Author: Patrick

Honest Questions about Obamacare

One of the most contentious bits regarding Obamacare is the mandate. The contention is that without the mandate, enough young people won’t join the system for it to work, and/or free riding. Let’s just...

Fire Your Congressperson

It’s 9 days to the screening exam, so I can’t write about this story yet (also here).  But it deserves to be the top story, everywhere. Bruce Schneier writes about it here, here, and...

We Don’t Like The Market, Give Us The State

Maybe you’ve heard about LEED.  Maybe not. It’s an industry-focused sustainable/green building standard.  The standards are set by the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit organization.  It is not a governmental organization. It is...

40 Proof or Stronger

Ethan discusses the education wars. Okay, here’s a point where my circumstances get in the way. I’ll have to give a lot of context for everybody to understand where I’m coming from. If you...

Babylonia!

Installment 13 of the Babylon 5 Viewing Club! The introductory post was here, The Soul Hunter was covered here, and Born to the Purple was covered right here. After that was Infection. Then came...

Babylonia!

Installment 12 of the Babylon 5 Viewing Club! The introductory post was here, The Soul Hunter was covered here, and Born to the Purple was covered right here. After that was Infection. Then came...

Babylonia!

We’re back on track with our tenth installment of the Babylon 5 Viewing Club! The introductory post was here, The Soul Hunter was covered here, and Born to the Purple was covered right here....

People Products

A read. That post, in a nutshell, does a good job of explaining the underlying ethos that makes me reject iLife products.

Revision Control and Open Government

In software development, one of the fundamental tools is revision control. It’s fundamental enough that if you’re talking to someone who writes software and you ask them what they use for revision control, you’ll...

Charging Against a Tide

Indiana legislature makes it a felony to apply for a marriage license if you’re not a heterosexual couple. Beginning July 1, 2014, a same-sex couple applying for a marriage license in the state of...

In Which I Lose My Temper

Look, kudos on Glenn Greenwald for getting new information.  Good on you, Business Insider, for reporting on the NSA facility in Utah.  CREDO has a petition up, notable. Here’s the thing, Social Media Outrage...

Pimpin’

Over at Mindless Diversions, we’ve begun our Babylon 5 “bookclub”.  Jaybird suggested that I advertise this on the front page, and since I’m all about self-aggrandizement, consider this a bleg to participate. Episode 2...

Something, something… petard.

(updated) Comments on this entry are now closed (/updated) A tale of the modern development quandary: “What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?” From the...