Tuesday: I just don't know.

Today was supposed to be so good.  I mean, I got to sleep in.  Then, when I left, I had a tiny gecko friend on my car:

Tiny gecko friend, you should not be on my car! You could get hurt!

So I scooped him up with a piece of paper, but then he jumped onto my hand, and I panicked and flipped him off, but geckos are resilient, so he seemed ok.  Then I had to stomp around him while saying "boogie-boogie" to make him walk from behind my car to under the truck next to me, which is a safe place, because it's suspended and hasn't driven in years.

There may or may not have been a person who came into the parking garage while I was doing this.

And then I voted:

And I can post this because it's legal to do that in Hawaii.

I then had to go to the doctor, who told me "it's probably not a big deal," but not until after I had to go through the dual horrors of "eyedrops" and "having someone actually tap on your eyes with a thing made for tapping on eyes."  That is one of my biggest fears, and I hated every second of it.  Also: I probably should get new glasses, because they don't put gamma on eye charts.

Then I went to get lunch, and it was all fine:

Happy cute little frogs!

And yummy ramen!

And by the time I got home, everything fell apart and has been descending into chaos ever since.  I have no idea what's going to happen, because my default model of the world has "active racists" at like max 10%, and it now seems like the true number is something like 50%.  As far as I can tell, the end of civilization goes like this:

1. George Bush fails to win a second term in 1992 because he's not super popular, and a third party candidate eats up enough votes to knock him out.
2. This causes the Republican party to freak out, and decided they were cheated out of their rightful presidency, allowing lunatics to take over the party.
3. To the point where they attempt to impeach the usurper for having an affair, despite the fact that the Speaker of the House was actively having an affair, the Speaker who replaced him was having an affair, and the Speaker who replaced him molested students.  Children.  The guy being the morality police molested children.  Let that sink in for a moment.
4. Somehow this meant that Democrats had bad morals.
5. A bad president is then elected, largely due to the alleged "lack of difference" between the candidates.  He proceeds to ruin the economy, start a bunch of unpaid wars, and pass unneeded tax cuts for the wealthy.
6. Everyone loses a lot of money.
7. We elect Obama, and part of the country decides that despite common sense, he's going to try and destroy the country and kill them.  He instead makes it easier for people to get medical care.
8. That part of the country elects a useless Congress that opposes everything, on the principle that if nothing gets better, people will blame the President.
9. He gets elected again, and continues to not kill people or destroy the country.
10. People become increasingly terrified of an undistinguished "other," which eventually coalesces around "people who aren't white," who they feel are getting free things while they are being held back.
11. Gay people are allowed to exist, and after confirming that trans people do not spontaneously erupt into swarms of death bees, they are allowed to exist as well.
12. This sets the racists off even more, because they have to let people live without shame.  This cannot be allowed.
13. A terrible old man dies, but Congress refuses to let a perfectly qualified person replace him, because they can't stand the idea that gay people can exist.
14. Britain decides they'll try racism out as well, because why bother actually working on problems.
15. A sufficiently well distributed almost 50% of the country votes for a sexist moron who doesn't have any position other than "let the hate flow through you."
16. Because Hillary was cheated on?  Or was a lawyer?  Or had opinions?  I refuse to attempt to understand this level of sexism.

So now to speculate:

1. Nothing is done about climate change, and this is really the most major point, because at least we've doomed ourselves to die, so it's nice that there's punishment built in, even if the people who did this will probably die of natural causes first.
2. People decide it's perfectly ok to discriminate, and without a proper Supreme Court, there's nothing to stop this.
3. I am terrified of the number of people I follow on the internet that may not be alive because of this in the next 1/2/4/10 years.

And the worst part, is that nothing is going to get better for those racists anyway, because they reasons they're upset (gay people exist, black people are allowed to be president, women aren't property, jobs that once existed went away so the things those jobs once made can actually be affordable) aren't things that you can fix.

I'm torn about my trip to SFO later this month.  On the plus side, I get to see people I love, and be in a wonderfully diverse city.  On the negative side, I have to figure out some way to apologize for the hell world my generation and those before me are leaving to a wonderful little four year old.

There will be no more Pokemon links, because joy has fled, and only anguish awaits.

• So I got "Neutrois," which is fine, no problem, but I really had my heart set on "Taco".
• Fuck you, Glen Beck.  You were feeding those people lies to enrich yourself.
• I'm so sorry.
• This is why I've started trying to stand at a distance to people on elevators and things.  I know I might look scary, and I try to be as non-threatening as I can.  Do I sometimes make beep-boop sounds when I push elevator buttons?  Sometimes.  Usually only when I'm alone.
• I'm so sorry.
• So sorry.
• So very sorry.
• Fucking scum.
• Facts, but I guess that has never mattered anyway.
• Here are some dogs, because at least dogs are still wonderful.  I'm sorry, dogs.  We let you down, and you deserved better.  I mean, you've been with us since we started this civilization idea, and I know you'll stick with us to the end.

Disasters.

Within the past week, there's been a jerk running over people in Nice, France, and a coup in Turkey.  Both of these are "I would rather not be there" kind of situations, which can easily be generalized to "some places become suddenly dangerous, and we should be able to help with technology."

This thought came to me this weekend while thinking about all of these events in combination with Pokemon Go, and then through the filter of "doesn't Twitter have a lot of information?"  I'm sure they have a similar level of information as PKMNGo, so it seems like they could set up a fairly robust "Emergency Mode."  Here's kind of a rough outline of things.

1. Twitter detects a disaster.  Although this could be a top level decision "Nice is in trouble.  Flag it!" it could also be something that you let be detected from the tweet stream.  It should immediately start trending in an unexpected way, which might trigger things.
2. A region of the globe where the disaster is happening is defined.  Every user in that region has the following things happen automatically.
1. Their tweets no longer contain location information.  This information is collected, but it is not released publicly.  There are many of these disaster scenarios where you have antagonists who might benefit from knowing where people are, so it's best to keep that private.
2. All users are presented with a pre-defined tweet screen.  They don't get to add to the tweets, but select from a menu:  "I am fine, and I am in a safe location."  "I am fine, but do not think my location is safe."  "I am not fine, and need emergency help."  These go out to the user's followers, so they don't need to use further communication resources contacting people.
3. From the known location information and the responses, narrow the disaster region to define safe and unsafe areas.  Share emergency information with authorities so they can move resources.  This can also be shared with users who do not think they're in a safe location.  "Shelter in place if you are secure.  If not, this map has been auto-generated, but shows the areas currently believed safe."
4. Pre-defined lists of "Emergency Users" are added to the users' following for a temporary period.  This might include news sources, but also things like the State Department's travel twitter.  I already follow them, and during the coup, they were spreading the information they had (largely "shelter in place").  I'm sure other countries have similar things, and can be added to lists for users from those countries (which twitter can easily sort out from location information, in addition to the user supplied location field).  The National Weather Service would be another option, for tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.
5. One option could be to add prompts for tweets/periscopes/etc. so that people who are in a place where reporters aren't could get information out.  This might add a lot of liability, though, because some people aren't smart enough to not put themselves into danger.
3. Once the disaster is resolved, everything goes back to normal, and the temporary following lists are deactivated.

I'm sure a similar thing could be set up with Google or Facebook, but since I use Twitter for pretty much all of my news, that's my obvious source.  Plus, they could make it a selling point: "even if you don't care in general, why not get Twitter so you can be on top of emergency situations."  I'm also pretty sure that news agencies would be interested in getting marked as an "Emergency User".  Fold in some after-the-fact "was this source useful?" polling, and they could check that those users actually help.

Wednesday: This is kind of like reruns. Maybe it's a "remastered" post?

First up, killing the Supreme Court.  Again.  But still with numbers and statistics, because that's the best way to do things.  Assume the Senate decides to stop being fuckheads.  Then, Merrick Garland gets a hearing and since he's basically fine, he gets a seat on the Supreme Court.  Since that bag of shit is dead.

So here's the cumulative "how many justices are alive" plot.  Honestly, according to this, if the Senate doesn't stop acting like children, Obama might have two more people to appoint before the end of his term.  It's good that the Republicans are running an idiot and a serial killer as their top options this year, since that sets up a good shift when they don't become president.

And the by name individual plot.  I've seen a lot of stuff talking about how Garland is "already old" so it "doesn't matter" if he gets confirmed or not.  Side note: fuck Shane Ryan for being a fucking idiot.  "Who's Shane Ryan?"  Exactly.  Also acceptable:  a fucking idiot.  The cumulative plot clearly shows that the next president is very important for determining the Supreme Court's future.

In any case, he's younger than the median justice, and is likely to be on the court for another ~15 years.  Or, you know, the next four presidential terms.  Also, it's interesting to note the benefit of appointing women to the court.  Roberts was born in 1955, and Sotomayor in 1954.  That's the unit the script uses for sorting the key.  But, looking at the graph, Sotomayor is likely to be on the court ~3 years longer.  I should also enable the grid display next time I do this.

Next topic: Damn it, Dave Willis, it's right there on page four.  The only options that are on the kids meal that are not available on the adult menu are the mac and cheese and the pizza.  Looking at the picture they selected for the pizza suggests that no one orders that.  "Why?"  Because look at that picture.  That is the picture the chose for the menu, and the pizza in it looks awful.  Besides, we already know that Joyce wants chicken tenders, because she told us.

• The other point that I could make about the link up there to the story that fucking idiot wrote was conveniently covered by Paul Krugman today.  Tl;dr: the Republican party is "an engine designed to harness white resentment on behalf of higher incomes for the donor class."
• Krugman also points out a fact that Shane Ryan, fucking idiot, didn't bother to read in his history.  SR, FI, claims "When was the last time that the same party had back-to-back presidents win two terms? The answer is James Madison and James Monroe, both “Democratic-Republicans,” in the early 1800s.  Does that change your view on the likelihood of Clinton winning two terms?"  "Huh, that doesn't sound right," you say.  That's because it may be technically true, if you ignore the fact that FDR was elected president FOUR TIMES, died, Truman took over A MONTH AND A HALF into FDR's fourth term, and then was elected to his own "technically only first term" in 1948.  Truman could have run again in 1952, as the 22nd amendment didn't apply to him, but didn't (largely a popularity thing, but read Harry's quote in the third paragraph here.  HUH.  I WONDER IF THAT WILL BE A BIG THING IN THE FUTURE?).
• Steven Universe is renewed for two more seasons, in a move that shouldn't really surprise anyone.
• Spiders.  (No actual spiders in the link).
• Kitty.  (This is technically a kitty, but probably stretching the definition).
• Cereal.
• Hrm.  A lot of those are dubbed.  I should probably just buy the DVDs for the ones I haven't actually seen yet, since otherwise I'm going to have to drive to far parts of the island on like a Tuesday to see things.
• I would like more Supergirl gifs from this episode.

Tuesday: I wish people were less stupid.

I really need to find an image library so I can make this automatically.

I saw a link to this story today.  TL;DR: old people are stupid, and in their stupidity, are buying guns to protect themselves.  First thing I googled, "how much of a criminal hellhole is Austintown Ohio".  Surprise answer?  "Like basically not really any crime at all."  Then, using my think-mo-tron, I decided how much easier things would be if there were a single place that would have lots of crime statistics, so we could look it up.  Some sort of government bureau, tasked with keeping statistics about justice.  Oh wait, because we have a functioning government, that's exactly what we already have.

So let's look it up:  how much crime do old people suffer from?  Table 5.  "Less than everyone."  But what about this document explicitly on "Crimes Against the Elderly"?  Surely that's going to tell us how much crime old people have to worry about, right?  Ok, fine, old people.  Table 7 says you're more likely to be attacked by a stranger than any other age category.  Then again, I can probably counter with figures 3 and 4, which show that old people have always been the victims of less crime, and no matter what, crime has gone down in the last 20 years.  By a lot.

It would have been nice if James R. Hagerty had actually put some of that information into his story.  I guess working for the Wall Street Journal means you don't actually have do journalism anymore.  

• Blah blah, this is just for the gif of Supergirl realizing she has ice cream now.
• This has all the other good gifs from that episode.  I can't believe I forgot the Ikea table thing.
• This is another review of that stupid Batman/Superman movie.  That movie probably has neither Ikea tables nor ice cream.
• I made the mistake of reading the app names when I should have been paying attention to the icons.
• Ducks.
• I want BMO faces on my shoes. :(
• These are all wonderful pictures, but I can't make captions for all of them.
• Except number four.  "Come on, Steve.  God wants you to take a long hike."  "Whoa whoa whoa, Steve.  I have, like, six pizzas getting delivered.  We better skip out on all this 'hike' nonsense.  Besides, it's not like that's going to be easy with your sock/sandal combo there."

Monday: Things are probably on schedule to finish when we claimed they would?

Which is it, stupid mobile ads?  Should I google myself or not?  Also I gave Chuck Schumer angry eyebrows and John Kerry a top hat.

• PCA.
• I thought red pandas were doing better.  I am sad that they are not.
• Horse.

Thursday: New office day!

Of course, I didn't take a picture of it or anything.  That would have made sense.  I also need to figure out what you put in an office.  I have a desk, a filing cabinet, a bookshelf, and a trashcan.  This fills about 25% of the space.  Fridge?  A second chair in case someone stops by?  I'd kind of like a tiny table that I could use to work on my laptop if I ever had to do that for some reason.  I also need to put up something that isn't "bland white walls."

Something like this, but less "god-y."

• So I think this is a good thing.  Here's why:  someone who studies economics thinks it would have been bad for Scotland.  Second reason: losing Scotland would probably force the rest of England to be run by the Tories all the time.  They're basically jerks, so that'd be a bad thing.
• Pizza.
• Surely there are polling results from long ago.  It seems like empirically determining the outlier distribution would be a better way to handle things.  Or at least confirm that the t with 2 degrees of freedom is a satisfactory model.
• Yes, but also no.  First up, anytime there's a "H/T" to the American Enterprise Institute, it's best to be on the look out for how you're being lied to.  The BLS link relies on java, and fuck you BLS, we don't need java to plot data.  I have a suspicion that the numbers listed in this plot are not inflation adjusted, and since "journalists" suck at everything now-a-days, I can't find any information on what kind of dollars they're using.  Looking at figure 3 (page 18) of this report compiled by Sheeo (no, google, I did not mean sheep), the cost of college per unit of education (their FTE) is roughly constant in inflation adjusted 2013 dollars at $12000.  My inflation calculator suggests that if the "annoying gif graph" is using unadjusted dollars, then that's 200% of the increase right there.  Looking further at Sheeo's figure 3, the "tuition" portion has increased by another 200% or so, which to within the handwavy numbers I'm using, matches the gif graph.  Great, so it all checks out, so there's the yes.  The "no" part is that if the tuition portion is increasing, yet the cost per unit is constant, the other part must be decreasing.  That's "educational appropriations."  The portion of the unit cost that's paid by the government as part of the taxation and disbursement of funds.  Tuition is not increasing because colleges are building fancy new dorms and hiring too many people who teach some dumb class no one needs.  Tuition is increasing because colleges have to make up the money that's been stolen by tax cutting assholes.
• James.