January, 2024 archive
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. (Updated) 0
I find it ironic that what used to be called “data scraping” somehow morphs into being “training” when the scraper is labeled “AI.”
Aside:
Can this be? Is “AI” the new blow-up doll?
Addendum:
Bruce Schneier offers a hint as to how to out “AI” bots on “social” media.
And Now for a Change of Pace 0
Later:
If embedding is forbidden, why the heck do they make the embed code available? Grump grump grump.
Just go watch it on Youtube.
The McGuire Sister were truly special. I remember hearing them on the Arthur Godfrey Show on the CBS radio network when I was a young ‘un, back when radio was fun.
How the Nonprofit Profited 0
Mike and Farron follow the money.
Aside:
I’m so old that I can remember when the NRA was primarily a proponent of gun safety for hunters, not a marketeer for merchants of death.
Indeed, when I was a teen, I attended one of their gun safety classes. That’s one reason what I know that guns are not toys. (The other reason is that we had guns in the house and, natch, my Daddy taught me well.)
You do not play with a gun and you never point one–loaded or unloaded–at any creature unless you intend to do harm–something of which our current generation of gun nuts seems unaware.
The Fifth Column 0
In a letter to the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, self-described Republican Andrew Richardson says that he is fed up with Republican’s preventing the U. S. from aiding Ukraine to defend itself from Russia’s invasion.
I commend his arguments to your attentioin.
Frozen 0
It turns out that Teslas don’t seem to like really cold weather. Here’s a bit of the report from The Register:
“Nothing. No juice. Still on zero percent, and this is like three hours being out here after being out here three hours yesterday,” Tesla owner Tyler Beard told Fox 32.
He wasn’t alone. Dozens of cars were reportedly lined up and abandoned at the Tesla supercharging station in Oak Brook along with multiple charging stations around Chicago.
Twits Own Twitter X Offenders
0
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch calls out Elon Musk’s racist misdirection play, in which Musk somehow manages to blame DEI for doors blowing off Boeing planes. Here’s a little bit, but you really need to read the whole thing for context.
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(snip)
Musk gleefully joined in an X/Twitter discussion railing against stepped-up corporate initiatives for racial and gender diversity, equity, and inclusion, commonly known as DEI. The electric car guru responded favorably to a fact-free post — suggesting that pilots hired by United Airlines out of historically Black colleges have lower IQs than Air Force-trained pilots — that sounded like a eugenics rant from the 1920s, then added: “It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE.”
It’s not clear whether Musk misspelled DEI on purpose . . . .
Scapegoating Scholarship 0
Sam and Emma talk with professor Nick Kraus about the neoliberal campaign against (small-l) liberal education.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
No surprises here:
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump repeatedly referred to Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, as “Nimbra.” Haley, the former South Carolina governor, was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has always gone by her middle name, “Nikki.” She took the surname “Haley” upon her marriage in 1996.
Trump, himself the son, grandson and twice the husband of immigrants, called Haley “Nimbra” three times in the post and said she “doesn’t have what it takes.”
Much more at the link.
Afterthought:
Ii seems relevant to note that, when Donald Trump’s ancestors arrived in the U. S., the family’s name was “Drumpf.”
Suffer the Children 0
We are again reminded that that is not a quotation from scripture. This is a Republican Family Value.
Today’s Republican Party has become the party of mean for the sake of mean.
