of Americans as poor or low-income, it says more about the metrics used than the state of our nation.

Should Hollywood go back to using miniatures? I’m for anything that would hold costs down.

One of the interesting things that jumped out at me when I originally moved north was the number of people who left their cars running while they went inside. I even did it myself sometimes. In Milwaukee, it’s causing the predictable problems. Not of theft, but “unlawful usage.” Kids stealing a ride to school. Apparently it’s illegal to leave your car running. It reminds me of the town I was raised in where it was illegal to leave your bikes out because you were in effect giving escapees from the local juvenile hall a free ride.

In Illinois, you now need ID to buy drain cleaner.

Atlantic Cities makes the case for strong urban cores. I actually agree! The problem is when people think that the way to do this is to kneecap suburbs. Atlanta has apparently accomplished a downtown renewal despite its outward expansion. The fact that the urban cores were lost in the rust belt, and that the rust belt is struggling, and that the former is the cause of the latter, has a causation-correlation problem.

From the files of near self-parody, Conservapedia wants a bible without all that liberal stuff. I’ve heard some conservatives say that Conservapedia is parody, but I’ve seen little reason to believe that’s actually the case.

This is the stuff of jetpacks and flying cars, but more fun to think about.

My name has found itself on a new mailing list. Of that I am sure.

What’s curious is that my name on this mailing list is W.S. Truman. I never fill out forms by that name. None of my credit cards are in that name. My Frequent Flier Miles are not under that name. I mention my FFMs because I was recently told it was time to cash them in and I picked up a subscription to Forbes, The Atlantic, and ESPN Magazine. I suspect that one of those three passed my name along. I suspect it was Forbes because two of the three things I received in the mail today came from conservative organizations. One of them, on the envelope, asking a loaded question that my answer to was actually not the one they were assuming I would have.

My mom made a habit out of using different names whenever she would sign for things that could put her on a mailing list. She has four names, so it wasn’t hard for her to do (she used the dog’s name once, and Roscoe received a credit card in the mail*). For a while, she kept track of who put the lists out where. She wrote an great article about it that she published in her local newsletter. It was good enough that it should have been in a more formal newspaper or magazine (I got only some of her writing talent).

* - Yes, this is a true story. It said “Just call to activate” though I assume that calling would have meant a more lengthy process than that. Among other things, to be sure that they didn’t actually give a credit card to a dog.

As I have mentioned in the past, it’s a bit ironic that so many of the white cross arguments involve Utah. By “white cross” arguments, I mean the desire on the part of secularists to do away with the tradition of white crosses to mark the death of someone. The ironic thing about Utah is that it is the one state in the continental United States where the cross is not a symbol of the dominant religion (Mormons don’t really do crosses). In fact, it’s Utah first and foremost that I look at and actually believe that no, the cross does not have to be an establishing symbol of a specific religion (or series of religions). If that is what Utah were going for, they’d have little tooting Moronis on the site of the road. Or something.

As far as such crosses go, I can understand the objections even though I don’t actually share them. If anything, Christians themselves should be kind of anxious about their holy symbol being used for something that isn’t religious in nature. Sort of like the secularization of Christmas.

Arapaho makes extensive use of roadside crosses. And there is more of an establishment concern here than elsewhere, because they are put up by the state. There is one stretch of dangerous highway where my wife and I counted 30-something over just a few miles. They were put up by the state to underline, once twice and thirty-something times to drive carefully.

And part of the problem is that there is no other symbol that you see on the side of the road and know immediately what it means.

Which brings me to the point of this post: If crosses are really a problem, those that want to take the crosses down need to come up with a replacement. That would sell me on the issue. Instead of saying “Take down that cross” they should say “How about we use this instead.” I don’t know, and don’t really care what is used. It could be just a white stake in the ground. Something immediately recognizable and identifiable. Arapaho can put up a sign as you enter the Danger Zone saying (more concisely so that people don’t get into accidents as they try to read the sign) “Hey, you’re about to see a bunch of white stakes in the ground. This is where people died. So drive carefully!”

Here are ten reasons that Windows Phone 7 is better than Android. Of course, the real question is whether or not it matters. WinPhone is trying to occupy that sweet spot between an extremely inflexible iPhone and the WinMo-like chaos of Android. When I have to make the move away from WinMo, I still don’t know if it will be to WinPhone or Android. Probably the latter, but if Microsoft can provide what I want, I will (somewhat begrudgingly) accept the closed environment.

Farhad Manjoo says that this year may be The Year of Microsoft. I’m skeptical of Windows Phone 7, but wish them all the best. I don’t have a strong opinion on Windows 8. It’s hard to see how it will be revolutionary, though. Maybe I’m just sour because they killed the idea of a real computer-tablet.

One thing that Microsoft never got right with Windows Mobile was getting users off the stylus. Oddly, Samsung wants to bring the stylus back. It feels a little like full circle. It actually makes sense, though. There are times to use your fingers and times a stylus is better. It just strikes me as “odd” from a marketing perspective. Styluses are just considered old hat, no matter how practical.

James Joyner provides a level-headed perspective to the urinating soldiers.

Vladimir Putin is a very bad egg, but he’s got “cool” down pat. Whale hunting with crossbows? It’s almost enough to make up for the plastic surgery.

Is Japan’s failure, the “lost decade” a myth? Matthew Yglesias says it is not. If Nanani is still reading, I’d love to hear her perspective.

Hasbro is suing Asus for the latter naming their tablet the Transformer. This article says that they probably don’t have a case because nobody is going to confuse a toy with a tablet. But with Verizon paying George Lucas for the Droid name, it strikes me that there is precedent. The Transformer is actually supposed to be one of the best tablets on the market.

I could have sworn that I wrote on this before - and my apologies if I have - but I can’t find it.

This post is at least partially about the new TV series, Boss. It will contain little in the way of spoilers and will also not require you to have actually seen the show.

In the beginning of the first episode, Chicago Mayor Tom Kane (Kelsey Grammer) is hit with what may be the worst medical diagnosis there is, something called Lewy Body. It’s a cross between Parkinson’s and Alzheimers. His body, and his mind, are betraying him. His time left as an independent, cognoscente person is perilously short. The show is about Grammer’s attempts to conceal his illness and reaffirm his political power in the face of various external and internal threats.

It’s not The Wire, but I thought it was a really good show. If I were Tom Kane, though, it would have likely been a very boring show. It would have been a show about using my last day’s to assure a stable and ordertly transition into quiet retirement. Kane, though, fights on. The only transition he tries to manage is to replace Governor Cullen (Francis Guinan) with young upstart State Treasurer Zajac (Jeff Hephner), and rather than backing down from politics, he throws himself further and further into it. The notion of backing down, or losing, never occurs to him even to the point where he does something that left me literally uttering “Oh, my god.” It becomes apparent, as the show progresses, that Kane has little or nothing to retire to. He is in a loveless marriage and he and his wife both disowned their only child in the name of political expediency. There are some attempts to reconcile with his daughter, but that’s about as personal as he gets.

The whole mentality is rather alien to me. That’s one reason why I would never have a successful career in politics.

Of course, I look back at some political figures in astonishment at the degree to which they went the opposite track. There was a young politician in Colosse, Alex Leventis, who had an astonishing career ahead of him. Some were saying that he could go on to become president. A moderate Democrat, he was thought highly of across party lines. Then, in an announcement that everyone assumed was going to be for a gubernatorial bid, Leventis announced his retirement from politics. Nobody had any idea why. Less than a decade later, Leventis was in prison.

The bizarre thing about the Leventis story is what it came to be apparent did happen to him. He fell in love with a stripper. Apparently, an avaricious one. And in an attempt to make her happy, he did things in his political office that he shouldn’t have done. He retired to go to the private sector (and so that he could marry a former stripper without cocking as many eyebrows) and made more money there until his past caught up with him. The guy that everybody loved suddenly had no friends. He’d burned his bridges with Democrats by being something of a maverick. He’d burned his bridges with Republicans by being a Democrat. The stripper left him while he was in prison.

Leventis and Kane represent opposite sides of the political spectrum. One who threw it all away for the woman that he loved and the other held on tight in part because he loved nothing but what he had.

As folks around here know, I oppose a playoff for college football. The notion that it produces the “fairest” result is far from clear when. More to the point, though, there is no perfect way to determine a champion. March Madness isn’t perfect. Major League Baseball isn’t perfect. The pursuit of perfection, often in the form of allowing more and more teams into the playoff because the 9th team is arguably just as good as the 8th, merely pushes the can down the road.

This post isn’t about playoffs. This post is about what is often behind the push for playoffs. That pursuit of perfection. A fool’s errand, as often as not. The notion that any system is going to produce the perfect result, unsullied by a freak loss here or a bad call there.

Until relatively recently, I was opposed to instant replay of any form in football. The idea being, even the instant replay people aren’t going to get it right sometimes. The typical “incontrovertible evidence” standard means that the replay booth is left to decide between whether it really looked like the ref’s call was wrong, or whether it really, really looked like the ref’s call was wrong. And sometimes they get it wrong entirely. Sometimes a pivotal call is one that can’t be reviewed. Sometimes the call on the ground is so effed up that there is no right way to do it (a fumble is confused for a forward pass, a whistle blows the play dead and the live ball is picked up with an open field for a touchdown… how do you sort that one out?). There is, of course, more fair and less fair, but the delays and such didn’t seem worth it.

My mind changed as (at least at the college level) the reviews got a lot better and, most importantly, faster. Particularly in the first half of the season. There seemed to be some backsliding towards the end of the season. But the first half of the season, as well as last season (which is when my mind was changed), demonstrated that it’s possible to correct the obvious bad ones (of which there are many) without delaying the game. My main point, though, about sometimes just accepting the bad calls as a part of the game rather than a betrayal of the game, stands… in the abstract, at least.

While I was down in Colosse, I watched a Southern Tech basketball game against (who else?) Utica. I don’t watch basketball on all that regular a basis, but it was the worst officiating I believe I have ever seen. Of course, that’s one of the fundamental differences between basketball and football. In football, there are some bad calls (even with instant replay) and they can sometimes have a powerful impact on the game. You can debate it, discuss it, pick it apart. But basketball? It comes down to 100,000 ref calls throughout the game. And there can’t be anything like instant replay. And a whole lot of them are in gray areas and all of them are in realtime. In a lopsided game, there isn’t much the refs can do to affect the outcome, but if it is at all close, the best you can hope for is that the refs screw up equally.

And that’s okay. It, like at least some crummy officiating in football, is built into the game.

To get back to playoffs, when I think of March Madness, whatever problems I have with it from a fairness standpoint, I don’t think anything it does even remotely compares to the arbitrariness of the referees. A reason for me to prefer football, perhaps, though in the end it’s as much about the excitement of the games as it is about a true contest of superiority.

And that’s yet another reason why the LSU-Alabama rematch sucked.