NYPost - "Happy Hour Ban Happening". Mayor Bloomberg - "WTF they on about?"

Today's NY Post has an awesome (-ly made up) article about how NYC is planning on banning Happy Hour, because, well, it'll reduce alcohol consumption or something. 

Happy hour in the city could end if Department of Health policy party-poopers go ahead with a proposal to outlaw beer and booze specials at bars and restaurants, sources told The Post.

“It’s absolutely been discussed,” confirmed a department source. “It goes to show you the spirit with which they operate. Everyone is a child.”

High-level conversations have gone beyond merely “throwing pencils on the ceiling and seeing what sticks,” another Health source revealed.

When said Department of Health was asked directly about this, they tried to throw the NY Post off the scent

Agency spokesman Sam Miller denied existing “plans to pursue any policy around discount-alcohol sale.”

But fear not dear reader, since those fearless news-hounds were on the case - they went right back and asked their "sources" who went on to instill even more fear

But sources said the anti-booze sentiment at the agency has reached a fever pitch, with officials recently asking state officials about the “legality of liquor in ice cream,” referring to potent products infused with bourbon, rum and tequila.

[...]

“DOH will advocate for policies that reduce access to alcohol by adolescents and for limits on sales practices in communities and campuses that promote drinking among adolescents and heavy drinking amon adults".

Huh? 
Whut?
Nothing about Happy Hour, or anything really evil, right? 
Could it possibly be that, well, The NY Post is making shit up?
Never!  Can't be!

Lets get the answer straight from Mayor Bloomberg shall we?
When asked about this, his response was "WTF are you guys talking about?  Get a real job!"

Actually, he didn't quite say that.  He went one better, and said

You know, it’s good that- what one paper’s done because, as you remember, this year the committee did not award a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Now we have one - with irresponsible journalism - for next year. The Health Department has no plans. We told them we have no plans. It is a totally fictitious, made-up story, and it’s just not what I would call responsible journalism.

The NY Post.  The second finest bastion of journalism after The Onion...

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Terrorism! Think Of The Children! (also Puppies...)

The Beeb reports that over in Britain, the Ministry of Defense is seriously toying with the idea of putting missiles on apartment roofs during the Olympics.  Because, you know, Terrorists.  Also, Think Of The Children™

The MoD says in the leaflet that the missiles will not pose a hazard to residents and "will only be authorised for active use following specific orders from the highest levels of government in response to a confirmed and extreme security threat".

The document states: "Having a 24/7 Armed Forces and police presence will improve your local security and will not make you a target for terrorists.

"The location has been chosen as it is situated close to the Olympic Park and offers an excellent view of the surrounding area and the entire sky above the Olympic Park.

"The top of the tower also offers a flat, uncluttered and safe area from which to operate."

The Army website says the HVM system is "designed to counter threats from very high performance, low-flying aircraft".

It says the missile travels at more than three times the speed of sound, using "a system of three dart-like projectiles to allow multiple hits on the target".

The missiles can be fired from the shoulder, from a lightweight multiple launcher or from armoured vehicles.

A MoD spokesman said: "As announced before Christmas, ground based air defence systems could be deployed as part of a multi-layered air security plan for the Olympics, including fast jets and helicopters, which will protect the skies over London during the Games.

"Based on military advice we have identified a number of sites and, alongside colleagues from the Metropolitan Police, are talking to local authorities and relevant landowners to help minimise the impact of any temporary deployments.

"As part of our ongoing planning, we can confirm site evaluations have taken place."

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Paul Krugman on George WIll and David Walker

Paul Krugman sez.

Everything makes David Walker think of the need for entitlement reform. Everything makes George Will think of Ronald Reagan.

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Democrat Presidents are spendthrifts - Not

@TBPInvictus pulls up a gorgeous comparison of the recent President's performance when it comes to Government Investment & Expenditure, indexed to 100 at inaugaration.
Huh?
Ok, in simple-ese, the size of the Gummint through the President's term, starting at 100 on day 0.
Ah!
So we all know exactly what to expect right?
Under the Republicans (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II), Gummint size goes down, and under Clinton and that Evil Evil Obama, it goes up, right?
Here you go.

Oh wait, that can't be right, can it?
Turns it it is - Clinton & Obama are, by a pretty huge margin, the presidents that have presided over the slowest growth in Gummint, with it actually shrinking under Obama.
I think Invictus puts it best when he says

So, it’s clear to see what spendthrifts the Democrats have been and how fiscally responsible the Republicans are what a canard it is to claim that Obama has been spending like a drunken sailor. In fact, Clinton and Obama have been the most fiscally responsible of the last five administrations – by a long shot (and do we really need to talk about St. Ronnie?). Of course, none of this matters because people just know what they know, notwithstanding the facts.

Oh, and do we really need to discuss what the graph above would look like rendered on a per capita basis?

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Klout - injecting uncertainty in an uncertain world...

It doesn't matter who you are or what you do. Its what #Klout thinks that matters. 
Klout - injecting uncertainty in an uncertain world...

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Narcissism in the age of Twitter - Favoriting and then Retweeting yourself...

that is all...

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Classifying Bullshit Arguments (Because we can...)

Paul Graham classifies the possible Levels of Disagreement into a fairly nifty Hierarchical approach.

DH0. Name-calling.

This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. We've all seen comments like this:

u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!

[...]
DH1. Ad Hominem.

An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling. It might actually carry some weight. For example, if a senator wrote an article saying senators' salaries should be increased, one could respond:

Of course he would say that. He's a senator.

[...]
DH2. Responding to Tone.

The next level up we start to see responses to the writing, rather than the writer. The lowest form of these is to disagree with the author's tone. E.g.

I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion.

[...]
DH3. Contradiction.

In this stage we finally get responses to what was said, rather than how or by whom. The lowest form of response to an argument is simply to state the opposing case, with little or no supporting evidence.

This is often combined with DH2 statements, as in:

I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion. Intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory.

[...]
DH4. Counterargument.

At level 4 we reach the first form of convincing disagreement: counterargument. Forms up to this point can usually be ignored as proving nothing. Counterargument might prove something. The problem is, it's hard to say exactly what.

[...]
DH5. Refutation.

The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation. It's also the rarest, because it's the most work. Indeed, the disagreement hierarchy forms a kind of pyramid, in the sense that the higher you go the fewer instances you find.

[...]
DH6. Refuting the Central Point.

The force of a refutation depends on what you refute. The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point.

Even as high as DH5 we still sometimes see deliberate dishonesty, as when someone picks out minor points of an argument and refutes those. Sometimes the spirit in which this is done makes it more of a sophisticated form of ad hominem than actual refutation. For example, correcting someone's grammar, or harping on minor mistakes in names or numbers. Unless the opposing argument actually depends on such things, the only purpose of correcting them is to discredit one's opponent.

IMHO, most of the political discourse in this country (and everywhere?) tends to go from DH2 (ad hominem) to DH4 (Refutation.  Usually to a straw-man). ;
As Paul points out

The most obvious advantage of classifying the forms of disagreement is that it will help people to evaluate what they read. In particular, it will help them to see through intellectually dishonest arguments. An eloquent speaker or writer can give the impression of vanquishing an opponent merely by using forceful words. In fact that is probably the defining quality of a demagogue. By giving names to the different forms of disagreement, we give critical readers a pin for popping such balloons.

Useful stuff - and something that makes reading the Editorial Page of the WSJ a lot more entertaining...

Update:
Of course, the classic ad hominem attack was from SNL - Jane you ignorant slut

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Sex Life of the Screwworm - Heres to Research!

WaPo points out that research into basic science - which we've been pretty drastically eliminating over the years - is actually pretty damn useful.

Federally-funded research of dog urine ultimately gave scientists and understanding of the effect of hormones on the human kidney, which in turn has been helpful for diabetes patients. A study called “Acoustic Trauma in the Guinea Pig” resulted in treatment of early hearing loss in infants. And that randy screwworm study? It helped researchers control the population of a deadly parasite that targets cattle

The thing about basic research is that you can't guarantee success.  The conventional take on it is that people knew what they were aiming for, but that is about as far from the truth as you can get.  Serendipity is always stalking you, and you never know what you might find around the next blind-alley.
That said, the one sure thing is that - to borrow a phrase - if you don't play, you can't win.

Heres hoping toward more 'screwball' research...

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Zen Judaism: For You, A Little Enlightenment

Available on Amazon, a collection of (nearly) a hundred sacred teachings that are capable of "bringing about an enlightenment experience so pure, so elevating, and so intense, you could plotz".
Examples include

• If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?
• Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?
• Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.
• Accept misfortune as a blessing. Do not wish for perfect health, or a life without problems. What would you talk about?
• The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single Oy.
• There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited.And whose fault was that?
• Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.
• Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.
• The Torah says, Love your neighbor as yourself. The Buddha says, There is no self. So … maybe we’re off the hook?

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What on earth is "Liquid Metal"?

You've seen the writeups on "liquid metal", and how its going to be on/in everything from Apple, Samsung, Cars, Motorcycles, and quite possibly, killer robots from the future.

The obvious question is, ignoring Mercury, what on earth is it?

It turns out that its just a brand name for a particular kind of metallic alloy that cools slowly, and just gets more viscous (thicker) as it cools, to the point where its basically solid at room temperature.  This is in contrast to "regular" metals, which are crystalline, and don't really have a given melting point.

The point behind all this? 

Metals, being crystalline, are difficult to mold in to complicated shapes - you usually have to forge them into that shape which has all sorts of limitations in what you can actually do with them.  This is in comparison to "liquid metals" which being amorphous (think glass) can be worked into all sorts of fun shapes when they are molten/viscous (really, think glass...)

On a side note, they can also be ridiculous strong (for a bunch-a technical reasons).

In closing, I'll leave you with Ubergizmo pointing out that the future may actually be "liquid iron"

 [...]there are studies currently ongoing about a possible alloy mixture involving iron that would bring about a percentage of characteristics contained by liquid metal but will apparently make it 2-3 times stronger than the best steel around. In addition to that, it will be even lighter and would make materials like aluminum and titanium; a lightweight material of the past. In addition to that, if claims from the research group are true, it will be cheaper as well so that will help scale down the hurdle to subsequently allow this material to feature more broadly in our daily endeavors

Looking forward to the future here...

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MissTravel.com - *Not* an Escort Service...

MissTravel.com, where "Attractive" people who want to travel can find "Generous" people to travel with them.
I swear I am not making this up.  And, I'm fairly certain this isn't a joke.
From the How It Works section 

Membership Types

Attractive Traveler: If you are a beautiful person who wants to travel for free, just signup as a "Attractive Traveler". Attractive Travelers are adventurous and open minded people who loves to travel, but lacks the budget to do so. As such, you are looking to meet other Generous members who are willing to pay for you to travel, or gift you frequent flyer miles which may be redeemed for free flights on all major airlines. Remember, as a Attractive Traveler, you get to use our website 100% Free.

Generous Traveler: If you are a generous sponsor, signup as a "Generous Traveler". Generous Travelers are generous members who are seeking to travel with a beautiful companion, and who is willing to pay for all travel expenses. Generous Travelers can use our website for free. Pay only when you decide to communicate with any Attractive Traveler.

But wait!  Theres more!

Propose a Trip

Once you have found the person you are looking for, it is natural to propose a trip with them. Even if the member doesn't have your specific destination on their profile, it doesn't hurt to ask them! Plus, trip proposals are completely free, and a great way to initiate conversation once messaging is unlocked.

When creating your trip proposal you will need to choose from one of three trip types:

1.  Travel with Me: Choose this option if you want to find someone to travel with you to a new destination.
2.  Come to Me: Choose this option, if you wish for someone to travel to your home city.
3.  Show Me Your Town: Choose this option, if you want to visit someone at his/her home city.

Remember, on MissTravel.com, if you end up traveling, the Generous traveling member is expected to pay all travel expenses for Attractive traveling members

So, theoretically, the "Generous" person could be in, say Chicago, and the "Attractive" person could also be in Chicago, and the Travel Expenses could be, oh, $300, right?

Then again, it does point out that "Escorts Are Not Allowed".  I guess they're just Travel Buddies then. 

Wonder how long this will last....

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Google Drive does *not* own your data!

There is a pretty huge meme going around right now about how "Google Drive is stealing your data".  Typical examples on twitter include

• @pdparticle - WOW! Google pretty much owns your data once uploaded to Google Drive. t.co/YUIqIVtM #GoogleDrive
• Google Drive owns everything you upload: terms of service analysis t.co/MDuZZ52R

The truth, as in most of these cases, is a lot more complicated.  In a nutshell, if you want to blame anybody/anything, blame the copyright laws.
First of all, just to get this out of the way, Google explicitly says

 Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours

Moving on, consider what rights Google needs to just do what it does on a day to day basis
In fact, do this backwards - if you store your data on a hosted service, anywhere, then you have to assign a whole bushel of rights to that service for them to do anything.
Seriously.

Consider the photo to the right, of my dog contemplating her next meal.  I uploaded it to this blog (hosted on Google).  Imagine all the stuff Google needs to do just part of running this blogging service

• They need to make a thumbnail of this image
• They need to back it up 
• They need to index it
• They need to copy it to other servers for both caching purposes, as well as retrieval efficiency

 The thing is, they can't do this if I don't give them a whole boatload of rights.  Thats just the way the copyright laws work!

The bottom line is that if you are using pretty much any online service (and I include Dropbox, Box, whatever) and you didn't assign them a whole passel of rights, they are almost certainly violating copyright law.  In fact, the odds are that if you parse their TOS pretty carefully, you'll find that you actually did assign them pretty much the same rights that you've assigned Google :-)

To just use Dropbox as an example, their TOS says (emphasis mine)

By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, “your stuff”). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below.

We may need your permission to do things you ask us to do with your stuff, for example, hosting your files, or sharing them at your direction. This includes product features visible to you, for example, image thumbnails or document previews. It also includes design choices we make to technically administer our Services, for example, how we redundantly backup data to keep it safe. You give us the permissions we need to do those things solely to provide the Services. This permission also extends to trusted third parties we work with to provide the Services, for example Amazon, which provides our storage space (again, only to provide the Services)

 In short, you just agreed to give them any and all rights that they need to run the Services.  Thats a pretty broad transfer, no?  Mind you, I'm not saying this is evil - I'm just pointing out that for a service to even function, copyright law mandates that you give 'em a whole bunch-a rights.  Furthermore, this is a pretty open-ended statement, since they never actually come out and say what they need to run the Services - just a bunch of examples.  It could, in fact, be anything they want, as long as it is associated with "running their services"


In fact, in this regard, Google is actually slightly better, since their privacy policy comes right out and says

We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy.

In short, its actually close-ended (as compared to Dropbox), i.e., anything that isn't listed in the Privacy Policy is verboten.


The bottom line? 
 Don't panic.  
Google isn't being evil - they're just doing what copyright law requires them to do...

 
Note: I am not a lawyer...

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The WSJ Editorial Page - Always good for a laugh...

Noah Smith brings the pain to the WSJ editorial page.
Mind you, that is somewhat unto shooting fish in a barrel, but it is still fun to read a comprehensive and thorough Fisking

He first calls attention to what appears to be a massive exodus from the Golden State:

Nearly four million more people have left the Golden State in the last two decades than have come from other states. This is a sharp reversal from the 1980s...

Wow, California must be well on its way to being a ghost town. Oh wait, no. Because during those past two decades, immigration more than made up the difference. California's population has risen from 29.8 million to 37.3 million.

[...]Next up, we have some pure unadulterated old-fashioned bullshit:

"[I]f you're a guy working for a Silicon Valley company and you're married and you're thinking about having your first kid, and your family makes 250-k a year, you can't buy a closet in the Bay Area," Mr. Kotkin says.

The median home price in the Bay Area is indeed high: about $358,000. For an income of $250,000, that gives a price-to-income ratio of about 1.4. This is lower than the average price-to-income ratio for housing in any major U.S. city, and far lower than the national average. In other words, while housing in the Bay Area is not cheap, if you have $250k you will easily be able to buy a house. I have friends and family in the Bay who make less than this and own very nice houses in Silicon Valley and North Berkeley. So Kotkin is just spewing forth falseness.

And it doesn't stop! This little jaw-dropper may be the most awe-inspiring of all:

As a result, California is turning into a two-and-a-half-class society. On top are the "entrenched incumbents" who inherited their wealth or came to California early and made their money... 

It's "a very scary political dynamic," he says. "One day somebody's going to put on the ballot, let's take every penny over $100,000 a year, and you'll get it through because there's no real restraint."

So California's decadent rich are intent upon having the state government take every penny of their riches, thus rendering themselves instantly non-rich? California is about to become a communist plutocracy?

Does Joel Kotkin even, you know, think before the words bounce trippingly forth from his tongue?

Theres more where this came from.  Go read it!

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A shot of ... Hand Sanitizer?

According the the NY Daily News, the in things amongst teens is Hand Sanitizer.  Really.

Six young people recently landed in a Southern California emergency room with alcohol poisoning after chugging the antimicrobial gel.

Hand sanitizer contains a whopping 62% ethyl alcohol — making the foul liquid akin to a shot of hard liquor.

YouTube has seen an influx of videos of teens chugging the foul germ-killing goo.

Which does indeed seem to be the case (YouTube, at least)

It does bring up a fair point though - given a choice between Tequila and Hand Sanitizer, I'm not quite sure which one is the more reprehensible...

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Learning emacs is like quitting smoking. Its easy - I've done it a dozen times...

that is all...

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Why is this a story? (Fanboys Must Die edition)

From BGR, Ubergizmo and others, is the story of a chinese vendor that is selling, wait for it, Home Buttons for the next iPhone.
Yup.
You got that right.
Home Buttons.
For the next iPhone.

Why is this a story?  Really, WHY?

Please, just shoot me...

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The Definition of Existential Dread

Existential Dread
On the road, laptop blinks out, won't reboot for 20 long (!) minutes.

Knee-buckling Relief
Laptop comes back on.

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An Obit for Facts - Chicago Tribune goes Onion on us

Who knew the Chicago Tribune could do this?  Their spectacular Obituary for Facts - Facts, 360 B.C. - A.D. 2012 is a must read.  Some excerpts

To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official cause of death was from injuries suffered last week when Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of theU.S. House of Representatives are communists.

Facts held on for several days after that assault — brought on without a scrap of evidence or reason — before expiring peacefully at its home in a high school physics book. Facts was 2,372.

"It's very depressing," said Mary Poovey, a professor of English at New York University and author of "A History of the Modern Fact." "I think the thing Americans ought to miss most about facts is the lack of agreement that there are facts. This means we will never reach consensus about anything. Tax policies, presidential candidates. We'll never agree on anything."

[...] Through the 19th and 20th centuries, Facts reached adulthood as the world underwent a shift toward proving things true through the principles of physics and mathematical modeling. There was respect for scientists as arbiters of the truth, and Facts itself reached the peak of its power.

But those halcyon days would not last.

People unable to understand how science works began to question Facts. And at the same time there was a rise in political partisanship and a growth in the number of media outlets that would disseminate information, rarely relying on feedback from Facts.

[...] Though weakened, Facts managed to persevere through the last two decades, despite historic setbacks that included President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, the justification for PresidentGeorge W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq and the debate over President Barack Obama's American citizenship.

Facts was wounded repeatedly throughout the recent GOP primary campaign, near fatally when Michele Bachmann claimed a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease causes mental retardation. In December, Facts was briefly hospitalized after MSNBC's erroneous report that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign was using an expression once used by the Ku Klux Klan.

But friends and relatives of Facts said Rep. West's claim that dozens of Democratic politicians are communists was simply too much for the aging concept to overcome.

As the world mourned Wednesday, some were unwilling to believe Facts was actually gone.

[...] Facts is survived by two brothers, Rumor and Innuendo, and a sister, Emphatic Assertion.

Services are alleged to be private. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that mourners make a donation to their favorite super PAC.

There is more - go read it

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