June 01, 2025
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 6-1-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
(HT: Ace)
(HT: Ace)
Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (228) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 1 June 2025
Top Story
- CNN says that Anthropic's warning that AI could wipe out 50% of jobs is nonsense. (CNN)
For CNN, it's 100%.
Maybe more.
- AI agents tasked with running a simple vending machine business act like petulant children, declare bankruptcy for no reason, and try to call the FBI over $2 business fees that they have previously agreed to. (arXiv)
Or to put it another way, just like CNN anchors.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (216) | Trackbacks (Suck)
May 31, 2025
Saturday Night "Club ONT" May 31, 2025 [The 3 Ds]
Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. Tip your bartender - even if you are the bartender (self respect matters). Does beer really need to be that complicated? How many different glasses do you really need to enjoy beer? Club ONT appreciates a good sudsy treat but we're simple folk. Belly up to the bar, pour one out for those that came before, and enjoy your overnight hours with the Horde.
Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. Tip your bartender - even if you are the bartender (self respect matters). Does beer really need to be that complicated? How many different glasses do you really need to enjoy beer? Club ONT appreciates a good sudsy treat but we're simple folk. Belly up to the bar, pour one out for those that came before, and enjoy your overnight hours with the Horde.
Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (425) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Saturday Evening Movie Thread [moviegique]: Lilly
It's been kind of a slow May around here. We've only seen Ran, Re-Animator and Lilly. I've had a hard time getting into Kurosawa, but I found Ran quite wonderful. Easy to follow despite a rather intricate plot (based on/inspired by "King Lear") and a near three-hour runtime. The year 1985 also gave Re-Animator, which is probably the crowning achievement of the Empire Pictures filmmaking endeavor, and still really holds up after 40 years, with only a few of its low-budget seams showing.
Lilly is a straight-up advertisement for Democrats, and lord knows they need the help. We stumbled into this because I mistook Patricia Clarkson for Patricia Heaton, and mentioned that if Patricia (Heaton) were in the film, it probably wouldn't be just a tongue-bath of left-wing figureheads. A fatal mistake my friends. This 90-minutes-but-seems-like-150-minutes paean to Democratic shibboleth Lilly Ledbetter features copious actual interviews with Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself. And Hillary. And Obama. And, ballsiest of all, the Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy. No one championed women like ol' Ted, amirite?Left, Clarkson. Right, Heaton. I mixed up their NAMES not their LOOKS.
Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (168) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Hobby Thread - May 31, 2025 [TRex]
[Top photo: Have Blue Radar Cross Section Model, US Air Force Museum, Dayton, Ohio]
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and it came up with scale modeling!
Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (155) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Pet Thread - May 31, 2025 [TRex]
TRex knows what you're thinking. "Too early for the Hobby Thread but the Gardening Thread has already been posted and I don't have anything more to say about radishes or asparagus soup."
Ace of Spades has you covered. Welcome to a bonus substitute Pet Thread! With very little planning or forethought, let's enjoy some time talking about our favorite animal family members. KT is dodging helicopters while escaping from the hospital, so we'll take that as a positive sign. Hopefully, she'll restore order to the Saturday mid-day Ace of Spades thread program soon. But in the meantime, what Pet Thread theme would be worthy of the Ace of Spades stage? Let's talk terriers!Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:00 PM | Comments (109) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Gardening & Puttering Thread - May 31, 2025 [TRex]
[Top photo: Schloss Hellbrunn, Salzburg, Austria]
Good afternoon and welcome to the big beautiful Gardening and Puttering thread. Your usual host is still recovering, so you're stuck with a dinosaur with a small brain and short arms for this week.
Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:01 PM | Comments (64) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. To be perfectly honest, I am a coffee snob. But, I can choke down a 7/11 cup of java. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Wauby) 1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. And no you can't jump on the furniture.
3) Running with sharp objects is severely restricted.
4) Have a great weekend!
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. To be perfectly honest, I am a coffee snob. But, I can choke down a 7/11 cup of java. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Wauby) 1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. And no you can't jump on the furniture.
3) Running with sharp objects is severely restricted.
4) Have a great weekend!
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 07:45 AM | Comments (656) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 31 May 2025
Top Story
- Automattic says it will start contributing to WordPress again. (Tech Crunch)
Automattic owns WordPress.
That is, the software is open source, but the WordPress company is owned by Automattic, and that's how they make their money. So their earlier announcement that they were not updating the software was slow corporate suicide to spite other people who were also not updating the software.
These people are insane.
Allegedly 43% of websites run on WordPress, leaving a huge market open to non-insane people.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (71) | Trackbacks (Suck)
May 30, 2025
Our Friends From Frolix ONT
Hullo Horde! We made it to Friday again!
Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (429) | Trackbacks (Suck)
TGIF Cafe
Formentor Lighthouse in Majorca, Spain
from mibreit-photo.com
Eagle angler. Chipmunk proposes a trade. All cats love getting under blankets. Golden loves the sprinkler. Teeny-tiny Bible collection. ICYMI: Dog and rooster play chase. Giant landcloud. Bears are out of control and we have no one to blame but ourselves. (IG) Insistent beaver. (IG) A nice way to end the week. (IG) Now that you've enjoyed that -- it's a RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION AI CHEAPFAKE.
Formentor Lighthouse in Majorca, Spain
from mibreit-photo.com
Eagle angler. Chipmunk proposes a trade. All cats love getting under blankets. Golden loves the sprinkler. Teeny-tiny Bible collection. ICYMI: Dog and rooster play chase. Giant landcloud. Bears are out of control and we have no one to blame but ourselves. (IG) Insistent beaver. (IG) A nice way to end the week. (IG) Now that you've enjoyed that -- it's a RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION AI CHEAPFAKE.
Posted by: Ace at 07:20 PM | Comments (274) | Trackbacks (Suck)
WNBA "Superstar" Angel Reese Drops New Race Hoax Just in Time for Summer Rioting Season
What? Superstar? LOL. Come on now. There are pro bowlers who have a much stronger claim to the "superstar" descriptor than this nasty woman.
WNBA superstar Angel Reese...
...has taken to TikTok in a bold attempt to silence her critics amid a headline-grabbing start to her second season in the league. Reese and her Chicago Sky teammates are just one game into the new season but already the WNBA has launched an investigation into alleged racist abuse of the 23-year-old, after she was involved in a heated dust-up with Caitlin Clark. Indiana Fever fans are alleged to have racially abused Reese from the stands, and now Reese has taken to social media for the first time since the incident on Saturday. Wearing makeup, a tight black cropped top and a diamond-encrusted personalized necklace, Reese doesn't say anything in the short clip - but her choice of music is an apparent nod to the noise currently surrounding her. In Beyonce's Formation, the lyrics over the top of the video state: 'You know you that b***h when you cause all this conversation. Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper.' Reese's WNBA wage has been a regular source of controversy, with the second-year pro set to earn just $74,909 this season.Angel Reese, of course, has racially taunted Caitlin Clark, but that's okay because, you know.
Always stay gracious! The WNBA instantly launched an investigation based on nothing but this grotesque clown's Jussie Smollett-style attention-seeking say-so. Get this -- after reviewing all the video and audio from the game, the WNBA found that Angel Reese's racial hoax was "not substantiated" by any actual evidence.
The WNBA was plunged further into an ugly racism scandal on Tuesday night when Angel Reese reposted an inflammatory TikTok trolling her 'white gyal' rival Caitlin Clark. Their bitter clash in the first WNBA game of the season sparked an instant WNBA investigation into alleged racist abuse, with teammates forced to jump in and keep the league's two biggest names apart on the court. ... The video included a screengrab of an X post which was captioned: 'White gyal running from the fade', and a photo of Clark walking away from Reese during their altercation. The re-post no longer appears to be on Reese's TikTok feed. On social media, the post sent fans into a frenzy, with one noting: 'Why is the WNBA okay with race baiting when it's a white woman?'
By the way, the "flagrant foul" wasn't all that flagrant. In basketball, sometimes you have to foul quite deliberately to stop someone from taking a shot that is 95% likely to result in a score. And you can't just foul them a little, because if you foul them a little, the shot might still go into the basket for two points and then the fouled player can add an additional point with a free throw. So that's possibly a three point play. The point is, sometimes, when you foul someone, you have to make sure they don't even get the shot off, and that sometimes involves fully wrapping them up with your arms. You're taking the foul, and making it obvious, but also making sure this doesn't turn into a three point play. That's what Caitlin Clark did. It's a standard basketball play and was not intended to harm Angel Reese at all, and did not harm her. Caitlin Clark is out of play right now with an injury and these racist bitches of the WNBA are finding out the league has little value without her.
The WNBA announced on Tuesday that it had concluded its investigation into the report of "racist fan behavior" during the Indiana Fever's 93-58 victory over the Chicago Sky earlier this month. The league said it could not substantiate claims that "hateful" comments were made by fans at Gainbridge Fieldhouse following the flagrant foul committed by Caitlin Clark on Angel Reese. "We have investigated the report of racist fan behavior in the vicinity of the court during the May 17, 2025 Chicago Sky at Indiana Fever game. "Based on information gathered to date, including from relevant fans, team and arena staff, as well as audio and video review of the game, we have not substantiated it. "The WNBA is committed to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for everyone and will continue to be vigilant in enforcing our fan code of conduct." In the third quarter, Clark was called for a flagrant foul after the former No. 1 overall pick swiped at Reese's arm as she went up for a layup. The forward then got up and attempted to confront Clark, but was held back by the Fever's Aliyah Boston. Both Reese and Boston were issued technical fouls. The next day, the WNBA announced that it had opened up an investigation into alleged "hateful" comments, but did not offer many other details.
The WNBA with Caitlin Clark is dogshit. Without Caitlin Clark, it's low-calorie, low-fat dogshit-substitute I Can't Believe It's Not Dogshit (TM).
Ticket prices for the second game of the season between the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky are plummeting following Caitlin Clark's injury setback. It was announced on Monday that the reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year will miss at least two weeks of action with a left quad strain. The news will come as a devastating blow to the WNBA, whose ratings are dependent on a fit and healthy Clark - far and away the biggest name in the league. But it's also a massive problem for fans who are trying to sell tickets to the game between the Fever and Angel Reese's Sky on June 7. The game would have been a mammoth showdown between the duo after their bitter rivalry reignited once again earlier this month. Tickets to last season's final regular season game between the Fever and Sky were selling for around $165, the most expensive game in WNBA history. Tickets to this season's first game between the two teams were price slightly less than that around $75. But just 24 hours after Clark's injury was announced, tickets to the game between the two teams on June 7 are now selling for just $35. It represents a bitter blow to Reese, who said last year that Clark was not the only player WNBA fans were turning out to see.
Posted by: Ace at 06:40 PM | Comments (165) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Week in Woke
Surprise: "Social justice advocate" "professor" arrested on child porn charges.
Self-described 'social justice advocate' prof arrested on child pornography chargesWell, Comey and Wray's FBI protected him. Prison. Dylan Mulvaney is now the weird face of a perfume brand, Jean Paul Gautier's "Divine." More like John Waters' Divine, amirite
The University of Texas at San Antonio was arrested for allegedly viewing child pornography and having a child porn video playing when federal officials raided his house in 2021. The professor is Zaid Mashhour Haddad, who allegedly accessed almost 200 child pornography videos and streamed them from his computer. A "social justice advocate" professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) was arrested for allegedly viewing child pornography and having such content playing when federal officials raided his house in late April. The professor is Zaid Mashhour Haddad, who allegedly accessed almost 200 child pornography videos and streamed them from his computer. "One of the videos that allegedly depicted child pornography was displayed on Haddad's TV as the FBI executed a search warrant on his apartment," federal officials stated, as noted by The New York Post. According to Haddad's profile on UTSA's website, he is a professor of "Interdisciplinary Studies & Curriculum and Instruction." He describes himself in his profile as a "teacher educator" and "social justice advocate." ... The incident occured in July 2021, but Haddad was only arrested on April 29. Criminal attorney Joe Hoelscher said the delay before the arrest was shocking. "It's unbelievable," Hoelscher said. "You don't walk in on a guy who's watching child pornography with young kids on a flat screen in his apartment and not make an arrest." "What's shocking is law enforcement. Seven or eight year old being abused on his flat screen and left him in our community for four years in a role where he has access to children," he added.
The DOJ is investigating Cal State Polytechnic for telling Jewish students that they would do nothing to protect them from antisemitic harassment and taunting, so they should just hide their Jewish identity. Yeah, they did that before the pogroms.
Mulvaney is apparently the face of Jean Paul Gaultier's new women's perfume "Divine." The influencer somehow managed to nab an entire trip to Morocco to shoot the advertising campaign for the brand's product launch. In a video posted to Instagram, the transgender influencer bopped up and down enthusiastically while riding on a camel's back in an attempt to secure the winning camera shot for the promotional material.
The Trump administration opened an investigation into anti-Semitism at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, after anti-Israel activists allegedly pelted their Jewish classmates with fake blood, and administrators encouraged the students to "hide their Jewish identity to avoid being targeted." The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) launched the investigation in response to a civil rights complaint from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law, the legal advocacy group said on Tuesday. Jewish students at Cal Poly have accused administrators of ignoring anti-Jewish attacks and allowing an atmosphere of anti-Semitism to spread on campus, the Washington Free Beacon reported in March. According to the Brandeis Center complaint, pro-Hamas protesters disrupted a vigil for victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks by drawing a "Zio Corner" chalk circle around attendees and throwing red paint at Jewish students meant to represent the "blood of martyrs." Activists also held a demonstration adjacent to a religious ceremony for the Jewish High Holiday of Sukkot and wrote chalk messages directed at the Jewish students that said, "Go Away Nazis." After a Jewish religious object was stolen from the Sukkot celebration one night, administrators reportedly advised Jewish students to limit their religious observance to the daytime to avoid being targeted. "By telling Jewish students who complained of anti-Semitism to hide evidence of their Jewish identity, the university not only dismissed the Jewish students' concerns, it also shirked its responsibility to take prompt and effective action to address anti-Semitic incidents on its campus," the Brandeis Center complaint reads.As you may know, a Christian group staged a concert in Seattle, with a permit. Trantifa assaulted them. Seattle's mayor immediately knew who the Real Victims were -- antifa. How dare Christians gather in public in a gay area, knowing that gays are violently intolerant of Christians?
On Saturday, Antifa and other radicals launched another violent attack on conservatives. Pastors were holding what they described as a permitted Christian worship event in a park when black-clad Antifa members tried to storm and tear down a barricade. To their credit, the Seattle police moved in and arrested the radicals. However, what happened next is even more concerning: Mayor Bruce Harrell seemed to blame the Christian group and demanded to know why they were given a permit at all for an event in the area. One would hope that the mayor would respond with a simple statement defending free speech (including both the church and peaceful counterprotesters) while condemning the attack. Instead, Mayor Bruce Harrell released the following statement that attacked the Christian group for holding an "extreme right-wing rally" while demanding an investigation into why they were given this permit instead of being moved into a more remote spot.Harrell did accuse "anarchists" who "infiltrated" the event, but suggested that the permitted event was inflammatory and should not have happened:
Seattle is proud of our reputation as a welcoming, inclusive city for LGBTQ+ communities, and we stand with our trans neighbors when they face bigotry and injustice. Today's far-right rally was held here for this very reason -- to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city's values, in the heart of Seattle's most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood. When the humanity of trans people and those who have been historically marginalized is questioned, we triumph by demonstrating our values through our words and peaceful protest -- we lose our voice when this is disrupted by violence, chaos, and confusion.We have discussed other Democratic politicians like Nancy Pelosi demanding reviews or revocation of permits going to Christian or conservative groups. The problem is that conservative or religious views are treated as triggering -- a common claim in higher education. I do not know anything about this Christian group, but they were clearly the victims, not the cause, of this violence. The suggestion that the location was too triggering for transgender activists is yet another example of a failure of leadership on the left. ... Democratic politicians and pundits continue to legitimate Antifa and even align themselves with the vehemently anti-free speech group. This includes selling Antifa gifts on popular sites.
While there are broad First Amendment requirements around permitting events under free speech protections, I am directing the Parks Department to review all of the circumstances of this application to understand whether there were legal location alternatives or other adjustments that could have been pursued. The Police Department will complete an after-action report of this event, including understanding preparation, crowd management tactics, and review of arrests and citations.
Andy NgoHere's how Fox's Seattle affiliate reported the arrests of Trantifa thugs attacking Christians peacefully attending a concert: By suggesting it's the Christians being arrested.
@MrAndyNgo Public records appear to show that @MayorofSeattle Bruce Harrell lied when he said the Christian worship event went to Cal Anderson Park to be intentionally offensive to the "LGBTQ+" neighborhood. Records show the group requested a different area but was directed to the park by the city, where Antifa-Trantifa attacked them.
In other words: If your place in the competition was stolen by a dude who outperformed you, because he is a dude, we'll let you compete again, and face the same dude who already beat you repeatedly, because he's a dude. You'll have so many more chances to see your dreams stolen from you by a male cheater.
The California Interscholastic Federation, the governing board for state high school sports, opened track-and-field finals to more girls after allowing a male to compete and amid pressure from President Trump. The CIF announced on Tuesday that it was allowing more "biological female" athletes to participate in the championship meet, The Associated Press reported. "Under this pilot entry process, any biological female student-athlete who would have earned the next qualifying mark for one of their Section's automatic qualifying entries in the CIF State meet, and did not achieve the CIF State at-large mark in the finals at their Section meet, was extended an opportunity to participate in the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships," the federation said in a statement.
A district court judge ruled that Florida must allow a drag queen to perform in front of children:
"The CIF believes this pilot entry process achieves the participation opportunities we seek to afford our student-athletes." On Tuesday morning, Trump threatened to withhold federal funds from California if the governor and fellow Democrats in the state continue to defy his executive order banning males from playing in women's sports. "California, under the leadership of Radical Left Democrat Gavin Newscum, continues to ILLEGALLY allow 'MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN'S SPORTS,'" Trump posted on Truth Social. "This week a transitioned Male athlete, at a major event, won 'everything,' and is now qualified to compete in the 'State Finals' next weekend. As a Male, he was a less than average competitor. As a Female, this transitioned person is practically unbeatable. "THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS," he continued. "Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to. The Governor, himself, said it is 'UNFAIR.' I will speak to him today to find out which way he wants to go??? In the meantime I am ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow the transitioned person to compete in the State Finals. This is a totally ridiculous situation!!!"
Posted by: Ace at 05:30 PM | Comments (134) | Trackbacks (Suck)
NPR Sues the Trump Administration, Alleging They Have a First Amendment Right to Have Their Radical Marxist Agenda Funded by the American Taxpayerthe elites Glittering Mediocrities as they require.
Why won't you understand that?
Closely related: Noted True Conservative David French says that Harvard has a constitutional right to the taxpayer's money forever, for whatever reason, no matter how poorly it serves the public trust.
They have the right to live luxe lifestyles on your dime, Benighted Bigot Peons.
You are simply stupid insensate stalks of wheat to be harvested and threshed and consumed byNational Public Radio and three of its affiliates in Colorado sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over a sweeping executive order signed earlier this month that would terminate the outlet's federal funding. In a suit filed in DC federal court, NPR and three stations -- Colorado Public Radio in Centennial, Roaring Fork Public Radio in Aspen and KSUT Public Radio in Ignacio -- alleged that President Trump's order unconstitutionally infringes on First Amendment protections. "The Order's objectives could not be clearer: the Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country," attorneys representing the radio stations wrote in the 43-page filing. "The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR's and the Local Member Stations' freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion," they said. "Lastly, by seeking to deny NPR critical funding with no notice or meaningful process, the Order violates the Constitution's Due Process Clause," they added. ... Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought the following month asked Congress to claw back $1.1 billion in taxpayer funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides some funding for both NPR and PBS, as part of a rescissions bill that could pass by a simple majority. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting had been slated to receive $535 million in federal funds in fiscal years 2025 and 2026 to distribute to radio and TV stations -- including NPR and PBS. Upwards of 70% of CPB's budget goes toward more than 1,500 local public media stations. NPR takes around 1% of its funding from CPB, while PBS receives up roughly 15% of its revenue from the nonprofit.
Closely related: Noted True Conservative David French says that Harvard has a constitutional right to the taxpayer's money forever, for whatever reason, no matter how poorly it serves the public trust.
Do taxpayers have a constitutional duty to bankroll Harvard University? On MSNBC, David French argued that the Trump administration's defunding of Harvard is little more than "political retaliation." In the United States, we don't sentence people before hearing the verdict, the New York Times columnist said. Ignoring due process is "directly contrary to our constitutional principles." David might not be aware that in addition to the joint-government task force's claim that Harvard leadership failed to meaningfully confront pervasive insults, physical assault, and intimidation of Jewish students, there's also a blistering internal university taskforce report that maintains that Harvard allowed antisemitism to permeate "coursework, social life, the hiring of some faculty members and the worldview of certain academic programs." Harvard concedes, "members of the Jewish and Israeli communities at Harvard reported treatment that was vicious and reprehensible." The verdict is in.I'd also say that the government does not have to conduct jury trials to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt before defunding an entity. But David French thinks it does. At least when his leftwing allies' are losing their taxpayer-funded sinecures.
But, I suppose, I'd pose the situation in another way: If a government investigation and internal review both found that white supremacists on Harvard campus were terrorizing black students and engaging in racist marchers and that their violent beliefs had found favor in the school's curriculums and in social life, would anyone on MSNBC argue that the government had an obligation to keep funding this school until a civil lawsuit worked its way through the courts? One suspects not. Now, I'm not accusing David French of being blind to the struggles of Jewish students. I am accusing him of being blinded by the presence of Donald Trump. Are the president's motivations political? Probably. So what? So are those of Harvard's defenders. Harvard, a private institution, can do as it likes. There's nothing illegal about coddling extremists or pumping out credentialed pseudointellectuals. If the Trump administration failed to follow a bureaucratic process before freezing funds to the university, fine. Get it done. But what "constitutional principle" dictates that the federal government must provide this specific institution with $3 billion in federal contracts and grants? Giving it to them was a policy decision made by the executive branch. Withdrawing the funding is the same. ... If your answer is that the school feels a profound obligation to defend free expression, I suggest you speak to some pro-Israeli or pro-capitalist or pro-American or social conservative student on campus and see how comfortable they feel about airing opinions. Harvard finished last for the second year running in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's "College Free Speech Rankings" in 2024, along with Columbia University and New York University. The only speech Harvard values is the extremist variety.
Posted by: Ace at 04:29 PM | Comments (290) | Trackbacks (Suck)
LOL: Fake Jake Tapper's Ratings Plunge to Their Lowest Levels in 10 Yearsthe same a different standard.
If Trump were held to the same standard, Tapper would be doing a deep-dive into Trump's health five months after he leaves the presidency in 2029. Same as he did with Biden.
Tapper wants to make up for five years of cover-up for Biden by digging deep on Trump. He just interviewed Speaker Mike Johnson. After covering up the Biden, Inc. crime family for years -- actually, the cover-up continues, as Tapper still won't report on it -- he's now decided that he'll make up for past sins by investigating Trump for corruption.
Tapper attempted some whataboutism judo by demanding that Johnson investigate Trump's corrupt practices, asserted by Tapper WITHOUT EVIDENCE, because Johnson investigated Biden's foreign influence peddling.
Drew Holden has a great thread destroying Tapper's foundational lie that the press "missed" the Biden dementia story. No, they didn't "miss" the story-- they eagerly engaged in the propaganda, claiming at each and every turn that what the public saw and heard with its own eyes was RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION AI CHEAPFAKES. The thread has screenshots of all the headlines. See the thread for that. Here are some of the takeaways:
Matt Taibbi is unimpressed by Jake Tapper's Brave Shoeleather Reporting five years too late:
I actually know Jake Tapper's real defense for covering up Biden's dementia.
If he were being honest -- which he never is -- he'd say, "Look, my audience consists entirely of Trump-deranged liberals. I cannot report the truth without losing my entire career. CNN wouldn't even allow it. If I reported any of this before 2024 CNN would have had a 'talk' with me with the threat of suspension made clear. I'm showing 'bravery' [by Jake Tapper standards, at least] by just reporting a slim slice of the truth five years after it was obvious to all non-Trump-deranged liberals." So Jake Tapper's Trump-deranged audience -- the only audience remaining after ten years of groteqesque leftwing propaganda from Jake Tapper and his fellow communists at CNN -- is abandoning him, and I am, as forty-two-year=old Millennials on Twitter say, here for it.CNN host Jake Tapper had his lowest-rated month in nearly a decade in May despite a whirlwind publicity tour giving him an onslaught of attention. Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson's new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," was released in May to much fanfare. The book helped set the recent news cycle with new accusations of the Biden White House hiding the truth about the former president's fitness for office. To promote the project, Tapper has embarked on a wide-ranging book tour that landed him on a variety of podcasts, talk shows and cable news. The book has also been promoted relentlessly across CNN, but the spotlight on Tapper has seemingly failed to give him a boost in viewership. "The Lead with Jake Tapper" averaged 525,000 total viewers from April 28 through May 25, shedding 25% of CNN's audience in its timeslot from the same period last year in the process. By comparison, Fox News offerings "The Five" and "Special Report with Bret Baier" averaged 3.3 million viewers from April 28 through May 25, trouncing Tapper. MSNBC also beat Tapper among total viewers, as programming on the progressive network averaged a little over one million viewers in the timeslot. As a result, Tapper settled for only 11% of the cable news audience share, while MSNBC managed 21% and Fox News commanded 68% during the timeframe. It was Tapper's lowest-rated month since August 2015.It also thrills me to say that MSNBC's ratings are also collapsing. And bear in mind, Comcast is trying to sell MSNBC to some chump. This is the worst time for MSNBC to see its ratings collapse.
MSNBC hit record lows, dropping 41% among primetime viewers, according to Mediaite. The network's ratings dropped a total of 34% compared to May 2024. MSNBC averaged 49,000 viewers during the day and 78,000 primetime viewers, marking its second-worst month in history, AdWeek reported.It is partly due to Jake Tapper's loss of his already-small leftwing audience -- and partly just for Tapper's extreme Democrat/leftwing activism -- that Tapper and his co-author Thompson have very subtly shifted the main argument of their book from "Biden was demented and the cover-up is a national scandal" to "Biden wasn't transparent about his health and neither is Trump so we in the media have to double-down on suggesting Trump is incompetent to be president." Alex Thompson wants you to know that after five years of covering for Biden, the media is finally ready to Speak Truth to Power by demanding Trump be "transparent" about his hypothetical, WITHOUT EVIDENCE health issues.
Jake Tapper blew similar smoke earlier, asserting that now that Biden's dementia has been exposed, it's time to hold Trump to
"Original Sin" co-author and Axios reporter Alex Thompson told MSNBC on Sunday that there needs to be "investigative reporting" on President Donald Trump's health after being "untransparent" about his records. In light of several revelations about an alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden's health in Thompson's book, "The Weekend: Primetime" co-host Ayman Mohyeldin asked him whether there is now a "double standard" in coverage for Biden's health compared to Trump's. "And, certainly now, is there a double standard with the way we are covering it? I mean, are you out there also investigating and reporting about Trump's health in the same rigor that you did this book?" Mohyeldin asked. Thompson said that while they knew little about Biden's health at the time, they knew "even less" about Trump's. "He was completely untransparent during the 2023-2024 campaign," Thompson said. "He has not been transparent since, and there is no mechanism forcing him or any future president to be transparent about their health. He could be on anything. We really have no idea. So I think it's a really vital question." He added that he has covered the lack of transparency from Trump in the past and considered the subject "completely fair." "Donald Trump was older on his inauguration day than Joe Biden was on his. Donald Trump's health is completely fair game, and there should be incredibly investigative reporting on how it's affecting his job as president," Thompson said.
TAPPER: You oversaw, as speaker, a congressional investigation into President Biden's ties to his son Hunter's questionable business dealings to enrich him. You seemed to think it was your responsibility to look into this sort of thing then. M. JOHNSON: Yes, Jake, the big, important distinction, the Biden crime family, as they were named, earned that title. Why? Because they use shell companies, fake LLCs, series of what appeared to be money laundering operations. And Hunter Biden, of course, with his difficult past and his -- the corruption in his past, the family on the public dole -- or on the president's dole. The president lied about his involvement in the business dealings, all of that. The evidence just piled up. And, by the way, at the same time, the evidence of his diminished mental capacity, subject of your book, of course. I wish had been published a year earlier, because everybody saw it. Everybody saw what was happening.
Drew Holden has a great thread destroying Tapper's foundational lie that the press "missed" the Biden dementia story. No, they didn't "miss" the story-- they eagerly engaged in the propaganda, claiming at each and every turn that what the public saw and heard with its own eyes was RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION AI CHEAPFAKES. The thread has screenshots of all the headlines. See the thread for that. Here are some of the takeaways:
Drew HoldenRead the whole thing. It's a double-stuffed Oreo of truth. Jake Tapper covers his lies with fresh lies -- you see, he couldn't report on what was obvious to everyone based just on what can be seen and heard on videos, because none of Biden's inner circle would confirm/admit that the videos showed what they showed. And of course you can't report a story without insider sources telling you that what you saw is what you saw. Glenn Greenwald was on Megyn Kelly and noted that CNN itself disproves that. CNN and all the leftwing media outlets ran "hours" of speculation about Trump needing to be removed from office under the 25th amendment, and spent "hours" of coverage showing Trump walking gingerly down an ice-slicked ramp (he was wearing slippery dress shoes) and -- this one I completely forget -- holding a cup of coffee in some way that the leftwing media claimed showed some kind of physical degeneration. There were no "insider sources" confirming these absurd stories. But CNN and MSNBC -- and Jake Tapper -- filled their airwaves with them for weeks. Incidentally-- Jake Tapper says he "apologized" to Lara Trump. In fact, he did nothing of the kind.
@DrewHolden360 But this deceptive coverage was everywhere. Tapper's own outlet, @CNN, blamed the characterization of Biden in part on "ageism" in an evasive piece of whataboutism when it comes to memory. The rest of the press did likewise. Over at @nytimes, the story was that "memory loss requires careful diagnosis" -- there was no way Hur could draw this conclusions! Where was the "close medical assessment," huh? Everyone in the media was coming out to defend Biden from Hur's mean characterization. @AP said it was no different from mixing up the names of your kids. We saw the same from @washingtonpost. @NBCNews added that even memory problems didn't "affect decision making or judgement." It was part of "significant misperceptions" about how our brains work. A month later, the Biden team orchestrated the release of redacted comments meant to deceive the public into thinking Hur's characterization was unfair. The authors lament that this clever move caused the press to miss the parts about Biden's decline. This isn't true...
The media did anything but "miss" them. They trumpeted the news as *vindicating* Biden's cognitive capabilities. Tapper's @CNN--courtesy of @oliverdarcy-- spiked the football. The new transcript "poured water on Hur's over-the-top characterization of Biden's mental fitness."
When [Laura] Ingraham pressed as to whether an apology actually happened over the phone, [Lara] Trump said "he called me and said he was going to do this and here we are." That prompted Ingraham to declare the situation "convoluted." Megyn was inclined to agreed. "Did he actually say, 'I'm sorry,' or did he just say, 'When my book hits, I'm going to say that the right was correct,'" she asked. "I am now less sure than I was before that an actual apology was issued." Whether those words were uttered or not, Greenwald said a phone call is not sufficient in this situation. "If you go on the air or in a column or whatever and you accuse somebody of something truly terrible like bullying kids with disabilities -- which is what he accused her of -- you don't call her privately and sort of say, 'Hey, you were right,'" he explained. "You go on the air and you say, 'I said something terrible. It was completely baseless. I apologize to Lara Trump.'" While Tapper claimed Trump "saw something that I did not see at the time," he has subsequently suggested that he was duped because the Biden White House wasn't being honest. "And I think that we need to be skeptical of everything that we are told by people in power. And I mean that obviously should be the mantra of being a journalist to begin with. If your mother tells you she loves you, get a second source," Tapper said on PBS last week. "But we just need to remember that. Like, politicians lie. White Houses lie. Power is an aphrodisiac, and we just need to all remember that and not take at face value anything that we're told." Greenwald said the exchange, which also involved The Atlantic's Jeffery Goldberg, was embarrassing. "Watching a person who is 56 years old, who has been in... journalism for 30 years, be asked by Jeffrey Goldberg, 'What is the lesson that we are all supposed to take from this?' And then he says -- as though it was the most profound insight -- 'We really have to remember that people in power lie... and, therefore, we can't take what they say at face value.' If I were to teach a journalism course to eighth graders, that would be the very first thing I would emphasize on the very first day," he noted. As he explained, it is hard to believe "Jake Tapper just woke up," but he thinks the framing is part of a larger strategy. Tapper and Thompson reportedly hired a crisis PR firm to help them navigate the book launch, and Greenwald said he sees those fingerprints are all over the authors' media tour -- beginning with their appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show. "[Tapper] kept using this phrase with you... 'I look back on my coverage with some humility.' This is the kind of thing that they tell you to say so that you seem like you're taking accountability even though you are absolutely not," Greenwald noted. "Like, what does that mean? You were the one who helped to lead the cover up that you are now... making millions of dollars off of exposing. It is a huge scandal."
Matt Taibbi is unimpressed by Jake Tapper's Brave Shoeleather Reporting five years too late:
Jake Tapper's Biden Book is Hilarious and Insane
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's mass media apologia is leaps and bounds more demented than the book's subject, Joe Biden It was this guy's fault! I wasn't going to do it, really. After stepping to the edge of nervous collapse of late, I promised, no more Conventional Wisdom Bestsellers. I saw Abundance in an airport and turned away before registering cover art. I had the same plan for Original Sin, the "controversial" book in which CNN's Jake Tapper teams with Alex Thompson of Axios to get real about the media and Joe Biden's health. One moment of late-night weakness later, I was reading from Chapter One, "He Totally Fucked Us":Holy catfish! I thought from online buzz that Original Sin was a mea culpa. It would own press failures to cover Joe Biden's infirmity in a super-belated version of Canadian comic Bruce McCullough's "I'm sorry I caused all that cancer" routine. But Original Sin isn't that. It's much crazier! Instead of a dreary and predictable book-length excuse for thousands of media professionals simultaneously whiffing on the most obvious story in history, it's an ambitious book-length effort to absolve all concerned, pin an industry's coverage mistake on its President Droolcup subject (a gambit many times ballsier than blaming one reporter, a la Judith Miller), all while additionally swirling a new storm system of bullshit storylines to delay more serious questions about things like who was just president for four years. It's the opposite of a mea culpa and the literary degree of difficulty is awesome, equivalent to a blind unicyclist trying to juggle six chainsaws. Do Jake and Alex pull it off? They don't! But they sure leave a hell of a lot of blood on stage.... The book's opening lines tell us we're supposed to be shocked by Joe Biden's delusional state...
No one thought that the Harris campaign had been without error. But for the most knowledgeable Democratic officials and donors, and for top members of the Harris campaign, there was no question about the father of this election calamity: It was Joe Biden. Harris, loyal to Biden to a fault, might never say such a thing. But plenty of people around her would... "We got so screwed by Biden as a party," David Plouffe, who helped run the Harris campaign, told us.. Harris, he said, was a "great soldier," but the compressed 107-day race was "a fucking nightmare." "And it's all Biden," Plouffe said. Referring to Biden's decision to run for reelection, then wait more than three weeks to bow out, Plouffe added: "He totally fucked us."
In the introduction, Tapper and Thompson explain theirs is a literary porridge not too hot, not too cold, but just right. Those who are "convinced that Joe Biden was little more than a husk from the very beginning of his presidency, barely capable of stringing two sentences together, will not find support for that view here," they write, while those who insist he was "unaddled" to the end and "his rumored deterioration was all right-wing propaganda" are just as wrong. I belong in the first camp, writing in Rolling Stone before his election that Biden "on multiple occasions looked close to grabbing prospective voters by the ears and speed-eating their faces off" and "often he looks around like he expects a thumbs-up for giving in to his rage-response." ...
Anyone who recalls this will find it very hard to take the Tapper/Thompson line that Biden was fine at the start but not at the end, and at some point in between his incapacity became obvious enough to be "melting before our eyes," only not so obvious that anyone but Biden could be blamed for lying about it. It hurts my brain to think about the math of that one. The book is also filled with passages like:...
Millions were shocked by Biden's unintelligible, slack-jawed performance at the debate, but some Democrats weren't surprised at all. Though they had seen him like this behind closed doors, they didn't say anything. For a variety of reasons, they rationalized their silence.
Meanwhile the authors never address the monstrous ethical/legal issues that should be at issue in a book whose apparent revelations are about Biden's incapacity being more extensive than known. Who was making decisions in that case, not just about who should be Run Against Trump (all these people seem to care about), but everything? ... Tapper right now is getting toasted by everyone from Jon Stewart to Hunter Biden for saying things like, "I do not accept that I was part of a cover-up," but I almost feel like that's too serious a criticism for a book like this. People should more find it funny, for its sheer irrelevance and circle-jerkness. Is it wrong to be entertained, or is that the least this kind of media can do for us?
Posted by: Ace at 03:25 PM | Comments (243) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Supreme Court Has Deigned to Allow Trump to Be President On a Case-by-Case Basis
Apparently this is controversial -- Democrat EOs have More Constitutional Power than Republican ones, but the Supreme Court will allow a Republican EO to cancel a Democrat one just this once.
In an unsigned order that seven of the justices backed, the court stayed a district court decision that prevented the Trump administration from revoking Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from over a half-million migrants in the US. The court's order allows the Department of Homeland Security to initiate removal processes for these migrants even while a First Circuit appellate panel considers the case on appeal. ... Presumably, seven justices on the Supreme Court recognize that policy control comes with democratic elections as an expression of the will of the electorate. Since the apparent 7-2 majority on this order never explain themselves, we can only presume that they feel Trump is likely to prevail on that basis. We do get a big hint in that direction by the language of the stay: the court has ordered a stay to remain in effect regardless of how the First Circuit rules in due course on the appeal. If the appeal sides with the district court, it will have no effect as long as the White House seeks cert with the Supreme Court "in a timely manner." Clearly, the seven justices -- including Elena Kagan, interestingly -- feel that the Trump administration is likely to prevail on the merits if and when they review the case.Ketanji Brown and Wise Latina Sotomayor dissented. See the link for that sh*tshow. Stephen Milller blasted a CNN reporter for resorting to leftwing euphemisms for "illegal aliens with criminal records as long as the Rio Grande." Rusty Weiss at RedState:
Brown questioned Miller on the case, using the flowery descriptor of Reyes as an "undocumented migrant." She also failed to note the Mexican national's criminal record while portraying him in an isolated manner as a "victim of a crime." Miller wasn't interested in playing games. "I want to clarify what you mean so we're talking about the same thing," Miller replied. "Are you saying this immigrant was here illegally?"Video at the link. Kinda-sorta related, if you squint: The FBI is finally going to investigate antifa terrorists.
Brown falsely claimed she had clarified her comments when, in reality, she only altered the phrasing from "undocumented migrant" to "undocumented immigrant." He is neither of those. With a criminal record, he is most definitely documented. And he is neither a migrant nor an immigrant; he is a criminal illegal alien, regardless of what another criminal may have done to set him up. "You said undocumented, and I wasn't clear what that means," Miller continued, noting that such a word could assert that he simply had a fake ID. Brown was disgusted with the retort. "I want this to be, and call me naive, a good faith discussion about what's happening right now," she countered. Miller shot back, "When we use language that's designed to obscure the truth, that's not good faith. An illegal alien is an illegal alien. They're not an 'undocumented migrant.'"
Posted by: Ace at 02:21 PM | Comments (328) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The "Moderate" Governor of Colorado, Championed by NeverTrump as a Solid Conservative-Leaning Libertarian, Mandates That All Coloradans Will Be Forced to Pay for the Sex Change Surgeries of Children (and All Others)
Say, have any of you begun to suspect that NeverTrump was always a gaggle of mediocre liberals who realized they could infiltrate the GOP and make a lot of money?
Erin for Parental RightsThat post here, linking Polis' tyrannical dictate. Note that there will be zero district court judges who rule against his abrogation of free speech rights. He now claims it's a crime to "deadname" or "misgender" people. And the district court judges will all say "Yup, this is The Law now."
@Erin4Parents Wow. @GovofCO just signed a bill forcing all of us to pay for elective transgender-affirming procedure... this bill even includes a slush fund to circumvent Medicaid no longer covering this. Women of CO: you will all now be paying for men's breast implants, laser hair removal and skin tightening. But your insurance will NOT cover any of these elective procedures for you. Let that sink in. *1309 also takes testosterone off the drug tracking program. So the wrong-sex hormones you're paying for for children will be secret.
Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (319) | Trackbacks (Suck)
David Hogg on Project Veritas Video: Boy Nancy Pelosi Sure Is Good at Picking Stocks, Huh?
Video at the link. Maybe Jake Tapper will get around to "reporting" on this in 2037. "We just didn't have any Nancy Pelosi insiders who would go 'on the record' about her clearly getting insider information to beat the hedge funds every single year," he'll say. And he will look back on his failure to ask questions about this "with humility." David Hogg's undercover camera disclosures are almost as embarrassing as what Michelle Obama freely talks about on her podcast. Below, Michelle Obama complains about being put upon. She complains specifically that at all of the ritzy political fundraisers she attended -- and remember, she took a free house from Tony Rezko, and scored a $300,000 per year no-show hospital "job" in Chicago arranged by The Machine -- political glad-handers would reach over her head to shake Obama's hand.
Key Quotes - David Hogg, Vice Chair, Democratic National Committee "[Pelosi] gets better returns than almost every hedge fund in this city. Every year." I know that if I pick that fight [with Pelosi], it's going to be harder for us to get gun control passed. So I have to pick my battles." "Conveniently they [Members of Congress] happen to be some of the best financial analysts in human history." "I just want to burn everything down because it's all so corrupt." Project Veritas has released Part Two of a shocking undercover meeting with DNC Vice Chair David Hogg criticizing former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress for suspiciously timed stock trades that suggest insider knowledge. In the footage, Hogg admits that Pelosi's financial success - worth hundreds of millions - outpaces even the best hedge funds, raising serious questions about corruption at the highest levels of the political party he seeks to lead. "I would say Pelosi's actually very good at her job. I don't agree with the stock trading stuff," Hogg says in the video.
"Some of these members of Congress make trades that are, like, way too well-timed to not have, like, insider knowledge." He goes further, stating, "She gets better returns than almost every hedge fund in the city. Every year." When pressed by a Veritas journalist on whether this is how Pelosi amassed her wealth, Hogg responds unequivocally: "Yes." He acknowledges the systemic issue, noting, "They happen to be some of the best financial analysts in human history," dripping with sarcasm about the improbability of Congress members' market success without insider information.
Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (397) | Trackbacks (Suck)
THE MORNING RANT: Revolution or Evolution? Maybe AI is Simply this Decade’s Microwave Oven or Calculator 
when I was in grade school. This space-age device could cook a roast in mere minutes! Cooking was clearly being revolutionized, and baking was now obsolete. My buddy and I loved to snack on baked potatoes because it was so amazing to pop one into the microwave and have a steaming hot spud in just minutes. Fifty years later I only use my microwave oven for re-heating and for TV dinners, and even then, I still prefer to reheat food in the toaster oven. The oven and stove top are still heavily used.
The Concorde jet went into commercial service in 1976, and we saw the future in it - supersonic air travel would have us whisking across continents in less time than it takes to drive from Dallas to Houston. Forty-nine years later there are no supersonic commercial airplanes in service.
In high school I was still writing term papers long-hand, then typing them once I had all my scratch-outs re-worked. Word Processors were going to revolutionize writing. And they did! Thanks to Word Perfect, and later Microsoft Word, I gained the ability to put words on paper almost as fast as I can think, and easily edit myself. But it’s still me doing the writing and typing.
Similarly, spreadsheets (first LOTUS and then Excel) simplified calculations for me, and made calculators obsolete. But this just enabled me to do more complex calculations by myself.
Watching movies at home (other than network broadcasts with commercials) was a foreign concept in my youth, but HBO came along, and then video rentals. This seemed like an awful development for movie theaters, but instead, movie theaters thrived and continued to evolve for several more decades. It wasn’t movies at home that finally killed off theaters, it was the imposition of Covid sharia combined with awful studio offerings that dealt the crippling blow.
A decade ago, with auto manufacturers putting the first self-driving cars through limited real-world test drives, it was reported as a fact that self-driving cars would dominate sales by the 2020s, and that driving as we always knew it was about to be obsolete. While there are a handful of self-driving taxis in a few cities, I know exactly zero people that own a true self-driving car and most manufacturers are no longer promising them in the near future.
Most of these revolutionary new products simply turned out to be tools that were adapted into daily use. Microwaves are a tool in the kitchen, mainly used for re-heating. Word processors replaced typewriters. With “lane assist” and cruise control, my car has the ability to drive itself on highways without any inputs from me. These are all cool improvements, but they did not replace cooking, writing, or driving.
My experience so far with AI is that it can possibly improve internet research, but beyond that, it doesn’t do a very good job at cognitive analysis. Plus, it is constrained by the political biases it’s fed, so it is probably not capable of producing original thoughts or ideas that a conservative writer would produce. That will be left to actual thinkers.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
when I was in grade school. This space-age device could cook a roast in mere minutes! Cooking was clearly being revolutionized, and baking was now obsolete. My buddy and I loved to snack on baked potatoes because it was so amazing to pop one into the microwave and have a steaming hot spud in just minutes. Fifty years later I only use my microwave oven for re-heating and for TV dinners, and even then, I still prefer to reheat food in the toaster oven. The oven and stove top are still heavily used.
The Concorde jet went into commercial service in 1976, and we saw the future in it - supersonic air travel would have us whisking across continents in less time than it takes to drive from Dallas to Houston. Forty-nine years later there are no supersonic commercial airplanes in service.
In high school I was still writing term papers long-hand, then typing them once I had all my scratch-outs re-worked. Word Processors were going to revolutionize writing. And they did! Thanks to Word Perfect, and later Microsoft Word, I gained the ability to put words on paper almost as fast as I can think, and easily edit myself. But it’s still me doing the writing and typing.
Similarly, spreadsheets (first LOTUS and then Excel) simplified calculations for me, and made calculators obsolete. But this just enabled me to do more complex calculations by myself.
Watching movies at home (other than network broadcasts with commercials) was a foreign concept in my youth, but HBO came along, and then video rentals. This seemed like an awful development for movie theaters, but instead, movie theaters thrived and continued to evolve for several more decades. It wasn’t movies at home that finally killed off theaters, it was the imposition of Covid sharia combined with awful studio offerings that dealt the crippling blow.
A decade ago, with auto manufacturers putting the first self-driving cars through limited real-world test drives, it was reported as a fact that self-driving cars would dominate sales by the 2020s, and that driving as we always knew it was about to be obsolete. While there are a handful of self-driving taxis in a few cities, I know exactly zero people that own a true self-driving car and most manufacturers are no longer promising them in the near future.
Most of these revolutionary new products simply turned out to be tools that were adapted into daily use. Microwaves are a tool in the kitchen, mainly used for re-heating. Word processors replaced typewriters. With “lane assist” and cruise control, my car has the ability to drive itself on highways without any inputs from me. These are all cool improvements, but they did not replace cooking, writing, or driving.
My experience so far with AI is that it can possibly improve internet research, but beyond that, it doesn’t do a very good job at cognitive analysis. Plus, it is constrained by the political biases it’s fed, so it is probably not capable of producing original thoughts or ideas that a conservative writer would produce. That will be left to actual thinkers.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (398) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Mid-Morning Art Thread
Esther before Ahasuerus
Artemisia Gentileschi There is a small art museum about a 10 minute walk from me, and they had an exhibition of the works of Artemisia Gentileschi. What the hell...give it a shot. Wow. Incredible. I have posted her stuff before, but seeing dozens of her pieces in person really drove home how talented she was. I don't care about the "I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR!" crap about her. What I like is her incredible art. She isn't as good as Caravaggio, because nobody is, but she is nipping at his heels.
Esther before Ahasuerus
Artemisia Gentileschi There is a small art museum about a 10 minute walk from me, and they had an exhibition of the works of Artemisia Gentileschi. What the hell...give it a shot. Wow. Incredible. I have posted her stuff before, but seeing dozens of her pieces in person really drove home how talented she was. I don't care about the "I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR!" crap about her. What I like is her incredible art. She isn't as good as Caravaggio, because nobody is, but she is nipping at his heels.
Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (196) | Trackbacks (Suck)
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