A blog of rants, screeds, and other nonsense

I’m reviewing a LOT of talk proposals, draft papers, draft chapters, etc. I’ve noticed that people’s titles tend to rarely be plainspoken descriptions of the topic.

(This was originally written in response to someone pointing out all the unethical things the GOP did to gerrymander the US to the point where we are no longer a democracy.)

I have no more patience for the “lazy libertarians”.

A lazy libertarian responds to everything with one of 3 messages:

If you don’t stop problems when they’re small, you f— it up in historically catastrophic ways.

(Originally posted on Facebook, Nov 9, 2016)

Dear docuSign,

Let me explain to you how you wasted an hour of my time today.

So, I met with a major hardware vendor today to talk about firmware update processes. They have a few different products for managing firmware. The “best in class” that they offer is… a reminder of why enterprise IT is so f—ed up.

The Sunlight Foundation spent years meeting with congresspeople trying to convince them to pass laws to get various government data (fundraising domains, government contracts and spending, etc.) published electronically.

In effort to shut down Telegram, Russia blocks Amazon, Google network addresses

The worst cut-and-paste error I ever made.

Some thoughts on the SO question about the idiot security consultant that demanded a list of everyone’s plaintext password plus some rather impossible things.

Expensify drives me fucking nuts.

You: Driveless cars? Oh no! What if the car is in a situation where the only way to avoid running down a baby is to crash into 4 other people? What will it do?

(Originally posted to Facebook on October 11, 2017)

Today is the 30th anniversary of the day I became an activist. Today in 1987 I went to the 2nd March On Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights. I drove down with four other students crammed in Joellen’s ludicrously bright orange station wagon. At the time I didn’t consider myself an activist; I wasn’t even calling myself bisexual at the time. I was just going to be supportive.

I live in a nice quiet neighborhood. I’m proud of my neighborhood. When I walk down the street, if I see a scrap of litter, I bend down and pick it up.

Hell no.

Constitutional Convention

Don’t take these predictions too seriously. However, these are some predictions and/or concerns I have.