Week 5

Railway Tech: "The Italian railway operator, Ferrovie della Calabria (FdC), has recently finalised an agreement for the procurement of three new narrow-gauge hydrogen-powered trains. The deployment of these trains is expected to begin in 2026"

The Lever: "It Just Got More Expensive To Fight Corporate Abuse.. From credit card terms of service to employment contracts, millions of people are trapped in agreements that only allow them to challenge corporate abuse through a private system of arbitration rather than in a court of law. Now, the biggest player in that private system has posted new fees that experts say could make it more difficult for consumers and workers to hold corporations accountable.

On Jan. 15, the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the largest private provider of arbitration services in the world, quietly implemented new fees for individuals filing a mass arbitration case seeking monetary damages or contract relief from a company"

They are not wrong for asking that, they call for being taxed along with all others who are also wealthy. If you are doing it on your own, it would be a drop in the bucket. A policy that applies across the board can cause change.

"There are millionaires who lobby for being taxed, why aren't they simply giving it away?"

"@infmin@neurodifferent.me

.. enclosed the commons, and locked the food up, introduced the concept of property and property law, enforced it with police, prisons and courts you invented with your own interests in mind, and made it so the only option for the vast majority of people is to be exploited by you at every stage of their lives for virtually all of their basic living requirements. So actually, yes, yes you do owe [people] a fucking living"

Household income adjusted for inflation compared to 80s. It is essentially stagnant, in the meantime the wealth of the top 1% grew by a factor of 9. That is growth by 900%. Median household income grew by a meager %9.

[-]

In an "all money is debt to FED" world it would seem hyperinflation is unlikely... Because all money is debt, it has to be paid back, eventually all debt is due. When paid back money disappears, it is taken out of the circulation = less inflationary pressure (extra money held by regular people increasing circulation causes inf). I believe hyperinflation, as it is seen in Argentina, Zimbabwe, and similar places is almost always an outside-the-system print-without-debt phenomena. Somebody is using the printing press, through the backdoor.

KUMITE

Link

Even oppo takes out one sense, other senses take over. Study this

Yes fight but you have to fight with all senses.

"@mattwilcox@mstdn.social

'[T]racking on the web, it's just how it is. If we get rid of it so many companies will die off.'

There were companies before tracking tech. There was advertising before tracking tech.

Tracking tech is just how they can pay the least, to get the most. It's not a right. It's not a given. It's not required.

How did it work before? You made good products and the stuff that was most popular rose to the top.

Ban tracking tech. Hamstring predatory and scammy products that survive on targeting"

CNN: "Half of renters in the United States have found themselves paying more than they can afford, following years of surging rents.. median rent is.. $309 higher than the same time in 2019, before the pandemic. That’s a 22% increase"

Green Car Congress: "DOE awarding $10.5M to 3 projects to advance hydrogen combustion engine innovation"

"Australian clean-tech developer Hazer reached a milestone by initiating its commercial demonstration plant and producing hydrogen and graphite using its groundbreaking methane pyrolysis technology.

This marks the world's first commercial-level demonstration of the process. The plant is scheduled to scale up production in the first half of 2024.

Hazer aims to expand its global project portfolio in key markets like North America, Europe, and Asia, meeting the increasing demand for clean hydrogen solutions and contributing to global decarbonisation efforts"

Renewables Now: "Australia's Edify Energy Pty Ltd has obtained AUD 48.2 million (USD 31.8m/EUR 29.4m) in grant funding from the federal government for the first phase of its up to 1-GW Townsville green hydrogen hub project in Queensland"

The pro-rich anti-government ideology is internally consistent. With widespread inequality, with lots of assets held by the wealthy, what would be the one institution they'd fear the most?

The government.

Even with all its powers reduced, it is still there, it can wake up one day, dust itself off and take out the big stick... That is what "some" are scared of. See how they vehemently push an anti-goverment message through all their channels.

LA Times: “‘I would absolutely not fly a Max airplane,’ said Ed Pierson, a former Boeing senior manager. ‘I’ve worked in the factory where they were built, and I saw the pressure employees were under to rush the planes out the door. I tried to get them to shut down before the first crash.’

‘I would tell my family to avoid the Max. I would tell everyone, really,’ said Joe Jacobsen, a former engineer at Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration.”

via @aral@mastodon.ar.al

Silphium an ancient afrodiziac had heart shaped seeds, thats where todays popular shape comes from. Real heart isnt shaped like the emoji, there had to be a connection to something else, it's this thing. Greeks Romans cld never farm silphium, the ones found in wilderness went extinct.

"@Quinnypig@awscommunity.social

Okay, I've been dancing around it for years -- it's time to call it: There's no economic story around using the cloud for steady-state HPC workloads. It's not even close to cost competitive"

Al-Monitor: "Gulf thaw with Syria gains steam: UAE sends envoy, Saudi diplomats plan visit"

Tony Blink 737, and Raytheon Austin.. No wonder US is mired in the troubles that it is.. are these officials working for the people or someone else?

This is the Chevron wicked witch.. Did she bring cookies with her again? Because the last time she did everything went to shit.

"Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine on January 31"

TASS: "Russia offers Mideast countries to jointly produce weapons"

F24: "Russia doing better than expected despite sanctions: IMF"

NYT: "Donors Rally Behind UNRWA After Israeli Allegations"

BBC: "UK considering recognising Palestine state.. "we - with allies - will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations," [David Cameron] told the Conservative Middle East Council. 'That could be one of the things that helps to make this process irreversible'"

Arab News: "Some 70 US cities have passed resolutions on the Israel-Gaza war with most calling for a ceasefire, a Reuters analysis of city data shows, placing more pressure on President Joe Biden ahead of November’s general election to help end the fighting"

Arab News: "Israel has ignored the ruling by the UN’s top court last week by killing hundreds more civilians in a matter of days in Gaza, South Africa’s foreign minister said Wednesday"

Hydrogen Central: "Another German district opts for Solaris hydrogen buses"

Andersen: "[After 80s] The probability that elected Democrats would tend to increase my taxes wasn’t a reason I voted for them, but my indifference to the financial hit.. felt virtuous, low-end noblesse oblige. However, even after the right got its way on the political economy, many people like me weren’t viscerally, actively skeptical of business or Wall Street either... Affluent college-educated people, Democrats as well as Republicans, began using the phrase 'socially liberal but fiscally conservative' to describe their politics, which meant low taxes in return for tolerance of.. whatever, as long it didn’t cost affluent people anything. It was a libertarianism lite that kept everything nice and clubbable"

Govs debating taxes that only apply to working people remind me of the Streetlight Effect, the old Sufi parable where the mystic was looking for his keys under the streetlight because "that's where his eyes could see". Same for govs, they can't touch, look for the solutions that even remotely bother the wealthy, so they keep seeking solutions where they are allowed - around taxes that effect working people.

New Statesman: "Britain’s great tax con.. The UK’s tax system entrenches inequality, stymies growth, and rewards a few at the expense of the many... Labour will soon face an inescapable choice. In order to spend money in government the party will need to raise it... shift the tax burden away from labour and on to capital, away from work and on to wealth. An agenda is coalescing in policy circles around a set of major tax changes that could spur growth, cut taxes for most people"

The quality of the fans and followers define a man..

[-]

It's true..

"@burgerdrome@aus.social

I learned today that just a few hours before announcing the (still extant) embargo on Cuba, JFK sent out his head of press to make a last-minute bulk purchase of literally more than 1,000 Cuban cigars for his personal collection, because he couldn't stand to be without the things that he insisted nobody else should be allowed to have. Truly an absolute dogshit man"

Increasing innovation is not enough to provide a target for all the wealth sloshing around in the system. There is just too much money held by too few, and many will chose to park it in assets rather than risk it on innovation. Large asset holders need to lose some of their money. This is win-lose situation, somebody needs to lose, and it can't be the regular people.

BTW the $5 trillion he mentions there now became 45 trillion

"I own"

[-]

♬ Lasciatemi cantare ♪♬ Buongiorno Italia con i tuoi artisti ♪ Con troppa America sui manifesti ♪♬

Nikkei Asia: "Japan to spur clean hydrogen production with $20bn in subsidies"

Previous RH had the perfect bad guy, a dude who owned the town.

Road House remake trailer looks good. Tough to replace Swayze but one can try

Canary Media: "Thanks to generous subsidies, the world is about to start making a lot more low- and zero-carbon hydrogen. These charts show how"

[-]

.. required skill as in the skill required to sift through the garbage code generated by so-called AI. Some thought the tech would save people work but ended up creating more. Hey, Big Tech got its buzz, "excitement" and little bump in its stock price, all is well and good.

"@jasongorman@mastodon.cloud

Meanwhile, on LinkedIn: 'Reading code effectively will soon be a required skill for many developers in the same way writing code is today'"

"@thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

In what can only be seen as Alphabet's blatant refusal to obey EU law, it was announced over the weekend that they would introduce Bard to Android Messages App and intercept all messages (past and future) for the purpose of training it - in breach of EU's rules on interception of communications under Article 5(1) of Directive 2002/58/EC.

To make it worse Alphabet know this is illegal after they were caught intercepting WiFi communications in 2010 with their Streetview cars"

Forbes: "The Hydrogen Economy: What Our World Could Look Like & Why It Matters.. Last year was the hottest on record and estimated global wildfire carbon emissions increased by 30% in 2023 compared to 2022, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service... Government entities recognize hydrogen use as a necessary enabler of the energy transition. Recently, at COP28, more than 30 countries including the United States formally recognized the importance of clean hydrogen in decarbonization and meeting global energy needs"

[-]

VS Magazine: "The 'Coding on Copilot' whitepaper from GitClear sought to investigate the quality and maintainability of AI-assisted code compared to what would have been written by a human. In other words: 'Is it more similar to the careful, refined contributions of a Senior Developer, or more akin to the disjointed work of a short-term contractor?'

The answer to that is summarized in this paragraph from the whitepaper's abstract:

'We find disconcerting trends for maintainability. Code churn -- the percentage of lines that are reverted or updated less than two weeks after being authored -- is projected to double in 2024 compared to its 2021, pre-AI baseline"

"The UK tax system is a con" - the conversation about the New Statesman article written by Lambert, the guest.

[-]

Frontline changes 01/22 - 01/30. Holy Tabaivka..

[-]

#Photoncycle

[-]

Sifted: "Norwegian startup Photoncycle says it can store solar energy from summer to winter cheaper than batteries.. The idea for the company began when Brandtzaeg was a visiting fellow at MIT in the US.. Brandtzaeg holds up a chalk-looking substance: 'With this, you can store electricity 20 times as densely as in a lithium battery.'

'We're locking up the hydrogen molecules in a solid to basically fix them. We're using a reversible, high-temperature fuel cell, so we're assisting a fuel cell which both can produce hydrogen and electricity in the same cell,' he says...That means no need to cool the hydrogen down, making it non-flammable and giving it a higher density than an ion-lithium battery"

MMT was popular for a while, they had MSM exposure, my speculation is its inventors said some things that were useful for the rich. Their main message seemed to be "printing money is not a problem, print it until you see inflation", read: no need for taxes (esp wealth tax). Corps would like that message so they pushed it. Of course the approach is unworkable. If money is debt accrued when FED print the money, we can't willy nilly print it to give it to even infra projects, or people. We surely cannot print money that is not tied to debt that is failed-state, hyperinflation territory. Plus, if due to lopsidedness of econ the money flows to the rich and big corps anyway, they will end up with more wealth just like they did after QE and Covid. So MMT while might be 'useful', as in idiot, for some, it was not sound policy.

The Japan Times: "Honda and GM fuel cell venture launches commercial production"

Politico: "[I]nfluential conservative voice Tucker Carlson called two senators who pushed for a swift U.S. military response against Iran after the attack 'fucking lunatics'"

"@jon@vivaldi.net

My survey on whether people believe Microsoft when they claim that you need a Microsoft account for security reason is finished and the results are pretty clear.

2% believe Microsoft is telling the truth.

98% believe it is because Microsoft wants to track across devices.

Time for Microsoft to do the right thing and allow people to have local accounts!"

#CGTN #Sachs

[-]

This is the con, a convicted felon, now a sitting minister in ISR cabinet.

"Hague Shmague"

[-]

The ICJ decision must have unsettled them. It was a poke in the eye for Zionists.

Haaretz: "Netanyahu Ministers Join Thousands of Israelis in 'Resettle Gaza' Conference Calling for Palestinians' Transfer"

WION: "Russian warship conducts anti-submarine exercise in South China Sea"

"@miguel_pacheco@masto.pt

Nikola truck makes 519 Km round trip under -10°C in one tank

• Round trip from Calgary to Edmonton

• Tank still had hydrogen when returning

• Displaying H2 fuel cell tech capability to perform under freezing temperatures"

Clean Technica: "Plug Power announced that its new liquid green hydrogen plant in Woodbine, Georgia..'A truly unique accomplishment, this is the largest electrolytic liquid hydrogen production plant, and largest PEM electrolyzer deployment operating in the U.S., representing a landmark achievement in Plug’s build-out of a vertically integrated hydrogen ecosystem,' Plug Power said of itself. The plant will push out 15 tons of liquid green hydrogen per day"

Andersen: "[B]y the 1980s, unions were reduced to desperate parochial struggles to save jobs in declining heavy industries and, as mistrust of government grew, to unionizing more government employees. Moreover, the left offered no inspiring, politically plausible national economic vision of a future. In response to economic Reaganism, the national liberals were committed to preserving the social welfare status quo for old people and the (deserving) poor, and to convincing America that Democrats were now modern and pragmatic... Very few believed anymore that unreasonable profits could even be a thing"

Dude calls angle $\phi$ in figure $f$ in text, $\gamma$ in figure, $g$ in text. Good thing I remembered my Greek letters, $f=\phi$, $g=\gamma$.

"@jasongorman@mastodon.cloud

Excited to announce Skweejy, my new tech start-up that brings together people with windows and people with ladders and buckets (who our lawyers are emphatically clear are in no way Skweejy employees). It most certainly isn't just a window cleaning business with an app. No Ma'am"

Hedges: "The moral Universe has now been turned upside down. Those of us who oppose genocide are accused of advocating it, those who carry out genocide are said to have the right to defend themselves. Vetoing ceasefires and providing 2,000 lb bombs to Israel that throw out out metal fragments in densely packed refugee camps is the road to peace. Refusing to negotiate to free the hostages, bombing hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, ambulances and refugee camps obliterating families are routine acts of war. Carrying out genocide in Gaza is a way to de-radicalize Palestinians, attacking Houthi bases in Yemen is deescalating a regional conflict. And remember it is not only Israel which has abandoned its citizens held hostage in Gaza, there are hundreds of Palestinians who are US citizens or permanent residents trapped in Gaza and the Biden Administration is making no discernable effort, as demanded by US law, to secure their safety"

Jeffrey Sachs: "US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption.

US foreign policy seems to be utterly irrational. The US gets into one disastrous war after another -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Gaza. In recent days, the US stands globally isolated in its support of Israel’s genocidal actions against the Palestinians, voting against a UN General Assembly resolution for a Gaza ceasefire backed by 153 countries with 89% of the world population, and opposed by just the US and 9 small countries with less than 1% of the world population.

In the past 20 years, every major US foreign policy objective has failed.. American foreign policy is not at all about the interests of the American people. It is about the interests of the Washington insiders, as they chase campaign contributions and lucrative jobs for themselves, staff, and family members. In short, US foreign policy has been hacked by big money..

As a result, the American people are losing big. The failed wars since 2000 have cost them around $5 trillion in direct outlays, or around 40,000 per household. Another 2 trillion or so will be spent in the coming decades on veterans’ care. Beyond the costs directly incurred by Americans, we should also recognize the horrendously high costs suffered abroad, in millions of lives lost and trillions of dollars of destruction to property and nature in the war zones...

Yet to describe these gargantuan costs is also to explain the twisted “rationality” of US foreign policy. The $1.5 trillion in military outlays is the scam that keeps on giving—to the military-industrial complex and the Washington insiders—even as it impoverishes and endangers America and the world..

To understand the foreign-policy scam, think of today’s federal government as a multi-division racket controlled by the highest bidders... Interestingly, the Health Industry division rivals the Foreign Policy division as a remarkable financial scam. America’s health outlays totaled an astounding $4.5 trillion in 2022, or roughly 36,000 per household, by far the highest health costs in the world, while America ranked roughly 40th in the world among nations in life expectancy. A failed health policy translates into very big bucks for the health industry, just as a failed foreign policy translates into mega-revenues of the military-industrial complex"

[-]

"@wilbr@glitch.social

Capitalists haven't had a unique idea in hundreds of years. The idea always seems to be either finding or creating a commons to enclose, and then either subdividing or breaking apart those artificial enclosures like some kind of shell game.

The work of helping people live a decent life is roughly the same no matter what, it's just a game of monopolist musical chairs as to who gets to control or renovate the circumstances of that work and its delivery"

The gov pictured in 1984 is bad, but why emphasize governance rather than opressive corporate power? Emphasis is key.

The 1984 angle sounds anti-government gaslighting, and it fits to the spirit of the age. Pro-rich, anti-goverment. They fooled an entire generation with this stuff, and now the results are in. A complete catastrophy.

Andersen: "January 1984, Apple had introduced the Macintosh. Its famous Super Bowl ad, based on George Orwell’s 1984, featured a heroine smashing the tyrants’ huge telescreen, a lone nonconformist underdog spectacularly defying the oppressive Establishment. It suited the moment and digital early adopters who were politically aware but not actually, specifically political, in a stylish little allegory with which everyone from Ayn Rand fans to Hart fans to Deadheads might identify. Steve Jobs, not yet thirty, had just become the sort of emblematic generational avatar that Gary Hart pretended he wasn’t desperate to be. In an.. interview, Jobs bragged about his vast wealth — 'at 23, I had a net worth of over a million .. and at 25, it was over $100 million' — and about his indifference to it: 'I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year.' Jobs didn’t mind coming across as a jerk, just not a standard business jerk—because he was 'well-grounded in the... sociological traditions of the ’60s,' like other Silicon Valley baby boomers"

Clean Technica: "BASF is also jumping into the anti-LNG pool... Höegh.. specializes in building platforms for offshore LNG operations, and it apparently it is interested in applying its know-how to ammonia. As reported by the maritime news organization Riviera, the consortium has received funding of €5.9M (about $6.5 million USD) from the government of Norway to develop an ammonia-to-hydrogen pipeline. Norway is also interested in the green ammonia angle, which makes sense considering its access to offshore wind resources. 'Green ammonia acts as a liquid battery with a high energy density compared with alternative solutions for storing and transporting renewable power. The infrastructure for the large-scale transport of ammonia at sea already exists via a fleet of gas tankers having ammonia on the cargo list,' Riviera explains"

Post 2008 QE, although it saved econ from total collapse, helped to push inequality to greater heights. QE was about the FED buying bonds from the banks, so they ended up with money now instead of a future income from that debt. The hope was they would lend this money to businesses, who would hire more people, pay them better. That did not happen. The rich do not have to pay workers better, they can simply buy existing assets to park their money at. They did precisely that post 2008, stock prices and house prices went through the roof, and people got nothing.

Gov cannot forget the final step of any cash injection into economy, the money will end up with in the hands of the wealthy, so they need to be taxed, to both lower inequality, lower asset prices, and also to plug the budget deficit that was accrued during the injection phase.

"@jk@mastodon.social

Whether it’s true or not that '90% of everything is crap', the tech giants are investing heavily in a hot new technology that promises to boost that figure up to an impressively reliable 'five-nines' percentage"

It's good to admit.. this is a nice thing to do

The Guardian: "Denmark admits role in Nato airstrikes on Libya that killed 14 civilians in 2011"

#Zionism

[-]

Arab News: "Long gone is the Joe Biden of February 2023, strolling confidently through the streets of Kyiv, basking in the role as champion of the Ukrainian cause in the fight against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Nearly one year after that triumphant appearance, the US president is instead facing the harsh realities of running for re-election while bogged down in one stagnant war and navigating the volatility of another, as the conflict in Gaza threatens at any moment to ignite the entire Middle East"

"[British] Oil tanker on fire for hours following Houthi attack"