#MoeTkacik on private equity, reviewing two recent books that both aptly characterize the industry as *plunder* https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/

Got to love the #FreeSpeech coalition. https://www.rawstory.com/new-college-florida-desantis/ ht @GreenSkyOverMe @fawfulfan

#NewCollege

some people can never die, will be forever young. https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-astrud-gilberto-dies-20230606-2uwzmrfs55dafeb5kp5tdreqci-story.html

Rooftops, Brașov.

#Transylvania #Romania

@akhilrao i myself am a very small language model.

claiming to prove or disprove things by recourse to (contestable and contested) definitions is not “science”. when you construct syllogisms out of a game of telephone, because the same word shades to different meanings in different contexts, those syllogisms need not “by logic” be true.

compare and contrast: orgiastic, orgasmic

i could be a big fan of virtuous reality.

@guncelawits (thanks!)

a thing i don’t get is what is new. i mean, computers have long been much, much “smarter” than humans in, for example, their ability to perform arithmetic, or to remember things. recent AI tools are interesting for sure, but what superior competence of theirs makes these new systems so threatening, compared to older superior competences?

[new draft post] Quietly expensive desperation https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2023/06/04/quietly-expensive-desperation/index.html

Good analysis of the recent inflation by @DolanEcon https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-inflation-of-2021-22-was-different-what-we-should-learn-from-it/

#Economics

Some vendors are not asking for your consent, but are using your personal data on the basis of their legitimate interest.

for the purists, we offer a bread sandwich.

just don’t call me a psammophobe you beach.

what you inevitably find is that, if the only way to get anywhere is to drive, there isn’t anywhere worth bothering to go.

look on the bright side: this year’s anomaly is just next year’s baseline.

velvet

all is calm on the Romanian Black Sea coast. it’s the first time i’ve been since it’s not been so calm in the country just north of here, the first time i’ve been since COVID.

#Constanta #Romania

“we need a legal ban on ads, not mere platitudes on billboards advertising companies' ‘respect’ for our privacy. The US is way overdue for a federal privacy law with a private right of action, which would let you and me sue the companies who violated it” @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/31/context-ads/