“John McCain has been trying to paint Obama as the candidate of big government. Yet it is the Right, not the Left, that is bringing us the biggest, most powerful, most centralized, and most intrusive government that America has ever seen. Many members of the technical community have libertarian leanings; you should vote for Obama for this reason alone!”
—Why I Support Barack Obama - O’Reilly Radar
October 2008
24 posts
“It’s what is known as “math hair”. Similar to the “unix beard” as its size and complexity is directly proportionate to one’s skill.”
—zonkzor comments on Did you realise modern candle wicks are a marvel of engineering
“
In a tour de force of office supply physics, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have shown that it is possible to produce X-rays by simply unrolling Scotch tape.
Next step: nuclear fusion.
“We’re going to do that,” said Seth J. Putterman, a professor of physics at U.C.L.A. “I think it will work.”
But first, X-rays.
” —Scotch Tape Unleashes X-Ray Power - NYTimes.com
“If there were a new mantra of the new science of insight into health and long life, it would be “measure, measure, and measure.”
—The Heart Scan Blog: Self-testing
“Government bailouts and guarantees, while at times needed, always come with unintended consequences,” notes the financial strategist David Smick. “The winners: the strong, the big, the established, the domestic and the safe — the folks who, relatively speaking, don’t need the money. The losers: the new, the small, the foreign and the risky — emerging markets, entrepreneurs and small businesses not politically connected. After all, what banker in a Capitol Hill hearing now would want to defend a loan to an emerging market? Yet emerging economies are the big markets for American exports.”
—Op-Ed Columnist - If Larry and Sergey Asked for a Loan … - NYTimes.com
“There are an indefinite number of beliefs without which the actual bargain would not have been struck. Some of them are more causally fundamental than others. For example, remove the idea that the government ought to encourage and subsidize homeownership, and what do we have left of the main forces behind the financial crisis? I’d say we have nothing left. So there’s our culprit, right?”
—The Principles of Weisbergian Political Economy
“The seasteaders believe that their cities will restore that competition. “Modern democratic governments are often unresponsive to the needs of their citizens. Our floating cities will change that - if you don’t like your government, you’ll be able to pull up anchor and sail to a better one, or start your own. Imagine the reduction in worldwide violence if Israel could just move away from Palestine, Georgia from Russia, or Hong Kong from China. On floating cities, this is actually possible!”
—Vote With Your House | Seasteading Institute
“I like HTML in the same way I like PDF - as a document serialization format that does a reasonable job and that I never want to modify by hand.”
—A User Interface Definition Language in Common Lisp
http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf →
princeton.edu
Paul Krugman on interstellar trade.
“She wondered, with a deep, lunatic pang of pure love, how he had managed to put the croak into the frog.”
—Caprice and Rondo by Dorothy Dunnett, p. 476
“
It sounded flippant. No one else could know that something caught in his throat as he spoke. Something very small and remote, like a secret.
It was strange, then, that she lay still at his heart, and didn’t smile, or retort, or embark, as only she could, on another complex, ardent, sensual triumph. It was strange and mortally comforting that, instead, she said only, ‘I’m here.’
” —Gemini by Dorothy Dunnett, p. 221
“He wished he led the kind of gentleman’s life that would allow him ten reposeful perfect nails that didn’t get scuffed and split and broken on sword handles and rigging and lathes. He cancelled the thought as pathetic.”
—Gemini by Dorothy Dunnett, pp. 203-204
“At first, they crossed swaddled limbs with some caution; the drinking was not without mishap, but contained moments of ritual elegance: the sacred ibis in slow dance with its partner.”
—Gemini by Dorothy Dunnett, p. 179
“A millihelen is the amount of beauty required to launch one ship. (I wish I could take credit for that one but I only know it as an old joke.)”
—DABlog Getting out of Ruby’s way: code beauty and/or greatness
“There is also a consensus among economists that the bailout bill is not the right policy. None of the above economists, for example, is enthusiastic about the bailout. My bet is that all of us think that the bailout has a substantial likelihood of failing. The support that exists is born out of hope and fear not judgment and experience. Nevertheless, the political consensus is that a bailout is what we will get whether it is likely to work or not. ”
—Marginal Revolution: The Economic Consensus v. Politics
