One of the querulous problems of today is the differential in wealth and opportunity between one human being and another. The richest man in the world, right now, is Jeff Bezos. Where should he stop acquiring wealth?
Category: Nobody Asked, But
Cassowary
On the way to work this morning, I saw a cassowary. Right or wrong, I saw a cassowary (two of them, in fact). Let me be quick to point out that casuarius casuarius does not occur by Darwinian nature in the Bluegrass of Kentucky. But it does occur by the workings of the law of unforeseen consequences, and this too is a part of nature.
Shall Make No Law
Well, now we have another constitutional crisis. Presumably POTUS is acting within the scope of his constitutional authority. I mean, after all, didn’t he swear an oath to act within the constraints?
Battling Assumptions
In the first case, I am reflecting on a book that I am reading; The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything, by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey. The premise is that it took many centuries for the current paradigm, double entry bookkeeping, to revolutionize the marketplace, but now that the effect of those who would game the system pretty well offsets the increase of those who honestly abide by the system, it is time to find a new, greed-proof paradigm.
Usability III
To be “usable” a thing, an event, a process must not be futile. Elections are not futile for politicians; they are the principle tool by which politicians reach their collective goal — that the status quo remain undisturbed, that the criminality continues.
Fiction or Natural Law
Nobody asked but … We are seeing the term “birthright citizenship” bruited about these days (Surprise! During election season … ). Politicians have discovered that you can send up a trial balloon on any topic, absurd or mundane. But more on the case at hand, POTUS claims that he can suspend “birthright citizenship” by Executive…
Usability II
We tend to see any scenario in one of two ways. The average, or normalized, case versus the most recent exceptional case. We tend to think of these as mutually exclusive but of more or less equal importance. When we encounter a new exception, we might replace the old exception. We will either discard the old exception, or normalize it into the average case. We still are left with two views.
Usability
In earlier days, as a software engineer in Academia, I focused my research inquiries on usability. The most important thing I learned is that “users” are very seldom guilty of user error; they are rather victims of systematic error.
Forelle’s Rule of Web Apologistics
The need for apology on the Worldwide Web for the actions of a public figure varies inversely and proportionately to the wisdom of those actions. Apology includes defense, justification, rationalization, outrage, denial, and ad hominem attack.
Remember
In my life, I have seen the sky full of war planes, a polio epidemic, Vietnam, McCarthyism, Watergate (and subsequent scandals), Kent State, urban race riots, military adventurism (read quagmirism), 911, the seeds of past wars becoming the weeds of future wars. We have survived. We are surviving.