onfocus

For those Americans who are still tempted to return him to the presidency or to not vote in November, it is worth considering the assessment of Mr. Trump by those who have seen him up close.

Quotes from people who worked closely with Trump. They don’t paint a picture of competence.

He is not a disaster waiting to happen. He is a disaster that has already happened.

An article by Admiral Steve Abbot who served as deputy Homeland Security Adviser to President George W. Bush.

Trump elaborated on his proposal to eliminate the Department of Education by describing what he envisioned the agency would look like: “I think you will have like one person plus a secretary. You’ll have a secretary. The secretary will have one person plus a secretary. And all the person has to do is: Are you teaching English? Are you teaching arithmetic? What are you doing? Reading, writing and arithmetic. And are you not teaching woke? Not teaching woke is a very big factor. But we’ll have a very small staff.”

Trump should not be in charge of anything, and least of all the most powerful military in the world.

It alleges that he always planned to declare victory no matter the result, and laid the groundwork for this long before election day. It also accuses him of knowingly spreading false claims about the vote that he himself deemed "crazy".

Since the Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling threw a wrench into the case, we’re suddenly getting a clearer view of what Trump did on January 6th and it’s disgusting. Informed about the danger the violent mob posed to his Vice President Mike Pence, Trump reportedly replied, “So what?”

Let’s not leave unspoken the irony that the guy who basically is WordPress.com, and WordPress.org, and the WordPress Foundation, wants you to think the name “WP Engine” is confusing.

Curious about the WordPress vs. WP Engine drama? This is a good rundown of the situation.

After a few tweaks, I came up with a design that was more rounded. I also printed with a more colorful color, as an ode to Braun 550 Hair Dryer and Jaro Gielen's "Soft Electronics" book.

Such a nice improvement over Braun's current offering. [insert take my money GIF]

To create A.I. businesses, experts predicted, $1 trillion would be spent on data centers, utilities and applications. Mr. Covello thought those costs made it impossible for the industry to inexpensively solve real-world problems, which is what internet companies did decades ago.

As a member of Goldman’s working group on A.I., he reviewed a service that used generative A.I. to automatically update analysts’ spreadsheets with companies’ financial results. He said it saved his analysts about 20 minutes of time per company but cost six times as much money.

I think this is exactly it. AI is too expensive in terms of energy use and is highly subsidized by venture capital at the moment. The minute that money dries up there won't be enough of a payoff to justify the expense.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today announced the introduction of new legislation to restore balance among the three branches of government, increase transparency to improve public trust in America’s courts, and modernize the courts to ensure greater access to justice for more Americans.

Thanks, Senator Wyden! There are good politicians out there working for their constituents. Wyden is consistently fighting the good fight.

The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds.

Please vote for people who care about women. This should not be happening. It’s morally wrong.

But even as that was happening, the Vice President didn’t stoop to a contest of two truths, a contest over which truth voters might pick. She instead made it clear that the basis of the “truth” Trump offers, is a base of weakness and fear. She didn’t refute individual aspects of Trump’s truth. She instead kicked at its foundations, and showed how flimsy it is.

Interesting analysis of Harris' debate strategy. Rather than responding point by point to misinformation, she stayed on the task of dismantling maga mythology.

It is not the case that “AI gathers data from the Web and learns from it.” The reality is that AI companies gather data and then optimize models to reproduce representations of that data for profit. It’s worth preserving distinctions between the process behind building software systems and the social investments that aim to cultivate the human mind.

...

The learning myth downplays the role of data in developing these systems, perpetuating a related myth that data is abundant, cheap, and labor-free. These myths drive down the value of data while hiding the work of those who shape, define, and label that data.

I want to quote this entire essay. So many great points about how generative AI is sold to the public to consider.

To put their own minds at ease, the researchers also calculated the likelihood that one of these tiny black holes would strike Earth and found it would only happen roughly once in a billion years.

With our luck, we’re due.