Monte McNaughton is a homophobic bigot

“It’s not the premier of Ontario’s job — especially Kathleen Wynne — to tell parents what’s age-appropriate for their children.”
—Monte McNaughton

“What is it that especially disqualifies me for the job that I’m doing? Is it that I’m a woman? Is it that I’m a mother? Is it that I have a master’s of education? Is it that I was a school council chair? Is it that I was the minister of education? What is it exactly that the member opposition thinks disqualifies me from doing the job that I’m doing?”
—Kathleen Wynne

On Feedback

Jobs’s taste for merciless criticism was notorious; Ive recalled that, years ago, after seeing colleagues crushed, he protested. Jobs replied, “Why would you be vague?,” arguing that ambiguity was a form of selfishness: “You don’t care about how they feel! You’re being vain, you want them to like you.” Ive was furious, but came to agree. “It’s really demeaning to think that, in this deep desire to be liked, you’ve compromised giving clear, unambiguous feedback,” he said.

—The New Yorker

 

Ain’t no party like a no-party party

Sometimes indepenence isn’t enough. Want to make sure folks know you’re not a member of a political party? Here are 74 ways people have done this:

  • Do not wish to specify
  • dont have one
  • Dont have one.
  • dont know
  • dont no
  • DONT NO YET
  • Dont want to say
  • I am not affiliated with a party
  • I cant recall.
  • I Dont Know
  • I dont know yet
  • ideas no set party
  • Im not sure
  • Indenpendent Conservative
  • Independant/ conservative
  • Independantly Independant
  • independantly nelson
  • Independent American Party of Nevada
  • Independent democrat
  • Independent Liberal
  • Independent Moderate
  • Independent Party of America
  • IndepenDENT spell it right idiots
  • Independent voter
  • No Affiliation
  • no affiliation with any
  • No Offiliation
  • No party affiliation
  • Non Affiliated
  • non partisan
  • Non Partisen
  • non Partison
  • Non-
  • Non-Affiliate
  • non-affiliated
  • Non-partisan
  • none officially
  • nonpartisan
  • not
  • Not Affiliated
  • Not affiliated with any
  • not affilliated
  • NOT AFFLIATED
  • not applicable
  • not going to say
  • Not registered for a party
  • npa
  • other
  • Prefer Not to State
  • un
  • UN DECIDED
  • una
  • Unaffilated
  • unaffiliat
  • Unaffiliate
  • Unaffiliated
  • UNAFFLIATED
  • Unafiliated
  • Unafilliated
  • Uncertain
  • uncommitted
  • Undeceided
  • Undecided
  • Undecited
  • Undeicded
  • Undertermined
  • Undetermined
  • undicided
  • Unenrolled
  • unknown
  • Unnafiliated
  • Unofficiated
  • Unpartisan
  • unsure anymore

Declaring independence … from the dictionary

Be careful when you give people a freeform text field. They’ll get creative. Here are 28 — yes, 28 — ways people spelled “independent”:

  • endapendent
  • IDEPENDENT
  • Ind.
  • Indenpent
  • indepant
  • Indepdendent
  • Indepedent
  • indepenant
  • Independance
  • Independanr
  • Independence
  • Independent
  • independiant
  • independient
  • independnt
  • Indepenent
  • indepent
  • Indepentant
  • indepented
  • Indepentent
  • Indepependent
  • Indipendant
  • indipendent
  • indopenit
  • indpendant
  • Indpendent
  • Indpndt
  • undependent

Thirty-one ways to leave your lover

If you run any sort of text messaging service, you’ll have to process unsubscribe requests. The standard such messages is “STOP.”

To make things easier for customers, in addition to “stop”, I wrote code that also looked for “unsubscribe”, “quit”, “cancel”, “end”, “delete” and anything beginning with the word “fuck.” (Messages merely containing the word fuck often wanted something else entirely.)

Many folks are pretty…creative with their cease-and-desists messages, and manual review is required to make sure you catch all of them. Here are thirty-one such requests for your amusement:

  • Already did!!!! Stop harassing texts… This is invasion of privacy
  • Cancel
  • Da fuck?
  • Delete me off the record
  • Dont ever text message me again
  • Dont give a fuck!!!
  • Don’t ever text me you fuck
  • Don’t text me
  • Don’t text this number again.
  • Ech don’t text me
  • End
  • Fu
  • Fuk u
  • How can I get you to STOP sending me messages?
  • I know. Stop please.
  • I will now report this phone number as illegally spamming per the FCC
  • Leave me alone
  • Please remove my phone number.
  • Please stop texts
  • Pls stop sending me messages!!!!
  • Qui
  • Quit
  • Remove
  • Remove please
  • Shame on you! It’s illegal to solicit cell phone numbers
  • Shut up
  • Stoo
  • Take me off this list.
  • Yes I have now stop texting me
  • Yes I have, you can stop sending texts now
  • Yes STOP

Book publishers, infused with aggrieved privilege 

Clay Shirky’s essay on Amazon and the book industry is so full of great lines, it’s hard to pick just one.

The fact that any bookseller ever “runs out” of a book is now ridiculous. In the twenty-first century, not being able to correctly stock or distribute a product whose main ingredient is information suggests a degree of technical and managerial incompetence indistinguishable from active malice.

Bruce Schneier briefed congress on the NSA

I suggested that we hold this meeting in a SCIF, because they wanted me to talk about top secret documents that had not been made public. The problem is that I, as someone without a clearance, would not be allowed into the SCIF. So we had to have the meeting in a regular room.

This really was an extraordinary thing.

— Bruce Schneier