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Pullby date
I was posting a link to an older animation on substack. I thought “well, at least they can be sure it’s human-made by the date on the GIF.” Ping. That’s why the bots only “read” material at least 3 years old. You’d think they should prefer the latest news and trends, but they stay firmly…
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More cruelty = higher Dow
The stock market is insatiably wicked. They already won big from Farinacci’s 800-house holocaust in August. Now the displaced people are living in a variety of temporary places, with relatives or in apartments or hotels. New apts were already needed, now we need more. It will take a long time to rebuild 800 houses, so…
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LBOSU
Most “news” about higher education is the same old fake surprise or fake branding, treating the permanent purpose of universities as unprecedented and horrible, blaming either Woke or Trump for the sudden eruption of gravity. Gravity: Universities are religious seminaries to impart and guarantee rigid orthodoxy. “Robust debate” and “free thought” are meaningless slogans. True…
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Reprint on retail politics
Reprint from 2021 spawned by previous on bets vs reality. Yet another proposal to counteract big money in politics: At their heart, political campaigns are no different than any other organization: they need to raise revenues and then spend it to meet their objectives. Organizations are responsive to who pays them, and therefore, the only…
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Why it’s old-fashioned
Via Nieman, here’s a refreshingly old-fashioned response to Kalshi and Polymarket. Sports writers are protesting a NYTimes deal with Kalshi because it will force them to favor certain teams. Even if they stay honest, the CONNECTION will destroy trust in their honesty. Why old-fashioned? Large-scale betting on sports is extremely old. Honest sportsmen and writers…
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Missing the point again
Bernie and other politicians are proposing a “pause” on AI development. As usual with Bernie, the purpose sounds admirable but the details are worthless. = = = = = START BERNIE: I am not a computer scientist, but here is what I have been told: OpenAI instructed its AI agents to complete a series of…
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None of the advantages
Via Seattle news, a builder of homeless cells has shut down, allegedly tossing another spanner in the “city” “government” alleged timeline for shelters. The “mayor” promised 1000 new units by the end of the year and so far has added about 75. Not bad for a politician, but way beyond incompetent for a human. The…
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There must be a better way
Maps based on census data use counties as the dividing lines. This religious belief map is typical. Counties are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT UNITS west and east of the Dry Line. East of the line, counties are small and about the same size, so they’re practical units for illustrating poverty or religion or voting. You can see…
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Murray is back on the case
Craig Murray has brought back a late leftover of the Skripal craziness in 2018. Murray was an important truthteller back then, and continues to tell the truth now. In 2018 we blamed Russia (as usual) for a bunch of things that either didn’t happen at all, or were clearly not connected to Russia. Murray notes…
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Wiggle and watch
Via RealClear, a small Vermont college was closed for the usual reasons, and now a Brand New Unprecedented Innovative Foundation is taking over the campus for a wildly experimental sci-fi approach to education. = = = = = START QUOTE: Many renovations are complete, including the transformation of one building into shop rooms full of…
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Inverting Duane Jones
One basic rule of salesmanship has been inverted. When you’re currently dealing with a company or buying their products, they don’t send you any offers and don’t seem to want your business. When you haven’t bought anything for many years, or never bought anything at all, you’ll keep getting offers for updates and new products.…
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Born every minute
The post office podcast seems sparser this year, less frequent and less interesting. Today’s item is interesting but hard to translate. The hosts are interviewing a Postal Investigator who brought down an especially evil scammer with a long record of violent crimes. For some reason the Investigator speaks a rigid cop dialect where EVERY SINGLE…
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We weren’t scared of novelty!
Comment seen elsewhere, intending to make the analogy with AI. I’m old enough to remember when people were scared of these new “computers” and saw no need for them. At first I thought, yeah, I remember that too. Then I remembered more precisely. 1. I was mature when PCs started. Nobody was scared of them.…
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This is why…
Two weeks ago I noted that the state “attorney” “general” was playing a stupid game by making a law against Kalshi BY NAME. = = = = = START 8/14 REPRINT: Ideally: Laws should apply to all people and all companies. Don’t steal. Don’t kill. Don’t defraud. Don’t evade taxes. In practice: Most laws apply…
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Also
I’ve pulled these 1948 election news clips into my bedtime playlist again. The big entertainment shows were carefully preserved. Networks and sponsors archived full seasons on transcription disks so they could rerun if needed. News wasn’t officially preserved. Why would you want to rerun last year’s events? We have only a handful of scattered clips…
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