I the spirit of the outstanding Glover tweet with which Amy opened this blog item, I present to you—

• Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage
The comments are not to be missed, especially the responses to the guy from Google.

Social media companies are out of control. See also Saturday's NYT piece "Now More Than Ever, Facebook Is a ‘Mark Zuckerberg Production’."

Twitter now defaults to showing "top tweets" when you load the page or the app. How on Earth would they know what might strike you as a "top tweet"? Would you trust a phone company to connect you to texts and voice calls from only your "top" family, friends, and associates? (Do you doubt that China handles things that way?)

And if it's presumed that these companies should be permitted to manage your information flow so inimately, then why can't we investigate, sue, and regulate them as typical media companies?

(I have energy about this.)

• Technology Can be Lost
You can skip the first four minutes, but watch as much as you can. See also many of the YouTube speeches from Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen, who ironically enough serve on Zuckerberg's board of directors. For years, they've both been making the point that technological change (and improvement) have been coming too slowly, not too quickly.

But in a lot of important respects, America has lost the plot. Human civilization deserves our leadership in performance and righteousness, and not just in our mutual exploitation of their distant labor and investment.

This is for Darth, who speculated a couple years ago that Cobol might be obsolete.

I dated a woman whose Dad was summoned from retirement to deal with Cobol for Y2K. As of 2018, he was still working. Presumably they made it worth his while.

Allergies.

They're seasonal.

"... why can't we investigate, sue, and regulate them as typical media companies?" ~Crid

Agreed. 'Tech' is such a poor category for regulation. They are advertising companies and should be regulated the same as any other advertiser. That they use computers is irrelevant.

Of all the people out of work right now, men are the real victims. They're losing a whole dollar for every 79 cents women are losing!!

https://twitter.com/Bubola/status/1262549650432684032

This is for Darth, who speculated a couple years ago that Cobol might be obsolete.

Oh, it is obsolete. It's also still in production. It's well worth retirees time and effort to come out and buff out the dents in the code. It's not like cobol programmers are a dime a dozen.

One could say they're an endangered species. That knowledge and expertise is going away, and isn't being passed on.

Just seeing the NYT piece claiming that "believe all women" was invented by the Right. My God these people are shameless. Now I'm waiting for the day when they claim that no liberal ever really believed that biological men can be women. That was all a right wing conspiracy too

https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1262718204935376896

One could say they're an endangered species. That knowledge and expertise is going away, and isn't being passed on. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at May 19, 2020 7:40 AM

There's little future in having that knowledge.

Banks and government agencies are the biggest users of legacy systems. Knowing COBOL offers very few employment opportunities outside of banks and government. As these entities switch over to newer systems, the already-limited employment opportunities will dry up. And those entities are not noted for having high pay or exciting work in the IT department.

I was assured those people luv science.

14/ As far as I'm concerned, I bite my tongue a lot of the time. If these blue-checks knew what I REALLY thought of them or the damage they have done AND ARE STILL DOING by refusing to accept the data and facts and science…

They’d hate me even more.

Have a great night.

https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1262224203249483780

I'd rather have COBOL than Enterprise Java.

I'd rather have COBOL than Enterprise Java.

So say we all.

All the Chinese Crud physical distancing and lockdown requirements have turned out to be a joy for the Karens of this world.

OK, Karen

> Agreed.

Look, I don't even want to shatter them as we did AT&T et all.

(KIDDING!!!  I TOTALLY DO.)

But I want to spank them so hard and scare them so deeply that they stop pretending every responsibility they have to others is an opportunity to dissemble, intrude, manipulate and profiteer.

Last month's best career factoid.

> "Have a great night."

We see that Mr. Berenson has always been quite taken with himself.

For example, I'd like for Al and his sarcastic fellows to explain some of the remarkable outcomes from our global experiment.

> So say we all.

Again I implore you, watch this video.

Douthat:

Donald Trump Doesn’t Want Authority

The coronavirus crisis offered the president an opportunity to consolidate power. It turns out he only wants attention.

By Ross Douthat
Opinion Columnist
May 19, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

More details on the solar power from space experiment on the X-37B space drone. Microwaves, not laser transmission.

https://www.space.com/x-37b-space-plane-microwave-beam-experiment-otv-6.html

Cullerteevee.

Whoops, it may have been Cousin Dave who was talking about Cobol.

About which I refuse to be precious in capitalization.

See also, beloved early-90's chanteuse K.D. Lang.

Halloween won't be this good in 2020.

Health care editorial.

These clips won't erase themselves.

About which I refuse to be precious in capitalization. ~ Crid at May 19, 2020 11:44 AM

Cobol is an acronym. It stands for Common Business Oriented Language. It was created back when every computer language name or computer term stood for something.

BASIC = Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

FORTRAN = Formula Translation

ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange

Most presidents have been members of Congress, or governors. With 535 people in Congress and 50 state governors, why is the current lineup for President (Trump/Biden) the best the country can do?

...or vice presidents. Or sometimes a general or a Secretary of a department.

Link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_previous_experience

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

The greenest candidate.

Biden is, of course, a former Vice President. Trump is the first with no political (or military) experience. But still there were so many others to choose from.

"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos."

You're absolved.

But still there were so many others to choose from. ~ Publius Quibbleworth at May 19, 2020 3:22 PM

These two are the latest in a long line of declining quality candidates. Were Trump and Hillary really the best we could do four years ago?

And were the collection of non-entities vying for the nomination in these last two election cycles really the best we could do as a bench?

Which begs the question, without the friendly press and protection of distance leaving the personal lives and habits of presidents unfamiliar to the general public, I wonder how our past presidents would have fared in a world of Twitter, social media, and an intrusive press.

> Cobol is an acronym.

Yes, goode brother, and you too decline to be ensnared by the punctuation of marketing ninnies.

We shall meet one day. We'll share a woman, a bottle of fine wine, and reckless sports.

Did you actually look at the other options Publius? Enough voters did. So yes, in the end Trump was the best option at the time. And yes he appears to be the best option again.

Perhaps the many governors and congresspersons at the time were unwilling or unable to run for President when they may have been better for the job? Something about the process didn't work as it should have.

I keep thinking that Mike Pence alone would have made a more rational President than Trump, but he was governor of Indiana at the time.

By all means Publius run for office. Encourage other people to as well. If you think your governor would make a good president tell him to run.

But of the people who did stand for the nomination in the GOP Trump was the best one. On Hillary I can see room for debate given the rules the DNC has chosen. And for those actually running for president Trump was the best. That you would like something better in the past is pointless. Instead focus on what you can do to make the future better.