Matt's Blog

I saw a CNN article just now about fake speed bumps, the use of ‘optical illusions’ to paint 3D-looking objects on the road to slow people down. People are praising them as great things to get people to slow down. The problem I see is that they look nothing like speed bumps, but rather like [...]

During my super-brief time at the police department range, if there was one key message, it was this—always treat the gun like it’s loaded, and never point the gun at people unless you’re intending to shoot them. Even as the instructor demonstrated a gun that he’d already showed us was unloaded (by removing the clip [...]

If I ever become an Economics teacher or professor (rather unlikely), I’m going to go back to DC and take a picture of the scene I saw there with gas stations. Gas in most parts of DC was $3.99 to $4.09, about the same as it was here in New Hampshire. But then we drove [...]

When we toured the Capitol the other day, we sat in on Senate and House sessions for a few minutes. There were maybe five Congresspeople in each chamber. This is actually very common. They just go and read a statement to someone who transcribes it. And every now and then people convene to take votes. [...]

Time Magazine has an interesting article about James Dobson’s recent attacks on Obama. I missed Dobson’s actual remarks, but the article essentially suggests that Dobson’s attempts at tearing Obama down have backfired, resulting in even conservative Republicans being bothered by his attempts to suggest that he has the ‘only’ right interpretation of Christianity. The article [...]

I don’t have a picture handy to accompany this, but the ‘slogan’ on the DC license plates is “Taxation without Representation,” which any astute history scholar—or anyone who was awake in history class—will recognize is the complaint of the American colonies leading to, among other things, the Boston Tea Party. It also perfectly reflects the [...]

Thought I’d post some photographic highlights from my trip so far…. Thanks to Garrett for suggesting that we take a trip to the monuments at night. We talked about HDR a bit, and I got some great shots. That was as the sun was setting, so the sky is still a bit light. It’s definitely [...]

Today was one of those days where we “almost” had a storm about three times. I was desparately trying to get the lawn cut before it’d start… And then the dark storm clouds loomed, and I’d frantically pull the tractor into the garage and admit defeat, only to have four raindrops fall and it become [...]

I’ve seen a few references to the concept of citizen’s arrests lately, which motivated me to post some of the things I’ve discovered. The short answer is this: you should never, ever attempt a citizen’s arrest. It’s first worth mentioning that merchants get additional protection under the shopkeeper’s privilege. I’d give the same advice, though: [...]