Last night I had the strangest dream …

Well, actually no. Last night I had a really boring dream. I dreamt about doing the laundry. It was truly mundane. It must be interesting to have earth shattering dreams like Ed McCurdy, but alas, most of my dreams are bologna on white bread. Apparently, I am not alone. My google search of “boring dreams” …

Hikikomori

The Benchwarmers is probably the stupidest movie I have ever watched. A classic in the nerd retribution genre, it has developed a cult following since its release in 2006. If your are unfamiliar with this imbecilic masterpiece, it is a juvenile car wreck of bodily function jokes, offensive humor, and little league baseball. Think of …

Retromania – an unhealthy obsession?

I have an insatiable urge to learn new words and observe how language develops. It is an incurable condition but one I effectively self-medicate with extensive reading and the NYT crossword. What really excites me is word genesis, when a new word spreads in the mainstream media – for example retromania. As the Google Ngram …

The Revolution will not be on Facebook

In his 1971 funk, spoken word, masterpiece The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott-Heron artfully criticized the banality of broadcast television. Deftly weaving over 50 cultural references together in just 3:06 – including Bullwinkle, Spiro Agnew, and Liquid Plumr – he elucidated that television did not foster social transformation but apathy. Back in the …

Hyperinflation around the corner?

Yesterday in a great op-ed piece in Die Presse, Christian Ortner examined COVID 19 the economic stimulus packages and asked the provocative question: What’s the difference between a talented counterfeiter and the European Central Bank? According to Ortner, not much. In 2020 economic output in the eurozone has fallen by 7-8% and the ECB has …

I’m not listening

As an educator, the following quotation from an interview with Jane Elliot in today’s New York Times struck a nerve. For those unfamiliar with Jane Elliot, she is an American diversity educator and developer of the controversial Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment. For more information about her see her homepage, her Wikipedia article, or the PBS …

Can EBPM work?

Recently an article by Gudula Walterskirchen in the Austrian daily Die Presse about evidence based policy making (EBPM) caught my eye. EBPM has been kicking around since the 1980s. Essentially it is the idea that policy decisions should be based on comprehensive, meticulously established, objective evidence as opposed to intuition, ideology, or common sense. It …

Device addiction 1990s style

I like unintentional prophets in popular culture, for example Larry the Liquidator. For those unfamiliar Larry, he is a corporate raider played by Danny Devito in the 1991 romcom Other People’s Money. Larry tries to buyout “Jorgy” Jorgenson’s (the amazing Gregory Peck in one of his final roles) company. Jorgy hires his stepdaughter Kate (Penelope …

COVID 19? Just Whip It!

As we move out of the shutdown here in Austria, people are turning facemasks into fashion statements. I couldn’t find a mask to fit my style until I found the DEVO – Energy Dome Personal Protection Equipment Kit. Devo already knew back in 1980 what to do when a problem comes along: You must whip …

359.640.000 tons of porn

Thinking about all that corn yesterday got me pondering another really big number. In an earlier post we noted that 3,7% of all CO2 emissions are caused by on-line video streaming (BTW a pre-corona statistic). We also mentioned that 27% of that streaming is porn and that this would be a topic for a future …