Monday, June 28, 2004
yet another brilliant post from baude.
this one, about the social function of memes, starts with the meme
"thomas is scalia's yesman."
compare to the "marshall is brennan's yesman" meme.
McIntyre is another case where Thomas and Scalia disagree radically. Baude's point is that proof by counterexample is ineffective if a position is held without respect to it's logic. maybe that's not his point. that's my point, which his post reminded me of. it is true that scalia and thomas, like brennan and marshall, often vote together. and scalia got there first, and probably has a stronger reputation. i prefer thomas, except when it comes to cases like hiibel.
now back to read the rest of the post. and maybe take a bath. looks like i won't get the motion for continuance in the mail today.
when i called the clerk's office to ask about the timing of the motion for continuance, they had left for the day - my computer clock was 10 minutes slow, and indiana time is weirdly different than dc time.
update on memes, and spam.
spam is, rightly, hated. when information wants to be free, you get what you pay for. but spam is not completely altogether worthless, although the costs of spam outweigh the benefits.
one of my hobbies, for many years, has been tracking the evolution of spam. in the old days, before email, i did this by snailmail.
my teddy bear, mr. g. t. bear, got on a business opportunties list.
this allowed me to sort out spam coming to the mailbox from my real mail.
that is also the story of why most of my email accounts list gtbear.
soon he was getting more mail than i was, from gullible people running get rich quick schemes. as a teddy bear, with a goal of someday owning a ferarri, he has a limited number of options, so the search for the elusive workable get rich quick scheme that could be run via the mail was fun, and resulted in a database for statistical analysis and market research. his main approach was to get the ex-wife and i to go to law school, but that hasn't worked out as planned.
it turns out the law has hazards for the undiagnosed clinically depressed.
anywoo, those same years saw important developments in the science of memetics.
today, i received a spam at my gmail [gtbear each-sign gmail dot com.]
it washelpfully labelled spam, and wasa variant on the nigerian spam, referencing zimbabwe, mugabe, holland.
yesterday i'd written a rant about the similarities between nigerian spam and james randi's offer of "one million dollars!" for anyone who can prove the existence of the paranormal.
i had a point here somewhere. oh yes. one of the few worthwhile aspects of the nigerian spam is that it holds entertainment value for some. i have a vague plan about organizing spammer safaris, where one goes to nigeria to bag a spammer for the sport of it. no actual trips planned until the nigerian government assents, and i haven't asked. another vale of such spam is that it provides data on memetic evolution. the population of the meme grows and shrinks as it finds food, suckers, and doesn't get killed off by predators. in the us, the first spammers have been sentenced to jail. this encourages spam to move offshore to brazil or china, where spammer hunters may be able to operate with fewer constraints. another value of spam is that it innoculates the mark, hardening the target. a consumer who learns that the nigerian spammer is not his friend, may someday make that grand intuitive leap and see the cat, as henry george calls it, may learn not to fall for the social security ponzi scheme, the speed trap, the microsoft upgrade hustle, the federal reserve note scam, the draft, compulsory education, or the other little tricks most of us fall for every day.
they may awaken to robert paul wolff's philosophical anarchism, which says there are no governments, only rulers. what pose as "governments" are bullies running the long con. when the mark wises up, they are still bullies, but forewarned is forearmed.
this one, about the social function of memes, starts with the meme
"thomas is scalia's yesman."
compare to the "marshall is brennan's yesman" meme.
McIntyre is another case where Thomas and Scalia disagree radically. Baude's point is that proof by counterexample is ineffective if a position is held without respect to it's logic. maybe that's not his point. that's my point, which his post reminded me of. it is true that scalia and thomas, like brennan and marshall, often vote together. and scalia got there first, and probably has a stronger reputation. i prefer thomas, except when it comes to cases like hiibel.
now back to read the rest of the post. and maybe take a bath. looks like i won't get the motion for continuance in the mail today.
when i called the clerk's office to ask about the timing of the motion for continuance, they had left for the day - my computer clock was 10 minutes slow, and indiana time is weirdly different than dc time.
update on memes, and spam.
spam is, rightly, hated. when information wants to be free, you get what you pay for. but spam is not completely altogether worthless, although the costs of spam outweigh the benefits.
one of my hobbies, for many years, has been tracking the evolution of spam. in the old days, before email, i did this by snailmail.
my teddy bear, mr. g. t. bear, got on a business opportunties list.
this allowed me to sort out spam coming to the mailbox from my real mail.
that is also the story of why most of my email accounts list gtbear.
soon he was getting more mail than i was, from gullible people running get rich quick schemes. as a teddy bear, with a goal of someday owning a ferarri, he has a limited number of options, so the search for the elusive workable get rich quick scheme that could be run via the mail was fun, and resulted in a database for statistical analysis and market research. his main approach was to get the ex-wife and i to go to law school, but that hasn't worked out as planned.
it turns out the law has hazards for the undiagnosed clinically depressed.
anywoo, those same years saw important developments in the science of memetics.
today, i received a spam at my gmail [gtbear each-sign gmail dot com.]
it washelpfully labelled spam, and wasa variant on the nigerian spam, referencing zimbabwe, mugabe, holland.
yesterday i'd written a rant about the similarities between nigerian spam and james randi's offer of "one million dollars!" for anyone who can prove the existence of the paranormal.
i had a point here somewhere. oh yes. one of the few worthwhile aspects of the nigerian spam is that it holds entertainment value for some. i have a vague plan about organizing spammer safaris, where one goes to nigeria to bag a spammer for the sport of it. no actual trips planned until the nigerian government assents, and i haven't asked. another vale of such spam is that it provides data on memetic evolution. the population of the meme grows and shrinks as it finds food, suckers, and doesn't get killed off by predators. in the us, the first spammers have been sentenced to jail. this encourages spam to move offshore to brazil or china, where spammer hunters may be able to operate with fewer constraints. another value of spam is that it innoculates the mark, hardening the target. a consumer who learns that the nigerian spammer is not his friend, may someday make that grand intuitive leap and see the cat, as henry george calls it, may learn not to fall for the social security ponzi scheme, the speed trap, the microsoft upgrade hustle, the federal reserve note scam, the draft, compulsory education, or the other little tricks most of us fall for every day.
they may awaken to robert paul wolff's philosophical anarchism, which says there are no governments, only rulers. what pose as "governments" are bullies running the long con. when the mark wises up, they are still bullies, but forewarned is forearmed.
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