Favorites September 25th 2023

David Watson

Sep 26, 2023

keithedwards 1d This is awesome. Congrats to the members of WGA for fighting for what they deserve and getting it. What an amazing example for us all. — (src)

I think writing is a super important part of the entertainment industry, so it's good to see them do well here. Hopefully Dune and Star Trek SNW aren't delayed too much.

Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher @LorenaSGonzalez I can’t stop thinking about these workers. And the failures at cal-osha. And how people should know that their new countertops cost young men their lives. We have to do better. latimes.com California workers who cut countertops are dying of an incurable disease The booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone has driven a new epidemic of silicosis, an incurable lung disease, researchers have found. — (src)

From the article, silicosis will afflict between 10 and 20 percent, and 4 percent will die.

The New York Times @nytimes Breaking News: Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat facing federal bribery charges, said he would not step down, defying calls for his resignation. “The allegations leveled against me are just that — allegations,” he said at a news conference. — (src)

At his press conference, he made some lame excuses about why he had so much cash at his home, he didn't even try to explain the gold bars. Menendez has really got to go, Pelosi and Schiff have called for his resignation, but in the Senate, only Fetterman has. Only slightly related, but due to inflation, Congressional pay is down like 40% in real terms. We should probably raise their pay.

Kim-Mai Cutler @kimmaicutler “Once SB423 goes into effect in the spring, and San Francisco flunks its state assessment, getting new housing approved will be much more like getting your license renewed at the DMV: You fill out some basic paperwork, pay the processing fees and the only frustrating part should be waiting in line for your short appointment at the counter.” Quote fry @anniefryman · 15h Surprise! By next summer, most housing developments (including market-rate) in SF get streamlined, objective approvals through a last minute update to @Scott_Wiener’s SB 35 — now known as SB 423. No CEQA, discretionary review, appeals… My piece: https://sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/sf-supervisors-housing-nimby-wiener-18383235.php — (src)

Annie Fryman also points out that this will also free up tons of staff time that was previously wasted handling discrecionary reviews. Here's an SF Chronicle write up on it.

Here's a short post about how linguists came up with the concept that language 'determines the contours of the thinkable', but linguist-adjacent groups are abandoning this concept just as LLMs seem to be proving that it was correct.

Flotsam and Jetsam

– Modern artillery is so precise that using it is a cat and mouse game, fire, move, fire, move. (src)
– Imported english textbooks banned in China. The locally written ones sound pretty boring. (src)
– Mark Meadows was burning documents in the White House so much his wife complained his clothes all stink. (src)
– Study of political advertising argues that way too much money is being wasted. They're exclusively using earned media for raising money, and then trying to convince with ads. Seems wrong. (src)
– I liked this short clip of Psy doing a concert (src)
– Peak number of ICE cars on the road expected between 2024 and 2026 (src)
– "Canadians are mad that India assassinated that guy because only the government is allowed to provide healthcare in Canada" (src)
– Negative polarization is real: if you want to convince people of things you need to not be obnoxious. But worse, if you're obnoxious you could even poison the well. (src)
– Spotify working with OpenAI to make translations of podcasts in the original podcaster's voice. (src)
– Argument I had not heard before: military industrial complex doesn't actually like wars, they like fear of war. If there's an actual war, suddenly people care weather the weapons work in practice. Here's Lockheed Martin's stock vs US Troop levels in Iraq, they sorta move in opposition to each other. (src)
– OpenAI demoed text to speech and image recognition capabilities. The speech interface is available to some paid users starting today. (src)
– The limitation on SNAP benefits being used for prepared foods is dumb, but someone came up with an excellent workaround. (src)
– Ignore climate change, just look up cancer risks from coal vs nuclear and how each is treated by the regulatory system (src)
– Part of why our housing situation in the Bay Area is so bad is that housing activists in the 60s thought that their solution would be communist revolution. (src)