Briefly

Briefly: Routine tech today would have been black magic 200 years ago

By David McElroy · March 29, 2019

It’s funny how many things we take for granted today which would have seemed like black magic to people of a couple hundred years ago. I just unlocked my car door with the key fob — which almost everyone today does without thinking every day — and it occurred to me that simple action would have been incomprehensible to those people. It would have seemed like amazing magic at best and would have gotten us burned as sorcerers at worst. I find myself wondering (again) what things will be common and routine in a hundred years which are beyond my ability to even imagine.

Briefly: State lotteries are hypocritical and exploitive shams

By David McElroy · March 27, 2019

It disgusts me that state governments steal so much money from people — mostly those who can’t afford the loss — by dangling before them the promise of $750 million in the Powerball lottery. A lottery is nothing but a tax on those who don’t understand probability statistics. If private parties want to operate gambling systems and if ignorant individuals want to throw their money at them, it’s not my business to stop them. But I’m disgusted that governments piously pretend it’s shameful and exploitive for private interests to run lotteries, but it’s fine and dandy as long as the coercive monopoly called the state gets the profit instead. This is wrong on many levels.

Briefly: Alabama debates backing away from Common Core

By David McElroy · March 27, 2019

The Alabama Legislature is in the middle of an effort to repeal federal Common Core standards. Six other states have already rescinded the standards and five others never fully adopted Common Core. Honestly, it’s hard for me to see why it’s a big deal. The idea that there is one size that fits every school across the country strikes me as odd. I’m far more interested in families deciding for themselves what children ought to learn. My personal standards would be far tougher than any legislature or school board would pass anyway.

I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.