“Pigeon: Impossible.” 🙂 How companies learn your secrets. The bit about the pregnant women (pages 6 & 7) is the creepiest. Hint: aside from not giving ’em any personal data (e.g. pay cash, never participate in a survey, etc.), don’t be a creature of habit. Oh, those tidy Swiss. Now they’re set to clean up outer space. How the brain responds to disaster. This specifically pertains to earthquakes, but I know from experience that it applies more broadly. (Tip o’ hat to PT.) Long feared, now here: microchips you swallow with your meds to report your body’s doings. This is…
Category: Mind and Spirit
Spirituality, moods, feelings, and thinking free to live free.
There’s something to be learned about freedom from all that. But what, exactly? 1. Individual action and adrenaline go together. -S pointed this out in the comments. If we’re ever going to get past the completely ineffectual “call the police or call the landlady” stage with the Neighbor from Hell, we’re going to have to put ourselves on the line in some way large or small. The same is true if we intend to halt the police state. It can’t be done nicely or “within the system.” Most people don’t like putting themselves on the line. So as -S says,…
When I wrote yesterday about my Neighbor from Hell, I didn’t intend to start a discussion about how to deal with the nuisance. I should have realized comments would go that way, though. And I’m glad they did because as always you guys came up with ideas that are interesting, helpful, and delightfully devious (sometimes all three at once!). In the long run, I’m pretty sure the neighbors will have to deal with Mr. Karaoke on their own, non-violently but decisively. Some of your techniques will surely be put to good use. As it happens, though, this week we caught…
Since last July neighbors and I have been forced to deal with an intractable problem. A man who lives just across the intersection acquired a professional-grade karaoke system and has held approximately 35 blindingly loud parties in a doorless garage. His music can often be heard five blocks away; this close it’s like a jackhammer to the brain. When asked to turn the music down, the man smiles, nods — and goes right on doing exactly what he wants to do. Sometimes he responds by turning the volume up. The police come out. They make him lower the noise to…
Good for people who’ve suffered brain injuries that affect speech. Bad in the long run for privacy. National Geographic is usually pretty good. But it appears their new series, which starts next week, sets out only to portray us all as loons. So much for progress. (Tip o’ hat to H.) Here’s a perfect example of the long arm of the U.S. government. Might not agree with this guy 100%. But bless his noble heart. (Nice backgrounder on him, too.) I’ll soon be reading his book. And here’s another doctor with courage — though it may be too little, too…
I turn the blog over this morning to two commentors at Earthineer: Oilman2, who says that small farmers (and by extension many more of us) should opt out. And Earthineer founder Dan Adams who answers that we should opt in.
The strange birth of New York’s gun laws. Oooh, now this is cynical. And fraught with … well, just fraught. (Tip o’ hat to JB.) Darn. They’re ruining it for me! (Tip o’ hat to MJR.) At least Twitter is is trying to mitigate its consent to censorship. “Why Conservatives Should Be Libertarians.” The Barefoot Bandit will probably serve just under five years. Federal and state sentences to be concurrent. Seems a reasonable mercy — and with luck a chance for that bright but screwed-up boy to get his head together. (HT to PT.) A troop of gorillas visits a…
The following was sent to me by a long-time reader with the subject header “I HATE Flying.” But it says more than that. Thus my headline. What follows is all from reader JP: —– Hey Claire, Due to financial issues, I surrendered, and took a contract because I need the money. Part of the work requires me to travel to Austin, Texas; and Eugene, Oregon. Yesterday, I came back from Austin, and went through the TSA portal. I have flown exactly six times since the TSA was created. The last time was 5-1/2 years ago. EVERY SINGLE TIME I have…
The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought …. It took forever and then it took a night.” — Dr. Rudiger Dornbusch The people who make wars, the people who reduce their fellows to slavery, the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, the really evil people in a word – these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they’re the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals. — Aldous…
No, not happy news like about crippled orphans being rescued by blind puppies (though that’s good, too). Not glurge. But in the biblical flood of bad news, good news does occasionally bob to the surface and I’ve been saving up bits of it to brighten your day. So here goes: Rhode Island may defy the NDAA. (Tip o’ hat to JS.) The most important secret of a prosperous economy. Remember the homeless man with the golden voice? Well, so far, so good. (HT to SC) Obama (not intentionally, of course) might bring back the Constitution. Gaston Glock did an amazing…