…not so much [DOT 9/9/20]

gotta watch them technicalities

…so sure…a machine could write these

A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?

…but here’s the thing…they say they “could have” run any one of the sample outputs from the bot as a column…but they didn’t…they carved it up & frankensteined it together instead…so while I may not be able to deny I’m scared

Though the start of traditional fire season has yet to begin, more than 70 wildfires are charring parts of a half-dozen states from coastal California to the Rocky Mountains, fed by tinder-dry vegetation, record heat and blustery winds that kicked up Tuesday across the region. Smoke has cast a worrisome pall over massive amounts of terrain, turning the sky an ominous red and threatening those with allergies and asthma.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/wildfires-american-west/2020/09/08/story.html

…it’s not about robots mastering prose formats

When community members know more about how to protect their homes and businesses, they become more resilient to disaster.
Israel’s Virus Czar Was Making Headway. Then He Tangled With a Key Netanyahu Ally.

…yet

Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said that 1,000 people voted twice in the state’s June primary and August runoff elections, and warned that “we will prosecute.”

…huh…sounds like bullshit…but if it isn’t then broken-clock=twice-a-day

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/08/we-must-stop-helping-our-enemies-undermine-our-democracy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/08/with-khashoggi-ruling-mbs-doubles-down-dark-path-saudi-arabia

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/08/trump-made-an-incredibly-stupid-promise-biden-is-turning-it-into-liability

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-doubles-down-crime-message-polls-suggest-it-s-risky-gamble

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-violence-election/2020/09/08/0a7story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/08/why-trump-wants-blame-military-industrial-complex-allegations-that-he-disparaged-troops

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/08/john-kelly-defended-trumps-military-comments-before-why-not-now

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-classy-fox-reporter-nails-trump/2020/09/08/story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/08/after-disastrous-boat-parade-trump-gets-sinking-feeling

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/09/08/senators-payroll-tax-federal-workers-deferral

President Trump and his party are using a playbook that aims to alarm people about crime in their backyards. It didn’t work in 2018, but both parties think it could resonate more this year.
The Fed Enabled a Record Expansion. Trump Is Taking Credit.

…some shit can not change fast enough

The Pandemic Was Supposed to Be Great for Strongmen. What Happened?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/08/linden-cameron-utah-autistic-shooting

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/pennsylvania-voting-access-suit-could-have-national-repercussions-n1239583

…some things are best not rushed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/08/vaccine-safety-pledge-ceos

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/oxford-vaccine-trial-hold-due-safety-issue-n1239581

…but all the same

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/08/facebook-employee-quit-racism

…some you might say were past due

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/08/rochester-police-resign

Rochester’s mayor said the police chief and the entire police command were stepping down, days after the state attorney general said a grand jury would look into the death of Daniel Prude.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/cohen-calls-trump-racist-cult-leader-says-he-disparaged-obama-n1239445

…or if you want to look a little further down the line

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/census-must-count-all-children-their-health-well-being-it-can-t-stop-prematurely

…judging by Tesla, when you stop counting for the purposes of the headline numbers…it does not go well for you

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/08/stocks-today-dow-nasdaq-tech

…sometimes the only way to win is not to play

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/08/trailer-it-not-2016-third-party-candidates

…although sometimes you get to keep more of your winnings if you conspicuously give away more than most could afford…so there’s that

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/08/how-philanthropy-benefits-the-super-rich

…oh, yeah…& then there’s this kind of stuff

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/shots-fired-on-the-india-china-border-for-the-first-time-in-decades-as-tensions-flare/2020/09/08/story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/belarus-opposition-leader-arrested-trying-to-leave-the-country-reports-to-state-media/2020/09/08/story.html

…& although I think I might have included this one before…I think it’s worth thinking about…if we want shit to stop getting worse

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/5-things-do-keep-your-ballot-rejection-n1239375

…because the relief is…relieving itself?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/09/08/senate-mcconnell-coronavirus-economy

The Two Men Buying Your Favorite Retailers

…& now is not the time to not show up

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/08/blue-wave-2018-was-part-thanks-11-percent-voters-whod-skipped-2016

…ya know?

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28 Comments

  1. Another interesting perspective. We’ve kind of lost sight of the health care situation, which is weird in a pandemic, but it’s predictably working against Trump with working-class voters who have to pay for health care:
    https://prospect.org/politics/the-perfect-storm-working-class-voters-2020/
    An excerpt: Three-quarters of these voters supported Trump in 2016, but less than half planned to vote for him now. Even those who still supported him did not push back when other participants expressed anger with his doing nothing about health care, fostering hatred and racism, dividing the country, siding with the upper classes, and having no plan for COVID-19. This is a life-and-death issue for them, as much as nearly any other group in American society.
     
    It’s funny. I spent a lot of time with my Trumper relatives last month (my mom passed away) and they said one curious thing: They were keeping their Trump support private because of all the vitriol they faced if they said it out loud. My scathing lecture on the 14th Amendment may have contributed to their taciturnity, I don’t know. I was intrigued to find a focus group that displayed the same attitude. 

    • …sorry to hear about your mother, there… condolences

      …the rest of that sounds encouraging, though I expect that’s not a particular comfort under the circumstances

      • Thank you. It wasn’t COVID — she had another stroke, the last one in a series. The worst part was that we haven’t been able to see her in several months. We were allowed in as part of a “compassion” policy, but I couldn’t tell how much she recognized anyone. 
         
        I was forced into close proximity to my siblings, who are all Trumpers, which was … unpleasant. Generally I can hold my temper for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but several days was too much. I lost it when my brother started “explaining” how after Biden was elected he would die, and Harris wasn’t an American so she couldn’t become president, and that would clear the decks for President Pelosi. Hence my furious explanation of the 14th Amendment.
         
        It did shut off the stupidity spigot for a couple of days. It may not be obvious because I only share my sunny and affable side with all of you, but my siblings tend to be frightened of pissing me off. To use a dated reference, I’ll go all Julia Sugarbaker on them, and they don’t have the data to argue. 
         
        I swear, these people went to the same schools I did. I’m dumbfounded at how little they seemed to extract from the experience. I did discover my brother’s son shared my political viewpoint. He and I commiserated about his father for a while. I knew I liked that kid. 

        • …that’s rough…we’ve had some non-Covid health concerns in the family too so if nothing else I can empathize with how much harder it makes things to have them happen under conditions of enforced separation

          …but I for sure hear you on the dumbfounded thing…it will surprise no one that folks who know me may from time to time conspicuously let their eyes glaze over when I start in on something…but between you & me I might be able to relate to the Sugarbaker effect you mention, too

          …sometimes it’s just too much…I don’t need the world to agree with me or claim that I know all the answers…but if you’re going to say a thing so straightforwardly fucking stupid that a child could refute it (particularly kids these days who never had to fuck around with card catalogues or the Dewey decimal system to find shit out for themselves) then you have no business getting bent out of shape when you get confronted with the spectacle of your own willful dumbassery being subjected to cursory examination

          …I don’t know how long it’s going to take to repair the damage that the dimestore sophistry of the reichwing has done to public discourse but it’s been the work of generations…so it’s always encouraging when it sounds like the latest generations see it for what it is

    • Sorry about your mother. You’ve joined a club most people don’t want to join. 
       
      Because I am an oligarch (HA HA!) I was shocked to learn that my 401(K) is now down about 9% over the course of the last three trading days. It’s very aggressively invested, foolish for someone my age, and I blame no one but myself. I wonder how Trump’s wealthy supporters are feeling about this, since they are heavily reliant on capital gains, stock options, ownership positions, etc., to amass and pass down their wealth. A “blip,” maybe, but who knows. I knew the swift run-up wasn’t sustainable, not with the unemployment we’re seeing and the general social unrest and uncertainty surrounding the election in November.
       
      I guess we’ll see in November. Well, December probably, since mailed ballots take a while to tally.

      • …I’m no kind of expert…but when Apple split their stock the other day I’m pretty sure that would be one method of harvesting some of that recent bounty of theirs as the pandemic drove their market cap to that magic second trillion

        …& for at least some of the other examples who’ve bucked the tend & experienced gains so big they balanced the pretty enormous losses happening to all sorts of businesses all over the place…I believe selling of a proportion of holdings to cash out some of that profit as a hedge against losses elsewhere or in future might actually be called profit taking?

        …definitely not to be confused with skimming off the top…which is the sort of thing that always goes badly for someone in the movies

        …but if I had to guess then my money would be on that 9% drop evening out for you before you need it to?

        …mind you I read a piece about how the DOW index is calculated the other day so I’m halfway convinced people just make this shit up off the cuff even though I know it ain’t so

        • The Dow represents a very narrow slice of the investment market and the criteria used to select the stocks are very subjective. It’s not a good measure, but somehow it lingers on, becoming less and less relevant. 

          • …according to the piece I read it began with a mere 12 stocks & still only uses 30 (& uses stock price rather than market cap for its calculations) where S&P uses 500 so I can see it being not so useful as some

            …but as someone who still doesn’t see why integers should be referred to as points by the time I got to the “Dow divisor” I was doing some eye-rolling, for sure

            • As an example of this, Exxon was just dropped from the Dow Jones average, and it’s been included since 1928 (it was Standard Oil of New Jersey.) I just saw the headline, I didn’t read about why.

              • A friend inherited what was apparently an insane amount of Standard Oil stock (which is now Exxon Mobil) from her mother, who apparently got it from her father, who apparently held oil land in Texas. She’s alluded to it once or twice over the years but I never thought much about it. The last time we had lunch, however, she told me she’d quit working full-time and was living off of her part-time salary and the stock dividends, which had increased dramatically (under Trump, I assume, with his asinine energy policies). I thought, you know, that’s probably not the best long-term plan, but kept my mouth shut. 
                 
                I also amuse myself sometimes by trying to figure out how much stock her grandfather must have gotten and left to her mom, because my friend is one of five children and her mom’s stock got divided up among them, but her share still generates enough income to at least partially support her. Inheritances always amaze me. Never got one, never will, but I’m always intrigued by how much money floats down among generations. 

                • When my mother died she left a small estate, mostly the value of a mortgage-free house that my siblings sold as “take it or leave it and don’t come complaining to us if the mid-50s Levittown-style house has a few problems.” One of my brothers, who is a very skilled jack of all trades, said, “With a little help I could fix some of the electrical and patch up some of the …”
                   
                  “Just get rid of it.”
                   
                  So we sold the house to a very skilled carpenter and his wife, who were very grateful, because the land alone was probably worth more, and they really wanted to live in this town but everything was out of their price range.
                   
                  I took my small share of the inheritance and gave some of it away. My now-husband was aghast, but I said to him, “You can’t take it with you, and I’m the godfather to three small children. They might use these small amounts more usefully than I.”
                   
                  The rest I put into an aggressive mix of mutual funds and we went house hunting. That’s partly (a very small part of) how we own our apartment today.
                   
                  Trans-generational wealth is not something to be dismissed entirely. My now-husband and l lived in shitty rent-stabilized tenements for 16 or 17 years. We put up with this to save our money, we loved the neighbors and the neighborhood, but we always knew, or hoped, that we’d climb on the NYC real estate ladder. And we did. It’s not really clear what our apartment is worth. It was in the low- mid-7 figures (far below what we paid for it) but with the pandemic and its subsequent, unprecedented, exodus of people who might be able to afford this apartment, its value is unknown.
                   
                  2020 is coming up as a bad bet for us! Whatever, life is a gamble, I have nothing to complain about, let the apartment go down to zero. It’s where we and The Loyal Hound live so as long as we can swing it and feed ourselves we have nothing to complain about.  
                   

        • I’m looking into a way to set up a benchmark where once the portfolio hits a certain dollar amount, every nickel over that gets transferred into this small, blended “age appropriate” fund I also have on the side. That is very conservative, I’m not sure it’s even keeping up with inflation (which supposedly does not exist, if you’re looking at multi-year CD and Treasury bond rates) but whatever. 
           
          I will have to talk to a portfolio manager about this because frequent shifts in assets is “churn” and that can incur fees, even though it’s all automated and no human does anything, the servers and programs do all the work. 

          • …I recall a while ago that some banks (possibly in the UK) offered a suite of interlinked accounts so that you could set up a sort of sliding scale that offset savings against mortgage liabilities in a way that let you tweak things yourself to rake things from your principal account into whichever suited your present purposes & allowed you to adjust your strategy depending on your current circumstances

            …it sounds like what you want to do is at least analogous in terms of complexity – there might be some procedural complications but they’re essentially automated as you say so it ought to be possible to set some rules & let it run without being subject to extra charges

            …if it isn’t I’d be curious to know what the justification might be…& what some of the more knowledgeable folks hereabouts might have to say about that

  2. I’d say AI could never replace humans, but the AI opinion piece sounds no worse than half of the opinion writers out there. It’s hard to see what would be lost by immersing Thomas Friedman in a glass vat of amniotic fluid,  hooking his brain up to an ethernet cable and plugging him in to a router.

    • …once you read the italicised portion at the bottom it seems a good deal less impressive (or it did to me) given that it was as wound up & left to run along some fairly specific rails & even then they didn’t feel like picking one example of its output but collating bits of several…which suggests to me that when they say the process took less time than it often does to sub a human-authored column what they’re saying is that it’s all pretty interchangeable

      …which I guess could be said of a good few human columnists

      …it’s mildly alarming that people might mistake a “chinese room” style system for one with a mind behind it but I think maybe that says more about us than the machines?

      • I’m going to guess it would only take about one morning of running the columns of someone like Mitch Albom or Bari Weiss through an AI engine to get something that is able to reproduce their stuff with no problem.

    • The immersed Great Mustache’s brain would not have the ability to amiably chat with airport taxi drivers in Bangalore. At least half the stories must have been made up, but still.

  3. Christ, this shit is insane.
     
    Okay, so Trump hated Bob Woodward’s book “Fear” and called him out on it. Then the stupid dope agrees to be interviewed for Bob Woodward’s new book, and agrees to allow himself to be recorded.
     
    And then you get shit like this;
     
    https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html
     
    Trump on tape admitting that he downplayed the coronavirus. ON TAPE. HE PURPOSELY LET HIMSELF BE RECORDED BY SOMEONE WHO WAS GOING TO BE WRITING A NEGATIVE BOOK ABOUT HIM AND THEN SPILLED HIS OWN TEA ABOUT LYING ABOUT THE PANDEMIC.
     
    And then tweeted that the book was all Fake News when HE’S ON FUCKING TAPE AND IT’S HIS VOICE TALKING.
     
    I…I just…
     
    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I don’t ask that all of our politicians not be corrupt supervillians, but I at least ask that they be competent supervillians.

    • Wow. That whole article is … stunning. I mean, not like it’s going to accomplish much now, but damn. Coats saying that Putin has “something” on Trump? Secret weapons system (Jesus, that’s scary)? And of course he knew about COVID and lied about it. 

  4. First, I have to say this is a textbook case of when a writer has to forget any agreements he might have with a publisher, sources, whatever. Woodward needed to go public with the tape ASAP.
     
    Second, the DC press needs to give up on any semblance of normal relations with Kayleigh McNameny and the rest of the press office. She blatantly lied even with Trump on tape. They have to stop covering her, they need to bury any responses from her in the final lines of their stories, they need to explain that they are doing his because they can’t be trusted.
     
    They won’t, because they like her just like they liked Conaway and they thought Spicer was just fine. It’s all just business for them, and they can’t wait until they all get together at the next press dinner, whenever that will be.

    • …sadly I can’t find anything in that which doesn’t ring true…unlike pretty much everything that comes to the media courtesy of the incumbent administration

      …& on particular I’m all in on being heartily fucking sick of books being published, promoted & sold to make public “revelations” that should have been front & center as a matter of urgent public interest the day they fucking happened

      …or at least as soon as they could be corroborated…it might not be true of literally all of these authors but in too many cases it seems like had that shit been widespread public knowledge at least some of this widespread misery might have been headed off…so…you know…amen & all that sort of thjng

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