We should all trust that the government would never do anything bad with personal information. Like how we know that politicans would never abuse the IRS. Jen McCown has more information on the topic.
New Computer Built
The last desktop computer I bought was in 2007. It was pretty good for the time (or at least as good as I could custom-build for ~$1300 including monitors and peripherals), but it has been showing its age for a while. Sometime in the next year, I plan to build a mega-computer, designed to handle…
The Militarization Of Bureaucracies
There has been a rather disturbing trend of bureaucracies becoming ever more militarized. Does the Treasury really need a paramilitary force? Prohibition is over, so I'm going to go with "no" on this one. Even scarier is when semi-trained paramilitaries act. You end up with a Mexican execution squad joke (with very un-funny consequences, including…
Formal Formatting Standards Are Overrated
Grant Fritchey has a blog post about naming standards, including an excerable tblDdltbl. The comments thread then becomes people defending their particular naming and formatting standards. Let me explain my standard: I try to be consistent, except when I'm not. Anything more than that runs the risk of hitting rationalist stupidity, like tblDdltbl. So what…
Some reason for hope? ZIPs projections for the Indians
ZIPS is the projection system of Fangraphs, and it tells somewhat the same story that I did in my post a couple of days ago. For offense, they seem pessimistic about Nick Swisher (at 2.5 WAR) and Lonnie Chisenhall (2.0). They aren't calling them horrible players, but they are saying they'll have significant holes in…
Some Security Notes
The computing underground is interesting. I love the Through the Looking Glass description of the evil version of Salesforce. The Ben Bernank will not be pleased. On the whole, I'm all for OpenID and OpenAuth. This article doesn't dissuade me, in large part because many of these companies would have done their security even worse…
More On EMR Fraud
Mickey Kaus has been covering a story that we don't see much about: how electronic medical records have institutionalized fraudulent medical reporting in the name of standardization. Next up: federal Taylorists explain to doctors exactly how many stitches it takes (and how quickly you should perform the action) during surgery.
Pessimistic Ecnomic Notes
Obamacare is 'surprisingly' more expensive than the last surprise had us believe. Expect to be 'surprised' a few more times before the program even begins. Also expect that you will be more likely to lose your current health insurance. The premise behind Medicaid is similar to the drug dealer's "the first one is free" offer. …
Will the makeover of the Indians work?
Rob Neyer says maybe. Ken Rosenthal says probably. If you hadn't heard, the Indians have acquired, essentially, three new outfielders -- Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn, and Drew Stubbs. I've commented on the latter earlier, so I'll focus my attention on the other two new acquisitions. Significantly, both came via free agency. Conveniently, both Bourn and Swisher…
Inflating Toward Argentina
Worldwide inflation is upon us as central banks everywhere jockey to become the next Argentina. The insidious part is that with most central banks inflating, it becomes that much easier to convince people that there is no inflation---after all, with inflation, you'd see significant currency revaluation, and the currencies aren't moving like that, so therefore,…
36 Chambers - The Legendary Journeys: Execution to the max! 