26 November 2023

The A.I. world continues to obsess about Q*. What is it exactly, that caused Sam Altman to get fired?  Here's one person's take. Admittedly, the rendering of cryptographic technology obsolete overnight would indeed be disruptive.


Elon Musk is convinced that something was discovered, significant enough to alarm Ilya Sutskever.

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This keeps coming up.  Dunning-Kruger is just autocorrelation. I don't think so, as I see this over and over in daily life. Someone tried to debunk this claim with more statistical arguments.  But what Dunning and Kruger observed was not just a statistical construct. Just because of the way they portrayed their ideas in a graph doesn't mean that it's all statistical hand-waving. Dumb people really do overestimate their abilities and smart people really do second-guess themselves to their detriment.

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Well now Darth Vader is really more machine than human. James Earl Jones agreed to have his voice used by A.I. to be the voice of Darth Vader forever. Fitting, I guess.

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Will there be a crisis next March?  Banks have taken loans from the BTFP to stay afloat. This is why we haven't seen another Silicon Valley Bank catastrophe.  But the loans come due in March 2024. What will happen if they can't pay? Jerome Powell admits that he hasn't thought that far ahead. Yikes! Well, I'm sure he'll extend the due date, or something like that. Construction on the house of cards continues.

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Multnomah County has a spending problem. They keep wanting to raise taxes, which is a factor causing businesses to close and people to leave. Now folks are begging them to stop doing that. Will they listen? Probably not, since their tax base is eroding. What alternative do they have to wrest money from all the remaining people?

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North Koreans are going bald. Kim Jong Un's latest problem. What could be the cause? Can't be nutrition – that's been present for years. Could it be ambient radioactivity?

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No surprise. Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says. Yeah, but they say that they just purchase carbon credits, so all's good. Of course, who knows if they do or not. And they get to set the price on those credits. Are you awake, yet?

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Another reason to think twice about buyinv a Tesla. Unless your commute is limited and you live in an area set up for EVs, I can't see that buying an expensive EV makes any sense.

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Everyone needs to read this. Reddit has a post on surprise financial hits that can ruin you.  Gotta be prepared, but hardly anyone is.

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Hawaii libertarians ask federal judge to disband the Republican party. They're not true libertarians. True libertarians wouldn't do that. Glad they were laughed out of court.

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The Hawaii school system is getting top-heavy.  Adding more administrators and managers, even as enrollment drops off. Because where else are these bureaucrats going to find employment?

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