Author: sean

Three (7/23)

I peeked around my unfinished/unsaved entries.

I’d started this one, with the working title of “You Will Fix This“:

The title could be my general message on several things the past few days.

The things I’m not capable of doing outnumber the ones that I am capable of doing at this point.

As I said, it involved several things. I think one of them I’m still working, but my tone is the same.

I’m sure there’s been times where I was more than a little discourteous since I was diagnosed with MS, but I’ve never set out to, and have never intentiionally screwed anyone over. I can look at my ugly face in the mirror, and be okay with what I’ve done.

I really don’t need to be too reflective in thse, and really ought to find some other things to write about.

*checks 7/23/1999*

Yep. I wrote then. It’s not on full-display for myriad reasons.

From this day in 2001:

So Maybe I’ve Missed Something….
….but I’m not quite sure what that might be. I haven’t figured out if I got a signal. Kiss me, maybe?

Art Bell is still not back. It’s driving me nuts.

Anyway, now I’m racking my brains, trying to figure out what other people are seeing that maybe I’m not. I believe that’s “Bull in a China Shop,” syndrome. Or like when you’ve got spinich in your teeth. Something like that. But I’m just guessing here, because I really can’t remember. And yes, I do want to remember.

It also shows that maybe I’m right with what I said earlier, that I’m consumed by other things. “Oh, it’ll happen when you’re not looking.” But is it happening and I’m just not paying attention at all? I don’t think so.

Reflective even back then. Perhaps overly-so.

My overall conclusion, though, was correct, I suppose. Half a decade later, I was newly-involved with the woman who I’m still with.

Don’t think about how she was fifteen when you wrote that.

Don’t think about how she was fifteen when you wrote that.

Don’t think about how she was fifteen when you wrote that.

Oops.

Two (7/22)

Or if you live in a place that does its dates DDMMYYY, pi day.

People actually get in long debates about this, especially those who’ve memorized pi to the umpteenth decimal point.

It’s an approximation.

People get really sensitive when you take on things they hold dear.

Maybe I’m channeling my emotions surrounding getting blocked by the LP National Chair, but when you continue to do the wrong things, I’m going to call you on your shit

They talk about things like a national divorce, but won’t cut loose state parties who do things like this.

I’d rather spend the rest of my life in New Jersey than give a dime to LPNH.

You broke it, you bought it. Consequences exist for a reason, and if you’re a public person, blocking people who call you on your shit ensure that you’ll never improve.

So. What else?

Waiting on my MS meds to be delivered. Both the generic pills, as well as the ew shots. All three of my initial does will be during this streak. I’ve been looking to see what side-effects I should expect from this stuff, but it seems to actually be better than some of the stuff I’ve taken in the past.

Using it does seem to be very straightforward. Place the thing, hit the button, wait for the indicator to turn green, remove. They’re not individual needles, so no sharps container to deal with, at least.

I’ve kind of given up on my one-year-ago news site. Just don’t have the energy to devote, but I guess I can do that sort of thing during thi sstreak, too.

STFW for news fro July 22, 2022, and I get this.

I never understood why people paid attention to him, anyway.

But did you see him totally school Bill O’Reilly?

Yeah, I’m not caring.

Did O’Reilly gross more viewers that night than all of the big cable news outlets did combined on a typical night this past week?

Yeah, I’m gonna guess that he did.

Nobody is watching.

Feeding my compulsions

I’m writing again this summer despite urgest from medical professionals not to do that.

Part of what I’m hitting on, and this really started as I was languishing in a casino hotel in Biloxi, is a track of thinki9ng about accuracy in language.

I subscribe to several email lists the focus on vocabulary. I don’t know that I can count the number of times where I’ve written something, then, on re-reading, changing a single word really doubles the effect of the sentence; one word makes a big difference.

Part of that was a flashback to something I’d posted in the Virginian Pilot comments years ago, where I initially typed that I can sympathize with an article subject. No, sympany wasn’t really the correct word. Yes, I was sympathetic, but I was also empathetic, as the subject’s conditions were very similar to the ones I experience with MS. .

No, I don’t understand exactly what the subject is experiencing. But I do understand better than someone who doesn’t experience the same symptoms.

So I started down on the number of human emotions. Is there a defined number? Hmm. Yeah, Berkeley has a list. Discuss with a psychologist, and the take is different. Yes, the words are different, but they’re really the same emotions. Is there a big difference between nervousness and general anxiety?

I don'[t know, and that’s caused me to really rethink what I’m doing, in this binge.

Things have calmed down a lot, I think, in the past couple of weeks, professionally. Medically, on the other hand, I’m still in a bit of a state of flux. I don’t know if I wrote about my anxiety about starting Tysabri back in 2015, but I was scared to start it.

After being on it for a while, I’d gotten accustomed to the medication. The highs and lows were certainly less-pronounced than they were early in my time on it, and I wasn’t worried about dying every time I took it.

Some of the dangers that had me so nervous at the start were surrounding PML.

They fiddled around with the dosing schedules, etc., but THE SCIENCE, (and hattip to Dr. Fauci at Georgetown…). They instituted an hour-long post-infusion observation period. They implemented every-four-month blood tests to see if you had antibodies to JCV, the observation period was cut to 30 minutes, then they were going to start letting it be administered via home infusion.

I was scheduled to start home infusion with my next infusion on 1 August. The weekend before my last infusion, I went to a facility for a JCV test. Though I didn’t have an appointment, and was there on a walk-in, it was pretty uneventful. Tuesday I went for my last Tysabri infusion at the place I’d been going for about a year and a half. Nothing terribly interesting to report, though I was noting some vision weirdness here and there.

But I was preparing to travel down to see my mother, a bit concerned about my employment status, but ready to travel and do the things I’d intended to do on vacation.

I got the information back on the blood test a week after the test, and three days after the Tysabri infusion.

Positive.

Oh fuck.

What to do now? (And please excuse the foul language; I’m trying to watch my use of worty dirds….I think that you can actually be more effective without using “gutter language.”)

I got in touch with my neurologist, and scheduled an appointment for when I got back from Biloxi. My next DMT is Kesympta.

We’ll see where it goes.

I am feeling better than I was before I went to Biloxi, but I’m still not okay. My eyes are weird. I’m having trouble sleeping.

I need to get an MRI to see if any damage has happened.

Thankfully, it seems like the possible work issues are resolved. We’ll see.

But if there’s something you’d like to see me write about, please email.

Wednesday

I am out of town. No, I don’t want to write about a lot of the particulars here. I will say that the American Airlines route between Reagan National and New Orleans is a great route.

I never thought I’d enjoy flying 737s and A319/320/321s, but, god, they’re so much better than the 2×2 CRJs and ERJs.

I’m actually curious whether I’d hate SkyGreyhoundSouthwest these days.

But being the handicapped guy flying First Class makes your trip a lot better. I really don’t know how they’d treat disabled access, either.

But Monday night before I left, things were rollicking more with the Reason and RFK Jr. controversy.

The reaction to what Liz Wolfe put out really hit on what’s wrong with the NeoHippie movement. The attraction with RFK Jr. makes more sense when you consider who they’re relying upon as their experts.

But it all starts to fit together. They loudly proclaim that they’ve been right about everything forever.

No, Jersey Dave, when you interview someone who’s a fucking nut, you don’t just leave it as an interview where you call the guest “great,” and leave it up for forever memorialization.

I don’t have a problem that you interviewed Nick Fuentes. As more things have come out, you can say that you completely disavow that person and don’t think they’re worth considering.

But, when you say that you’ve been right about everything forever, you can’t do that.

What Reason did was absolutely correct.

Wipe Your Grocery Bags

I watched this, and see where the attraction is coming from.

(And for full disclosure, I do subscript to Reason, and donate to the Reason Foundation…)

Tossing off random names rapid-fire is not an argument.

Someone who sounds somewhat knowledgeable, find the nugget that supports your priors, and stick with it.

Han shot first.

But I really disagree on the foreign policy ideas.

His standard is that if whatever action is not in America’s interest, America should not be involved.

No.

If America can do something to help, it should.

Was the US wrong for helping the UN distribute food in Somalia?

No.

There’s also sections of the interview that speak to my inclinations about laws and regulations — they should expire. All of them. Everything gets deleted eventually.

Reactive force is often justified, and there’s many times where it’s not in pursuit of some other goal.

So, while I understand the attraction a bit better, I still think he’s coming in from the lollypop guild.

Show Me Where I’m Wrong!!1!

People will, and do, but you interrupt them so readily that it’s impossible to see if you’ve even really considered the contradicting evidence presented.

But the NeoHips getting behind him might well further the fewer-than-Marrou tack the Mises people have taken with the LP.

And the NeoHips can continue telling the world that they’ve been right about everything all the time.

They Were Wrong

The experts in Libertarian Party’s Russia Caucus said:

  1. Russia wasn’t going to invade Ukraine
  2. Well, even with the invasion, it’d be over very quickly
  3. The oil disruptions, would result in the complete collapse of the “Petrodollar” because Russia will start selling its oil in other currencies

So, haven’t slept a ton, but Elon captured it well:

Elon’s take

As I write this a little after 0900EDT, they’ve taken the military headquarters where Russia was managing its efforts in Ukraine, and is headed towards Moscow.

The vaunted corporate press was really slow to start following things last night.

Cable News is dead, Jim.

Many of the primetime shows aren’t hitting 500K in-the-demo (so adults 25-54) with their primetime shows.

The chick on CNN who hosted the townhall with President Trump has similar career prospects to those who bought the correspondence course on TV repair around 1990. Or travel agents. Or Microsoft Exchange administrators. Or…

Things move on.

So might I, though not necessarily because I have no more useful skills. Medical things might justify heading towards private disability. Pffft.

Imma go see what I can see about what’s going on overseas. Will probablyend up flipping around channels….

Re: Tagline

The tagline of this site is applicable again.

The too-cool-for-school crowd decided that the thing to do for private messaging would be use WhatsApp.

Yeah, about that.

Your messages are not irretrievable. Sorry, Hunter. No, Mister Lawyer, it’s not illegal. If the intended recipient got them, and stoed them somewhere accessible, they’re there to be snarfed.

CyberSekurity r hard.

Even if E2E encryption works, they do get stored.

Though it’s not straightforward, you can export ALL messages, and the contents contained therein.

These are not forever private if they’re stored somewhere locally.

If you’re trying to use them to avoid records being kept, that’s your issue.

Response w/out AI

Answering Mike’s concerns.

Bits inline….

I Wonder:

How would you cite an AI derived source? I can imagine my research methods professor saying that we couldn’t use that as a valid research tool. Something that would not be accepted as an academic source. In the early days of the digital age when we were both in college we could only use printed peer reviewed academic journal articles, magazine articles and other publications on microfiche. Only academic sources that we could put our hands on physically. Internet citations was a new thing and APA, MLA or the Chicago manual of style had not spelled out how to document a source from the world wide web. The internet was a “Brave New World” full of information that some in the academic world did not accept as valid or academic. Including my research methods professor. How would you cite an AI source if it pulled it’s answer from multiple sources to generate the answer? Will there be a custom url generated from that AI to copy and paste into the footnotes to direct you to their own sources of reference?

I think you’d cite similar to how you did early Intertubes articles. URL, date retrieved.

To add further support, I’d recommend making a copy (PDF? PNG?) That shows exactly what you saw as it was when you saw it.

In addition to the links being all broken when I link to soemthing like Twitter, I want something more permanent.

(Some of this is self-reflective since I periodically delete all of my Tweets. As I wrote recently, whatever I might have spat out years ago likely isn’t representative of how I behave or think now. Sorry Ms. SHRMP with your five-figure Federal student loans…)

AI has the potential to slowly erode the ability of future scholars to actually do the footwork and research of the subjects they are studying.

I generally agree. But that’s why you need to have something in mind before you turn to the AI to confirm your premises.

Will the questions the researcher asks the AI generate only a certain kind of response to reinforce the researchers world view of the subject?

Maybe? At the same time, it shows that hte researcher is actually thinking enough to ask relevant questions.

We already live in a world where academics and politicians only look to source material that reinforce the ideas they have or the ideas they want the general public to have. A person’s individual “bias” would have the researcher to use language in their questions to get a certain type of answer.

It’s not nice to pidgeon-hole MSNBC Viewers like that, Mike.

AI in the wrong hands would tend to make the general public more ignorant of the true state of the world and the issues we deal with today. All the while leaving everyone feeling empowered because they believe that AI has the power to present them with more information and a broader perspectives on the issues then they would be able to see left to their own devices. In reality the information presented would be to shape a certain view point and create a “group think” mentality that doesn’t have a clue or see the whole picture in the end. That would be by design of whoever controls the algorithm.

I see where you’re coming from. At the same time, I think you have to have a general idea where you’re going before you engage the tools. Then you use those tools to either help confirm your suspicions, or tell you that you’re full of shit.

I like it when someone proves me wrong about something, and helps me figure out where I was led astray.

But that’s not good for the dying media platforms.

So. Whatever.

This kinda fits with the controversy surrounding RFK Jr.’s potential debate on Rogan.

Whatever. I’m pretty confident that there’s not going to be anything worthwhile discussed.

So I just don’t listen. Whatever. /GenX

42

I remember we when I was 42.

But the significance of it is from The Hitchhikers Guide series. The entire purpose “Deep Thought,” Planet Earth, itself, was to determine the meaning of Live, The Universe, and Everything.

After millions of years of work, it finished its research, and returned the answer — 42

I was reminded of this by reading this from Reason. The author who’d come in planning to write about the Dutch guilds as early versions of capitalist cooperation, asked several of the commonly-used AI instances when capitalism started.

All provided different answers, but none touched on what he wanted to write about.

I asked Microsoft Bing: “When was capitalism invented?” Bing said: “1776.”

An answer longer than 42, certainly, but still not correct.

It made me think of my time in college. There was a final in Business Law. One of the questions was pretty straightforward, and I eagerly went to work on it.

I used probably four Blue Books writing my response. Just me and my blue-black inked fountain pen.

I left the exam feeling great about what I’d written.

Being that it was finals, I didn’t see the professor in-person again. She did send me my grade via whatever messaging system the university was using in the dark basically pre-web days of the Internets.

Her response was something along the lines of “Well-reasoned using tort law. You should have used the UCC. C.“

I ended up with a B in the class, but it certainly didn’t give me the relaxing summer I’d been expecting; it still stings today about a quarter-century later.

But it ties back into the AI discussion because I think the author really showed the limitations.

So I wonder if there’s going to need to be two additional questions when you suspect someone’s used AI to do research.

While AI tools did you use?

Which questions did you ask? Verbatim. Justify how/why you chose those questions.

Bubuhbut they’re takin’ our jerbs!

No, there’s ways to use the tools. You just have to be savvy enough to ask the right questions, use multiple tools, and draw conclusions based on the varying results you collected.

This is not a one-shot effort.

But it also speaks to things like the scientific method where you publish everything you did so that others can reproduce your work.

THAT’S PROPRITERY INFORMATION.

No. No it’s not.

That sound you just heard was the sound of thousands of 80s and 90s MBAs’ heads exploding.

Everything Gets Deleted Eventually

Spent a good portion of the day today finishing up The Most Hated Man On The Internet.

What a douchenozzle.

At the same time, so you’ve got pics of your boobies on the Intertubes, okay. You haven’t shown those to me willingly, so I’m going to ignore them. You’re human; you’ve got them.

That they’re up there has no bearing on how I view you.

And no amount of litigation is going to make them go away. Very few things actually ever get deleted.

You can find pretty much anything.

I’m sure there’s shit I said on Usenet, or on mailing lists when I was a teenager that I no longer thing. Whatever.

“I really don’t remember that,” is an acceptable answer if someone asks.

That’s true for an asshole missive, or pics of your tits.

If it was last week, that might be a different story, but you have to allow people to present themselves for what they are now, not what they were.

Does that make me a bit inconsistent considering how I treat some commercial companies? Yeah. But I do treat individuals differently.

But the main message is that, no, everything doesn’t actually get deleted.

I understand this is a problem for those who want to carefully-tailor narratives; we have always been at war with Oceana.

But I do take extensive notes, hide things in places where they’re not easily-found.

But very little of it actually goes away.

Today is Fathers’ Day. I phoned my well-into-his-nineties’ grandfather, and texted my father-in-law.

Going to see my dad’s headstone is something I really don’t have the stamina for, unfortunately.