Author Archives: Anton

cinema 1964

As I may have mentioned before, I arrange my Netflix queue mostly by date. Since I caught up to my own birth, the number of movies per year has grown sharply, so this may be my longest post yet.

Posted in cinema | 1 Comment

One Of These Things

I’m looking at a banner ad that says Q. Which is not like the others? 63 57 98 01 I saw quickly that none are prime (1 is usually not counted as prime, so that each integer’s prime factorization is … Continue reading

Posted in mathematics | 3 Comments

backfire

Over in Volokhia, Jim Lindgren (cited by Tom W Bell) points out a presumably unintended consequence of the atrocious Kelo decision: if commercial activity is “public use”, then it’s not taxable. Hee hee.

Posted in tax+privacy | Leave a comment

QotD

“I think the world has been run long enough by well-meaning professionals. We might give the amateurs a chance now.” —Carol Fisher in Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940)

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time-sink of the week

Planarity, a Flash puzzle: rearrange the vertices so that no edges cross. (Cited by Joshua Burton.) When a solution is near, the program gets very slow, which seems backward. (Thursday: It has been changed to test only on the player’s … Continue reading

Posted in mathematics | 3 Comments

they can’t always be wrong

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant. Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle. You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs. For you, comfort and calm are very important. You tend to thrive … Continue reading

Posted in me!me!me!, psychology | 1 Comment

That all you got, punk?

Dean Ing’s first novel Soft Targets (1979) suggested that against terrorists the most effective weapon is mockery. Since the London bombs I’ve seen hints of such an approach. Arthur Silber (2006: that link is gone bad, here’s another) gets in … Continue reading

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