Author Archives: Anton

qualified peeve

Not a week goes by when I don’t read that some trial court has “granted qualified immunity” to some criminal with a badge. That’s inaccurate. The aggressor was granted qualified immunity by the Supreme Court when it invented that doctrine … Continue reading

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my citizenship(s)

The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States begins: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. I … Continue reading

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

adventures in language borrowing

In this episode of College Roomies from Hell!, there appears in otherwise Spanish dialogue (the author is Mexican, I believe) the word Sepa, which would be pronounced like French sais pas (“dunno”), which fits the context.

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concepts that are not quite writing

I was thinking about the notion of a brain interface that delivers text to a layer after vision: the user “sees” the letters at their most abstract, but not their graphic details. What would that experience be like? Could it … Continue reading

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a question of aspect

The refrain of P. F. Sloan’s song “Let Me Be” (recorded by the Turtles) concludes, I am what I am and that’s all I ever can be. Defiance or fatalism?

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upload/resurrection fantasy, again

Previous version. If your thousands of instances are linked in a line, the youngest and eldest are affected only very slowly by blending (if the middle is not to be hugely overrepresented); that is why I came up with daily … Continue reading

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oblique pedals

Pedaling a bicycle is painful for me, because a crooked hip makes the knee transmit force at an unnatural angle. But perhaps I could mitigate that (if I had any relevant skills) by making the pedals’ axis oblique, connected to … Continue reading

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