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on letting people do whatever doesn't harm others
A while ago somebody suggested the principle that laws should allow people to do anything they want as long as they're not hurting anybody. I've been thinking about it, off and on, ever since. I addressed a related topic a couple times before, though I don't think I expressed myself perfectly. I don't believe I will express myself perfectly this ( Read more... ) -
surprised this morning
So the Globe had an op-ed piece by one of their columnists talking about a growing scientific debate about the existence of global warming and whether energy bills such as the one passed the other day are necessary or effective, with some scientists saying that recent data has moved them away from their earlier global warming position. Now I don't ( Read more... ) -
on sports and nations
One thing that surprised me about Poland is that whenever a Pole would start doing very well in some sport, suddenly everybody following it really closely. When I first got there the sport of the day was the ski jump. I thought people just really liked it (for some reason) but it was just that there was a great Polish jumper at that point. It died ( Read more... ) -
David Mitchell and today's advertising
A couple weeks ago I learned, via Nodwick about a series of youtube videos where the British comedian David Mitchell rants for three minutes on a random subject of his choosing. I enjoyed them, and annoyed random people on my aim buddy list by linking to them. (Apparently they're from a video podcasts called David Mitchell's Soapbox, available for ( Read more... ) -
thoughts on flights
I bought a plane ticket to fly to San Diego in August. I am scheduled to be there August 3rd to 21st. I should be staying in the UC area, so hopefully I'll get to see a lot of people while I am there. It should be a good trip ( Read more... ) -
regional differences
I was talking with somebody who grew up in Arizona, and he pointed out that there is a greater tendency in New England than in the Western US for people to make a big deal of their ethnic background. People just routinely claim to be Irish or Italian or something else in background, a tendency that I don't recall from San Diego. In fact I don't ( Read more... ) -
Five non-random things about me
I got a list of five topics to talk briefly about from tacky_tramp. If you want me to suggest five topics for you, let me know in the comments. No big deal.
D&DThis game hits me from all the right directions. It is a cooperative game which includes a small group of close friends hanging out for prolonged periods of time cracking jokes and hanging out. It is ( Read more... ) -
cactus revisited
I want to follow up on the earlier post about the cactus. I tried to see if the little white tendrils coming out of the extension were roots. I placed them so that they just touching some potting soil. The plant recoiled from it, and started shifting back toward the window. It seems to me that the whole green sprout turned back toward the window, ( Read more... ) -
cacti and chocolates
The cactus that I got a while ago (now shorter since the different species grafted on was lost in a tragic accident) had sprouted a strange branch like thing that seems to be sprouting tendrils at the end that are either meant to become roots or meant to attach to some other item in its environment in order to anchor the cactus' new tendril. Either ( Read more... )
