Oh my God, I ran automated updates on the blog Friday afternoon without realizing that it was also going to update Wordpress to version 5.0. So when I started to write a post that evening, I was met with this monstrosity:Wordpress has been threatening us with their new Gutenberg editor for months now, and I guess it's finally arrived, despite the fact that the trial … [Read more...] about How To Save Yourself From the New WordPress Editor
#ThotAudit Is Really About Ethics in Tax Collection
Oh dear God. I saw a tweet from Mistress Matisse, wondered what the heck she was talking about, and made the mistake of clicking on the tag, and now I've discovered a whole new world of idiocy in something called #ThotAudit.First of all, I had to learn a new word: "thot." Apparently, it means something like "slut" or "whore," but it's a relatively new word that showed up … [Read more...] about #ThotAudit Is Really About Ethics in Tax Collection
Model Justice – Plea Bargaining Blues
As I explained in the first post of this series, I'm trying to build a computer model of certain aspects of the criminal justice system. This week, it's not going well.My goal is to build a model of how our justice system handles plea bargains, with an eye toward understanding (1) why a system built around the highly formalized decision-making mechanism of the trial doesn't … [Read more...] about Model Justice – Plea Bargaining Blues
A Carnival of Street Photography
Singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant released her first solo album, Tigerlilly, in 1995. I remember its top-ten single "Carnival" was all over the radio for months. And of course there was a music video to go with it.I was disappointed with the video. I liked Merchant's songs, but the video felt like she wasn't really trying: It's shot in black-and-white, and it just … [Read more...] about A Carnival of Street Photography
The Senate Is Not Fair To People
So, I saw this tweet, by yet another person claiming that critics of U.S. Senate apportionment rules are historically illiterate:https://twitter.com/KemberleeKaye/status/1060213813918818304I'm sick and tired of this argument, and I responded with what seems to me to be the obvious rejoinder:https://twitter.com/windypundit/status/1060219419593506816I realize this … [Read more...] about The Senate Is Not Fair To People