January, 2023 archive
One Thing Is Not Like the Other Thing 0
Seth parses the perfidy.
Artificial Intelligence? 0
ChatGTP is getting a lot of play lately. It even made an appearance in my local rag’s comics page.
Before mucking about with it, I suggest that you listen to Harry Shearer’s interview with Gary Marcus on the January 1, 2023, edition of Le Show; the relevant portion starts at about the 20 minute mark. Also read this from Bruce Schneier’s website.
QOTD 0
Kathy Reichs:
. . . emptier than a politician’s heart.
Reichs, Kathy, Mortal Remains (New York: Random House, 2010), p. 68.
Fly the FIendly Skies 0
They get fiendlier every day.
The Privatization Scam 0
At the Des Moines Register, Lois Altmaier Crowley exposes the school voucher con. Here’s a bit of her article; follow the link for more.
Privatizing education does not lead to competition that will improve actual learning outcomes for students. Instead, it starts a race to the bottom that crunches school employees’ wages and teacher salaries, leads to hiring of less qualified educators due to turnover, causes costs for oversight (we must check private school start-ups rigorously and often to ensure quality education!), and harms those students whose parents took a chance on the ones that will inevitably fail. Channeling money into private schooling will also be highly inequitable as fewer than half of our counties (Iowa’s–ed.) even have them: Money that could and should be shared across 99 counties would go to less than half of them.
Altmaier does not address this, but I would add that said school voucher con often serves the wishes of those who would replace education with indoctrination.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Afterthought:
I trust you realize that this meets the textbook definition of terrorism, i. e., violent acts to induce fear for political gain.
Twits on Twitter 0
A twit who is hoist on his own petard.
Mean for the Sake of Mean 0
Methinks F. T. Rea has a point.
The Atomic Boob 0
Farron points out that, thanks to John Kelly, we narrowly escaped death by stupid.
But stupid remains a menace.
Twits Own Twitter . . . 0
. . .and in consequence Twitter is becoming increasingly antisocial media.