My mind has many nooks and crannies ... like an english muffin
Use the Right Tool For the Job
· ☕ 327  words life politics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
When all you know is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In the most recent case, the UK managed to drop almost 16,000 COVID-19 cases from their result compilation because they were using Excel in the data gathering process. Excel has a limit on the number of rows or columns and apparently the amount of data exceeded one or the other of those limits. A BBC Report claims that the row limit was breached because someone chose to use a very old file format.
New Caledonia Narrowly Votes No on Independence From France
· ☕ 299  words international  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
New Caledonia voted no today on its second of three votes on independence from France. The first vote was in 2018 and the no votes came in at 56.7%. This time, as expected, the no votes came in narrower at 53.26%. Turnout was 85.64%, which was four points higher than the 2018 vote, evidently showing that people felt their votes would count given the expected tight vote. Polling stations were kept open after the scheduled closing time so long as there were people in line to vote.
Happy Reunification Day Germany
· ☕ 105  words Germany  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Happy Reunification Day to Germany. I’ve been in Berlin both before and after the wall fell. Its nicer to be able to just walk across the street. Maybe we can all work towards reducing the polarizing behavior that is acting like a psychic Berlin wall in so many countries. By the way, can anyone tell me why east and west Berlin still use different street lamp bulbs? Nightime aerial photos clearly show a color difference.
Never Let a Good Crisis Go To Waste - Part One
· ☕ 593  words politics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
This post will likely get deleted as things progress, but my innate cynicism is too strong to keep quiet right now. So, I just saw the news that President Trump tweeted that he had tested positive for COVID-19. It is interesting that it happened the same day that a Cornell study claimed the President was the single greatest source of covid disinformation. This also has national security implications. See a twitter thread from Sam Vinograd, a national security expert, written before the news but after a White House Staffer tested positive.
Adding Injury to Injury - Ransomware Victims That Pay May Be Penalized By The Government
· ☕ 264  words politics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Suppose you are a business that has been hacked and discover that all your files are locked and you will need to pay some unknown X to get them unlocked. Not Fun. Paying ransoms just make it more enticing to criminals and fund future attacks, but not paying may cause your business to fail. The US Treasury now says if you pay and the unknown person is subject to US sanctions, then you and everyone involved in the payments may be committing a crime.
We Are All Bit Players In Other People's Plays
· ☕ 334  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Most of us are the main character in the plays running through our heads. As those scenes happen and as we review them later, all the other people are either focused on us or are NPCs (non-playing characters). And that’s fine so long as we remember that while our play is happening, every other person is the center of their own play and we are not the main character in their plays.
Missing from the working from home debate
· ☕ 334  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
There have been lots of discussions about whether employees are more or less efficient working from home. I certainly see lots of comments from people who are happier left alone to work from home. I also see occasional comments from parents trying to juggle working from home, helping their kids learning from home and how all the distractions at home get in the way of being efficient. What I have not seen is the impact on new young workers of not having informal face time training.
Why Write Songs If You Aren't Going to Sell?
· ☕ 945  words music  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Someone asked if I was going to try to make it in the music business. Obviously not someone who knows me. The answer is, of course not. Its a hobby. [insert obligatory hobby loss joke that only tax lawyers and accountants will understand]. A hobby is something that you do primarily for yourself. I write the occasional song for me, or someone going through a rough time. Sometimes they get played for friends or family, sometimes at a funeral or wedding.
I Can Learn From Anyone
· ☕ 558  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I’m an infovore. I take in a lot of information (or in the words of my sister-in-law - “more useless crap”) and occasionally it makes new patterns that I can learn from. Its not just written information. I can learn watching two carpenters do things differently. I can learn from listening to different conversations about practically anything (maybe not sports because I really don’t care). It doesn’t matter the socioeconomic level, intelligence level or age level.
Arsenic Before Oxygen?
· ☕ 211  words science  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
So we know that life has existed on Earth for billions of years (think bacteria, not dinosaurs) but we also know that bacterial life existed for 1.5 billion years before there was free oxygen present. Life as we generally know it requires oxygen serve as a vehicle for electrons gained and lost through various metabolic processes. How did it all work pre-oxygen? There have been various theories posited, including life processes using hydrogen or sulfur or iron.
Hubris or Aspiration
· ☕ 486  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
There is a trope throughout history about hubris. Wikipedia defines it as “foolish pride, dangerous overconfidence or arrogance”. The Encyclopedia Britannica has a more nuanced definition: “overweening presumption that leads a person to disregard the divinely fixed limits on human action in an ordered cosmos.” The general theory of the trope is that hubris will lead to your downfall. As examples, in Greek mythology, think Icarus flying too close to the sun; in Christian theology think the fall of Lucifer.
Make the Chili
· ☕ 300  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
There is a Carrie Newcomer song called “Forever Ray” where the wife (Ella) shooes the husband (Ray) out of the house and suggests that since it is a nice day, maybe he could do something in the yard. So Ray goes out and buys a little cement statue of a rabbit on its hind legs holding a tray. Then everyday he leaves Ella a note on the tray held down by a stone with just something to say that he loves her.
Read the words
· ☕ 275  words politics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Trying to have a rational conversation is difficult enough without people fixating on a single word in a sentence and then letting their lizard hind brain take control. A recent case in point was an article in the Washington Post about political scientists and sociologists concerned that the US is backsliding into autocracy. Link. One of the people commenting immediately started saying that this was sensationalist nonsense to sell papers - the President does not have autocratic power and the people around him are managing him very well so as to ensure that he never gets that power.