Archive for 2024
February 27, 2024
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Commercial foreclosures increase 97% from last year to near decade-high. A friend comments that the commercial real estate folks will be the first to own nothing, but they won’t like it.
ICYMI: #JOURNALISM:
Lots of legacy reporters are writing about Putin without mentioning that Putin endorsed Joe Biden for President 2024.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 23, 2024
READER FAVORITE: FLANCCI Men’s Slim Wallet with Money Clip. #CommissionEarned
MORE ON THE GOOGLE DEBACLE, from Megan McArdle:
And on the scale of things, “draws too many Black founding fathers” isn’t much of a problem.
That’s the story I was telling myself — and planned to tell you — on Friday. Unfortunately, though, once Google shut down Gemini’s image generation, users turned to probing its text output. And as those absurdities piled up, things began to look la lot worse for Google — and society. Gemini appears to have been programmed to avoid offending the leftmost 5 percent of the U.S. political distribution, at the price of offending the rightmost 50 percent.
It effortlessly wrote toasts praising Democratic politicians — even controversial ones such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) — while deeming every elected Republican I tried too controversial, even Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who had stood up to President Donald Trump’s election malfeasance. It had no trouble condemning the Holocaust but offered caveats about complexity in denouncing the murderous legacies of Stalin and Mao. It would praise essays in favor of abortion rights, but not those against.
Google appeared to be shutting down many of the problematic queries as they were revealed on social media, but people easily found more. These mistakes seem to be baked deep into Gemini’s architecture. When it stopped answering requests for praise of politicians, I asked it to write odes to various journalists, including (ahem) me. In trying this, I think I identified the political line at which Gemini decides you’re too controversial to compliment: I got a sonnet, but my colleague George Will, who is only a smidge to my right, was deemed too controversial. When I repeated the exercise for New York Times columnists, it praised David Brooks but not Ross Douthat.
I am at a loss to explain how Google released an AI that blithely anathematizes half its customer base, and half the politicians who regulate the company.
On that last point: A friend writes: “I think that a very underpriced risk for Google re its colossal AI fuck up is a highly-motivated and -politicized Department of Justice under a Trump administration setting its sights on Google. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, as they say, and Trump would like nothing more than to score points against Silicon Valley and its putrid racist politics.”
Yep. I’d rather we didn’t have a politicized Justice Department at all, of course, but that ship sailed long ago.
I have some related thoughts in this Substack essay.
ATTRITION: Budget Request Shows Chinese Incursions Straining Taiwan’s Military Fuel Funds. “The military requiring more funds to pay for fuel is due to two reasons. The first reason is due to the Taiwanese Air Force and Navy using their allotted fuel faster than expected to respond to daily incursions by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The other reason stated in the letter is due to high fuel prices not decreasing, which led to a shortfall in the military’s budget to buy the fuel required for all of its equipment. The military’s use of all its fuel budget occurred even after the military followed a policy of buying fuel, controlled the amount of fuel each branch used, and increased the efficiency of fuel purchasing and storage.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Rutgers professor who appeared on panel with Hamas commander set to speak at Harvard.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Barnard College students must remove door decorations – to not ‘isolate those with different views’.
ANDREW KLAVAN: Words, Words, Words.
IN OTHER NEWS, THE SCHOOL JUST ANNOUNCED THAT ITS ACTIVITY FEE IS NOW $59,000 PER YEAR. A widow unexpectedly received $1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock. Now, she’s covering Bronx med students’ tuition forever. “A year’s tuition at the school is over $59,000, leaving many graduates with more than $200,000 in debt, the Times reported.”
THEY KEEP TELLING ME THE ECONOMY IS BOOMING BUT I KEEP FINDING STORIES LIKE THIS ONE: Kellogg CEO faces backlash for suggesting people eat ‘cereal for dinner’ to save money.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Pro-Hamas Lunatics Are Louder, Dumber, and More Unstable Than Ever. “The Obama years emboldened American leftists; the Biden years have weaponized them. It’s understandable. After they succeeded in leg-humping the pandemic and using it to install a senile puppet in the Oval Office, they probably thought they were invincible.”
SHE’S UNDERPERFORMING: Nikki Haley’s home-state loss is unique in US politics.
YOU WON’T SEE THIS IN THE NYT, WP: New Issues&Insights/TIPP survey finds 62 percent of the respondents saying Biden should leave the White House if the corruption allegations pursued by House Republicans prove true.
WOEING: FAA panel finds Boeing safety culture wanting, recommends overhaul.
The report, written by a panel of independent aviation experts, cites “a disconnect” between Boeing’s senior management and engineering employees with respect to safety oversight. It states the panel “observed inadequate and confusing implementation” of essential elements of a positive safety culture.
The report focuses particularly on how Boeing manages engineering employees who conduct internal oversight on behalf of the FAA, work that is delegated to Boeing by the safety agency.
More than 1,000 such Boeing employees are legally required to have “a commitment to safety above all other priorities.”
However, the panel flags concern that those employees may be fearful of raising safety issues that cause delays in certification or production, stating that the jetmaker’s internal safety reporting systems may not function “in a way that ensures open communication and non-retaliation.”
The report acknowledges that changes Boeing made since 2020 have encouraged employees to speak up more, but it concludes that the current culture “still allows opportunities for retaliation to occur, particularly with regards to salary and furlough ranking.”
Boeing’s white-collar union representing engineers and technical staff, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), on Monday said its members “have long reported a disconnect between the messaging they get from Boeing headquarters in Chicago or Virginia, and the messages they get from their direct supervisors here.”
“The report reflects the reality that people who see something are afraid of saying anything for fear of jeopardizing their careers,” SPEEA added in a statement.
That fear is generated from the top, where the deepest changes need to be made.
HISTORY’S GREATEST MONSTER: New White House Christmas ornament a tribute to Jimmy Carter.
Come to think of it, the Biden Administration bears a certain resemblance to the Quimby Administration.
NOTHING’S EVER ENOUGH FOR THEM:
Even when you burn yourself alive for left wing ideology, it isn't enough for the far left pic.twitter.com/H6wWSltJcN
— Harrison Krank (@HarrisonKrank) February 26, 2024
LIGHTNING DEAL: AMAZTIM Smart Watch, 60 Days Extra-Long Battery. #CommissionEarned
CHANGE: Self-checkouts are disappearing from retailers. Here’s why.
It’s the not-so-secret secret: retail chains are doing away with these lanes, and many do not want to talk about it.
In December, SFGATE.com reported that Target quietly removed self-checkouts in San Francisco, calling it “a trend in ‘defensive retailing’ that may soon spread across the city.”
Other reports say Target, when it does allow self-checkout, is only doing so for customers with ten items or less. No more big carts full of items.
Other chains, including Costco, have been dealing with the issue, saying that “shrink,” or the measure by which chains track retail theft, has increased in part due to the rollout of self-checkout.
Target and Costco did not respond to questions regarding the issue.
Now, California crime trends may be proving too costly.
You can’t enjoy high-trust conveniences in low-trust societies.
IF YOU WON’T STAND UP FOR YOUR OWN ANTHEM, YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE A CITIZEN! Members of the Cal softball team knelt for the national anthem, the crowd absolutely gave it to them, and they ended up getting demolished.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Blue States Advance From Slow-Motion Suicide to Fast-Action.
Upon hearing word of the English defeat at Saratoga during the American Revolutionary War, a young nobleman named John Sinclair wrote to his friend, the Scottish economist and political philosopher, Adam Smith.
“If we go on at this rate, the nation must be ruined!”
“Be assured, my young friend,” Smith calmly assured Sinclair in his reply, “that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron, traveling back through time, wrote, “Hold our beers!”
Much more at the link.
NEVER LISTEN TO THE GREENS: Klamath Dam Removal: ‘It’s an Environmental Disaster.’
The removal of dams along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, Northern California was sold as necessary to save salmon – specifically, “to restore habitat for endangered fish.” . . .
It sounded good on paper – at least it did to the bureaucrats agitating for it.
But according to local officials, “it’s an environmental disaster.”
“I’ve been around natural disasters all of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Siskiyou County Supervisor Ray Haupt recently told the Globe. “The river is essentially dead, as is everything in it.”
Haupt was a District Ranger in the Klamath National Forest for 33 years, retired in 2010, and now owns a Forest and Natural Resources Consulting Business. He is a California Registered Professional Forester, a member of the California Professional Foresters Association, an Ag advisor for Etna High School and the College of the Siskiyous tech programs, and is an author of multiple Forest Management and Fire Policies for NAFSR, the National Association of Forest Services Retirees.
Haupt said the sediment plume extends 2 miles into the ocean. And he and local residents are witnessing a massive salmon extinction event.
Plus:
Many have seen dead fish stranded in the mud, and on Jan. 27, residents spotted a doe and yearling that had become hopelessly stuck trying to reach water. Volunteer firefighters from the Hornbrook Fire Protection District tried to rescue the mired animals but abandoned the mission as dusk fell. Soon after, an officer from California Department of Fish and Wildlife euthanized the deer.
“The mud was so thick; it was so far out there; they tried so hard,” said Chrissie Reynolds, a long-time resident of Copco Lake who drove to the scene to try to help. “But all that time, those animals were suffering.”
Imagine the tear-jerking media coverage if there were a way to blame Republicans or business.