From Pine View Farm

QOTD 0

Lionel Trilling:

Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.

Share

The Climates They Are a-Changing 0

And pretending oherwise won’t make it go away.

Share

A Divider, Not a Uniter 0

E. J. Montini.

Just read it.

Share

Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Susceptible to suggestion? We’ll find out.

Security expert Bruce Schneier reports that “(a)cademic papers were found to contain hidden instructions to LLMs.”

One example he provides is an implanted instruction for “no negative reviews.” Follow the link for more examples and a link to the original study.

Share

Deportation Nation 0

Farron discusses the Trump maladministration’s plan plot to denaturalize naturalized citizens because they have the unmitigated gall to exercise their rights as American citizens.

Ironically, my local media celebrated a naturalization ceremony at Fort Monroe that took place on the Fourth.

Share

Sneak Preview: Trump’s UFC Cage Match 0

Caption:  Alligator Alcatraz.  Image:  Uncle Sam trapped in a cell being approached by alligators labeled

Click for the original image.

Share

A Notion of Immigrants 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Laura A. Cariola explores how media portrayals affect our notion of immigrants. She focuses on British studies, as she is British, but I suspect her findings are equally applicable here, as the Trump maladministration persists in demonizing every other it can target.

Here’s a bit:

Ryan and Tonkiss (2022) explored a combined visual analysis of British tabloid newspaper coverage of refugees. Their findings showed that men are portrayed through a criminal lens, with the vast majority of lone adult men depicted as police mugshots, within a courtroom setting, with handcuffs, and words such as “criminal,” “suspicious,” and “guilty.” In contrast, refugee women were depicted with children at a campsite or inside a tent, thus positioning women as maternal, passive, and vulnerable, and infusing a sense of genuineness of their refugee status compared to the representations of men. These gendered representations highlight the dichotomous representation by oversimplifying complex lived experiences between “good” refugees who are deserving of protection and “bad” refugees who are a threat to national security and social order.

Share

“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Yet another “responsible gun owner” fondles his portable phallus and sends himself and a child to the hospital upon its–er–discharge.

Musical NotesGuns and stupid, guns and stupid.
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you brother,
You can’t have one without the other.

Share

QOTD 0

Sue Grafton:

Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.

Share

A Tune for the Times 0

Share

Devolution 0

We’re living in a movie.

Share

Suffer the Children 0

Remember, that’s not scripture.

That’s a Republican family value.

Share

News You Could Lose 0

At AL.com, Kyle Whitmire notes that some government officials and agencies, including the Trump maladministration, are suddenly interested in freedom of repress. He gives several examples of government threats against reporter for, well, reporting.

Here’s a tiny excerpt, in which he talks about Trump’s threatening to sue news agencies for reporting that his bombing of Iran may not have been the glorious shattering victory that he claimed it to be (emphasis added):

Iran knows whether we blew up its nuclear program. They don’t need anybody to tell them. There’s no state secret lost by the New York Times and CNN reporting on what was in the Iran intelligence report, which has now been roughly corroborated by the United Nations. The reason the Trump Administration is upset is because the report contradicts what the president wants the public to believe. It embarrasses him.

Follow the link for the rest.

Share

Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Devolutionary? Quite possibly.

Or you can read the transcript.

Share

Republican Family Values 0

Dr. Evil, labeled

Click for the original image./center>

Share

“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Honor the nation’s birthday with politeness.

Share

QOTD 0

Jim Davis:

Way down deep, we’re all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.

Share

And Now for a Musical Interlude 0

Share

“Get Me Rewrite” 0

For those who haven’t read it, the Declaration of Independence is primarily a list of grievances directed at King George III. (If you have read it, you know that, after the preamble, it becomes a rather tedious read.)

At the Tampa Bay Times, Daniel Ruth suggests an updated list for today’s wannabe king.

No excerpt of summary would do his article justice. Just go read it.

Share

Still Rising Again after All These Years . . . . 0

. . . and still trying to promote the lie that the Civil War was about something other than perpetuating chattel slavery.

Share
From Pine View Farm
Privacy Policy

This website does not track you.

It contains no private information. It does not drop persistent cookies, does not collect data other than incoming ip addresses and page views (the internet is a public place), and certainly does not collect and sell your information to others.

Some sites that I link to may try to track you, but that's between you and them, not you and me.

I do collect statistics, but I use a simple stand-alone Wordpress plugin, not third-party services such as Google Analitics over which I have no control.

Finally, this is website is a hobby. It's a hobby in which I am deeply invested, about which I care deeply, and which has enabled me to learn a lot about computers and computing, but it is still ultimately an avocation, not a vocation; it is certainly not a money-making enterprise (unless you click the "Donate" button--go ahead, you can be the first!).

I appreciate your visiting this site, and I desire not to violate your trust.