I'm not at all sure that it is worth spending 5 minutes on this topic, but the mystery around what exactly was going on in the heads of both (shall we say) "low quality" breakdancer "Raygun", and the collective heads of those who selected her, seems very deep.
I even saw a tweet by old blogger Mark Bahnisch criticising her from the Left (although it seems most of her defenders have been on that side):
Further down he even said this:
which is pretty remarkable coming from a sociologist!
Anyway, it may well mean no breakdancing next Olympics, and I'm not going to shed a tear over that.
I mean, everything points to Putin, Xi and Kim just needing to say "we really think you're doing a great job as President, Donald - the best President there's ever been. As for that question about whether we did X, no of course not. We wouldn't lie to you." And Trump would go out and announce to the press that there's no way they did it, regardless of the evidence his own officials are waving in front of his face.
Update: the other story that should be being pressed harder in the media is Trump's helicopter story. It is looking very, very likely to be either a deliberation fabrication, or a result of a completely muddled memory. (The key element and reason for telling it, that Willie Brown told him some terrible things about Kamala Harris, looks especially invented.)
We all know how the press would treat it if it had been Biden telling it.
I don't know the politics of James O'Brien - never heard of him before, to be honest - but the takedown in a calm manner of someone who rang him to defend "Tommy Robinson's" role in starting riots in England on the basis of a lie is something pretty awesome to listen to. (Also pretty rare that the caller would keep his cool and keep on the line while he continously loses credibility in his initial position:
When I hear of someone being taken by a crocodile in North Australia, my initial reaction is usually to think they were probably doing something dangeroous that they shouldn't have been doing. Going for a swim in a dangerous spot, fishing close to the murky water's edge - something like that.
Police say Newcastle man and GP
David Hogbin, 40, was with family members when he fell into the Annan
River near Cooktown and failed to resurface on Saturday.
A police spokesperson said it was understood Mr Hogbin was not fishing at the time of his disappearance.
Friend Alex Ward, who started a
GoFundMe fundraiser for the family, wrote that the family was walking on
an "established path" on the riverbank when it gave way under Dr
Hobkin.
He said his wife Jane heard the splash and tried to help him out.
"Due
to the steepness and slipperiness of the bank Jane was able to grab his
arm but began slipping into the river herself," the post reads.
"Dave's
final, decisive act was to let go of Jane's arm when he realised she
was slipping in, an act that likely saved her life."
It was then he was taken by the crocodile.
"One small consolation is that none of Dave's children witnessed this event," the post reads.
Even apart from the weird original story - what the hell is he doing talking to Roseanne Barr on the video??
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent
presidential candidate, confessed on Sunday that he had left a dead bear
cub in Central Park in Manhattan in 2014 because he thought it would be
“amusing.”
Mr. Kennedy posted a video detailing the bizarre story on social media apparently ahead of an article in The New Yorker.
“Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one,” he said, tagging the magazine.
In
the video, Mr. Kennedy appears to be seated in a kitchen as he casually
tells the actress Roseanne Barr about the ordeal. He says that he was
driving through the Hudson Valley when he saw a woman in a van hit and
kill a young bear.
I have always liked this noodle/soup bowl, which I am sure was purchased after I was married, and while my wife may remember where we bought it, I have forgotten. Must ask her. (It wasn't expensive, but I just like these sort of colours and patterns on bowls and plates. I did post before about how much I like Peranakan examples.)
I took this photo for no particular reason yesterday, then Youtube came up with this interesting story about China recovering nice ceramics, many with a not dissimilar look, from a 500 year old shipwreck. I had the feeling that China's interest in this (and the reference to where the wreck was found) has a subtle tie in with their ridiculous expansionist claims of territorial rights in the ocean, but I was still impressed with the quality of some of the ceramic pieces. Here's the video:
This is a surprise: I went to Quadrant on the off chance of finding some laughable fanboying of Donald Trump, and instead found something well written and not cringeworthy - an obituary for Alexander Waugh: grandson of Evelyn, son of Auberon. He recently died at the age of 60 (prostate cancer - ugh), and as the article notes:
Alexander’s death on July 22 sadly mirrors the early demise of Evelyn at 62, and Auberon at 61.
It's written by Mark McGinness, a name which sounds a bit familiar but maybe I'm imagining it. It reads like it was for a better publication than Quadrant, but there is no attribution, so I don't know.
Anyway, eccentricity and writing talent seems to have been in his genes, if not longevity. It's an interesting read.
(There was an interesting thread on Twitter yesterday started by Noah Smith about how the internet has become a lot worse for finding certain information - he blamed it on people and institutions now not putting stuff up on simple web pages like they used to. Many people agreed, complaining about how bad Google search has become, and how you sometimes find an answer faster by searching Youtube or Reddit. But of the AI search tools that got mentioned most often, I think Perplexity was the top one.)
I have used Perplexity at work a few times recently, and yes, the results were startlingly good and accurate. I also used it on (what I thought) a rather obscure matter local to Brisbane and someone I know who lives here, and the detailed answer was, once again, just great.
Once again, therefore, I recommend it to any reader. I usually use just the "quick" search but there is a "pro" search available that I haven't tried. There are limits on the number of pro searches you can make in a day, but you can subscribe (not so cheap - about $34 a month) to get a lot more Pro searches per day.
I have told both of my university educated kids about it, and neither had heard of it. Yeah, the ageing Dad felt boastful about knowing something new and valuable in the online world that they didn't.
I really hope that the rumours I have seen sometimes on Twitter are not true: that someone acting on behalf of Harris have been making approaches to crypto world to try to convince them that Democrats can support their vapourware idea just as Republicans can.
I must have grumbled here before about the constant stream of complaint about the high rate of indigenous child family removal by child safety authorities - largely because I find it incredibly hard to believe that Australian social workers, being for decades now the career choice for the Lefty-ist of progressives on any university campus, aren't highly sensitive to the racial issues when they reluctantly remove a child.
Therefore, I was interested in this story on 730 this week, which showed an apparent success story in a modest sized indigenous run support service in Sydney that has helped kids stay in their troubled homes, while their parent/s got their act together (apparently):
It was obviously slanted to show this as a "way forward" - basically an argument for higher funding for such services.
But, my skeptical take on it came up with these thoughts while watching it:
* this looks like such a time intensive way of helping the families, the cost must be enormous. I mean, were they actually qualified social workers making the visits to the house to do such mundane things as checking the parent is doing the washing, knows how to cook a decent meal, and has a timetable on the wall so as to remember when the kids have to go to school? I think so, but it wasn't made 100% clear. I mean, I have no doubt that some people with long standing addiction issues may need a lot of help working out how to do things the average non-drug addled person manages to work out for themselves, but the cost of such one-on-one support must be high.
* The charity/support featured seemed to have several staff, but was obviously located in suburban Sydney. (Indeed, the residence of the mother who was being assisted by them looked pretty comfortable and well appointed, especially if it was social housing - which I presume it probably was?) OK, so finding the (apparently) aboriginal background people of suitable qualification to work with "at risk" families is one thing in Sydney - but how many child removals are from regional parts of the country, and how hard is it to get workers to live there and supply the same kind of support these women provided? My guess - extremely hard indeed. In other words, I would not be surprised if the high rate of indigenous child removal is to a large extent explained by the practical impossibility of getting enough people to work in this field in the regions with the highest rate of problems. If that is true, what else can be done but take the children out of the home?
* Finally - how to put this without sounding like a Bolt-lite? - the clear change in the approach to indigenous activism in the last 20 or 30 years to a more radical and grievance based approach is one with some dubious consequences for encouraging personal responsibility. I don't doubt that bad treatment of some indigenous can have had generational effects - but I'm also pretty sure that well intended social workers who continually endorse the attitude that all problems are rooted in racist or unfair treatment of the past are not sending the best message to some of their clients.
Last month, I posted about the depressing fact that no one seemed to have any good ideas regarding the future governance of Gaza - just a bleak picture of a hopeless place gradually being re-built while its youth will still be taught that the ultimate violent triumph over Israel is just around the corner, despite the lessons of history.
I see that my pessimistic musings are pretty much confirmed in this article in Foreign Affairs headed "Can anyone govern Gaza" that pretty much comes up with the answer "nope". But it does think there is one (slightly?) least worst option:
All options for Gaza’s future are bad, but to prevent outright chaos, it
is worth focusing sharply on the least bad scenario—the return of the
PA to Gaza. It is a more plausible solution than imposing a government
controlled by an international trustee or by unaffiliated Palestinians
and a less disastrous option than a failed state or the return to Hamas
rule, whether outright or covert. Although the PA is unpopular among
Palestinians, they prefer a PA-run Gaza to a direct occupation by
Israel. In the long term, it might also be preferable to Israelis—after
all, there is a reason Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
The United States can do much more to ensure the PA beats the odds and
governs Gaza. To help the PA, Washington must provide more training and
aid. The Department of Defense and intelligence agencies should also
step up efforts to train and equip the PA’s security forces to fight
insurgencies. Yet technical training is only the first step. The bigger
problem, as the United States learned the hard way in Afghanistan, is
that security forces must have a government that inspires confidence.
Right now, the PA is not worth fighting for. The PA will need to help
itself by changing its leadership. Abbas is too old, inept, and
unpopular to run Gaza, or even to continue running the West Bank. The
United States should coordinate with international and Arab donors to
the PA to identify younger, more qualified Palestinians to play
leadership roles. Donors should restrict some aid if Abbas resists
change and increase it if new leadership is brought in.
It's no wonder that everyone involved in this issue is now madly seeking
"new ideas." A state in the West Bank only, leaving Gaza to its fate?
(Would that state be viable, and who would take care of Gaza?) A
three-state solution? (Why give Hamas a base from which it could cause
trouble?) A return to the Jordanian-Egyptian solution? (Let them deal
with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, respectively. There's
one problem: They aren't interested.) An international force? (Hamas
promised to treat such a force as an "occupying power." Any volunteers?)
Start talking to Hamas? (This won't solve the internal Palestinian
problems.) Keep fighting for Gaza? (Fatah seems to be losing its
appetite for conflict, and, even with the support it has received from
the West, doesn't have enough muscle to stay in the fight.)
In an effort to try to end on less than a completely depressing note, someone in this lengthy article from October last year (Arab Perspectives on the Middle East Crisis) writes:
The history of the region has taught us that, out of crises of this
magnitude, political breakthroughs can be achieved. The 1973 October War
led to peace between Egypt and Israel. The first intifada, followed by
the first Gulf War, led to the Madrid peace conference.
But then follows that with this:
But this time, the situation is different. The international
community is faced with a radical Israeli government that is not
interested in any compromise, an ineffective Palestinian leadership that
has been further weakened by the current events, and a U.S.
administration that is preoccupied with presidential elections next
year.
The stars are not aligned for a political initiative. Such an
initiative needs the willingness of both parties to seriously engage, as
well as the leadership of a U.S. administration that has so far been
disinterested. Yet the longer the world continues to focus only on the
here and now, the more it has to deal with casualties on both sides.
Remember, I like universities and don't have any issue with them being attractive to overseas students. But they will harm their reputation if they don't get on top of the serious problem of passing students who effectively cheat by use of AI or other assistance.
Guardian Australia spoke to multiple academics
and students, who described wholesale use of genAI going largely
unchecked at many institutions.
A humanities
tutor at a leading sandstone university said she was “distressed” to
find more than half of her students were flagged to have used AI in
their first assignment for all or part of their work this year – a “huge
increase” on 2023.
She believed the real number was much higher. But any repercussions were minimal.
“We’re
not holding students to a standard,” she said. “It’s not fair on anyone
who thinks a degree is worthwhile – a lot are not at the moment. It’s
just proof they’ve been paid for.”
She has
worked at a number of universities over three decades and said she had
seen a “huge dependence” on the international market in recent years, so
much so that tutors felt under pressure to pass students in order to
keep the revenue coming.
“Nobody is blind to it,” she said. “It’s not a
social or educational environment; it’s a box-checking exercise. A
master’s degree is not worth what a bachelor’s used to be.”
Up
to 80% of her courses were composed of full fee-paying overseas
students, she said. Many struggled with English language skills in
classes and meetings yet produced perfectly written essays.
It certainly sounds like it causing a lot of consternation amongst staff:
Academics told Guardian Australia they often felt unsupported or discouraged when they spoke up about alleged cheating.
A
science tutor at a sandstone university alleged they faced
repercussions last year when raising concerns over papers during the
first wave of AI.
“There was a near mutiny among the teaching staff
when we were told that we had to mark [apparently] bot-written papers
as if they had been written by students,” they said.
I
almost lost my job raising our common concerns about this to the
subject coordinators. About one-fifth of the papers were plagiarised
that year. I don’t think many people, if any, got seriously disciplined
in the end.
“Far from discouraging AI use, they’re doubling down.”
“Our current directives are not to report them without a smoking gun,” they said.
Mind you, I also don't have any doubt that Universities can harbour right wingers on staff who may well exaggerate this problem. (I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if UQ's pro-Trumper James Allen was one of the anonymous academics for the article. But then again, he's in the law school, and I expect that not too many non English speaking overseas students pick that as their subject.)
I think all of us suspect that there are cases of overseas students unfairly sailing through to a degree with very little useful english by relying on the myriad ways that technology (and capitalism) can help. But the question is how often it happens and how seriously the universities treat the issue.
%20Dr%20Mark%20Raygun%20-%20Search%20_%20X.png)
%20%F0%9F%8D%89%20Dr%20Mark%20%E5%8C%97%E9%A9%AC%E5%85%8B%20%F0%9F%90%B0%F0%9F%90%89%20on%20X%20Dr%20Raygun%20presents%20herself%20as%20a%20lone%20practitioner%20but%20that%20just%20means%20she%20ignores%20Blaks.%20I%20think%20her%20pose%20of%20white%20explainer%20of%20racialised%20culture%20is%20quite%20discre%5B...%5D.png)
