Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

The last time the world engaged in a major trade war (tariffs), it got the Great Depression, Hitler and World War II.

#trump

Lawrence O’Donnell Rips NYT and Other Media for ‘Sane-Washing’ Trump’s ‘Crazy’ Statements https://www.mediaite.com/tv/lawrence-odonnell-rips-nyt-and-other-media-for-sane-washing-trumps-crazy-statements/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Check out the FBI's files on the mathematician Paul Erdős! You may know him as the author of 1500 math papers, endlessly traveling and collaborating. But to the FBI he seemed suspicious, because he came from behind the Iron Curtain, got caught poking around a secret radio tower in 1941, worked with a mathematician from China, and refused to take a loyalty oath.

In 1954 he was barred from re-entering US after going to Amsterdam to address the International Congress of Mathematics. But 5 years later he was granted a visa after Hubert Humphrey intervened on his behalf.

The FBI eventually decided he was ”purely a mathematician with typical atmospheric mind as related to factual things.... a genius type who lives within his own mental scope".

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/jul/21/nothing-indicate-nothing-indicate-subject-had-any-/

It is shocking that after moving from Google workspace to Proton as the back office for our professional email adresses etc, all the major Dutch institutions are blocking us as spam. All our contacts have to whitelist us individually. So I think we are forced to go back to Google, where we had this problem occasionally but not as massively as now. It seems the reason is that Microsoft, used by almost all institutions in NL, simply blocks all Proton mail .😈 ( DNS=OK configured)

The Media Is Carrying Trump's Racism Water https://www.thedailypoliticususa.com/p/the-media-is-carrying-trumps-racism?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Some people say revenge is a dish best served cold. Other say revenge is sweet. This can only mean one thing. Revenge is ice cream.

@gleick Trump and newspapers like the NYT itself together brought the era of condemning mendacity to an end. The Times never figured out how to report the phenomenon of a serial liar as candidate-then-President-then-candidate. A paper that once styled itself as the premier journal ended up sanitizing the serial liar. What a sad demise. @nytimes

Trump is unfit.
Trump is unwell.
Trump is unstable.
Trump is unhinged.
Trump is unethical.
Trump is unqualified.
Trump is unaccountable.

Trump is UNWORTHY of ANY office — let alone the presidency.

We Put 7 Uber Drivers in One Room. What We Found Will Shock You.

We put 7 Uber & Lyft drivers in one room and had them open their apps.

We found Uber paying different drivers different amounts for the same ride. Lyft too.

It’s proof corporations are using secret algorithms to pay workers less. And all of our jobs could be next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEXJmNj6SPk

I know I need to ignore the polls and pundits, but that fact that this race is even marginally close highlights that there is a cancer eating away at the heart of America.

The criticisms of Ms. Harris' "management style" give me angry flashbacks to a female law prof who chided me for being too strong and aggressive in my appellate oral argument, when I was easily the most articulate, calm, and measured of the class.

She also suggested wearing a skirt suit instead of the classic Jones of NY pant suit I wore.

In 2010.

The latest Peter Baker “news analysis” brings into sharp focus how little the Times cares anymore whether Trump lies. They mention the propensity for “falsehoods” (of course the word “lies” is off limits), but the lying is just considered a foible, on a par with mixing up names.

There was a time when the press would be OUTRAGED by a politician caught lying. They destroyed Al Gore for exaggerating his role in the internet. Trump has brought that time to an end. https://press.coop/@nytimes/113109369523641147

"By introducing chatbots that are known to hallucinate, confuse jokes for facts, or randomly add incorrect information, police tech like #DraftOne could be used to legitimize wrongful arrests, reinforce police suspicions, mislead courts, or even cover up police abuse". https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/chatbots-offer-cops-the-ultimate-out-to-spin-police-reports-expert-says/

Broadly speaking, the role of an establishment economist is to come up with new ways of saying, "actually, your boss is right." In other words, the world we're living in is the best possible world, and the fact that you got contact burns from collapsing on the scorching sidewalk outside of the grocery store where you couldn't afford your weekly shopping is unfortunate, but unavoidable.

1/

This year IETF appointed a "Security Area Director" whose August 2024 conflict-of-interest filing lists NSA as a source of income: https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/iesg-coi-policy/ Profile says retired from NSA "with 37+ years of service in Dec 2023", still "working as a Stand-by Active Reservist at NSA".

Forget Hollywood drama. Henry and Minh Chen are business owners in real life. They own a jewelry store. They made a legitimate purchase via cash. They mailed the cash to the seller via FedEx, because they could insure the package.

The money never arrived at the seller.🤔

Because police in Indiana trained dogs to sniff for money instead of drugs. They then have the dogs sniff all the packages that go through the FedEx depot, and just... steal any cash that the dogs find🤡

https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2024/08/13/marion-county-asset-forfeiture-treats-cash-transfers-as-crimes/74777122007/

Remember that time when Roosevelt told Churchill, he was going to send weapons, so the UK could beat the Nazis, but he just could not allow the use of the long range weapons inside Germany?

Neither do I.

#WakeUpBiden

Twice in the past month I've purchased Samsung 500GB Evo 870 SATA SSDs at Best Buy for $54 to upgrade old computers. I bought another one there today, and didn't realize until payment that the price at Best Buy is now $85. Not such a great deal. I swapped for a 1TB for $99.
The 500GB can still be found from other online stores for $54.

An interstitial page popped up upon login to https://microcenter.com/, demanding that I provide my mobile phone number. Skipping this step was not an option. I don't give my phone number to sites that demand it, so I contacted their customer service via chat and asked them to delete my account. They asked for the email address associated with the account and then deleted the account without first sending me email to confirm that I'm the legitimate owner of the address. #smdh
#ChangeOfAddress
🧵

Reposting a link to my blog about role models from a few years ago. It is as relevant as ever. Things aren't improving, and the tech bros (ever hear the term "tech sis"?) rise to ever greater, unstoppable power and influence.

https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-power-of-role-models.html