Archive for How My Mind Works

My Plan to End Street Harassment

I have a plan to end street harassment and if I understood how Tumblr worked I would have used their tool to promote a post I came across today “My plan to end street harassment forever”. I have a much less violent way to stop street harassment of women.* There are way too many corners or construction sites in our cities that many women avoid because of the regular harassment and catcalling, which are really one in the same.

My solution is code named “OPERATION URSA MAJOR.” The plan is to gather a bunch of bears and have them hang out at the aforementioned spots. They would then whistle and catcall at the people who are usually harassing women. My guess is after a week or so the harassers would get the point.

As a reminder to the general public the only time a catcall is ever acceptable is at a wet t-shirt contest, but if you are at a wet t-shirt contest you, as a participant or viewer, should probably question your life decisions.

fire bears
via Flickr user Hope Abrams

*I haven’t posted this earlier because I felt it reeked of a patriarchal tone of “how to protect the women from evil men”

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Privilege and Gender Politics

Recently on Facebook a friend posted this article from the Washington Post Funny how gender never came up during Bernanke’s nomination. Or Greenspan’s. Or Volcker’s.

My comment was something to the effect of:

My career in software development has exposed me to more of this bullshit than anyone should have to bear. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some super smart people and I learned tons from them. Unfortunately I’ve also been in the room (and few times when they weren’t in the room) where I saw first hand how since “they were a girl” they didn’t get the respect they deserved. S’s comment really resonates because very early in my career I didn’t understand how privilege worked. Luckily I grew up and was educated alongside many smart and talented people and at the end of the day I don’t care what chromosomes you have as long as you kick ass.

To borrow a quote from Roosevelt Franklin

Does anybody even notice? Does anybody even care? I think I’m way too smart to fall for this bullshit, but I realized I’m way too dumb to figure out how to stop it. One day I’ll figure it out, man, it’s like something’s gotta give.

From jezebel.com

From jezebel.com

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Government as VCs is Bad M’kay

The government is not a business and it shouldn’t be run like one.
Say this about 1000 times until you understand it.

Done? Good

This morning I read Scott Woolley’s post on Slate Tesla Is Worse Than Solyndra that laments the US gov investment didn’t look the like the investments of the venture capitalists and that the US gov should now own a stake in Tesla as a result. While on a very superficial level I could see why one would think so, but if you dig deeper it is a horrible idea for the gov to play VC.

VCs use their connections and influence in an attempt to ensure the success of their investments. Imagine the world of conflicts of interest that would arise were the gov to do the same? Oh we want to give Tesla a chance let’s raise gasoline taxes and offer tax credits for buying an electric car. Let’s make all new fed vehicle purchases Teslas. Let’s legislate a ban on non-electric cars… You see where I’m going with this the gov acting as a VC is rife with problems.

The way the gov approached Tesla is the same way the gov approaches its investment in college education, they back loans that wouldn’t be granted by conventional institutions with knowledge that many will fail and some will succeed, but the overall goal is to have a more educated population. What they did with Tesla and Solyndra is the same, they backed loans on favorable terms in order to achieve a goal that makes the country better as a whole. Having a cutting edge electric car company is good for the US just as having an educated population is good for the US. You’d never suggest that the gov claim an ownership stake in students with the expectation of a cut of future earnings, so why should it be the same for Tesla. The US gov will receive its payback when Tesla creates jobs and pays taxes. If there were any terms the gov should have stipulated it should have been to ensure that Tesla stay in the US for 20 years and isn’t allowed offshore tax shelters or outsourced labor.

Eastern Motors

Where your job is your credit. Fellow C-List DC Blogger DCKatastrophe gifted me my very own car this weekend, she got a bunch of Eastern Motors schwag after mentioning them in her blog. I wonder if this is subliminally related to a not forgotten promise that if I’m ever in the the position where I can easily piss away $30k I’m going to buy her a pink Miata with the vanity plates “SNDYVAG”
Thanks!

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Open Letter to Maker’s Mark

Dear Maker’s Mark,

I read about your supply problems and your solution of watering down your bourbon to meet demand. As such I’d like to apply for the much needed position of business advisor. Unlike your current business advisor I understand the basic concepts of economics such as supply and demand curves and how they can be used to determine optimized pricing. In addition I’m very good at drinking bourbon. I look forward to speaking with you more about this opportunity.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Dan

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Sit down with a big cup of coffee. Click some links.

Lighter than usual this week, due to some fluing going down. Things are better now thanks to lots of fluids going down. Wordplay is sort of my profession. Sort of.

Learning Creative Learning
…and a response to Learning Creative Learning
Coatis attack, steal an orange
Monkey zoo
Mannheim-Luzenberg Wiesnfest 2012 — Die Graffiti Crew
More Mannheim graffiti
Rochester abandoned subway exploration
The End of the Line
Airships
The 1859 Carrington Event
“Jerome”
10 Fake Simpsons Words that Belong in the Dictionary
Stephen Colbert interview in Playboy
Entertaining windshield notes… for 12 pages.
100% Cheese Grilled Cheese Sandwich
881 Miles Just to Eat Hot Wings
The Boulevardier

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Happy New Year

Putting motivational quotes on images is silly.

Putting motivational quotes on images is silly.

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