link friday: bank robber becomes a law clerk, homelessness is way down, "Same Love"

link friday: bank robber becomes a law clerk, homelessness is way down, "Same Love"
Mood: peaceful
Posted on 2013-08-30 15:00:00
Tags: links
Words: 378

- Shon Hopwood and Kopf’s terrible sentencing instincts - a blog post written by Judge Kopf about Shon Hopwood, who Kopf sentenced to 12 years in jail for robbing banks. After Hopwood got out, he went to law school and will be clerking for a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Down in the comments, Hopwood himself responds and they have a rather pleasant conversation! This comment on Hacker News sums it up well:

I feel like I'm in some fantasy alternate reality, where prison rehabilitation really works, and where the Internet is used for polite, intelligent, and uplifting discussion.

Just wonderful!

- The Astonishing Decline of Homelessness in America - thanks to programs put in place by Obama and George W. Bush(!); unfortunately, the sequester may threaten the progress we've made.

- Macklemore’s “Same Love” Is the Only VMA Performance Worth Remembering - this song has come up a lot on the radio stations we listen to lately, and every time I get chills. It just sounds so heartfelt (and the bit by Mary Lewis is beautiful!)

- How Poverty Taxes the Brain - thinking about financial problems causes a mental burden that is the equivalent of losing 13 IQ points.

- Booker OK With Speculation That He’s Gay: ‘So What Does It Matter If I Am?’ - excellent response from Cory Booker, who's running for the open Senate seat in New Jersey. Another quote:

I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I’m straight.

- Bill Watterson: A cartoonist's advice - words by Bill Watterson, drawn by someone else (who does a good job mimicking Watterson's style!) I miss Calvin & Hobbes!

- College Footbal Grid of Shame - the "Admirable/Embarrassing" scale looked questionable at first, but there is at least a methodology to it. Also, Rice is just where it should be - in the upper-left quadrant :-)

- The Killing Machines: How to think about drones - good long article in the Atlantic. I'm glad our drone strikes have dropped off dramatically.

- English Letter Frequency Counts: Mayzner Revisited - using a bunch of Google book Ngrams data to get more recent frequency tables for letters, digrams, and words. Fun fact: R, L, and C are more popular than they used to be. (I'm a big R fan myself!)

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Have a good Labor Day weekend!

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