I hope not. I don’t trust them, or Facebook (or Twitter, though I don’t really share that much personal stuff there). I wish there was a good non-Apple alternative to Android, but it’s one of the reasons that I minimize my mobile use.
[Update a few minutes later]
Google caters to furries, transgenderism, and a “yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin.” But no conservatives viewpoints allowed.
They’re not “misguided” — in fact, they’re doing exactly what the progressives designed them to do. Higher housing prices means more money in the pockets of Angelenos and San Franciscans when they go to sell, high energy prices have a disproportionate impact on the poor, generous welfare “benefits” mean an endless supply of new Democrats and permanent employment for the public-employee unions who actually run the state.
It’s a perfect racket, and one that will continue unless and until the California Republicans get their act together and begin vigorously contesting what has become a one-party state designed to enrich those at the top, beggar the middle class, and keep those on the bottom in permanent penury.
Not clear to me there’s anything that California Republicans (such as they are) can do about it. It will continue until they run out of other peoples’ money. Though perhaps the new inability to deduct all of the state taxes will give them a campaign issue.
David Solway, with a depressing tale of why he quit teaching:
…when I briefly tried to introduce my students to a portion of the paronomastic, multi-lingual Wake for the sheer fun of language at its most exuberant, I was rewarded with blank incomprehension. It is, admittedly, a formidable text, but I felt that with some tutorial guidance students might be intrigued by the multiplex resources of the language, its potential to “maximize modularity,” to use an aeronautical phrase. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I did appreciate the following cartoon from a graphically talented student for its cheeky insouciance. Still, it was a sign that students are far more comfortable performing in a visual milieu than in a textual environment, as this student, like the majority of his congeners, experienced significant hardship organizing his thoughts and perceptions both in his verbal presentations and written projects.
I’m still a little rankled by the fact that, with all of the writing I’ve done on the topic, the only journalism award I’ve won from the kids is for animations of space-policy discussion.
Oh, and here’s an example of what a mess things are at my own alma mater in Ann Arbor. And they wonder why I don’t donate to the alumni fund.
Why you’ll fire Siri and do the job yourself:
I spoke to ObEN co-founder and CEO Nikhil Jain this week. He told me ObEN’s technology generates a 3D, computer-generated representation of the user’s face with a single selfie.
ObEN also learns to copy your voice. Once it’s got your voice down, it can do things with your voice that you cannot — speak Chinese, for example, or sing.
That “personality” is based not only on how you speak, but on what you know as well. It’s even possible to add knowledge manually.
Hard to imagine anything going wrong with that.
It started in South Carolina over a century and a half ago, but now it’s in California.
[Sunday-morning update]
Someone asked in comments what gave the federal government authority to outlaw a plant. It was two awful SCOTUS decisions.
I share Charles Cooke’s fear. And this will be like the argument over guns; safety versus liberty, the latter of which isn’t seen as a value by the Left.
Forcing students to pay for their “social justice” training.
This is sort of like charging the families of those executed in Iran for the bullets.
Five New Year’s resolutions for 2018.
Long overdue. Of course, the problem is that many administrators’ jobs are dependent on this nonsense.
…is postponed until next year. This is interesting, politically:
In one corner, we have the SpaceX Crew Dragon, a successor to the original Dragon capsule it’s been using to deliver supplies to the ISS. The seven-seater vehicle appears to be quite the looker, with fairly large windows to give passengers a stunningly clear view of their journey — a feature you’d definitely appreciate if you were a paying customer. The company already has a solid idea of what to do with the capsule outside of its Commercial Crew responsibilities. In fact, it already sold two seats to take private citizens on a trip around the moon next year … but only if it has already started taking astronauts to the ISS for NASA.
A successful Falcon Heavy flight (hopefully next month) is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for SpaceX to attempt an Apollo 8 recreation (the fiftieth anniversary is almost exactly a year from now). If they do it before they’re flying commercial crew, it will have the appearance of not keeping their eyes on the ball for NASA’s needs. But NASA can control the schedule by throwing up impediments to first flight, and some at the agency might be motivated to see that happen, because it would be politically embarrassing to see a private company do an Apollo 8 re-enactment before the agency can with SLS, causing even more people to question the need for the latter. It will be an interesting year.
Oh, one other point. Amusing to see a woman journalist using the terms “manned” and “unmanned.” I personally try to only use those terms to describe historical events (e.g., Apollo). It appears that “crewed” and “uncrewed” are gaining acceptance, but there remain two problems with that. First, “crewed” sounds like “crude” when verbalized. Second, not everyone who flies will be crew. Maybe we need to start saying “humanned” spaceflight.