.... Wooooow

Screen shot of a tweet from the official "GOP" account, run by the Republican National Committee, that shows Donald Trump doing his characteristic fists-up dance, wearing a blue suit and red tie, tastefully accessorized with a bright-red "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" baseball cap (historically made in China). In the background, over a blue sky, is the headline 'MAKING AUTOMOBILES GREAT AGAIN' with the logo of the extreme-far-right Daily Signal "media" outlet below it. Trump stands in front of a squarish bright yellow 4-door sedan that auto reporters + others immediately identified as a Lada, the Soviet Russian "people's car" produced in high volumes, at very low standards of quality, starting in 1970.

Per the always-profane @jefftiedrich.bsky.social:

"Did you ever wonder would would happen if some [REDACTED] factotum at the RNC typed 'Donald Trump in front of a car' into an AI prompt + then farted the results out onto social media?"

Yup. He's in front of a...Lada. The Soviet car. From the USSR.

Probably room for another, similar article that specifically explores defection to other brands by current customers due to the same issues. E.g., I planned to stick with Chevy when replacing my Sonic, but due to product lineup and pricing changes, will probably go to Hyundai or Kia.

bsky.app/profile/erid...

Completely by chance today, the group organizing pretty much all of the local protests YTD was the next table over when I went out for coffee this morning. I really was not expecting that the entire group is the senior laypersons or actual clergy of most of the various local churches.

Eventually, I found my answer: The question itself is meaningless, even harmful; a defined answer forces a rigid box on ever-changing experience.

Fuck that.

Rather than define ourselves and perform a role, finding the values we hold foundational, the world we want to see, is so much more helpful.

I obsessed over answering, "Who am I," from my mid-teens to early twenties; literally read through every single philosophy book in the city libraries and worked through myriad classes on identity and identity formation as an undergrad.

Talking with my spouse either yesterday night or this morning, I said any mid-or-larger population-size country that can overcome racism will conquer the planet... Unfortunately, that's... well, disappointingly, one hell of an ask... "Simple in theory, apparently impossible in practice."

This morning, I managed to write and send four-max-length messages to the group chat about why the figures get revised, what each reason for revision reflects, etc., while drifting in and out of consciousness between 4 and 8 AM. And still resist engaging w enraging weird/idiot coworker commentary.

I'm a little disappointed I can't find this again... There was a Manos fan-game about Torgo, featured on Rock Paper Shotgun, but searching RPS and just the web is turning up nothing tonight.

I've got some Hands of Fate right here. 😏😏

Acknowledging it is impossible to know how people change over decades, I hope everyone to work with him found him as kind and decent as I did as middle school kid unknowingly flirting with his older sister, as a HS freshman with no clue what was going on with anything, and as a college freshman.

Looked him up, and he's - not History like I remembered but - an Econ professor now, with multiple publications with folks I know from econtwitter and econsky.

Small world!

Following chance encounters, had a trip down memory lane in the hometown paper's archives. Adjacent to an article I looked up, one on a guy I rode the bus with. He was a senior when I a freshman, but a friend and role model. Years later, by freak chance, we were briefly suite-mates in the MSU dorms.

This is one area I'll have some schadenfreude.

I've spent far too much of my life having to correct completely unfounded bullshit published by McKinsey.

It dramatically outperforms traditional optical character recognition software.

It's okay for summarizing themes in open-ended survey questions across 100s to 1,000s of responses - when exact themes are unnecessary.

Otherwise, it fits with areas where "minimum viable product" may be acceptable.

Thread of research relying on world-renowned data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Please contribute

So much of my own research has used BLS data

Growing income inequality in who gets a college education - from NLSY79/97

www.nber.org/system/files...

Are you still receiving a 502 error?

I really do not have patience for toxic optimism or proud ignorance.

But I do have enough of a poker face and sufficient self-restraint to avoid reacting until able to vent to an appropriate audience.

~spicy in the group chat~

From having extensively worked with and at times been the source of private sector data, the government data is irreplaceable. Most private sector data is... not great... and a lot of the "good" private data relies on the government data either as fundamental to its creation or as a benchmark.

Can’t do it. There’s just no substitute. We could get some useful info for sure, but BLS and rest of government stat infrastructure irreplaceable. For one, they make such info a public good. Who wants to pay for the unemployment rate? (I mean, I would, but u know what I mean.)

That is a hell of a morning, after an already poor start to the weekend yesterday. Hopefully there's limited water damage and everything is repaired today.

Likewise, hope you and your family have an opportunity to decompress a bit tomorrow or soon.

I genuinely think it is far past time to treat any republican claim to power in the same way. The party's hold on public space is illegitimate; it has delegitimized itself through deliberate sabotage of the public good and deliberate immiseration of the people, for the sake of bigotry and greed.

*rewatches*

Is that just coming out of the wall????

... oooof.

I hope the shut-off valve still worked.

Can you leave a task queued until provided with instructions to proceed?

Please wait one hour and try again.

Please also describe the relative frequencies of the subcategories within each category. For example, "The most common content generation application of AI is using these systems to draft emails."