[in passing]
Randall Munroe (xkcd) has invented a new literary infographic. No, really. Go and see.
Just wanted, briefly, to add that I very much appreciate the work that Teresa has done here, & I hope it finds wide application.
James MacDonald, #2: "I don't believe that anyone is so smart that the right conman with the right pitch at the right time can't take him."
In other words, anyone can be deceived. Sure. But it amazes me how many people don't think so. I've taken some serious heat for saying things like that. It's the ultimate fantasy of power: believing that one has a line to ultimate truth, and it's a fantasy that some people hold a death grip on, sometimes all too literally.
Well, happy birthday, John and D!
One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned in this discussion is that bullies often have fans and followings. There are rewards for being part of a gang, of course, but there's also something seductive about the power some bullies achieve, something that gets some people to identify with the bully, and not with the victim. Perhaps its an extension of hominid group-identification behavior.
Headline of the Day: Cougar will send text messages.
Goodbye to one of the great liberals. May the Senate honor his memory by supporting his cause of universal health care.
Didn't Mao impose "Mandarin" on mainland China? And a syllabary? So far as I know, only Hong Kong and Taiwan uses the traditional ideograms. (And Japan, sort of.)
David Dyer-Bennett, #132: I wonder how much that opposition would last in the face of government-funded care vs. actual illness. There are probably a few people who would be willing to die or suffer prolonged disability for their philosophy, but to judge by the success of Medicare, probably not all that many. This conflict of claimed vs. revealed preference is probably what leads to the bizarre position (apparently surprisingly common) that Medicare isn't government health care.
Is anyone else tired of fighting? I mean, we elected an extraordinary black President, we got a progressive House, we have a Democratic majority in the Senate. Yet we're still fighting over the same ground, and the USA still seems unable to engage the major issues of the times.
"And David Brin would certainly know."
Hee.
Dave Bell, #63, on "right-wing political violence" backfiring on the conservatives who make an alliance with it. That's Robinson's point: the dissolution into fascist violence. But my impression is we're already past that stage and into conservative authoritarian state stage. On the other hand, economic 1932 is still on the way (thank you, o Geithner and Summers), so perhaps there's time for a more formal collapse into fascism. Certainly it's 1931 in California.
And here, Sara Robinson sounds the fascism alarm.
Personally, I suspect she's got the stages wrong. I think we are in the "more traditional theocracy, corporatocracy, or military regime" that emerges when the conservatives hold the violent factions in line. The progressives hold one house of Congress and (more or less) the Presidency. Doesn't seem to do much good, does it? TheHouse of LordsSenate is in the driver's seate.
Clifton, #759: Not that I know of. All the pieces I've seen are here
Best news of the day: Patrick Farley is rebooting E-Sheep. So far there's nothing there but a funny cover page, but check it out!
Now, if they get Margaret Atwood to attend, our work is done. :-)
Ah, Wikipedia. Wired informs us that NIH scientists are getting a lesson in Wiki culture. One may only hope it does not take.
Serge, #2: hee.
Damien Neil touches on the value of physical objects as ways to store and share the abstraction of text. They are also of value as ways to archive text. So far, no magnetic or electrical medium (flash memory is an electrical medium) is archival. They have all have lifespans of perhaps a decade. Researchers think that archival CD-Rs--a chemical-optical medium--will last about 300 years, but of course no-one knows for sure. So here's to paper and ink, and whatever comes after that will last!
| Year | Number of comments posted |
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| 2009 | 150 |
| 2008 | 402 |
| 2007 | 359 |
| 2006 | 222 |
| 2005 | 177 |
| 2004 | 100 |
| 2003 | 77 |
| 2002 | 29 |
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