idiocracy

Links for 2011-5-21 through 2011-6-1

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Links for 2011-5-21 through 2011-6-1:

  • Structured Procrastination the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important. Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact.
  • 18 Signs That Life In U.S. Public Schools Is Now Essentially Equivalent To Life In U.S. Prisons In the United States today, our public schools are not very good at educating our students, but they sure are great training grounds for learning how to live in a Big Brother police state control grid. Sadly, life in many U.S. public schools is now essentially equivalent to life in U.S. prisons. Most parents don't realize this, but our students have very few rights when they are in school. Our public school students are being watched, tracked, recorded, searched and controlled like never before.
  • Accessorizer Made Simple
  • Appsterdam Immigration | mur.mu.rs Now for the entry you’ve all been waiting for: a quick guide on how to emigrate to Appsterdam.
  • TextEditors Wiki: HomePage

Posted by Postilicious

Links for 2011-5-18 through 2011-5-21

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Links for 2011-5-18 through 2011-5-21:

  • Google Prediction API – Google Code The Prediction API enables you to make your smart apps even smarter. The API accesses Google's machine learning algorithms to analyze your historic data and predict likely future outcomes.
  • Birtherism, the debt ceiling, climate change, evolution: Are Republicans losing their grip on reality? – By Jacob Weisberg – Slate Magazine Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial. He's an intelligent man, a lawyer, a fiscal rather than a social conservative. But Christie is also someone who might want to run for president someday, or be selected as someone's running mate. For those purposes, he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising, pro-Tea Party, GOP primary voter in rural South Carolina might object? By this standard, simple acceptance of the theory of evolution becomes a risky stance. To lie or to duck? Christie chose the option of ducking while signaling his annoyance at being put in this ridiculous predicament.
  • How to send messages safely to your server This post describes a general method of sending messages to a server in a way that prevents hackers from acting like your app. Specifically, I’ll tell you exactly how to add HMAC authentication to your app’s network messages.
  • Top 20+ MySQL Best Practices | Nettuts+ Database operations often tend to be the main bottleneck for most web applications today. It’s not only the DBA’s (database administrators) that have to worry about these performance issues. We as programmers need to do our part by structuring tables properly, writing optimized queries and better code. Here are some MySQL optimization techniques for programmers.
  • Use Daylight White Balance for Outdoor Shooting, Not AWB | Digital Photography insights Auto white balance sounds like it solves every issue regarding colors in your pictures, but it doesn't. For example, when you shoot at sunset or sunrise, AWB wants to 'correct' the golden tones that we love so much when the sun is close to the horizon. It desaturates the yellow and red portion of the spectrum, and the colors look weak and disappointing. By contrast, if you shoot with daylight white balance, you will capture the colors you see. The yellows, reds, and oranges will be saturated and dramatic.

Posted by Postilicious

Do the Republicans see the irony here?

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For a good laugh (or cry), read the Oklahoma Republican platform (or download the PDF).

I fail to understand how they can reconcile their belief in “The sanctity of human life, from the moment of conception to its natural end” with this statement:

We support the death penalty and swift execution of criminals who have exhausted the appeals process.

Elsewhere, they state:

While the objective study of philosophy and religion can be beneficial, public schools should not be endorsing any specific religion or philosophy. We believe that students and teachers should enjoy the right of free exercise of religion.

Yet the very next paragraph says:

We support posting the Ten Commandments and our Nation’s motto, “In God We Trust,” in all public schools in recognition of our religious heritage.

The Republican party isn’t only the Party Of No; they’re also the Party Of Contradictions.

What we've learned from this presidential campaign

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Things I have learned during this campaign season (Via Daily Kos):

  1. In a race that includes a former First Lady of the United States and a multimillionaire Republican senator rumored to share up to eight residences with his wife, the black guy from Chicago is unforgivably elitist.
  2. Racism in America is caused primarily by black Chicago preachers.
  3. The guy who keeps getting confused over the relationship between Iraq, Iran, and al Qaeda is the foreign policy expert.
  4. The guy who goes to campaign stops on his wife’s private jet aircraft is the most down-to-earth.
  5. The guy who changed his stance on tax cuts, Roe v. Wade, immigration, gun control, the confederate flag, torture, public financing, and his own anti-earmark rhetoric is the “straight talker”.
  6. People in the heartland don’t like it when you call them bitter, but they do like it when you explain to them that they’re too dumb to understand issues more important than whether or not they like to be called bitter.
  7. Arugula is the measure of a man.
  8. Bowling is the measure of a man.
  9. Orange juice is the measure of a man.
  10. Flag pins are the measure of a man.
  11. Success in Iraq consists of any reduction in violence, except when violence increases that’s good too.
  12. A recession is only a recession if you call it one.
  13. Bill Kristol, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Karl Rove, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, David Broder, Charles Krauthammer and Bob Novak are all intensely interested in giving advice to the Democratic candidates because they just want to be helpful.
  14. There are people in this world dumb enough to believe every one of these things.

Things I don't care about

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These were the front page stories in today’s Sun-Sentinel:

  • Dancing with the stars
  • Miley Cyrus
  • the Dolphins’ personnel changes

None of which I care about in the least. The Dolphins’ hirings, firings, and trades was also the lead story on the evening news. I guess there’s nothing more important happening in the world. Nobody died in Iraq. Food is abundant in Haiti. The economy is booming.