Technology
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Stanford Invents AI Gaydar, Flubs Write-Up
Yilun Wang and Michal Kosinsksi, researchers at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, have developed a neural-net classifier that purportedly detects sexual orientation (in caucasians). The authors report an avalanche of experimental results, and claim the classifier can “correctly distinguish between gay and straight men 81% of the time, and 74% for women.” OK, that’s the Read more
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The Examined Life is Worth Living
Scurrilous Commentator Fred Reed demonstrates how a grown-up examines his prejudices on the way to wisdom Most Latinos of the south are either a mixture of Spanish and Indian, or sometimes pure Indian….Are they, as nativists insist, of very low IQ–83–and have they enstupidated the Spanish? Horrendously primitive? Without thinking about it, I had the entrenched Read more
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Blinded Me with “Science”
Writing in The New Atlantis, Daniel Sarewitz says “Science, pride of modernity, our one source of objective knowledge, is in deep trouble.” The public has swallowed the myth of scientism and Vannevar Bush’s self-serving rationalization for federally-funded Big Science: Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on Read more
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GPS makes you stupid
Get your face outta that stupid screen! The latest First World Problem is Death by GPS: Most death-by-GPS incidents do not involve actual deaths—or even serious injuries. They are accidents or accidental journeys brought about by an uncritical acceptance of turn-by-turn commands: the Japanese tourists in Australia who drove their car into the ocean while Read more
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Do You Spell FAIL with Green Letters?
More and more of all this hippy-dippy green energy bullshit we’re saddled with is turning out to be a collection of Really Bad Ideas: corn likker for yer car is destroying more land and polluting more water than all the frackers in Christendom, and starving folks in Latin America solar power arrays and wind turbines Read more
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Free Downloads of Everything for Everyone!
What the word needs now is DIGITAL SOCIALISM. Pablum to the People! Tip from the Instapundit, who want’s to give Obamaism to Hollywood good and hard. Read more
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New Tricks for this Old Dog
Udacity is offering an introductory statistics course this summer, beginning June 25th. I’ve enrolled, to see how the Big Boys do it. This is going to put a lot of pressure on traditional universities–especially here in Texas, where we’re busily hammering out the $10,000 Bachelor’s degree. I figure if I don’t get up with the Read more
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Oh, goody! Earth, wind, AND fire
I’m not sure this is the best way to Save the Planet. Tip from American Digest. Read more
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Look out, custodians!
UTSA’s University Center is starting a demonstration of a new SMS-based feedback system, so clients (mainly students) can report on the quality of meeting rooms and restrooms. I suspect the restrooms will quickly become a lot tidier. I hope the system is not so successful that it gets cancelled… Read more
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Greenie Fratricide
Your energy-efficient windows are melting my Prius! Am I the only person who finds this amusing? Tip from Drudge. Read more
The Random Texan 