Author Archives: Anton

by zombies’ bootstraps

Diagrams of Heinlein’s time travel stories (cited by Travis)

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fashions change

Some of you are familiar with referral spam. The spammer issues HTTP requests for pages of yours, giving the advertiser’s address as the source of the link; you look at your HTTP log and say to yourself “whoopee, there’s a … Continue reading

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secession, anyone?

Joe Sobran’s view of Lincoln is more charitable than that of (say) Neil Smith or Thomas DiLorenzo, not that that’s saying much, but he still calls the war a tragic blunder. Given the timing of that column (October 7), I … Continue reading

Posted in constitution, history | Leave a comment

QotD

Thomas Babington Macaulay, quoted in The Economist Oct.30 p.48 If men are to wait for liberty till they become good and wise in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.

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context counts

headline of the week: Warriors lock up young veterans

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a good notation is a good start

In keying data from handwritten forms, I’m struck by how badly our digits are designed: there are few pairs for which I haven’t seen an ambiguous case. I do write somewhat defensively. I write ‘9’ with a single stroke, like … Continue reading

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of course it leaks

In the basement of the Alameda County courthouse, where I’ve been working, there’s a sign announcing that it’s a felony to bring in weapons including knives longer than four inches. Must be an old sign; nowadays I imagine they’d seize … Continue reading

Posted in security theater | 1 Comment