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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Saturday, September 29, 2012 :::
- Apparently, we can expect a couple of good comets next year, especially next fall.
- Why poor people can't have nice things. Not that the only thing that makes poor people poor is that rule of law is less established where they live, but it sure doesn't help. (I think I got this link from my brother.)
- Eye movement direction not correlated with lying, goes the headline, though I don't think their sample is big or general enough to make that strong a statement. If you watch a lot of detective shows, though, you've probably encountered the story that you can tell whether people are lying by observing where they look; even if there is some correlation that just isn't strong enough for this study to measure, it's far too weak to use as a reliable indicator. Frankly, I've assumed it was crap, but I find this study useful.
There's a new Matt Damon movie coming out soon. In the original version of the script, an environmentalist fought to expose the negative environmental consequences of hydrofracking while the oil industry attempts a cover-up. It turns out, though, that the real world has provided a lot of such exposures that have been fraudulent, so the movie producers added a twist: now one of the characters is being secretly paid by the energy industry to fabricate negative consequences of fracking so the fraud can be uncovered and make the opponents of fracking look bad. Back in real life, it turns out that financing for the movie comes from people who have a financial interest in US energy production being suppressed.
I'm not particularly interested in seeing the new Matt Damon movie, but if someone makes a movie based on the making of this movie, that would strike me as compelling. - Nadine, which was identified as a tropical depression on the 11th, is a hurricane again.
::: posted by Steven at 9:29 PM
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