7 ways Multnomah and Portland are wasting your tax dollars
#1. $18,000 of tax dollars to send Multnomah and Portland politicians to Europe for a meeting (Willamette Week 6/30/22).
#2. Multnomah bought 22,700 brand new tents and 69,514 brand new tarps to lavish on the homeless. That is nearly five free tents/tarps per homeless person. (KGW-TV 12/7/22)
#3. Multnomah County gave out $500 cash loaded debit cards to the homeless. No wonder homeless grew 22% in Oregon while it only grew .3% nationwide (OPB 12/24/23).
#4. Portland ended up with a $62 million projected budget surplus in 2021 and $35 million surplus in 2022. Where did this near $100 million tax surplus go? (Oregonian 10/8/21, Willamette Week 5/6/2022).
#5. Portland unloaded millions of city taxpayer dollars in grants only available to private business marijuana shops. This happened as police were defunded, 911 calls hit record delays, street trash was left to expand into mountain-sized problems and pot holes remained unfixed.
#6. Over $85 million of tax dollars and government help for a private (yes, private) luxury Portland hotel that lasted about one year before facing a financial crisis and being bought out (Willamette Week 4/1/20).
#7. Portland gave out $3 million in cash loaded $364 debit cards to random strangers with the promise that they would use it for personal internet expenses. No record of who used it or how it was spent. One person alone took home 6 debit cards. (KGW 10/21/21)
And of course, there's another capital gains tax on the way.This is why I don't use Windows anymore. How to lose your work using Undo Copy in Windows
Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea
There are two main reasons why creating artificial consciousness, whether deliberately or inadvertently, is a very bad idea. The first is that it may endow AI systems with new powers and capabilities that could wreak havoc if not properly designed and regulated. Ensuring that AI systems act in ways compatible with well-specified human values is hard enough as things are. With conscious AI, it gets a lot more challenging, since these systems will have their own interests rather than just the interests humans give them.
What about humans? Fruits have now become so sweet that they are no longer suitable to give to zoo animals.
"Many of the tasks in white-collar land will look very different in the next five to 10 years"
Is this how telemedicine works in Portland? Caught on a Tri-Met ride. It's so disgusting, I'll only post the link. Too nasty to post the video itself.
Top 10 A.I. prompts to finish your work in seconds.
ChatGPT just killed off Chegg, the homework-helping website service. Yikes. Who's next?