Posts

Presumably, most people have now heard that Arizona has passed a new law respecting immigration enforcement. Reactions, as one might expect, are mixed depending on one’s thoughts on immigration, and more specifically, the potential for illegal immigration. Mexico has issued a travel warning for its citizens, advising them not to visit the state. Various AZ mayors have decried the law. Some right wingers love it, while others hate it, and of course George Will is still an asshole. And finally, even though the law doesn’t go into effect for another three months or so, we can already see what the future will be like for Hispanics in Arizona. ...

“I’m the bearded lady! Who are you, one of the freaks?” This explains everything. Apparently those of us that are blessed with beards are deemed to be more credible than our clean shaven brethren. At least that seems to be the case for neat, medium length beards. And unless we’re trying to sell underwear… go figure. I wonder if there’s trust-worthiness scale for beard-type? Inter-webz to the rescue: Please note that my full beard is very trustworthy. My father’s “cop mustache” aka “The Burt Reynolds” is mildly trustworthy. And my brother’s, circa 2000, soul patch put him somewhere between threatening and dangerous.

and their elitist spelling and grammar

I’ve long maintained that free will is an illusion. That the mind arises from the physicality of the brain and that there is no room for an active will separate from the physical processes of the brain. That’s not to say that I’m a fatalist. I don’t believe that thoughts are deterministic, let alone subject to perfect prediction. My position boils down to the brain as a (gigantic) black box containing an uncountable number of states. Input from the senses changes the state of the brain and occasionally results in actions. ...

Old bit of folk wisdom that has served me well over the years: never wrestle a pig; you both get dirty and the pig enjoys it. Keeping that in mind has kept me out of all sorts of trouble over the years. The only problem? I’m apparently the pig in debates about the new health reform law 🙂

Earlier, I posted my current model for predicting the NCAA tournament. Since the whole thing is probabilistic, I figured that I would test it out against the current NCAA standings. I considered four models: The one that I described A random selection of which team would win (50/50 chance) Always picking the top seeded team A model suggested by a colleague at work For each model, I ran 10,000 tests and compared them to the current NCAA tournament results, counting the scores for each test. Results are: ...

They laughed at my theories. They threw tomatoes when I presented my paper at the academy! Tomatoes I tell you! My minions cower in terror, shrinking in fright from the very ideas contained herein! But I will show them! I will PROVE IT TO THEM ONCE AND FOR ALL. The FOOLS, I WILL DESTROY THEM!! MWAHAHAHAAAA!(ask me how) Oh, sorry. Where was I? Apparently, there’s this basketball thing going on. Some sort of NCAA tournament that will prove who has the best basketball team. But what if it doesn’t? What if it’s all just arbitrary? Could it be that the chances of any team winning a game are not deterministic, but rather stochastic? I’ll admit that I don’t know that much about basketball. I mean, I played the sport in junior high. I do know the rules. And I even think that it’s a pretty game. But I don’t follow the ins and outs of a particular season. ...

Almost three months ago to the day, I wrote about the senate health care reform (HCR) bill, how they had achieved cloture and would vote on Christmas eve. Since December, things haven’t looked all that good for HCR. A weak candidate in Massachusetts lost to a republican underwear model (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and the Democrats started doing the Democratic thing, which mostly consists of herding all of the cats into a circle and giving them guns to take shots at each other [1]. At one point in late January, the chances of any sort of HCR passing were very close to zero (Intrade was giving it around 22%). ...

The plumbers finally got out late Monday, in time to find out that the well pump needed replacing, and no they don’t keep a 3/4 hp pump on hand… why do you ask? After the supply store opened back up, they came by around 9:30 this morning and replaced the pump. The bad news? Ouch, replacing a well pump is expensive. The good news? It was $800 less than I was dreading. :-/ ...

It started off as a good weekend. I swear it did. I was up late Friday (technically, early Saturday) talking to a friend from high school, catching up on this and that. Woke up late, played a bit with the dogs and went out to Celebrity Dairy’s open house. I got to pet the baby goats [note: need to add pictures here] and look around the inn. When I left, I had 3 logs of goat cheese, a pint of blueberry preserves and a half pint of hot pepper jelly. ...