Tuesday, July 11, 2017
I Admit I Am More Interested In The Intrigue
Who is trying to drown Fredo? Is Fredo trying to take everyone else down on purpose or is he too stupid to realize what he is doing?
We All Live In The System
The joke is, "So you say you're a socialist, but you bought something today, didn't you?" Total own!!!
More generally, we all live in this system and I'm not for shaming anyone for buying the wrong product or failing to use the Current Approved List of companies. It would be impossible to do so in any kind of consistent fashion and if you're shaming someone for buying X when you are buying equally bad Y then you are just an asshole.
Similarly, the headline here is bad, making it sound like the MP says *using Uber is morally unacceptable* when she is just saying that she finds the company's practices are morally unacceptable. These are different things. One puts the burden on consumers, the other on the company (and the people who run it) itself.
Having said that, it is, of course, good to personally behave in ethical ways related to your consumer habits, and sometimes targeted boycotts have tremendous PR value even if the specific boycott target isn't necessarily a worse offender than the rest of them. Educate and engage in effective actions, don't shame. None of us can boycott everything, as the list of large companies that don't deserve to be boycotted is probably smaller than the list of companies that do.
More generally, we all live in this system and I'm not for shaming anyone for buying the wrong product or failing to use the Current Approved List of companies. It would be impossible to do so in any kind of consistent fashion and if you're shaming someone for buying X when you are buying equally bad Y then you are just an asshole.
Similarly, the headline here is bad, making it sound like the MP says *using Uber is morally unacceptable* when she is just saying that she finds the company's practices are morally unacceptable. These are different things. One puts the burden on consumers, the other on the company (and the people who run it) itself.
Having said that, it is, of course, good to personally behave in ethical ways related to your consumer habits, and sometimes targeted boycotts have tremendous PR value even if the specific boycott target isn't necessarily a worse offender than the rest of them. Educate and engage in effective actions, don't shame. None of us can boycott everything, as the list of large companies that don't deserve to be boycotted is probably smaller than the list of companies that do.
Which Three People
The funny thing in all of this is people high up in the administration are sticking it to Fredo.
These people aren't really identified here, but previously three people (likely the same) were identified as "advisers to the White House." That's a bit ambiguous, but not so broad as to include the entire universe of people.
WASHINGTON — Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.
These people aren't really identified here, but previously three people (likely the same) were identified as "advisers to the White House." That's a bit ambiguous, but not so broad as to include the entire universe of people.
Fan Service
I've always rolled my eyes at the highly paid advice that Democrats just need to mention Jesus a bit more often or pepper their speeches with references to the joys of state fair fried foods or whatever. However, I also roll my eyes at the idea that Democrats should pepper their speeches with references to whatever it is liberals are supposedly into that week (and I think social media creates a distillation of this culture-of-the-minute which makes it too easy to get a sense of what that might be). It was never about rejecting a bit of biblespeak or nods to Red America, it was about the idea that this kind of cultural affinity signalling attracts people to politicians, or attracts more people than it alienates, anyway.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Robots Are Hard Work
Very hard.
This is never going to work, as I keep saying.
For those people who think that a million cars on the road uploading more data to the mothership and each other constantly will solve it, the article gets into the fact that the individual cars *already* collect too much data to be transmitted in real time across cell networks and have to be transported physically.
Somewhat related: why does Uber have 14,000 employees? And that doesn't include the drivers, Who Are Not Employees So Stop Saying That.
Yet like so many fantastical stories, there are “wizards” hidden behind the curtain — lots of them. Constructing the road to fully automated driving, it turns out, requires a lot of manual labour.
Most companies working on this technology employ hundreds or even thousands of people, often in offshore outsourcing centres in India or China, whose job it is to teach the robo-cars to recognise pedestrians, cyclists and other obstacles. The workers do this by manually marking up or “labelling” thousands of hours of video footage, often frame by frame, taken from prototype vehicles driving around testbeds such as Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh and Phoenix.
This is never going to work, as I keep saying.
For those people who think that a million cars on the road uploading more data to the mothership and each other constantly will solve it, the article gets into the fact that the individual cars *already* collect too much data to be transmitted in real time across cell networks and have to be transported physically.
Somewhat related: why does Uber have 14,000 employees? And that doesn't include the drivers, Who Are Not Employees So Stop Saying That.
Taking Sides
Our "objective media" likes to pretend they don't take sides, but on some issues they do whether they realize it or not. Free trade is always good, whether or not it has anything to do with actual free trade. Entitlements are bad, because "everyone serious" says so. Too many people are on disability, because lazy moochers. America is good and war is good and we are always motivated by good. Okay, those are the dumb things. Also there are some better things, at least in vague terms, like "racism is bad" and "democracy is good" and the corollary of the latter which is "voting is good."
Obviously there's a long history of explicit voter suppression. Literacy tests etc. Those we all agree are Bad. But there's also been decades of sneakier but not exactly hidden voter suppression efforts which are, you know, bothsides, whocansay, thetruthissomewhereinthemiddle.
One problem in the age of Trump is the press is horrible at standing up for itself. It's even worse at standing up for some basic bedrock ideals "we" all claim to sorta believe in. It's a problem.
Obviously there's a long history of explicit voter suppression. Literacy tests etc. Those we all agree are Bad. But there's also been decades of sneakier but not exactly hidden voter suppression efforts which are, you know, bothsides, whocansay, thetruthissomewhereinthemiddle.
One problem in the age of Trump is the press is horrible at standing up for itself. It's even worse at standing up for some basic bedrock ideals "we" all claim to sorta believe in. It's a problem.
I've Screwed The Pooch, Who Else Wants Some Blame
Theresa May will call on her opponents to "contribute, not just criticise" on her first anniversary of becoming Prime Minister
— Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) July 9, 2017
Brexit was dumb idea, but Brexit has been run just like the Bushies ran Iraq after the invasion. You know, questioning the patriotism of critics, claiming that any failure is just due to a lack of people clapping loud enough. And now they're demanding that critics help them unshit the bed.
It doesn't make it any more moral, of course, but at least we mostly did Iraq to Iraqis (other than money and US soldiers of course, minor things). Brexit is just like pounding a hammer into your face and then when someone tries to get you to stop you demand they help you keep hammering.
And The Night Falls
Chris Uhlmann's assessment of Trump's performance at the G20 meeting is worth watching:
Uhlmann, an Australian conservative journalist, believes that:
So.
Uhlmann, an Australian conservative journalist, believes that:
Donald Trump has pressed fast forward on the decline of the United States as a global power. ... He will cede that power to China and Russia -- two authoritarian states that will forge a very different set of rules for the 21st century.
So.
Sunday, July 09, 2017
Drip
I like the drip reporting. Drip, have them respond with lies and let them hang themselves.
And consider what the hell is going on in that White House where "three advisers to the White House" are happily sticking it to Uday or Qusay or whichever one he is.
Aren't Javanka White House advisers?
President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.
The meeting was also attended by his campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner only recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in confidential government documents described to The New York Times.
Yesterday Trump Jr said the meeting was about adoption.
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 9, 2017
A few months ago he denied that a meeting like this ever happened https://t.co/zECebf5Wfc
And consider what the hell is going on in that White House where "three advisers to the White House" are happily sticking it to Uday or Qusay or whichever one he is.
Aren't Javanka White House advisers?
The Ethical Dilemmas Of The Self-Driving Car
I am sure some geniuses in charge of working on the software for these things think about these issues, but I am also sure that they are just things to worry about to prevent them from worrying about the things that actually matter.
The "trolley problem" is a bit like the "ticking time bomb torture scenario" or the "would you travel back in time to kill baby Hitler?" scenario. Something to talk about when you're stoned in your freshman dorm room, but not actually a way of confronting serious problems.
Better to spend time on worrying about making brakes that don't fail, is the point...
JULY 7, 2017 —Imagine that you’re driving through a residential area when your brakes fail. Directly in your path is a group of five jaywalkers. The only place to swerve is onto the sidewalk, where a pedestrian is waiting for the signal to change.
Who do you run over, the five jaywalkers or the one law-abiding citizen?
The "trolley problem" is a bit like the "ticking time bomb torture scenario" or the "would you travel back in time to kill baby Hitler?" scenario. Something to talk about when you're stoned in your freshman dorm room, but not actually a way of confronting serious problems.
Better to spend time on worrying about making brakes that don't fail, is the point...
I Guess You Don't Value Your Own Time Very Much?
I don't really believe he's spending that much time recruiting, but if we take it at face value, not only does he not think workers are worth anything, he thinks he isn't either!
How about a little more? And, you know, if that "80 to 90 percent of my time" could be spent, say, getting more business...
Anyway, for years economists, were obsessed with wages being "downward sticky," as in lamenting the tragedy that during a recession wages wouldn't just magically fall so that we could achieve full employment poverty through the magic of the marketplace. 9 years after the Great Recession we should understand that wages have become "upward sticky." Bosses believe it is their God given right to never give a raise, and if they have to it means there's something wrong with the economy. Related: the Fed needs to raise rates despite the fact that they don't hit their own inflation target because reasons.
That’s a familiar problem to Tom Thompson, owner of Star Cleaning Systems in Columbus, Ohio. He is looking to add two or three part-time workers to his 20-member staff.
“Very few people show up for interviews, and if they do, they don’t show up for the job,” Mr. Thompson said. “I’m spending 80 to 90 percent of my time recruiting. I triple-book appointments for interviews, and I’m lucky if I get one person to show up.”
He is offering $9.25 an hour to start, with bonuses and increases for workers who stick around. Running a new company, he said, he cannot afford to pay significantly more.
How about a little more? And, you know, if that "80 to 90 percent of my time" could be spent, say, getting more business...
Anyway, for years economists, were obsessed with wages being "downward sticky," as in lamenting the tragedy that during a recession wages wouldn't just magically fall so that we could achieve full employment poverty through the magic of the marketplace. 9 years after the Great Recession we should understand that wages have become "upward sticky." Bosses believe it is their God given right to never give a raise, and if they have to it means there's something wrong with the economy. Related: the Fed needs to raise rates despite the fact that they don't hit their own inflation target because reasons.
Cuomo 2020
The grift in the Democratic party is good, or Cuomo deluded (both), if he thinks he can succeed in 2020. I don't think he'll be popular with Democrats generally, but while The Left is not all powerful, I do think preventing him from achieving the heights of success of the Lieberman '04 campaign will be easy and fun. We all need hobbies.
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