Earlier today, armed demonstrators stormed the Michigan State House protesting the state’s stay-at-home order. I’m not going to delve in to the specific politics around the stay-at-home order, or whether I think it’s a good idea or a bad one, because there is a more important point to be made here. Actually, two important points.
Month: April 2020
The feel for weapons
I read Scientists Have Recreated Ancient Battles to Solve Debate Over Ancient Bronze Swords and was annoyed. Not because the study wasn’t worth doing for its own sake – I applaud archeologists with the good sense to use historical reenactors to learn more about how combat in bygone times must have worked. But it seems… Continue reading The feel for weapons
Lassie errors
I didn’t invent this term, but boosting the signal gives me a good excuse for a rant against its referent. Lassie was a fictional dog. In all her literary, film, and TV adaptations the most recurring plot device was some character getting in trouble (in the print original, two brothers lost in a snowstorm; in… Continue reading Lassie errors
Payload, singleton, and stride lengths
Once again I’m inventing terms for useful distinctions that programmers need to make and sometimes get confused about because they lack precise language. The motivation today is some issues that came up while I was trying to refactor some data representations to reduce reposurgeon’s working set. I realized that there are no fewer than three… Continue reading Payload, singleton, and stride lengths
Insights need you to keep your nerve
This is a story I’ve occasionally told various friends when one of the subjects it touches comes up. I told it again last night, and it occurred to me that I ought to put in the blog. It’s about how, if you want to have productive insights, you need a certain kind of nerve or… Continue reading Insights need you to keep your nerve
On the implausibility of a war with China
In the wake of the PRC’s actions around the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been increasing speculation in some circles that the PRC might be preparing to wage war against the United States, or at least some sort of regional war (such as an invasion of Taiwan) in which treaty obligations would involve the U.S. I’ve… Continue reading On the implausibility of a war with China