Joshua Rhys Taliesin O'Madadhain

Some of you may have heard me mention this "Megan" person a few times, often with a subtext of "love of my life" and always "mother of my children" and frequently "sexay thang" and generally "all around cool person".

Just to give you an idea, if you don't already know her well: she is the only person that I know of that has spontaneously invented an interpretive dance based on a dramatic reading of an Oracle database manual--on a bet, which she won. Fear her ingenuity, creativity, and determination.

She also kicks ass at strategy games.

Recently she created an LJ account with the handle of tiedyechameleon. Say hi--and be gentle, this is her first blogging experience. :)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/14/countdown-special-comment-to-president-bush-shut-the-hell-up/

No, really.

(This was prompted by Bush's recent comment to the effect that he'd given up golf as something he shouldn't be playing while we're at war. Yes, that's right: his noble sacrifice was giving up golf.

Except that he apparently lied about even doing that.)

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

An article on invention in general, and on its manifestations in Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures idea farm in particular. Definitely worth reading.

...and it is herself:

from http://rivka.livejournal.com/426444.html, quoting this article:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-05-07-clintoninterview_N.htm

Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

I actually don't think that Clinton meant to equate "hard-working Americans" and "white Americans". Honestly, I think she stumbled and meant to say something semantically equivalent to "blue-collar whites". I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she doesn't actually believe, even in her heart of hearts, that Obama's supporters are primarily either overeducated (*cough*Wellesley/Yale*cough*) or black (or that blacks are neither working nor hard-working).

(I _am_ annoyed at the fact that she keeps bringing race back into this as part of an argument about electability--even though there's little real data to suggest that blue-collar white voters are unwilling to vote for Obama: saying "they didn't vote for him now running against me, so they won't if he's running against McCain" is a hard case to make, and I don't think she's made it. But that's a separate issue.)

Here's the funny thing: I think that the only person that can save her right now is...Obama. And I think that he should.

He could basically stand up and say "You know, I'm sure that she meant to say "blue-collar white voters". And then go on to both (a) debunk this statement, once again, and (b) decry this sort of race-based analysis. This would give him another opportunity to present himself as presidential...and to start reaching out to her partisans.

This wouldn't give Clinton any advantage (calling attention to her error won't help her, even if he forgives her and makes it clear that he believes it was a stumble rather than a miscalculation), and could be a really impressive political judo move on his part.

This is a fascinating exploration and comparison of Nixon and Reagan, and their analogues (true and false) to the current Democratic candidates. (No points awarded for guessing which one is which ahead of time.)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/7/17115/19484/791/508728

So apparently I missed this story first time around: it appears that US veterans are committing suicide at about 2x the rate of the rest of the population:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/earlyshow/main3494261.shtml

to the point where there have been more suicides than combat fatalities--possibly several times more. It's been publicized again recently:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/06/cbsnews_investigates/main4076241.shtml

Now, as a scientist of sorts, I recognize that there are several unanswered questions:

(1) How has the US veteran suicide rate changed over time? (Stats prior to our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan would be useful here, as a point of departure. Stats before and after the Gulf War, Viet Nam War, would also be handy.)
(2) How many of those veterans that are suiciding are doing so after having had a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan?
(3) How many are doing so shortly before being (re)sent to Iraq or Afghanistan?

A brief search hasn't turned up any studies, or data. If anyone has any (pointers to) such, I'd really like to see it.

However, as a political activist of sorts, even without answers to those questions...I'd really like to see one of the Democratic candidates bring up the fact that N times as many US service members have committed suicide since 2003 as have died in combat: that is, the true casualty rate appears to be considerably higher than the combat death stats suggest.

(This leaves out the injury rates here: part of the reason why there have been fewer deaths than in some previous conflicts is simply that medical technology is now capable of saving some of those that would have died. For an SFnal take on this, see http://www.bestsf.net/reviews/dozois5.html for a reference to the short story "The Million-Dollar Wound".

...and now I'm wondering how many US veteran _suicide attempts_ there have been, and how _that's_ changed...although I'd also bet that the 'success rate' of veteran suicides is considerably higher.)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe5w0_ray-charles-jerry-lee-lewis_music

Because they can, apparently.

(The first part, up to about 4:30, is better/more interesting IMO.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/sometimes-honor-is-wrong-_b_94524.html

Of interest both because of the subject matter and because of the author's background:

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back"

I'm not sure that I agree with all of it, but it's worth reading.

http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/catan_comes_to_mobile_phones/

tiiiiiime siiiink.... :)

http://www.metafilter.com/70699/A-Mathematicians-Lament

Haven't read it yet (placeholder) but it looks interesting. (And I agree that mathematics is often taught poorly, e.g., the curricula are generally structured so that unless you go to a lot of trouble (i.e., take math in college) you get the impression that math is limited to arithmetic, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus..._none_ of which are what I spend most of my time doing when I'm doing mathematics. Probability and statistics? Graph theory? Combinatorics? Algorithm design, analysis, and optimization? Yes, some of these require some bits of the others as prerequisites...but seriously, let's at least give HS students a _taste_ of what else is out there.)

from darcydodo

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

I honestly do not understand what some of these are doing on this list. (And where's all the James Michener? [I'm not dissing him--I've read and liked a lot of his stuff, and it's given me an appreciation for various aspects of history that I haven't acquired elsewhere--but he does write tomes.])

On reflection--to be fair--I suspect that the original poster (not darcydodo) left out two big reasons why people might have bought some of these books but not read them: recommended by friends with different tastes, or simply not _yet_ read them. I dislike the serious implication of pretension (as distinct from my own humorous self-deprecation in the subject line).

( snip )

Jeremy Scully, a friend of mine from the U of Oregon, died of a gunshot wound to the head last Thursday morning*. Circumstances suggest that he was killed, possibly after stopping to help someone as he was driving to a friend's house.

I say that Jeremy was my friend, not because I knew him particularly well,but because it's the kind of person he was: a friend to those whom he knew. He was a good, kind, caring person, and it is a tragedy for everyone that knew him (including my friends gwyd and karjack, among others) that he's gone.

The irony that his good nature may have provided the circumstances in which someone killed him--in broad daylight, no less--has not escaped me.

I don't want to say "R.I.P." (requiescat in pace, "rest in peace"), because from what I know of him, Jeremy was nowhere near being done with his life and had no intention of (or interest in) resting anywhere.

Jeremy, if you're still anywhere other than in our memories of you, I expect that you're rounding up a good bunch of kids that want to improve their pole-vaulting, and I'm sure you've already finally been given that permanent teaching position.

UPDATE: sigh. Apparently there's something weird going on. The report (now tagged in one of the news articles as from "a woman identifying herself as his girlfriend") saying that the body found was identified as his was apparently mistaken. Or something. More details here:
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/256/story/394901.html
and here:
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/256/story/394901.html

( news story and links )

If things have meaning because we invest meaning in them...what meaning shall I give to this?

I've been really annoyed recently by the abuse of the phrase "mathematically impossible" in the popular press to describe the likelihood of either of the following:

(a) either candidate gaining the support of at least 2025 delegates (pledged or super)...
(b) Senator Clinton gaining the support of more pledged delegates than Senator Obama...

...by the time the primaries are over (but before the convention).

In short: neither of these are "impossible". Highly unlikely, maybe. But calling it "mathematically impossible" is simply ridiculous.

( math geeking )

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/11/new-york-sun-column.html
and followup at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lenore-skenazy/more-from-americas-worst_b_96175.html
and
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/12/free-range-kids-blog.html

*ponder*

http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/the_prosody_of_itaking_the_hobbits_i/

Really, what else is there to say?

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-ways-to-beat-traffic-with-google.html

(It also now has marked incidents, which is cool. But I've been waiting for someone to do the historical view for years.)

http://community.livejournal.com/wtf_nature/183934.html

(Related to (and in fact linked from) the previously noted post on torrent ducks.)

This is totally getting shown to Corwin when I get home. :)

http://community.livejournal.com/wtf_nature/191063.html

fdmts, this one's for you.

I'm strongly tempted to print out a copy of that picture and post it above my workstation at work.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/10/guy-gets-credit-card.html

(Old news, yes, but new to me, certainly.)