unfortunately more AI/chatgpt discoursing
I'm currently doing novel historical search reviewing documents that have not been scanned or OCRed or in some cases translated into English, and something about the rush to rewrite the matter of the world with a good-enough chatbot using a good-enough dataset feels like an invitation from power to abandon questions the machine can't answer
Also learned:
- the quartz crystal market in Brazil was kind of a mess during WWII because you had both the federal government and private commodity traders from the US buying up supply so tracing sourcing starts to get fuzzy, but I have scans of monthly purchases by the USG and private vendors 1944-45 so I can at least track names and volume??
things learned on this national archives trip:
- the biggest German fused quartz concern prewar (Heraeus) definitely sourced from Brazil
- the colonial government of Belgian Congo was actively involved in developing tantalite sources for the United States (which is a big deal bc Belgian Congo mining prewar is mostly governed by private concession holders)
- most of the archives of the stuff happening in Congo are in Belgium and in French I'm fucked lol
So psyched to have been interviewed for this Wired Magazine article about the benefits of solar power canopies in parking lots. Definitely feels like a career milestone to be mentioned in Wired... Its always funny to see what parts of a long interview end up being included in a story, but overall I'm happy with the quotes they used. #solar #energy #climate #energytransition #der https://www.wired.com/story/france-solar-panels-parking-lots/
Please join me in donating to the UW Libraries strike fund - solidarity with library workers anywhere fighting for their rights, their cause benefits us all regardless of where we work https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-striking-workers-at-uw-libraries
Realizing that supply chain research is actually a skill set useful to the Federal Reserve I briefly looked at research jobs there but I think my tendency to call economics "cute when it pretends to be science" would be a hindrance
this week in sentences: a continuous skeleton, regrettable habits, our constant enemy, Icarus' pivot, the requirements of art, a bag of words https://buttondown.email/perfectsentences/archive/perfect-sentences-04/