a hacker’s tale

Posted on Friday, 2004 December 24 by Anton

I hope this yarn is true: one of my favorite MacOS toys was developed clandestinely.

We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly, Microsoft has effective building security.

(Cited by Travis.)

Posted in neep-neep | Leave a comment

temporal foreshortening

Posted on Friday, 2004 December 24 by Anton

On a private mailing list someone wrote:

having just seen the 1951 Britisher version of the Dickens Christmas Carol, it struck me that free marketeers should really live in Dickensian England and try work their way out from the bottom.

I thought of writing a rant about Dickens’s sins, but a better approach presented itself:

FYI

1838: Oliver Twist

1843: A Christmas Carol

1846: repeal of the Corn Laws — commonly cited as the first triumph of the free trade movement

Posted in economics, prose | Leave a comment

arm’s length

Posted on Friday, 2004 December 24 by Anton

Tyler Cowen (cited by Travis) quotes a NYT article:

. . . participants [at a retreat for autistics] . . . can wear color-coded badges that indicate whether they are willing to be approached for conversation.

and remarks:

I will be very happy if this ever becomes socially acceptable practice for non-autistics . . . 

When I had a cubicle to call my own, I would sometimes put up a little sign:

CAUTION
TEMPORARY ACUTE SURLINESS ZONE

No one ever gave me grief about it, and I can’t recall that anyone even asked what it meant; I guess they assumed I was busy.

Posted in psychology | 1 Comment

Doctor Matrix’s little helpers

Posted on Friday, 2004 December 24 by Anton

Ed Pegg writes:

I’d like to do a “behind the scenes” look at Mathematical Games for an article. Martin [Gardner] did lots, but he avidly used a lot of help from hundreds of people. I’d like to write an article about the background help. If you ever assisted in one of Martin’s columns, I’d like to hear from you — a note about what you did. I’ll use these notes in my article.

A link from Pegg leads indirectly to a collection of weird and wonderful algorithmic paintings.

Posted in eye-candy, mathematics | Leave a comment

linky

Posted on Thursday, 2004 December 23 by Anton

contrarian road design

the GI Bill: a bad thing

Posted in general | Leave a comment

how are cases named?

Posted on Monday, 2004 December 20 by Anton

How did the medical marijuana case now before the Supreme Court come to be called Ashcroft v Raich? I gather that it began life as a criminal case, which would normally be titled US v Raich. Or it could be a civil suit seeking an injunction against certain practices of the DoJ, in which case it might be titled Raich v Ashcroft.

Are appeals often renamed? Is there a rule?

Dec.23: Todd Larason comes through, citing the Raich camp’s website:

It began as Raich et al. vs Ashcroft et al. — Raich is suing Ashcroft, seeking an injuction preventing Ashcroft & others from doing certain things; it isn’t an appeal of a criminal case as US v. Lopez was.

Ashcroft filed the petition for certiorari, so at the supreme court level he’s the petitioner, and it turned from Raich v. Ashcroft to Ashcroft v. Raich.

Posted in constitution, drugwar, law | Leave a comment

liens nus

Posted on Thursday, 2004 December 16 by Anton

Among the Bourgeoisophobes

another Strange Bedfellows story about Ashcroft v Raich

Assault Weapon Watch

toward a Psychiatric State

Posted in humanities | Leave a comment