Month: June 2017

👓 White House Discloses Ethics Waivers For Presidential Aides | NPR

Read White House Discloses Ethics Waivers For Presidential Aides by Peter Overby (NPR)
The White House Wednesday night released 14 ethics waivers — documents that exempt some top presidential aides from important ethics rules. The disclosures came after a quiet but tough battle between Trump administration officials and the Office of Government Ethics. The waivers are considered public documents but for weeks after President Trump took office, they weren't made public.
Whatever happened to “Drain the swamp!”? Not only has it apparently disappeared, but now we’re going against basic ethics rules to boot?!
“So sad. Incompetent.”

Continue reading 👓 White House Discloses Ethics Waivers For Presidential Aides | NPR

Checkin Eiji’s Florist

Checked into Eiji's Florist
Interestingly, not a very bright or happy place. They could use someone with some merchandising experience–and a duster.
Everyone needs more flowers in their lives…

Interestingly, not a very bright or happy place. They could use someone with some merchandising experience–and a duster.

👓 Where Countries Stand With Donald Trump: A Crib Sheet | The Atlantic

Read Where Countries Stand With Donald Trump: A Crib Sheet by Uri Friedman (The Atlantic)
The American president tells the man behind a brutal anti-drug campaign that he is doing a “great job.”
 

Continue reading 👓 Where Countries Stand With Donald Trump: A Crib Sheet | The Atlantic

👓 Three Strategies to Defend GOP Health Bill: Euphemisms, False Statements and Deleted Comments | Pro Publica

Read Three Strategies to Defend GOP Health Bill: Euphemisms, False Statements and Deleted Comments by Charles Ornstein (Pro Publica)
Since the passage of the American Health Care Act, Republican members of Congress have tried to swing public opinion to their side. ProPublica has been tracking what they’re saying.
We really do need more transparency in government. A bit of truth wouldn’t hurt either.

Continue reading 👓 Three Strategies to Defend GOP Health Bill: Euphemisms, False Statements and Deleted Comments | Pro Publica

📖 Read pages 116-138 of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

📖 Read pages 116-138 of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

One has to love Veruca in the nut room. This is one of the substantive changes from the movie which opted for a similar narrative, but apparently gooses were easier to film than squirrels.

I think I preferred the squirrels and the way this plays out in the novel. In particular, the fact that the parents get thrown down the trash chute as well (and the reason why) are fantastic!

What a great morality play.

👓 Fuck Facebook | Daring Fireball

Read Fuck Facebook by John Gruber (Daring Fireball)
Treat Facebook as the private walled garden that it is. If you want something to be publicly accessible, post it to a real blog on any platform that embraces the real web, the open one.

Content that isn’t indexable by search engines is not part of the open web.

—John Gruber

📕 Read pages 138-162 of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

📕 Read pages 138-162 of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (finished)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Mike is sent by television.

I was a bit disappointed by the title of the final chapter which gives things away paragraphs earlier than it should have. It makes the build up to the big reveal a bit less than lackluster.

The 70’s version of the film has a stronger finish than the novel by showing Charlie’s nobility. In particular it was even better given the overall morals put forth by the book.

I find myself thinking about how solidly this book still stands today. I suspect that a slightly more modern retelling would replace gum chewing with the moral ills of using social media.

👓 Cast Update: Experimental JSON Feed Support | Cast App

Read Cast Update: Experimental JSON Feed Support by Julian Lepinski (Cast App)
A couple of weeks ago, Manton Reece and Brent Simmons announced JSON Feed, and I was immediately intrigued. Like a lot of software, much of Cast’s internal data is stored in JSON, and publishing JSON data directly would be pretty straightforward as a result.

🔖 Origins of Life: A Problem for Physics

Bookmarked Origins of Life: A Problem for Physics by Sara I. Walker (arXiv)
The origins of life stands among the great open scientific questions of our time. While a number of proposals exist for possible starting points in the pathway from non-living to living matter, these have so far not achieved states of complexity that are anywhere near that of even the simplest living systems. A key challenge is identifying the properties of living matter that might distinguish living and non-living physical systems such that we might build new life in the lab. This review is geared towards covering major viewpoints on the origin of life for those new to the origin of life field, with a forward look towards considering what it might take for a physical theory that universally explains the phenomenon of life to arise from the seemingly disconnected array of ideas proposed thus far. The hope is that a theory akin to our other theories in fundamental physics might one day emerge to explain the phenomenon of life, and in turn finally permit solving its origins.