About a week ago I mentioned being sick and that it might lead to me being unavailable for a bit. A few days later, I commented to say it looked like my recovery was going well and I'd be fine. It turns out I spoke a little too soon. Mostly because I'm an idiot.

Back when I was 18, I had a bad reaction to some medicine. As part of my recovery, I told the doctor about how I sometimes get migraines and was given some medication as a preventative measure for them. I didn't quite realize these two medications were the same. Just like last time, the medication messed me up and left me semi-stoned the entire time I was on it. Fun times.

Anyway, things are all better now. I'm clearheaded and feel fine. I'll have my next post up within 48 hours. More importantly, I hope this post can continue to exist so I have a record of the word "amitriptyline." I never want to take this again.

Life in the modern world is stacked against women. Men have been the dominant sex for hundreds of years. Society is making progress toward equality, but it is a long way off.
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Hey guys, just a head's up. I'm coming down with something, and there's a chance it'll be bad enough to keep me offline for a few days. I'm hoping it's not that serious and I'll just be in bed for a couple days, but I wanted to let you know in case I don't post for a bit.

On an unrelated matter, which I mention just because the issue of medicine reminded me of it, here's something I find funny. In the United States, a person cannot buy Albuterol, a popular drug from treating asthma, without a prescription from a doctor. They can, however, buy Racepinephrine to use instead. It is nowhere near as effective (and doesn't really target the cause of the problem), and it is also much more dangerous.

I find that amusing. The safer, more effective treatment is barred from individuals with a doctor's approval, but the less safe, less effective treatment is readily available.

Hey guys, short post today to let you know I am still alive. A couple weeks ago a guy I know asked me to play in an event in a dart tournament with him. I love darts, and the guy's a great shot, so I was excited. We wound up winning the event, and I got this nice little mug:

It was the first year they didn't give out trophies as this tournament, and to be honest, I much prefer the mug. It's sturdy and has practical use. It's obviously not what is important though. What's important is for the first time in my life, I truly worked at doing well in a dart tournament, and the time and effort I put in paid off.

That's really cool, and I want to keep working at improving in the hobby of my choice. There is even a slim (and I want to stress slim) possibility I can win a trip to play in a dart tournament in Europe if I do.

Combine that with simply being exhausted with the purely partisan nature of the climate debate, and I've barely looked at this blog in the last few weeks. That's going to change though. I've finished the next post I was supposed to have uploaded on correlation scores and what they mean, and it is scheduled to go live on Monday. I'm currently working on the follow-up post.

I'm hoping if I make a queue of posts I can avoid stretches of silence when I find myself having little motivation. I don't know if that'll work, but it's something to try.

Anyway, I hope nobody worried about me. Not only have I been okay, the last couple weeks have been great. I hope you've been doing well too!

I was meaning to have a new post up yesterday, but I've been experiencing some internet problems. Using a satellite uplink for internet is never ideal, and storms only make thins worse. That's not the reason for today's post though. Today's post is about something strange I've noticed over the last few days.

You see, I have a cell phone which I can use as an internet hotspot. The cost of data on it is high enough I don't like to use it that way too often, but it's a valuable backup. Most of the time. This week, it has been all but useless.

I normally set the hotspot up in my room in the same place because that's where my phone charger is plugged in. This week, my phone gets no internet service there. If I move the phone to the far side of the room, which is furthest from the nearest cell phone tower (I confirmed this via mapping), I get a connection. Sometimes. Depending on where I put it on the other side of the room, it can lose the internet connection anywhere from every 10 minutes to every 30 seconds.

I get many different factors play a role in signal strength, but I'm at a loss as to what factors are changing every 30 seconds. Even stranger, when the connection goes out in one spot, I can often move the phone to a different spot and get a connection yet not have a connection if I return it to the previous location.

I'm not sure what's going on, but it was a strange enough experience I thought I'd share. Hopefully I can resume normal posting over the weekend.

You guys may have noticed I've been a bit absent from this web site. You'd be wrong. I've been absent from this web page, but I've actually been quite active on the site itself. If you don't get the distinction, I'm just being pedantic. The point is I've been caught up with my birthday and some projects that didn't involve blogging. It was a nice break.

Unfortunately, this break was ruined by a man named Sander van der Linden. I was hoping to extend my break a little longer despite his interruption, but then I saw this tweet of his:

@STWorg was called out as "most brilliant" scholar at our recent Risk & Uncertainty Conference!

— SandervanderLinden (@Sander_vdLinden) June 30, 2017

The person he is referring to is Stephan Lewandowsky. I couldn't ignore that tweet so I responded:

Namely, @STWorg used the fact people who believe AGW is real don't believe in conspiracy theories as "proof" AGW skeptics believe in them.

— Brandon S? (@Corpus_no_Logos) July 1, 2017

Which is about as brief a summary as one could give of Lewandowsky's work. He asked one group of people what they thought about conspiracies, and when they laughed at those conspiracies, he took that as proving a different group embraced those conspiracies. It makes absolutely no sense as a methodology, and it was only possible because Lewandowsky misused basic mathematical analyses in an stupendously stupid way.

That doesn't really have anything to do with today's post. Today's post is about a talk Dr. Sander gave. I bring up the Lewandwosky issue for three reasons: 1) It annoys me a completely bogus methodology which can fabricate results from no data is happily embraced by the field of social psychology; 2) Dr. Sander is acquainted/associated with a number of the people who use this methodology; 3) Dr. Sander's talk is every bit as nonsensical as what Lewandowsky did.
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