Compromise and Conceit

Infernal adventuring…

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An Australian statistician and role-player living in Japan, interested in the theory and practice of role-playing…

Tag: stupid stupid things

  • John Carter, a Mary Sue of Mars

    I’ve started reading John Carter of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, in anticipation of what looks like a very fun movie, but I have to say that even though the story is interesting the writing is absolutely appalling. It’s classic Mary Sue, with a character who is just better than everyone else at everything and…

  • Strange Congressional Decisions

    I stumbled on an article in the New England Journal of Medicine this morning that discusses the “broccoli defense” against plans to make purchasing of health insurance mandatory in the USA. I think the article is behind a paywall so there’s no point in offering a link, but anyway it’s fundamentally pretty uninteresting. However, it…

  • EU Subsidies Destroy Christmas!

    This is a cute example of the power of hindsight. Today’s Guardian has a discussion of the christmas tree that appeared in front of Downing St: you can read David Cameron’s twit about it here[1]. The Guardian helpfully points out that Cameron got a rare “tall” tree, once again proving inequality is a potent force…

  • Current Viewing: The Three Musketeers

    I was pretty much guaranteed to like this movie: it has skyships, the three musketeers, some steampunk elements, and Milla Jovovich. I know it’s possible for a modern director to cock up even this basic a combination of win, but I feel that this movie managed to pass muster. The plot is simple and direct,…

  • Darth Vader will not Occupy Wall Street

    I found this in the tumblr We are the 53%, your go-to page for people who vote against their own interests. Darth Vader and his stormtroopers are classic examples of people who voted against their own interests. You’re an exemplar for us all, Lord Vader!

  • Discrimination Against Drug Users in Health Policy

    Today I am celebrating my first publication in my new job, and since it’s about a topic I’ll probably be coming back to a lot in the next year, I thought I’d cover it here. It’s not much of a publication – just a letter in the journal Addiction – but it covers what I…

  • Explaining the London Riots, Japanese Style

    So I was at the gym this morning doing a quick AM session before heading off to see the Ghost Scrolls, when I saw a daytime TV show doing a special report on the “London NEET Riots” (イギリスニート暴動). This was a classic daytime TV formula, consisting of a studio set with a panel of 3…

  • Propaganda, and Labelling Terrorists “insane”

    With typical alacrity, the islamophobic right have moved from claiming the Norwegian terrorist was a muslim, to claiming it was a “false flag” operation to claiming he is just a lone madman. The reasons they have to do this are obvious – labeling him a terrorist places him in a political context, and the political…

  • Let’s Read Tolkien Together!

    The latest nerdrage over the depiction of Dwarves in The Hobbit has really hit home to me something I often suspected about fanboys but never really paid much attention to: they don’t actually know much at all about the text they love. They’re much more interested in their personal, often (usually?) quite fantastic misinterpretations of…

  • Everything You Need to Know About Dr. Who

    Is at the Daily Mash.