Monday, August 25, 2014

Monday's Child

1.  Old guy, still working.  At 101.  It's not causal, in the sense that people who work longer live longer for that reason.  But it is true that people who live longer and feel better may enjoy working longer.

2.  I bet Mike Peterson is saying, "See!  SEE!"  About this.

3.  So, Dick Morris got in all sorts of trouble for toe-sucking.  But this marmot can go around lens-licking and there is no reaction?  Why do we even have a highly militarized local police force if marmots think nothing of lens-licking?

4.  Patents that kill...

5.  An interesting perspective.  If this is right, then it is the LIBERTARIAN part of the left that is prospering, and the statist part that is foundering.  I'd kind of like to believe that's true.

moremoremoremore!



6.  If this truck slows down...just gun it.

7.   Where did you say you were from?

8.  "The most transparent administration in history..."  The only thing transparent about the Obama administration is its blatant corruption.  The point is not that it is worse than Bush II; it's not worse.  The point is that it's no BETTER.

9.  I'm not sure that government is to blame for this, really.  If we set up a state that only hires idiots, you can't really blame the operatives for being idiots.  To avoid this, we would need to settle on a conception of the state that is limited, but honorable, instead of unlimited and corrupt.  (Still, you might give some training that allows TSA people to identify the different states and territories of the U.S.)

10.  Deflation:  it can't stop, it won't stop.  Actually, that was Puffy, but you see my point.  (For people over 40, the Puffy reference...)

11. Buzz-kill.

12.  I'm not that disturbed the theft, since the property was returned.  I'm a little creeped out by the idea of the statue, however.   The owner's account:  "It's Obama.  Everybody loves Obama.  Well, I do."  Her polling technique needs work, I think.

13.  When citizens are asked to report weapons, we do need to be careful to tell people that Star Wars was not a documentary.  Light sabers don't exist, except as toys.  Yes, it would be cool if they did, especially if you could get one of Samuel L. Jackson's special "Shaft Purple" edition light sabers.

14.  The LMM wants to get married again so she can wear this dress.  I'm worried, though.  It's not clear what my role would be--if any--in this new wedding.

15.  Stress, mood, and health are related in complex ways.

16.  In praise of efficient price-gouging.  It's not complicated.  The problem is that people want unicorns:  low price, zero scarcity, no wait times.  Unicorns don't actually exist.  Well, except in your imagination.

17.  Jeez.  Get some WD-40, man.  For the swing, I mean.

18.  You can be a litter narc!  Rat out your enemies, on charges real or imagined.

19.  You MUST give us your information, even the most sensitive.  And we will pledge to safeguard it.  Except that we don't mean the second part, and if we get hacked you have no recourse.  Have a nice day, citizen.

20.  It's ridiculously easy to hack, delay, destroy many of the things we depend on.  But we will continue to focus only on airports, because it's fun.

21.  Never reason from a BOND price change...

22.  Falling teen pregnancy rate....why?

23.  Q:  How much do I want to ride in this?  A:  A lot.

24.  I guess I can imagine stealing an electric shopping cart.  Maybe I can imagine using to go places in public, but probably not.  I cannot imagine taking it to go see my probation officer. I have to admit, however, I would absolutely consider doing this.
25.  50 Shades of Gay.

26.  Pranking Gatorade buyers.



6 comments:

Simon Spero said...

Re: "efficient" "price gouging"

The interesting question which the article doesn't quite reach is whether the algorithm is optimized for the psychological effects. For uber this is a repeated game.
The clearing price for the small number of snow days may cost more in loss of long term goodwill than the limited revenue brought in.

There may be a separate market for high availability services vs. price limited (where the latter may not be available under stress).

This is not quite the Walmart v. ice truck guys case, since the Ice truck guys were operating independently. Also, I wonder if the reaction to ice truck from crowd would have differed if the bags had been sold by different kinds of auction.

Plan ahead for the next Fran with some unimogs, freezers, and armed research assistants.
Deep discounts for IRB members- capture those regulators.

Also, in some theories of modalities, unicorns can be considered to exist:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/possible-objects/ .

Anonymous said...

Re #14, perhaps you could be the one with the credit card?

John Covil said...

RE: 13

There are lightsabers that begin to blur the line between toy and weapon.

Michael said...

Re: 11

50,000 bees sounds like a big number, but that's about how many are in a normal colony in a beehive. Being social insects they need the numbers to collect nectar, pollen, tend young, defend the colony, and regulate the temperature.

They don't take up that much space ;)

Michael said...

and the woman missing her obama statue (#12) needs to read the article about his "most transparent administration ever."

I find this depressingly amusing:

"she was startled enough by the theft to be hospitalized for a panic attack"

Tom said...

Your #14 is a nice bridal gown. And if your wife likes that, perhaps she will also like the best bridal gown ever.