Reading

Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 09:30
They’ ve all be blathering “woke” every other work in the past week, but this takes the cake: These guys really love this word, don’t they? Do you think Larry Kudlow has any idea what “woke” is? Apparently, they all believe that this word is magic that explains everything. Just spit it out and everyone gets that whatever perceived problem we have in this world is caused by “wokesters” who aren’t going along with the white supremacy these people are pushing. That includes the military and bankers now. Who’s left?
Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 08:37
Let’s get the up-or-down part of this review over with quickly: Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It by Erica Thompson is a poorly written, mostly vacuous rumination on mathematical modeling, and you would do well to ignore it.

Now that that’s done, we can get on with the interesting aspect of this book, its adaptation of trendy radical subjectivism for the world of modeling and empirical analysis....
While I have not read the work that Peter Dorman is criticizing, it appears to me that he ignores a major factor affecting economics, science and human knowledge as a whole. That is the ontological, epistemological, and ethical dimension, as well as work in philosophy (foundations) of science, logic, anthropology, sociology, and psychology. 
Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 08:13

Join us on Thursday, March 16 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

No pre-defined topics on the agenda this month, so join us for an informal chat about anything at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits.  Got something specific on your mind? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google doc: https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone. 

Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 08:00
I don’t pretend to understand all the nuances of this crisis and I’m withholding judgement until we see how it all shakes out. But this is someone who knows a lot and is always worth listening to: ​So the Feds stepped in to protect all deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, even though the law says that deposits only up to $250,000 are insured and even though there was a pretty good case that allowing big depositors to take a haircut wouldn’t have created a systemic crisis. S.V.B. was pretty sui generis, far more exposed both to interest risk and to potential runs than any other significant bank, so even some losses for larger depositors may not have caused much contagion. Still, I understand the logic: If I were a policymaker, I’d be reluctant to let S.V.B. fail, merely because while it probably wouldn’t have caused a wider crisis, one can’t be completely certain and the risks of erring in doing too much were far smaller than the risks of doing too little. That said, there are good reasons to feel uncomfortable about this bailout. And yes, it was a bailout.
Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 07:07
Bond Economics
What We Learned: Something Is Seriously Wrong With Silicon Valley
Brian Romanchuk

Notes on the Crisis
Every Complex Banking Issue All At Once: The Failure of Silicon Valley Bank in One Brief Summary and Five Quick Implications
Nathan Tankus

The Big Picture
All the Things We Do Not Know About SVB
Barry L. Ritholtz is co-founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management LLC.

ECNS (Chinese official English news service)
China Daily (Chinese state-sponsored media)
Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 06:50

The Drupal Community Working Group started the Aaron Winborn Awards in 2015 with the support of the Drupal Association, in honor of long-time Drupal contributor Aaron Winborn (see his Community Spotlight), who lost his battle with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS (also referred to as Lou Gehrig's Disease in the US and Motor Neuron Disease in the UK) in early 2015.

Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 06:46

The Drupal Community Working Group is pleased to announce that nominations for the 2023 Aaron Winborn Award are now open. 

This annual award recognizes an individual who demonstrates personal integrity, kindness, and above-and-beyond commitment to the Drupal community. It includes a scholarship and travel stipend for the winner to attend DrupalCon North America and recognition in a plenary session at the event.

Nominations are open to all Drupal community members*, including but not limited to people who have made a big impact in their local or regional community. If you know of someone who has made a big difference to any number of people in our community, we want to hear about it. 

Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 06:39

Drupal is an open source software project that has been building a better open web since 2001. It is built by thousands of individuals and organizations, made up of both volunteers and sponsored contributors.

If you're an end-user of Drupal you might have wondered how all this open source development works, and maybe even how you can get involved.

The key to contribution is the community. If you are an individual or member of an organization that builds your web presence on Drupal, there are many opportunities to engage with the community, learn how to contribute, and help build a better web.

So how can you get started?

One of the best ways to get involved in open source, and in Drupal specifically, is to participate in open source events.

Drupal.org publishes a list of regional and virtual community events at drupal.org/community/events

Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 06:30
DeSantis is pulling a Trump It’s the old “you can believe me or you can believe your lyin’ eyes”: In remarks last week intended to spin the narrative in his favor, DeSantis accused the “mainstream media, unions and leftist activists” of propagating a “nasty hoax” about classroom libraries being left empty due to a law he passed last year seeking to address the non-issue of “pornography” in schools. “It’s a hoax in service of trying to pollute and sexualize our children,” he said. “A lot of what’s been going on is an attempt to create a political narrative.” For those who’ve dealt with the effects on the ground, DeSantis is the one spreading falsehoods. “It’s complete gaslighting,” Marie Masferrer, a Hillsborough County Media Specialist who’s been campaigning against the law on the ground over the past year, told TPM. “The other thing that’s happening is teachers and librarians are censoring their own library themselves because they’re afraid.
Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 05:00
Their voters are very sensitive, you know Fox knows they are awful people… New text messages revealed in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News showed a former Tucker Carlson producer trash the network’s audience. Newly revealed text messages show that Alex Pfeiffer, a former producer for “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” was uneasy about covering false election conspiracy theories purported by disgraced pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell. Powell claimed to have an affidavit showing that a large number of votes had been covertly flipped by Dominion “at the direction” of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died years earlier. Powell also said the voting software company had ties to the Clinton Foundation and Soros, claims which are also unfounded and untrue.  The Washington Post reported that Fox executive and former Trump aide Raj Shah tried to play both sides when it came to covering Powell’s lies. When former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, along with Powell, endorsed false election claims during a press conference on Nov 19, 2020, Carlson expressed doubts.
Created
Wed, 15/03/2023 - 04:59
A Labor government has puts guns before butter… how extraordinary! Today, Pearls and Irritations has taken the unusual step of devoting our issue line up entirely to articles on the drive to war with China and the disastrous commitment of $368 billion dollars of Australia’s public funding to nuclear submarines. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Continue reading »