On this date the Chicago Cubs' record is 32-35 and they are 7 games behind Milwaukee for the NL Central division and a half game behind the last wildcard spot. In short, about the same record and standings as they had last year. The Cubs didn’t need to make Craig Counsell the highest paid manager in Major League Baseball to achieve this level of mediocrity, they did that fine under David Ross. It should be obvious by now the real problem is the front office.
I created a notes outline of the Apple 2024 WWDC Keynote while watching the stream of the keynote. I will make updates to the outline as I read articles about the keynote.
Forty seven years ago today Apple launched the Apple II and basically at that point really started becoming the Apple we now know today. I doubt that the WWDC today will be as seminal, but I am looking forward to seeing what they announce.
I wish that my RSS feed reader could filter out items behind a pay wall, or at least flag them in some way. It would also be nice if bloggers either didn’t link to stuff behind pay walls or at least indicate that a subscription is required. I think it is ironic how Dave frequently argues against the burden of pay walls and also frequently shares links to stories that are behind pay walls.
The reviews of last nights Michigan Central live concert that I have read do a good job of describing the moment. The concert was free for the little over 20,000 who were able to attend and streamed on Peacock. I believe there is a replay of it Sunday night at 7 PM on NBC, although I do not whether that is nationwide.
Over the years I’ve seen so many deer and wild turkey within our condominium that they no longer surprise me, but the appearance of new wildlife within my urban environment is always surprising. Last night as we were watching the Michigan Central Station live concert on TV we saw two coyotes amble past our patio window. Apparently coyotes are not uncommon to our township, per this picture posted by the police department. About twenty minutes later we saw a deer run by in the opposite direction and we expected to see the coyotes in pursuit, but did not. Maybe I need to create a wildlife bingo card.
I realize that category archives of this blog has pages in a manner similar to how Old School creates monthly pages, so I decided to create a notebook in NotebookLM and provide it the URLs for all of the essays I’ve written here. Essays in the context of this blog are blog posts with titles. Next, I had the Notebook Guide create what it calls a Timeline of Events that I then copied in to Drummer and formatted to create this page, which is a timeline with short summary of the essays.
On a whim I decided to give NotebookLM the RSS feed to the essays (titled posts) to this site, and it ingested the feed and does answer questions I pose correctly. One problem though is that the source(s) it cites for responses is to the single, large, file, and not the specific location in the file, which tells me (obviously) that it doesn’t know the RSS XML format but it still handles the text within the feed.
Google Updates NotebookLM
The author of this article, AI Alignment Is Trivial, is overlooking the lessons learned from the Internet. The real concern is not with the technology, but rather knowing our own flaws as humans. The author seems to be saying that we humans have control over the situation because all we have to do is not “program” AI with things like ambition. Unfortunately, we know there will be people who in fact will “program” AI to do these things in order achieve their own ambitions. All of technology, and AI in particular, is an amplification of humanity’s strengths and weaknesses. One of our weaknesses is not knowing that there are things that even if we can do them, we should not do them. AI alignment is not trivial because human alignment is impossible.
The State Of Sports
In the Atlantic there is an article (subscription required) that is an ode to the one-hand backhand, which is how I was taught to play tennis, but is rarely used today because tennis, like most sports, has devolved into all power. The author extends this point to basketball and the three point shot and he could have also made the point with pitching in Major League Baseball. All are examples, in an innocuous topic as sports, of how the ends now justify the means.
Even an unguardable move such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s iconic ��skyhook” would lose its luster in today’s money-balled NBA, where the statisticians have proved that the smartest way to play involves enormous quantities of three-point shots. There have perhaps never been more talented athletes and marksmen and less variety of gameplay. Everyone leverages the same generic (if often impressive) step-back three.
I don’t think there is a more fitting example of how Detroit is rising up than the restoration of the Michigan Central Station. I hope to see it in person soon.
If something like inflation starts going bad during a President’s term, and then under that President that something improves or is better than when he started, should that person not be re-elected? What is more important, that it got bad or that it got better?
Currently reading: Naming the Powers by Walter Wink 📚
I think this is a good book (series of books actually) for those who desire to follow Jesus to read at this time. The quote below is just one example:
The Weather Underground correctly criticized the U.S. government for its barbaric violence in Vietnam and then mirrored the very barbarism it condemned by adopting violence as its means. Whenever we let the terms of struggle be dictated by the Power that we oppose, we are certain to become as evil. Nothing about this insight is new. It is written for anyone to read in Rev. 17:15-18. There the Beast on whom the Harlot (Roma) sits turns against her and shifts his allegiance to the ten enemy kings. These will hate the harlot and burn her up with fire. The Beast can shift loyalties precisely because he knows that the means employed to overthrow the Harlot will make the kings every bit as much the children of hell as she. (Emphasis added)
I assume that in the above Wink is referring to the Weather Underground as known as The Weathermen. The Weathermen emerged from the campus-based opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War and from the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Wikipedia
The difference is – you have to use something before your criticism makes any sense. That was the mistake the music industry made with Napster. What the journalists made regarding bloggers (we’re they’re sources, tried to say over and over but they don’t listen they just like to talk and be admired and our job as usual is to give them money and stfu). – Dave Winer, Tech Is About People
I am seeing lots of people in my social feeds reacting as if these are normal times. As much as I would like to think people will not elect a felon, who cannot even vote for himself, as President, I think too many will rather see that as a badge of honor.
For those who wish to use their vote to protest the U.S. participation in the genocide occurring in Gaza with their vote for President, I suggest you consider two things. First, if Trump is President rather than Biden would our participation be any different? Second, if Trump is President, which means Republicans rule, how likely do you think you can succeed at forcing change? Finally, accept that for any person to be elected President in the United States they need to be a viable national candidate with a real chance to win the electoral college. The candidate must win states not just votes. I also think for change to really occur the Senate is what needs to change more than the President. No law passes in the United States without votes from 60 or more Senators. No person becomes Supreme Court Justice without votes from 60 or more Senators. Focus on the Senate. How do your state’s Senators view Gaza?
The Debate Never Resolved.
Currently reading: Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean 📚
Yesterday I read an article about James Buchanan that is inspired by this book, which I remembered I had in my Amazon library but not yet started reading. Consequently, I started reading and once again reminded of how the United States was founded.
The narrative taught when I was in school is that most people who immigrated to the new world did so to escape persecution, which was true for many people who came to the continent AFTER it was discovered. The motives behind the discovery of the continent was driven by wealth, whether through a shorter trade route to the east or the appropriation of land or gold.
Common folks who left Europe for a better life where not too much involved with the government or the decision to declare independence from England. The people who formed the United States did so to preserve their wealth, much of which starting to be generated from the plantations of the south.
Once the revolutionary war was over the people who sought independence had to decide how the new world was to be governed. Eventually what we know as the U.S. Constitution was drafted, but there was strong debate over whether there should be a single entity and a strong federal government or a federation of sovereign states. Advocates of a federation, who became known as anti-federalists, were fearful of a central government impinging upon individual rights, which honestly had much to do with the right to become as wealthy was one wishes in whatever manner one wishes, including enslaving others.
History says a compromise was reached with the Bill of Rights and the Federalists won the day, but the Federalists/Anti-Federalist debate, which was about power, continues. It lead to the Civil War and it is the root of the Dobbs Decision, and as this book chronicles, the Anti-Federalist cause has been systemically been carried out over the last five decades. I am convinced their success is in large part due to the profound lack of knowledge about history.
Why do tech reviews matter? Are iPad sales affected in any way by the ‘iPadOS is too constrained" reviews? I don’t think they are, and I think most push back against the “formulaic” iPad reviews is due to the tone of the reviews more than the content.