In better earthquake news: a pair of dogs survive the tsunami. Not only survive, but show some smarts in doing so. Pretty good article on datamining. What it can and can’t do. The author mentions Ghostery, which I already have on Firefox. He calls it tracker-monitoring software, but it’s really much more than that. Depending on your settings, it also turns off most tracking. It slowed my browser down noticeably, but it’s worth it. Man with Fourth Amendment written on his chest sues the TSA. You go, Aaron Tobey. Is the NRA finally developing some spine? That’s an NY Times…
Category: Dogs and (grudgingly) cats
No description needed. Dogs are life. Cats are also necessary on the Internet.
“Confessions of a Spendaholic.” How to curb compulsive spending. (And that’s not just for people who have closets full of shoes they never wear. Even thrift-store impulses can bite you. Ask me how I know.) Turns out that drug-dog and bomb-dog handlers are unconsciously signaling the animals to produce false positives. That’s aside from the ones who do it deliberately. ADDED: Radley Balko has more on this study and others that show how cop-canine interaction is used to hurt the innocent. “Dogs must be banned from all public places!” (Never fear: spoken with tongue firmly in cheek.) Still, the Brits…
I’ve been working on a followup to last November’s blog “Defending Boundaries” (or, as I originally typoed it, “Definding Boundaries”). Will try to have that later in the week. But today I’ve accepted an invitation from a friend to go to the Big City. Not just the local Big City with the Wal-Mart (population 10,000 or so), but a real big city. Where I get to do something I’ve never done before — visit an Ikea store. Since I’ve always loved Scandinavian furniture, this could be dangerous — even aside from what friends assure me are the many other addictive…
The man who slaughtered the 100 sled dogs in Whistler, BC, has finally been named. He is Robert Fawcett. And he apparently decided on his own initiative to shoot and slice the dogs to death. Okay, there went that one, infinitesimal smidge of sympathy I felt for him …
I don’t know whether the cops shot this guy in the back or in some other portion of his anatomy. But this is one case where most of us would agree they did the needed thing. America’s cutest dog? Hey, that’s a matter of opinion. But he’s certainly the most philanthropic. “We do not trust a government that sends thugs to kill us.” Death by GPS. It just keeps on keeping on. This didn’t kill anybody, but I think I’ve mentioned before that every GPS in the world shows my old Cabin Sweet Cabin as being three miles from where…
Seen — or rather not seen — conducting routine traffic stops in Houston. What Cyclone Yasi would look like if it were over the U.S.. What odd timing that a storm that big actually is over the U.S. right now. But even folks in Chicago or Tulsa’s ice and snow should be grateful they’re not getting Yasi. Per Jackie Juntti in a recent comments section: The MSM finally starts covering Project Gunwalker — feebly, of course — and Mike Vanderboegh sticks it to ’em again and again. Some good dog news. A Labrador retriever can apparently be just about as…
Scum. And there were probably thousands of rescuers who would happily have helped save these dogs, if only the business owners/managers would have bothered.
How Egypt switched off the ‘Net. And how Egyptians — and hacktivists the world over — are routing around the damage. (ADDED: And here’s yet another way — thanks to engineers at Google and Twitter.) “Anonymous: A net gain for liberty.” Dmitry Orlov is interesting and the wording of the headline may be misleading. But why should anyone have to have faith in any human institution? How about confidence, suspicion, contempt, etc. based on performance? “What is a gold standard?” Interesting to see the mainstream financial media finally beginning to address the question without immediately tossing out words like “fringe,”…
Big surprise. Kids apparently don’t learn much in their first two years of college. “Sit. Stay. Parse. Good Girl!” More on that incredibly learned border collie. (NY Times free subscription link.) Don’t you think the WSJ should have called BS on this? What a load of you know what. Oh yeah. That’s how to solve Europe’s problems: counterfeit. (And no need to point out that the Euro is already counterfeit. Don’t we all know …) More on the topic of the week. The last paragraph is freaking brilliant. Great Gary Marbut is at it again. The idea isn’t new: to…
Hooboy. We’re never going to hear the last of this from the “guns as phallic symbols” hoplophobes. The first WikiLeaks revolution? I think the moral here is that, if the government of your country is reasonable and transparent (yeah, rare, I know), WikiLeaks can’t possibly hurt it. But if it’s already corrupt to the core (I mean more corrupt than usual) … Scanners. Detecting nothing. How come government mainstreamers only “get it” after it’s too late for them to do anything about it? The miracle of Wikipedia. Sometimes it’s just great to be reminded that freedom can work so brilliantly.…