Week 52

One test user so far? Integration seems to be working though #threads

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The problem with the electric grid is that it is inferior technology, a crude way of carrying energy from point A to point B. Molecules work better than electrons. We could transmit energy 10 times faster at eighth the cost using pipelines, if we use clean gas such as H2, the whole transmission becomes clean, safe from interruption from extreme weather events like the one mentioned below.

These storms only seem to damage power lines. No damage on pipeline infrastructure? Not even one?

"During [AU Gold Coast storm] there were wind gusts upto 160 km/h, 200k lightning strikes recorded bringing down 500 power lines, cutting electricity to 125k homes and businesses"

"@alilly@solarpunk.moe

Every time you redesign your app, you vaporize all the experience built up by everyone who's been using the current version. It better be fucking worth it"

Boomers sadly raised the Gen Y who ran the risk of being as blind to the world around them just as the boomers were.

It was probably easy selling anti-government sentiment to Americans. After Watergate, Vietnam, the dozy headed bird brain boomers lost their minds, pooh-poohed everything related to government and sold their soul to the corporate world. And when things started to go wrong later they still look for innuendo, mistakes "deep" within government rather than the visible organizations that give them the sugar highs that cloud their brains if not actively killing them with toxic chemicals. Government can even serve as a potential controlling parental scare figure taking the other side on the Woke debate, or censorship debate, and of course any kind of parental presence you need to rebel against. Avoid government, be afraid of government. Wait for Batman, he will help you.

"@mcc@mastodon.social

Okay so the director of Die Hard, Die Hard 3, Predator, The Hunt for Red October, The Thomas Crown Affair, and, uh, Rollerball, apparently has a new movie coming out next year after directing nothing since 2003, and this is the description"

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TASS: "Spain blocks EU participation in [anti Houthi] US operation in Red Sea"

Read: Fuel that help bomb Gazans comes from a Muslim country.

Responsible Statecraft: "Presently, Azerbaijan supplies approximately 40% of Israel's oil demand, a critical lifeline powering cars and airplanes"

It looks like Azeris have become Anglo's bitch, or more accurately of the military-industrial-Likud complex. Some among them half-mouth some Israel criticism, but trade continues.

"Israel’s support was instrumental in Azerbaijan’s victory in its 44-day war against Armenia in 2020."

The Guardian: "Bollards and 'superblocks': how Europe’s cities are turning on the car.. A fightback is now well under way, driven by a pressing need to cut air pollution and combat the climate crisis, and a wish to reclaim cities as pleasant places to live. Most major European cities now have schemes in place to reduce road traffic"

The Guardian: "[2009] Drug money saved banks in global crisis [GFC], claims UN advisor.. Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions.. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were 'the only liquid investment capital' available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of.. drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result"

"The Hyperloop was always a scam.. A decade on, people often forget what was really motivating the Hyperloop.. In the early 2010s, there was a big debate around California’s plan to build a high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco... Naturally, conservative, automotive, and airline interests were vehemently opposed to a technology that Japan and Europe had been living with for decades arriving on American shores because it threatened their commercial interests"

Stiff upper lip rich class wanted to avoid EU "limitations" (such as the ECJ), immigration was never an issue for them. They needed and still do need cheap workers to service their needs, fetch them coffee, work in stores and put a stupid hat on during "Christmas sale". A cheap servant class was required and they are getting them.

NYT: "'Take Back Control' of U.K. Borders. What Happened? Record numbers of legal immigrants came to Britain from outside the E.U. in recent years. Some on the right call that a 'Brexit betrayal'.

Far from closing its borders, Britain has thrown them open since voting in 2016 to leave the European Union. And as the coronavirus pandemic has subsided, legal immigration has exploded. Net legal migration — the number of people who arrived, minus those who left — reached nearly 750,000 people in 2022"

Humanity cannot conflict resolve, cannot even address genocide happening under its own nose. Thinking that this species can peek into the creation of the universe and theorize, reason about things happening at that instance is ludicrous. Naturally most theories in this domain are poppycock. The universe expansion is debunked and so is the Big Bang.

We need better than human performance out of AI, we'll have to rely on these things for automation, for patient care... A mechanical arm at a factory is better than a human arm, and it is better, consistently. The arm never goes "well I dont feel like lifting that mechanical part today, 20% of the time I just won't do it". 🤨

Best human exceeded 89%. This is image recognition, the thing that brought back NNs from the dead! Still stuck at 82???

Best neural net ImageNet score is still at around 82%?

Recommending the show The Night Agent. Someone said "its campy" I thought in this day and age that probably means it's good. And it was.

Rebel Moon sounds like it will suck. Is it beta cuck?

Charles Maimarosia - Merani Toro #music

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GS is from a working class background, when he realized he was making money by betting inequality would make things worse I think it got to him, quit his job, started talking about econ from outside.

They can make billions frm that trade alone. If you know rate will be 2% but consensus is 1% trader can trade on that arbitrage, pocket the difference.

Apparently Gary Stevenson was an interest rate trader at Citibank. Seriously that's what the guy did, his job, was trying to predict interest rates one year ahead. But think about what that entails; growth, debt, deficit, basically knowing how the economy is going to be in one year because all that ties into rates. If econ is good, CB will raise, if bad, will lower. Not an easy job.

"The recent ["AI"] transfer of [the movie] True Lies shows that some people need their deep learning algorithms taken away from them... The transfer.. has a truly vile quality to it, a feeling like someone clandestinely dosed you with LSD just a hair below the threshold. At times it can look passable in motion, but then you notice something out of the corner of your eye: a thick fold of skin, a framed photo of a child, folders that are too thick at the margins, cheeks that look rendered. It’s that familiar dread at the pit of your gut when you spot AI generated imagery, a combination of edges not looking quite right and surfaces that are simultaneously too smooth and too sharp. A crime was committed here, and you can tell"

Richard Murphy: "How did we reach the point where our society has failed so badly that malnutrition is now a first world problem?.. industries like big pharma and big sugar-based food production have been allowed to prosper. Superficially satisfying short-term sugar spikes have replaced vitamins and essential minerals in too many affordable diets...

So, how to solve this? The answer is straightforward. The requirement is regulation to demand better food whilst cutting sugar from diets. It could be done. But the resulting foods are not addictive, when sugar is. The result is there is less profit in them, because nothing is more addictive than hooking people on products destructive to their wellbeing... [but our] current health secretary is, staggeringly, married to the Chair of British Sugar"

The Times of Israel: "Malaysia bans Israeli-flagged ships from using its ports in response to Gaza war"

NYT: "Under Argentina’s New President, Fuel Is Up 60%, and Diaper Prices Have Doubled"

Air - Universal Traveler #music

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Annual changes in the housing stock (percentage), on average, looks higher than population change. There are enough housing units, but top 10% is likely hoarding them, some people cannot find places to live. We can regulate home ownership - mandate so that noone can own more than one home, or a patch of land bigger than enough to live on, for individuals or business alike, including farming. The rest becomes public property.

df = u.get_fred(1980,["TTLHHM156N","POPTOTUSA647NWDB"])
df.columns = ['housing','population']
df.asfreq(freq='A',method='bfill').pct_change().mean()*100

Out[1]: 
housing       1.142863
population    0.893067
dtype: float64

Chris Hayes: The war in Gaza must end

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The Intercept: "Dozens of prominent investors and business leaders traveled to Israel this week to show solidarity with Israel.. The trip included top officials from private equity firms like Bain Capital; leaders from the tech industry, like a Patreon executive.. 'In every war there are multiple fronts. The attendees of this mission are here to help counter the war’s economic disruption.' The documents, which include an itinerary provide details about the weeklong meeting taking place in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, called the Israel Tech Mission. Beginning on Sunday, the meeting includes panels like 'Tech in the Trenches: Supporting an ecosystem during wartime'"

And dude just got fired, for speaking out

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"@paulbiggar@hachyderm.io

I wrote about the genocide in Palestine, and how tech has been silent and complicit. In it, I call out my investors who are whitewashing the genocide and promoting Israeli talking points while Israel bombs and murders innocent civilians"

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Al Monitor: "US sees new isolation from Israel support.. Nearly three years after President Joe Biden took office vowing 'America is back,' the country's international image is taking a beating as his administration backs Israel in its war with Hamas"

"@JoshuaHolland@mastodon.social

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Hitler and Mussolini went all-in backing Franco’s Nationalists but the big democratic powers, England and France, offered the democratically elected Republicans tepid support because they were wary of socialists and trade unionists being part of the coalition. Their half-hearted defense of democracy emboldened the fascists and contributed to the outbreak of WWII"

"Britain’s Cyprus base has secretly become international military hub supporting Israel’s bombing of Gaza"

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NYT: "Israel-Hamas War: U.N. Security Council Resolution Is Criticized as Insufficient.. The compromise resolution, negotiated to avoid a veto from the United States, stopped well short of calling for a cease-fire. Aid workers say they cannot address the enclave’s deep needs because of intense Israeli airstrikes and fighting on the ground"

Politico: "Israel ‘creating massive obstacles’ to Gaza aid, UN chief says"

Politico: "While Senate negotiators vow to keep working into January, the reality is that future aid for Ukraine is more in doubt than ever"