I was unclear. What I oppose is distorting the law. I think that breaking the law is a necessary part of resisting the fascist takeover. Mis-interpreting or changing the law should be avoided, except where necessary to fix changes that were made by the fascists.

The problem is that Jackson is acting in good faith while Alito is not. I can’t actually blame her for that. We can’t prevent the destruction of the rule of law by disregarding the rule of law when it is inconvenient for us. There are a lot of areas where we need to break with conventional and tradition because of bad faith, but the actual law should not be one of them.

My medical care provider is awesome. UW Health (University of Wisconsin) is a non-profit organization that was built on top of a student healthcare system. They focus on treating the patient, not the condition, and have managed to build a staff who really believe in that. The system is associated with the UW Medical School, so it has access to the latest equipment and specialists in almost every area. In ten years, I have met one person there who did not impress me. She turned out to be from a temporary agency.

UW Health is perpetually understaffed, like all medical providers, because the business model for insurance companies is to prevent sick people from getting the care they need. They still manage to provide excellent care, but there are often long waits to see people.

I have a deep and abiding fear of paper targets.

Sorry, I find humor helps me deal with bad situations. And as a progressive in the US, that is where I currently find myself. Large numbers of people profess that they would be happy to murder me, my family, and my friends, because we aren’t misogynist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic sociopaths. I put a high value on human life, and I would not kill someone over property, but I am willing to kill to prevent others from being killed.

I believe in using as little force as necessary. I believe in de-escalation. I believe that deadly force should always be a last resort. But having a firearm leaves that option on the table, in case nothing else works.

I hope that we can eventually all get back to treating each other like human beings. Right now I don’t think I can count on that from everyone.

With respect (or disrespect) to LLMs: Nearly all AI gets its training data in unethical ways. It’s results are unreliable and require careful validation.

There are other types of specialized AI that can do other kinds of tasks well. It is good at certain kinds of medical diagnosis (in combination with human doctors). It can solve some problems that involve lots of complex iteration, like how to fold proteins, create new molecules, or assemble structures. There are a lot of potential uses.

Which, to be fair, he was.

You can call yourself anything you want, and no one will stop you. Calling yourself a Christian, while violating every tenet of Christian teachings, does not qualify you as a Christian. I finally coined the term Hypochrists for people like that.

There are plenty of Christians who do follow Christian teachings, to one extent or another, and are generally trying to be decent people. Unfortunately, there are also large numbers of “Christians” who just use the name to justify their selfish behavior, hatred, and cruelty.

All large religions have, or have had, groups like that. Any social institution that can provide credibility is going to be abused as a tool to gain power by someone. It is appalling that the Hypochrists have become large enough, and powerful enough, to have taken over the popular image of what Christianity is.

Best comment I’ve seen in a long time.

I realize it probably won’t matter, but you can send her this link: NY Court Records: People vs Donald J. Trump

If she thinks it isn’t a real site, have her search for something like “new york court records”.

Sam Altman is a huckster, not a technologist. As such, I don’t really care what he says about technology. His purpose has always been to transfer as much money as possible from investors into his own pocket before the bubble bursts. Anything else is incidental.

I am not entirely writing off LLMs, but very little of the discussion about them has been rational. They do some things fairly well and a lot of things quite poorly. It would be nice if we could just focus on the former.

That’s not a tablet, that’s a laptop running Android.

One of the very few times I’ve gotten goosebumps was from the last bit of dialog in the first Terminator movie. Sarah Connor is sitting in her jeep at a gas station with her German Shepherd. Sarah: What did he just say? Gas Station Attendant: He said there’s a storm coming. Sarah (looking off into the distance): I know.

In modern America this is not a hypothetical situation.

She is the classic “stopped clock”. The vast majority of what she believes and says is still vile and wrong, but the media is only reporting on her rare points that diverge from her fellow extremists.

Both of the events here in Madison involved marching to the state capital building for a rally. They were well organized, with an appropriate public address system, and a whole roster of speakers. Bernie Sanders called in to the first rally to address us.

I think it helps to clarify that we are talking about the current US Progressive movement and not just the abstract definitions of the terms. US Progressives have non-economic goals (restoring and expanding civil rights), but they generally agree that society should take care of everyone, not just the rich. That means providing at least food, housing, and health care without regard to income. There are a lot of different ideas about how that could be done. Everything from a Basic Living Stipend within a largely capitalist economy to a adopting a fully socialist, or even communist, economic system.

Vitamix blenders truly are in a class by themselves. As far as I know, they’re the only blenders that include cooling fans to keep the motor from overheating. And if you do somehow manage to overload it, the thing automatically shuts off until it has cooled down to the point where it’s safe to run again. They’re virtually impossible to damage, short of active vandalism.

Their motto really should be “Fuck the worst case scenario.”

My wife and I both use them for wireless charging, car mounting, and to hold phone grips. Not everyone needs magnets on their phone, but we use them all the time.

But you know MAGA hates anything that improves the environment.

There is a critical difference in the way we treat police vs firefighters. Both the law and their training teach police that almost anything is justified if it keeps them safe and that there will not be any consequences. Officer safety takes precedence of the public’s safety. Murdering a few innocent civilians is a small price to pay for that.

Firefighters are simply expected to risk their lives in service of the public. Efforts are made to reduce the risks, but they regularly go in to rescue people knowing they may not make it back out.

Both jobs involve operating in high-risk environments, but the police prioritize police safety and firemen prioritize public safety.