ABrockwell @aebrockwell@qoto.org

Honestly I owe Defector a subscription for this headline alone

https://defector.com/cybertruck-deliveries-halted-due-to-car-being-a-big-piece-of-shit-that-doesnt-work

I spent a long time experimenting with AI before finally writing about it in depth. It can be pretty useful — but is it worth it?

https://www.citationneeded.news/ai-isnt-useless/

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #newsletter #CitationNeeded

> I find my feelings about #AI are actually pretty similar to my feelings about #blockchains: they do a poor job of much of what people try to do with them, they can't do the things their creators claim they one day might, and many of the things they are well suited to do may not be altogether that beneficial. And while I do think that AI tools are more broadly useful than blockchains, they also come with similarly monstrous costs.

- @molly0xfff

https://www.citationneeded.news/ai-isnt-useless-2/

I'm sick of justifying ethical behavior in terms of profit. We use phrases like "adding alt-text brings more customers to your site" or "protected bike lanes increase revenue for local businesses."

You should add alt-text descriptions to images because it helps people.

We need to build bike lanes because it makes cities safer and more accessible.

Reduce carbon emissions because it's the right thing to do! Discussing these things in purely economic terms misses the point.

I still hear people arguing that prosecuting a former president sets a “dangerous precedent.”

The truly dangerous precedent would be to establish that presidents are above the law.

"Try to say this paragraph out loud to yourself with a straight face:

'Seven months before an election, the presumptive Republican nominee is on trial for falsifying business records to conceal an extramarital affair with a porn star and even if he is convicted, it probably won’t impact the election in a major way.'

You can’t do it. It’s impossible."

~ Dan Pfeiffer

#Trump #trial #crime #LawandOrder #media

https://www.messageboxnews.com/p/why-trumps-trial-is-a-big-political

When I was a little boy, the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor. It was a surprise attack, and thousands of U.S. servicemembers perished. As a nation, we were stunned. And we vowed to strike back. Revenge was understandably on everyone’s mind, including many Americans of Japanese descent who opposed the emperor and were peaceful and law-abiding U.S. citizens and residents. /1

Politicians don't parrot Kremlin talking points by accident.

https://newrepublic.com/article/180630/russia-corruption-network-europe-buying-politicians-america

#DefendDemocracyAidUkraine
#AidUkraineNotPutin

Canadian political cartoonist, Michael deAdder has requested that his Washington Post cartoons be widely circulated after his recent dismissal.

Brian Klaas on why we need press objectivity, not "balance":

"When the news is 'balanced' in an unbalanced world, it becomes an instrument of deception. This has made producing the news extremely difficult in an era of mass delusions and hyper-polarization."

When one side is spewing toxic nonsense and the other is trying to carry on real conversation, false equivalency by media normalizes the toxic nonsense.

#media #MediaFail #BothSidesism

https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/why-we-need-press-objectivity-not

Computers as tools for humans are so useful exactly *because* they can’t think and do tedious work like calculations or information storage and retrieval for humans in a *deterministic* way.

It took like nearly 90 years of digital computers to make them powerful enough to run a wasteful algorithm that pretends to think (but doesn’t) and to deliver bullshit non-deterministic results while using absurd amounts of computational and environmental resources.

In 2016 Trump pledged to ban abortion & punish anyone who gets one.

His judicial picks overturned Roe.

He's surrounded himself with sworn enemies of reproductive rights.

No matter how much backtracking he tries to do, know that he will ban abortion if given a chance.

Stabbing in Australia. Seven dead counting the stabbed. Imagine how bad it could have been if they had not outlawed semi-automatic weapons

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2024/apr/13/australia-news-live-major-police-incident-in-sydney-after-reports-of-multiple-stabbings

"Christian nationalism is a serious threat to democracy, because it is premised on the supremacy of Christianity and rejects the democratic values of freedom and equality for all."

~ Sarah Posner

#ChristianNationalism #democracy

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-christian-nationalist-hydra-in-era-of-trump-christian-nationalism-has-many-faces

👀

Via Dave Ryder: 🧵 1/...

Here's William Jones who authored the 1864 #Arizona #abortion bill.

Some fun facts:

He abandoned his first wife and their children in Missouri.

His second wife was a 12 year old Mexican girl. He abducted her and after a complaint submitted his resignation to President Buchanan before he was fired.

@Anachron can $0 be an option? /hj

Borowitz

RFK Jr. Spreads Conspiracy Theory That His Mind is Being Controlled by Total Idiot

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/rfk-jr-spreads-conspiracy-theory

🔗: Again, my position on LLMs is that you absolutely shouldn’t be using them with very, very few exceptions #AI #Tech https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/you-should-not-be-using-llms/

Donald Trump is the reason Roe vs. Wade fell. There is no way around this fact. …

The public has rejected this extremism, from coast to coast, in red states and blue states. Trump understands audience feedback like he understands little else, and he is trying to keep away from the blowback. The mainstream media is giving him able assistance in this by presenting his abortion about-face as if it has no context."

#Trump #abortion #MediaFail #media

https://www.oliverexplains.com/p/the-media-tries-to-help-abortion