USA Today is the definition of a middle-of-the-road newspaper. They’ll give you some stats, some weather, some info, but they’re not known for a strong editorial platform. So when they start going HAM, something is very strange. So here’s the latest official USA Today middle-of-the-road moderate editorial board opinion about the president:
A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.
See also: Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) voted against Trump’s candidate Roy Moore in the special election this week, and even Jeff Sessions, the Klan-sympathizing right-wing lunatic and former senator who vacated the seat to bring injustice to the Justice Department, won’t say whether he was willing to put his vote down in Moore’s column.
A significant number of conservatives went with a write-in vote for University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban. I can’t say I really blame them. Unlike Moore, Saban, who is both the best-loved and best-compensated public employee in the great state of Alabama, at least has some idea of how strategy, planning, and management work.
AI hype cycle
Botnik Studios has been posting some pretty hilarious AI-generated stuff over the past few months, including this Dear Abby video which advises us that “It is important to be ashamed of the members of your family.” But how much of this is actually neural networks learning to speak almost like people, and how much of it is clever marketing?
For a bit of perspective, let’s go to Actual Data Scientist and pal Alex Baker:
I don’t doubt they use neural networks to generate word sequences, but I think that there is a lot of human curation, and I think they basically use their tech as a lightly-skewed die roll and cherrypick the best stuff from it and say “an AI made this!”
In general they’re very Buzzfeedy about how they put things. The clickosphere figures that saying “We used readily available tech to barf nonsense. Here’s the best nonsense we found.” didn’t generate enough clicks, so they label it as “We trained a typewriter to control monkeys, and the result’s better than Shakespeare!”
Pensive
How Chinese scholars view Western elite institutions, especially global views of the role of luck and hard work and merit.
If you like the sad/funny shows, the frequently animated adventures of guys (and it’s usually guys) like Bojack Horseman, Rick Sanchez, and Sterling Archer, you owe it to yourself to read this article in The Awl about comedic portrayals of depression, addiction, and dysfunction.
Our willingness to believe that sadness in an intelligent affliction actually helps elide the fact that addiction is a perfect, classic sitcom trope: because addiction is a cycle, and the point of the sitcom is that nothing will ever change. The same cast of characters will have essentially the same conversations about different situations, perhaps in different settings. Archie Bunker will be racist; Rachel Green will want to go shopping; Rick Sanchez will be an asshole to his grandchildren and everyone else, too.
Cultivating optimism
The world’s top motorcycle racing competition has announced an electric motorcycle race series for 2019. It’s only a few races for the first year, and the bikes are a little heavy, but they go 0-60 in 3 seconds and top out at 140 mph, so it should still be real racing. Auto racing series Formula E is also making strides.
Why does this matter? If we’re going to decarbonize the auto industry, we need to go electric. Because racing is both a branding exercise and a technology testbed for manufacturers, a racing series is a pretty good sign that electric is coming. (For example, as motorcycle manufacturers began developing 4-stroke motors, MotoGP phased out 2-strokes, which accelerated a global switch to the cleaner 4-stroke combustion process).
A successful racing series means more attention from consumers and more investment from manufacturers. If Moto-E and Formula E can eventually become even half as popular as MotoGP and Formula 1, that’s a really good sign for electric vehicle success and carbon output reduction.
Cultivating joy
Christmas dog!
Big dogs meeting little dogs: adequate replacement for therapy?
What was Doug Jones’ walkoff music as he finished his victory speech? “Teach Me How to Dougie.” (Errybody love me you ain’t messin’ with my Dougie).
Reminder: Christmas lights and palm trees don’t mix.
Volcanoes are amazing. Here are some photos.
Secretly Ironic 