Sugoi & Yokunai

Tech-Linked Group Wants to Track Anti-Asian Discrimination at Work. Good luck with that.

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Testosterone supplementation causes Democrats to be more conservative. I kinda knew it.

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When should you end a conversation? Sooner than you think, it seems. Making small talk can be hard.

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52 things I learned in 2023. You'll never guess the "most successful" invention in 2023.

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Physics breakthrough of the year. This is more what I hoped the future would be like.

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5 useful Mac apps everyone should have. OK, I learned something from this article. Added one app to my collection.

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Some people are working hard to remove CO2 from the atmosphere to meet the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C.  Recently, someone came to my door wanting to know if I wanted to donate money to help farmers reduce their CO2 emissions.  He didn't realize that farmers actually use CO2 generators to help their crops grow. Kids are not getting the education they need.

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The Flipper can wreak a lot of havoc in a 30 foot radius. Not anymore for iPhones after the latest update.

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Don't use other people's iPhone charger cables. If it's the OMG cable, you could have data stolen and malware implanted.

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GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 aren't going to replace doctors anytime soon.  The chatbots answered correctly just 21% to 41% of the time, although in another 27% to 29%, the accuracy of the answers could not be established, for some reason. At least, the bot did not do any harm, according to the researchers. Again, it's important to remember. These chatbots don't necessarily provide you with the correct answer. Just what a correct answer would probably look like, given the information fed into it.

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This should have happened sooner. Google made it more difficult for police to conduct reverse location warrants.  Location data will only be held for a shorter time (still unspecified). This was just privacy invasion, and that it would aid the police is not good enough reason to justify it. Not the way things have been going with J6 and other politics.

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Evil. Sober man in Hawaii get arrested for DUI even though he is sober, so because "these DUI checkpoints are often federally-funded, and the overtime hours they provide are paid for by state and federal agencies, rather than the police departments carrying out the patrols".  And now the guy has that on his record, and has to explain it away every single time. What corruption.

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New Washington state laws that will go into effect in 2024. Employers can't test applicants for cannabis anymore except where “impairment while working presents a substantial risk of death.” Yeah, right.

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Sign of the times – U.S. Steel sold to Japan. Now it's Nippon Steel. Symbolic of the decline that this administration has brought upon us.

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Yes, Apple is indeed pausing sales of its Apple Watch. Because of the pulse oximeter patent infringement litigation. Yeah, they lost the case.

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This link was supposed to help the novice to learn meditation. But it's way too complicated. I'd be surprised if anyone learns from this. The process is not too complicated, actually. The trick is to keep doing it, until you can do it effortlessly and regularly.

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Oregon ranks #2 in the nation as to percentage of the population that is homeless. Only California is worse. Thanks, Ted Wheeler. We're so sad that you're not running for re-election.

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Oregon is lucky to have someone like Phil Knight, who has donated much of his fortune to local causes. Tim Boyle is a big donor, too, but not to the extent that Phil Knight has done.

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This is interesting. Portland Bureau of Development Services cuts dozens of jobs due to downturn in construction industry. Because no one's building in Portland anymore, the BDS has had to cut back on personnel. Because the bureau is funded by permits. So now permits will probably take longer to acquire, and so construction will be delayed. Something's wrong with this picture.

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A new Suez crisis threatens the world economy.  Looks like everyone will soon know about Houthis. Europe's not going to have some nice things for a while.

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How you know climate change is just B.S..

• Private Jets Flock To Dubai For COP 28: Event Set To Have Biggest Carbon Footprint In History
• Sunak, Cameron and King Charles each take own private jets to travel to Cop28
• Kamala and Kerry flew on SEPARATE jets... the host is a Sultan oil boss... and it's all held in Dubai - where they air condition the desert

I'll recognize climate change as an emergency when the elites start treating it as such. Until then...

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A stock fund manager's beauty may be an advantage for the stock manager, but not necessarily for you. The reason is that an attractive manager is more likely to be promoted and move elsewhere to smaller firms, or may just be inadequate for the job and got it because of looks. But this is a Chinese paper, so maybe it only applies to attractive Chinese fund managers.

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California has an insurance crisis, and it's because of commissioner, Ricardo Lara.

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Beer sales drop. But not for THC-beer. Why not, Oregon. You're not weird enough. By all means, have some THC with your alcohol.

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This is the way responsible social media should be. Discord reports a crazed 13 year old who planned a mass shooting at a school.

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Chatmail. Seems like a good idea. Fast, secure, etc. But you have to send messages to other people enrolled in the program, or else you don't see any benefit. But maybe if too many people join, it won't be fast anymore. I'm going to wait on this one.

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Meta/Facebook comes out with their own version of Google Glass. Still dorky. Still an invasion of privacy. I am in favor of privacy startups that will arise to combat glasses like these.

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I suspected that this would happen with password managers. Leakage. You put your trust into a company to safeguard your passwords, and that company is breached. Really sucks. So far the one I use (Abine) hasn't had problems.

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Lots of hype recently about transparent wood. I suspect it's going to have limited usage.

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Microsoft will soon overtake Apple in 2024. Apple seems to have run out of ideas. They can't make their phones any slimmer, and can't make the bezels any smaller. And making pixel density more dense is pointless, even if feasible. And there is little interest in another set of emojis. Form factor hasn't changed in years. Computers are still gray rectangles, just like the day Steve Jobs died.

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A.I. now lets you separate vocal tracks from music.

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Guess we won't need TV news reporters anymore. These are much better. They can do so much more, and you don't have to pay them a king's ransom.

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Ex-Soviet math professor refuses to sign Diversity statements.  “I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals, and the leaders embodying those ideals, on a daily basis."  Understood.

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Biden's NLRB wants to make it illegal to shut down your business if union jobs are to be lost. Doesn't matter if the numbers don't pencil out. Why would anyone want to open a business in this climate?

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Portland Mayor Unhappy About Ad Campaign Claiming 'Portland Sucks'. Take down the plywood, folks, and try to say only nice things about Portland, OK?

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There's a lot of publicity around this Portland Police Association survey of folks of whom 55% were Democrats. Of these 56% would leave Portland if they could. It's interesting that 21% thought Portland leadership was on the right track.

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Smoking causes brain shrinkage. So does stress. So does lack of sleep. How about telling us what causes brain growth instead?  Oh yeah, exercise and meditation.

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I can't believe colchicine had to go through the FDA approval process.  What next? Digoxin? Aspirin? Of course, all that process did was to raise the price of colchicine.

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Just in time for 2024.  iOS 17.3 will make it harder for thieves to reset your phone for use after its stolen.  (Maybe it'll disincentivize thieves from stealing phones at the Apple store.)

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Under sections 504 and 702 of the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act, those who provide Internet service that your communications go through will have to routinely provide all communication that goes through it, to the FBI. 

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Bruce Schneier thinks that A.I. will fuel the era of "mass spying".  He's right. And it will be done in the name of providing extra security.  And now your password can be guessed by the sounds of the keys being pressed. Of course it has to be trained to your keyboard, but if it's a common keyboard, it may already have been pretrained.

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Single-dose psilocybin is effective treatment against major depression. So I would support medicinal use. But Oregon wants to legalize it all over so people will just use it whenever. Fortunately, there is tachyphylaxis, so repeated usage is not likely, but why take a chance.

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Seattle student failed quiz for saying men can’t get pregnant.

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Oregon launches online database to track public investments. Transparency is good. The website is here.

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Major helium deposit discovered. This is great news, as there is a global shortage of helium.

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Apple is introducing a 3D Spatial video capture feature in the iPhone 15 with the iOS 17.2 update.  Reminds me of the Memories scene in Minority Report.  So much of that movie is coming true now.

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Holy crap, this is big. This came out in September, but I missed it.  A combination of two monoclonal antibodies cures symptomatic rabies. Cures! Rabies is a disease that previously we could only try to prevent from happening, with urgent vaccination. But once established, you were never really sure it wasn't going to emerge later. And symptomatic rabies was universally fatal. Why wasn't this all over in the news?

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What would a second Trump term look like?

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"Imagine opening ChatGPT but it already knows everything about your life. What would you ask it?" Creepy! This is what Google wants to create with Project Ellman. I think I've seen this movie, and it doesn't turn out well. 

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The quiet plan to make the internet feel faster.  So basically they're finally going to tackle buffer bloat.  Robert X. Cringely has been talking about this for years. Finally, it may be fixed.

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Halley's Comet has reached aphelion, and is now turning back to the sun. Happened a few days ago, but I'm just reading about this now. Oh well, I won't be around to see it next time. I saw it back in 1986, and it was a dud.

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They found magnetic monopoles? Great, but what does that mean?

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Yup. Real-world effectiveness of child mask mandates against SARS-CoV-2 transmission or infection has not been demonstrated with high-quality evidence.  Like the low benefit-risk ratio justifying vaccination in children. Halt administration of the vax product - NOW!  Meanwhile, Japan creates a monster. Did they not read "I am Legend"?

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Will this be the last Christmas you can get an Apple Watch?  If Apple loses this patent lawsuit, this will set company earnings back a lot.

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Interesting. Brain Area Associated With Impulse Control Discovered. In the right inferior frontal gyrus. And there are gender differences as well.  Women have better inhibitory control over their impulses. Really?

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Just when you thought it was over. Portland Public School unions still want more, even after the agreement that ended the strike. Because the strike ended because the teachers would lose their PERS health insurance, not because they came to agreement. Did you REALLY think the fight was over? Psht.

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King County, WA reaches new milestone. A quarter of city residents were not born in the U.S.  It's higher in Bellevue and Redmond, but that's because so many techies hail from India and China. Seattle needs more from Singapore. (Would they come to Seattle?)

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Looks like China has made preparations in case war breaks out against Taiwan.  Hawaii's going down, and that'll keep us occupied while they carry out the attack. Thank goodness, we have Biden at the helm directing our response, right? And we have to read this in a foreign news source.

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Prioritize removing fencing and plywood from downtown buildings before the 2024 Rose Festival. "The boarded up condition of the Federal Courthouse, The Justice Center and some downtown businesses send the wrong signal to visitors," the task force said.

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It's culture and behavior. Yes, we have fallen quite far.  (Is that Roy Hargrove's mellifluous trumpet? Or Arturo Sandoval? - No, it's Benny Golson's Park Avenue Petite.

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This is a handy map of 4G and 5G cell phone coverage in Oregon. I switched to AT&T for their superior coverage, and am glad I did.

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In Seattle, some people think it's fun to deliberately run over people on Aurora Avenue. "Y'all hit this bitch".

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The dminishing half-life of knowledge. Scary commentary about how much maintenance it takes to stay on top of your game, especially in the tech field. It's also like that in medicine. This is why companies only want younger engineers. Except for COBOL engineers, of course.

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The state of LLMs in mathematics. Thank goodness ChatGPT4 and GPT4 are mainly good at being search engines and "struggle" with hard problems.  Guess we still need human mathematicians.

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If you're teaching a topic, you're probably really passionate about it....At the end of the day, though, [the students] are not getting a Ph.D. in this stuff, and they've got half a dozen other classes on top of work, family, friends, and this weekend's party to think about.

Unless they see that the material is relevant, or that they're building or creating cool or useful stuff, they'll be bored.

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So glad that the Scottish fiddler got his flddle back.  The saying goes that the difference between a violin and a fiddle, is that no one cares if a little beer gets on a fiddle.  But I bet this guy would care.

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I've been wondering, too. Ilya Sutskever still has an office at OpenAI, but he's the invisible man, now. Hey, maybe he can work at Tesla. Elon Musk likes him.

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The Oregon Health Authority missed a crucial deadline reporting on "how the M110 program integrates into the overall behavioral health system in Oregon".  So the Legislature is unable to address what to do about M110, and so life goes on.

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Meanwhile, Oregon schools are stocking up on state-provided naloxone, but the state won't keep track on its usage or anything.

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Tina Kotek does a Kate Brown thing – unsuspends the drivers licenses of traffic violators who lost their license and didn't bother to pay a fine.  No rule of law.

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Looks like the OHSU-Legacy merger is not going as smoothly as hoped. Legacy seems to keep looking less and less financially attractive and more like a liability, with strikes, unionization and lawsuits.

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No School November? Let's make it No School December, too! Why bother? In Oregon, you don't have to demonstrate proficiency anyway, thanks to diversity and equity, so that we don't discriminate against minorities, right?

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Differences between Hanukkah and Christmas. Funny.

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People in the UK must submit a selfie before they view porn. Age will be verified by A.I.  Don't worry – they'll immediately delete it as soon as you submit it.  What could go wrong?

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Meaningless numbers. Once again, "Biden job approval hits new low".  Still 37%.  No matter how often Biden's approval sinks to "record lows", it's always 37%.

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