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Arguing about details as usual
Web folks are having a big hissyfit about grade inflation this week. How will the kids ever master life if they aren’t receiving feedback about the quality of their work? It’s a genuine problem, but schools have never solved it and won’t solve it. Grade inflation is NOT new. Grade inflation was a big hissyfit…
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Supersuckers as fucking usual
Via Protos: = = = = = Crypto exchanges Kraken, Crypto.com, and BitMEX, alongside a raft of DECENTRALIZED crypto industry websites, have been impacted by Tuesday’s widespread Cloudflare outage that caused swathes of the internet to grind to a halt. = = = = = DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING? A money-handling business…
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Buying Canadian without knowing it
When my skin started doing weird things this summer I went to the doctor several times, got two different diagnoses and a variety of different pills and creams. Eventually I decided that it fits the description of eczema, and the usual recommendations for eczema seem to handle it better than the special prescriptions. Controlling stress…
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Stop the shibboleths
Following on this recognition that the I in AI is Imagination, not Intelligence. People are saying that text with typos is more likely to be human instead of AI. First, specific shibboleths are doing more damage than good. The witch hunters are unfairly shaming or blocking real people. This gives the advantage to AI, as…
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Update at last on Hilderbrand
The fake “shutdown” didn’t affect me in any meaningful way. I can’t figure out what the politicians hope to accomplish by playing this game. They weren’t solving any problems before the “shutdown”, and they’re not solving any problems now. The “shutdown” doesn’t change anything. The “shutdown” did prevent me from satisfying my curiosity and reaching…
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Where are the goddamn philosophers?
After mentioning Sidney Webb’s history of the Russian Revolution I tried to find it online. Couldn’t find it in free form, but an accidental reference was worth reading. A 1929 article in a British journal of socialism [Klugmann, p 48 of PDF] discusses the takeover of politics by ideology. Sounds mighty familiar. Klugmann was focusing…
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Ned Green and enjoyable science
Linked in previous, worth a reprint. = = = = = START 2021 REPRINT: Following part 1 and part 2 and part 3. Saved the best for last. Colonel Ned Green was the most influential of these three men. Money talks, and intelligently-directed ENJOYABLE money talks best. His mother Hetty Green was the equivalent of…
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Similar trick
Seen at Substack, some facts I didn’t know before. Francis Fukuyama originally titled his book The end of history? with a question mark. It was published without the question mark, giving his thesis an entirely different meaning. Sidney Webb wrote Soviet Communism: a new civilization? then voluntarily omitted the question mark in a later edition.…
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Mass does the right thing!
Via Bloomberg: The Carney Solution (which I’ve been recommending for a long time) is catching on! Massachusetts has decided to stop screeching about “democracy” and start SUPPORTING ITS OWN PEOPLE. It will raise taxes, including a millionaire tax, and use the money to compensate for federal research cuts. It will also CROWDFUND the research, which…
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Guild vs law
Seen at Substack: Nowadays the suspicion that everyone uses AI for creative work is so strong and omnipresent that soon every artist and writer will be forced to reveal their work process step by step or else their authorship will be denied. I wrote a short response saying that this type of caution is normal.…
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Good for Delaware!
Via RealClear: The major bitcoin fraudster Coinbase played the usual corporate trick of incorporating in Delaware because Delaware has rigged its laws to favor tax evaders and fraudsters. Amazingly, Delaware has finally lost its patience with the worst criminals. WSJ has an “editorial” written by Coinbase’s head criminal. His words in bold followed by interlinear…
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Less urban
Random observation spawned by looking closely at towns in Massachusetts for my next tech history item. The downtown areas in smaller Mass towns look much less urban than the downtowns in Kansas and Oklahoma small towns. In Mass, industrial buildings and stores are mixed randomly among houses and apartments. In the plains, stores are grouped…
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Digital mother-in-law / Analog Cadillac
This item in NewScientist slams my Good News vs Bad News nerves. Analogue computers could train AI 1000 times faster and cut energy use. The bad news: New technology lets burglars steal your intellectual property 1000 times faster! The good news: Modern technologists are FINALLY recognizing the value of analog computers after totally ignoring and…
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150 year sync
The mint finally stopped making pennies but didn’t remove pennies from legal tender. It makes sense to stop making cents. Inflation gradually wears down the smaller divisions. It’s safe to assume that stores will make all prices end in 0 or 5 to avoid rounding. Or maybe not? I looked up the previous ‘weardown’ when…
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Another 400 year sync
History Today’s short features are good this month. The London Gazette is the longest-running continuous newspaper in Britain, and possibly in the world. I think one Dutch paper might be older. The Gazette’s starting point gives us another neat 400 year resonance. = = = = = START QUOTE: The Restoration government needed to manage…
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