Home » Open thread 6/2/23

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Open thread 6/2/23 — 23 Comments

  1. Pelosi should get an Oscar for this one.
    (Add it to her vast collection…)
    “J6 Unmasked: Security footage shows Pelosi evacuating Hollywood-style from Capitol as daughter films;
    “Ex-Capitol Police chief says Pelosi’s actions that day created a ‘major distraction,’ put unnecessary strain on her security detail.”—
    https://justthenews.com/government/congress/new-video-shows-pelosi-being-filmed-daughter-she-evacuates-us-capitol-jan-6
    Hmmm. Wonder if this is the same daughter who’s helping Diane Feinstein stay on Capitol Hill until Designated Replacement Adam Schiff can slip-lide into place….

    File under: Defending Our Democracy! (…with home movies!!)

  2. “We trained the system—‘Hey, don’t kill the operator; that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that.’ So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”

    I do think it’s pretty funny that science fiction authors have been writing stories about exactly this kind of thing… the dangers of AI and things like fully automated drones (killbots) for probably over a 100 years. How many novels, short stories, movies, TV show episodes, games, and comic books have been written about this exact scenario over the years. How can anyone still be surprised by this?

  3. On a completely different topic, As of today I stopped tracking all Covid data. I’ve been doing it for now over 1160 days, so I have a very complete set of data since the beginning, with all its warts etc. Colorado stopped publishing usable data awhile ago, NH stopped 2 weeks ago. I’m surprised the other states still are tracking. GA is down to about 50cases/day and less than 1 death/day, and other states similar.

    Now sure how to contact me directly, but if you want to look at the data I’m willing to show it to anyone. It is mainly cases/day, deaths/day, serious cases/day.

  4. On AI: Michael Crichton’s Westworld is good, and the HBO version is excellent, especially the first 2 seasons which shows what happens when AI gains sentience. It’s not pretty for humanity.

  5. speaking of lurid, crichton knew it was more important to suggest rather than to show the depravity, but dolores and company, had to be given reasons why they
    proved to be so callous,

  6. Some good news for today:

    For a while it looked like Twitter was going back to the bad old days when they banned Matt Walsh’s “What is a woman” video, but Musk stepped in and put an end to that. Looks like there is a new sheriff in town. See this article from the daily wire, the company that produced the video.

    Ben Shapiro Praises Musk For Keeping Free-Speech Pledge After ‘What Is A Woman?’ Is Restored

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-shapiro-praises-musk-for-keeping-free-speech-pledge-after-what-is-a-woman-is-restored

    Good news number two
    Not only did the leftist judge Mark Walker, who was scheduled to be on the Disney Florida lawsuit case, recuse himself, but a Trump appointee will replace the Obama nominated Walker

    See this article from Variety. They are not amused.

    https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/disney-desantis-lawsuit-transferred-allen-winsor-trump-1235631064/

  7. Art Deco said, “Higher education. Of what, exactly, is it higher?”

    The latest news on that front is that the former mayor of Chicago has fallen upward to a teaching gig in the school of public health (!!) at Hahvahd: “Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is taking on a new role in education, less than a month after she left office. Beginning this fall, Lightfoot will teach a course at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health tentatively titled ‘Health Policy and Leadership,’ according to an announcement from the school.”

    https://nypost.com/2023/06/02/ex-chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot-named-menschel-fellow-at-harvard/

    It’ll be interesting to see how she explains Chicago’s high level of gun violence as “health policy.”

  8. Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova was a Russian ballet dancer born on January 8, 1910, in St. Petersburg, Russia.123 She was the first prima ballerina assoluta of the Soviet Union and is widely regarded as one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century.

    Galina studied with her mother Maria Romanovna and Agrippina Vaganova at the Leningrad Choreography School. She graduated in 1928 and danced with the Kirov Ballet until 1944 when she transferred to Bolshoi Theatre. Galina was not particularly fond of dancing when she was younger, but she rose to become the world’s number-one ballerina thanks to her extraordinary talent and grace. She revolutionized ballet and is still revered today.

    –The Summarizer
    ______________________________

    Geez. I don’t know why I found that so moving.

    Must be the French.

  9. So on the LingQ blog I was reading a topic about using flashcards for language learning. (This is a hot-button issue in such circles. Believe it.)

    A Frenchman explained his approach for reducing a grammar problem to a set of flashcards. As an example he used the distinction between “needn’t have” vs “didn’t need,” which entirely baffled his “French brain,” as he put it. (I know the feeling as an “English brain.”)

    My French friend found a textbook for learning English containing rules and examples of the “needn’t” vs “didn’t” business. Then test questions. He distilled it all into flashcards.

    I realized I couldn’t understand the rules. I could make decent guesses on the test questions. I do have a sense of the difference and I’m sure I could pull a C on the test, though without being able to explain why persuasively.

    I also realized I have never personally uttered a sentence containing “needn’t have.” Nor have I ever heard another American doing so.

    It beats me why this would be an important matter for English learners to address. My intuitive notion is “needn’t have” is “Masterpiece Theatre” English for being polite to someone who has made an effort, which you may or may not appreciate.

    Have you ever said “needn’t have”?

  10. Hi, huxley. I think it likely that I’ve used the construction ‘need not have’ once or twice in my life, especially since I’ve been taking lately to speak in a more consciously old-fashioned way lately, particularly around my youthful coworkers. But I definitely remember having used the ‘had it not been for’ structure last week.

  11. “Needn’t have” does sound more commonly British rather than American.

  12. Philip Sells:

    I’m sure if anyone here has said “need not have,” if only once or twice, it would be you! 🙂

    Nonetheless, it boggles my mind there are ESL (English-as-a-second-language) textbooks out there which explain, drill and test students on the distinction between “needn’t have” and “didn’t have.”

    There’s a difference which doesn’t make a difference.

  13. Just as we’re getting rid of Rachel Walensky at the CDC, Biden is poised to nominate Mandy Cohen, our very own North Carolina COVID authoritarian, who pushed masks, mandates, and school closures far, far longer than anyone else in this region.

  14. I’ve watched the Galina Ulanov clip 5x now. I can’t figure its fascination. Certainly, the movements are beautiful.

    (Though I wonder about this quote on the YouTube page:
    __________________________

    Three former Mariinsky/Kirov ballerinas coaching épaulement and arms. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, such things were actually taught 😉__________________________)

    Ulanov has such presence and precision. She’s the silver-haired Teacher passing it down to the next generation and she’s right there for them.

    I recall a story about the renowned cellist, Pablo Caslas. In his elder years he had his physical problems, but those would melt away when he met with younger players because he had something to give.

  15. huxley:

    Ulanova was one of the most remarkable dancers ever. Her forte was not overwhelming technique or a stunningly beautiful swanlike body. She was the personification of grace and her dancing had a transcendent and luminous quality. How she did it I don’t know, but I think it was connected to an utter lack of ego or narcissism.

  16. …an utter lack of ego or narcissism.

    neo:

    Yes. I tried to put my impression of her into words and came up with: “It’s like she wasn’t there.”

    Which could sound belittling, so I didn’t include it.

  17. Ulanova seems so disappointed throughout this clip. I’d venture: She’s trying to transfer something inside herself by modeling the gestures she wants to see, but what _she_ sees – probably poor imitations—tells her it’s not working. Her students aren’t receiving her internal message. If she could get them to feel what she feels, the gestures would flow naturally from them.

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