Well, being trapped under ice is one of my worst nightmare scenarios, so….Thanks for the video. Fascinating, beautiful, and something I would never do!
We’re still in the Christmas season, and I thought this was particularly good. It was in the “Houses of Worship” section of the WSJ, but I found a free version of it. Just hit “expand article” you don’t have to go to the app.
Cool video. As a kid, I had experienced some ice noises when skating on river ice, but nothing as dramatic as that.
Many – MANY – years ago, the school I went to in Ohio had a small lake/pond. When we had freezes, we weren’t allowed to skate until it had been checked for thickness – it had to be 5 inches thick before we were allowed to skate. Usually there was snow that came with the freeze, so it wasn’t really a big deal, but occasionally there was a hard freeze with no snow. Then the ice was _clear_ – we could even see the big goldfish swimming under it – and definitely scary. Going from the the snow covered ice to clear ice could be weird and scare you till the skates made enough marks in the ice so it wasn’t quite so clear. But that frozen river…wow! Clear, smooth, and no end to it! But…he’s the only one there…I wonder why? Is he a safety official of some sort? Gotta wonder! But definitely cool! (figuratively as well as literally!)
RE: Chinese EVs
It is being reported that there is a lot of resistance here in the U.S. to buying Electric Vehicles, due to things like their high initial cost, and reports of extremely high repair costs—for instance, reports of replacement batteries costing more than 10K.
However, the Chinese versions have the additional problem of them frequently catching on fire and/or blowing up, producing raging fires which are extremely hard to extinguish.*
The same catching on fire, blowing up, and production of an intense, hard to put out fire problems have also been reported about cheap Chinese electric bicycles. **
Wave of adult bookstores’ bankruptcies caused by fierce competition from school libraries (http://tinyurl.com/ymz84h5w).
Expensive Teslas have also been known to catch fire, perhaps not as frequently as cheaper Chinese versions.
babylon bee, right, of course
I read somewhere that although EVs have a slightly greater propensity to catch fire than ICE vehicles, hybrids have an even higher rate. And I wonder if allowing Chinese EV imports is part of Joe’s quid pro quo with Xi?
Re: Plagiarism.
Oh boy. This is a much more important issue than the American media is currently reporting. -This practice of ignoring the tradition of attributing to the original author which has led to the loss of quality (merit) of education in our universities. This practice of ignoring the original author comes directly from the National Organization of Women (NOW) who believed back in the late 1970’s and have taught their daughters to believe.
“Because white men dominated the world for so long, if a woman has to copy a man’s work and put her name on it–so be it—turn around is fair play!” In other words getting women into faculty or research positions on campus was the priority–not merit, not ethics or fair play, not pushing the realms of knowledge forward in a way that allows for validation by external authorities. NONE OF THAT mattered(s) when it comes to pushing women ahead. That is why our national universities are now ranked below at least 20 other countries.
You know what is sad, and what I have witnessed repeatedly? Let me explain: here is what happens at international conferences in almost any field. First, a person who wants to speak at the conference submits a paper to the oversight group. That group then decides who will speak not just as keynote speaker, but in all small groups. So for example if you have a conference that attracts 2,000 potential speakers and you only have enough rooms and time to schedule 1500 presentations(sessions) then 500 people will not be able to present their papers. Abstracts of every paper to be presented are then made available to those attending the conference so they can decide which speaker in which room at what time they want to hear. For example: if I want to hear speaker A who is presenting at 0900 on Wednesday morning I have to go to room 111 at 0900. When that speaker is finished speaking I will go to the next speaker I want to hear–let’s say the second speaker I want to hear is going to speak in room 222 at 1000. I get up and leave and go to room 222 at 10:00.
Now, to get back to what I have been witnessing over the past 30 years. When the first speaker is finished speaking, everyone has the option to stay in room #111 to hear the second speaker who comes on at 1000. HOWEVER, if that second speaker is from the USA–most people will get up and leave that room in time to hurry down the hall to hear the next “good” speaker. That is to say the next speaker whose “abstract” was more interesting–more scholarly. IF, the next speaker is someone from a university in the USA who is not famous for personal scholarship–that room will clear out at 1000! People from other countries do not stay to hear someone from the US who’s submitted abstract, or whose previous work does not reflect real scholarship! The people who attend conferences want to hear the newest, the best, and most legitimate research. They do not want to hear Americans whose practice of plagiarism has become a worldwide scholastic shame! You don’t get people to stay and listen to you blather on about your victimization, and more importantly you don’t get people to stay and hear you repeat someone else’s well-known work that you now claim as your own. Scholars in any field know what’s going on in their field and it isn’t happening American universities. If an American speaker is set to speak at1000 in room #111 that room will clear out so those who came for real insight can go to another “legitimate” speaker.
You could satisfy yourselves by saying well that is just Anti-Americanism. Of course, that is some of it, but the problem is that REAL scholars want to hear what other REAL scholars are saying in any country–that is why they attend conferences!
I am hopeful for the first time in thirty years that maybe now we might begin to return merit and ethics to our universities.
what field is this, if it’s so called climate science it doesn’t matter if it’s Pachauri or Michael Mann, the same flavor, I suppose there is lee way in other fields
Anybody from a northern state can tell you that ice makes sounds all winter long. The sounds of even thick ice can vary from the “twanging” noises heard in this video to overwhelming “booming” noises on a really cold (-40°F) night when the entire ice sheet of a lake is contracting. On snow-free ice that was two feet thick I’ve watched and listened as a crack propagated itself across a lake moving at a speed that was almost unbelievable, like seeing a horizontal lightning bolt.
Being from Minnesnowta I’ve skated away (on the thin ice of the new day…thank you, Ian/Jethro Tull) a few times, and fresh thin ice like that really is amazing. I’ve watched after a sudden cold snap as turtles burrowed themselves into a mud bank for the winter, under ice as clear as glass.
But I’d never do it alone, and without ice self-rescue gear on me.
RE: ANNE @ 12:16
So in which academic subject have you noticed this panic fleeing from the room if a Yank is about to speak??
Let me guess; it’s some field in the social “sciences.”
Jan 6, was nowhere near the first time, keystone cop byrd malfunctioned,
Huxley: That would have been wonderful–I can hear the stillness.
RE: EVs—Things aren’t going so well.
Honda President and Chief Executive Officer, Toshihiro Mibe, has announced that Honda with be ending the $5 Billion dollar partnership with GM, which had been designed to develop an affordable EV. *
Play it backwards and it’s Morten’s mom saying in Swedish “Listen, mister, you are skating on thin ice …”
I just found a weird trick to extract the essence of a podcast without watching a boring meat puppet explain something in s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n. (Perhaps I’m sympathizing with AI too much these days.)
Well it’s not that weird, actually.
Most YouTubes now have a Show Transcript button concealed off the “…more” link in the YouTube description.
* Click “Show Transcript.”
* Copy transcript text.
* Prompt ChatGPT to “Summarize: ”
* Paste transcript into ChatGPT and hit Return.
Voilà! You just saved 20-60 minutes in your limited meat puppet life.
That would have been wonderful–I can hear the stillness.
Anne:
From what I understand, sadly, the Charles River doesn’t freeze solid like that anymore.
My walk across the ice was after the historic 1982 blizzard. I had been watching cross-country skiers working out on the river for a couple days, so I felt confident to walk.
huxley, I won’t use ChatGPT, but having the transcript available might persuade me to look at You Tube links more often. I strongly prefer written material to audio-video. Thanks.
Kate:
That’s a good idea and I have been doing so for a while. It’s OK.
The gotcha is that the transcript is generated by AI text-to-speech but it is all lower-case and contains no punctuation.
Which this meat puppet finds frustrating to parse. However, ChatGPT doesn’t break a sweat.
Eek. You’re right, I might not like that.
Kate:
Here’s a prompt for converting a YouTube transcript to regular human text:
___________________________
Remove timestamps and add capitalization to this YouTube Transcript:
___________________________
Example supporting something you posted the other day:
________________________________________
ChatGPT: Sure, here’s the transcript with timestamps removed and capitalization added:
“Harvard’s former president Claudine Gay, under fire for months, critics furious over her response to rising anti-Semitism on campus. It’s a yes or no question, but the final blow has to do with the integrity of her academic work. Scrutiny of her publications found them riddled with plagiarism. ‘If you or I did this, or even any white scholar, it would be career-ending to have 50 examples of plagiarism, and it has to be because how can you be the one upholding Harvard’s integrity when you yourself have failed?’ In her resignation letter, Gay blaming her fall from grace on racism.
Anti-racism activist Ibra X. Kendi calling criticism of Gay a racist mob attack on a black person. New York Times editorial board member Maray says it’s an attack on diversity. ‘The fact that she’s a black woman and the first person who is a Black American to lead Harvard only added to their thirst to dethrone her.’
But a voting member of Harvard’s honor council pointing out what they see as a gross double standard, writing in the school’s newspaper, ‘There is one standard for me and my peers and another, much lower standard for our university’s president.’ In 2022, for example, 27 students at Harvard were forced to withdraw due to academic dishonesty. Jeff Sonnenfeld, a dean at Yale University, argues Ivy League presidents should be held to the same standard. ‘And she actually stole from a fellow political scientist at Harvard. Like what was she thinking? I mean, how low can you go?’
Unlike the students who were forced to leave Harvard, Gay will be allowed to continue teaching at the University, reportedly receiving a salary of nearly $900,000. Even with Gay out of leadership, Harvard remains under intense scrutiny for rising anti-Semitism on campus following the October 7th attack on Israel, investigation still underway by the House GOP and the Biden administration’s Department of Education. In Washington, I’m Kayla Gasin.”
–“After resignation, Harvard’s Claudine Gay will remain professor & likely keep nearly $900K salary” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNXPq6OppJE
________________________________________
It’s not perfect but it’s quite good enough for my purposes. It went the extra step of adding paragraph breaks.
This new AI is practically magic.
Frankly, I’d rather be back in the world when AI as serious as this looked several decades off.
But it’s here, now. We’re all going to be using it whether we like it or not. I suggest embracing the inevitable.
Almost 2″ is a lot of ice from a skating
safety perspective, but anytime you can skate on black ice it’s a real treat. It was a rare thing when I was growing up. At about 1:40-1:48 in the video gives you the best perspective of what’s going on with the ice in those conditions. It’s quite flexible.
A very interesting X-pression from a Duke economist, Timur Kuran. He says DEI has grown enormously in universities and other organizations via “preference falsification.” People have been afraid to tell the truth, because they fear for their careers.
The stage was set for a preference cascade in reverse. The shock that unleashed the ongoing cascade in reverse was the Hamas massacres of October 7. The chain of events that they triggered in the U.S.—anti-Jewish demonstrations, the Congressional hearings, the plagiarism revelations—brought to the surface outrage that had been building up quietly for years. As public criticism of DEI grew, and as it became clear that broad segments of the left share the outrage, the DEI-favoring false consensus disintegrated. The process is by no means over.
Read the whole thing; it’s not too long. Via James Freeman, Best of the Web Today, WSJ.
I live on a salt-water estuary but it gets enough fresh water to skim over in ice.
Here is one of our DuckSpa videos showing the ice flowing by. This year for the first time ever we have a small group of Hooded Mergansers. We have lots of Common and Red-breasted Mergansers always but never the smaller hooded ones. Pretty birds.
That’s been my sense of it. Not just 10/7, other things too, but most certainly 10/7.
The backlash has been building and now it is unleashing.
Yesterday’s Putin reportedly signed a decree offering citizenship to any foreigner, his wife, children, and parents if this foreigner would sped a year fighting for Russia in the Ukraine.
The offer also included an immediate $2,000 dollar signing bonus, and a guaranteed $2,500 dollars pay per month.
Prior to this decree you had to live in Russia for five years to be eligible for Russian citizenship.
RE: Russia’s war in the Ukraine–a more detailed description
Putin is getting desperate.
According to a U.S. tally, so far Russia has suffered an estimated 315,000 casualties–dead and wounded–in the Ukraine, while the Ukrainians put their estimate higher, at 363,000, and Putin has signed a decree to pay each family of those killed, at current exchange rates, $55,000 dollars in compensation.
Taking the lower figure, this outlay alone is around $17 billion dollars.
Up until now, someone had to live in Russia for five years to qualify for Russian citizenship.
However, yesterday Putin signed a decree offering immediate Russian citizenship to any foreigner, their wife and children, plus their parents, if they would sign up to fight for Russia for a year in the Ukraine.
Terms also included an immediate $2,000 dollar signing bonus, and a guaranteed monthly salary of $2,500 dollars, so $32,000 dollars for a year’s fighting in the Ukraine.
This a sum which will probably be attractive to a lot of desperate men from impoverished Third World countries and to their families, especially given the opportunities acquiring Russian citizenship might open up for their families, compared to the Third World countries they are currently living in.
In addition, there is the cost of all the equipment which has been destroyed or damaged, and the vast amounts of ammunition expended, and that’s another several hundred billions of dollars.
Russia’s economy is already in trouble on several fronts, so these extraordinary expenditures are going to make things, much, much worse.
There is also the disruptive social cost of possibly having tens of thousands of foreigners and their extended families suddenly becoming Russian citizens, and settling permanently in Russia to consider.*
There have been reports that the Russians have not been paying their cannon fodder when living or dead (the “200”s). They did pay the Wagner’s and other Private Military Contractors (PMCs). A crucial role of PMCs is to kill any “Russian” soldiers who try to retreat from any attack, “blocking detachments.”
Vlad’s goal seems to be minimization of losses from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Rural Russians, foreign workers, even Nepalese are induced (or pressed) into the Russian army; Ukraine, a place for them to die, for Vlad.
Apparently, in days of yore, one was able to walk across the Hudson River between NY and NJ.
I’d imagine that, once you’ve moved your family to Russia, and they are basically at the mercy of the Russian authorities wherever they’ve settled, and you are out on the front lines in the Ukraine, and under military discipline and supervision, you really don’t have any leverage to enforce the pay and other terms of your employment contract.
I do NOT miss driving or walking on ice. I will do my skating in a rink thank you… To get out of the middle eastern summer sun.
I remember getting up early to make the first human marks in newly fallen drifts of snow. Sinking up to mid-thigh. The silent brilliance.
But that was in my countrified NY suburb… Snow in NYC itself quickly became disgusting and I don’t remember it fondly at all.
Hey – I went out yesterday and planted strawberry plants, and garlic cloves in my garden… I’ll take that over snow.
RE; China—Things are not going well in the Middle Kingdom
First I link to an analysis of a reported supposed recent open challenge to President for Life Xi from a bunch of Chinese Princelings (the very privileged, wealthy, and influential children of the founders of the PRC), military officers, and high ranking government officials.*
Next, I link to a story which reports the enormously decadent and over the top luxurious, Marie Antoinette lifestyle of Xi’s daughter, and her vulgar flaunting, on the Internet, of her lavish lifestyle and purchases—stacks of designer handbags and shoes, multiple, hand made million dollar Swiss watches encrusted with diamonds, millions in designer jewelry, the latest and most expensive Rolls Royce model, huge, multi-million dollar houses in Beijing and in Hong Kong, foreign chef prepared food flown in from all over the world, etc.,etc.
Just the kind of gross–in your face–excess which, I’d imagine, would very likely infuriate the close to a billion Chinese and their families who have to try to exist every month on a reported $282 (and quite often on far, far less) if they were allowed to catch wind of it.**
The report I’ve linked to above presents what it says are the facts about her extremely lavish lifestyle, images of which it says she had put up on the web, and then took down.
However, curiously, when I tried to find any information on Xi’s daughter using my usual browser, all that I kept getting were a number of articles from different publications giving essentially the same very staid 2022 story, saying that Xi’s daughter was a student in the U.S. studying at Harvard.
I can’t help but find this suspicious.
RE: China poverty
To get a feel for what current economic and living conditions are actually like in most of China, I recommend looking at some of the vlogs which were created by western vloggers on China serpentza and Laowhy86 as they spent years touring throughout China via motorcycle, and visited areas which most westerners are never taken to and, thus, never see.
Here is a recent video, from another source, discussing recent statistics about income, and exploring current income and living conditions.*
It appears that by letting–deliberately or by accident–the COVID virus go free, the folks at Wuhan have initiated a recurring series of mutating viruses which are–despite the optimistic propaganda of the CCP–apparently hitting the Chinese hard again–hospitals crowded and overwhelmed, mortuaries working overtime, etc.*
Well, being trapped under ice is one of my worst nightmare scenarios, so….Thanks for the video. Fascinating, beautiful, and something I would never do!
Gadi and Mike chat up the news, “IS ISRAEL’S SUPREME COURT GOING TO TEAR THE COUNTRY APART?”, Rumble/Tablet (52:13), w/bonus “violence inciting” cartoons and memes!: https://rumble.com/v4551if-is-israels-supreme-court-going-to-tear-the-country-apart.html
We’re still in the Christmas season, and I thought this was particularly good. It was in the “Houses of Worship” section of the WSJ, but I found a free version of it. Just hit “expand article” you don’t have to go to the app.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/other/the-incarnation-changes-even-nonbelievers/ar-AA1mtIQS?ocid=socialshare
Cool video. As a kid, I had experienced some ice noises when skating on river ice, but nothing as dramatic as that.
Many – MANY – years ago, the school I went to in Ohio had a small lake/pond. When we had freezes, we weren’t allowed to skate until it had been checked for thickness – it had to be 5 inches thick before we were allowed to skate. Usually there was snow that came with the freeze, so it wasn’t really a big deal, but occasionally there was a hard freeze with no snow. Then the ice was _clear_ – we could even see the big goldfish swimming under it – and definitely scary. Going from the the snow covered ice to clear ice could be weird and scare you till the skates made enough marks in the ice so it wasn’t quite so clear. But that frozen river…wow! Clear, smooth, and no end to it! But…he’s the only one there…I wonder why? Is he a safety official of some sort? Gotta wonder! But definitely cool! (figuratively as well as literally!)
RE: Chinese EVs
It is being reported that there is a lot of resistance here in the U.S. to buying Electric Vehicles, due to things like their high initial cost, and reports of extremely high repair costs—for instance, reports of replacement batteries costing more than 10K.
However, the Chinese versions have the additional problem of them frequently catching on fire and/or blowing up, producing raging fires which are extremely hard to extinguish.*
The same catching on fire, blowing up, and production of an intense, hard to put out fire problems have also been reported about cheap Chinese electric bicycles. **
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwhnArkZTu8&t=808s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SEfwoqKRU8
See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOA7qKMcjcE
** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpNCii-OTqw
Wave of adult bookstores’ bankruptcies caused by fierce competition from school libraries (http://tinyurl.com/ymz84h5w).
Expensive Teslas have also been known to catch fire, perhaps not as frequently as cheaper Chinese versions.
babylon bee, right, of course
I read somewhere that although EVs have a slightly greater propensity to catch fire than ICE vehicles, hybrids have an even higher rate. And I wonder if allowing Chinese EV imports is part of Joe’s quid pro quo with Xi?
Re: Plagiarism.
Oh boy. This is a much more important issue than the American media is currently reporting. -This practice of ignoring the tradition of attributing to the original author which has led to the loss of quality (merit) of education in our universities. This practice of ignoring the original author comes directly from the National Organization of Women (NOW) who believed back in the late 1970’s and have taught their daughters to believe.
“Because white men dominated the world for so long, if a woman has to copy a man’s work and put her name on it–so be it—turn around is fair play!” In other words getting women into faculty or research positions on campus was the priority–not merit, not ethics or fair play, not pushing the realms of knowledge forward in a way that allows for validation by external authorities. NONE OF THAT mattered(s) when it comes to pushing women ahead. That is why our national universities are now ranked below at least 20 other countries.
You know what is sad, and what I have witnessed repeatedly? Let me explain: here is what happens at international conferences in almost any field. First, a person who wants to speak at the conference submits a paper to the oversight group. That group then decides who will speak not just as keynote speaker, but in all small groups. So for example if you have a conference that attracts 2,000 potential speakers and you only have enough rooms and time to schedule 1500 presentations(sessions) then 500 people will not be able to present their papers. Abstracts of every paper to be presented are then made available to those attending the conference so they can decide which speaker in which room at what time they want to hear. For example: if I want to hear speaker A who is presenting at 0900 on Wednesday morning I have to go to room 111 at 0900. When that speaker is finished speaking I will go to the next speaker I want to hear–let’s say the second speaker I want to hear is going to speak in room 222 at 1000. I get up and leave and go to room 222 at 10:00.
Now, to get back to what I have been witnessing over the past 30 years. When the first speaker is finished speaking, everyone has the option to stay in room #111 to hear the second speaker who comes on at 1000. HOWEVER, if that second speaker is from the USA–most people will get up and leave that room in time to hurry down the hall to hear the next “good” speaker. That is to say the next speaker whose “abstract” was more interesting–more scholarly. IF, the next speaker is someone from a university in the USA who is not famous for personal scholarship–that room will clear out at 1000! People from other countries do not stay to hear someone from the US who’s submitted abstract, or whose previous work does not reflect real scholarship! The people who attend conferences want to hear the newest, the best, and most legitimate research. They do not want to hear Americans whose practice of plagiarism has become a worldwide scholastic shame! You don’t get people to stay and listen to you blather on about your victimization, and more importantly you don’t get people to stay and hear you repeat someone else’s well-known work that you now claim as your own. Scholars in any field know what’s going on in their field and it isn’t happening American universities. If an American speaker is set to speak at1000 in room #111 that room will clear out so those who came for real insight can go to another “legitimate” speaker.
You could satisfy yourselves by saying well that is just Anti-Americanism. Of course, that is some of it, but the problem is that REAL scholars want to hear what other REAL scholars are saying in any country–that is why they attend conferences!
I am hopeful for the first time in thirty years that maybe now we might begin to return merit and ethics to our universities.
what field is this, if it’s so called climate science it doesn’t matter if it’s Pachauri or Michael Mann, the same flavor, I suppose there is lee way in other fields
Anybody from a northern state can tell you that ice makes sounds all winter long. The sounds of even thick ice can vary from the “twanging” noises heard in this video to overwhelming “booming” noises on a really cold (-40°F) night when the entire ice sheet of a lake is contracting. On snow-free ice that was two feet thick I’ve watched and listened as a crack propagated itself across a lake moving at a speed that was almost unbelievable, like seeing a horizontal lightning bolt.
Being from Minnesnowta I’ve skated away (on the thin ice of the new day…thank you, Ian/Jethro Tull) a few times, and fresh thin ice like that really is amazing. I’ve watched after a sudden cold snap as turtles burrowed themselves into a mud bank for the winter, under ice as clear as glass.
But I’d never do it alone, and without ice self-rescue gear on me.
RE: ANNE @ 12:16
So in which academic subject have you noticed this panic fleeing from the room if a Yank is about to speak??
Let me guess; it’s some field in the social “sciences.”
Reminded me of this: golf balls on ice.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PyViE0pxA1w
Once, when I lived in Boston in the 70s, I walked across the frozen Charles River about midnight under a full moon.
It was utterly still. No traffic, no city noises. Just me, that big moon and the Longfellow Bridge connecting Cambridge to Boston.
A glorious moment.
https://twitter.com/TomFitton/status/1743327917122204062
Jan 6, was nowhere near the first time, keystone cop byrd malfunctioned,
Huxley: That would have been wonderful–I can hear the stillness.
RE: EVs—Things aren’t going so well.
Honda President and Chief Executive Officer, Toshihiro Mibe, has announced that Honda with be ending the $5 Billion dollar partnership with GM, which had been designed to develop an affordable EV. *
* See https://fortune.com/2023/10/25/honda-ceo-ending-partnership-gm-develop-affordable-evs-uaw-strike-automaker/
See also https://www.businessinsider.com/electric-car-ev-sales-prices-problem-transportation-2024-1?op=1
Play it backwards and it’s Morten’s mom saying in Swedish “Listen, mister, you are skating on thin ice …”
I just found a weird trick to extract the essence of a podcast without watching a boring meat puppet explain something in s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n. (Perhaps I’m sympathizing with AI too much these days.)
Well it’s not that weird, actually.
Most YouTubes now have a Show Transcript button concealed off the “…more” link in the YouTube description.
* Click “Show Transcript.”
* Copy transcript text.
* Prompt ChatGPT to “Summarize: ”
* Paste transcript into ChatGPT and hit Return.
Voilà! You just saved 20-60 minutes in your limited meat puppet life.
That would have been wonderful–I can hear the stillness.
Anne:
From what I understand, sadly, the Charles River doesn’t freeze solid like that anymore.
My walk across the ice was after the historic 1982 blizzard. I had been watching cross-country skiers working out on the river for a couple days, so I felt confident to walk.
huxley, I won’t use ChatGPT, but having the transcript available might persuade me to look at You Tube links more often. I strongly prefer written material to audio-video. Thanks.
Kate:
That’s a good idea and I have been doing so for a while. It’s OK.
The gotcha is that the transcript is generated by AI text-to-speech but it is all lower-case and contains no punctuation.
Which this meat puppet finds frustrating to parse. However, ChatGPT doesn’t break a sweat.
Eek. You’re right, I might not like that.
Kate:
Here’s a prompt for converting a YouTube transcript to regular human text:
___________________________
Remove timestamps and add capitalization to this YouTube Transcript:
___________________________
Example supporting something you posted the other day:
________________________________________
ChatGPT: Sure, here’s the transcript with timestamps removed and capitalization added:
“Harvard’s former president Claudine Gay, under fire for months, critics furious over her response to rising anti-Semitism on campus. It’s a yes or no question, but the final blow has to do with the integrity of her academic work. Scrutiny of her publications found them riddled with plagiarism. ‘If you or I did this, or even any white scholar, it would be career-ending to have 50 examples of plagiarism, and it has to be because how can you be the one upholding Harvard’s integrity when you yourself have failed?’ In her resignation letter, Gay blaming her fall from grace on racism.
Anti-racism activist Ibra X. Kendi calling criticism of Gay a racist mob attack on a black person. New York Times editorial board member Maray says it’s an attack on diversity. ‘The fact that she’s a black woman and the first person who is a Black American to lead Harvard only added to their thirst to dethrone her.’
But a voting member of Harvard’s honor council pointing out what they see as a gross double standard, writing in the school’s newspaper, ‘There is one standard for me and my peers and another, much lower standard for our university’s president.’ In 2022, for example, 27 students at Harvard were forced to withdraw due to academic dishonesty. Jeff Sonnenfeld, a dean at Yale University, argues Ivy League presidents should be held to the same standard. ‘And she actually stole from a fellow political scientist at Harvard. Like what was she thinking? I mean, how low can you go?’
Unlike the students who were forced to leave Harvard, Gay will be allowed to continue teaching at the University, reportedly receiving a salary of nearly $900,000. Even with Gay out of leadership, Harvard remains under intense scrutiny for rising anti-Semitism on campus following the October 7th attack on Israel, investigation still underway by the House GOP and the Biden administration’s Department of Education. In Washington, I’m Kayla Gasin.”
–“After resignation, Harvard’s Claudine Gay will remain professor & likely keep nearly $900K salary”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNXPq6OppJE
________________________________________
It’s not perfect but it’s quite good enough for my purposes. It went the extra step of adding paragraph breaks.
This new AI is practically magic.
Frankly, I’d rather be back in the world when AI as serious as this looked several decades off.
But it’s here, now. We’re all going to be using it whether we like it or not. I suggest embracing the inevitable.
Almost 2″ is a lot of ice from a skating
safety perspective, but anytime you can skate on black ice it’s a real treat. It was a rare thing when I was growing up. At about 1:40-1:48 in the video gives you the best perspective of what’s going on with the ice in those conditions. It’s quite flexible.
A very interesting X-pression from a Duke economist, Timur Kuran. He says DEI has grown enormously in universities and other organizations via “preference falsification.” People have been afraid to tell the truth, because they fear for their careers.
https://twitter.com/timurkuran/status/1742439137372762427?s=20
Read the whole thing; it’s not too long. Via James Freeman, Best of the Web Today, WSJ.
I live on a salt-water estuary but it gets enough fresh water to skim over in ice.
Here is one of our DuckSpa videos showing the ice flowing by. This year for the first time ever we have a small group of Hooded Mergansers. We have lots of Common and Red-breasted Mergansers always but never the smaller hooded ones. Pretty birds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrHEGCI-fmk
Re: Tim Kuran / Preference cascade
Kate:
That’s been my sense of it. Not just 10/7, other things too, but most certainly 10/7.
The backlash has been building and now it is unleashing.
Yesterday’s Putin reportedly signed a decree offering citizenship to any foreigner, his wife, children, and parents if this foreigner would sped a year fighting for Russia in the Ukraine.
The offer also included an immediate $2,000 dollar signing bonus, and a guaranteed $2,500 dollars pay per month.
Prior to this decree you had to live in Russia for five years to be eligible for Russian citizenship.
RE: Russia’s war in the Ukraine–a more detailed description
Putin is getting desperate.
According to a U.S. tally, so far Russia has suffered an estimated 315,000 casualties–dead and wounded–in the Ukraine, while the Ukrainians put their estimate higher, at 363,000, and Putin has signed a decree to pay each family of those killed, at current exchange rates, $55,000 dollars in compensation.
Taking the lower figure, this outlay alone is around $17 billion dollars.
Up until now, someone had to live in Russia for five years to qualify for Russian citizenship.
However, yesterday Putin signed a decree offering immediate Russian citizenship to any foreigner, their wife and children, plus their parents, if they would sign up to fight for Russia for a year in the Ukraine.
Terms also included an immediate $2,000 dollar signing bonus, and a guaranteed monthly salary of $2,500 dollars, so $32,000 dollars for a year’s fighting in the Ukraine.
This a sum which will probably be attractive to a lot of desperate men from impoverished Third World countries and to their families, especially given the opportunities acquiring Russian citizenship might open up for their families, compared to the Third World countries they are currently living in.
In addition, there is the cost of all the equipment which has been destroyed or damaged, and the vast amounts of ammunition expended, and that’s another several hundred billions of dollars.
Russia’s economy is already in trouble on several fronts, so these extraordinary expenditures are going to make things, much, much worse.
There is also the disruptive social cost of possibly having tens of thousands of foreigners and their extended families suddenly becoming Russian citizens, and settling permanently in Russia to consider.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ePxJPvb_Y0&t=1302s
Snow on Pine:
There have been reports that the Russians have not been paying their cannon fodder when living or dead (the “200”s). They did pay the Wagner’s and other Private Military Contractors (PMCs). A crucial role of PMCs is to kill any “Russian” soldiers who try to retreat from any attack, “blocking detachments.”
Vlad’s goal seems to be minimization of losses from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Rural Russians, foreign workers, even Nepalese are induced (or pressed) into the Russian army; Ukraine, a place for them to die, for Vlad.
Apparently, in days of yore, one was able to walk across the Hudson River between NY and NJ.
I’d imagine that, once you’ve moved your family to Russia, and they are basically at the mercy of the Russian authorities wherever they’ve settled, and you are out on the front lines in the Ukraine, and under military discipline and supervision, you really don’t have any leverage to enforce the pay and other terms of your employment contract.
I do NOT miss driving or walking on ice. I will do my skating in a rink thank you… To get out of the middle eastern summer sun.
I remember getting up early to make the first human marks in newly fallen drifts of snow. Sinking up to mid-thigh. The silent brilliance.
But that was in my countrified NY suburb… Snow in NYC itself quickly became disgusting and I don’t remember it fondly at all.
Hey – I went out yesterday and planted strawberry plants, and garlic cloves in my garden… I’ll take that over snow.
RE; China—Things are not going well in the Middle Kingdom
First I link to an analysis of a reported supposed recent open challenge to President for Life Xi from a bunch of Chinese Princelings (the very privileged, wealthy, and influential children of the founders of the PRC), military officers, and high ranking government officials.*
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jckHU9q-oD0
Next, I link to a story which reports the enormously decadent and over the top luxurious, Marie Antoinette lifestyle of Xi’s daughter, and her vulgar flaunting, on the Internet, of her lavish lifestyle and purchases—stacks of designer handbags and shoes, multiple, hand made million dollar Swiss watches encrusted with diamonds, millions in designer jewelry, the latest and most expensive Rolls Royce model, huge, multi-million dollar houses in Beijing and in Hong Kong, foreign chef prepared food flown in from all over the world, etc.,etc.
Just the kind of gross–in your face–excess which, I’d imagine, would very likely infuriate the close to a billion Chinese and their families who have to try to exist every month on a reported $282 (and quite often on far, far less) if they were allowed to catch wind of it.**
** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgrTSzKqwXE&t=541s
RE: The lifestyle of Xi’s daughter.
The report I’ve linked to above presents what it says are the facts about her extremely lavish lifestyle, images of which it says she had put up on the web, and then took down.
However, curiously, when I tried to find any information on Xi’s daughter using my usual browser, all that I kept getting were a number of articles from different publications giving essentially the same very staid 2022 story, saying that Xi’s daughter was a student in the U.S. studying at Harvard.
I can’t help but find this suspicious.
RE: China poverty
To get a feel for what current economic and living conditions are actually like in most of China, I recommend looking at some of the vlogs which were created by western vloggers on China serpentza and Laowhy86 as they spent years touring throughout China via motorcycle, and visited areas which most westerners are never taken to and, thus, never see.
Here is a recent video, from another source, discussing recent statistics about income, and exploring current income and living conditions.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAS9Dq1NGbU
RE: China and “the Virus”
It appears that by letting–deliberately or by accident–the COVID virus go free, the folks at Wuhan have initiated a recurring series of mutating viruses which are–despite the optimistic propaganda of the CCP–apparently hitting the Chinese hard again–hospitals crowded and overwhelmed, mortuaries working overtime, etc.*
See, for instance, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-zLuICcGjQ
and here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAzDewxXrs
and here, https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/no-more-lockdowns-chinas-new-covid-landscape
and here as well, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/28/chinese-hospitals-pandemic-outbreak-pneumonia/