May, 2024 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is a family value.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Watching and recording your every move? Let’s see.
Bruce Schneier takes a look at Microsoft’s new effort to create an “AI” digital assistant. He–how shall I put this?–has some qualms. Here’s a tiny bit from his post:
It will act trustworthy, but it will not be trustworthy. We won’t know how they are trained. We won’t know their secret instructions. We won’t know their biases, either accidental or deliberate.
We do know that they are built at enormous expense, mostly in secret, by profit-maximizing corporations for their own benefit.
Crossing the Jordan 0
Farron comments on Fani Willis’s response to Jim Jordan’s attempts to thwart the rule of law.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet another child . . . .
And yet another news report demonstrating ignorance of the difference between “accidental” and “negligent.”
Learning from Experience 0
At the Tampa Bay Times, Vietnam veteran Mike Kanter observes Memorial Day by offering some lessons to be learned from that venture. Here’s a tiny bit of his article (emphasis in the original):
For the politicians and senior public officials: Don’t capriciously go to war. Few wars are truly justified.
The entire piece is worth the few minutes it will take to read it.
And Now for a Musical Interlude 0
A tribute to Helen Kane, the original boop-boop-de-doop girl and the inspiration for the classic cartoon character, Betty Boop:
“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0
This time, it’s The Virginian-Pilot’s Larry Rubama who hears a rhyme.
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*Mark Twain
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
In a blast from the past that echoes today, Sam and David Roberts discuss where contemporary journalism has gone off the rails.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet another “responsible gun owner” gets a leg up on cleanliness.
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid.
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
Aside:
You may be tired of my harping on this.
Me, I’m tired of the stupid, the bloodshed, and especially the stupid bloodshed.
