Just When You Thought it Was Safe
I'm pleased to say-- though many of the ladies in the English department might not agree-- that the incessant high school soccer discussions will continue in my general vicinity, as both the school at which I teach (East Brunswick High School) and the town in which I live and coach (Highland Park) are Sectional State Champs in Central Jersey (in Group IV and Group I respectively) and while nearly all the other high school teams are done, East Brunswick and Highland Park are now headed to neutral fields to try to win it all: congratulations to all the players and Coach McKibbin and Coach Roig, great job extending the season and the concomitant soccer-related discussions.
Just When You Thought it Was Safe
I'm pleased to say-- though many of the ladies in the English department might not agree-- that the incessant high school soccer discussions will continue in my general vicinity, as both the school at which I teach (East Brunswick High School) and the town in which I live and coach (Highland Park) are Sectional State Champs in Central Jersey (in Group IV and Group I respectively) and while nearly all the other high school teams are done, East Brunswick and Highland Park are now headed to neutral fields to try to win it all: congratulations to all the players and Coach McKibbin and Coach Roig, great job extending the season and the concomitant soccer-related discussions.
Indolence Abetted by Dog
There is no better nap than when your dog is just outside your room, sleeping at the head of the stairs, guarding your indolence against all intruders.
Indolence Abetted by Dog
There is no better nap than when your dog is just outside your room, sleeping at the head of the stairs, guarding your indolence against all intruders.
Happy G:TBday!
In honor of fifteen years of taking life less seriously over at Gheorghe: The Blog, my buddy Whitney got real serious about being less serious and-- in a fit of expansively effusive generosity-- sent all the members of the site a couple of thoughtful gifts . . . this was a concerted effort, after ascertaining all our addresses, he then warned us about an incoming package and instructed us not to open it until G:TBday . . . because of all the ominous emails, we all imagined the worst: pipe bombs, blackmail photos and Gwyneth Paltrow's head . . . but the gifts turned out to be oddly thoughtful and quirkily sentimental; I got a Big Lebowski script (signed by Jeff Bridges . . . the Dude himself!) and a Jim Zorn jersey (signed by the King of the Scramble himself!) and you can read about the rest of the gifts here.
Happy G:TBday!
In honor of fifteen years of taking life less seriously over at Gheorghe: The Blog, my buddy Whitney got real serious about being less serious and-- in a fit of expansively effusive generosity-- sent all the members of the site a couple of thoughtful gifts . . . this was a concerted effort, after ascertaining all our addresses, he then warned us about an incoming package and instructed us not to open it until G:TBday . . . because of all the ominous emails, we all imagined the worst: pipe bombs, blackmail photos and Gwyneth Paltrow's head . . . but the gifts turned out to be oddly thoughtful and quirkily sentimental; I got a Big Lebowski script (signed by Jeff Bridges . . . the Dude himself!) and a Jim Zorn jersey (signed by the King of the Scramble himself!) and you can read about the rest of the gifts here.
Dave Throws His Vote Away
In honor of yesterday's post, I voted for Madelyn Hoffman today . . . go Green Party!
Dave Throws His Vote Away
In honor of yesterday's post, I voted for Madelyn Hoffman today . . . go Green Party!
Happy Midterm Elections!
Every America of voting age should be required to listen to the new episode of Freakonomics: America's Hidden Duopoly which gives some serious reasons as to why the relatively rational Median Voter Theorem doesn't apply to America any longer-- the best way to imagine the Median Voter Theorem is to think of a long beach, which is the continuum of American voters-- and two ice cream vendors (with trucks) which represent the Democrat and Republican parties and while the vendors might position themselves at the far ends of the beach-- which indicates radical liberalism and radical conservatism-- then they can't capture much of the middle vote . . . the walk is too far, so naturally, the ice cream vendors should move towards the center because then they can capture more and more of the middle of the continuum because the radical voters on the far edges have no choice (in a two-party system) but to walk to get their ice cream . . . but this implies that if the ice cream trucks remain very far to the right or the left, then an ice cream truck can open shop in the middle and win the election . . . Tyler Cowen offers a number of reasons why this theory doesn't work, and this new episode of Freakonomics clarifies the argument; veteran business competition expert Michael Porter realized that our two party system is not a public service, it's a political industrial complex . . . and the thing the Democrats and Republicans are best at is not serving their constituents or serving the American people as a whole, the thing they are the best at is cooperating to create policy and protocol to prevent any outside forces from impinging on their duopoly; like the battle between Coke and Pepsi, the duopoly war gets great media coverage and generates its own feedback loop of coverage, but unlike Coke and Pepsi, there is no Dr Pepper . . . and the Democrat and Republican parties have done a great deal to ensure this; Porter cites five forces that could ruin a duopoly:
1) the threat of new entrants;
2)the threat of substitute products or services;
3) the bargaining power of suppliers;
4) the bargaining power of buyers;
5) and rivalry among existing competitors;
and the voting consumer is pretty much screwed in every category . . . neither party has to worry about an independent, and can often dissuade party loyalists merely by mentioning the spoiler effect-- if you vote for an independent, you're just throwing the election to the other party, which then has all the power and will use it to gerrymander maps and stymie any diplomacy or bi-partisan agreement; we've got no bargaining power as voters and only the extremists in each party are willing to supply money and people for the cause . . . it's basically two ice cream vendors who don't give a fuck about most people, provide shitty, biased ice cream, and exist by convincing people there's no reason to walk so incredibly far for ice cream and that that ice cream vendor is a terrible human and there's no chance of better ice cream along the way because they've convinced the town not to allow any other vendors . . . it's a bad situation, but the episode has some solutions-- we could vote the way Ireland does (listen to the new Radiolab for more on that) and use "rank choice voting" and then re-tally the votes until there's a consensus, tossing out extremely partisan choices that can't get fifty-percent of the vote . . . anyway, both parties love to say that our democracy is broken, but that's a ruse and they don't believe it-- our democratic system is fantastic at keeping Democrats and Republicans in power, something that worried John Adam . . . this system assures us that almost everyone who runs will be the same, that there will be no bi-partisan agreement-- there wasn't with Obama and there isn't with Trump-- and neither party cares because they know there's no alternative, so they cater to their base, knowing that the rest of the rational middle ground consumers have no bargaining power and have to make a choice between the lesser of two evils . . . there are bi[artisan groups working on solutions, but it is rough going because Democrats and Republicans alike don't want to cede any control to bi-partisan committees or non-partisan committees . . . they want to wait their turn and then take power back, the way we've been doing it for a while now . . . Seattle tried another interesting solution, which may not have worked perfectly, but it's a start . . . anyway, happy mid-term elections and recognize that if you vote Democrat or Republican, you're really voting for the current political industrial complex and for more of the same bipolar vitriol and more of the same atrocious customer service.
Happy Midterm Elections!
Every America of voting age should be required to listen to the new episode of Freakonomics: America's Hidden Duopoly which gives some serious reasons as to why the relatively rational Median Voter Theorem doesn't apply to America any longer-- the best way to imagine the Median Voter Theorem is to think of a long beach, which is the continuum of American voters-- and two ice cream vendors (with trucks) which represent the Democrat and Republican parties and while the vendors might position themselves at the far ends of the beach-- which indicates radical liberalism and radical conservatism-- then they can't capture much of the middle vote . . . the walk is too far, so naturally, the ice cream vendors should move towards the center because then they can capture more and more of the middle of the continuum because the radical voters on the far edges have no choice (in a two-party system) but to walk to get their ice cream . . . but this implies that if the ice cream trucks remain very far to the right or the left, then an ice cream truck can open shop in the middle and win the election . . . Tyler Cowen offers a number of reasons why this theory doesn't work, and this new episode of Freakonomics clarifies the argument; veteran business competition expert Michael Porter realized that our two party system is not a public service, it's a political industrial complex . . . and the thing the Democrats and Republicans are best at is not serving their constituents or serving the American people as a whole, the thing they are the best at is cooperating to create policy and protocol to prevent any outside forces from impinging on their duopoly; like the battle between Coke and Pepsi, the duopoly war gets great media coverage and generates its own feedback loop of coverage, but unlike Coke and Pepsi, there is no Dr Pepper . . . and the Democrat and Republican parties have done a great deal to ensure this; Porter cites five forces that could ruin a duopoly:
1) the threat of new entrants;
2)the threat of substitute products or services;
3) the bargaining power of suppliers;
4) the bargaining power of buyers;
5) and rivalry among existing competitors;
and the voting consumer is pretty much screwed in every category . . . neither party has to worry about an independent, and can often dissuade party loyalists merely by mentioning the spoiler effect-- if you vote for an independent, you're just throwing the election to the other party, which then has all the power and will use it to gerrymander maps and stymie any diplomacy or bi-partisan agreement; we've got no bargaining power as voters and only the extremists in each party are willing to supply money and people for the cause . . . it's basically two ice cream vendors who don't give a fuck about most people, provide shitty, biased ice cream, and exist by convincing people there's no reason to walk so incredibly far for ice cream and that that ice cream vendor is a terrible human and there's no chance of better ice cream along the way because they've convinced the town not to allow any other vendors . . . it's a bad situation, but the episode has some solutions-- we could vote the way Ireland does (listen to the new Radiolab for more on that) and use "rank choice voting" and then re-tally the votes until there's a consensus, tossing out extremely partisan choices that can't get fifty-percent of the vote . . . anyway, both parties love to say that our democracy is broken, but that's a ruse and they don't believe it-- our democratic system is fantastic at keeping Democrats and Republicans in power, something that worried John Adam . . . this system assures us that almost everyone who runs will be the same, that there will be no bi-partisan agreement-- there wasn't with Obama and there isn't with Trump-- and neither party cares because they know there's no alternative, so they cater to their base, knowing that the rest of the rational middle ground consumers have no bargaining power and have to make a choice between the lesser of two evils . . . there are bi[artisan groups working on solutions, but it is rough going because Democrats and Republicans alike don't want to cede any control to bi-partisan committees or non-partisan committees . . . they want to wait their turn and then take power back, the way we've been doing it for a while now . . . Seattle tried another interesting solution, which may not have worked perfectly, but it's a start . . . anyway, happy mid-term elections and recognize that if you vote Democrat or Republican, you're really voting for the current political industrial complex and for more of the same bipolar vitriol and more of the same atrocious customer service.
Boom Goes the Book
Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World Class Metropolis by Sam Anderson is a platinum-level-must-read for American men (and hairy-chested American women) and when I list the topics, you'll understand why I make this claim-- and these manly topics are all woven together in a rocket-fueled tapestry of a narrative . . . a manly tapestry:
1) Oklahoma Thunder basketball during the Westbrook, Durant, Harden era and the post-Harden Reconstruction;
2) the Land Rush of 1889 . . . retitled by Anderson as either the "Chaos Explosion Apocalypse Town" or "Reckoning of the Doom Settlers: Clusterfuck on the Prairie;
3) the Sooners, who actually had the gall and wherewithal to cheat at the Doom Chaos Apocalypse Town Clusterfuck;
4) tornadoes, extreme weather, and the men and women that predict and chase these monstrous storms;
5) Clara Luper and the Oklahoma City Civil Rights movement;
6) city planning and the tension between top-down bureaucracy bottom-up up emergence;
7) enigmatic, experimental, anomalous and loyal native OklahomanWayne Coyne and his band The Flaming Lips;
8) domestic terrorism and a tragic explosion more devastating than the original formation of Oklahoma City;
and if there's nothing on this list that piques your interest, then I've got nothing much to say to you; this is the book of the year (and maybe the book of the last ten years . . . I loved it!)
1) Oklahoma Thunder basketball during the Westbrook, Durant, Harden era and the post-Harden Reconstruction;
2) the Land Rush of 1889 . . . retitled by Anderson as either the "Chaos Explosion Apocalypse Town" or "Reckoning of the Doom Settlers: Clusterfuck on the Prairie;
3) the Sooners, who actually had the gall and wherewithal to cheat at the Doom Chaos Apocalypse Town Clusterfuck;
4) tornadoes, extreme weather, and the men and women that predict and chase these monstrous storms;
5) Clara Luper and the Oklahoma City Civil Rights movement;
6) city planning and the tension between top-down bureaucracy bottom-up up emergence;
7) enigmatic, experimental, anomalous and loyal native OklahomanWayne Coyne and his band The Flaming Lips;
8) domestic terrorism and a tragic explosion more devastating than the original formation of Oklahoma City;
and if there's nothing on this list that piques your interest, then I've got nothing much to say to you; this is the book of the year (and maybe the book of the last ten years . . . I loved it!)
Boom Goes the Book
Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World Class Metropolis by Sam Anderson is a platinum-level-must-read for American men (and hairy-chested American women) and when I list the topics, you'll understand why I make this claim-- and these manly topics are all woven together in a rocket-fueled tapestry of a narrative . . . a manly tapestry:
1) Oklahoma Thunder basketball during the Westbrook, Durant, Harden era and the post-Harden Reconstruction;
2) the Land Rush of 1889 . . . retitled by Anderson as either the "Chaos Explosion Apocalypse Town" or "Reckoning of the Doom Settlers: Clusterfuck on the Prairie;
3) the Sooners, who actually had the gall and wherewithal to cheat at the Doom Chaos Apocalypse Town Clusterfuck;
4) tornadoes, extreme weather, and the men and women that predict and chase these monstrous storms;
5) Clara Luper and the Oklahoma City Civil Rights movement;
6) city planning and the tension between top-down bureaucracy bottom-up up emergence;
7) enigmatic, experimental, anomalous and loyal native OklahomanWayne Coyne and his band The Flaming Lips;
8) domestic terrorism and a tragic explosion more devastating than the original formation of Oklahoma City;
and if there's nothing on this list that piques your interest, then I've got nothing much to say to you; this is the book of the year (and maybe the book of the last ten years . . . I loved it!)
1) Oklahoma Thunder basketball during the Westbrook, Durant, Harden era and the post-Harden Reconstruction;
2) the Land Rush of 1889 . . . retitled by Anderson as either the "Chaos Explosion Apocalypse Town" or "Reckoning of the Doom Settlers: Clusterfuck on the Prairie;
3) the Sooners, who actually had the gall and wherewithal to cheat at the Doom Chaos Apocalypse Town Clusterfuck;
4) tornadoes, extreme weather, and the men and women that predict and chase these monstrous storms;
5) Clara Luper and the Oklahoma City Civil Rights movement;
6) city planning and the tension between top-down bureaucracy bottom-up up emergence;
7) enigmatic, experimental, anomalous and loyal native OklahomanWayne Coyne and his band The Flaming Lips;
8) domestic terrorism and a tragic explosion more devastating than the original formation of Oklahoma City;
and if there's nothing on this list that piques your interest, then I've got nothing much to say to you; this is the book of the year (and maybe the book of the last ten years . . . I loved it!)
Sentence Postponed Due to Hirsuteness
Catherine and I are off to my cousin Keith's wedding, so though I have a lot of rambling run-on sentence type thoughts they have been superseded by the categorical grooming imperative (the hair on my face was just as unkempt as the hair on my back).
Sentence Postponed Due to Hirsuteness
Catherine and I are off to my cousin Keith's wedding, so though I have a lot of rambling run-on sentence type thoughts they have been superseded by the categorical grooming imperative (the hair on my face was just as unkempt as the hair on my back).
Dave Summons a Hackerlike Miracle
My wife just told me fantastic news: the school computer system erased all the teacher conferences she scheduled for our son Ian and now the time slots are all filled up by other people . . . this rectifies an impending marital conflict, as the Highland Park boys varsity team is playing in the State semi-finals on Monday night-- which is when the conferences were scheduled-- and I told my wife that i was not going t attend the conferences because of this conflict and she told me that I was "a slacker parent" and if I stuck to my guns and skipped out then I was certainly going to be in the doghouse-- but now there aren't any conferences to attend . . . I'd love to say I hacked into the school computer system and erased the conferences myself but I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag, so we'll just have to call this a November miracle.
Dave Summons a Hackerlike Miracle
My wife just told me fantastic news: the school computer system erased all the teacher conferences she scheduled for our son Ian and now the time slots are all filled up by other people . . . this rectifies an impending marital conflict, as the Highland Park boys varsity team is playing in the State semi-finals on Monday night-- which is when the conferences were scheduled-- and I told my wife that i was not going t attend the conferences because of this conflict and she told me that I was "a slacker parent" and if I stuck to my guns and skipped out then I was certainly going to be in the doghouse-- but now there aren't any conferences to attend . . . I'd love to say I hacked into the school computer system and erased the conferences myself but I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag, so we'll just have to call this a November miracle.
Dave Stubs His Toe on an Invisible Box
My right quad is sore but I'm getting better and better with each attempt (although I'm not nearly good enough yet to post) but someday soon I'm going to achieve my newest wildest dream . . . I'm going to step on an invisible box and then I'm going to hop over it.
Dave Stubs His Toe on an Invisible Box
My right quad is sore but I'm getting better and better with each attempt (although I'm not nearly good enough yet to post) but someday soon I'm going to achieve my newest wildest dream . . . I'm going to step on an invisible box and then I'm going to hop over it.
Fred Armisen is the Democratic Inversion of Donald Trump
The Undiscovered podcast episode "Party Lines" is the best piece of non-partisan political commentary I've heard in a long time (especially since Dan Carlin hasn't put anything out for a while) which means that very few people will be interested in what they have to report; the show explains a new mathematical method to determine how much gerrymandering has gone into a particular voting map (and the answer is usually "a lot") and the groundbreaking method-- like the method of throwing a cornhole beanbag-- is beautiful in its simplicity; votes are tallied and then a computer draws a trillion feasible voting maps and re-tallies the actual votes in regards to these particular borders, so you can see lots and lots of results and determine a few things:
1) what probably should have happened,
2) what's in the realm of possibility,
3) and what's an absurd result because of rigged maps . . .
this method is so beautifully elegant that it has passed through the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (though Trump advised Pennsylvanians to "challenge" the new map, as the "original was correct" . . . but we know Trump isn't so good at math) and while the Supreme Court is avoiding the issue (probably because gerrymandering helps Republicans right now) they won't avoid it forever, because as soon as Democrats take power, the conservative court will make the logical ruling and trust the numbers; Democrats and Republicans both love to gerrymander, it's just that Republicans control everything right now, so they need to gerrymander while the gerrymandering is good, which I totally understand; my other political thought today, which is a bit of an aside, is that, after much reading, discussion, and research, I've decided that most folks voted for Trump to give the middle finger to liberals and the political establishment-- they don't care about his lack of experience, his policy on healthcare, or his crass buffoonery . . . in fact, his crass buffoonery, unsolicited and stupid lies, lowbrow language, braggadocio, old man whiteness, racism, sexism, unwarranted confidence, clueless sensibility, and general un-hipness is exactly what Trump supporters love about him, because they know this will trigger absolutely irrational unseated anger in intellectuals and liberals-- there is no one more underserving of attention and power than Donald Trump, and therefore he is the perfect candidate to elect . . . so I tried to figure out who would be the perfect liberal candidate to trigger all the same emotions in conservatives and it's obviously not Barack Obama-- Obama actually got elected, because he's too on the nose . . . he's nerdy and intellectual, but he's black-- his saving grace-- because no conservative wants to be that overtly racist in this day and age, so I think the Democratic inversion of Donald Trump is Fred Armisen, he's ironically uncool, indecisive, apologetic but still kind of an asshole, unflinchingly liberal, empathetic, utterly nerdy, capable of weird indignance, and-- like Portlandia-- an inside joke that only liberals get.
1) what probably should have happened,
2) what's in the realm of possibility,
3) and what's an absurd result because of rigged maps . . .
this method is so beautifully elegant that it has passed through the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (though Trump advised Pennsylvanians to "challenge" the new map, as the "original was correct" . . . but we know Trump isn't so good at math) and while the Supreme Court is avoiding the issue (probably because gerrymandering helps Republicans right now) they won't avoid it forever, because as soon as Democrats take power, the conservative court will make the logical ruling and trust the numbers; Democrats and Republicans both love to gerrymander, it's just that Republicans control everything right now, so they need to gerrymander while the gerrymandering is good, which I totally understand; my other political thought today, which is a bit of an aside, is that, after much reading, discussion, and research, I've decided that most folks voted for Trump to give the middle finger to liberals and the political establishment-- they don't care about his lack of experience, his policy on healthcare, or his crass buffoonery . . . in fact, his crass buffoonery, unsolicited and stupid lies, lowbrow language, braggadocio, old man whiteness, racism, sexism, unwarranted confidence, clueless sensibility, and general un-hipness is exactly what Trump supporters love about him, because they know this will trigger absolutely irrational unseated anger in intellectuals and liberals-- there is no one more underserving of attention and power than Donald Trump, and therefore he is the perfect candidate to elect . . . so I tried to figure out who would be the perfect liberal candidate to trigger all the same emotions in conservatives and it's obviously not Barack Obama-- Obama actually got elected, because he's too on the nose . . . he's nerdy and intellectual, but he's black-- his saving grace-- because no conservative wants to be that overtly racist in this day and age, so I think the Democratic inversion of Donald Trump is Fred Armisen, he's ironically uncool, indecisive, apologetic but still kind of an asshole, unflinchingly liberal, empathetic, utterly nerdy, capable of weird indignance, and-- like Portlandia-- an inside joke that only liberals get.
Halloween is a Test
I have nothing creative in the tank, as I'm using all my willpower to not eat the Reeses peanut butter cups in the closet.
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