James Joyner is a Professor of Security Studies. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.
Voters were more likely to approve of President Trump’s job performance if they had not been following some of the major news stories of his first 100 days in office, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll found.
Half way into the Trump tariff negotiation period before tariffs are increased substantially—- What trade deals have been concluded?
Considering the top ten largest “reciprocal tariffs” what can countries like St. Pierre, Lesotho, Vietnam, Falkland, Madagascar, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Cambodia have to offer to Trump to mitigate the threatened tariffs exceeding 40% poised for imposition in 45 days?
With all the ado about Joe Biden’s mental acuity (now sadly less important because of the cancer diagnosis), one would think the media would be concerned with the manner in which Trump’s mental acuity is being displayed with every utterance and “Truth.” He obviously doesn’t know how tariffs work, and he doesn’t have even a nodding acquaintance with the Constitution. The oath of office traveled from John Roberts’ mouth to Trump’s ear and he was able to repeat it (a la man, woman, person, camera etc.), but by the time it reached Trump’s brain it was gibberish. Every day Trump says something utterly stupid, dishonest, or delusional, and it’s dismissed as Trump being Trump. But now the country is supposed to feel the media failed (conspired?) to honestly report on Biden??? Media – heal thyself! And eff you, Jake Tapper!
@Charley in Cleveland: I’ve always found the obvious pro-Republican bias of the supposedly liberal MSM, as exemplified by the current sanewashing, disturbing and puzzling. Yes, they are often accused of a liberal bias, and with some truth. But they seem to lean as far right as they can, constrained by what Colbert said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” To avoid it they’d have to go for the unreality of FOX.
My only explanation is that the free press is a wonderful thing for the man who owns one. The owners share the biases of the rich. But given reality they have a hard time imposing their views on the newsroom. We have the current example of Bezos shucking and jiving to avoid offending Trump.
@JohnSF:
I mentioned that yesterday, and I’ll add that in Portugal the far right stalled out in yesterday’s vote. It’s still a mess, but it’s only a Portugal-sized mess. Trump is doing an amazing job at strangling MAGA-wannabes in their little cribs. Seems so recent that we were hearing about the rising tide of unstoppable far right forces.
I count this as a mitzvah we’re doing for the whole world: gaze upon our humiliation and run the other way.
@JohnSF: My conservative-leaning, Berlin-based Romanian buddy was exasperated by Simion running around in a red hat, praising Trump constantly. Seems to me if you’re tryna sell yourself as a Romanian nationalist, then running as a suckup to a failed American president isn’t the best strategy. Trump didn’t campaign on fellating his antecedent Orban, after all.
The best vegetarian dishes are vegetarian in their own right. Those trying to be meat fail — chickenless chicken, meatless meatballs, ugh. They can never taste like real meat; they’re made palatable by heavy use of sides, condiments, dippings, sauces, fats and oils.
The pale imitation factor hurts international Trump mini-mes. Meatless MAGA. I’m not complaining about it.
I’ve always found the obvious pro-Republican bias of the supposedly liberal MSM, as exemplified by the current sanewashing disturbing
To wit, today at 1:30am ET, Epstein’s dear friend Trump was on social media ranting about Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Oprah, and Bono:
HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? …AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO??? I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter. Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment. In addition, this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds. IT’S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic “entertainers,” this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!
This diseased mind has access to the nuclear codes. Those who failed vote to stop this madman have poor judgment.
Fucking Apple watch. I get an alert that my wife has taken a hard fall and may need emergency services. I call her, no answer. I cut short the dog walk – and pass up an anticipated bagel – in order to rush home and figure it out.
Turns out she’s at an airport with her phone muted, and made the mistake of packing her Apple watch which translates baggage handling as car accidents or falls down elevator shafts. Either I, or my wife, has occasioned IIRC four such accident reports, all wrong, all of them stress-inducing time sucks. The Apple watch is an absolutely unnecessary toy and I regret letting my daughter talk me into one. I stopped wearing it after a few months. It’s sitting in a drawer.
No doubt the machines will get ever more clever, but so far Apple’s Siri is a moderately capable egg timer which interrupts at infrequent but annoying intervals in response to imaginary requests; my BMW active steering had to be turned off because it is never, ever right; the goddamn Nest thermostat was a mess to install and a pain in the ass forever deciding for itself what the temperature should be.
While we’re at it AI is absolutely destroying YouTube. And the YouTube, Apple, Amazon and Netflix algorithms have never, ever, not once suggested anything I was actually interested in. Ditto Google’s supposedly targeted ads.
So far in my life smart machines are just dull toddlers either interrupting and wasting my time, or offering stupid suggestions. It’s depressing the way every touted technological advance turns out to be so much less than what it claimed to be.
According to Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, Trump directed Republican lawmakers to “go after the things that are going to help middle-class folks.” Trump’s economic plans are now codified in the Republican reconciliation bill, which Trump calls his “one big, beautiful bill.” Trump is urging Congress to approve it quickly.
I think the Republican House can say that they’ve made good on Trump’s pledge. The middle rich in the top decile do benefit the most from the budget reconciliation.
ETA: And the cuts in the safety net and affordable healthcare certainly do go after the things that will help the middle class folks (using conventional understandings of who “middle class” are). Winning all around.
America has nearly half a million unfilled manufacturing jobs, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Nearly half of manufacturing companies say their biggest challenge is recruiting and retaining workers, according to a survey this year by the National Association of Manufacturers.
Guess what else Americans don’t want to do: pick strawberries, replace roofs in the boiling sun, do textile piece work, cut up chickens, assemble furniture, you know, all the shitty jobs we get our immigrants or other countries’ poor to do for us.
Duh. When are people going to get it through their heads that right-wing billionaires are not the people to be setting our economic policies? Republican economic theory boils down to, ‘greed is good.’ Full stop.
It makes no sense that the U.S. would proactively diminish its overall high labor productivity, and also risk giving up the exorbitant privilege of having the world’s reserve currency.
@Michael Reynolds:
When you stop throwing the ball to the dog they always get more desperate for attention for a bit, but eventually they find something else to occupy themselves with.
@Mister Bluster: Not til we’re all dead, no. (This would be the place where normally I would make some Bible quote such as “The sins of the fathers are carried by the sons to the 5th generation,” but I’m not going to today.)
@Michael Reynolds: Isn’t there some theory about job offers going unfilled meaning that wages are too low? Some 16th or 17th century philosopher guy (economics was a branch of moral philosophy back then IIRC) from France?
Yesterday’s discussion of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis and PSA testing had me consulting a Mayo Clinic PSA test site…
The PSA test can detect high levels of PSA that may indicate the presence of prostate cancer. However, many other conditions, such as an enlarged or inflamed prostate, also can increase PSA levels. Therefore, determining what a high PSA score means can be complicated.
There is a lot of conflicting advice about PSA testing. To decide whether to have a PSA test, discuss the issue with your doctor, considering your risk factors and weighing your personal preferences.
Something I can comment on, but don’t know how it affects the decision to have a PSA screening test, is the cost of the test in 2025. The Free/Total PSA test measured three parameters, one of which was Total PSA, and the cost for those three numbers was:
Provider charges (sticker price): $655
Insurance allowance (actual price): $152
And being fortunate to have decent health insurance, insurance paid most of the $152.
I approve of any and all negative opinions about Apple 😀
Past that, I never saw the need or purpose for a “smart” watch. Not for myself. In fact, I stopped wearing a watch at some point in the late 90s. By then, clocks were plentiful everywhere, so there was no longer any need for an accessory that tells time.
Do Americans not want to do those jobs at all, or do they not want to do those jobs at the low low wages offered by those in the cult of share value supremacy?
My central take on AI (and most new tech) is that nobody likes it at all for anything other than busy work. They say that it will get better. But getting better is an illusion when it comes to innate value. A technology is interesting and exciting from the get-go or it isn’t. And even with busy work has its obvious limits. People who say it’s going to get better are missing the point.
In the 70s, early sampling and synthesizers sound primitive to us now, but musicians took to them and created masterpieces. And before that, when electronics were neither cheap nor available, avant-garde composers with access to university equipment got deep into the machine. The first Kraftwerk albums are bleeps and bloops and they are up there with Exile in Main Street. We didn’t have to wait twenty or so years for Detroit techno and drum n’ bass to get Trans-Europe Express.
Same goes with first Macs. Graphic designers loved them. No one had to promise the Adobe Creative Suite of the future to get people to love using the first Mac.
When I got a modem in 1992, and my friend’s dad’s login at the local university, I was using telnet to play MUDs and I wasn’t like this text-based game sucks, but it will get better in the future when I can play Call of Duty online. I thought it was cool as hell.
But ChatbotGPT etc are jokes: nothing they produce is interesting. Defenders keep on saying, look at the improvements. It’s a meaningless qualification. And visually, I’ve seen maybe a few artists like Seth Price use AI to interfere with their paintings and I’m not sure how interesting it was, and Price is a genius.
@Charley in Cleveland: Paul Campos at LGM had this to say about the media’s coverage of Trump:
For a decade now, much of the American political class has been committed to the unconscious project of denying to itself that what is happening in this country is actually happening.
Remember, in that vein, “this is the day Donald Trump became president?” That day kept recurring during the early years of the first Trump presidency, whenever very serious people found the tiniest speck of evidence that Donald Trump, real estate scam artist, perpetual bankrupt, reality TV star, self-confessed grabber of unwilling women’s genitalia (note to historians in the far future, if any: this actually happened; it isn’t, in the style of the most outrageous stories about Caligula et al, something that his political enemies made up), and unparalleled publicity whore, was somehow “growing” into the office of the presidency.
Yes, many a pundit announced this over and over again, until after approximately the 77th time that Trump did something more outrageously stupid than any other president had ever done, on the day after yet another day on which he had supposedly really become president. Then they finally stopped. But it went on for a long time, and this is why:
Because what happened in this country, and what is now happening again, except far more egregiously this time because The Adults in the Room are all long gone, is so completely unbelievable.
It simply cannot be the case that the president of the United States of America is, to use the technical term from the relevant political science scholarly literature, a complete fucking idiot. Because if that were the case, that would suggest something indescribably horrible about not only our entire political system, but about the broader culture within which that system exists.
Eff Jake Tapper for sitting on the truth during the Biden presidency or reporting the truth now?
Fuck Jake Tapper for either sitting on the truth during the Biden presidency, or lying (or exaggerating it) now to sell his book.
As a simple logic problem, there’s no conceivable world where Jake Tapper’s actions are the right ones. Whether Biden is smart and faster than he ever was, or he’s slowed down a bit, or he’s senile, or he’s literally in a coma — in each of those cases Jake Tapper is acting unethically for his own book sales.
@Michael Reynolds: I’m a little surprised that the Apple Watch didn’t either panic when your wife had no pulse for a while, or recognize that it wasn’t on her and so she hadn’t fallen.
It’s actually the same dilemma as the Jake Tapper thing, but with poor programmed behavior rather than gross ethical lapses.
@Michael Reynolds:
When it come to discovering things that may interest me, humans beat AI hands down.
The other evening I listened to a Grateful Dead live recording (rather good, it was too.)
The idiot algorithm than suggested “if you liked this you might like …
Abba Live!”
WTF?
lol
For music, I sometimes like browsing RateYourMusic lists.
Or working my way through the Penguin and Gramophone music guides.
Or else I just sit back, stick an LP on the turntable and sip a whisky.
AI notoriously has no “truth sense”; and even less judgement of aesthetics.
The problem will be if/when media publishers default to AI for commissioning.
OTOH, given what they are already churning out, could we tell?
@Daryl: “When you stop throwing the ball to the dog they always get more desperate for attention for a bit, but eventually they find something else to occupy themselves with.”
Unless it’s a Jack Russel. They will never stop demanding you throw the ball. Never.
@CSK:..
I made those posts on my Chrome browser. They did not appear when I hit the post comment key so I looked on my Safari browse and there they were. Restarted my MacBook Air. Still could not see them on Chrome. Also could not post from Safari. Took a break and could see all my posts on my iPhone. Now, about 10 minutes later I can see everything on my MacBook Air Chrome browser. Still haven’t checked Safari on my MacBook Air.
I will attempt to post this from MacBook Air Safari.
I will first copy this and paste it to TextEdit in case it vanishes.
The squirrels are having a party somewhere. I can not see posts that I compose on my MacBook Air Chrome browser when I hit the Post Comment key but they appear on the thread when I look at MacBook Air Safari browser.
This comment is composed on my MacBook Air Safari Browser. Let’s see what happens when I hit
Post Comment.
Just attempted to post this from MacBook Air Safari and it vanished. I’m going to try and post it from MacBook Air Chrome and see where it goes.
The squirrels are having a party somewhere. I can not see posts that I compose on my MacBook Air Chrome browser when I hit the Post Comment key but they appear on the thread when I look at MacBook Air Safari browser.
This comment is composed on my MacBook Air Safari Browser. Let’s see what happens when I hit
Post Comment.
So I take from this thread that Americans don’t want to do the icky jobs. But wait! I then hear that its a wage problem. But wait! No tariffs means no price increases will be accepted from consumers……….or no wage increases to workers. Oh, crap. This is a pickle. Do any of you lefties have a coherent view of the entirety of the issue?
As for Americans not wanting to do the nasty stuff. Eff you. I did. A dream world only exists in music:
“And if I say to you tomorrow
Take my hand, child, come with me
It’s to a castle I will take you
Where what’s to be, they say will be.”
@Connor: adults understand that things often have more than one cause, and that multiple things can be true at once.
It’s complicated, I know, but ask your parent or legal guardian to explain this concept to you.
——
Did I do something wrong, or are posts not posting? I usually ignore Mister Bluster’s posting problems, as he just seems cursed when it comes to technology, but maybe there are real problems today. Or I pressed the wrong button.
(No offense meant to Mister Bluster. At least not from me. The computers seem to hate him though.)
@JohnSF:
Hey, John, I don’t know if you do podcasts, but The History of Rock Music in 500 Songs is just astoundingly good. Even stuff I have no real interest in, he sells it. But his masterpiece to date is episode 165, ‘Dark Star’ which was half a level up from excellent. Recognizing that Garcia and Weir and Lesh and Pigpen (and a dozen other people) lived a weird sort of non-linear narrative, he went to Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorian time to tell a story that went from the 50’s to the 80’s. The Dead were more influential in more unexpected ways than most people would recognize.
None taken.
Any Computer Curse that may befall me is likely the result of my Junior College classes in Data Processing and Computer Programming in 1967. We trained on an IBM 1401 which was obsolete and had been donated to the school. In 1968 when I transferred to SIU, a four year college, there were no courses available in Computer Programming so I had to change my major. I lost all my credits from the Junior College computer classes.
When I worked in the landline telephone industry for 35 years I got pretty good at running trouble (open circuits, shorts, grounds or crossed wires) in two wire and four wire local exchange circuits that could be as much as 10 miles or more in length. Toll circuits between towns were even longer. Some cases of trouble were easier than others to find. In the winter I would look for damaged pedestals (ground mounted cable housings). Many times I could just kick the housing, mice would come running out and when I checked the trouble would be cleared.
@Michael Reynolds: “The History of Rock Music in 500 Songs is just astoundingly good”
To me Andrew Hickey makes the entire internet worthwhile.
I started listening around the time he covered the Byrds with Eight Miles High and started with a brief history of raga before moving into bebop — and the intersection between the two — and then on to the Byrds. And still had time to talk about what a dick David Crosby was.
@wr:
I’m not surprised you’d like Hickey. Anyone who writes, especially anyone who’s ever done long-running writing – TV or book series – has to just be in awe of this guy. I’ve gone to the actuarial tables to see whether I’m likely to live long enough. to get to episode 500. (Touch and go.)
Random thought of the morning: In Washington DC – speak when one talks of reform, they mean cut.
For those who like numbers:
Distributional Effects of House Budget Reconciliation as of Thursday, May 15
Also:
The ugly truth about Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”
To me the best outcome to close the deficit (no, it will not reduce debt, just slow the increase in national debt) is to let the TCJA just expire.
The most predictable, unsurprising, and yet disappointing headline:
One Thing Helping Trump’s Approval Rating: Some People Are Not Paying Attention
Voters were more likely to approve of President Trump’s job performance if they had not been following some of the major news stories of his first 100 days in office, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll found.
Half way into the Trump tariff negotiation period before tariffs are increased substantially—- What trade deals have been concluded?
Considering the top ten largest “reciprocal tariffs” what can countries like St. Pierre, Lesotho, Vietnam, Falkland, Madagascar, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Cambodia have to offer to Trump to mitigate the threatened tariffs exceeding 40% poised for imposition in 45 days?
@Bobert: I can’t wait for the return of banana plantations and coffee groves to the continental United States.
@Bobert:
Define concluded.
Let me try. Concluded means release of White House news item calling Trump the most successful dealmaker ever.
@Jen:
Part of it, too, is that they not only want but need to believe he’s their savior.
With all the ado about Joe Biden’s mental acuity (now sadly less important because of the cancer diagnosis), one would think the media would be concerned with the manner in which Trump’s mental acuity is being displayed with every utterance and “Truth.” He obviously doesn’t know how tariffs work, and he doesn’t have even a nodding acquaintance with the Constitution. The oath of office traveled from John Roberts’ mouth to Trump’s ear and he was able to repeat it (a la man, woman, person, camera etc.), but by the time it reached Trump’s brain it was gibberish. Every day Trump says something utterly stupid, dishonest, or delusional, and it’s dismissed as Trump being Trump. But now the country is supposed to feel the media failed (conspired?) to honestly report on Biden??? Media – heal thyself! And eff you, Jake Tapper!
@Charley in Cleveland: I’ve always found the obvious pro-Republican bias of the supposedly liberal MSM, as exemplified by the current sanewashing, disturbing and puzzling. Yes, they are often accused of a liberal bias, and with some truth. But they seem to lean as far right as they can, constrained by what Colbert said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” To avoid it they’d have to go for the unreality of FOX.
My only explanation is that the free press is a wonderful thing for the man who owns one. The owners share the biases of the rich. But given reality they have a hard time imposing their views on the newsroom. We have the current example of Bezos shucking and jiving to avoid offending Trump.
In Romania, the liberal candidate Nicusor Dan beats the right-nationalist George Simion.
One more for the recent list of “elections to smile about.”
@JohnSF:
I mentioned that yesterday, and I’ll add that in Portugal the far right stalled out in yesterday’s vote. It’s still a mess, but it’s only a Portugal-sized mess. Trump is doing an amazing job at strangling MAGA-wannabes in their little cribs. Seems so recent that we were hearing about the rising tide of unstoppable far right forces.
I count this as a mitzvah we’re doing for the whole world: gaze upon our humiliation and run the other way.
@JohnSF: My conservative-leaning, Berlin-based Romanian buddy was exasperated by Simion running around in a red hat, praising Trump constantly. Seems to me if you’re tryna sell yourself as a Romanian nationalist, then running as a suckup to a failed American president isn’t the best strategy. Trump didn’t campaign on fellating his antecedent Orban, after all.
The best vegetarian dishes are vegetarian in their own right. Those trying to be meat fail — chickenless chicken, meatless meatballs, ugh. They can never taste like real meat; they’re made palatable by heavy use of sides, condiments, dippings, sauces, fats and oils.
The pale imitation factor hurts international Trump mini-mes. Meatless MAGA. I’m not complaining about it.
@gVOR10:
To wit, today at 1:30am ET, Epstein’s dear friend Trump was on social media ranting about Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Oprah, and Bono:
This diseased mind has access to the nuclear codes. Those who failed vote to stop this madman have poor judgment.
Fucking Apple watch. I get an alert that my wife has taken a hard fall and may need emergency services. I call her, no answer. I cut short the dog walk – and pass up an anticipated bagel – in order to rush home and figure it out.
Turns out she’s at an airport with her phone muted, and made the mistake of packing her Apple watch which translates baggage handling as car accidents or falls down elevator shafts. Either I, or my wife, has occasioned IIRC four such accident reports, all wrong, all of them stress-inducing time sucks. The Apple watch is an absolutely unnecessary toy and I regret letting my daughter talk me into one. I stopped wearing it after a few months. It’s sitting in a drawer.
No doubt the machines will get ever more clever, but so far Apple’s Siri is a moderately capable egg timer which interrupts at infrequent but annoying intervals in response to imaginary requests; my BMW active steering had to be turned off because it is never, ever right; the goddamn Nest thermostat was a mess to install and a pain in the ass forever deciding for itself what the temperature should be.
While we’re at it AI is absolutely destroying YouTube. And the YouTube, Apple, Amazon and Netflix algorithms have never, ever, not once suggested anything I was actually interested in. Ditto Google’s supposedly targeted ads.
So far in my life smart machines are just dull toddlers either interrupting and wasting my time, or offering stupid suggestions. It’s depressing the way every touted technological advance turns out to be so much less than what it claimed to be.
@Michael Reynolds:
Well, I’m very glad Katherine’s okay. Perhaps now she too will consign the watch to a drawer.
@Scott: Only half of them. Remember health care reform?
@Charley in Cleveland: Eff Jake Tapper for sitting on the truth during the Biden presidency or reporting the truth now?
Do not engage.
@Charley in Cleveland: @gVOR10: Leftists can say reality has a left-wing bias and eff reality in the same breath.
@Michael Reynolds: The only legit trolling I’ve ever done on Outside the Beltway was liking this comment.
That fucking war will never end.
@Scott:
I think the Republican House can say that they’ve made good on Trump’s pledge. The middle rich in the top decile do benefit the most from the budget reconciliation.
ETA: And the cuts in the safety net and affordable healthcare certainly do go after the things that will help the middle class folks (using conventional understandings of who “middle class” are). Winning all around.
More on the cluelessness of MAGAnomics.
Guess what else Americans don’t want to do: pick strawberries, replace roofs in the boiling sun, do textile piece work, cut up chickens, assemble furniture, you know, all the shitty jobs we get our immigrants or other countries’ poor to do for us.
Duh. When are people going to get it through their heads that right-wing billionaires are not the people to be setting our economic policies? Republican economic theory boils down to, ‘greed is good.’ Full stop.
@Mister Bluster:
This reminds me of “Falling Soldier” by Robert Capa.
Conspiracy theorists are nothing new.
FWIW, I believe Ut and I believe Capa.
@Michael Reynolds:
Condolences for your loss…the bagel, I mean.
It makes no sense that the U.S. would proactively diminish its overall high labor productivity, and also risk giving up the exorbitant privilege of having the world’s reserve currency.
Add.: It does make sense to U.S. adversaries.
@Michael Reynolds:
When you stop throwing the ball to the dog they always get more desperate for attention for a bit, but eventually they find something else to occupy themselves with.
@Michael Reynolds:
[From Fortune to MR]
Maybe you should take your advice to others to heart (and the tone is kinda rough, too, maybe a little less command and more suggestion)?
@Mister Bluster: Not til we’re all dead, no.
(This would be the place where normally I would make some Bible quote such as “The sins of the fathers are carried by the sons to the 5th generation,” but I’m not going to today.)@Michael Reynolds: Isn’t there some theory about job offers going unfilled meaning that wages are too low? Some 16th or 17th century philosopher guy (economics was a branch of moral philosophy back then IIRC) from France?
Yesterday’s discussion of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis and PSA testing had me consulting a Mayo Clinic PSA test site…
Something I can comment on, but don’t know how it affects the decision to have a PSA screening test, is the cost of the test in 2025. The Free/Total PSA test measured three parameters, one of which was Total PSA, and the cost for those three numbers was:
Provider charges (sticker price): $655
Insurance allowance (actual price): $152
And being fortunate to have decent health insurance, insurance paid most of the $152.
@Michael Reynolds:
I approve of any and all negative opinions about Apple 😀
Past that, I never saw the need or purpose for a “smart” watch. Not for myself. In fact, I stopped wearing a watch at some point in the late 90s. By then, clocks were plentiful everywhere, so there was no longer any need for an accessory that tells time.
@Michael Reynolds:
Do Americans not want to do those jobs at all, or do they not want to do those jobs at the low low wages offered by those in the cult of share value supremacy?
@Michael Reynolds:
My central take on AI (and most new tech) is that nobody likes it at all for anything other than busy work. They say that it will get better. But getting better is an illusion when it comes to innate value. A technology is interesting and exciting from the get-go or it isn’t. And even with busy work has its obvious limits. People who say it’s going to get better are missing the point.
In the 70s, early sampling and synthesizers sound primitive to us now, but musicians took to them and created masterpieces. And before that, when electronics were neither cheap nor available, avant-garde composers with access to university equipment got deep into the machine. The first Kraftwerk albums are bleeps and bloops and they are up there with Exile in Main Street. We didn’t have to wait twenty or so years for Detroit techno and drum n’ bass to get Trans-Europe Express.
Same goes with first Macs. Graphic designers loved them. No one had to promise the Adobe Creative Suite of the future to get people to love using the first Mac.
When I got a modem in 1992, and my friend’s dad’s login at the local university, I was using telnet to play MUDs and I wasn’t like this text-based game sucks, but it will get better in the future when I can play Call of Duty online. I thought it was cool as hell.
But ChatbotGPT etc are jokes: nothing they produce is interesting. Defenders keep on saying, look at the improvements. It’s a meaningless qualification. And visually, I’ve seen maybe a few artists like Seth Price use AI to interfere with their paintings and I’m not sure how interesting it was, and Price is a genius.
@Charley in Cleveland: Paul Campos at LGM had this to say about the media’s coverage of Trump:
Link: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/05/voters-who-dont-know-anything-about-donald-trump-kind-of-like-donald-trump
@Mister Bluster:
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
-William Faulkner
@Fortune:
Fuck Jake Tapper for either sitting on the truth during the Biden presidency, or lying (or exaggerating it) now to sell his book.
As a simple logic problem, there’s no conceivable world where Jake Tapper’s actions are the right ones. Whether Biden is smart and faster than he ever was, or he’s slowed down a bit, or he’s senile, or he’s literally in a coma — in each of those cases Jake Tapper is acting unethically for his own book sales.
@Michael Reynolds: I’m a little surprised that the Apple Watch didn’t either panic when your wife had no pulse for a while, or recognize that it wasn’t on her and so she hadn’t fallen.
It’s actually the same dilemma as the Jake Tapper thing, but with poor programmed behavior rather than gross ethical lapses.
@Gustopher: We can agree he wasn’t doing his job, but at least Biden’s failing health was so obvious we didn’t need him to.
Apparently Trump wants Obama to face a military tribunal, or so he posted on Truth Social.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-posts-deranged-obama-meme-in-qanon-inspired-truth-social-spree/
The CATO Institute would like you to know that 50+ Venezuelans Imprisoned in El Salvador Came to US Legally, Never Violated Immigration Law
@Michael Reynolds:
When it come to discovering things that may interest me, humans beat AI hands down.
The other evening I listened to a Grateful Dead live recording (rather good, it was too.)
The idiot algorithm than suggested “if you liked this you might like …
Abba Live!”
WTF?
lol
For music, I sometimes like browsing RateYourMusic lists.
Or working my way through the Penguin and Gramophone music guides.
Or else I just sit back, stick an LP on the turntable and sip a whisky.
AI notoriously has no “truth sense”; and even less judgement of aesthetics.
The problem will be if/when media publishers default to AI for commissioning.
OTOH, given what they are already churning out, could we tell?
@CSK: reposted, not posted
@Fortune:
Oh, that clarifies things immensely. I’m soooo grateful you pointed this out. What a yuuuuge difference that makes.
By the way, here’s what Trump wrote: “All roads lead to Obama. Retruth if you want military tribunals.”
See, Trump is asking for military tribunals. He’s instructing his followers to retruth if they want them as well.
No one expects Trump to have an original thought
No one expects Trump to have an original thought.
check
I can see my posts on my Safari browser but not my Chrome browser.
Something screwy is going on.
@Mister Bluster:
Your post about no one expecting Trump to have an original thought appeared three times on my laptop (Chrome).
@Mister Bluster:
I have insulted AI, and it is wreaking its revenge?
@Daryl: “When you stop throwing the ball to the dog they always get more desperate for attention for a bit, but eventually they find something else to occupy themselves with.”
Unless it’s a Jack Russel. They will never stop demanding you throw the ball. Never.
@CSK:..
I made those posts on my Chrome browser. They did not appear when I hit the post comment key so I looked on my Safari browse and there they were. Restarted my MacBook Air. Still could not see them on Chrome. Also could not post from Safari. Took a break and could see all my posts on my iPhone. Now, about 10 minutes later I can see everything on my MacBook Air Chrome browser. Still haven’t checked Safari on my MacBook Air.
I will attempt to post this from MacBook Air Safari.
I will first copy this and paste it to TextEdit in case it vanishes.
The squirrels are having a party somewhere. I can not see posts that I compose on my MacBook Air Chrome browser when I hit the Post Comment key but they appear on the thread when I look at MacBook Air Safari browser.
This comment is composed on my MacBook Air Safari Browser. Let’s see what happens when I hit
Post Comment.
Just attempted to post this from MacBook Air Safari and it vanished. I’m going to try and post it from MacBook Air Chrome and see where it goes.
Eat this squirrels!
So I take from this thread that Americans don’t want to do the icky jobs. But wait! I then hear that its a wage problem. But wait! No tariffs means no price increases will be accepted from consumers……….or no wage increases to workers. Oh, crap. This is a pickle. Do any of you lefties have a coherent view of the entirety of the issue?
As for Americans not wanting to do the nasty stuff. Eff you. I did. A dream world only exists in music:
“And if I say to you tomorrow
Take my hand, child, come with me
It’s to a castle I will take you
Where what’s to be, they say will be.”
@Connor: adults understand that things often have more than one cause, and that multiple things can be true at once.
It’s complicated, I know, but ask your parent or legal guardian to explain this concept to you.
@Connor: adults understand that things often have more than one cause, and that multiple things can be true at once.
It’s complicated, I know, but ask your parent or legal guardian to explain this concept to you.
——
Did I do something wrong, or are posts not posting? I usually ignore Mister Bluster’s posting problems, as he just seems cursed when it comes to technology, but maybe there are real problems today. Or I pressed the wrong button.
(No offense meant to Mister Bluster. At least not from me. The computers seem to hate him though.)
Trump says Biden has “stage nine” cancer.
There is no such thing.
@JohnSF:
Hey, John, I don’t know if you do podcasts, but The History of Rock Music in 500 Songs is just astoundingly good. Even stuff I have no real interest in, he sells it. But his masterpiece to date is episode 165, ‘Dark Star’ which was half a level up from excellent. Recognizing that Garcia and Weir and Lesh and Pigpen (and a dozen other people) lived a weird sort of non-linear narrative, he went to Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorian time to tell a story that went from the 50’s to the 80’s. The Dead were more influential in more unexpected ways than most people would recognize.
@Gustopher:
How insightful. Thank you so much. My world has been illuminated.
What I said the other day about immigration being “the white way”: At least 50 Venezuelans disappeared to El Salvador came into the US legally
This is not a test post.
@Gustopher:..offense…
None taken.
Any Computer Curse that may befall me is likely the result of my Junior College classes in Data Processing and Computer Programming in 1967. We trained on an IBM 1401 which was obsolete and had been donated to the school. In 1968 when I transferred to SIU, a four year college, there were no courses available in Computer Programming so I had to change my major. I lost all my credits from the Junior College computer classes.
When I worked in the landline telephone industry for 35 years I got pretty good at running trouble (open circuits, shorts, grounds or crossed wires) in two wire and four wire local exchange circuits that could be as much as 10 miles or more in length. Toll circuits between towns were even longer. Some cases of trouble were easier than others to find. In the winter I would look for damaged pedestals (ground mounted cable housings). Many times I could just kick the housing, mice would come running out and when I checked the trouble would be cleared.
@Connor:
I suspect it has not.
@Michael Reynolds: “The History of Rock Music in 500 Songs is just astoundingly good”
To me Andrew Hickey makes the entire internet worthwhile.
I started listening around the time he covered the Byrds with Eight Miles High and started with a brief history of raga before moving into bebop — and the intersection between the two — and then on to the Byrds. And still had time to talk about what a dick David Crosby was.
A brilliant writer and historian.
@wr:
I’m not surprised you’d like Hickey. Anyone who writes, especially anyone who’s ever done long-running writing – TV or book series – has to just be in awe of this guy. I’ve gone to the actuarial tables to see whether I’m likely to live long enough. to get to episode 500. (Touch and go.)