The other night I was out driving and wound up behind a ramshackle old Saturn bearing a bumper sticker for a local tattoo shop and another that stated “If it’s too loud, you’re too old.” Eventually I found myself beside this car at an intersection; the driver was a young guy, ragged like his car, [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Commentary category.
Sorry it’s slow
I put together a bunch of humorous re-edits of the SMBC webcomic, with the universal punchline “Christ, what an asshole.” I sent a link to Zach Weiner, who writes the comic. He tweeted the link, and he sure has a lot of followers, because my connection’s blitzed right now. So, welcome new arrivals, and sorry [...]
The pen is mightier than the S-word
This is the first time I’ve ever changed the title on a piece after publishing. The pun occurred to me several hours later and I couldn’t resist it. Increasingly I see journalists, online and elsewhere, using the “-word” construction to refer to things they’d rather not spell out. It started with “F-word.” Now we also [...]
Wherein I fly off the handle about fees
Okay, I admit I went a little too far in my recent email exchange with Vonage. But it was so much fun. This started it – an email I received a week ago: Dear Dwasifar – At Vonage, we’re committed to providing our valued customers with the best experience possible through regular updates to our [...]
The strange benefit of copyright Nazis
I’m not a big fan of copyright law in its current form, as regular readers know. I side with Lawrence Lessig in the main. He makes a lot of points, and you should read his books to get the full argument, but it sums up to this: Copyright was intended to balance the benefit of [...]
The universe is ending soon
Sometime within the next fifty years or so, the universe ends. Well, not in the big picture, actually. But for me it will. If there’s no afterlife – and I see no reason to think that there is – then the universe ends when I die. I know this sounds like a pretty solipsistic viewpoint. [...]
I forgot how to write
No, this isn’t an explanation for the long posting intervals, nor is it an excuse for deficiencies in the posts I do make. I can still string sentences together and express myself in type. And I can still make readable marks on paper with a pen or pencil. But I seem to have at least [...]
Pop psych and the trivialization of grief
People cry at funerals. This is so obvious that it really doesn’t need any pointing out. But I’ve been having conversations with people about why we do that, and the more I hear about the current way of explaining it, the more offended I get at what I see as trivializing of grief. The modern [...]
Plagiarism and the Creative Commons license
Everything I publish here is covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. Basically this means anyone is free to use it, share it, or adapt it as they like, as long as they credit me for the original work and don’t use it commercially. I bring this up because I had a plagiarism issue arise [...]
Not responsible!
Today I was driving and saw this sign on the back of a dump truck: WARNING STAY BACK 200 FEET NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BROKEN WINDSHIELDS! And I thought, brilliant! I never knew it was that simple. Whatever you think you might do wrong in traffic, no worries; just put a sign on your vehicle and [...]