First Looks category archive

Michael in Norfolk wants to know where the heck did they disappear to.

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Off to drink liberally.

A glutton? Gobble gobble gobble.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Nigel R. Bairstow reports. Here’s a bit:

But on May 31, 2025—a fictional date, though the realization was all too real—I stumbled across a detail that gave me pause. According to Li, Yang, Islam, and Ren (2023), every AI-generated response may require up to half a liter of water to cool the servers in OpenAI’s data centers. That’s half a liter per question. Multiply that by the millions of daily prompts worldwide, and we’re looking at a staggering volume of freshwater used just to keep our digital assistants running.

(snip)

It feels paradoxical. In our personal lives, AI helps us become more efficient, more informed, and even more productive. But zooming out, this same efficiency comes at an environmental cost that’s anything but efficient for the collective. The irony is stark: In the name of productivity, we may be undermining the very ecosystems that sustain our long-term prosperity.

At Above the Law, Joe Patrice argues that the Trump maladministration has gone full sovereign citizen.

No excerpt or summary will do his article justice. Just go read it.

Yet another “responsible gun owner” exposes a portable phallus to a child.

The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office urges gun owners to keep firearms secured after a toddler allegedly found an unlocked gun and fatally shot a 19-year-old.

According to deputies, Kabrel Patterson was asleep in bed when the child somehow gained access to his firearm and pulled the trigger. Patterson later died from his injuries. . . . .

The (gun) fire this time.

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.

Family matters. I shall be attending a nuptial ceremony.

What passes for normal in these parts will resume in a couple of days. In the meantime, QOTD will hold down the fort.

_________________

*With apologies to the website of the same name.

Off to drink liberally.

Der Spiegel spoke with Harvard Professor Ryan Enos about Donald Trump’s crusade against universities, particularly Harvard, America’s oldest institution of higher education. The interview is worth a read; here’s a tiny bit:

DER SPIEGEL: Why has Harvard become the main target?

Enos: I think there are three reasons. First, Trump is following the classic pattern of authoritarian leaders who want to destroy democracies. He is attacking the institutions of civil society that could potentially limit his power: judges, broadcasters – or, indeed, universities, as places of free thought. Second, Trump thought it would be popular to attack elite universities because parts of his electorate were critical of them. He miscalculated, but more on that later.

DER SPIEGEL: And third?

Enos: Donald Trump now harbors a personal grudge against our university because it openly opposes him. Harvard is the beacon of resistance against Trump. No other institution in the U.S. opposes him so openly. Trump wants to break this resistance.

__________________–

*With apologies to Tom Lehrer.

Simple-minded? It’s starting to look like it.

John Nosta points out that (emphasis added)

• An Apple study finds AI reasoning collapses as task complexity increases.
• LLMs often simulate logic without truly understanding it.
• Fluency isn’t thought, and while AI may sound smart, it can fail where it matters most.

Follow the link for a detailed exploration of each point he points out.

Also at the Idaho State Journal, Larry Gebhardt hears a rhyme.

Here’s a bit of his parsing of the poesy:

A Project 2025 tactic is to stop all Federal involvement in education, a shift to states’ rights and privatization. . . . .

Throughout history, tyrants and oligarchs have understood that their major enemy is an educated citizenry. Slaveholders prohibited the enslaved from learning to read. Nazis burned books. Putin and Xi censor the media. Big tech and well-funded political action spread mis- and disinformation. Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.

___________________-

*Mark Twain.

El Reg reports on the Midas Torch.

US Coast Guard and civilian vessels have rescued 22 sailors off the coast of Alaska after some of the electric cars they were transporting caught fire.

The good ship Morning Midas – a roll-on, roll-off ferry that was delivering 3,000 vehicles from Yantai, China, to Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico – is currently around 304 miles south of Adak, Alaska, the US Coast Guard tells us. The sailors on the vessel, operated by UK-based Zodiac Maritime, noticed the fire at around midnight UTC on 3 June and were unable to stop the conflagration. . . . .

Mrs. Betty Bowers tells a story from 2 Kings 2:23-24 (look it up).

Michelle Goldberg looks at the legacy of Elon Musk’s foray into mean for the sake of mean, with a focus on his gutting USAID. Here’s a tiny bit from her article:

Musk apparently did not anticipate that it would be bad public relations for the world’s richest man to take food and medicine from the world’s poorest children.

She goes on to wonder just why this might have been so.

Michael in Norfolk explains why, despite what Elon Musk and his minions may think, having a properly-funded Weather Bureau (to use the phrase that was common when I was a young ‘un) is a good thing.