Wait, what? Jordan Peterson says he’s an evolutionary biologist!

Hard to believe, but he actually makes that specific assertion.

Uh, no, he’s not. He could not get a job as a biologist, let alone in a narrower field like evolutionary biology.

I haven’t listened to the rest of the interview — I was just informed that he made this claim at about the 12 minute mark, confirmed that it was actually said, and closed the window. He is either delusional or dishonest, and not worth listening to further.

I felt compelled to complain about his dishonest misrepresentation while strolling through a park.

Hola auf Wasau!

I’m not sure what language they speak here, but I’m in Wisconsin. I don’t know why. I almost turned back at the border when I saw a sign advertising a Dinesh D’Souza event that said “KEEP WISCONSIN RED”. This is not comfortable territory for me.

I’m scared. Can I go home now?

They’re all out to get you

The latest bonkers conspiracy theory: the Leftists have jiggered Google to put a photo of Jordan Peterson at the top of their search rankings. It’s a photo of … Peterson smiling. It’s completely undermining his reputation for sober seriousness.

OK, it does make him look kind of goofy. But not less goofy than the words coming out of his mouth!

But seriously, how delusional must you be if you think this is some kind of evil plot? And do they even realize that talking about it moves it up in the search rankings?

(Note: I do realize that this is my second post this morning that could induce nausea. I’ll stop now.)

Caine has died

Caine was a long-time commenter here, which led to her taking on her own blog at Affinity — she was notoriously strong-minded and independent, and I greatly appreciated her perspective. If you’ve been following her blog, you know that she was struggling with cancer, and as usual, she was forthright and honest about it.

Unfortunately, the cancer has killed her. She will be greatly missed.

Here’s her last post: pissed off but hopeful. We all expected her to be back doing her art by now.

Fuck cancer.

So…much…bubble wrap

We had all these window treatments installed in our house yesterday. In almost every room. They arrived in great big cardboard boxes with bubble wrap. Installation went fine, but now our house is full of cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. So many cardboard boxes, so much bubble wrap.

My day has been spent breaking down and wrestling with cardboard boxes. I won; all were collapsed and broken, and we hauled them away for recycling. But now we have to deal with the plastic stuff. First approach: just leave it all over the floor as a burglar warning system. At least for now, because battling immense quantities of cardboard all day in this heat has left me sweat-soaked and worn out. In the next day or two, though, we’ll recycle the bubble wrap, too, a local dropoff place, which isn’t so local — the nearest is over 50 miles away.

Anyway, that’s been my day, how was yours?

Next on my agenda, maybe tomorrow, is to spend some time at the Stevens County Fair. I’m sure you’re all reading the blog to enjoy the exotic, exciting things I do.

There is a convention for citing a tweet in an academic paper?

I guess there is now.

Begin the entry in the works-cited list with the author’s real name and, in parentheses, user name, if both are known and they differ. If only the user name is known, give it alone.

Next provide the entire text of the tweet in quotation marks, without changing the capitalization. Conclude the entry with the date and time of the message and the medium of publication (Tweet). For example:

Athar, Sohaib (ReallyVirtual). “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” 1 May 2011, 3:58 p.m. Tweet.

The date and time of a message on Twitter reflect the reader’s time zone. Readers in different time zones see different times and, possibly, dates on the same tweet. The date and time that were in effect for the writer of the tweet when it was transmitted are normally not known. Thus, the date and time displayed on Twitter are only approximate guides to the timing of a tweet.

Setting aside the whole issue of why you would want to cite a tweet, this is not a well thought-out format. It assumes way too much: it ignores other potential microblogging media, like Mastodon, and assumes that there is only one such service, Twitter, and that the username is sufficient to identify the source. As the article I lined to mentions, there ought to at least be a URL associated with the citation — otherwise, you have to go to the service and search to find that specific set of words. And Twitter search is terrible.

Oh, well, there’s an easy way around this limitation: don’t dignify Twitter with formal citations.

There shall be modesty!

We’re prepping the house today because we have some installers coming by to finally put up blinds on our windows. They’re doing 8 rooms: my office, the sun porch, the kitchen, 3 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. We’ve been getting by with nothing for a couple of months, and it’s been very annoying. Today, the cat gets to be annoyed at all the strange people tromping through her domain.

You realize what this means, right? All you peeping toms have missed the golden opportunity to spy on me in dishabille, and that window is closing today.

How the rich virtue signal

Many people in Minnesota (not including me) have lake cabins — lots of lakes, lots of waterfront property, lots of opportunity for a getaway on the lake. Most of them are cozy, rustic places with basic amenities and big windows looking out on the water, because that’s mainly what you’re there for. For a few weeks every summer, and maybe a few weekends here and there, you go fishing, you waterski, you have a few barbecues. At least that’s what I picture.

There aren’t very many summer mansions around. I can’t even imagine owning a gigantic house that you only visit for vacations. But now I can picture one, because Betsy DeVos has one in Michigan, and it just got the McMansion Hell treatment.

I guess it might count as cozy to some people, since it only has 3 bedrooms…and “10 bathrooms, three kitchens, eight dishwashers, 13 porches, and an elevator”. I guess that sprawling pile is just intended for entertaining, or perhaps just flaunting ostentatious display because you have nothing better to do with your wealth than to instill envy in your equally tasteless friends with more money than they deserve.

Architecture is never a vacuum. This house sucks, but like all buildings, it is a reflection of both the people and the broader culture that make building it both possible and desirable. Those, too, irrefutably suck.

Tech companies are not altruistic

If Steve Jobs was an awful person, why should we expect that the Apple corporation is altruistic and good? The news is full of this shocking announcement that Apple has removed all of Alex Jones’ podcasts from the iTunes library.

In a statement Sunday evening to BuzzFeed News, Apple confirmed that it notified Jones of the decision to remove the five shows under its hate speech guidelines earlier this weekend. “Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,” a company spokesperson said. “Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”

The cynic in me is wondering why. It’s a no-brainer to me that people shouldn’t promote hateful lunacy like Jones’ ranting, but Apple was just fine with it for years when Jones and his crew were spouting deranged shit non-stop. I don’t believe that a corporation has suddenly grown a conscience, so there must be something more to it.

Again, cynical me speaks up and suggests that the haters, while a profitable market to cater to, have gotten out of hand and are alienating the non-haters, another profitable market. Apple is cracking down on the most prominent crackpot on their network to put on a show of “Hey, we’re good guys at heart”, while allowing the numerous littler Nazis to thrive.

…unless you think those vague guidelines are going to be enforced all across the board. I think not. Making an example of one particularly loud asshole will send a useful message to the less successful assholes that they’d better be careful not to disrupt the business, which is Apple’s only goal.