He epitomizes everything that’s wrong with the health-care debate.
To quote the president, no one knew health care could be so complicated.
Category Archives: Popular Culture
The Dangers Of Empathy
Thoughts on Jimmy Kimmel and health care, from Jonah Goldberg.
The Urey Variation
Thoughts from Derek Lowe on the abundance of pre-cursors for life in the solar system (and probably universe).
Trump’s Knowledge
George Will says he doesn’t even know what knowledge is:
As president-elect, Trump did not know the pedigree and importance of the “one China” policy. About such things he can be, if he is willing to be, tutored. It is, however, too late to rectify this defect: He lacks what T. S. Eliot called a sense “not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.” His fathomless lack of interest in America’s path to the present and his limitless gullibility leave him susceptible to being blown about by gusts of factoids that cling like lint to a disorderly mind.
The problem is that he thinks he has “a very good brain.” This is Dunning-Krugerish.
But I’m still relieved that she lost.
The Nye Quadrant
An interesting discussion and link roundup from Judith Curry.
The White House Correspondents Dinner
We’ve been in the final throes of getting bathroom cabinets installed this weekend (and frustrated at our inability to get one of the drawer fronts to align with the others) but if you want a good report on the self-regarding event sans the president, Byron York has it for you.
I was kind of amused at the relief of some of the participants that Hollywood also declined to show up.
The Democrats
Sonny Bunch has some helpful suggestions for how to connect with “most people.”
Science As Religion
Nice to see things like this at Slate. Everyone who “marched” yesterday should read it. Didn’t like the “science deniers” reference in last graf, though.
[Tuesday-morning update]
The “March For Science” failed, as demonstrated by its own signs:
Time to brush up on your social science, Science Guy. You too, Astrophysicist Dr. DeGrasse Tyson. You too, all ye faithful March for Science marchers, all ye believers in Truth, Science, and the Objective Way. Beware your own version of science denial. The idea has not developed “somehow”, “along the way”, that belief is informed by more than just what science says. Modern humans have always interpreted the facts based on deep values and meanings, affective filters imbuing the facts with an emotional valence that plays a huge part in determining what ultimately arises as our view of THE TRUTH.
Tyson and others are profoundly (and willfully) ignorant of philosophy. Belief in an objective reality is a critical element of the scientific method, but it’s just a belief, not the “truth.”
Vinyl Is Back
But it’s hard to resurrect the presses.
What’s the best resolution you can get in a 3-D printer these days? Seems like that might be a good method.
I really need to get a new interconnect and cartridge for my Rega Planar 2 and Grace 707 tonearm.
Neuralink
A deep dive into what Elon is trying to do now. #Transhumanism
[Sunday-afternoon update]
@juancarlosrs @elpilot That is the aspiration: to avoid AI becoming other.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2017