Dr. Bob

Because he’s a long way away. Longer than miles away…maybe…light years?

The title in the post is a tease. It doesn’t actually say anything?

Doing God’s work.

If I’m not going to watch the video why would I click through to read the title? I went and skimmed the wikipedia article instead.

I am saying I am not watching the video. I would prefer a tight paragraph or two about whatever the videographer thinks are the extraordinary circumstances.

One useful function for AI would be to watch YouTube videos and extract any useful information into concise paragraphs. I am looking to be informed, not entertained.

There’s an old joke about how long it takes to prepare a talk in academia. Want an hour? I can do it right now. 30 minute presentation? I’ll need a few weeks. 10 minute presentation? Better give me one or two month lead time.

God’s honest truth. 5 minutes of reading content gets stretched into 30 minutes of &$#@ video.

I’m outraged that the article skimped on Mr. Shatner’s other acting accomplishments including the titular cop on T.J. Hooker, and whatever his name was on Boston Legal. That was the lawyer show that wasn’t Ally McBeal. Or L.A. Law.

Which add-on?

I was genuinely taken aback at how much the article focused on interpersonal relationships and gender. I am much more familiar with the concept in bureaucracy the way the post teased it.

That line appeared in “To Live and Die in LA” in exactly the same circumstances two years before “Lethal Weapon”. TLaDLA also had the first wrong way car chase that’s now a staple of every action movie. It’s funny how it was so influential in the industry but has so little lingering cultural impact.

PINE: Pine Is Not Elm.

At the time I was told this is a recursive acronym.

My hopes were so high for the stupid thing. They couldn’t tell the story in front of them that was already loaded with allegorical social justice issues. They had to reinterpret the entire thing and just plain fucked it up. Just sad.

Projection is a powerful drug.

Oh God The Witcher. The production team was handed an incredibly strong female lead character who was smarter, more politically astute, and more feared/respected than almost any other character in the series. And they immediately tore her down and made her a petty whining brat while claiming it was about female empowerment. A pox on Netflix and the entire production team.

The black mold people are concerned about in buildings is stachybotrys. They type species is stachybotrys atrum. Totally different mold.

Sitting the lab as an undergraduate plunking away on an 8086 on a token ring network. Mostly telnetting into OLGA. Blew my mind.

I kind of get it, but again nobody cares about the answer, it’s the reasoning process that gets you to an answer.

Like a job interview question of how would you…X. Nobody is going to implement whatever you come up with, They just want to hear you think about it out loud and see how flexible you are if they constrain the problem.

I have designed tests like this as part of my professional role. The first rule of every exercise and simulation is “don’t fight the scenario”. Every scenario has problems and we don’t care. We literally do not care about outcomes. The only important thing is the reasoning process and how the candidate weighs and balances considerations. If they miss some obvious items or fail to take factors into account then they fail.

Eta: consider the trolley problem. At the core it answers the question “are you a utilitarian”. Any answer outside the frame doesn’t address the purpose. I don’t care that you’re a trolley engineer and can fix the brakes or have some harebrained scheme to rescue the people at risk. If you fight the scenario then we can’t do the assessment which is to hear how you wrestle with agency, culpability through in/action, and relative value of human lives.