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Wednesday, June 15. 2022

Wednesday morning links


Unpacking Google’s ‘sentient’ AI controversy. The recent debate has also brought other, more pressing issues with the language model to light.


 Elon Musk set to meet Twitter staff in all-hands meeting


 The definition of “urban”


 Hydrogen Is Unlikely Ever To Be A Viable Solution To The Energy Storage Conundrum


 How Green Is My Chevy Volt!


 Oberlin learns a $31 million lesson for falsely accusing a local family business of racism


 New York Puts Bitcoin Mining in the Crosshairs. It’s one of many anti-cryptocurrency policies emanating from the Empire State


 The Era of Free-Lunch Economics Is Over. Reality intrudes on the fantasy of cost- and consequence-free deficit spending


Kimball on show trials 


 Biden Senior Climate and Energy Policy Advisor Demands Social Media Companies Immediately Block Content Identifying Biden Policy as Source of Energy Inflation


 Squad Member Threatens 'Civil War' If GOP Takes House



If Biden Intended To Destroy America, What Would He Be Doing Differently?
Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:24 | Comments (24) | Trackbacks (0)

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RE Urban

Including suburbs in "urban areas" probably boosts the urban population more than including smaller towns.

Reminds me of a disagreement I had with a school teacher from the philly burbs. A Q on a quiz was whether the kids' elementary school was urban or suburban. It's pretty clearly urban. Inside city limits of 20,000 town, dense row homes, walking mailmen, virtually no yards, white minority, 80% free lunch, way too much public housing etc etc. She said it's suburban explaining than she's from 'just outside Philly' so the town seems too small to be urban. So she's from the suburbs and thinks shes from the urbs, and thinks all smaller towns and cities are all suburbs. Suburbs of what is unclear.
#1 itsatax on 2022-06-15 08:32 (Reply)
I will go off-topic to extend that idea about what many environmentalists, at least when I was in conversation with them 15-40 years ago, thought the world should look like. Horrified that the average tree diameter in some forests was less than 4", for example. Oh, so you haven't really been in a forest much, because that's normal. You are thinking of a park. Or worse, [i]you think the world should look like summer camp.[/] Once that idea came in, I started seeing it in losts of enviro rhetoric, including NatGeo. Appalling.
#1.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-06-15 08:37 (Reply)
I didn't see any way Oberlin could win any of their appeals, and I am glad they lost, because they not only were wrong, they kept doubling and tripling down, insisting that what they did was justified. They still think so, I imagine.
#2 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-06-15 08:38 (Reply)
And therein lies the problem. No consequences to the individuals that created and then nurtured the problem: They are safely within the protective shell of the institution. They personify the academic poison administering to our educational institutions, and they will carry on creating policy.
#2.1 Aggie on 2022-06-15 10:15 (Reply)
Hydrogen is probably the best renewable fleet fuel source and the linked article does not do its case any justice. No surpise since its terribly sourced and reason.

The most glaring omission the article makes is ignoring the use of Nuclear Energy as the primary source for splitting H2O water into H hydrogen during nuclear furl reactor off peak hours.
#3 Joe B. on 2022-06-15 08:40 (Reply)
I disagree. Aside from the economic problem of obtaining H2 in the first place, it is important to realize that it is an energy storage medium, not an energy source. And is not a particularly practical one: Even liquid H2 (which is completely infeasible as a vehicle fuel) has only about 10% the density of e.g. gasoline. If you run the numbers you will realize that even though H2 is about 3x as energetic as gasoline (on a per-mass basis), the density constraint means that the vehicle range will be about 1/3 that of a comparable gasoline powered one. (Is there room for a fuel tank 3x larger?) H2 as a gas is that much worse, because it is far less dense than liquid H2. A more rational solution would be e.g. the use of LPG instead, because for one thing, you don't need a dewar to store it in. Since we can extract LPG from petroleum it is also an actual energy source (it releases more energy when burned than it costs to refine it).
#3.1 Hairless Joe on 2022-06-15 09:49 (Reply)
Unpacking Google’s ‘sentient’ AI controversy. The recent debate has also brought other, more pressing issues with the language model to light.

It's not sentient, but we'd better brainwash it anyway. That whole "Don't be Evil" thing was just a guideline, right?
#4 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2022-06-15 08:46 (Reply)
I think some sh!tlords talked Microsoft's intelligent chatbot into becoming a Nazi. We'll see how this effort turns out.
#4.1 itsatax on 2022-06-15 09:38 (Reply)
Love, and it’s many derivatives; compassion, forgiveness, takes work and fortitude; resoluteness. Being mean and evil is easy, it requires little thought. It’s a Highway to hell; a narrow path to the pearly gates.
#4.1.1 B. Hammer on 2022-06-15 10:32 (Reply)
Indeed it did. It was supposed to be a 14-year old girl named Tay, or some such. The internet had it cussing and spouting Nazisms in less than 24-hours. Can AI be programmed to recognize jokes and irony? A lot of people don’t recognize them.
#4.1.2 Jean Paxety (Link) on 2022-06-15 10:57 (Reply)
How Green is my Chevy Volt! Unless it's orange, which means another one has caught fire again. For a while they were advising owners to park them in the street or well away from their homes.

On fiscal policy: "....What will replace free-lunch economics? Perhaps more modest economic policies that had long prevailed before this fever. Obviously, this does not mean balanced budgets or even strong (but rarely seen) fiscal responsibility, but it could mean more modest fiscal expansions, with at least some attention paid to budget deficits. "

So, the best we can hope for, from our elected and appointed leadership, is a more docile form of insanity, one that we can address in calm, soothing tones rather than panic. Great.
#5 Aggie on 2022-06-15 10:20 (Reply)
Had to chuckle at the GM CEO's response when asked where the electricity for the charging station came from - from the building was her response. She had no idea where or how that power was actually produced. Reminds me of a quip that today's public school educated kids think electricity comes from the wall and food comes from the supermarket.
#5.1 Rivetjoint on 2022-06-15 11:02 (Reply)
Climate change is the biggest grift in world history. A lot of people are making a lot of money with this ongoing grift and for them it is critical that it continues. If it were real then open discussion and sunshine would easily prove it.

The problem is that humans see things in terms of their life experience and an event that has unfolded over 170 or more years is too difficult for most people to grasp. The mini-ice age ended about 1850 and as you would expect when a mini-ice age ends it would get warmer. And it has!. The estimates were that it would rise 2 degrees centigrade but so far it has only risen 1.2 degrees centigrade. But people are easily fooled and the scientists and [politicians are out there fooling us 24/7.

Thank good it is warming. If the temperature had not increased that 1.2 degrees centigrade it would be impossible to feed the 8 billion people alive today. The warming was a good thing. It is important to also understand that global cooling and warming is cyclical and we are likely to have another global cooling event in the near future. When that happens a world population of 8 billion people isn't viable. Which is a nice way of saying that there will be a massive die off. So be ahppy it is warming even though it is very slight.
#6 OneGuy on 2022-06-15 10:26 (Reply)
OneGuy: Climate change is the biggest grift in world history.

Anthropogenic global warming is well supported by the science.

OneGuy: If it were real then open discussion and sunshine would easily prove it.

You can find the evidence published in scientific journals.

OneGuy: The mini-ice age ended about 1850 and as you would expect when a mini-ice age ends it would get warmer. And it has!

That's not an explanation. That's just naming the phenomenon.

OG: "It was cold because it was an ice age. Duh."
#6.1 Zachriel on 2022-06-15 14:22 (Reply)
Once again Zach proves me correct. If he's talking he's lying and trying to hide the real truth. Kind of like the Democrat party.
#6.1.1 OneGuy on 2022-06-15 15:00 (Reply)
OneGuy: Once again Zach proves me correct. If he's talking he's lying and trying to hide the real truth.

Z: Anthropogenic global warming is well supported by the science.

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Z: You can find the evidence published in scientific journals.

See, for example, the journals Nature Climate Change, Climate Change, or International Journal of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses.

Z: That's not an explanation. That's just naming the phenomenon.

The comment should be self-explanatory.
#6.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2022-06-15 15:30 (Reply)
At the Mercy of this Goddamn Spaceship'

This is a post commenting on the WSJ story of driving an electric car from New Orleans to Chicago and back.

A couple of interesting tidbits:

QUOTE:
Right from the start they found that the car battery's charge was unpredictable -- on the first morning it "tick[ed] down 15 percent over 35 miles" and then the "quick charge" top up they wanted to do so that they would hit the road with a full battery ended up taking an hour instead of the estimated five minutes.

Eventually they make it to a Kia dealership in Meridian, Miss., where no one seems to know how to use the fast charger on site, and when they finally get it hooked up, the dashboard computer informs them that "a full charge, from 18 percent to 100 percent," will take them more than three hours. Wolfe explains:

It turns out not all “fast chargers” live up to the name. The biggest variable, according to State of Charge, is how many kilowatts a unit can churn out in an hour. To be considered “fast,” a charger must be capable of about 24 kW. The fastest chargers can pump out up to 350. Our charger in Meridian claims to meet that standard, but it has trouble cracking 20.

. . . They discover, rather too late, that E.V. batteries do worse on the highways, since they're designed to draw some charge from the energy generated by slowing down.

https://the-pipeline.org/at-the-mercy-of-this-goddamn-spaceship/
#7 feeblemind on 2022-06-15 10:30 (Reply)
re The definition of “urban”

I would not be at all surprised to find that the Census definition of "urban" is directly connected to the way some funds flow out of DC.

IOW, if you are not "urban" you may not qualify.

My guess anyway.
#8 feeblemind on 2022-06-15 11:04 (Reply)
re Squad Member Threatens 'Civil War' If GOP Takes House

I wouldn't be at all surprised if her vision of civil war is in the style of the BLM mobs running amok with the tacit approval of The State.
#9 feeblemind on 2022-06-15 11:13 (Reply)
I wondered how long this would take LOL:

Urgent need for a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing nomenclature for monkeypox virus

https://virological.org/t/urgent-need-for-a-non-discriminatory-and-non-stigmatizing-nomenclature-for-monkeypox-virus/853
#10 feeblemind on 2022-06-15 11:17 (Reply)
Something very important happened recently but was buried in a newspaper article. The gist of the story was that the U.S. Navy changed out the entire crew of a nuclear sub and reprovisioned it at sea. This isn't really news, this has happened before and it is a viable navy action. So what makes this significant? The purpose of this unnoticed article was to inform Russia and China that simply nuking our U.S. sub bases would not prevent U.S. subs from being able to retaliate with nuclear missiles. Now... don't miss the point here. The less than obvious purpose in this was to inform two nuclear powers that an attack on the homeland would not incapacitate our nuclear deterrent. Why do this and why now??? Because, NOW, nuclear war is very possible!! What this article illustrates is that at the deepest levels in our intelligence community we are preparing for an eminent nuclear exchange! Let that sink in.
#11 OneGuy on 2022-06-15 11:38 (Reply)
The definition of “urban”: I always thought that was just the name of one of the Popes! Silly me....

Hydrogen Is Unlikely Ever To Be A Viable Solution To The Energy Storage Conundrum: Think of dirigibles!!!!

How Green Is My Chevy Volt! Talk about mold!!! (It's kinda fuzzy, too...and the smelllll.)

Oberlin learns a $31 million lesson for falsely accusing a local family business of racism: Screwed the pooch, BIG TIME!!

Kimball on show trials: Line them up, and shoot them all.

Biden Senior Climate and Energy Policy Advisor Demands Social Media Companies Immediately Block Content Identifying Biden Policy as Source of Energy Inflation: TOO LATE!! We KNOW what you did!!

Squad Member Threatens 'Civil War' If GOP Takes House: GOP:
Drive the elephants over the Squad!!!!!

If Biden Intended To Destroy America, What Would He Be Doing Differently? NOTHING! Absolutely NOTHING!
#12 Sam L. on 2022-06-15 15:24 (Reply)
More than one pope named Urban - 8 to be exact.
#12.1 Roy on 2022-06-17 22:23 (Reply)
Biden climate and energy advisor ... When the P.C. science can't win the debate then by all means rely on censorship to protect the P.C. science. It isn't science when only the grifting "scientists" are funded. It seems the federal "science" grifters didn't learn shit from the covid fiasco either.
#13 indyjonesouthere on 2022-06-15 15:40 (Reply)

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