March, 2024 archive
Establishmentarians 0
Peter Montgomery reports on efforts by right-wing they-call-themselves Christians to keep the spotlight off their efforts to piggy-back on Donald Trump and turn the United States into a theocracy. Here’s a tiny bit:
Much, much more at the link.
The Open Doorbell Fallacy 0
Consumer Reports has an appalling report on how insecure video “security” doorbells are.
Here’s how it starts; follow the link for the appalling part.
If the message came from a complete stranger, it would have been alarming. Instead, it was sent by Steve Blair, a CR privacy and security test engineer who had hacked into the doorbell from 2,923 miles away.
Blair had pulled similar images from connected doorbells at other CR employees’ homes and from a device in our Yonkers, N.Y., testing lab. While we expected him to gain access to these devices, it was still a bit shocking to see photos of the journalist’s deck and backyard. After all, video doorbells are supposed to help you keep an eye on strangers at the door, not let other people watch you.
H/T Bruce Schneier.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Under the pretext of a quibble over terminology, psychology professor Gregg Henriques takes a deep dive into why and how AI Chatbots and LLMs get so much so wrong so often. Here’s a tiny bit from his article (emphasis added):
Where do hallucinations like these come from? LLMs like ChatGPT are a type of artificial intelligence that run algorithms that decode content on massive data sets to make predictions about text to generate content. Although the results are often remarkable, it also is the case that LLMs do not really understand the material, at least not like a normal person understand things. This should not surprise us. After all, it is not a person, but a computer that is running a complicated statistical program.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
In a compilation of clips, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar skewers Onnald Trump’s racist hate-mongering.
It is a sad and depressing truth that hate sells, for it finds an eager market.
Reason is hard.
Hate is easy.
Courting Disaster 0
Methinks my old Phlly DL friend Noz, who happens to work in the legal profession, makes some good points about the recent Supreme Supremacist Court decision holding that states do not have jurisdiction over candidates in federal elections.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is a family value.
Republican Thought Police 0
In the course of a longer article about the Republican Thought Police in Alabama, Dr. Robert O. White II reminds us something George Orwell once wrote:
Follow the link for the rest of White’s article.
The Disinformation Superhighway 0
You wouldn’t make this stuff up, but this clown did.
Remember, the things that you’re liable to read on a computer screen, they ain’t necessarily so.
Market Farces 0
Sam and the crew talk with Vanderbilt law professor Ganesh Sitaraman about the fallacious reasoning behind deregulating public utilities and services, such as airlines (the main focus of the discussion), and how it made the skies so fiendly as they have become.
Afterthought:
If you die and go to Hell on Delta, you will change in Atlanta.
I’ve changed in Atlanta. It was indeed–er–less than desirable.
The Job Interview 0
Would you hire this applicant?
Courting Disaster 0
Arizona Republicans choose to dishonor native daughter Distinguished Extinguished Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
The Myth of Multitasking 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Joyce Marter debunks de bunk. A snippet:
Follow the link for context.