How is everyone’s favorite Effective Altruist doing? Regardless of how the legal and financial situation gets untangled, I’m wondering about the linguistic aspects. Could “Bankman-Fried” become an English verb?
“I’m going to try to Bankman-Fried the investors” would mean to tell people about one’s charitable and political plans for wealth to be acquired using their money.
“I Bankman-Frieded the local election” would mean “gave money to ensure a Democrat victory.”
We can also look at Sam Bankman-Fried’s mom explaining complex ethical issues and how they could be handled (“Frieded”?):
(A 2014 Stanford Center for Ethics in Society presentation. The tax-exempt institution for exchanging ideas seems to have decided that it wouldn’t be Tethical to allow comments from viewers. As a test, I posted the following:
Great to have Sam Bankman-Fried’s mom’s perspective on this complex topic. I am running a bank right now and am trying to figure out whether it is ethical to steal all of the money that customers have deposited with me. I need some help from the big brains of Stanford.
Here’s a great example of gender studies graduates at Twitter practicing California-style Science. A statement is scientifically false if it “goes against CDC guidelines” (as it happens, Professor Kulldorff’s March 2021 heresy of recommending COVID-19 shots primarily for older folks is today the official policy of the Danish government, informed by MD/PhDs).
21. Internal emails show an “intent to action” by a moderator, saying Kulldorff’s tweet violated the company’s Covid-19 misinformation policy and claimed he shared “false information.” pic.twitter.com/lq9QOP8h27
What was the result of the censorship? The journalist explains in a tweet later in the thread:
After Twitter took action, Kulldorff’s tweet was slapped with a “Misleading” label and all replies and likes were shut off, throttling the tweet’s ability to be seen and shared by many people, the ostensible core function of the platform:
In my review of internal files, I found countless instances of tweets labeled as “misleading” or taken down entirely, sometimes triggering account suspensions, simply because they veered from CDC guidance or differed from establishment views.
Separately, my rage against long-form argument in a Twitter thread is somewhat reduced because I’ve found the “read like a book” icon at the top of the screen. Here’s how it then renders:
Happy First Day of Kwanzaa everyone. Let’s look at a popular product from an African-American automobile company…
During a trip to Houston, on my way back from trying to meet up with Hunter Biden in Pahrump, Nevada, I rented a Tesla 3 from Hertz. The rental of a BMW 5-series sedan from Sixt in Vegas ($430/week) had taken about 2 minutes: sit down, adjust seat/mirrors, add phone via Bluetooth, find Apple CarPlay on the screen. It took 45 minutes, two Tesla 3s, and three Hertz employees to get out of the Hertz lot. The first Tesla would not connect to my phone. On the second one, I couldn’t figure out how to bring up the navigation screen, which is not on the “all apps” list but is instead available only via a swipe down gesture.
Range anxiety began before departing Hertz. The company commits to charging cars only to 80 percent and the second car tried was at 86 percent. You’re supposed to return it at least 70 percent charged or pay $35 for the right to return it at least 10 percent charged. I chose the latter option and thus paid about 35 cents per mile for fuel (gasoline is $2.50/gallon north of Houston so it would have been about 8 cents/mile in a Toyota Camry). I’m not sure where the Tesla range numbers are coming from because the car was down to about 30 percent charge by the time I returned it 103 flat miles later, implying a total range of about 200 miles.
Presumably an owner who saves the planet 24/7 has his/her/zir/their car paired with his/her/zir/their phone. Hertzians, on the other hand, are given a keycard that has to be held up to the door frame to lock or unlock the car and must be placed in a specific center console position to start the car. The Hertz employees said that no customer had ever figured this out himself/herself/zirself/theirself. For the entire two-day rental, I was pulling the card in and out of my pocket. By contrast, the BMW fob stayed in my pocket for a week. The car would unlock as I approached, power up when I wanted to drive, and lock itself as I walked away.
The Tesla harasses you with beeps from the moment you sit down in the car. It’s alive and sees that you’re sitting, but complains that you’re not wearing a seat belt. Every time you return to the car. Tesla has thrown out the industry convention that the car won’t complain about failure to wear a seat belt until the car is moving or at least started.
The next immediate challenge is navigation. If you previously researched a restaurant or attraction in Google Maps then… you’ll get to rekey the name of the place into Tesla’s own navigation software. The car does not supply Apple CarPlay and therefore is not synced with your Google Maps history. The Tesla navigation software does not show the traffic lights and stop signs that show up as valuable clues in Google Maps via CarPlay. The lack of CarPlay was also painful as I tried to listen to an Audible book. One good piece of learning from the rental: never buy a car that doesn’t have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
Once on the highway, the interior is extremely loud compared to a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord. Wind and tire noise make it difficult to hear an audiobook and, unlike most other cars, the Tesla does not automatically adjust volume.
Maybe the noise is the price you pay for awesome sports car performance? The Tesla has some good numbers for racing rednecks in pickups away from traffic lights. Suppose that there are corners? Car and Driver found that the lap time for a Tesla S on their standard track was about the same as a Honda Accord’s (3 minutes, 17 seconds). For comparison, a C8 Corvette makes the trip around in 2 minutes, 49 seconds (the new Z06 C8 Corvette will likely be much faster; a 2019 high-power Corvette did the circuit in 2 minutes, 39 seconds).
I summarized the below photo on Facebook with “One of these machines requires hours of reading, intensive Web searches, YouTube video tutorial review, phone calls to experts, and in-person dual instruction to operate.” Why the complexity? Tesla has tossed out decades of user interface conventions developed by Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, and BMW. Instead of a four-position switch for wipers, the driver is supposed to press a button on the left stalk and then turn his/her/zir/their attention to the central touch screen where different wiper speeds, including a not-very-smart “Auto” mode, can be selected. Instead of dedicated buttons to answer the phone, hang up, or invoke Siri, some combination of the multi-function wheels on the steering wheel will accomplish these tasks. Instead of dedicated buttons to turn on and adjust cruise control, one engages it with overloaded gestures on the shift lever.
I never had a convenient opportunity to charge the machine. I stayed at a Home2 Suites in The Woodlands on the first night and there were no chargers in the parking lot. I valet-parked at a downtown hotel on the second night and the valet said that he thought there were chargers in the lot and would try to plug it in, but that didn’t happen. (Contrast to Death Valley National Park where laptop class members can charge their working class-subsidized EVs with “free” (working-class-paid-for) electricity in the hotel parking lots.)
The price for two days of confusion and anxiety? $400 or just slightly less than what Sixt charged for a week of BMW 5-series plus the cost of gasoline to/from Death Valley National Park and around Pahrump.
“They closed the schools, the world remained silent, they closed our universities, silence, now they’ve come for our courses. What are we supposed to do? Kill ourselves?” Devastated Afghan girls mourn the loss of their education after the Taliban’s ban
“They closed the schools, the world remained silent, they closed our universities, silence, now they’ve come for our courses. What are we supposed to do? Kill ourselves?” Devastated Afghan girls mourn the loss of their education after the Taliban’s ban pic.twitter.com/2M6p2DSL99
The same thing happened in Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and New York from Spring 2020 through Fall 2021. The same media outlets that decry the Taliban’s action today lauded these closures in 2020 and 2021. Could the Taliban rehabilitate their image with Western progressives by saying that they’re doing a partial lockdown in order to flatten the curve? How can they justify a partial lockdown rather than a full Chinese-style lockdown? Easy! The New York Times and BBC never questioned the Science behind a “lockdown” in which schools were closed while marijuana stores, Tinder, bars, restaurants, and liquor stores remained open.
When I was a kid, a neighbor played a joke on his Jewish neighbor. When the guy went away on vacation, he covered his entire house with a full blown Christmas light display. That might be considered a hate crime today.
Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope that you’re celebrating in traditional ways, but maybe not following the above tradition…
Speaking of tradition, here’s an Andrea della Robbia from 1500 at the Victoria and Albert.
Why can’t we get replicas 3D-printed?
One of the most impressive della Robbia’s is at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts:
I would love to have this for our house!
Related:
“Local Carpenter Continues To Spread Disinformation Deemed Harmful By Religious Experts” (Babylon Bee): Religious experts have begun voicing concerns that a local carpenter’s disinformation is spreading among Israelites most susceptible to unapproved ideas. “Visit your nearest synagogue for the latest information on how to obey God. Listen to the experts!” … Eyewitnesses have confirmed that a group of Independent Fact Checkers followed the carpenter around holding large signs with disclaimers above his head: “SINCE YOUR SERMON INCLUDES INFORMATION ABOUT OBEYING GOD’S LAW, WE’VE ADDED DIRECTIONS TO THE NEAREST SYNAGOGUE.”
The hotter the climate, the more people seem to love traditional Christmas decoration. Here are some neighbors’ houses. This one was fully up and running on November 23. Based on the lights 70′ above the ground in the palm trees, I’m going to guess that it was done by professionals with a lift.
Another photo from the same night:
You can’t truly appreciate it without the music.
A few days later…
Merry Christmas to everyone!
And… for those who are practicing Jewcraft (at the local CVS):
Here are some photos from a recent trip to Las Vegas.
For maximum understatement, a chrome Ferrari…
We brought our masks and vaccine papers when visiting a friend on this street…
At Red Rock Canyon:
The “I Love Butts” car nearby:
And the souvenirs at Cottonwood Station, a great café on the way to Pahrump from Red Rock:
At the Mob Museum, we learned that the original plan for Las Vegas was that debauchery would be confined to 1/40th of the town:
Today, by contrast, gambling, alcohol, and marijuana are available seemingly everywhere. The museum reminds us that Nevada was once notable for its divorce industry. Note that this was prior to the no-fault (“unilateral”) divorce revolution. These were divorces in which the husband and wife (only two gender IDs back then!) had agreed to the procedure.
In adjacent panels, the curators remind us that precious Black Americans are more likely to be killed by police than expandable white Americans and that this disparity is due to bias (not, for example, that one racial group is more likely to be involved in activities that interest the police).
The museum reminds us that Walter White in Breaking Bad was a pioneer in protection against SARS-CoV-2. Here’s the public school teacher’s mask solution:
ARIA does some great things with 2000 lbs. of sugar:
Four of us went to (and loved) the latest Cirque du Soleil show: Mad Apple at New York New York.
The on-stage comedians were Harrison Greenbaum and Orny Adams. Greenbaum ridiculed the folks in the theater who had chosen to enter this crowded venue while wearing masks. “You think Covid is going to come in here, see that you’re masked, and go back to its home at Circus Circus?” He then pointed out that there were quite a few diseases worse than Covid that one might contract at Circus Circus. The audience members who were wearing with non-professionally fit masks of various types could be said to be Faucists. Instead of staying home, their Covid-avoidance strategy was to enter a crowded casino and then sit in a sold-out theater… while wearing a cloth mask. This is a principle of Faucism from spring 2020.
Over at the Bellagio, the conservatory features a “Bears on Coke” theme and the Faucism Believers had voluntarily entered the casino with masks that had 1/2-1″ air gaps visible at the sides and bottom, even when a beard was not worn.
Caesar’s Palace goes big on the poinsettias:
Venice is famous for masks.
The Wynn lobby has a beautiful garden:
Let’s not forget these heroes:
And, at the airport, a nation that dares is given an important rabbit safety reminder:
Also at the airport, kid art represented as a mosaic of smaller kid art (database by the kids; photomosaic by Rob Silvers):
Also at the airport, Cheetos and popcorn marketed as “fresh”:
Certainly there is no way that a virus that attacks the obese can touch us!
That’s the story from Vegas. Some creative decorations. Lots of folks who are trying to avoid COVID-19 by following Dr. Fauci’s advice (perfectly safe to leave the house so long as you’ve got your cloth or surgical mask).
Sam Bankman-Fried must have had a few loose $millions, in the same way that many of us have $500 credit balances in miscellaneous accounts that we’ve forgotten about. Why didn’t he gather these up and fly to Moscow as soon as the stories broke regarding his crimes?
Plainly Harvey Weinstein is not going to be working in Hollywood again. In any event, at age 65 he has reached normal retirement age. If he stays in the U.S. he risks prosecution for whatever happened during meetings with actresses in California, Connecticut, New York, and perhaps some other states. Even if evidence against him is weak, what prosecutor could resist becoming famous by bringing charges? (See Window into American criminal justice system from the daycare sexual abuse trials of the 1980s for some stuff that influences prosecutors in deciding whether to pursue a case.)
Harvey could probably beat the “beyond a reasonable doubt” rap a few times, given that most of the situations were private encounters and there were no unbiased witnesses. … Why would a 65-year-old with money want to stick around to spend the remaining years of his life as a defendant?
Harvey, of course, did not take the advice from my blog. On May 25, 2018, therefore, he was forced to turn himself in to the NYC police and surrender his passport. Harvey Weinstein will be in prison for the rest of his life rather than seeing if foreign actresses have the same flexible attitude about what is reasonable to do with a fat old guy in exchange for a role as American actresses had.
Perhaps Sam Bankman-Fried does not read this blog, but why wasn’t it obvious to him that he would likely have a much better life going forward in Moscow than in a U.S. prison? (It seems safe to assume that the Russians wouldn’t be in any hurry to extradite the 2nd largest donor to Joe Biden and wouldn’t cry about some American crypto enthusiasts losing $billions. And perhaps even Joe Biden and fellow Democrats who got money from SBF wouldn’t be inclined to pressure the Russians to send him back either.)
The front desk gals at the Marriott in Moscow (2017) where Bankman-Fried would have been welcomed:
The downtown Moscow shopping mall where he could replace all of the stuff that he left behind in mom and dad’s Bahamas houses:
My old neighborhood in Harvard Square was home to a 30-year-old sandwich shop whose workers took advantage of the coronapanic labor market to unionize in the fall of 2021. After 9 months of union bliss, they responded to Bidenflation by demanding higher wages. The employer’s counter-offer was to shut down entirely:
The popular Boston-area coffee chain Darwin’s Ltd. announced plans to close the store’s original Harvard Square location at the end of the month, prompting some workers to stage a protest at Cambridge City Hall on Sunday denouncing the move.
Darwin’s United — a union representing the chain’s employees — responded by organizing a protest at City Hall, where workers rallied on Sunday before gathering outside the Darwins’ Cambridge home.
“We have been offered no guarantees of jobs for those who want to stay, no guarantee that workers will have an income going into winter,” the union wrote in a Twitter statement. “We will not back down, we will not take this.”
At the rally, union members called on the Darwins to keep workers at the Harvard Square store employed if they wished to stay on and reiterated past demands for $24 per hour wages, three weeks paid time off, and zero-deductible healthcare for employees.
“We know that Steve has long been considering selling the business, but the timing really couldn’t be worse,” said Sam White, a Darwin’s United representative. “We’re telling him to come back to the bargaining table and respond to our proposals.”
A majority of workers at the four Darwin’s locations voted to unionize in September 2021 and began negotiations with management for a new contract for workers. Since then, talks have stalled, according to White. In March, workers at all four locations staged a mid-morning walkout to raise pressure on the owners.
Maybe things are more harmonious on the West Coast? The academics at UC Berkeley claim that they know what workers are entitled to and how to redress inequality in the United States. Yet their own workers had to go on strike to try to force the university to pay a fair wage. “University of California workers continue strike amid threat of arrests” (Guardian, December 10, 20220):
Tens of thousands of academic workers throughout the University of California are currently on their fourth week of striking for a new union contract and the situation is intensifying amid the threat of arrests after direct actions by some strikers.
The strike of 48,000 academic workers, including graduate workers, academic researchers, postdoctoral scholars and teaching assistants, began on 14 November and is the largest in the history of higher education in the US.
About 12,000 postdoctoral researchers and academic researchers reached a tentative agreement with the University of California on 29 November, which included pay increases up to 29%, but have continued striking in solidarity with other academic workers still pushing for a deal and while the agreement is put to the membership for a vote.
Graduate workers at UC have reported issues in affording rent, food and basic necessities in the cities they work and live in on salaries averaging about $23,000 annually.
If the politicians and academics in California are experts on fairness, why did their workers need to strike? University of California professor Robert Reich, for example, is fond of scolding America’s evil capitalists for underpaying workers. Why didn’t he pay his own slaves fairly?
Oil companies have already posted $127 billion in profit this year versus $42 billion over the same period last year.
Folks, inflation isn’t being driven by workers asking for better wages or government spending. It’s being driven by corporate greed.
This is a report of a minivan driver’s experience at the Ron Fellows Performance Driving School in Pahrump, Nevada. A friend and I took the two-day intro class for complete novices. The school operates a fleet of nearly 200 C8 Corvettes, a fleet of 670 hp Cadillac Blackwing sedans, and a fleet of open-cockpit Radical pure race cars. We were in the Corvette.
Everyone asks “Was it fun?” The answer is that it is like flight training. You’re learning a lot and it is interesting, but you’re always frustrated because you aren’t doing as well as you want to.
The location is the nation’s most extensive race track, Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club in Pahrump, Nevada, about one hour from Las Vegas. There are currently 360 members who bought in at prices ranging from $4,000 (originally) to $75,000 (today) and then pay $7,500 per year for the right to use the track for up to 16 days per month. The members will typically rent some garage space at the track or build a house somewhere on the 1,000 acres. Plans are in the works for a 7,000′ straight section of track on which a jet can be landed, which will be helpful because most of the members are coming from other parts of the U.S., e.g., Florida(!).
The structure of the school was to alternate between 30-60 minutes of classroom and 30 minutes in the car. The in-car session might be on the track, skidpad, dragstrip, or autocross course. Each day starts promptly at 8 am and concludes at 4 pm with a one-hour lunch break. We were exhausted at the end of each day from the mental and, to some extent, the physical effort. Here’s your fearful author in the morning intro (no helmet) and the afternoon track session (helmet):
The instructors, all of whom are former and/or current racers, are usually in front of you in their own car or somewhere on the sidelines. Either way, they’re communicating with you via CB radio that has been piped into the car’s AUX input.
Who takes this class? Primarily new owners of the C8 Corvette because Chevrolet pays for most of the class, resulting in a price of just over $1,000, which includes a night of lodging at the track. A Ferrari-owning friend was recently invited to a similar class in the Ferrari 296… for $18,000.
What did we learn that can be translated to street driving? First, that the C8 Corvette does not have a tendency to oversteer and, therefore, if you’re in a corner that feels too tight it never helps to add power. You’re always better off braking lightly, which will transfer weight onto the front wheels and help them steer. Also, with the stability control computers and anti-lock brakes, it is nearly always better to slow down with brakes before departing the paved surface. Accelerating transfers weight to the rear tires and makes the car understeer (move out toward the outside of the turn).
After spinning out on the skidpad a bunch of times, with the fancy computer systems disabled (press and hold the stability control switch for about 8 seconds), we learned about the magic of the Weather mode, in which the computer systems become hyper-vigilant. “It doesn’t limit the car as much as teen driver mode,” an instructor explained, “but it can be very useless even on dry pavement for novice drivers.” See the follow video starting at 5:00.
The class may not be for those who think that Twitter is now unsafe. During the explanation of the glow-in-the-dark emergency release lever inside the frunk, it was pointed out that “You can’t kidnap hookers anymore.” For everyone else, the instructors point out that this is the safest driving any of us will ever do. “There are no other cars nearby, no pedestrians, and no concrete walls near the road.” The realistic hazard is motion sickness, which snares several students in every class. Even a pilot with aerobatic experience in our class reported feeling “dizzy”. The school keeps a package of Dramamine up front. If you thought that you couldn’t make yourself sick when at the wheel of a car, you haven’t subjected yourself to constant 0.5-1g corners and speed changes.
The organization, pace, and instructor enthusiasm and skill was superior to the $50,000+ jet type rating classes offered at Flight Safety.
Speaking of aviation, you couldn’t spit in this class without hitting a fellow pilot. A handful of the attendees were airline pilots and one was an airline-track hours-building pilot. about half of the rest of the folks seemed to have at least a Private certificate and current airplane ownership was common. Here’s our merry and diverse band of brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in Corvette appreciation:
Breakfast and lunch are included both days and there is a social evening after the first day. The clubhouse includes a Connelly pool table!
The night before class we dined at Symphony’s, a restaurant run by a local winery. They had a literal white privilege license:
If you want to meet up with Hunter Biden, note that Pahrump is the first county over from Las Vegas in which prostitution is legal. Sheri’s Ranch has its own restaurant and the $14 cheesesteak was excellent (plainly freshly grilled from sliced-up steak):
Does this mean Pahrump is not a family-friendly town? By no means, according to a bumper sticker parked in the local gourmet supermarket (Walmart) where we stopped for 70 cent/lb. bananas (I noted that these used to be 30 cents/lb. and an older lady mournfully agreed with me):
Speaking of family, quite a few students brought wives along and they seemed to have a good time in the lounge outside the classroom, in an observation tower 4 stories above the track, and at meals.
Aside from the regular street cars, the track is home to a Radical race car showroom and we also saw some fun ATVs:
Once you’re in Pahrump, Death Valley is only one more hour away. So it makes sense to combine the class with hiking in Death Valley (and/or family members can explore Death Valley National Park while a car nut is at the school).
