Random Thoughts

Mainstream “news” has a problem. Reporters for more traditional big name organizations no longer need to present actual proof of anything they report.  The reason mainstream reporters do this is to feed the beast of the 24-72 hour news cycle.  The most recent “revelations” by “anonymous sources” regarding alleged statements by President Trump exemplify this issue. It is a story which fits the preconception that he does not respect veterans, but there is a huge difference between going after a political opponent who happens to be a vet and insulting dead WWI or WWII soldiers.  …

It is not a secret that I love chess, and that whenever I have the chance to play some online blitz -in the absence of better competitions or tournaments- I plunge happily into it. However, my results vary, as sometimes my mind cannot be taken away from the program that won't run or this or that administrative forms still waiting to be filled. Today I had a little satisfaction with a blitz game against an apparently much stronger player - AMoreno, who is in fact International Master Alejandro Moreno Trujillo, Fide rating 2495, and who on Chess24 has a blitz Elo above 2800 (mine is usually in…

Peace Officers should mostly replace police officers, but a police force of some kind is needed. Police would only be called in once a situation has proven, after a sustained non violent effort by peace officers, to require force.  Peace officers should be thoroughly civilian, never in the military, or at least out of the military for a long period of time 7-10 years minimum.   Police officers should be an armed, trained, militarized last resort. Anyone who thinks that a force of last resort is not required is living in a fantasy.  The problem with policing could be…

Travelling by YouTube during the Lockdown During the lockdown, and not even able to take a bus to the centre of town, I have perforce been getting about more by YouTube.  Here are three of my “discoveries” which I hope will be interesting and pleasing to readers. Buzz Aldrin I am always eager to hear about space programmes, and here from the Science Musuem channel is yet another video showing what a nail-biting event was the first Apollo Moon landing.   You can see the effect of the PGNCS trouble on the Apollo Guidance Computer, which was neither a programming error in the AGC,…

I live in California but my pre-Baby Boomer mother is still a Florida girl, ensconced in a nice house courtesy of my brother, with terrific neighbors who care a lot about her and kind people everywhere we go. Our visits are primarily phone calls rather than plane trips and this week we were talking about the coronavirus and after an hour or so the talk came around to whether or not it was racist to call COVID-19 the Wuhan Flu. For reasons few can figure out other than that some people need to find things to worry about, there are two opposing camps; the microbiology side has long used the…

Defund the police or even abolish the police is a politically ignorant statement especially because when asked they who say it describe extensive reforms.  Those words mean no money, and no police.  Just like abolishing slavery didn’t mean make slavery a little different but still have slavery it means no more slavery! Just use the word reform if that is what you mean.  We can start by amending the constitution of the United States to empower the federal government to police the police. We need real changes not extreme leftwing anarchomarxism or to create what one activist…

When President Trump said he was going to restrict travel from China earlier this year due to coronavirus, I didn't engage in the reflexive politics of corporate journalists and call him a racist, I just though it an overreaction. After all, the Whole Health Organisation did not consider it a pandemic and they usually hyperventilate about everything. They had even assured us it could not be transmitted human to human. Their source for both; the communist party in China.  I even later noted, still naïvely believing a communist dictatorship was not lying just this once, that China…

Like most writers, Sage Boggs (also on Bandcamp) is a curious guy. At a party he saw there were Triscuits, the snack crackers, and asked why they were named Triscuits. No one knew. Little shock there, most people also won't know the origin of "portmanteau" but it would be easy to assume that Triscuit is a play on Biscuit, so maybe it had three - tri - of something instead of two - bi - that regular crackers at the time had? Google had no clue but Google is just a search engine parsing content written by people who also don't know (except on Wikipedia, that is confidently written by people…

It's not often that a guy who can't order lunch in under a thousand words can be stumped for what to say, but when it comes to "Automatic Reload" by Ferrett Steinmetz, I am at a loss. Mostly because all of the good one-liners were taken by others before I got my galley. The best cyborg meet-cute you'll read this year? I can't use that, Corey White did. A cyberpunk rom-com? Yes it is, but I'd be cheating if I say it.  I should start at the beginning. No, that's boring, I will start at the end. The end is: You know how movie studios are releasing films to streaming early to keep people out…

Although you probably did not notice, this blog has been inactive during the past three weeks. The reason is simple: I took a break, treating myself to a 24-day trip to Thailand and the Philippines. Anticipating that many of the places I would visit would offer non-existent or very bad internet connection, I decided that it was going to be frustrating to pretend I could blog during the trip, and just left my laptop at home (or rather, in the Bangkok hotel which I first visited for a conference, before leaving for the tour).Effective today, I am back in business, and my will to blog is…