Everything is obvious — once you know the answerhttps://t.co/xERAd1Fnv5 @duncanjwatts pic.twitter.com/WRAMAibQq6

— Dean Eckles (@deaneckles) August 21, 2017

Many people insist that sociology and psychology are worthless — because physics envy is so inculcated into everyone, no one can believe that a science that doesn’t deal wholly in numbers and equations has any value.

However, what many people perceive as “obvious” in the social sciences is obvious either way, as the tweet above points out.

I agree that it in many cases sociology and psychology need to be held to more rigorous standards (and no, I definitely don’t mean making them more like physics). However, asserting that they are valueless ignores the mountains of valid findings that have influenced nearly everything about our society.

All of this is true of Florida, but mainly because it is a huge state. Or rather, it is long. Very long.

To drive from Pensacola, FL to Key West, FL is a 13 hour trip (if you don’t stop) and 832 miles.

North Florida — where I grew up — is very Southern indeed. South of Gainesville, it gets less so as you proceed further down the interstate. On the coasts, it depends on where you are.

One time in the Army I had a guy ask me since I was going to Florida could I take him to Miami when I went. I said, “You know I’m going somewhere close to Jacksonville, right? That’s a six hour drive from there to Miami.”

He wanted to visit a friend there, and wasn’t very familiar with the state. He thought it was 30 minutes away.

And I think that is true of many people — they perceive Florida as being very small, perhaps because they’ve only flown over most of it.

But yeah, 832 miles from one end to the other (with a bend in the middle) over land. And a lot can — and does — happen in 832 miles.

The idea that the entire universe can be reduced to numbers or that it is “based on math” is as ludicrous as the idea that everything extant consists of earth, air, fire and water.

Who gives a shit if Joss Whedon is a feminist or not? And anyway, if someone has affairs or multiple affairs doesn’t make them not a feminist. If that were the case, half of all feminists would have to disavow that appellation, including many former and current leaders of the movement.

The more important question is: was and is his work any good or not? And was it better — for women and feminism — than other work at the time? Did it actually center women, and seem to like them? (Strangely, a lot of work during that time created by women seemed to not actually like women very much.)

And the answer to those questions I think is “yes.”

Was it the perfect unalloyed paragon of peerless feminism? No. But then again, nothing is.

Demanding perfection from any human being is a fool’s demand. No one will ever meet it, and you will always be disappointed.

Whedon is not the perfect feminist. Then again, he never strove to be. That is a label that others foisted on him and demanded that he uphold. It’s not something he ever claimed for himself.

Buffy might seem a bit passé now, after nearly 20 years — but name one other TV show that focused on a young woman as powerful, interesting and worthy of notice not because of how she looked but because of what she did and who she was?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

The company I work for is almost 170 years old, and it is not a public company. (A 170-year-old IT company, you say? Well, it didn’t start out in IT.)

Recently, the internal newsletter discussed the company plan for the next 35 years. Can you imagine any public company anywhere doing such a thing? Of course not.

It’s pretty great working for a company that doesn’t wildly vacillate between firing and hiring people quarter to quarter and attempting to do similar stupid things to goose earnings.

It’s the only company I’ve ever worked for that actually considers its distant future — in fact, a future so distant that many of the people currently working here will be dead when it arrives.

Now that’s not thinking quarter to quarter.

How I was not expelled from school as a kid remains a mystery to me.

It helped of course that I was white, and also very funny.

Now, I’d be toast. Glad I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.

You know, I'm old enough to remember when parents mostly couldn't spy on their kids.

And it was GOOD.https://t.co/3kzInEL6Xg

— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) August 19, 2017

What a nightmarish dystopia most kids are forced into. Fuck.

Someone else finally understands what sort of game Google (et al.) is playing with attempting to make HTTPS ubiquitous and obligatory.

If you think it’s actually about security, you really haven’t been paying attention — and are susceptible to propaganda.

I got an awful email from Google last night saying that my blog has a security issue and Chrome would start warning people about it in October. Right off the bat you know it’s bullshit, because if it were a real security issue, how could they justify waiting until October?

Exactly. The only thing it’s making less secure is their dominion over the open internet.

Google will lie about security to accomplish a strategic objective. And a lot of people will believe them when they say Scripting News is a bad site. But over time, if they abuse the trust, they will lose it. That’s the way this works.

This isn’t some random schmoe. It’s Dave Winer, who invented RSS, was one of the first bloggers, and who is also responsible for quite a few other aspects of our digital lives.

I don’t trust Google even a bit. They don’t own the web, they didn’t create it, and I’m not going to submit to them. If you can’t read this site with Chrome, so be it. That’s their choice.

Like Dave, my site will never move to HTTPS. Screw Google.

Stupid fuckwits.

Here’s companies you don’t short: companies that are going up like a Falcon 9 Heavy!

This is a terrible strategy almost always. If you really think you need to short something, an option contract is almost (99% of the time) a better alternative. You limit your losses in a predictable fashion and the gains can be nearly as much — often more.

Ya’ll motherfuckers don’t understand risk — and that goes for the people who write the algorithms.

Companies you short (which I never really recommend) are for example RIM after the iPhone is released, etc.

“Masters of the universe” my ass. Dumber than dirt is more like it.

A guy I worked with for nearly five years died two days ago. We were a lot alike. He was older, spent much of his early life experiencing and committing violence. He was the only person I ever met who’d probably been punched in the face more times that I have. Broken nose like me, too.

People have asked me why I never got my nose fixed. I don’t want it fixed. Battle scar. I earned that shit. Earned the right to wear it the hard way — and if it’s lumpy and you don’t like it, not my problem. Yours. Every day I look in the mirror and remember what I survived, what I made it through to be here.

I was so angry when I was young. So very angry and so violent. I must’ve been just intolerable and incomprehensible — a Rimbaud-quoting, fist-throwing nerd dervish. I can’t imagine what people must’ve thought of me. I fit in no category, checked no box, made no sense of any sort, even to myself.

But here I am, and there he was, and we immediately understood one another, both marveling every day that we’d made it through to a good life and to people who love us not in spite of who we are but because of it.

I never wanted immortality for me or for anyone, but people die too soon. Never long enough it seems.

But to quote Kesha:

I’ve been through hell and back
Yeah, honestly, it’s all made me who I am

I think my friend would’ve felt the same way. Takes so long to learn to let go. Glad I found a way. Glad he did too.

Unfortunately, Danielle does not play the guitar in this one. However, she does play cups, glasses and cans.

Selena Gomez’s original:

My favorite song of hers, and also a very fun video.

I really believe Trump has some form of dementia.

He was much more articulate and collected when he was younger. Watch older videos to see this for yourself.

He’s an old man. It’s not only possible that he has this condition, it’s likely this is the case. If we insist on electing old people, it might be wise to have some sort of test for this beforehand.

The only thing that annoys me so far about my new car is other people.

Quite a number of the few who even know what my car is have said, “For a little bit more you could’ve had a Corvette!”

Here’s the thing: I didn’t want a damn Corvette! If I did, I’d have one right now. Instead, I have pretty close to the performance of a Corvette with far more interior space (enough room for three adults in the back), a truly colossal trunk, and greater reliability.

Second, they have no idea how much I paid for my car. I drive a pretty hard bargain. I got mine for thousands less than a lot of other people pay for the same vehicle — which is pretty challenging to achieve in a rare color of a niche vehicle.

So yes, I certainly could have paid $15,000+ more for a car I didn’t even want.

Makes complete sense. Why didn’t I think of that?

If I didn't apply to jobs unless I fit all requirements, I wouldn't have had ANY of the tech jobs on my resume

*Apply anyway*

— Stephanie Hurlburt (@sehurlburt) August 13, 2017

Yep! As I’ve noted before, I’ve applied to and gotten jobs where I met as few as 20% of the “requirements.”

Those requirements are mainly there for two reasons:

1) Simple HR incompetence.

2) For an excuse to turn down someone for other reasons, while citing “did not meet requirements.”

This advice is particularly important for women who tend to apply only when they meet all the requirements. This is career suicide!

I told one of the interns at work after she asked that the best book I’d read recently was Nancy Cartwright’s How the Laws of Physics Lie.

Not only had she heard of it, she said, “Oh my god! Nancy Cartwright is my aunt’s best friend! She’s awesome!”

Strangely small world at times.