January 2012
7 posts
3 tags
Shut it down. Shut it all down.
Those that visit Sneak-Attack via bernardyu.com (and who wouldn’t? It is so much better than RSS or the Tumblr dashboard) will notice that it is shut down. I’ve done so to bring attention to the fights against PIPA and the Research Works Act.
2 tags
Library dorks: a question
I already have my nonfiction books organized by LCC, but hate GSAFD for fiction. What is your favorite way to physically catalog works of fiction (including magazines such as Analog)? Why? What makes it superior to others?
9 tags
The sticky problem of truth (vigilantes)
This morning Arthur Brisbane, the public editor for The New York Times, asked whether Times reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about. Responses by people that I follow on Twitter and Google+ have been largely disgust. Not at the question, but that the question should even need to be asked. However, the fundamental question here is one that good...
6 tags
An open-access policy for government-funded...
(This letter is my response to the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Request for Information: Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting From Federally Funded Research.)
Government-funded research should be publicly accessible, for free and without restrictions. Public access to publicly-funded research is limited. If an article is not open-access, many publishers...
7 tags
Sneak-Attack Redesign: More minimal than ever!
It was time for a redesign and I’ve gone even more minimal than before! I intentionally kept quiet about this one to make sure I followed through.
First, I have not tested in any browser other than Safari, I just wanted to get it out there and get your reactions. If it looks funky elsewhere, I’m getting around to it.
Second, I have changed the tone of the design from historical to...
2 tags
A letter to every florist ever
This is how most florists and hobby flower grower bunches their flowers. And it’s wrong, very wrong. Stems aren’t held together tightly, causing them to separate, which means it is easier for one bunch to catch onto others (especially for bunches of things that branch).
The right way to do it
First, line up all the stems, then take the rubber band and push it down about 20 to 40% of the...
2 tags
Life Goals v2012.01.03
An update to my previous post. However, the additions to my goals aren’t new, instead they are public acknowledgement of what I have already been wanting to do.
Be on the ground during a popular uprising.
Consult on a constitutional convention
Do something worthy of a TED talk.
Give a TED talk
Start an open-access academic publishing house.
Start a school based on the Great Books tradition.
December 2011
3 posts
5 tags
8 tags
Courses I want to take number 1: Contemporary...
For various reasons, it’s been a hellish few months. But my current energies are almost entirely focused on preparing my graduate school applications. Which is why I haven’t had time to respond to many of the replies to my last few posts. (Sorry folks,I haven’t forgotten you.) While working on what is I believe the fifth rewrite of my statement of purpose, I thought I’d...
10 tags
Is this really the world we want?
My normal coping mechanism for learning of some political act that angers me is becoming flippant and making tongue-in-cheek jokes. It got me through the 2004 elections, losing my first campaign in 2006, and through the weight of stupid statements by talking heads, pundits, and political candidates. But recently, my coping mechanism has been failing more often. My anger bleeds through and my true...
November 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Valletta Ventures: The price of a messy codebase:... →
vallettaventures:
Any LaTeX user with an iPad has had the same thought: I want to use my favourite document creation system on my favourite device. Despite everything I am about to say about the LaTeX codebase, there is nothing like it for composing beautiful documents, and the iPad is the most beautiful platform…
Sad Bernard.
A Fallen Tree in the Woods | Here be Claires!:... →
Language change isn’t an offense, and it’s not ruining the English language. It’s an insightful and endlessly fascinating demonstration of human linguistic creativity and will ensure that English keeps evolving in a way that is meaningful and relevant to its speakers.
I’ve written a second article clarifying my position, I’m not making a prescriptivist point here on how words are...
5 tags
I WAS THE SNOWFLAKE QUEEN: The death of... →
The problem is, if everybody understood the intent the words in the commercial were attempting to convey, then how could anything else be “better”? What’s the judgment of better, here? The purpose of language is to transmit ideas, after all, and if everybody understands, what’s the problem…?
I think the problem is that you’re trying to connect two completely separate ideas here, one is...
5 tags
The death of contemporary English: Clarified.
It seems that my last post got a bit of attention from some lovely linguistics folk and many have been calling my position prescriptivist. It isn’t, though I can see how it is being mistaken as one from what I published yesterday. The issue I wrote about yesterday was not the improper use of words (although those are what I used as examples). This is why I differentiated myself from Mr....
7 tags
Pizza rolls, patriotism, and the death of meaning...
Note: For those of you complaining that I am being a prescriptivist here, I’m not. I have written a clarification of my position in another post. I’ve studied an amount of philosophy of language, I know what I’m talking about.
Examples are everywhere, from commercials to political rhetoric, from ad copywriters to high school freshman: phrases are being used outside their proper...
October 2011
4 posts
4 tags
A health care question.
If people who have been awake for 16 hours have the same cognitive impairment of someone with a .05 blood alcohol level, why do we trust ourselves to doctors and nurses who work 12 to 16 hour shifts?
3 tags
TypeCon2012: Milwaukee →
Folks, we’re bringing TypeCon to Milwaukee!
4 tags
On strangers, grief, and cultural icons
Since the announcement last night that Steve Jobs passed away, many people have been writing eulogies and introspectives. Most have been respectful, thoughtful, and deeply heartfelt. Some of the most eloquent have been from people who knew him personally, but most are written by those who never met him at all, which has confounded others. Why, after all, should the death of a person most of us...
September 2011
6 posts
6 tags
Running Chicken: So, Now It's Tomorrow ... →
kohenari:
Last night, I reflected about how hopeful I felt at the mobilization of so many people to fight for Troy Davis’ life. With that particular fight lost, I wondered what would happen today. In other words, in the absence of such a noteworthy case, will people continue to feel passionately about…
5 tags
9 tags
Connections: Decision making and the political...
(This is the second of my on-and-off series based on the BBC series Connections, you can read the first back from July 2010)
If you follow me on Google+ (if you’re not interested in using G+, you can find also follow the ATOM feed), you will likely have noticed several themes running through the content I’ve been reposting. Sometimes, I’ve included some analysis or personal...
7 tags
WatchThere is no such thing as tl;dr. Read the whole thing. (This is important.)
kohenari:
I’ve written a great many words about the death penalty over the past week (here and here) and many people have seen fit to read them, to think about them, to share them widely across the internet, and to discuss them with me. For this I have been extremely grateful.
I think it’s safe to assume that not a...
4 tags
You see, grammar is culture. →
Of School Marms and Language Mavens, Sociolinguists, Neurobiologists, Cultural Conventions, and Economic Forces (or: Why Have a Style Sheet When Language is Forever Changing…and, By the Way, Isn’t It A Bit Elitist, After All?)
6 tags
August 2011
3 posts
3 tags
The mismeasure of morals: Antisocial personality... →
kohenari:
A new paper by Daniel M. Bartels and David A. Pizarro looks closely at utilitarians and provides an assessment of their personalities. It isn’t particularly flattering.
Here’s the abstract:
Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non-utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas...
1 tag
Google+: An observation and a gripe.
I hate reviewing things right after my first use. The way we use something while exploring is often completely different from what we do when we have settled in. Further, while first impressions deeply affect how we approach something new, it is often flawed and superficial. Instead, I prefer to use a tool or application before presenting my impressions. I’ve been on Google+ for more than a...
7 tags
Dear liberals, Man up or fuck off.
Dear liberals,
In the last two years, I’ve seen a lot of bitching and moaning from those of you unhappy with what is happening in DC. Many say that Obama squandered his mandate, barely doing anything during the 111th Congress. Because of it many of you refused to vote in the midterm elections, allowing ultra-conservatives a gangbusters election season, winning a conservative majority in the...
July 2011
5 posts
2 tags
Versioning revisisted →
Revisiting my post A Better Versioning Scheme.
2 tags
2 tags
Dear Bernard, Just a reminder
It takes 30 seconds of frantically digging through the recycle bin looking for notes to remind yourself why you were writing everything in notebooks up until 3 weeks ago.
June 2011
3 posts
4 tags
Launched →
We’ve just launched the new Enguin Design website. Many of my longer development-, content strategy-, and ux-oriented articles will now be published there instead of here on Sneak-Attack. That said, I am also going to be following a much more organized editorial calendar, so posts will be much more regular as well.
(By the way can you find the easter eggs?)
Moved.
Welp, I finally got around to doing it. Sneak-Attack Philosophy has been moved to bernardyu.com. I was thinking of other things to do with the domain (like a one-page profile, or a link to my zerp.ly profile), but decided this was be the most useful.
In other news, I am planning a pretty major update to the Idealized Writing theme which’ll be out in a few weeks.
(Also, my drafts folder now...
10 tags
“The unrestrained and thoughtless pursuit of openness, without recognizing the...”
– Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 38.
May 2011
1 post
4 tags
WatchGeorge Gershwin and the Paul Whiteman Concert Orchestra playing Rhapsody in Blue.
You’re welcome.
April 2011
2 posts
5 tags
“Kin selection is wrong. That’s it. It’s wrong.”
– Edward O. Wilson, who has prominently supported the kin selection view of the origin of altruism for more than thirty years, has changed his mind.
Why this might be of interest:
The puzzle of altruism is more than just a technical curiosity for evolutionary theorists. It amounts to a high-stakes...
March 2011
7 posts
“The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in...”
– How We Know by Freeman Dyson (via mavenist)
Running Chicken: Juan Cole's Open Letter to the... →
I would like to urge the Left to learn to chew gum and walk at the same time. It is possible to reason our way through, on a case-by-case basis, to an ethical progressive position that supports the ordinary folk in their travails in places like Libya. If we just don’t care if the people of…
Had I less shame, I would reblog everything Mr. Kohen writes. Instead, I’m going to strongly...
3 tags
Wisconsin Protest Coverage: Updated
First, I am now running the Twitter account @wicapaccess, it updates whenever there is a new post on the official Wisconsin Capitol Access Blog, but while awake, I will also be posting updates on the situation in and around the Capitol. It is completely nonpolitical and for information only. I am only posting information cited from sources I know to be credible (known journalists, officials,...
4 tags
Text of judge's ruling to reopen the Capitol...
Text of the ruling:
Members of the Rotunda Community
Today, I have ruled in favor of the Plaintiffs concerning the issues before me on access to the State Capitol of Wisconsin. After three days of testimony, the record establishes that the recent protest was unprecedented of the history of the State of Wisconsin. Thousands of people peacefully protested for two weeks and no injuries or damage...
4 tags
WI Protest Coverage
To say the least mainstream national media coverage is lackluster, so here are the resources I’m using to follow the goings on at the Capitol:
Metafilter: Wisconistan. I am actively contributing to this thread as I see pertinent information.
@searchcommittee’s Walkerville tweeps Twitter list
@ACLUMadison is live tweeting the hearings of Defend Wisconsin’s suit to reopen the...
3 tags
I just realized something…
In a library somewhere, a Ph.D. candidate finishing a dissertation on the longevity of Middle-East dictators is crying.
If this is you, you have my heartfelt sympathies.
(Will 2011 be to academics studying the Middle-East as 1989 was to those studying the Soviets?)
February 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Life goals v2011.02.02
A few years ago I came up with a simple life goal: Do something worthy of a TED Talk. With a second part: Give a TED Talk. I’ve found it simultaneously deeply satisfying as well as utterly bewildering. Satisfying because my goal in life was to do something that would inspire and educate. Since then, I’ve started a web design shop, and have been working with not-for-profit...
January 2011
1 post
4 tags
Dear Bernard,
Several days ago, in a comment on ask.mefi, you said that in order to write better, people should (and I am quoting you here) “Make writing a habit,” and yet we sit here ignored for so long.
You wrote eloquently on the art of writing. Much of what you said made us swell with joy including this gem:
Good writing is less about eureka moments of brilliant inspiration and more about the...
December 2010
1 post
1 tag
