Scott Locklin

Scott Locklin

Scott Locklin works on quantitative finance problems in Berkeley, California, but has lately been considering emigrating to America.

Pity the Poor Ukrainians

Pity the poor Ukrainians. Theirs is a vast country, fertile of soil and rich in minerals, wealthy in human capital and industrial resources, but forever caught at the crossroads between empires. Reading the Western media's take on the recent political unrest, it is a Manichaean story of good versus ...

Curse of the Nerd Dildo

When I was a larval nerdling in graduate school, I allowed myself to be seen in public places with a ridiculous pocket computer in a hip holster. It was a tremendously useful device for a physics graduate student. This compensated for the opprobrium rightly hurled at me by people less touched by ...

Turned by the Spooks

One of the upsides to living in the panopticon is the ability to call powerful people on things they were saying a few years ago. Glen Greenwald has begun to do so, noticing that many liberals who were against the 2005 and 2006 NSA wiretap allegations are very much in favor of more egregious ...

Hiding in Plain Sight

Thanks to the UK Guardian, everyone now knows the NSA is spying on US citizens. Our reptilian Congress critters are wondering what the big deal is, since they’ve been authorizing it all along. While some of the recent revelations are new to the general public, our lizard masters in Congress ...

They Say They Want a Revolution

According to Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind survey, 29% of US citizens polled say they believe that “In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties.” Of the five potential responses to this question"€”“agree, ...

Adria Richards

Nerds Behaving Badly

The "€œmicroaggressions"€ website reads like comedy. It is pathetic and funny, yet it is beginning to look like the manifesto of our future overlords: a tyranny of the aggrieved, abetted by the powerful, lording it over anyone who dares open their yap. It sounds crazy, but it isn"€™t. It is ...

Wrestling Gets Tapped Out of the Olympics

The sport of wrestling has suffered a slow decline over the last 100 years. Professional wrestling was a legitimate and popular sport in the United States 100 years ago. Gladiators such as Frank Gotch, George Hackenschmidt, and Stanislaus Zbyszko were the sports superstars of their era. The late ...

When Atheists Are A+holes

Fifty percent of Americans think atheists are a pain in the ass. Only half as many dislike Muslims, despite the national hobby of raining electric death on Muslims the world over. The reason for this disparity should be obvious: Modern public atheists are more annoying. While I know many pleasant ...

The Scum at the Surface of the Black Lagoon

Most sensible Americans agree that foreign lobbyists are a pox on the nation, but few realize how egregious the process has become. American citizens should be able to band together to lobby Congress for their interests, but not foreign agents without proper supervision by law enforcement. The ...

A Short Guide to Leftist Conspiracy Theories

Wallowing in their feelings of superiority over the tinfoil-helmet brigade, the enlightened establishment enjoys tittering over right-wing bumpkins who supposedly believe in conspiracy theories. With apologies to Richard Hofstadter, I don’t think the right has a monopoly on conspiracy ...


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