friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
What we need is a global mass mobilization to save the climate to move governments to take more decisive action...
Data centers consume so much water and energy that would otherwise be used for the needs of communities. They contribute tremendous amounts of carbon emissions that worsen the climate crisis. Trump is going all the way for AI, partly because it will need the massive energy that can only be provided by the fossil-fuel industry that is one of his main backers. In targeting data centers we would be hitting two birds with one stone, or two existential threats to the planet and humanity: climate change and AI.
There are 12,250 to 12,660 data centers globally. 1,136 to 1,189 are hyperscale—indeed, city-size--facilities to serve the massive cloud and AI computing needs of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and other Silicon Valley giants. More are on the way. They are being constructed not only in the Global North but also in the Global South.
... it was global mass action that stopped globalization in its tracks, that showed that it was leading not to prosperity but to great inequality, greater poverty, and global economic crisis. If no one any longer talks about the so-called benefits of globalization, which was the mantra we kept hearing in the late 1990’s and the 2010’s, that was because of global mass mobilization.


facebook.com/share/1CH8xSVXHi/

#WaldenBello #DataCenterGlobalization
#SalamiCenter

#WaldenBello #DataCenterGlobalization #SalamiCenter

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
None of the corrupt and vain emperors of history exacted of the sycophant poets in their retinues anything like the discipline imposed upon the poets of Procter and Gamble and Ford Motors. The copywriter is immeasurably more restricted in his choice of subject-matter than a court poet ever was. Moreover, the merit of his poetry is not measured by the pleasure it gives a single patron ; it is measured by its influence on sales statistics. Like the court poet, the copy-writer must praise not only his patron, but also the entire socio-economic system which keeps his patron rich and powerful. Milton, attacking the system of literary patronage of his time, was eloquent in his contempt for the 'trencher fury of the riming parasite.' A contemporary prophet able to look into the twentieth century might well have said to him, 'You haven't seen anything yet. Wait until you see the institutional ads of the great corporations during World War II!'


-- S.I. Hayakawa "Poetry and Advertising"

- mediaeducationlab.com/sites/de…
- poetryfoundation.org/poetrymag…

#SIHayakawa #PoetryAndAdvertising #CorporatePropaganda #VenalPoetry

#SIHayakawa #PoetryAndAdvertising #CorporatePropaganda #VenalPoetry
in reply to Brian Small

fedibird - Link to source

bsmall2

> It is difficult to become inspired by those facets of American life familiar and dear to all of us without sounding as if you were leading into a message from the National Association of Manufacturers on the necessity of maintaining the free enterprise system. Indeed, it is even difficult to speak reverently of the courage of our soldiers and the debt we owe the dead without sounding as if you were shortly going to remind the reader how much he also owes to Nash-Kelvinator's contribution to the war effort.
#VenalPoets #SellingFreeEnterprise
@bsmall2@nerdica.net
#VenalPoets #sellingfreeenterprise @Brian Small
in reply to bsmall2

fedibird - Link to source

bsmall2

🧵
Paul Goodman said thoughtful approaches were "swamped"...
> For every one person reached by...authors, advertisers and publicity men and economic propagandists with goods or ideas to sell reached tens of thousands. The distrust of words does not come from reading writers who honestly state their feelings and convictions, even if those feelings and convictions are extremely gloomy. The distrust arises from long experience with an unending stream of venal poetry, venal speech, venal writing..
#VenalWriting
@bsmall2@nerdica.net
#VenalWriting @Brian Small
in reply to bsmall2

fedibird - Link to source

bsmall2

🧵
> ... ... restoration of poetry[words, the internet!??...] to its traditional state as one of the most important of the communicators and creators of the values a civilization lives by awaits, therefore, a time when something less than 98 percent of radio time and 85 percent of space in mass-circulation magazines is devoted to selling something...
@bsmall2@nerdica.net
@Brian Small
in reply to Brian Small

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Brian Small

🧵

People are hardly to be blamed, when they encounter so much of it[venal word use], if they begin to wonder if there is any other kind. The preemption by the venal poet of the common value-symbols of our culture, the symbols of courage, of beauty, of domesticity, of patriotism, of happiness, and even of religion, for the purposes of selling, that is, of advantaging the speaker at the expense of the hearer, has left the disinterested poet with practically no unsullied symbols to work with other than obscure ones hauled up out of The Golden Bough or the Upanishads, and practically nothing in common human experience to write about except those negative moods that the ghastly cheerfulness of the advertising pages of the Ladies' Home Journal has no use for.


#AdvertisingCorrupts .. #SymbolDrain #RisingTideOfInsignificancy

I. A. Richards put a similar writing in _Speculative Instruments_.. and he praised Irving Babbit for good work in a similar vein.. I haven't found anytthing on advertising and tacky word use in general from Babbit though..

#AdvertisingCorrupts #SymbolDrain #RisingTideOfInsignificancy

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

The overlapping, militantly moderate Majority Democrats and The Bench were conceived and backed by billionaire hedge fund manager and Democratic donor Stephen Mandel. Majority Democrats is meant to be a “party within a party” that will counter the challenges from the left (by stealing some of its rhetoric) and will bring us “the next generation of Democratic leaders-willing to challenge the establishment and break with party orthodoxy.”
It is further funded by a lineup of big tech, private equity and crypto-donors, and dispenses money through a complex of PACs and Super PACs. Overall, Majority Democrats backed 14 House candidates, mostly incumbents, six of whom ran uncontested, one of whom withdrew (Jared Golden), most of the rest of whom won their primaries. The Bench supported 14 House newcomers, 10 of whom won including Brooks and Forstag.(11)
A look at the policy sections of Bernie Dogs’ websites reveals general and vague statements or limited reforms for improving healthcare, cost of living, better things for working people, fairer taxes, etc, but no commitments to specifics such as Medicare-for-All as a single payer system, Green New Deal, and virtually nothing on Palestine or Iran — in other words, what has become mainstream Democratic semi-populist rhetoric.


againstthecurrent.org/atc245/t…

#USPol #DSA #USDemocraticParty #BernieDogs #EnemyFriends

#uspol #dsa #USDemocraticParty #BernieDogs #EnemyFriends
in reply to bsmall2

fedibird - Link to source

bsmall2

🧵
> The arcane procedures and folkways of the Caucus, and indeed the legislative process itself, are further pressures for partisan conformity on major issues. That is why, despite their popularity, the Green New Deal, Medicare-For-All, serious taxes on the rich, etc, never made it to a floor vote in the House.
It will be impossible to make much progress on the issues without replacing the current House leadership of Hakeem Jeffries....who raised $15 million for re-election despite facing no real challenge.
#HakeemJeffries #MoneyCorrupts
@bsmall2@nerdica.net
#hakeemjeffries #moneycorrupts @Brian Small
in reply to bsmall2

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Brian Small

A trend. Tired of the failure of the Democrats to aid working-class people, some union workers are running as independents for the House and Senate.
Dan Osborn, former union and strike leader, who is running a second time for the Senate from Nebraska is the best known. He has set up the Working Class Heroes Fund to support others. Now three others are running for the House and endorsed by the fund: Nate Powell, union firefighter (WA 5); Bill Hill commercial fisherman (AK at large); and union firefighter Mike Thurow (WI 6).
These are white working-class guys running on anti-billionaire, anti-corporate, generally progressive populist platforms in red states or districts where Democrats fear to tread and DSA has little strength. There’s even a chance some may win. How will #DSADemocrats relate to them?
#DanaOsborn #NateaPowell #BillHill #MikeThurow


@bsmall2

#DSADemocrats #DanaOsborn #NateaPowell #BillHill #MikeThurow @bsmall2
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fedibird - Link to source
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"Where there is discrimination pollution is born."
「差別のある所に公害は生れる。」

Saw one of my old quote print-outs lying around when some lines by Arundhati Roy^1 came to mind and inspired another translation..

^1 _The Doctor And The Saint: The Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate_ "Men of the privileged castes had undisputed rights over the bodies of Untouchable women. Love is polluting. Rape is pure. In many parts of India, much of this continues to this day. "

#原田正純 #MasazumiHarada
#ArundhatiRoy #RoyOnCaste #TheDoctorAndTheSaint #AmbedkarGandhi

#arundhatiroy #MasazumiHarada #RoyOnCaste #AmbedkarGandhi #原田正純 #TheDoctorAndTheSaint

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fedibird - Link to source
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IMR: Infant Mortality Rate
> Cuba’s IMR was among the lowest in the Western Hemisphere — lower even than the rate for the US — with, for instance, a rate of 4.3 in 2015 according to Cuba’s health authorities, or 4.8 according to World Bank/UN estimates versus an average regional rate of 15.6 and a US rate of 5.8.

cepr.net/publications/us-sanct…
#IMR #InfantMortalityRate
#CubaSanctions #WarByOtherMeans

#WarByOtherMeans #imr #InfantMortalityRate #cubasanctions

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fedibird - Link to source

Chomsky, decades ago, mentioned a poll where's USA people thought "from each according to their ability, to.eaxh according to their need" was in the U.S. constitution.. since it was such an obvious principle for decent people, and I guess most of us assume the classic documents are written by decent people.. (not slaveowners or other whiny rich people.) I think the line is from the labor movement in France or somewhere in Europe and Engles put it in their Manifesto...

#EnglesManifesto #FromAbility #ToNeed

#EnglesManifesto #FromAbility #ToNeed

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mastodon - Link to source

Please stop anthropomorphizing AI company executives.

They're not sentient and they can't actually think. They just predict token sequences using statistical patterns scraped from LinkedIn, X and the Financial Times. The apparent "understanding" is simply a parlor trick: They produce text strings that *sound* plausible, but they don't actually have any understanding of the world.

I'll grant that they became a lot more technically impressive when Reinforcement Learning from Investor Sentiment pipelines were introduced, but fundamentally they're still just stochastic bullshit generators. Running them in a loop and giving them access to the internet will end up being the most expensive mistake in the history of technology.

This entry was edited (Wednesday, October 21, 2026, 10:25 PM)

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

A lot of time and effort with this book would help avoid "AI" marketing hype and text...

> A good diction takes work. It exploits the natural but does not come naturally. It demands a wary eye for the way meanings sprout, and it demands the courage to prune. It has the warmth of human concern. It is a cut about the commonplace,a cut bout the inaccuracies and circumlocutions of speech, yet within easy reach. Clarity is the first aim; economy, the second; grace, the third; dignity the fourth. Our writing should be a little strange, a little bit out of the ordinary, a little beautiful, with words and phrases not met every day but seeming as right and natural as grass. A good diction takes care and cultivation.

--- Sheridan Baker The Practical Stylist

#SheridanBaker #PracticalStylist #WritersVoice #GoodDiction #WritingStyle


- archive.org/details/practicals…

#SheridanBaker #PracticalStylist #WritersVoice #GoodDiction #WritingStyle
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fedibird - Link to source

> “(…) no computationally tractable account exists to date for substantive and domain-general cognitive capacities, such as reasoning, communication, decision-making, planning, analogizing, categorization, and concept formation (van Rooij et al., 2019). Moreover, there is no good reason to believe that such tractable accounts will be forthcoming via machine learning (van Rooij, Guest, et al., 2024) or otherwise (Rich et al., 2021).

irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2026/09…

#AIHype #AISalami #CognitiveComputation
/HT @Iris

Computational complexity for hype immunity

Using some of my own work, I set out to clear up a few relevant concepts from theoretical computer science and computational cognitive science that can help to build conceptual hygiene and immunity…
Iris van Rooij
#aihype #AISalami #CognitiveComputation @Iris van Rooij 💭

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pixelfed - Link to source
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Green Curtain Jungle Squash
And Silkies.
#GreenCurtain #GreenCurtainSquash #カボチャ #南瓜
#greencurtain #かぼちゃ #南瓜 #GreenCurtainSquash

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

There really is only one mention of "invisible hand" in Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations and it reads like opposition to multinational "Free Trade"...

By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3300/…


#AdamSmith #WealthofNations #国富論
#自由貿易反対 #InvisibleHand highly qualified..
#invisibleFoot

screenshot of a cell phone screen with then paragraph quoted in the post and a search dialogue showing that this appearance of "invisible hand" is 1 of 1...
#InvisibleFoot #AdamSmith #WealthofNations #国富論 #自由貿易反対 #InvisibleHand

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
... Winner wasn't even predicting the future. He was just describing what was already happening and noting where it would obviously lead. He saw the media mergers and asked the question nobody in the industry wanted to answer: what happened to the predicted collapse of large centralized structures in the age of electronic media? Where, exactly, did the decentralization go? He saw that the cyberlibertarians were going to deliver the opposite of everything they promised, and that they were going to keep getting paid to promise it anyway.


matduggan.com/the-intolerable-…

#MattDuggan #LangdonWinner #CorporatePR #CorporateIndividualism 🤮🤢🤕

#MattDuggan #LangdonWinner #CorporatePR #CorporateIndividualism

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
... and 3,500 US diplomatic personnel were either deployed elsewhere or given permission to flee for their lives. Other sources put diplomatic evacuees at up to 4,000. The State Department helped another 9,000 American civilians flee the region. This statistic shows an incredible exodus of American diplomats, businessmen and others from a region dominated and sometimes occupied by the US in recent decades. One State Department observer called it “unprecedented.” Even in the last days of the US presence in South Vietnam as the latter was falling, less than a thousand US diplomats were spirited out of the country.


juancole.com/2026/09/pentagon-…
#JuanCole #USIranWar #USADiplomats

#JuanCole #USIranWar #USADiplomats

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Rule By Cringe: Cringacracy !?

... the New York real estate buffoon who used 9/11 to aggrandize his property’s height would become America’s president.
Trump made certain to note that his building “actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest.” Like Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Trump then took his own 9/11 victory lap. “When they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second tallest,” he observed of 40 Wall Street. “And now it’s the tallest.” Like innumerable Trump statements in the 25 years since, it was callous and cringe-worthy and, of course, untrue. Nearby 70 Pine Street was actually taller.
...
theintercept.com/2026/09/11/bi…


archive.md/0mq7H

#NickTurse #RuleByCringe #NYC911 #uspol

#uspol #NickTurse #RuleByCringe #NYC911

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
In the absence of a miraculous baby boom or politically unpopular mass immigration, a growing number of experts urge a gradual downsizing. Takao Komine, senior researcher at the Japan Center for Economic Research, a think tank, is among those calling for “smart shrink”, a strategy in which population decline is assumed and public services are consolidated and made more efficient.
Local governments are already retooling housing, transport and welfare for the elderly. Toyama city has built a light-rail transit system designed for older people and subsidises housing construction around its stations. It has heavily invested in a care centre that has helped tug people back to the city centre, raising property prices and taxes. The care centre is built on the site of a primary school that closed in 2004.
Toyama and Nanmoku are at the vanguard of what Matanle calls a “turning point in human history”. The number of over-60s in the world passed one billion in 2019. By 2050 it will be 2.1 billion, according to the World Health Organisation, and the populations of 85 countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, will be shrinking. “The global population will peak around 50 years from now, in about 2070 or so, and then decline continuously from there. There’s very little we can do about it now,” says Matanle. Everybody should be watching what happens in Japan. This is their future.


irishtimes.com/world/asia-paci…

#DavidMcNeil #PopulationDecline #JapanPopulation #JapanInaka

irishtimes.com/world/asia-paci…

#DavidMcNeil #PopulationDecline #JapanPopulation #JapanInaka

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Turn toward the holocaust, it approaches
on every side, there is no other place
to turn. Dawning in your veins
Is the light of the blast
that will print your shadow on stone
In a last antic of despair
to survive you in the dark.
Man has put his history to sleep
In the engine of doom. It flies
over his dreams in the night,
a blazing cocoon. O gaze into the fire
and be consumed with man’s despair,
and be still, and wait. And then see
the world go on with the patient work
of seasons, embroidering birdsong
upon itself as for a wedding, and feel
your heart set out in the morning
like a young traveler, arguing the world
from the kiss of a pretty girl.
It’s the time’s discipline to think
of the death of all living, and yet live.


--- A Discipline, by Wendell Berry

dandelionhouse.org/in-the-hear…

#WendellBerry #ADiscipline
See #CamusOnDespair #NoLitOfDespair

#wendellberry #ADiscipline #CamusOnDespair #NoLitOfDespair
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pixelfed - Link to source
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It feels good to be in this old Japanese house surrounded by life.😁

#GreenCurtain #CurtainCanopy #BackyardChickens #Gecko #ヤモリ #烏骨鶏 #緑のカーテン

#gecko #backyardchickens #烏骨鶏 #greencurtain #ヤモリ #緑のカーテン #CurtainCanopy

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

アメリカスズカケノ 福禄寿

... an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in that has not harmed it.
There is a hollow in it
that is its death, though its living brims whitely
at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white
of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.
by Wendell Berry


upaya.org/wp-content/uploads/2…

journeywithjesus.net/poemsandp…

mindfulnessassociation.net/wor…

#WendellBerry #TheSycamore #SelfHealingTree #PlatanusOccidentalis

#wendellberry #TheSycamore #SelfHealingTree #PlatanusOccidentalis

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.


#WendellBerry #WendellBerryPoem #Poetry
/HT Theo the Catholic worker on FB
facebook.com/share/p/1J8furPQB…

#poetry #wendellberry #WendellBerryPoem
in reply to Brian Small

fedibird - Link to source

bsmall2

> ‘Dance,’ they told me,
and I stood still, and while they stood
quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced.
‘Pray,’ they said, and I laughed, covering myself
in the earth’s brightnesses, and then stole off gray
into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.
onbeing.org/poetry/the-contrar…

#ContraryFarmer #WendellBerry #WendellBerryPoetry #WendellBerryVoice

@bsmall2@nerdica.net

“The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer”

I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.
onbeing1 (The On Being Project)
#wendellberry #WendellBerryVoice #ContraryFarmer #WendellBerryPoetry @Brian Small

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.


#WendellBerry #WendellBerryPoem #Poetry
/HT Theo the Catholic worker on FB
facebook.com/share/p/1J8furPQB…

#poetry #wendellberry #WendellBerryPoem
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fedibird - Link to source
> ... the voting public is learning a hard—or I should say watery—lesson about how important good government is, by way of the manifold consequences of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Robert Kennedy hacking away at American state capacity. The latest consequence can be heard in the groaning emanating from thousands of bathrooms across the country: the worst cyclosporiasis outbreak in American history. It deserves a name, so I’m calling it the MAHA Trots.
prospect.org/2026/07/16/how-do…
#RyanCooper #MAHATrots #DPresident #uspol #USDisease

How Donald Trump Created the Worst Diarrhea Outbreak This Century - The American Prospect

The ‘MAHA Trots’ are what happens when Republicans implement their anti-government agenda.
Ryan Cooper (The American Prospect)
#uspol #MAHATrots #ryancooper #DPresident #usdisease

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fedibird - Link to source

bsmall2

🧵
> In addition to Trump’s deranged crusade against public health, he has also loudly signaled that big corporations can commit whatever crimes they want. Foxes are in every regulatory henhouse—that is, the ones that haven’t been de facto shuttered, like the #ConsumerFinancialProtection Bureau.
#CorporateCrime #RegulatoryCapture
#consumerfinancialprotection #regulatorycapture #corporatecrime

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Helen Morales, author of “Pilgrimage to Dollywood,” gave us a stern directive – look at the lyrics! So we dive into Dolly’s discography, starting with the early period of what Dolly calls “sad ass songs” to find remarkably prescient words of female pain, slut-shaming, domestic violence, and women being locked away in asylums by cheating husbands. We explore how Dolly took the centuries-old tradition of the Appalachian “murder ballad”—an oral tradition of men singing songs about brutally killing women—and flipped the script, singing from the woman’s point of view. And as her career progresses, the songs expand beyond the pain to tell tales of leaving abuse behind.


wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dolly…

#DollyParton # SadAssedSongs
#HelenMorales #Dollywood

#dollyparton #dollywood #HelenMorales

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
"Since the international arrivals inspection is an administrative function, CBP policy and federal regs do not permit the presence of lawyers during secondary examinations," CBP spokesman Stephen Sapp tells me. In other words, when I'm under an administrative rather than a criminal investigation, I have fewer rights than someone accused of a crime.
Sitting back down in the waiting room, I saw another American waiting with his foreign wife, and asked to use his phone to text my lawyer. My lawyer told me to hang tight, because as an American, they have to let me in eventually. (Unfortunately, there is no legal limit to how long "eventually" can be.) He was also busy reassuring my wife, who was sitting in baggage claims asking herself, Where can they possibly deport my husband? New Jersey?
reason.com/2026/08/20/border-c…


#ReasonCom #IceThugs #USACBP
#USAImmigration

#ICEThugs #USAImmigration #ReasonCom #USACBP

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
We need, by contrast, an educational culture in which it is good simpliciter, in and of itself, for humans to read, think, converse, wonder and ask, if for no other reason than the intrinsic value of such activities—or that such activities are, in and of themselves, sources of delight and joy, ingredient in human flourishing. When a human intelligence does these things, it cannot, by definition, be superseded or replaced by A.I., even if A.I. can simulate those things better and faster than humans can generate them.
... this is not an elitist account of intellectual virtue. As intended here, “excellence” does not mean how well one does the activity relative to other intellects; rather, the virtue lies in the doing of the activity, regardless of the relative sophistication. On this model, the genius and the simpleton can both be equally virtuous intellectually; the child reading a primer and the scholar reading a tome are equally excellent.

... As “Magnifica Humanitas” asserts: “We can embrace the technological progress that alleviates suffering and unlocks new possibilities, provided that we do not abandon the very essence of our humanity” (No. 126). But such goods are not the essential goal of intellectual virtue.


americamagazine.org/faith-and-…

#AISalami #IntellectualVirtues #AlfieKohnThinking #MagnificaHumanitas ##SalamiAI

#AISalami #magnificahumanitas #IntellectualVirtues #AlfieKohnThinking

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Texas has become the epicenter of the United States’ current obsession with constructing AI data centers. Companies are exploiting regulatory loopholes as they construct new facilities powered by pollutant-spewing onsite gas plants.
The rate of growth of this “shadow grid” of custom power plants, some of which are big enough to fuel entire cities, is so enormous that the only global entity installing more gigawatts of gas plants than Texas is China, according to environmental group Global Energy Monitor.


futurism.com/artificial-intell…
/HT
ani.social/post/35733042
#AIはむだ #AISalami #SalamiAI

#salamiai #AISalami #AIはむだ

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Flaming Climate
Cars kill AND burn

These “park outside” warnings have surged in recent years, growing from rare occurrences to include millions of vehicles.
An estimated 3.2 million vehicles nationwide currently have an outstanding “park outside” recall, according to vehicle history provider Carfax, which described the surging numbers as “concerning.”
The recalls also create new headaches for drivers, who suddenly wonder where it is safe to park their vehicles.

The rise in park-outside recalls is being driven by the growing number of electronics and batteries packed into modern vehicles, involving ordinary wiring, seat motors, starter relays, high-voltage batteries and more, according to experts.
They’re known as “key-off fires,” said Frank Borris, a former NHTSA investigator who now works as a safety consultant.
“The engine is off, but the circuits are still hot, and they stay hot all the time,” Borris said.
“There is a lot more electronics in vehicles today,” he added, “and that means more stuff can go wrong.”
Kane said vehicles today also run hotter and have more components packed tightly under the hood, providing more opportunities for fires to start.
“If something goes wrong, even if you park the car, the temperatures stay higher for longer than they used to,” he said.
This summer has been with flooded with park-outside recalls compared with previous years. Eight campaigns were announced in June and July alone, such as when NHTSA issued a notice, “Urgent Park Outside Warning Issued for 1 Million Jeeps,” blaming an electrical connection issue tied to power-steering pumps.
In the first seven months of 2026, there were 17 park-outside campaigns covering about 1.7 million vehicles, making this year among the busiest since NHTSA first created the park-outside designation more than a decade ago.


archive.md/B3Xh8

washingtonpost.com/business/20…

#ParkOutsideRecalls #CarsBurn #CarsKillAndBurn #FlamingClimate #FlamingClimateCars

#ParkOutsideRecalls #CarsBurn #CarsKillAndBurn #FlamingClimate #FlamingClimateCars

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
“When you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4, it’s OK, I mean, it’s not. I’ll never apologize. I did the right thing,” he added.

The seriousness of Trump’s remark, and whether it signaled a new policy ​position for his administration, was not immediately clear.

Tehran has remained steadfast in its demands, saying as recently as last Saturday that it will not reopen the strait of Hormuz unless the US “corrects its behavior”, “completely compensate[s]” Iran for war damage, lifts sanctions and “unconditionally” releases frozen assets."


theguardian.com/us-news/2026/a…
#TrumpIran #StraitOfHormuz #StraitTrump

#straitofhormuz #TrumpIran #StraitTrump

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Scientists warn ⁠such events could become more common due to factors including global warming, the arrival of invasive species, habitat loss of predators and over-fishing.
EDF is also grappling with heat-limited nuclear reactors across the country, as a fifth heatwave is ⁠expected ​to grow throughout the week and curtail French nuclear output.
One reactor ​in the north has been offline for most of the summer due to low river levels, while another reactor has had ​limited restarts and remained largely offline for most of July.


reuters.com/business/energy/je…

#DelicateNukes #JelliedNukes #JellyFishInFrance

#DelicateNukes #JelliedNukes #JellyFishInFrance

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Wendell Berry advice

“Understand that no amount of education can overcome the innate limits of human intelligence and responsibility. We are not smart enough or conscious enough or alert enough to work responsibly on a gigantic scale. In making things always bigger and more centralized, we make them both more vulnerable in themselves and more dangerous to everything else.
Learn, therefore, to prefer small-scale elegance and generosity to large-scale greed, crudity, and glamour.
Make a home.
Help to make a community.
Be loyal to what you have made.
Put the interest of the community first.
Love your neighbors - not the neighbors you pick out, but the ones you have.
Love this miraculous world that we did not make, that is a gift to us.
As far as you are able make your lives dependent upon your local place, neighborhood, and household > - which thrive by care and generosity
- and independent of the industrial economy, which thrives by damage.
Find work, if you can, that does no damage.
Enjoy your work. Work well.”

~ Wendell Berry, from an essay published in 1989, “The #FutilityOfGlobalThinking”


Photograph: #WendellBerry, 1972
/HT FB meme..
#WendellBerryAdvice

#wendellberry #FutilityOfGlobalThinking #WendellBerryAdvice
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pixelfed - Link to source
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What's going on, Maron?

#MaronTheShiba #ShibaDog #柴犬

#ShibaDog #MaronTheShiba #柴犬

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pixelfed - Link to source
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A Good Morning Birdies.

#BackyardChickens #FrontYardChickens #地鶏 #烏骨鶏 #七面鳥 #TurkeyChicks

#backyardchickens #烏骨鶏 #地鶏 #七面鳥 #TurkeyChicks #FrontYardChickens

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Goofball must have some sort of self-serving mechanical definition for "smart" and is probably only speaking for himself. Business "logic", money games and heading bureacracies may only require a very limited set of special abilities among the many many abilities people are capable of developing...

Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla and SpaceX and xAI
Status
Closed
Prediction made
2020
Predicted arrival
2025
Interval
5 yrs
“We are headed toward a situation where AI is vastly smarter than humans. I think that time frame is less than five years from now.”
Context
One of several near-term AGI framings Musk has offered over the years.
Why it is considered incorrect
By 2025 frontier systems exceeded humans on many narrow benchmarks but did not meet common definitions of general intelligence surpassing any single human across arbitrary tasks.
Source
Elon Musk: The Maureen Dowd Interview — The New York Times


boyswhocriedai.lovable.app/ent…

#AiPredictions #TechPR #AISalami #SalamiPredictions #ElonMusk #MuskSmart

Elon Musk (2020) — Incorrect AI Predictions

"We are headed toward a situation where AI is vastly smarter than humans. I think that time frame is less than five years from now." — predicted for 2025.
Elon Musk (The Archive of Incorrect AI Predictions)
in reply to Brian Small

fedibird - Link to source

bsmall2

The news programs provide free advertisment to BrightSiding Salami SalesPeople...In 15 years people will remember this the way they remember Alvin Toffler fantasies.

> Venture capitalist: AI will displace 40 percent of world's jobs in as soon as 15 years Kai-Fu Lee, a pioneer in artificial intelligence and venture capitalist based in China, tells "60 Minutes" it won't just be blue collar jobs that are displaced by AI.
cbsnews.com/video/venture-capi…
/HT
boyswhocriedai.lovable.app/ent…

@bsmall2@nerdica.net
#KaiFuLee #AdvertiseSalami #TechPR #AISalami #AIAdvertisement

Kai-Fu Lee (2018) — Incorrect AI Predictions

"AI will be able to replace about 40 percent of the world's jobs within 15 years." — predicted for 2033.
Kai-Fu Lee (The Archive of Incorrect AI Predictions)
#AISalami #TechPR #KaiFuLee #AIAdvertisement #AdvertiseSalami @Brian Small

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

In the 70s (or 80s) an MIT AI guy thought his graduate students could solve Computer Vision over the weekend or a school vacation.. Chomsky meniond David Marr working on models to start to understand vision^2... With "behavoirism"and probability doesn't seem like people can even start moving in the right direction. It's convenient for mega-machine bureaucracies, corporations and States, if everyone believes they are machines too, i guess...

Oliver Sacks in _Silent Voices_ and the book's source hint at how hard hearing is... Just plugging new parts into people doesn't work. The functions, the inputs and the brain must have to develop together.. Deaf communities think jamming Cochlear Implants into children is a human rights abuse...

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook, Meta (formerly Facebook)
Status
Closed
Prediction made
2016
Predicted arrival
2026
Interval
10 yrs
“One of our goals for the next five to ten years is to basically get better than human level at all of the primary human senses: vision, hearing, language, general cognition.”
Context
Framed as a corporate research goal for Facebook AI Research.
Why it is considered incorrect
A decade on, systems match or exceed humans on narrow benchmarks but not across vision, hearing, language, and general cognition as a whole; general cognition in particular remains open.
Source
Building Jarvis (annual letter and follow-up Q&A) — facebook.com/zuck^1

^0 boyswhocriedai.lovable.app/arc…
^1 boyswhocriedai.lovable.app/ent…
^2 theatlantic.com/technology/arc…


#MarkZuckerberg #NoamChomsky #DavidMarr #ComputerVision #HumanVision #HumanHearing #OliverSacks #SilentVoice #CochlearImplants

Mark Zuckerberg (2016) — Incorrect AI Predictions

"One of our goals for the next five to ten years is to basically get better than human level at all of the primary human senses: vision, hear…" — predicted for 2026.
Mark Zuckerberg (The Archive of Incorrect AI Predictions)
#noamchomsky #computervision #MarkZuckerberg #DavidMarr #HumanVision #HumanHearing #OliverSacks #SilentVoice #CochlearImplants

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

From the Goose Guy... He Goose Meme goof got me thinking private equity is like selling futures while slowly garroting some gooses while promising more golden eggs will result from such tender care.. If not for the business world hysteria or penchant for choking each other's chickens no one would take any of them seriously.. How can these morons be in charge of so much money and policy!?!??

Masayoshi Son, CEO, SoftBank Group... major AI investor
Prediction made
2017
Predicted arrival
2018
Interval
1 yrs
“In the next 30 years, the singularity will happen… Within one year, computers will surpass human beings on the IQ test.”
Context
Son gave both a long-run and a near-term claim.
Why it is considered incorrect
No general-purpose system surpassed humans on standard IQ tests within a year of the keynote. ^1

Shoe Big Brother, The "Inivisible Foot" of Economics in every shoe!

“One of the chips in our shoes in the next 30 years will be smart than our brain. We will be less than our shoes! And we are stepping on them!” he joked. “It’s an interesting society that comes.
“All of the cities, social ecosystem infrastructure will be connected,” he added. “All those things will be connected. All connected securely and managed from the cloud.”^2

^0 boyswhocriedai.lovable.app/arc…
^1
https://boyswhocriedai.lovable.app/entry/son-2017

^2 techcrunch.com/2017/02/27/supe…


#TechPR #AISalami #MasayoshiSon #BrightSidingPrivaeEquity #FuturologyBubble
#AIPredictions

/HT @Bruce Sterling @bruces

Masayoshi Son (2017) — Incorrect AI Predictions

"In the next 30 years, the singularity will happen… Within one year, computers will surpass human beings on the IQ test." — predicted for 2018.
Masayoshi Son (The Archive of Incorrect AI Predictions)
#AISalami #TechPR #MasayoshiSon #BrightSidingPrivaeEquity #FuturologyBubble #AIPredictions @Bruce Sterling @bruces
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pixelfed - Link to source
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This group of 4 was a group of 6.. One mixed variety chick disappered pretty early after coming over from Kagoshima. I can't remember if both black Silkies are from Kagoshima or if one was hatched her from an egg from a local farmer's market. the same with the white Silky Rooster.. The big red Shamo-looking rooster (!??) looks just like the rooster hatched from the farmer's market egg and then returned to them for their group of roosterless hens.. That rooster climbed up and around into the next compartment and fought his biological father till they both got injured legs and scarred faces..

For a while I was wondering if the black chicks didn't have enough toes to be considered Silkies.. Maybe their hen mothers were with the Dutch "Nera" black birds that are known for producing eggs in cold winterst too.. But now I'm thinking the black birds have an abundance of toes too..
#BackYardChickens #SilkyChickens #BlackSilkies #JiDokKoRooster ? maybe

#backyardchickens #SilkyChickens #JiDokKoRooster #BlackSilkies

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pixelfed - Link to source
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At the Free Night School the person that has shown an interest in program for the last couple weeks wanted something she could type in. I found a Japanese printed version of Kent Dybvig's _The Scheme Programming Language_ and just put "#lang scheme" into DrRacket. Later I'll see if everything just works with "#lang racket" but it was a teachable moment for the "#lang" line. Nice thing about Dybvig's book is that the English version is on-line^1 so she can go back over the exercises on her own.

She's had exposure to Java and Python in school, likes Java better!? I wonder if both languages were taught in the same class by the same teacher. She said something about Python and "AI". It's great to get questions, like Java has libraries and with racket? Well "(require pict)" and check out how he DrRacket "IDE" connects procedure names to the require "package" with a mouse hover!!

After typing in Dybvig's `square procedure she asked if only numbers work. So I made a *likes list of foods (berries!) she likes as strings `(list "strawberry" "raspberry" "blueberry") and did a `suki procedure to map '(string-append "I like " a-like) over... That experiment ended with a list of objects(!?) So it was an opportunity to learn `for-each in place of map. This is a way to get into functional programming and side-effects I guess. With time to sit down with a couple old Japanese Lisp books I might get enough confidence with the jargon in two human languages: English and Japanese.. This sort of thing forces you to get more precise or concrete about your understanding.. Searches turned up a couple interesting tutorial sites.. One about Racket in Japanese!^2 Great supplement for the one I've had for years about Emacs-Lisp!^3
#FreeNightSchool #LearningProgramming
#プログラミング入門 #Racket入門 #DrRacket #DrScheme
^1 scheme.com/tspl4/start.html#./…
^ 2 github.com/hama-jp/DrRacket-Ja…
^3 tamura70.gitlab.io/lect-prolan…

GitHub - hama-jp/DrRacket-Japanese-Tutorial

Contribute to hama-jp/DrRacket-Japanese-Tutorial development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
#lang
This entry was edited (Friday, August 7, 2026, 1:47 AM)

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
... AI companies are making things expensive for the rest of us. Large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude are so resource-hungry that tech companies may be purchasing 70 percent of the world’s supply of high-end computer memory, causing a shortage. As a result, the prices of computer memory and storage are skyrocketing: Hard drives that I bought for my reporting two years ago for $350 each were $800 when I checked two weeks ago, and are now out of stock. The prices of some laptops have gone up as much as 50 percent


theatlantic.com/technology/202…

#SalamiAI #AIWatchDog #SalamiWatching #AlexReisner

/HT #TomWetzel FB
facebook.com/share/18Vo2JGxUo/

#salamiai #tomwetzel #AIWatchDog #SalamiWatching #AlexReisner
in reply to bsmall2

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Brian Small

@bsmall2

... Even outside the world of software, it’s hard to find a comparable example, given that economy of scale is the principle that has made light bulbs, cars, and clothing so affordable. By economic and engineering measures, generative AI might be the worst technology ever deployed.


archive.md/hP8AB
#SalamiScale #LLMScalingFail

#SalamiScale #LLMScalingFail @bsmall2
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pixelfed - Link to source
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三股近所の 秋田犬の あきのちゃん と こうのすけくん が里親探し、、
可愛い、 優しい、、 マロンにも優しい、、、

#秋田犬 #柴犬 #AkitaDog #ShibaDog #三股の犬

#ShibaDog #柴犬 #akitadog #秋田犬 #三股の犬

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
People deal with him as if he were a unique figure in American history and in some ways, of course, he couldn’t be more so. But not, it turns out, when it comes to American-style war. There, he seems almost boringly part of a story (now more than three-quarters of a century old) of how the seemingly greatest power on Planet Earth in the endless decades after World War II simply couldn’t -- no, not ever! -- win a war.

Donald Trump remains at war (or perhaps at chaos) with Iran, a country a mere 6,300 miles or so from Washington, D.C., and so crucial to American power on this distinctly overheating planet of ours (right?). And even as I was writing this, Iran had indeed again closed the Strait of Hormuz through which about 25% of global oil and 20% of global natural gas normally passes
Harry S. Truman got us into a major conflict in Korea, almost 7,000 miles from Washington, D.C., in 1950, and when it ended three years later, the U.S. left the North Koreans with approximately half of the Korean peninsula.

Harry S. Truman got us into a major conflict in Korea, almost 7,000 miles from Washington, D.C., in 1950, and when it ended three years later, the U.S. left the North Koreans with approximately half of the Korean peninsula.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy increased American support for what had been the French colony of Indochina (until its military lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu to Ho Chi Minh’s rebel forces in 1954). He would then oversee what would become a full-scale American war in Vietnam, a mere 8,500 or so miles from this country, as well as a war in Laos (also about 8,500 miles away) and Cambodia (nearly 9,000 miles away)
tomengelhardt.substack.com/p/a…
#VictoryCulture #ForeverWars #DCDistances #TomEnglehaedt #USAWars

#VictoryCulture #ForeverWars #DCDistances #TomEnglehaedt #USAWars
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pixelfed - Link to source
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Prince on Four Feet (usually)
Four Footed Prince on Two Feet...

One prince was ummmm standing on only two feet for a while..
On the way to the slaughterhouse, might as well enjoy one last fuhhhLingggg... I guess.

> ... better pigs came from lowa. They were so much better that they required clean drinking water (unavailable to 80% of the Haitian population), imported feed (costing $90 a year when the per capita income was about $130), and special roofed pigpens. Haitian peasants quickly dubbed them "prince a quatre pieds," (four-footed princes).
thirdworldtraveler.com/Aristid…

> The eradication of the Haitian Creole pig population in the 1980s is a classic parable of globalization. Haiti’s small, black, Creole pigs were at the heart of the peasant economy. An extremely hearty breed, well adapted to Haiti’s climate and conditions, they ate readily available waste products, and could survive for three days without food. Eighty to 85 percent of rural households raised pigs; they played a key role in maintaining the fertility of the soil and instituted the primary savings bank of the peasant population. Traditionally, a pig was sold to pay for emergencies and special occasions (funerals, marriages, illnesses), and, critically, to pay school fees and buy books for the children when school opened each year in October.
towardfreedom.org/story/archiv…

#PigTruck #PigFling #FourFootedPrince #FourFootedPrinces
#Pigs #Aristide #EyesOfTheHeart #JeanBertrandAristide

Haiti's Trail of Broken Promises (8/00) - Toward Freedom

Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Toward Freedom)
#pigs #jeanbertrandaristide #Aristide #PigTruck #PigFling #FourFootedPrince #FourFootedPrinces #EyesOfTheHeart

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