September 16th Links

• An honest man falls in love with an honest woman; he wishes, therefore to marry her, to be the father of her children, to secure her and himself. All systems of government should be tested by whether he can do this. If any system—feudal, servile, or barbaric—does, in fact, give him so large a cabbage- field that he can do it, there is the essence of liberty and justice. If any system— Republican, mercantile, or Eugenist—does, in fact, give him so small a salary that he can't do it, there is the essence of eternal tyranny and shame. [The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton]
• In double-barreled non-fiction book titles, the part before the colon is meant to be catchy. It's a kind of clickbait, except for books instead of web articles. The part after the colon explains what the book is actually about. It is as verbose or as concise as it needs to be. In this case "A Memoir" fits perfectly, indicating that this is an autobiography rather a biography. Omitting the subtitle entirely would create confusion by failing to make it clear that this is not intended to be a work of fiction. [MR]
• Watersheds of North America are large drainage basins which drain to separate oceans, seas, gulfs, or endorheic basins. There are six generally recognized hydrological continental divides which divide the continent into seven principal drainage basins spanning three oceans (Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific) and one endorheic basin. The basins are: the Atlantic Seaboard basin, the Gulf of Mexico basin, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin, the Pacific basin, the Arctic basin, the Hudson Bay basin, and the Great Basin. Together, the principal basins span the continent with the exception of numerous smaller endorheic basins. [Wiki]
• The road is one of the most difficult roads in North America to snowplow in the spring. Up to 80 feet (24 m) of snow can lie on top of Logan Pass, and more just east of the pass where the deepest snowfield has long been referred to as the Big Drift. The road takes about ten weeks to plow, even with equipment that can move 4,000 tons of snow in an hour. The snowplow crew can clear as little as 500 feet (150 m) of the road per day. On the east side of the Continental Divide, there are few guardrails due to heavy snows and the resultant late winter avalanches that have repeatedly destroyed every protective barrier ever constructed. The road is generally open from early June to mid October, with its late opening on July 13, 2011, marking the record for the latest opening since the inaugural date of July 15, 1933. [Wiki]
• One time I tested both boosting and cutting ads for an extremely famous brand that you may well have in your bathroom. Neither moved the needle at all. I recommended to the client that they should consider testing advertising cuts for all their brands. My strategy was forcibly rejected. It was explained to me that brand managers at this firm didn’t get promoted for cutting advertising they got promoted for convincing top management to boost their advertising budgets because they were such geniuses at advertising. This firm believed in advertising. After all, the term "soap opera" had been invented to describe the early TV shows sponsored by this firm. An interesting question is whether online advertising is so much more effective than TV advertising. If it turns out not to be, how much does the NASDAQ average drop the next morning? [Sailer]
• Reflecting back on why I'd bought it the day prior, I recounted the upsides: it ran and drove okay, the tires were near new, and it looked pretty damn cool from 15 feet away. I guess that was worth something, right? Wrong. I screwed up. I should have sold this box of bolts for scrap and cut my losses immediately. Alas, I’m not a wise person, so I decided to press on and and revive it, if only to prove to myself that it could be done. Well, I’m here to tell you it was possible, but only at great expense. [Jalopnik]
• This thing 100% had a head gasket failure and somewhere along the line someone thought it would be a good idea to throw a bottle (or 5) of liquid headgasket repair into it. That shit will ruin a motor. David is probably better of just yanking the motor for his friend and inspecting it prior to his arrival. It's a rare truck with the 5 speed and that color, so it's absolutely worth saving. One thing to note, these motors are entirely aluminum. The cylinder walls themselves have been known to fail. Only fix for that is to turn the block into a coffee table and buy a new block. That's why I recommend David tear it down all the way and assess before he goes buying parts. A refreshed and re-manufactured motor can be had for under $4000 and will bring this truck back to its former glory. [Jalopnik]
• It occurred to them that, by lobbying, they might widen the social-gambling loophole. Kebort registered as a lobbyist; he and Von Kennel drafted a new version of the state's anti-gambling law that would strengthen the social-gambling defense (in place of the phrase "defense to prosecution," it substituted "exception to the law") and, for the next two years, tried to get it adopted by the Texas state legislature. Separately, they proposed the creation of a gambling commission, which would regulate the new clubs. The Texas legislature meets for only five months every two years—a prophylactic measure designed to prevent the passage of laws. Kebort and Von Kennel knew, moreover, that any legislator sponsoring their proposal would have to reckon with out-of-state casino owners and religious constituents, both of whom would oppose any legalization of gambling. The 2013 session came and went. Neither proposal gained traction. The next session, nineteen months in the future, felt remote. [New Yorker]