2016 — 7 November: Monday
Another chilly start at 07:33 or so, judging by the welcome warmth from my radiators. Brrr. But, "hello, pension" all the same. Welcome to my little bank account. Just don't get too comfy in there.
The missing chunk that's already been carved out by Brenda's gang — for useless fripperies like rivets on a Trident submarine — will be (over)-compensated for by my first full State Pension arriving in a couple of weeks. That very welcome boost is within £30 or so this month of the accumulated total of the not-exactly-awesome burden involved in keeping body and soul in fairly close proximity.1
I shall therefore provisionally regard this otherwise rather joyless month as fiscally neutral. Which is about the kindest thing that can be said about November.
But wait!
I've just heard that the promised beanie plus warm jumper will shortly be setting off from NZ with (I trust) my correct address on the outside of the box. What more could a chap need?
The problem(s)...
... associated with the i5NUC and the DisplayPort input on the 34" Dell all miraculously disappear if I simply leave the i5NUC switched on all the time (after initial booting). At about 5 watts consumption I think the electrical supply industry should be able to cope. After all, that's how I've been running the even less power-crazed Raspberry Pi2 (webserver) for the last couple of years.
I've yet to try connecting the i5NUC (via HDMI) to the Oppo at the same time — this being the best (cheapest) way of pre-empting HDCP incompatibilities by taking the Rotel pre-amp out of the loop. (The Oppo connects directly to the 60" Kuro plasma screen, and I still have one unused HDMI input on it.)
There's a second outing...
... for one of my newest words — "epistocracy" — contained herein. Though not in the snippet I've chosen:
But even if retrospective voting is sloppy, and works to the chagrin of the occasional pharaoh, that doesn't necessarily make it valueless. It might, for instance, tend to improve elected officials' policy decisions. Maybe all it takes is for a politician to worry that she could be the unlucky chump who gets punished for something she actually did. Caplan notes that a politician clever enough to worry about his constituents' future happiness as well as their present gratification might be motivated to give them better policies than they know to ask for...
Fascinating analysis.
Who knew...
... the BBC's iPlayer archive holds recordings of (for example) the Brexit and Security co-operation select committee sessions? I've been listening to the House of Lords EU Home Affairs sub-committee taking evidence on 2nd November from Alison Saunders (DPP, Crown Prosecution Service) regarding the potentially lengthy road ahead. The (necessary) replacement of the European Arrest Warrant, for example, is not so much a buggers' muddle as a potential legislative nightmare.
As for reality and politics?
Voters either take sides and argue with each other endlessly, or stay home and accept politics as it is. Physicists either just accept quantum mechanics and do their calculations, or take sides in the never-ending debate over what quantum mechanics is actually saying about reality.
(Link.)
Having just...
... finished reading the complete comic book set, it's time to switch media...
... to the BD set that's just trickled over the Atlantic to me. [Pause] And rather good it's proving to be, too. (In between the odd burst of Chris Mullin's...
... amusing and engaging memoir "Hinterland".) [Pause] Why are idiots still letting off the odd annoying firework?