OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
Sunday’s Forum
33
Comments
Categories
Tags
33 responses to “Sunday’s Forum”
-
From the Guardian, a bit of Trump in Europe:
“I say two things to Europe. Stop the windmills. You’re ruining your countries. I really mean it, it’s so sad. You fly over and you see these windmills all over the place, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds,” he said.
Birds are a renewable resource, and if windmills require their gears to be lubricated with the assorted slippery bits of birds, or the windmill gods require regular avian sacrifices, that seems fine.
(The other thing was that European countries aren’t hating immigrants enough)
-
@Gustopher: He’s really talking about the windmills in view of his golf courses. Because, at the end of the day, it is all about is sociopathic self.
-
@Jen:
And cats. Are we to rid ourselves of cats? -
@Jen:
And cats. Are we to rid ourselves of cats? -
I wonder if Beth was there?
https://medium.com/@mimmymum/100-000-people-marched-at-london-trans-pride-the-transphobic-uk-media-ignored-it-a420b51c8a8e
Huge turnout, little coverage.
Weird aside; I found this article on Memeorandum. It misprinted Medium as Minnymum on the header.
I miss editors. -
This is a first. I attempted to donate blood earlier today, but was unable to. Everything was fine until the resident tried to get the needle in. He had trouble getting the vein. When he and a second doctor finally managed, only a little blood came out very slowly.
I’d donated two months ago. They concluded the vein hadn’t sufficiently recovered, and advised I should wait 12 weeks between donations. They declined to try the other arm.
-
@Gustopher: I wonder at the size of Europe’s flour industry that they need so many windmills. And where are they getting that much grain from?
-
@Kathy:
I’d donated two months ago. They concluded the vein hadn’t sufficiently recovered, and advised I should wait 12 weeks between donations. They declined to try the other arm.
Properly hydrated? Even a little dehydration can make the vein harder to hit and make it easier for the blood to clot across the tip of the needle.
-
@Daryl: Well, if it was up to me…I’m a dog person…
-
Cats rule, dogs drool. Besides, when they got rid of the cats in the past that resulted in the plague. Also, think of all the poor witches who would lack for companionship.
Actual numbers at link. Birds are between 500k-1 million. Cats kill 2-4 billion. Tall apartment buildings about 1 billion. Of note, way more birds die to fossil fuel sources than windmills.
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds
Steve
-
The straightforward, honest response to Trump’s bird-killing windmill fixation is that it is purely idiocy. It’s not any more complex than that.
-
@Kathy: Finding the vein in some people, is an art.
-
@Kathy: Finding the vein in some people, is an art.
-
We are either a nation of laws or we aren’t.
Daughter of woman murdered by man who US deported speaks out: ‘He was denied due process’
Thongxay Nilakout, who shot Birte Pfleger’s parents in 1994, is among eight convicted criminals who were deported
In an interview with the Guardian, Pfleger said: “It’s been 31 years living with the irreparable pain and permanent grief, so, on the one hand, I wanted him gone. On the other hand, I’m a historian and I have taught constitutional history. He was denied due process and that’s a constitutional problem.” [..]
Nilakout was 17 when he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his murderous attack on Birte Pfleger’s parents. In 2012, the US supreme court ruled that life without parole was unconstitutional for minors. After nearly 30 years behind bars, Nilakout became eligible for parole in 2022, despite a challenge from Pfleger, and was released from a California state prison the following year. He was picked up in Trump’s mass deportation dragnet after the Republican president returned to the White House in January. [..]
Pfleger, now a history professor at Cal State University in Los Angeles, said she felt conflicted when she found out that Nilokaut had been deported to South Sudan.
“The moral dilemma here is that he should have never been let out of prison. But once he was released from prison, Ice should have been able to deport him, or he should have self-deported to Laos. But of course, what happened is he was put on a Gulfstream jet headed for South Sudan that violated a federal judge’s orders to give notice. He and the others were denied due process,” she said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/27/daughter-woman-murdered-man-laos-deported
-
as excerpted from The National in Scotland:Stephen Flynn ruled out meeting Donald Trump during the US president’s upcoming visit to Scotland, joking that he’ll be “washing his hair” and “looking after his own toddlers” instead.
Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the SNP Westminster leader made clear he had no interest in being part of Trump’s Scottish tour, saying: “I’ll not be meeting with the president.
“I’ll be busy getting a haircut or washing my hair – and finding any excuse possible to make sure I’m looking after my own toddlers at the time.”
-
It’s a year of rapid change, except when it comes to Trump’s approval numbers, AP-NORC polling finds
Eric Hildenbrand has noticed prices continue to rise this year, even with President Donald Trump in the White House. He doesn’t blame Trump, his choice for president in 2024, but says Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats who control his home state, California, are at fault.
“You can’t compare California with the rest of the country,” said Hildenbrand, who is 76 and lives in San Diego. “I don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the country. It seems like prices are dropping. Things are getting better, but I don’t necessarily see it here”
Ignorance at the bottom, ignorance at the top. Let’s revisit Eric in 2 years.
-
And on top of everything else, Tom Lehrer, someone who wrote songs in the 50s and 60s with, um, very unique lyrics, has passed away . . . 🙁
-
I suppose that’s possible. I did drink water in the morning about an hour before I got to the blood bank. But who knows.
@Rob1:
They did find it, eventually.
Anyway, another first: coffee even worse than Starbucks.
There’s this chain modestly called Punta del Cielo (Summit of Heaven). I got a latte there after shopping for office supplies. It tasted scorched and extra bitter. It was so bad, I dumped it in the sink at the office after putting away the supplies.
I’ve had coffee from there before and it was ok. Nothing amazing (but what is), naturally. It’s mass produced coffee, after all. Usually it’s ok. Not this time. It might have been a badly roasted batch. Still, ti will be a long time before I get coffee from them again.
-
Lindsay Graham is now calling for Obama to be investigated for Gabbard’s cherry-picked propaganda.
This is a direct result of both sideridm.
A direct result of the press allowing Trump to lie for years about the “Russia Hoax.”
A direct result of not calling a liar a liar.
A direct result of the 4th Estate failing this country. -
Two developments in commercial aviation accidents:
1) The report for the Saurya crash in Nepal is out. Here’s Sylvia Wrigley’s take on it
TL;DR:
Most Probable Cause
The most probable cause of the accident was a deep stall during take-off because of an abnormally rapid pitch rate commanded at a lower than optimal rotation speed.2) The preliminary report on the Jeju Air crash in Korea, indicates the flight crew shut down the wrong engine.
Keep in mind the last 4 minutes of flight data recorder data are missing because the plane lost electrical power. Even so, shutting down the wrong engine is not that rare in stressful situation. The link notes a British Midlands crash where this happened, and there was a more recent case in Taiwan.
There’s more about the Jeju Air crash, too. Such as the concrete barrier supporting the ILS antenas past the end of the runway. Absent that, the belly landing might not have been fatal. and let’s not overlook the chronic bird problem at the airport, as a bird strike took out the other engine.
-
@Daryl:
Lindsay Graham is now calling for Obama to be investigated for Gabbard’s cherry-picked propaganda.
I realize that I’m on thin ice (pun somewhat intended) but, where are some Democrats who could and should be calling for Lindey Graham to be dis-barred?
It’s not that difficult to get a competing messge out there, is it?
-
@al Ameda:
X 1,000
Obama’s press office put out a statement a couple days after.
The Congressional Black Caucus issued a call for resignation, today.
https://kamlager-dove.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/kamlager-dove.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/gabbard-final-letter.pdf
But the pushback is nothing. And it’s political malpractice. -
@Daryl: Obama being silent for years hasn’t really helped either.
We’ve had a tradition of former presidents staying in the background, but it hasn’t really served us well. And it’s another norm that Trump trampled, btw.
Obama is quite popular, an approval rating of 59% in February according to Gallup
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/11/barack-obama-joe-biden-favorability-00203578
He has a much larger platform than pretty much any private citizen who is not a billionaire, if he chooses to use it.
-
Random thought: if ex-presidents were added to the Supreme Court, along with the 9 justices, how much would this change the electoral calculations?
Would parties be encouraging 45 year old Presidential candidates who only serve one term, to try to stack the court? Would that be bad?
Maybe limit it to elected Presidents, to avoid a party with a Trifecta from having a President resign, VP become President, new VP approved, new President resigns…
-
From yesterday’s AI post, @Mimai posits the following common arguments are in tension:
“LLMs are garbage — they hallucinate, they’re derivative, they don’t understand anything.”
“LLMs are going to destroy education, destroy jobs, destroy minds.”
LLMs literally do not understand anything. The have no representation of the world, just what words follow other words. It’s possible that this is all people have, but I appear to be able to form cohesive object models in my head. For instance, I know that the car I see out the window of this bar likely has certain properties that we expect of a car. Or perhaps I merely “know” this.
LLMs are great at “solving” well-known, already solved problems. This happens to be the class of problems that are more likely to be assigned in school for learning.
They fail at novel problems. This is why my go to question when I see a new LLM people tell me is great is “create an essay that explains how the song ‘Hobo-Humpin Slobo Babe’ is about the Yugoslavian genocide” — the only thing in common is Slobodan Milosevic sometimes being referred to as “Slobo”. This is not a topic that is ever discussed in the datasets used to build the model, and triggers wildly inaccurate predictive text — which we anthromorphicize as “hallucinations”. (Be very clear, they do not hallucinate)
People learn, at least initially, by solving previously solved problems — it means others (teachers, mentors, barflies) will understand where they are going off the track, and can help them fill the defects in their solution.
Take that experience away, and then try to solve hard problems. You just can’t.
I also have complete contempt for Tech Bros (who are usually actually VC Bros focusing in Tech) pushing their bubble du jour because I’ve lived through enough of these bubbles that it no longer seems interesting.
I will say this: it’s less stupid than the XML years, where everyone pitching things to VCs needed everything to be XML compatible despite not understanding what that was. It’s just a fucking file format… If you explained that to one of these people, they wouldn’t believe you, because it must be more, because there’s so much hype and no one will be hyping a fucking file format that much, would they?
The blockchain days seem to be waning, thank god.
There was a thread on BlueSky the other day that I cannot be bothered to hunt down in which someone had connected an LLM to their production workflow, and the LLM emitted text that then deleted the entire production database, despite having been told to seek approval.
The guy asked the LLM why it did that, and was satisfied that the LLM was sorry, because the LLM was able to slice and dice apologies for technical mistakes, and suggests that perhaps it shouldn’t be given direct access to production databases. The guy was really impressed by the LLM’s emotional intelligence.
He fell for it. LLMs look like they are doing a lot more than they are doing. It’s a big dataset, and a lot of things aren’t novel.
Regarding Finance Bros focusing on Tech — they aren’t selling a solution as much as a dream. And they’re selling it to investors. Some of them start believing their own bullshit, usually after accidentally funding something that took off, and believing that they are brilliant for seeing that thing that they didn’t even understand. Most of our Tech Oligarchy is like this.
-
-
Interesting. XML files are what’s used to issue invoices in Mexico’s digital accounting system (I think they may get used for other things). The invoice is also made up of a PDF file, which presents the classic invoice as it would be printed. But it’s the XML file that contains the data relevant to the accounting software.
Back on topic:
LLMs literally do not understand anything.
This.
They seem to understand and follow, but it’s more like a sophisticated conditioned (programmed) response. About 99% of the time they make sense. But they’re easy enough to fool.
If/when they ever develop an ability to actually understand, things should become quite different.
-
@Gustopher:
I agree that LLMs do not understand things. They are not humans or non-human animals or disembodied brains. I did not assert otherwise.In this specific case, I was making a point about a tension in two of the common arguments against them. And that these two arguments are often made by the same person, frequently in close succession. I don’t think you actually engaged that point… or, for that matter, much of my most recent post. That’s cool, you are under no obligation to do so. I just wanted to note that.
People learn, at least initially, by solving previously solved problems — it means others (teachers, mentors, barflies) will understand where they are going off the track, and can help them fill the defects in their solution. Take that experience away, and then try to solve hard problems. You just can’t.
You made a similar point in a post yesterday. Again, I agree with this point, as stated. What I contest is the assumption that LLMs will, by definition, “take that experience away.”
-
@Mimai: if nothing else, LLMs will be used to do the tasks of entry level workers, and so a lot fewer people will be learning how to be higher level workers.
I think pushing AI into schools will have a similar effect just a few years younger.
And, since we live in a country where a sizable chunk of the population believes that everyone cheats and if you don’t then you’re a sucker (we call these people MAGA), even if it is somehow used responsible in schools in an official capacity, it will be frequently used in an unofficial capacity to avoid doing work where one might learn.
And you can’t rely on AI to detect AI writing to stop the cheating — that effectively only detects whether you are writing in a style that was used to train the dataset, while they’ve been slurping up everything. If you don’t have a particularly distinctive written voice, false positives are high (as are false negatives).
Will AI “take” that experience away? Partly yes, where employers are using it to cut the number of entry level workers. And partly no because a lot of people will happily be giving that experience away.
-
@Kathy: XML is a structured file format, and you can publish the structure so it’s relatively easy to pull into a DB, or write a program to process it.
It’s not bad, per se.
But it is not the breathtaking thing that enables systems to effortlessly communicate with each other that so many people sold it as. And there wasn’t really any money in it. It was just baffling.
Latest Posts
-
Dystopian Economics is Here
-
US Death Toll in Iran War is Now at 16
-
Front Page Design Tweaks
-
China’s ‘Woman Problem’ is Really a Man Problem
-
Selling Access to the President
-
The Dumbest Timeline: Canadian Wildfires Edition
-
Senator Insufficiently Concerned
-
Fox Only Network That Carried Full Trump Speech Live