October, 2023 archive
What’s in a Word? 0
At the Inky, the Angry Grammarian reports that that the Supreme Court will have to decide.
Who Is Picking Up the Tab for Hate? 0
Once again, the Southern Poverty Law Center follows the money. A snippet:
Follow the link for the evidence.
Pseudonyms 0
I watched an episode of Monarch of the Glen tonight on Tubi.
Susan Hampshire, as Molly, did web search using a search engine named “Ogle” (I’m sure for legitimate naming issues).
Methinks that the pseudonym may be more accurate than the actual nym.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Thom shares the backstory of why the United States is the only major industrialized country that does offer universal health care.
America’s original sin of chattel slavery continues to exact its toll.
The Seeds of Dysfunction 0
Michael in Norfolk considers the state of today’s Republican Party and considers how it became what it is today. Here’s a bit of his article:
My two or three regular readers know that I agree completely with him about Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
I’m not so sure that the Moral Majority and its ilk deserve to be considered a separate cause. White Southern Protestant fundamentalism and racism have always been intertwined. Just to pick one example, the Southern Baptist Convention seceded (you will pardon the expression) from the national group in 1845 in support of slavery.
If the two causes Michael identifies are not bother and sister, they are at least first cousins–and incestuous ones at that.
Wiggling Out Just Wiggling
0
Alex Jones’s attempt to avoid paying damages to the Sandy Hook families has rin into a bump. A snippet (emphasis added):
Bankruptcy can be used to wipe out debts and legal judgments, but not if they result from “willful or malicious injury” caused by the debtor, according to a decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston, Texas.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, William Poundstone looks at the current hoopla over AI and puts it in context by recalling the Turing test and, later, a computer program called ELIZA, which was capable of carrying on limited conversations via text.
One passage in particular caught my eye. Poundstone cites a comment by MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, the creator of ELIZA, reacting to how willing persons were to think of ELIZA as sentient:
One wonders what Weizenbaum might say today.
Follow the link for context.
Geeking Out 0
Debian Sid with the Fluxbox window manager. Thunderbird and Firefox are shaded in a tabbed window* and Konsole is shaded below them. Xclock is in the upper right; GKrellM in the lower right. The Fluxbox right-click menu is to the left (I do loves me the right-click menu). The wallpaper is from my collection.
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*A “tabbed window” is one in which two or more applications share the same title bar. You shift between them by clicking on the appropriate area on the title bar. I like tabbed windows because they reduce screen clutter.
Kracken Up 0
Seth takes a closer look at Sidney Powell’s guilty plea.
This is Seth at his best. Watch it.
Decoding De Code 0
I have seen Atrious use this term, but somehow I overlooked the obvious until Badtux decoded de code.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
If you are whelmed by the hyperbole about AI Chatbots and Large Language Models, I commend the segment on AI from the October 15, 2023 episode of Harry Shearer’s Le Show.
In it, Dr. Gary Marcus–er–annotates the recent discussion between Scott Kelley and Geoffrey Hinton, which took place on 60 Minutes.
I think you will find it enlightening.
The Crypto Con 0
The Southern Poverty Law Center follows the funny money.
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
If this doesn’t motivate some action, then nothing will:
By projecting heat and drought trends over the coming decades, a team of researchers in China, the U.K. and the U.S. found that barley production could be sharply affected by the shifting climate. And that means some parts of the world would very likely be forced to pay much more for a beer.
Details at the link.
Via Le Show.
