Human nature (2013/11/23)
People talk a lot about human nature, often fairly cynically. I do it too. People say things like “in theory, only people who actually need the aid are supposed to apply for it, but human nature being what it is, lots of people apply fraudulently”. And, barring some dispute over what constitutes “lots” of people, that kind of thing is true. It really is the case that people steal, that people commit violent crimes. It is true that people try to get ahead without regard for others, and even at other people’s expense. It is the truth, and nothing but the truth… But it is not the whole truth.
[read more...]Stay classy, Google! (2013/11/18)
Well, too late for that.
[read more...]Starting spamd (and other related fun) using Server.app on OS X (2013/11/03)
Since my previous blog post on this topic was so useful to me, but slightly obsolete, I’m posting updates. I recently had occasion to rebuild my mail server, and decided to bite the bullet and go with Mavericks plus the new Server.app.
Why universal health coverage might be cheaper than it looks... (2013/10/22)
Been thinking about this for a long time. Medical costs in the US are unreasonably high, for unusually poor results, and that’s been true for a while. But it seems pretty reasonable, at first glance, to assert that providing health coverage for all the people who don’t have it will be pretty expensive.
[read more...]FF14: A Realm Reborn. Review/commentary (2013/09/24)
Overall summary: A fairly good game, with a mix of some really cool things and some spectacular stupidity. The things that are wrong, frequently it’s simply mind-numbing that anyone could possibly have thought this would be okay, or taken the extra time it would take to get them wrong. The things that are right are often quite good.
[read more...]A mismatch of visions (2013/08/08)
I’ve been, historically, a pretty big fan of Rift. I like the game. I like the developers. And throughout most of the last two and a half years, I have felt that the Rift team have earned a certain amount of trust. They make mistakes, but they fix them. In general.
[read more...]The most important person you know (2013/07/29)
You never actually thought you’d meet them, of course. I mean, who would expect to? I mean, really, we all like to think we’re important, but we know that we’re just not that important, that we will never rate the attention of the truly great ones. So at first, it just seemed like they were a little rude. Maybe a little dismissive of other people. Who would have guessed, though, that you’d actually met the one person in the world whose time is the most valuable?
[read more...]Statistics, brains, and science (2013/07/21)
So, it has come to my attention that I am sometimes a little weird. No, wait. A lot weird. And this isn’t just a matter of being autistic; even comparing my behavior to that of other autistics I know, I am somewhat further out there in some ways. So, as a result of this, I’ve spent a cheerful hour or so filling out the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), this being the “restructured” version of the MMPI-2.
[read more...]Assume a spherical cat of uniform happiness (2013/07/18)
But you don’t have to assume her anymore. I have her.
[read more...]The hate that dare not speak its name (2013/06/28)
Used to be, people were pretty shy about being gay, because it could get you in lots of trouble. Crazy, crazy, trouble. Not just being beaten or killed, but stuff like attempts to use mandatory hormone therapy to “treat” it. And this was a horrible situation. Thing is, this didn’t mean gay people didn’t want relationships, it just meant they had to find subtle ways to indicate that they might be interested in such things. (People who read a lot of Pratchett may recognize a similarity to his dwarves, who do not distinguish between male and female in most contexts, considering it a rather personal thing, making their courtships rather more complicated.)
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