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This NPR podcast episode is worth listening to even if just for the "macroeconomics sea shanty"


Wow! If Elon Musk is to be believed, you can save so much money just by not paying your bills! Why didn't I think of that? Clearly, he's a true business genius. Or not.
A novice might think he'll get the pants sued off him. But not to worry. He has the best legal counsel available - oh, wait, he fired a lot of Twitter lawyers and is now borrowing them from his other companies.
Yeah, good luck with that.


TFW your cats ignore three different fancy cat toys and get hyper over a twist tie that fell on the floor.


The Kyrsten Sinema situation highlights the difference between Republicans and Democrats.
When a Democrat goes against Democrats: "we hope to work with you in the future"
When a Republican goes against Republicans, they receive death threats.


NPR's science podcast, Short Wave had an interesting episode today.
Only a tiny percentage of plastic ever gets recycled, and even then, only once. Fossil fuel companies have a vested interest in making people believe they are more recycleable than they actually are.

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/08/1141601301/the-myth-of-plastic-recycling

My takeaway: voting and calling legislators is more valuable than recycling plastic bottles.


Let's see if this goes any better then the last time Musk tried it and had to almost immediately stop. He never seems to think through his plans.

""With a reduced workforce, it remains to be seen if it will be possible to prevent fraud, impersonation and scams with their new identity verification methodology," Rachel Tobac, the CEO of the cybersecurity firm SocialProof Security, previously told NPR. "Scammers will quickly determine how they can overwhelm or manipulate the identity verification system to get 'authenticated' as an entity that they are not.""


Real classy move, Musk.

"While Musk's tweet acquired roughly half a million likes in its first few hours online, health experts like Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist and virology professor, defended Fauci's work at the forefront of U.S. pandemic mitigation efforts and urged Musk to remove the post."


I'm late to the ChatGPT party, but the AI is really brilliant. And gives me better lines than a Google search does. Now I want t-shirts.


How long do you think the manufacturer warranty is on "Lifetime" brand picnic tables?
...
...
nope, it's two years.


Happy caturday!
Heidi loves cardboard boxes almost as much as she loves attention, loudly complaining, and getting the zoomies in the middle of the night.



Alphabet-owned DeepMind can now solve some coding problems as well as humans. That's amazing and a little disturbing. As a software engineer, I'm not concerned about losing my job just yet - a software engineer's work involves much work than occasional simple, tightly defined coding puzzles. But still, what a time to be alive.
https://gizmodo.com/deepmind-ai-google-alphacode-coding-1849869346
(I learned about this on The Naked Scientists podcast https://www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/naked-scientists-podcast/ai-passes-turing-test-and-new-drug-covid)


An interesting idea.

Now, if only Amazon treated their workers better year round. I canceled my Amazon Prime subscription early in the pandemic due to how they treated their workers, particularly warehouse workers.


Elon Musk made big promises about alleviating city traffic with tunnels. In reality, The Boring Company didn't follow through on their proposals, apparently because filling out paperwork and doing environmental studies is hard.
It gets more and more difficult for Elon Musk's fans to claim that he is a business genius.


Freakonomics and Best New Ideas in Money both released podcast episodes today on Adam Smith, father of economics. Often "The Wealth of Nations" is used to justify laissez-faire capitalism. He was more complex and wanted the government to help the poor. His work is often quoted out of context and his other book, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" doesn't get as much attention. His views were complex and nuanced.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/525-in-search-of-the-real-adam-smith/id354668519?i=1000589333538
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-adam-smith-became-an-icon-of-capitalism/id1587222768?i=1000589364950


The Planet Money podcast replayed a 2014 episode today about how women were commonly computer engineers until 1984. Things changed due to how home computers were marketed. I think it's important for women to be made aware of IT careers as possibilities. Another problem is how many young people don't have computers, only phones - they should still have the chance to see if coding is right for them.


So the US isn't the only country that has to worry about violent, right-wing conspiracy theorists attempting to destroy democracy.
That doesn't really make me feel better.
We need real solutions to tackle right-wing extremism. I wish I knew what they were. My best guess so far is to find effective ways to teach critical thinking in school, but maybe there's a case for legislating social media companies.


51 Democratic senators!
It's still mindboggling that anyone could vote for Hershel Walker. But then, Trump happened, so I guess anything can happen.


Today's TED Health podcast episode featured a TED talk suggesting the two biggest killers, cancer and heart disease, are more correlated than we might have thought.



Workers need balance, not bedrooms.

"“It’s not a good look,” they said. “It’s yet another unspoken sign of disrespect. There is no discussion. Just like, beds showed up.”"

Encourage employees to separate work and personal lives, to disconnect and recharge.

I see this "hardcore" approach of Elon Musks's as another sign of the End Times of Twitter.


I feel that the government forcing the railroads to accept a deal just before Christmas was necessary, but unfortunate.

Railroad workers absolutely deserve sick time and other benefits. So do workers in other industries.

I'd like to see federal legislation guaranteeing basic rights for workers.

I'd also like to see systems that make it quick and easy for workers to change both employers and entire career paths, while also providing transparency on how employers treat workers. That would apply pressure for companies to compete in how well they treat workers.


Republicans underperformed in the mid-term elections, partially due (if I understand it correctly) to Americans voting against election deniers.

Has the belief in election denial decreased since 2020? I wonder if it has, and if Trump being removed from Twitter has played a significant part in that. That action meant fewer people were exposed to a steady stream of his vitriol.

Content moderation matters. It will be interesting to see what happens to Twitter now that it's turning into a "free-for-all hellscape."












Conservatives: the Constitution is a holy, inviolate document that governs all we do. It MUST NOT be altered in any way, for its every word is sancrosanct.
Also conservatives: the Constitution is inconveniencing me, let's throw it out.

""A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,"" - Trump