Bitchin Dave's Newsletter - September 29th
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We're taught a version of the Revolutionary War that is somewhat incomplete. One aspect that is often overlooked is the time George Washington at Valley Forge.
Washington set up a camp there at the end of 1777, and remained there through the summer of 1778. The very high-level, simplified story is that he went there to prepare for the future of the war, and to train the troops while he waited for reinforcements, word on the French, and so on.
The British knew full well they were there, and just let them be - but kept an eye on them.
Things were definitely rough for the Continental Army, but Washington did two very important things that ultimately led them to victory. The first was that he brought on Prussian Inspector General Baron von Steuben to organize and train the troops. There's no doubt that the rag-tag militia became more effective once they had some sort of organization.
The second thing was something that's still relevant today. To this point, Washington might be considered "anti-vax" by today's standards. His rationale was that exposing his men to the diseases took them out of commission anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, while their bodies developed an immune response. He wanted them to be ready to engage at any time and opted not to order vaccinations for that reason.
But Washington saw the error of his ways as Small Pox was ravaging the Americas. There was an inoculation available, and he decided to take advantage of it, thus protecting his troops from falling seriously ill. Yes, he evolved in his thinking for a greater good.
He ordered vaccines be administered to everyone in his army. And that left his troops healthy as they fought the British.
You can read more about Washington's stance on vaccines in the attached links. The second one - somewhat surprisingly because I would not expect such a thing from this administration - is from the National Parks Service.
https://historyofvaccines.org/blog/washingtons-war-against-smallpox-revolutionary-inoculation-campaign/
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Although the stories are not well chronicled, and maybe aren’t all that well known either, monkeys played a critical part in understanding human space flight.
This story summarizes their contributions. I would like to note that among them, Bonnie is perhaps the most interesting one. And that’s because they wanted to study longer term effects in space, but Bonnie’s condition deteriorated rapidly and they had to abort the mission - and this was concurrent with the moon landing. Surely this was a concern among scientists.
And second, the public reaction to using Bonnie in this situation caused nasa to re-think how they handled primates in experimentation.
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I found this to be an interesting example of the relative dangers of AI. The summary goes a little like this:
A company developed an app for pin trading. They hired an influencer to make a few videos promoting the app. She did and that was that.
Then, she discovered that a version of her was appearing in new ads. There was the obvious problem of AI producing content with her likeness. But there was a secondary issue that the AI had slightly adjusted her likeness to make her appear “more white.”
She asked them to take them down, and it seemingly got contentious. They said it wasn’t them who produced the new ads, and blamed meta for the problem.
So she is suing to get it to stop. In reading through it, it seems meta has this baked into their agreements. They can, will, and do continue to make content without consent of the owner by default. And just who is the owner since she was hired to do ads?
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Well, would you look at that?
In addition to creating clean (and at least mostly free) energy, the wind turbines have a net positive effect on the crops where they stand.
The still layer is stirred out. Heat leaves faster, moisture leaves faster, and gases exchange with the atmosphere faster in both directions.
A little science, yo!
A flow of air is good for the crops. So in the end we also get better yields.
Why are people opposed to this? Are we that dumb?
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A lot of news is merely a short statement, or a headline, without any context. And when we do get news, it's often slanted to meet a particular set of interests.
I prefer to get my news from many sources, to try and get to something meaningful.
Here's a story that I don't recall seeing get coverage; it's about 10 men who wanted to invade Cuba - and attempted to (foolishly) do so. 5 died in a battle with a Cuban naval vessel, and the other 5 were taken into custody in Cuba.
I appreciated the comment, which I believe can be applied to many situations these days, and not just Cubans:
“The advice I’d give other Cubans is stop consuming so much trash [on social media]. Keep your jobs and don’t come to Cuba to do anything because it’s not going to turn out well,”
The attached story is long form, and thorough. It talks about policy and the history of Cuba and its relationship with the United States.
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Keeping an eye on Disney's patents, here's another interesting one. The idea stems from the fact that animals in the Animal Kingdom savannah area come and go as they please, so guests don't always get those "Kodak moments" where they see an animal - either at the hotel or while on the safari.
Disney has always looked for ways to enhance the experience, mostly by herding the animals out and providing food closer to the guests.
But here's a novel concept: to use various detectors including sensors and cameras to see the animals and report on their position. And then, they can alert cast members, safari vehicles, and even guests directly through their connected devices.
It's bringing some technology and a form of machine learning together to create something new that really does serve a simple (yet possibly important to the experience) purpose.
And I would argue this has a benefit well beyond Disney.
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Bonus: In the memoir by Gladys West (the woman who did calculations about the Earth's shape, which was fundamental to the advent of GPS), she talks about her upbringing, and her faith.
There’s a passage where she reminds us that this thing called the bible has some "instructions" about being better, and benefiting others. In her estimation, sharing one’s knowledge and wealth is essential to who we are.
Good thought, that is worth sharing. Especially to the many conservatives, who seem to have never read the book, even though they claim they have.
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