Silver Damsen

AI Voice Takes Some Getting Used To

Revisado: 06-19-24

Once someone gets used to the AI, it does get easier. However, even poorly acted is superior to the A1. The most difficult sections are the dialog becuase there is NO difference between once figure and another. The voice is exactly the same for Margaret, her father, her husband, or attendants. It weirdly showed the least during the Charles Brandon sections.

The very flat nature of the AI voice makes the motives seem confusing as well. I had trouble understanding why Margaret would ask for so much advice from others. I pictured her as more confident. If it is verified that she depended on advice that would have helped me. I don't know if this is an AI issue so that an actor could have sold this or the story, but I think it was a problem with the AI not being able to sell motivation. I'll listen to AI for free audiobooks if I am highly interested in the topic as I was with this, but I would hesitate to buy AI voice because it is just awful for dialog.

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Super fun and engaging

Revisado: 08-07-23

Professor Harl talks about the ancients as if they were something between his friends and celebrities that he has followed as fans. He even calls Alexander the Great, "Alex" more often than not. This style and the way he presents conflicting theories in fairness but then shows why he favors the view he holds, make all of his lectures amazing.

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We really do need to defund the police!

Revisado: 02-26-23

Radley Balko's "Rise of the Warrior Cop" is an amazing book. Everyone who wants to understand the multiple negative outcomes that militarization of the police and the related and misguided War on Drugs create should read this book. The pattern he describes should rock the US to its foundations, driving the public into the streets to demand change. This disturbing pattern is that the more money and power a police department has, the more likely the department is to abuse its citizens, and the more abusive a police department is, the more likely they are to be given extra money, and etc.  In addition, the more abusive a police department is, the more likely it is to draw those who have abusive personalities to policing (excluding those that want to help people) and the more it shapes those that could be either abusive or not abusive (depending on their training) into abusive cops. So the situation is the more abusive the cops are, the more likely they are to continue to accelerate their abuse until we have a massive change in the entire structure of police departments.


Balko carefully lays out all the details for the conclusion I just outlined in the body of his "Rise of the Warrior Cop." However, in his written "conclusion," he misses the mark on a few points that he himself has already proven. The most glaring of which is when he says that studies indicate that more cops means less crime, but at a price to at least some members of society. When he says this, he forgets his previous exploration of data that shows that the more abusive cops are, the more members of persecuted communities will just stop contacting the police. Balko even noted that rapes are just not reported when rape victims are afraid of the police. So, unfortunately, lower crime stats when a police department is heavily militarized (which is tied to them being more abusive and having more money) probably doesn't even mean they are doing at least one thing right. Instead, lower crime in communities with a militarized police, probably means they are less effective than they even appear to be. 


Balko makes similar errors in calling for more training of cops as the solution to their abusiveness. Nowadays, the worst cops have nearly always been through hours and hours of training that is labeled "de-escalation." That this training is probably junk could be part of the problem, but the larger problem is the more money that is given to the police after a necessarily base (if such a thing exists), the worse they behave. So, despite the public not liking the term "defund the police" that is what has to happen. We need massive budget cuts to police departments as the best way out of the current tragedy. This doesn't mean no police at all, even if curiously that might be the goal in an ideal society, but it means fewer police with fewer dangerous weapons.


 Less Balko's fault, because he wouldn't be expected to know the history of drug prohibition, is that he suggests/implies that treatment should take the place of policing. However, like with policing itself, the more money that is spent on the War on Drugs, the worse things get overall. Thus, spending massive amounts on "treatment" is as ineffective (or nearly as ineffective, albeit in different ways) as spending massive amounts on policing, and the two are even tied together. So, spending less on the War on Drugs, in terms of both policing and treatment, is really the bonus for society. 

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The Supreme Court is a Horror Show

Revisado: 01-15-23

The corruption discussed in this book is so massive that it often made me feel ill. I think that Whitehouse says listeners/readers should want to vomit (I'm paraphrasing) when they realize how truly bad the situation is. I hope this motivates others to write letters and have in-person protests on this topic, as it has motivated me.

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