Quotulatiousness

March 16, 2020

Cognitive dissonance, family style

Filed under: Government, Health, Humour, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Severian has some fun discussing current events with a nephew:

Image from Castle of Chaos – https://castleofchaos.com/blog/5-tips-for-surviving-a-zombie-apocalypse/

Just recently I had some fun with one of my nephews, who’s unexpectedly home for “Spring Break.”

Let’s take this Wuhan Flu thing seriously, I said. But since that hits a little too close to home, let’s pretend it’s a zombie outbreak. I want you to take it 100% seriously. The zombie virus has made it to our shores. It’s not too bad yet, but there’s definitely a walking dead situation. So … what do you want the government to do?

Nephew of course starts rattling off all the Chuck Norris fantasies young college guys have. Close the ports, call out the army, firebomb the streets wherever infected are sighted, yadda yadda. All of this is translated from the teenager, but you get the gist of it:

Me: Ok. Now, since we’ve stipulated that we’re taking this 100% seriously: Do you really want to give the government the power to do all that?

Nephew: Of course!

Me: Ok. Well then, do you really want to give Donald Trump the power to do that?

Nephew: Oh my god no!!! Orange Man bad!!!

Me: Now wait a minute, Nephew. You just said you’re taking this 100% seriously. You just said you want the government to have the power to set up flamethrower checkpoints on all major roads. Well, who is the current head of the government?

Nephew: But … but … but … Orange Man BAD!!!!

Me: Remember, Nephew, you promised to take this 100% seriously. So are you seriously telling me that the first thing you’d do, in the event of the zombie outbreak, is call an emergency presidential election, in the hopes that someone — Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, somebody — would win, so that the right kind of person could take all those measures you said were so very, very, very immediately necessary?

Nephew: Uhhhh … no, I guess not.

Me: So you do want to give Donald Trump that power, since he is, in fact, the current head of the United States government?

Nephew: Oh my god no! Orange Man BAAAAAAADDDD!!!!

Me: Well then I guess you’re just not serious about this zombie outbreak, are you?

Paul Sellers’ Desktop Organiser | Episode 5

Filed under: Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Paul Sellers
Published 13 Mar 2020

Our Desktop Organiser series was originally released for free on Woodworking Masterclasses, Click here to view: https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/…

The small details of any project should always exemplify exactness, and the smaller the project and project parts, the more exacting the work becomes. By making the drawer parts, we discover techniques craftsmen hand toolists passed down through the generations.

Paul added planted grooves to receive the drawer bottom. We use this technique when the sides of the drawers are lightweight. Paul shows the method he uses to glue up the drawer. Fitting the drawer to the opening requires more precision. Paul takes his time to explain all of the details he goes through. Lastly, Paul creates the long drawer pull from vintage mahogany salvaged from an old table leg and then fixes the pull in place.

For a free PDF of the drawing and cutting list, click here: https://paulsellers.com/desktop-organ…
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University lectures developed historically due to the extremely high cost of books…

Filed under: Economics, Education, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

… now that books are extremely cheap, universities should long since have adapted:

University College, University of Toronto, 31 July, 2008.
Photo by “SurlyDuff” via Wikimedia Commons.

As Brad Delong has been pointing out for years the very method of university teaching arose from a technological issue. Books were expensive. No, expensive. A scholar might amass a library of 50 volumes in a lifetime if they were assiduous at the game. Hundreds indicated an active collector spending significant sums. At which point, to educate the impecunious – students have never been known as the rich – it makes sense for education to be one person with a book reading it to a room full of others. The lecture that is.

Books are now cheap. That education method no longer needs to be.

So too with this idea of essays. Sure, it’s a good thing to be able to research, write down an argument and all these things. But that world out there has changed. Getting someone else to do it for you is now cheap. Less than the money you could earn pulling pints in the time it might take to do it. Well, -ish, -ish, around and about.

This is also all global. Changing UK law to ban the [essay] mills isn’t going to change matters a jot. Nor tittle in fact.

What needs to be changed is the method of education which leads to students being asked to produce essays unsupervised.

What’s so odd is that the educational establishment is near entirely Marxist. The state of technology determines the mode of social relations of whatever it is. OK, technology has changed, the mode of educational relations needs to change.

Essays – just as an example here – must be produced under exam conditions. Done, problem solved.

5 Ways to Joint a Board Without a Jointer

Filed under: Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Jonathan Katz-Moses
Published 29 Sep 2019

Get the K-M Magnetic Dovetail Jig and K-M Stop Block here: https://goo.gl/XzEmMa

This week’s woodworking skill builder is 5 ways to joint a board without a jointer. We go over 3 ways to edge joint and 2 ways to face joint a board. Let me know what you’d like to see next. Thanks for watching! Please like, comment and subscribe. Cheers!

QotD: Company incentives to prevent sexual harassment

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

One of the predictions I’m seeing everywhere, for instance, is how now Human Resources will need a lot more power over companies to prevent more #metoo incidents of sexual importuning of women.

The funny thing about this is that anyone with two eyes and a modicum of understanding of the world knows that this is not where the crazy is headed. As the attempt to drown out the legitimate cases of harassment — mostly by leftists, in leftist-dominated institutions — by claiming #metoo and that all men were essentially harassers becomes more frantic, it has become obvious that any man can be accused of harassment at any time by anyone.

So, here is a genuine prediction: I predict that instead of giving HR more power, this will give companies pause before hiring women, which will lead to a lot of decent and qualified women being left unemployed.

The second-order effect of that, for companies that can’t avoid hiring women, is two-fold: they’ll either hire women to “make-believe” positions, in which they interact only or primarily with other women, creating a drain on the bottom line, or they will allow a lot more work-at-home by both men and women. I predict we’ll see a great move towards that in the next year. Sure, it’s still possible to claim someone is harassing you via the phone, but one-party consent states at least will allow men to record everything in order to defend themselves.

Weirdly, I believe the long-term result of this will be the dismantling of the daycare and child-warehousing practice which has led to a lot of the left’s ascendency in education.

This is because no matter how much you wish to wishful think that companies will just give Human Resources more power, people who actually live and work in the world know this isn’t likely. Human Resources would mostly just make it impossible for anyone to get any work done.

Sarah Hoyt, “Nobody Expects These Predictions”, PJ Media, 2017-12-31.

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