Source: XKCD.
Archive for the ‘Cartoons’ Category
A cartoon history of metaphysics
September 1, 2018
Click to enlarge.
Source: Existential Comics.
Electronic voting machines are easy to hack
August 21, 2018
Source: XKCD
Electronic voting systems have long been vulnerable to tampering and hacking. This has been known for more than 10 years, but little or nothing has been done about it.
Having a vulnerable system is like leaving your door unlocked or the keys in the ignition of your car. Eventually somebody is going to take advantage of you.
If we Americans want to protect our voting systems from tampering, it doesn’t matter if the suspected tamperers are Russians, Republicans or somebody else. We need written ballots that are hand-counted in public.
That’s only one of many problems. Our election system is increasingly rigged to favor Republicans by discouraging or disqualifying voting by poor people, young people and people of color.
LINKS
How They Could Steal the Election This Time by Ronnie Dugger for The Nation (2004)
It’s Magic! by Greg Palast (2012)
How They’re Stealing Ohio: Vote machines audit function turned off—and worse by Greg Palast (2016)
Justice Department Warns It Might Not Be Able to Prosecute Voting Machine Hackers by Kim Zetter for Motherboard [Added 9/31/2018]
How to Fight Voter Suppression in 2018 by Edward Burmila for Dissent Magazine. Twelve ways in which voting procedures are rigged against poor people, young people and people of color, and what to do about them.
Ted Forth and the IRS scammer
June 16, 2018
.Happiness on Vimeo
March 17, 2018I came across this while looking for something else.
The knowledge illusion
November 28, 2017
Hat tip to Bill Elwell
LINK
The Myth of Independent Thought by Charles Chu for Medium. The last paragraph reveals that Chu is promoting a product, but his argument is interesting even though his sales pitch isn’t compelling.
Why the FCC proposes to eliminate Net Neutrality
November 27, 2017Doug Muder wrote an excellent post on today’s The Weekly Sift about how the Federal Communications Commission’s proposal to end Net Neutrality will enable monopolists to dominate the Internet.
Long story short: Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers operate like telephone companies. Anybody can phone anywhere who is connected to the system, and every ISP charges its customers the same rates.. The end of Net Neutrality means that they operate like cable TV companies. You would have to accept whatever restriction they choose to impose.
Muder shows how the end of Net Neutrality ties in with the growth of business monopoly and how this ties in with the growth of economic inequality.
I strongly recommend reading Muder’s article, but I have a couple of graphics below that also explain the issue, although not in as great a depth.
LINK
The Looming End of Net Neutrality (and why you should care) by Doug Muder for The Weekly Sift.
How the Trump administration governs
November 24, 2017
Source: Real News Network. Click to enlarge.
If you are a president or governor who believes that government doesn’t work, you staff your administration with people who don’t want government to work, and your belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This didn’t begin with Donald Trump and won’t end with Donald Trump.
How long can they put their heads in the sand?
November 12, 2017
Double click to enlarge
Source: Real News Network.
“Reality,” according to the SF writer Philip K. Dick, “is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
“You can ignore reality,” the philosopher Ayn Rand reportedly said, “but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”
How long can members of the Trump administration ignore the reality of climate change?
Opening the mail
October 24, 2017
I came across this on the naked capitalism web log and, like Lambert Strether, I’m not completely sure this is a genuine Bill Watterson cartoon. But it sure captures how I feel when I open my afternoon mail.
The joys of retirement
October 14, 2017
The quest for perfection
September 30, 2017
Source: Incidental Comics.
The new normal 2017
August 2, 2017
Click to enlarge. Source: Tom Tomorrow.
On the other hand, read What Trump Is Quietly Accomplishing by David A. Graham for The Atlantic.
The genius of Hayao Miyazaki
June 17, 2017I love the movies of Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli. These videos give an idea of his genius as an animator. But you would have to see the movies to appreciate his genius as a storyteller.
I read that he is coming out of retirement—or that his previous “retirement” announcement was misunderstood. This is good news.
Survivorship bias
May 5, 2017
Astronaut vandalism
April 3, 2017
Source: xkcd
Half full or half empty?
February 19, 2017
Via simonandfinn.
The mind-body problem hotline
December 18, 2016
Source: xkcd: Trapped
A really frightening trick-or-treater
October 31, 2016
Source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
What I think about Donald Trump
September 21, 2016
A graphic history of global climate change
September 14, 2016
Source: xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline
How much of success is due to luck?
June 26, 2016I posted an earlier version of this on July 19, 2013
I think the vast majority of highly successful people have talent and grit. But not everybody with talent and grit succeeds.
Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Somebody else said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Both sayings are true. Both sayings also recognize the element of chance.
We Americans admire successful risk-takers and think they should be rewarded. The reason we do that is that, by definition, most risk-takers fail.
LINK
Why Americans Ignore How Luck Affects Everything by Jesse Singal for Science of Everything.
Violence has no place in politics
June 10, 2016
Via Ted Rall’s Rallblog.
