Disqus - Latest Comments for johnwcowan

Re: Republicans Lean Toward Dallas for Midterm Convention

johnwcowan — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 17:30:14 -0000

Better than being there in late November.

Re: Японский энтузиаст создал с нуля считыватель перфолент и подключил его по USB | HARDWARE | NEWS

johnwcowan — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 23:05:46 -0000

Digital Equipment Corporation PC05 high-speed paper tape readers could read fan-folded paper tape at 300 bytes per second, six ties faster than this device, and had the advantage that no rewinding was required. Punched paper tape may be slow, but unike magnetic tape it can last for centuries, and on the other hand can be destroyed quickly and irretrievably by fire when outdated.

Re: Detective Novels and the “Middlebrow”

johnwcowan — Tue, 06 May 2025 20:56:33 -0000

As Lois McMaster Bujold says, romances are fantasies of love, detective stories are fantasies of justice (certainly including Chandler), and sf stories are fantasies of political action. But then again, "mainstream fiction" is itself a genre or set of genres.

Re: US spectrum

johnwcowan — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:07:32 -0000

still no service in the ev,.this is a cut cable per calling customer service

Re: On John Brown: Part 3, Slave Revolts and Just War

johnwcowan — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 02:50:11 -0000

I think if you asked Brown "How do you justify the killings at Pottawatomie?" he would reply something like this:

"Those men were both wicked and reprobate, and God willed their eternal punishment. They were condemned before they were born. God decreed so for purposes of His own. When I killed them, I was acting as an instrument of God's will."

This is hypothetical, but Brown is on record as saying: “I believe in the Golden Rule, sir, and the Declaration of Independence. I think that both mean the same thing; and it is better that a whole generation should pass off the face of the earth—men, women, and children—by a violent death than that one jot of either should fail in this country. I mean exactly so, sir.”

I would also point out that in 1857 the Civil War had already broken out in Kansas, complete with competing civil authorities: as William Gibson said, "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." If the wider Civil War was a just war, then the Civil War in Kansas was a just war as well, for the arguments were the same in both cases.

Re: LIRR's proposed service plan for East Side Access | The LIRR Today

johnwcowan — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 07:07:31 -0000

Cranking up service and then having to crank it down shortly after will create a perfect storm of resentment when the East Side tunnels have to be shut down. In any kind of transit from elevators to airplanes, "acceptable service levels" are equal to the best service you've ever had (plus 10%): it's a psychological fact that transit planners can't ignore. (One of the reasons why so many elevator bays have mirrors installed is to give passengers something to do, namely look at themselves, while waiting.)

Re: Amelia teaches Trans 101: How to refer to a trans person's past

johnwcowan — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 12:08:28 -0000

In principle, though, anything about someone's past could be embarrassing to them. My wife regularly outs herself as a former Republican (she once shook hands with Richard Nixon) even though she finds it embarrassing (and funny) now, but suppose she didn't? So what you are saying is "Never mention anything about someone's past unless you know it doesn't embarrass them," which is pretty restrictive. "This is Julia, I used to work with her" — how do you know that doesn't embarrass her now unless you have asked in advance?

Re: Your How-To Guide to Gender Critical Activism

johnwcowan — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 23:19:29 -0000

TA: You really don't have to provide this idiot with a platform that contradicts what you are all about. Blow away this comment, please.

Re: Common Gotchas | tychoish

johnwcowan — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 17:17:34 -0000

I think your alist is `(("a" . t) ("b" . nil)). If the values aren't literals, prefix them with commas.

Re: 12 Things Introverts Absolutely Need to Be Happy

johnwcowan — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 23:50:52 -0000

#12 hits the nail on the thumb: we want people who value us because of our quirks.

Re: He Sells Shell Scripts to Intersect Sets

johnwcowan — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 08:41:16 -0000

Oh, a bug above. When you use $@, always put it in double quotes. That causes each member of it to be quoted when it is expanded, which will save you when you run into a file with spaces or other characters that are significant to the shell in its name.

Re: - Gothamist

johnwcowan — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 11:37:17 -0000

That's the Regional Plan Association, not the MTA. The 1968 plan is online; google for "Second Regional Plan." And the reason it wasn't implemented was the recession, plus the fact that the city can't raise its own taxes and the State Legislature is full of people whose constituents think we are Wicked and Evil (and not in a good way).

Re: - Gothamist

johnwcowan — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 20:21:55 -0000

No, or at least no more so than the previous plan. What he didn't give us was river-to-river 24/7 bus traffic on 14th St.

Re: Fauci: Smallpox, polio would still be in US if today's 'false information' was present then

johnwcowan — Sun, 18 Jul 2021 12:52:19 -0000

Fauci didn't say "masks do not help". He said the evidence wasn't there yet. When the evidence was there, he supported masks.

As John Maynard Keynes said, when berated for flip-flopping: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Re: Balashon - Hebrew Language Detective: kriyat yam suf

johnwcowan — Sun, 13 Jun 2021 17:41:30 -0000

It couldn't really be permanent, because the text says 🎵Pharaoh's army got drownded🎵, and a permanent split (as by the creation of an isthmus) wouldn't allow that.

Re: Eric Timmons

johnwcowan — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 11:14:06 -0000

You don't mention your operating system, but I suppose it is Linux, which puts a premium on keeping the syscall interface stable. The same is true in Windows de facto, even though the Nt* calls on the executive are technically undocumented: still, it's a rare program that even tries to use it: almost all code uses the Win32/Win64 layers, and I'm not sure there is even a static library available to replace them.

But *BSD and MacOS do change the syscall numbers whenever they feel like it, so a long-term fully static executable will bit-rot after a while. You are of course free to say that everything-but-Linux is out of scope for you.

Re: Boebert mocked for Constitution tweet

johnwcowan — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 19:48:45 -0000

This is beyond absurd. I'm more lefty than your average progressive, and even I knew perfectly well she meant "single-handedly rewriting the parts you don't like", which is of course true: you can't do that. Claiming otherwise is just partisan abuse.

However, the Second Amendment doesn't mean I have to let you into my house with a gun, any more than the First Amendment means I have to let you into my house with a bullhorn. Congress is allowed to make its own rules about what is and isn't allowed in the Capitol, and since they have decided that guns aren't allowed in the House and Senate chambers, then those are the rules until they're changed.

Re: I Am a Heroin User. I Do Not Have a Drug Problem

johnwcowan — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 10:53:25 -0000

I'm reasonably sure, based on my personal experience of reporters and copy editors trying to trim an article and knocking out essential words, that Hart actually said "endogenous opioid receptors", or at least intended to do so.

Re: Did impeachment hurt Democrats?

johnwcowan — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 16:44:58 -0000

"a significant share of those acts were actually perpetrated by right-wing "wingers" attempting to make the legitimate peaceful protestors look bad"

That's certainly possible. It used to be a rule of thumb in 60s protest groups that the people who advocated violence were working for the FBI.

But the great bulk of the assault, looting, and arson in 2020 was committed by plain opportunistic criminals who don't give a damn about anyone's politics.

Re: Did impeachment hurt Democrats?

johnwcowan — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 16:40:54 -0000

... and then do the opposite, as the saying is.

Re: Leahy expected to preside over impeachment after health scare

johnwcowan — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:31:33 -0000

Oh, FFS. Here's the timeline:

On June 17th, 1972, the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex were burgled for the purpose of installing wiretaps.

By January 30, 1973, the burglars had all either pleaded guilty or been tried by a jury and convicted.

On February 6, 1974, the House voted to give the Judiciary Committee the authority to consider investigating the President.

On April 29, Nixon released the edited White House tapes to the public. They were immediately printed; I bought a copy at the time and read as much as I could stand to.

On July 24, the Supreme Court decide (8-0, as you said) that Nixon had to give the unedited tapes to the special prosecutor in charge of Watergate prosecutions, Leon Jaworski.

On July 27-30, the Judiciary Committee voted to send three articles of impeachment (obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress) to the full House.

On July 30, Nixon released the unedited tapes to the public. At this time the famous 18 1/2 minute erasure was discovered.

On August 5th, Nixon released the "smoking gun" tape, whose existence had not been publicly known before. It was recorded on June 23, 1972, and established that Nixon had known about the Watergate burglary within five days after it happened, had conspired with Haldeman and Ehrlichman to cover it up, and had been lying to the public, to Congress, and even to his own lawyers about it for more than two years.

On August 7th, Nixon met with Sen. Hugh Scott and Rep. John Rhodes, as well as Sen. Barry Goldwater. Rhodes told him that there were at most 75 votes against impeachment; Scott told him there were at most 15 votes against conviction. So "five" was too small; my apologies for the error.

On August 8th, Nixon announced his resignation effective August 9th.

On September 8th, President Ford pardoned Nixon for any crimes he may have committed during his second term in the White House.

Now it's your turn. According to you, on what date was Nixon impeached by the House, and on what date was he convicted by the Senate?

Re: The end of the GOP?

johnwcowan — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 12:17:11 -0000

Democracy is working with people you despise on efforts that provide a tiny fraction of what you want.

Re: Dem-leaning poll finds Trump underwater in Texas after riot

johnwcowan — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 19:49:17 -0000

Courts without lawyers would belong to the rich 100%.

Re: Leahy expected to preside over impeachment after health scare

johnwcowan — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 19:26:55 -0000

Nixon was neither impeached nor tried. He resigned when a friend in the Senate made it clear to him that he would probably get about five votes for acquittal -- not including his friend's.

Re: GOP senator to introduce bill barring Biden from restricting drilling on federal lands

johnwcowan — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 17:49:54 -0000

Ride a bus if I must, take the train most of the time (pre-Covid, of course). Very occasionally I take a taxi. I don't own a car, and neither do most of my fellow residents, which is why my city consumes gasoline at 1920 levels.