For those wondering, no, I don’t know why a print-on-demand book is showing as unavailable at Amazon. I called them about it yesterday, and they’re supposed to be looking into it, but they haven’t gotten back to me. I suspect it may not be resolved until after Christmas, at this point.
Weird Linux Problem
After a reboot, I was trying to save a file to a subdirectory of my $HOME directory, and getting an error that it was a read-only drive. When I look at permissions, I’m seeing something like this:
drwxrwxr-x. 2 simberg simberg 4096 May 29 2013 Alaska
drwxrwxr-x. 5 simberg simberg 4096 Apr 26 2012 Blog
drwxrwxr-x. 2 simberg simberg 4096 Jun 19 2012 CA_Enterprise_Zones
drwxrwxr-x. 7 simberg simberg 4096 Jun 19 2012 Conservative_Space
drwxrwxr-x. 2 simberg simberg 4096 Aug 9 2012 Depots
drwxr-x—. 6 simberg simberg 4096 Dec 21 14:49 Interglobal
drwxrwxr-x. 3 simberg simberg 4096 Dec 3 2010 LaunchSpace
drwxrwxr-x. 2 simberg simberg 4096 Nov 5 2012 LEO_Adventure
drwxrwxr-x. 2 simberg simberg 4096 Jun 19 2012 Liberty
I’ve never seen that dot after the permissions before, and it seems to be an ACL-related thing. Does anyone know how this happened, and how to undo it?
[Update a couple minutes later]
Also, could this be related to an inability to print? It thinks it’s sending something to the printer (which it sees), but it never actually happens.
[Update a while later]
Well, whatever the problem was, a reboot fixed it, as well as the printing problem.
NASA’s 35-Year-Old Suits
…have cut short another EVA.
Mark Steyn And Me
Happy holidays to us. The appellate court basically mooted the flawed rulings against us from last summer, and the new judge (who actually seems to understands the law and the respective cases) will rehear them. Thanks to ACLU, the media organizations and others for their amicus briefs which, while they didn’t address the merits of the case, were helpful in getting this decision. I suspect that it won’t be a happy holiday for Professor Mann.
[Update a while later]
What’s amusing about this is that Mann sort of screwed himself by amending his complaint against us after we’d filed our appeal. That gave the appellate court an excuse to just pass it back to the Superior Court, with the new judge who will likely be much less sympathetic to him.
Olives
I share Lileks’ attitude:
Wife wanted Olives for the Christmas snack tray. There is an Olive Bar. I hate olives, so the olive bar is interesting: so many things to dislike and ignore. Just like the DirecTV options. The amount of choices you can passively reject is just astonishing; it’s a defining feature of modern life.
I suppose I should try a couple different ones, just to see if maybe there’s one I like, but I’ve never gotten into them.
The ObamaCare Generation
The Millennials have been had by the Democrats. Here’s hoping they’ve figured it out.
Breaking Up California
Tim Draper has an interesting idea. Make it into six new states.
Just looking them over, I’d say that Jefferson would be very similar to Oregon, North California would probably lean Republican, despite all the Democrats in Marin, Central CA would be heavily Republican, Silicon Valley and West California would almost certainly be Democrat, and South California would be Republican. I’d say, at worse, that it would be six new Senators of each party, though it would actually only be four new Democrats, since they’d lose the two from the current monstrosity. But the Central Valley would finally have some senators willing to fight for them and their water needs.
MRSA
…has escaped the hospitals.
In the book, I talk about how potentially useful research in this area on the ISS is being held back by NASA’s obsessions with safety.
Jobs For Young People
Want to destroy them? Raise the minimum wage.
One of the reasons that I’m not a Republican is that they won’t argue over principle. They’ll concede it to the Democrats, and then just negotiate the price. They shouldn’t be arguing that it shouldn’t be raised — they should be arguing that it shouldn’t exist, on both principle of freedom of contract, and on its devastating effects on youth unemployment, particularly in the inner cities. The notion that there should be a single minimum wage applicable to all fifty states is both odious and ludicrous.
The Republicans’ Obsession With Debt
Are they overdoing it? Jimmy Pethokoukis thinks so. The best way to get out of debt is to grow our way out, with less regulation and lower tax rates, but entitlements have to be reformed, and soon.
[Update a while later]
Bad link. Fixed now, sorry.