@johnkonrad@shashj I merely had The Economist categorized as "Superficial drivel written by posh, smug, twits". Now we can add to that "and resentful marxists".
A long time ago, I corresponded regularly with Ed Quillen, prolific HCN writer. He was interested in Colorado railway history and current activity. That was my business. I was interested in what Ed had to say. Ed had a point of view but always was honest with facts, and fair with the other side's point of view. I gave him suggestions about why things had happened the way they had happened, and places to look for information not always well known. He appreciated that. I respected his honesty.
Ed died in 2012. I stopped reading HCN after that. It was no longer making any effort at honesty. Facts now were rocks, selectively chosen to stone to death whatever it opposed.
@johnkonrad Every day I hear something similar, even from the CENTRISTS at work. It's bat-$hit crazy.
I swear, when the people-eating space aliens arrive, their no. 1 worry will be ethnically appropriate table settings.
I have put a great deal of my life into my hobby of photography. It's not good enough to be art.
I knew someone whose work I considered art. He was single, no children. He died one day at home. It was two weeks before anyone realized he wasn't answering the phone and went to look. His brother put his photographs on eBay. I bought some of them, $10-20 each. He's forgotten now. I haven't thought about him in a year.
His life was priced on eBay.
@japan_nobunaga I am honored deeply by your sincerity and integrity.
Thank you for trying our pancakes. I also can't finish a short stack, and I am embarrassed.
I use Claude 2-4 hours every day to automate long, complex reports, financial models, and to create decks. Before Claude starts, I give it lengthy, detailed instructions. I read every word it writes and check every formula. I modify almost every sentence. Five to ten versions later, I have something I know, something I trust, and something I can ship.
Claude saves me many hours of formatting and transcription time. But, if you don't already know your topic cold, Claude will say the dumbest ass things, because it has looked at something that is stupid. It's not intelligence any more than a hammer knows how to build a house.
People using AI to write things they know nothing about are like giving a 3-year-old the keys to a tractor and telling him to farm, then going inside and watching Netflix. It's going to be amusing watching managers burning down their investors' equity by using naive or fake AI expertise to replace actual, human expertise.
This is precisely my experience in railways, another industry where complacency and being nice will get people killed and wreck the company, too. I've been a No. 2 in a 600-person company for 7 years now. I like it. I'm not well liked. But no one doubts me. The CEO calls me at 2 am most nights with a question or idea. I answer the phone.
The voters used their power. It was greater than the establishment's power. The system worked as designed. The unseating of Cornyn and Cassidy gives me hope the ship of state really can be turned to the direction the voters desire, without violence or chaos, either. It's a good day to be alive.
The button is small yet large enough to accommodate the depravity and dishonesty of a society that values its comfort above its honesty, its wealth above its appreciation of fairness, its ignorance above its knowledge. It wasn't merely Disney's executives or managers that determined the content of the button. It was its lawyers, its engineers, its product managers, its rank and file, its consultants, and its stockholders. They did not all know what the TOS said. They didn't read it either.
But they knew what was important to them: their wealth. They looked the other way about everything. They did not ask if Disney had integrity before they took its money as wages or fees or dividends. They asked only "How much do I get?" They did not ask if Disney put the safety of its guests first. They asked, "Is this place protecting itself against claims, so that my income is not at risk?" They did not add the words "uneasonable" before "claims". They assumed Disney could not be wrong.
The button worked.
No one quit. No one sold their stock. They are profiting from incompetence resulting in death.
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen cast his net too small.