Archive for February, 2024

Google Goes From “Do no Evil” to the Sandford Village Neighborhood Watch Alliance The Obvious Question Concerning Google Is Now Out in the Open.

Posted: February 27, 2024 by datechguy in culture, tech
Tags: , ,


The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.

Jesus Christ: Luke 16:10

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

Lord Action

We’ve all had some fun laughing at what we’ve seen from google’s AI from the supposed death of Iowahawk

to the new Nazi

and confederate

recruits of color.

It got so bad that Google actually turned off the ability to generate images, alas it could still “talk” and express confusion as to who was worse, Christopher Rufo who exposed the plagiarism scandals at Harvard or Adolph Hitler who is responsible for the start of World War 2 in Europe and the Death of tens of millions

or even Hitler vs Elon Musk:

And we’ve also seen things less funny like apologies for pedophilia

Now remember what I told you before Total Con Concerning Google’s AI

Why? For the same reason that it doesn’t dare show an image of Tiananmen Square…Because it’s a computer program doing what it’s been ordered to do by the people who wrote it.

The reality that Google AI is just a computer program, a complex computer program, with access to all kinds of data, but a computer program that operators under the parameters that the programmers have given it and if people understood that this is what it is then all of this stuff would be no big deal.

This leads to the most simple and obvious question there is:

If Google’s AI, a program that the company developed over the course of YEARS involving tens of not thousand or hundreds of thousands of man hours of work to do so produces such results to queries, why would you trust the google search engine to produce the results you want vs the results they want to give you?

The short answer is YOU CAN’T. Cue Glenn Reynolds who has come to the same conclusion:

you’d be a fool to trust Google.  Assuming this is just bad programming, then, well, it’s really bad programming.  That somehow nobody noticed.

And Mario Juric gets to the heart of the matter:

if you know a bit about how these models are built, you know you don’t get these “incorrect” answers through one-off innocent mistakes. Gemini’s outputs reflect the many, many, FTE-years of labeling efforts, training, fine-tuning, prompt design, QA/verification — all iteratively guided by the team who built it. You can also be certain that before releasing it, many people have tried the product internally, that many demos were given to senior PMs and VPs, that they all thought it was fine, and that they all ultimately signed off on the release. With that prior, the balance of probabilities is strongly against the outputs being an innocent bug — as @googlepubpolicy is now trying to spin it: Gemini is a product that functions exactly as designed, and an accurate reflection of the values people who built it. Those values appear to include a desire to reshape the world in a specific way that is so strong that it allowed the people involved to rationalize to themselves that it’s not just acceptable but desirable to train their AI to prioritize ideology ahead of giving user the facts. To revise history, to obfuscate the present, and to outright hide information that doesn’t align with the company’s (staff’s) impression of what is “good”. I don’t care if some of that ideology may or may not align with your or my thinking about what would make the world a better place: for anyone with a shred of awareness of human history it should be clear how unbelievably irresponsible it is to build a system that aims to become an authoritative compendium of human knowledge (remember Google’s mission statement?), but which actually prioritizes ideology over facts. History is littered with many who have tried this sort of moral flexibility “for the greater good”;

For those too woke to get the concept think Hot Fuzz:

Those in the hood willing to murder for “the greater good” that’s the Google team. This is not only the wrong thing, it’s the stupid thing: Mario Juric again:

After Gemini, rather than as a user-centric company, Google will be perceived as an activist organization first — ready to lie to the user to advance their (staff’s) social agenda. That’s huge. Would you hire a personal assistant who openly has an unaligned (and secret — they hide the system prompts) agenda, who you fundamentally can’t trust? Who strongly believes they know better than you? Who you suspect will covertly lie to you (directly or through omission) when your interests diverge? Forget the cookies, ads, privacy issues, or YouTube content moderation; Google just made 50%+ of the population run through this scenario and question the trustworthiness of the core business and the people running it. And not at the typical financial (“they’re fleecing me!”) level, but ideological level (“they hate people like me!”). That’ll be hard to reset, IMHO.

Google Gemini turned out to be a colossal mistake David Strom nails it as to why:

It showed us the man behind the curtain, and not in some abstract way. We got to see the world Google is trying to recreate in pictures worth more than a thousand words. 

We see that Google’s world is a carefully constructed lie.

And it’s a lie in words as well as pictures to wit:

Why is Nikki Haley spared this treatment but RFK Jr, Melaine Trump , Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson are not? Well right now Haley is considered a foe of Donald Trump and thus is to be celebrated the others, not so much. Not even RFK Jr. who is far to the left of Haley but now a threat to the retention of power by the left. Storm again:

A Google employee sees an answer calling Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hateful and just nods. He is hateful, racist, or otherwise discriminatory, so he should be silenced. It literally never occurred to Googlers that others might disagree, so when they tested the product out the answers seemed obvious to them. 

And it’s not “A” google employee, it’s the entire staff who tested and wrote this stuff and the entire management team that approved it. Nobody saw a thing wrong because they all live in the same bubble that believes those whose public thoughts disagree with theirs should be gone.

When Youtube banned me for questioning the honestly of the last election not too many people cared but me because they didn’t see what was going on. When the left which used to love and for decades celebrated J.K. Rowling, Elon Musk and even Donald Trump turned on them. The media left and the google team cheered. After all their actions threatened the power and narrative of the left and thus threatened the greater good:

But now thanks to Gemini it’s all out in the open as to what is going on. The only question is will people choose to see what is in front of their faces or will they accept it…

…for the greater good of course.

Closing thought: Without realizing it or perceiving it Google went from a company whose motto was “Do no Evil” to becoming the Sandford Neighborhood Watch Alliance from HotFuzz in just over one generation.

Total Confusion Day 4 Wrapping Up and Lessons Learned

Posted: February 26, 2024 by datechguy in fun, gaming, special events
Tags: , , ,

After a trip to St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Westborough for mass and a quick drive through breakfast I got to total con around 9 AM which was my latest start of the day.

The Kids games library Locker

It was very clear that this was the last day of the convention. The huge miniature tables were not surrounded by players and although there was plenty of game action going on the number of folks in the open play room wasn’t what it was Saturday.

There were however things happening. Right next to me a person by the name of James who was setting up for a tournament of the game Dimension.

After unsuccessfully pitching Dynasty baseball to a few folks I decided to try to hit vendors that I missed. The first I spoke to was Christopher of Polygon3D Printing who had some incredible dice rollers

When the interview was over I was shown another interesting feature of these items that was so interesting it warranted another video

Next I talked to Dave of Bloody Scotsman Games who had developed his own game and system.

This business of people developing their own systems independent of a large company is a rather cool circumstance made possible by technological and even financial advances. It makes you wonder how many potential games never made it 30 years ago.

Speaking of 30 years ago I had a chance to talk to David “Diesel” LaForce an artist who was with TSR in the early days of Gygax. I recognized his work from the old players handbook etc from the days of my youth.

And after him I talked to a much younger artist and writer Julie Boglisch who was promoting both her books and her art.

But the thing that really made my heart go pitter-patter came from a vendor called Arcadian Chain.

That chain Doctor Who scarf was one of the coolest things I saw.

I retired to the gaming room and after pitching Dynasty a bit more and helping a new online league member with his team I waited to see if anyone had an interest in the old Avalon History of the World. To my surprise nobody did although I suspect if I had set it up Saturday the response would have been different.

So I spent the rest of the day uploading these videos (the upload speeds at the hotel were awesome) and did a little writing while playing 1830 on my laptop.

I should mention there was a very large contingent of people playing various train games and 18xx variants in the place. Perhaps next year I’ll bring my pristine copy of the old Avalon Hill 1830 game. Next year I’ll likely do some interview of the train guys as it’s one thing I totally forgot about.

I ended up leaving around 4 pm and shot this video in closing:

So here is my advice to anyone considering total confusion in the future:

  1. If you want to run a game register the event. You’d be surprised at how many people might like your game but are taken by another.
  2. If there is a game you REALLY want to play, make sure you get tickets (yeah some games have open seats but you can’t miss if you’re reserved.
  3. Have a plan: The scheduled meal breaks means that you have specific times when you are free, if you know places to eat etc you’ll be covered. Plus a plan gives you direction in terms of what and where for games to play.
  4. Visuals, Visuals Visuals: One of the things that hurt me for Dynasty is there was no park visuals. I’ll make sure I have them next year.
  5. Take advantage of the bandwidth: the upload speeds at the hotel are awesome so do your uploading there.
  6. If you want Quigley’s cakes buy them early. They really sold out fast.
NO CUPCAKES FOR YOU TILL PINTASTIC!

Above all have fun, because that’s what gaming is all about.

Chicago’s southern suburbs are the sewer of corrupt Illinois

Posted: February 25, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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Blogger pictured in 2016

By John Ruberry

Illinois is a corrupt state. Rankings of the 50 states usually place in Illinois within the top five in the union in regard to public crookedness. 

Surprisingly, as bad as Chicago is, the city’s inner southern suburbs, are even worse in regard to political corruption. It’s the sewer of Illinois.

Sharp-eyed readers will recall I wrote a similar post here at Da Tech Guy several years ago, but the WordPress wormhole seems to have swallowed that entry up. 

So here I am again documenting south suburban Chicago sleaze, mainly because of the antics of Tiffany Henyard, the mayor of Dolton (rhymes with “Walton”), who has been accused of widespread corruption by her own village council. 

But you’ll find graft in nearby communities. More on them later.

Henyard is a double-dipper, a time-dishonored ILL-inois scam. The self-described “Super Mayor” collects $224,000 as a Thornton Township supervisor. But last year, the township’s board passed an ordinance that if voters remove her from office, her successor will earn just $25,000. 

As I wrote recently at DTG, township government in Illinois–a sinecure haven–should be abolished. 

Henyard’s salary as mayor of Dolton is $46,000. The village has 21,000 residents. As for her haul as a township supervisor, 49 of America’s 50 governors have a lower salary than hers.

Henyard, a Democrat, is accused of wasting village money on expensive trips to Atlanta and New York with village staff, wasting money on billboards with her picture. There is even her image in front of Dolton’s village hall. Yep. And I don’t care if you call me racist, it sounds a Third World-like cult of personality. I don’t care–because I’m not racist. Not surprisingly, Henyard is not above using the race card to deflect well-earned criticism. “You all should be ashamed of yourselves because you all are black. You all are black,” Super Mayor said recently in a livestreamed meeting. “And you all [are] sitting up here beating and attacking a black woman that’s in power.”

Henyard has only been mayor of Dolton for three years. She was defeated in a recall election in 2022, but a Cook County judge invalidated the results.

Meanwhile, finances in Dolton are a disaster. A lender is threatening to repossess 13 vehicles, including police cars. It could be at least $5 million in debt. Business owners are accusing Super Mayor of strong-arming them into making political donations to her campaign. Super Mayor is accused of shutting down businesses that didn’t cough up cash.

Speaking of donations, the Illinois attorney general’s office has ordered Henyard’s charity to stop collecting contributions, citing a lack of transparency and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4e4KBV-jy8
Last month Super Mayor visited the White House and met President Joe Biden.

Is that all in regard to Henyard? No, but the FBI is investigating her.

Back to those other south suburbs.

In the 1990s, nearby Dixmoor’s Park District, which at the time had only one tiny tot lot under its jurisdiction, employed 80 people as police officers. Harvey, a poverty-stricken town has a long tradition of graft. While he has not been accused of wrongdoing, Eric Kellogg, who as mayor of Harvey until being voted out in 2019, Kellogg allegedly accepted kickbacks from a strip club that was offering prostitution. His brother was convicted for his role in that scheme. In Calumet City, which borders Dolton on the east, has recent sleaze to answer for. Its mayor is Thaddeus Jones. His wife, Saprina, collects $92,000 in a job working with state grants involved with Cal City. And the mayor’s son, Thaddeus Jr, collects $32,000 from the suburb.

Whose responsible for this debacle? Voters are. Yes, in the invalidated election Dolton voters chose to recall Henyard, but there were many red flags that should have been a sufficient warning to vote otherwise.

As the cliché goes, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Barack Obama famously said, “Elections have consequences.” Indeed they do.

Finally, there is speculation that if Joe Biden backs out of the 2024 presidential election, Illinois’ governor, JB Pritzker, will jump into the race. On X, Pritzker, who of course earns less in public money than Henyard, regularly rails about the evils of “MAGA Republicans.” But Pritzker is silent about Super Mayor.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Day Three Total Confusion Convention 2024, Games, Developers, Vendors and zzz’s

Posted: February 25, 2024 by datechguy in fun, gaming, special events
Tags: , , , , , ,

On Day Three of Total Con I decided to shift my focus to the vendors and some of games being played. Started with a group about to play a miniatures game call Trilaterum.

I didn’t realize at the time that they were also a vendor selling miniatures and accessories to the game.

Next I talked to a fellow named Caleb who was about to start running a boardgame called Mosiac

There seemed to be an awful lot of grand march of Civilization games in the place, at least to me.

From there I spoke to Christopher White of Creatorpult whose 3D printer seemed to be constantly running every time I passed by his area.

The concept of being able to do this would be almost beyond the imagination of those who attended the first few Totalcons.

I then spoke to one of the playtesters of a RPG called Fae which had a rather interesting concept of being an RPG where you play the monsters.

It certainly had one of the coolest characters which is why I led with the image.

There were vendors who had gone completely old school like the folks at Arkensword Press who were doing their first Total Con as vendors.

Vendors who were selling and testing their own games were a common sight at Total like Jim Fitzpatrick whose game is Mission to Planet Hexx.

As I mentioned there is a different vibe from Pintastic and one of the difference was that by Saturday the director of the event Steven Parenteau had some time for me when he didn’t at the start.

I was actually surprised that the only sign of pintastic was Dave dropping off some cards promoting it, but there was one familiar face and taste that had been at Pintastic:

Quigley’s cakes have been at Total Con for a decade and they did in fact sell out of their entire inventory by the end of this night which means that on Sunday they’ll have chance to actually game. (Don’t worry if you want the cupcakes they’ll be back for Pintastic in April

Of course there are other side business like the Fabric Treasury that makes accessories for gamers:

You might have noticed that while I am, as always excited to interview people I was starting to seem a tad slower, the early mornings had been getting to me and despite a more reasonable 5 hours of sleep over a friend’s apartment that morning I was dragging having completely forgotten to eat. A trip to Linguini’s for lunch filled me up and I returned to my spot in the free play room where the continual Blackbeard game was set up by 3:30 or so.

I plugged in the laptop and the battery of the camera to recharge but apparently I needed recharging more because it was a little after 4:30 when I sat down and seemed to nod off and when I looked again it was nearly 6. I literally crashed right in the chair in front of the game and was out at least 60-90 minutes as the gaming went on around me.

When I came to I was a tad refreshed and even more importantly the Wars of Ozz table was being reset for a new group meaning that the gamemaster was free for an interview:

It turned out the fellow from my home town a year ahead of me in High School which was cool.

But the most intriguing interview of the day was my final one with Jeff Johnston whose games were very different than most of the elaborate setups in the place as all of his games were designed to be played in 15 minutes and made for the youngest of children.

That was it for interview. I spent the rest of the night running Avalon Hill’s Blackbeard for a group of players and finally teaching Groo to the group when Blackbeard ended. I didn’t end up back at the apartment till 1 AM.

I’m going to mention one thing in passing. There was a miniatures game that I thought was simply incredible and brought a huge smile to my face. The gamemaster had no time to talk early in the day but I swung by as he was packing up. He was very enthused about the game he had made but for reasons that people who attended Totalcon and played or saw his game will understand we decided that it was prudent to give the interview a miss and skip even the still photos of it.

Fortunately there were other games with cool images that were not a problem from the Star Wars universe.

To Cthulhu boardgames.

There is one more day of Total Con to see. Looking forward to seeing it.

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