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Oh, dear, so sorry
From an article about the horrible prison-like conditions of Facebook employees: = = = = = START QUOTE: The company is also cutting back on some of its lavish perks, once considered necessary to attract top talent. Last year, Meta ended its free laundry service for employees and pushed dinner service later into the evening…
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Ford of the day
These quotes from Henry Ford have dates because they appeared in the company’s newsletter. As it happens, most of them are exactly 100 years ago. Today’s quote from 4/15/1923: Experience is the harvest of life, and every harvest is the result of a sowing. The experience which young people must crave is that of success…
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That’s more like it!
Might as well continue this topic. DailyMail is showing off another set of fancy souvenirs for the upcoming crowning. This time the royals are doing it properly: The items going on sale today include a £75 cup and saucer, £50 tankard, £50 dessert plate, £40 pillbox and a £30 coffee mug. The production involves 50…
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Was this a GM-style trick?
Budweiser is trying to turn things around with a patriotic appeal, invoking “patriotism” as seen stereotypically by New Yorkers who hate America. It didn’t work on Americans. Budweiser is learning the hard lesson of real business. After you kick your best customers in the balls, they aren’t likely to come back for more. This rule…
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The editor is the inventor
Reading an old article about GM’s dream cars and Motorama shows. When AI produces a car to match a prompt, its result often has the same flavor as GM dream cars, which were NOT manufacturable or drivable. Everyone has dreams. If you’re familiar with cars, you’ll dream about impossible combinations of cars. If you’re familiar…
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Feedback returns in one area
Americans are fairly smart about corporate brands but hopelessly dumb about political brands. When a corporation goes off the cliff for ESG, lots of people stop buying its product. We exert meaningful negative feedback, and now that the QE free money is gone, the negative feedback has some effect. We don’t respond in the same…
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So close…
Leah Libresco is worrying about AI cheating. There’s an important and valid worry in this area, but the cheating itself is not the serious problem. These companies use machine-learning models to count how many times per minute a student blinks or shifts his gaze (while taking an online exam, for example); they then compare this…
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Totally irrelevant
This podcast by The Ankler is interviewing a former CNN dude who is undoubtedly saying some sensible things about the entertainment industry. Most of the Ankler’s content is splendidly sensible, and I’m sure this is no exception. Trust the editor. I couldn’t listen to more than a minute because the CNN dude reminded me forcefully…
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Taibbi is a fucking idiot
He’s still spreading the bizarre nonsensical crap about “crusading journalists”. He still pretends that the Pentagon Papers was an “unbiased” act of “antiwar principle”. The Pentagon Papers appeared AFTER NIXON OWNED THE WAR. The documents were mostly written earlier, while LBJ OWNED THE WAR. Nobody was interested until NIXON OWNED THE WAR. IT WAS ALL…
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Ovens
Interesting experiential note from Kirn: Years ago while teaching creative writing to grad students I noticed a new kind of short story that was not about deep conflicts but differences of opinion. One character would have the right opinions on some issue, another the wrong ones. Bad things would happen to the person with the…
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Nothing changes, nothing advances
It’s always fun to watch Shared Lies being busted. Nothing changes, nothing advances. Everyone still believes the fake “fact”, everyone still stoutly defends the two fake “sides” of the fake “argument” about the fake “fact”. Side A says the “fact” is good, side B says the “fact” is bad. Nobody is allowed to say that…
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Good.
Parler is giving up. Good. Totally aside from all political noise, it was just fake. I tried signing up once but it wouldn’t let me in without a cellphone. True independents are Luddites. Parler wasn’t looking for true independents. It was just one more tool to monitor and control the “opposition”. We don’t need MORE…
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Random grammar thought
Random grammar thought, seems like an interesting correlation at the moment. Among Indo-European languages, the Catholic or Orthodox cultures (Latin, Slavic) prefer reflexive verbs as a way of expressing passive or middle voice. Protestant and Islamic cultures (Germanic, English, Arabic) prefer distinct active and passive forms. Latin started with a distinct passive, then replaced it…
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Thinking about tinking
As far back as I can remember, I was always “making” stuff. Roads and dams in the dirt, complex Tinkertoy projects, electronic stuff. Today I asked whether my friends and acquaintances were also tinkerers. Some were and some weren’t. The line was drawn exactly by father’s occupation. Sons of professors never got their hands dirty.…
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Same kind of “person”
Lawyer Richard Stevens writes a wonderfully clear article about AI and law. Jonathan Turley, a public figure, was specifically libeled by ChatGPT, which provided a false “fact” to several people. The “fact” was totally false and accusatory. Stevens goes through the details of libel and finds that ChatGPT clearly fits three of the standards. The…
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