“Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a dense, difficult book that slips in and out of focus from one passage to the next.”

Language evolves, usage evolves. Nice used to mean stupid, then fine (and still does in phrases like “a nice distinction”.) Over and under are common usage, and that is what defines language. If it communicates the concept effectively then language can and will change in that direction. Language evolves, indifferent…

I’m not sure what people think is the mechanism that would be used to “report the student to police” having not committed a crime, or “require a mental health evaluation” based on anecdotal reports from associates, or “some list that flags a potential gun purchase”...which list is simply that person’s criminal record,…

Here in Utah they have to be able to scan your ID to let you into the bar. Has nothing to do with what you look like. I have a long gray beard, but when my license expired, I wasn’t getting in anywhere. Why is this? Because the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control are draconian bastards and have established…

Way back in the first Diablo multi-player, then in Ultima Online, we discovered an eternal truth about gaming: about 50% of online players can only have fun when they’re deliberately taking away someone else’s fun. As in Ultima Online, when you make griefing consensual, the regular players flock to the safe zones and t…

You don’t understand Utah, and you don’t understand Utah outside the SLC metro area. The cops were called on him for the word beer on his sign. That is enough. Everyone in town knows the kid is not selling beer. They called the cops on his joke because they were offended by the mere mention of alcohol and that’s how…

I’ve asked several people to promise that when I ask them to they will drive me to a trailhead and drop me off and drive away and forget about me. My plan is to poke a bear.

My gramma did the same thing, and so did two of my dogs. I’ve heard many anecdotal stories of it happening. I don’t accept any supernatural explanation so it must be some function of the incredible mammal brain. It also suggests that you might have the ability to choose, if even subconsciously, the time of your…

The old people thank you.

A recording, like an MP3, has a different licensing structure, just like a CD or tape or LP does. The BMI license is a performance license. Recordings are licensed with what’s called a compulsory license.

No, they still have to pay no matter how they broadcast the music. They always have. Nothing has changed but your awareness of it. Significant changes to royalty laws were made when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed concerning how artists (but mostly the big industry fat cats) get compensated for online…

There’s historically been three, ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. There’s a christian one that no one cares about. The fees are typically based on projected attendance at the venue. Each company uses a different way to calculate how many spins a track is getting. So yeah, paying all three in a busy bar can get expensive but…

“Look, we’re firmly on the side of musicians and content creators, but...”

Please continue white-splaining the language to native speakers. It’s very entertaining.

One of my kids thought him and his friends popularized the word “cool”, but they didn’t have the internet to embarass themselves publicly with then.

Nope. Most jurisdictions don’t allow an officer to fire at a fleeing suspect. The guy was on the hook for a misdemeanor at most. Cop was a dipshit for putting his hands in the vehicle while it was running. That’s how you literally get dragged. When the suspect panicked and drove away, the cop should have let him go,…

“He doesn’t draw compensation from the church...”

This is confirmation bias, pure and simple. People are just completely unaware of how their mind works, willing to engage in the most magical thinking solutions to simple conundrums.