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Category: Computers & Technology

Weekend links

Published April 2, 2017 1:07 pm by Claire
  • Sloppy science. It wastes billions, produces non-reproduceable results, and sometimes kills people.
  • Well. Elio Motors may not yet actually have a product to sell. But this is still a pretty cool map of where their registration holders are.
  • Am I following this correctly? The DoJ drops two kiddie-porn charges rather than having classified material brought out in court. Said classified material already being publicly available thanks to WikiLeaks.
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    • Weekend links

    Published March 26, 2017 2:42 pm by Claire
  • Thanks to a link Shel dropped into comments on my “Theda’s Kin” post, I fell down a rabbit hole of the brain’s striking ability to make accurage snap judgments. Here’s a short version of what Shel was getting at: how we can tell criminals from non-criminals with only their faces to go by. And similar accuracy turns out to apply with our “gaydar,” “mordar,” etc. (What’s mordar, you may ask? Why, it’s our unusual ability to quickly recognize Mormoms, even when they’re not walking up to our doors wearing suits and ID badges.)
  • But then, sometimes, as in this short story, identity is a trickier matter. (H/T. MJR)
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    • A Friday ramble

    Published March 17, 2017 10:53 am by Claire

    It’s St. Patrick’s Day. Leave it to the Mises Institute to “celebrate” by reprinting a piece on the causes of the potato famine I’ve never understood the saying “the luck of the Irish.” The Irish have had total crap luck. Irish history has been one long chain of famines, massacres, attempted genocides, and cruel (religious, economic, and intellectual) suppressions at the hand of the “civilized” English. It’s kind of like saying “the luck of the Jewish.” (And as Aaron Zelman used to remind me, “Imagine being both Irish and Jewish.”) —– I know some people won’t like the current, more…

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    Midweek links

    Published March 1, 2017 6:59 am by Claire
  • That’s the (entrepreneurial) spirit. You may have heard that Seattle had a major freeway mess the other day, with all lanes of I-5 closed for eight hours. But that didn’t stop the operators of one taco truck who were stuck in traffic along with everybody else.
  • Only four federal agencies to abolish? Surely we can do better than that!
  • Anyone who has stood in a grocery check-out line behind people paying with SNAP/EBT cards Continue readingMidweek links
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    Weekend links #1

    Published February 25, 2017 10:29 am by Claire
  • A short-term “fasting diet” may regenerate a diabetic pancreas. Again, it’s mostly mice so far. But interesting.
  • “Drugs, disposal of.” Dealing with the recent untimely loss of his wife, Kim du Toit goes on a quest to discover how to rid himself of a pharmacopia of her prescription medicines.
  • Borepatch warns: Buyer beware! when it comes to “connected” cars. Like all other supposedly smart devices, they’re just bright enough to violate your privacy.
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    • Weekend links

    Published February 4, 2017 12:07 pm by Claire

    Getting weirder all the time. Cops use data from a man’s pacemaker to charge him with a crime. (H/T M) And while of course it’s long been a crime to “drive while black” or even walk or bike while black in the wrong neighborhood, now apparently it calls for police action if you’re a prosperous brown woman walking in your own neighborhood. This woman really handled the abuse with grace, though. (Tip o’ hat to PT) Now we’ll see if it gets through the Senate. But the House has v*ted to repeal Obama’s Social Security-related gun ban. Judge halts Trump’s…

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