crankycrackpot.blogspot.com
The Cranky Crackpot: June 2014
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Wednesday, June 11, 2014. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when you're so pessimistic about an issue that you worry when someone takes a principled stand on something. Yet I now feel even less optimistic about US gun laws than I did before. Australia's gun laws and suggested they should be emulated, I was astonished and relieved. (A large proportion of US citizens fail to see the bleeding obvious link between heaps of guns and piles of corpses.) But I started to change my mind soon after. Pointed out r...
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The Cranky Crackpot: May 2013
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Wednesday, May 29, 2013. MYKI - Cargo Cult? I mentioned Cargo Cults on Facebook yesterday, and it got me thinking about the Myki ticketing system. I'm aware that this issue has done its dash as the water-cooler topic du jour, but please indulge me. Myki could perhaps be usefully thought of as a cargo cult. For those who aren't familiar, the original Cargo Cults of the Melanesian Islands were instigated by people who wanted to spark a repeat of the massive influx of US supplies during WWII. It's now proba...
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The Cranky Crackpot: February 2010
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Monday, February 8, 2010. They stole my invention. It's happened to all of us. You're innocently watching TV, walking past a shop, or reading the paper, when you notice something that looks really cool. It does the thing that you have always wanted to do, in the best possible way. This is fantastic for the world, fantastic for everyone! And yet it's not fantastic for quite. Everyone, is it? Golden Ticket to the nerdy version of Euro Disney. No, hear me out. [Guards: cover all exits and bolt doors]...
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The Cranky Crackpot: Enforced patting
http://crankycrackpot.blogspot.com/2013/05/enforced-patting.html
Tuesday, May 28, 2013. It's been a long time - so long, in fact, that I'm not sure whether this blog actually functions anymore. We will see. I'm starting this sucker up again to encourage me to write stuff down. With luck, the ideas that I'm going to throw around on here will be good fodder for articles eventually, probably published in obscure journals if I'm lucky. However, that should be no obstacle for a writer. If this action were performed by one human to another, though, it would be profoundly od...
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The Cranky Crackpot: February 2009
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Friday, February 27, 2009. A Great Party Rebuilds. Speaker: Bobby Jindal, Gov. Louisiana (Repub.). Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. [Applause]. I'll cut to the chase. Speak plainly. We got whupped. Out there last November. [Pause - no response] More whupp-oed than Jesus. Pause]. Y'know, in 'The Passion of the Christ'! EVANGELICALS applause. The other person in the hall is silent.]. I'm sorry, mother. After that b* * ard stole the f* *in' election. I'm sorry - won. VOICE IN CROWD: Slavery? CROWD MEMBER...
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The Cranky Crackpot: Solar planes?
http://crankycrackpot.blogspot.com/2014/06/solar-planes.html
Monday, June 2, 2014. When the era of cheap air travel ends in a haze of kerosene fumes, we may have to once again view the world's faraway places only in our imaginations. Yet even though aircraft cause around 5% of CO2 emissions, perhaps there's a way out. I recently read an article. About the first viable electric airplane, a creature which was previously deemed unfeasible. For now, it's only small with limited range . but it's possible. What about the entire world's fleet? Creating 150 million US ton...
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The Cranky Crackpot: June 2013
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Monday, June 10, 2013. These are a part of life. Not just my. Life, of course. But what I'm thinking of is bodily irritants - small imperfections or injuries on the surface of the body that aren't large enough to be worrisome, yet aren't small enough to ignore. That's because the thumb pulp that's burned comes directly into contact with the pen while writing. When I'm not writing, I don't even remember that I have. Most non-human animals see discomfort as something to be avoided, even if that means modif...
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The Cranky Crackpot: Circular Thoughts
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Thursday, June 6, 2013. Most of the time, I'm amazed at the sheer versatility of the human mind. It's been said before ad nauseam, but our mental capacity and imagination is pretty amazing by any standards - even if we're inevitably biased in the matter. Yet some things make me think of the engineering problems in our mental processes. Or, should I say, my. This is extremely familiar to us, but why does it come about? Of course, our current society doesn't reward the escalating feedback effect of anger&#...
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The Cranky Crackpot: January 2009
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Thursday, January 22, 2009. Although Obama's inauguration speech was co-written by the 27-year-old Jon Favreau, a number of speechwriters were reportedly under consideration for the task. An envelope with two speeches, apparently rejected, was found on the lectern by an observant cleaner after Obama had finished speaking. They are reproduced in their entirety below. A Happy Day for Rapacious American Imperialist Dogs'. By John Pilger, author of 'Napalm America! I stand before you as the perfect Manchuria...
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The Cranky Crackpot: Glittering Commodities
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Sunday, June 2, 2013. You can be as sceptical as you like about your susceptibility to materialism's gleaming surface. I know I am, most of the time. I look at all those people in shopping centre car parks, blindly grasping at whatever happens to be on the bargain rack in a futile attempt to convince themselves that it's all important. I'm not like that. Advertising doesn't work on me. What I mean is: a common criticism of consumerism as an ethos is that it is only fleetingly satisfying. After all, n...
