Briefly Noted

Why are we spending $1.5 trillion on nuclear weapons?

The December 2023 issue of Scientific American contains three articles and an editorial about our nuclear weapons production, plans to spend tons of money “modernizing it”, and the environmental consequences. BOOM TIMES: The new costs—and long shadow—of living in a nuclear nation. by Abe Streep SIDE THE PIT FACTORY: For —>> read more –>>

Economy

ChatGPT 4 making stuff up, maybe hallucinating

Here at 114 Warren, our nearly twenty-year-old Bosch dishwasher has begun to leak water out of the bottom of the door chronically. So, investigations of the gaskets and repairs on the web have led to numerous posts and videos. The symptoms are somewhat mysterious. The leak only appears about 10 —>> read more –>>

Education

The Rich Keep Winning – this time in education

A recent NYTimes article from 10.23.2023, “New SAT Data Highlights the Deep Inequality at the Heart of American Education,” alerted me to a report from the National Bureau of Economic Research, “Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges” The report begins with —>> read more –>>

Racism/White Supremacy

Thoughts on Woke, Decolonization, and Getting Things Right

The public upsurge in white supremacist politics in the last year or so has refocused my attention on the ongoing need to get our history right. To continuously struggle to challenge every assumption about how and why life is organized in the fashion that we find today. In July of —>> read more –>>

Economy

Being a manager and the Trump boys

This week’s fraud trial appearances by the Trump boys, Don, Jr. and Eric, Executive VP and Executive VP of Development and Acquisitions respectively in the Trump Organization, caused me to reflect on the duties of a manager. “As he [Eric] started his testimony, he said he “never had anything to —>> read more –>>