DavidV

"... as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else. At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he bro...

Any surveys on the percentage of mass shootings that happen in a "gun-free" zone? Just wondering...

Although I believe in the individual's right to own the means to defend himself, I want to say that I do not believe that the reason that there are so many violent shootings in the USA is that too few people own guns. Nor do I believe, that the main problem is that people do not receive enough mental health services. The chief problem is that we are sick to begin with. The main cause of violence in America is that America has a culture of violence. It is everywhere -- in our movies, citie...

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" -Patrick Henry

My new Galaxy S3 smartphone went flying out of my pocket while running, leaving a tiny scratch in the silver trim. It bugged the hell out of me, so I tried sanding it down - turns out that it's just black plastic underneath. I tried silver nail polish - that just put a glittery blob on it. Now I've ordered several varieties of silver automotive paint. This will probably result with me painting the whole phone to match.

Fact: An ignorant and misinformed response to anything I say is still more likely to lead to creative thinking and new insights than one merely expressing agreement.

There are two ways to measure life expectancy: objective (wall clock) time and subjective time: life as we experience and remember it. A long boring life is subjectively shorter than a short, exciting life that is full of memories. The best way to live longer may be to maximize the quantity of memorable life experiences.

"Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws- always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: Please pass this so that I won't be able to so something I know I should stop. Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them for their own good." -- Robert A. Heinlein (points if you...

One of the few downsides to losing 40+ pounds eating Paleo has been that all my shirts became too big. I've been shedding clothing for the last two years, and I was about to get rid of four of my favorite shirts, but Sarah suggested that the tailor could resize them. It was 20RMB ($3) per shirt and they turned out really great. Picking clothing in the morning used be sort of a hunt to find things that weren't too ill fitting, old fashioned, or worn out. My standards would lower as my laun...

Honestly, the number one thing I miss about living in Dallas is having Costco, Wall-mart, and an Apple store practically next door to me. There is an Apple store nearby, but in China the prices are 30% higher and all the new products are many months delayed.

Basically my wardrobe is down to four outfits: 1) Dress pants, shirts, jacket, and nice shoes for work 2) Athletic shirt, shorts and FiveFingers for running 3) Jeans, casual shirt, casual shoes for weekends 4) Pajamas for winter evenings/nights I'm getting rid of everything else, especially anything I don't wear on a regular basis. My closet hasn't been this light since college.

"Twin and family research show that sexual orientation is 50% genetic, but it is unknown which genes are responsible. The other 50% derives from the development in the womb. Girls with higher testosterone levels in the womb have higher odds of being homosexual, and the chance of homosexuality with boys rises with the number of boys that came before them. Stress during pregnancy also increases the odds of homosexuality, through the influence of the mother's cortisol on the hormones of the chil...

Men, here are the three very basic rules for getting clothing that fits you: *If your pants need a belt to stay on, they're too big *If your shirt billows rather than contour your torso, it's too big *Your shoes should have thin soles and taper in the front

Thinking of taking my barefoot style to the next level with homemade huaraches sandals to replace my FiveFingers.

When a totalitarian government says that some major undertaking was built by "volunteers" what they really mean is "slave labor."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Gover...

Two essays I'd like to see written: radicalism as an epistemological heuristic and the ultimate causes of political vs private corruption.

"Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods." - H. L. Mencken

99% of treatises about how politics corrupts science (or anything else) advocate more politics to fix the problem.

"Laura turned her head away again to take in more of the view below."It really works, doesn't it," she said thoughtfully after a while. "What does?" "Science. It works." ... "It's just that . . . well, everything I've seen since we came here . . . it's all too incredible to be real, but it is. Whatever people had to learn to build something like this, they had to get it right. Know what I mean, there's no room to fool yourself when you take on this kind of thing. There are so many other 'olog...

Another State Science Institute debacle. Government and science don't mix! http://ksj.mit.edu/tracker/2012/10/did-texas-cancer-research-institute-medd

"No one saves us but ourselves, no one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path but Buddhas [enlightened ones] clearly show the way." - Gautama Buddha, from the Dhammapada

Elections are basically a debate about whether the State ought to rape and pillage group A or pillage and rape group B. It doesn't matter who you vote for because politicians will just rape and pillage whomever they want. But they desperately need your vote because it gives sanction to the State's mass violence. The ceremony of elections breeds a sense of distance from moral responsibility for the State's theft and murder and a sense of duty to be enslaved or destroyed in turn when it is...

“Milk doesn’t really “do a body good.” Objections include lactose, casein, hormones, pesticides, antibiotics, and high-temperature processing methods, while the calcium benefits are overstated.” - Mark Sisson I haven't had milk in 2-3 years and don't miss it at all. I do eat minimally-processed fermented milk - cheese and yogurt - every day.