free variable

I started this site six years ago last Monday, and according to my weblog software, this is my one-thousandth post. Rather than calculating the embarrassing post-per-week average, I will instead mark the occasion by sharing some of my favorite posts with you, organized by category:

Civic snark

If you live in a monoculture or would like to develop sympathy for people whose views you find distasteful, here’s a great party game.

Here’s a story about “pyramid power” and public policy, in which I compare a goofy science-fair project to the grandiose reveries of bureaucrats. (After that science fair, I went on to get a PhD in a subfield of computer science that I don’t even bother explaining to lay people. As I understand it, the kid who did the “pyramid power” project is now drawing up health care policy for Congress.)

Watch out for the sinister Quaker conspiracy, which makes at least as much sense as other conspiracy theories. (See those in the comments here, and note that, by policy, the fact that I have not deleted comments does not imply my endorsement of their claims.)

Satire

I remain very happy with my series of capsule reviews of fake children’s books. If you must read only a few, see the first set, which introduced the Unhappy Okapi series; the review of Time-out for Contingency, which includes an excerpt; and this review of an “Otis the juvenile garbage truck” story collection, based on actual fake stories that I tell my son. (Note that a variety of flex-printed shirts and other products with Zoltan the jackdaw and Otis the garbage truck designs are available and make excellent gifts.)

Bad math and music

If you know me in real life, you’ve probably already heard the Bruckheimer signal-processing tirade. If not, read and enjoy.

If you’re going to talk about digital audio, please remember that it doesn’t make sense to compare pictures of apples to descriptions of apples.

Christianity

Here are a couple of posts on “Lutheran” abuses of language and music. (The pitiable With One Voice hymnal isn’t the only reason why I left the ELCA some time ago after a long period of increasing discontent, but it sure didn’t hurt.)

A significant subset of my writing about Christianity has been devoted to debunking the bizarre, armchair-anthropologist treatment of traditional Christianity in the mass media; here are a few such pieces:

1. If you have a television show, do me a favor and don’t bother attempting to depict Christian characters.
2. If you’re not even that good at being a football columnist, you probably don’t want to write about your criteria for a new Bishop of Rome.
3. If you’re Jacob Weisberg of Slate, please try a little harder to conceal your contempt.
4. Finally, if you’re the New York Times, no, you have not undermined orthodox Christianity; nice try, though. In fact, you probably aren’t even aware of your underlying fourth-century heresy.

In conclusion

Although it hardly counts as one of my favorite posts, I must include a link to the premier destination for baton-twirling scholarship information on the internet, as well as the aftermath.

Thanks for reading the site, and note that I am always happy to hear from my readers about what sorts of topics you look for here.