Week 33

Strange.. if US doesn't like you, Daesh (ISIS) doesn't like you either..

Arab News: "Daesh group claims deadly Kabul bomb blast"

US provokes war within Europe (Ukraine) creating chaos. Trained jihadis to create chaos in Syria that in turn caused a refugee chaos, again in Europe. Unnecessary antagonism creates rift between Russia and Europe effecting European energy imports. Who is winning from US being so enmeshed in European affairs? I'll give a hint: not Europe.

Those jihadi training camps are US organized, funded. Kosovo is a US client-state.

European Parliament: "[2016] Information contained in a recent Europol report and elsewhere points to the existence of terrorist training camps in the Balkans, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"

31 C is a better number.. I've seen 22 C, it's bad.. 25 C would be hellish, death by overheating at 31 C, not surprising.

Nature: "The threshold for survival in heat is lower than thought — researchers are using state-of-the-art climate chambers to explore when blistering conditions threaten life...

[Wet Bulb Temperature] is a measure that scientists use when studying heat stress because it accounts for the effects of heat and humidity.. The models churned out a WBT of 35 °C as the limit of human survival. At that threshold, the body’s core temperature would rise uncontrollably. But the model treated the human body as an unclothed object that doesn’t sweat or move, making the result less applicable to the real world.. [But a] 2021 study.. provided a better estimate: a WBT survival limit of around 31 °C. They calculated it by tracking the core body temperature of young, healthy people under different combinations of temperature and humidity while they were cycling"

GNU/Linux.ch: "The Edenkoben High School (between Mannheim and Karlsruhe in southwest Germany) has been using Linux for almost 20 years. The classrooms at this school also have smartboards, blackboards with computers on which you write with a pen, but the computers do not run Windows like in almost all schools, but rather Linux, or more precisely Ubuntu in the LTS (Long-Term Support) version.

According to deputy headmaster Michael Schacht, the reason is freedom, but not freedom as in 'free beer', but freedom in the sense that a school can use digital products as it pleases. You can look 'under the hood' of the software [bcz it is open source] and adapt it. It was also Michael Schacht who introduced Linux almost 20 years ago. To this day, he does everything with free software"

#Physics 🤓

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Edward Frenkel, String Theory #ToE

That was a great analogy with Moses and the promised land

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u.baci_top_product("Thailand", "China")

$ 3,186,692,315.0
Fruit, edible: durians, fresh

u.baci_top_product("Thailand", "USA")

$ 6,559,439,790.0
Units of automatic data processing machines: storage units

That means Thaksin is back in power... Ever since his ouster he was looking for a way back in, this is probably it.

F24: "Thailand’s parliament elected Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the youngest daughter of former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, as the country’s new prime minister on Friday, just two days after her predecessor and ally Srettha Thavisin was dismissed by the country's Constitutional Court"

Thailand.Tv: "[2024/03] Thailand’s $28BN Canal Across Itself.. Thai has proposed constructing a 128 kilometer long canal across the Thai isthmus, bypassing the Malacca strait. The project, which would be 450 meters wide and 25 meters deep, would cost around 28 billion dollars and take 10 years to construct. It would save 1,200 kilometers in travel distance, reducing fuel costs and C0₂ emissions. It would also invigorate Thailand’s economy and allow Chinese vessels to avoid the US military presence near Singapore"

Reuters: "Saudi firm plans hydrogen-powered skyscraper in Egypt's new capital.. A Saudi-controlled real estate firm says it plans to break ground early next year in Egypt's new capital on a $1 billion, 50-storey office tower that aims to be the first of its kind to be powered by clean hydrogen"

H2 Today: "Detroit, the automotive capital of the United States has published a white paper entitled Detroit’s hydrogen mobility future... In its argument, the city points out that the hydrogen vehicle is a form of electric vehicle with advantages in terms of refuelling speed. Furthermore, it does not require charging stations delivering powers in the 100s of kW or even the megawatts (MW)"

"@pluralistic@mamot.fr

Every artist, performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross revenue, which will be diverted to Apple, the most valuable company on the planet. Apple contributes nothing to their work, but it will get to steal a third of their wages.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog"

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CNBC: "By choosing to not run for reelection as leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Kishida has effectively left the door open for a new prime minister to take the helm of the world’s fourth-largest economy.. 'To me this is Kishida "pulling a Joe Biden"' [said one expert]"

"@tante@tldr.nettime.org

'Weird how all the major innovations coming out of tech lately are under the Fraud skill tree'

(Original title: Deep-Live-Cam goes viral, allowing anyone to become a digital doppelganger)"

The Guardian: "Calls to tax super-rich gain traction around world.. Even rightwing governments are joining in with G20-led push to make wealthy pay, with Italy doubling flat tax on foreign income"

Tucker Carlson's interview w/ Isaac 4 months ago

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"Palestinian Reverend Munther Isaac to U.S. Faith Leaders: If You Are Silent, You Approve of Genocide" #DemocracyNow

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Nuclear tech needs to be helium-cooled not water-cooled. HTGR concept is workable and allows a direct pathway to H2 generation.

TASS: "Some 25 tons of radioactive water leak from Fukushima-1’s Unit 2"

"@perfectunion@threads.net

Starbucks has abruptly ousted its CEO who approved negotiations on a landmark labor contract with Starbucks workers. His replacement is Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol, who has fought unions aggressively and said he's 'disappointed to see' employees organize"

The Korean Economic Daily: "Doosan Fuel Cell wins $73 mn hydrogen fuel cell contract.. The company signed a long-term maintenance agreement with UH Power for a 40 MW hydrogen fuel cell system"

"@sluttymayo@jorts.horse

All you commies need to wake up and realize that the only economic system that works is one where everything makes you go 'it was kinda okay to start but it sucks and is more expensive now, and i have it comparatively good' about everything from food subscriptions to medical care subscriptions"

TASS: "Japan only G7 state that did not supply weapons to Kiev, it can act as mediator — MP"

Futurism: "[2024/06] X-formerly-Twitter is in deep trouble.. While the New York Times reported last week that executives at the beleaguered platform had assured employees that 65 percent of advertisers had returned, documents obtained by Bloomberg show that revenue has overall cratered since.. late 2022"

CNBC: " SpaceX violated environmental regulations in releasing pollutants into or nearby bodies of water in Texas, a state environmental agency found"

F24: "Russia evacuates 121,000 people from Kursk region as Ukraine advances"

"@ami_angelwings@urusai.social

Love how companies eventually just all give up making anything and just go to rent seeking"

"@antijingoist@hackers.town

Apple's attitude is that we are paying them for the work they did to bring visibility to projects, etc. If they are going after Patreon with that attitude, I think they will start going after physical goods, and other payment apps soon too.

And eventually, I think they are going to start pulling the 20% of profits bullshit they are trying in the EU"

The Verge: "Patreon memberships sold on the iOS app will soon be subject to Apple’s 30 percent commission on in-app purchases. In a post on Monday, Patreon says Apple is forcing the platform to use the company’s in-app payment system starting in November or 'risk being kicked out of the App Store'"

Politico: "Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is touting his progressive policies as family-focused pragmatism, betting that everyday household concerns matter more to voters than conservative culture wars... The campaign is leaning into that message as Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz unveil their governing priorities ahead of the Democratic National Convention, trumpeting the former teacher’s record as an example of practical solutions to a fractured country. Their efforts seek to rebrand progressive policies as palatable options for families"

Aaron Bastani #NovaraMedia: "In the last 14 years, you've had the conservatives. Now look at [the recent UK riots] as a political grievance, try and put yourselves in the shoes of somebody who's on the center right, the conservatives have tried to win votes by saying we're going to reduce immigration, they've said that repeatedly for 14 years, and they have lied and lied.. and then you see 1 million net immigration under Priti Patel's Home Secretary...

I can absolutely promise you.. for people who voted conservative multiple times, that be happening under Priti Patel there is obviously going to be a significant political consequence for that.. when you have net immigration of 700,000 people in one year, and we're building 150,000 new homes, that is an issue, and I think it's really remiss of the left to say that's not an issue. Now the left can say one answer one perfectly reasonable answer is to say 'we need to build loads more homes', I entirely agree with that but are you then saying 'well we need to build 700,000 new homes for all the people are arriving this year' when we've got a backlog of but maybe four five six million homes we need to build already, and I think.. there's almost an irresponsibility here by the left not to address that question"

TASS: "Putin to hold talks with Palestinian president Abbas on Tuesday"

"@mttaggart@infosec.town

The Starliner spacecraft really is the ultimate demonstration of why 'Move fast and break things' is a garbage philosophy"

WION: "22 Chinese military aircraft breach Taiwan's air defence zone"

Politico: "Progressive national security professionals already are angling for positions in a possible Kamala Harris administration, hoping to steer the White House in a different direction on Israel and other issues after being largely shut out under President Joe Biden... The progressives’ ultimate goal is to influence American foreign policy and national security from the inside. This proved hard to do under Biden, a Democratic moderate who came to the White House with a massive stable of longstanding aides — many of whom could trace their careers back to the Clinton administration"

NYT: "Netanyahu Clashes With Defense Minister on Gaza, Exposing Schisms"

The American Conservative: "California’s Governor Gavin Newsom joined members of the state’s Transportation Department Thursday to clean out several Los Angeles homeless encampments. 'I’m here on behalf of forty million Californians that are fed up,' Newsom told reporters"

H2 Central: "Metacon receives order from Motor Oil for supply of a 30 MW industrial electrolysis plant worth EUR 19.8 million, marking the start of European manufacturing"

H2 Central: "Scottish hydrogen technologies firm Logan Energy wins multi-million pound contract to fuel zero emission buses in the Czech Republic"

H2 Central: "Testing in northwest Iowa for natural hydrogen trapped underground"

Politico.eu: "Huge lithium-mining protest triggers crisis meeting in Serbia"

Helpless loser can't even save his own tech; batteries catch fire, have range issues, don't work if it is too cold, or warm, are heavy.

Why upset ejagoff he is saving humanity

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"Shocking Similarity: USA Preparing Two New Proxies In Asia and Europe | Malindog-Uy & Malinen" #NeutralityStudies

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"No Fury Like a Planet Scorned.. extreme wildfires have doubled, by a factor of 2.2 to be exact [from 2003 to 2023] Canada’s 45.7 million acres (18.5 million hectares) burned by the end of October last year, and Australia’s Black Summer of 2019-2020 with over 46 million acres"

Which one is more fundamental (even though both my be incomplete) - QM, or relativity? It's probably the former, not the latter. It is highly likely GR formula can be derived by other means.

There are some fine researchers working on the modern aether theory, trying to scale Casimir effect to cosmological. Ulf Leonhardt is active here, he wrote Forces of the Quantum Vacuum as an introduction to this relatively new field.. If their approach works gravity will be reformulated using QFT. They have some mad algebra to go along utilizing renormalization, working with infinities, w/ interesting math-fu around the usage of time. Highly recommended, if not for the theory, for the underlying technique. Their research ties to Lifshitz, partly to Fatio / Le Sage.

So here is some hope... it's not all about the same stale, overly-dreamy but dumb batch of jokers (is there time! why only one universe when you can have so many!). These guys have been toiling away in obscurity, working towards something. Maybe they will deliver the slam dunk the field badly needs.

Roger Penrose: "Physicists tend not to be over-worried by detailed matters of mathematical and ontological inconsistency if the theory, when applied with appropriate judgement and careful calculation, continues to provide answers that are in excellent agreement with the results of observation – often with extraordinary precision – through delicate and precise experiment. The situation with string theory is completely different from this. Here there appear to be no results whatever that provide it with experimental support"

Insurance Journal: "Fracking wastewater, injected underground for permanent disposal, traveled 12 miles through geological faults before bursting to the surface through a previously plugged West Texas oil well in 2022, according to a new study from Southern Methodist University.

It’s the first study to draw specific links between wastewater injection and recent blowouts in the Permian Basin, the nation’s top producing oil field, where old oil wells have lately begun to spray salty water"

NYT: "Britain’s Anti-Immigrant Riots Pose Critical Test for Starmer.. Even after restoring order, the new prime minister faces a bigger challenge: defusing the issues of fraying public services and a cost of living crisis that underlie the unrest"

#Frontline #UA #RU 08/08 - 08/13

Massive UA incursion in Kursk. On the Russian side capture of Niu York is nearly done, the pincer is about to close on Nelipivka, movement towards Toretsk, and major advance NW Tabaivka.

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TASS: "On August 6, the Ukrainian armed forces launched a massive attack on Russia’s Kursk Region, where the Sudzha gas metering station (GMS) is located. The transit line through it remains the only route for Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine"

Al-Monitor: "Fitch downgrades Israel citing war in Gaza"

"@anildash@threads.net

I have raised far more money from VCs than most founders ever get to, and I can say definitively: the vast majority of businesses shouldn’t take VC money. It’s often not a fit for innovation, for caring for workers, for having a sustainable business. And the VCs who shape the market are largely irresponsible or destructive. VC should be a tiny fraction of how businesses start — certainly not the default"

Religions are pre-modern left-wing movements defending the poor against the system. Thats why they were agressively coopted and turned into hero/king/clergy worship.

"There is no solid evidence that Jesus existed. But whether he was a real man or not is beside the point. People worship gods, not men"

NYT: "Israel-Hamas War: White House Issues Rare Criticism of Israeli Minister Who Opposes Cease-Fire"

Arab News: "Biden, in an unusually personal appeal, joined the leaders of Egypt and Qatar in not only urging Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire but setting a date — Thursday — for them to meet in the region"

Arab News: "As Donald Trump adjusts to the reality of his new race against Kamala Harris, his campaign is counting on younger male voters to give him the edge in November in a presidential contest"

Al-Monitor: "Harris replacing Biden on ticket gave Democrats expected bump from Arab Americans"

u.baci_top_product("Bangladesh", "USA")

$ 2,123,242,975.0
Trousers, bib and brace overalls, breeches and shorts: men's or boys',
of cotton (not knitted or crocheted)

u.baci_top_product("Bangladesh", "India")

$ 163,018,275.0
Fixed vegetable fats and oils and their fractions n.e.c. in heading
1515: other than linseed, maize (corn), castor, sesame, microbial
oils, whether or not refined, but not chemically modified

u.baci_top_product("Bangladesh", "China")

$ 96,877,466.0
Yarn: of jute or of other textile bast fibres, single

u.baci_top_product("Bangladesh", "Pakistan")

$ 49,468,314.0
Jute and other textile bast fibres: raw or retted, but not spun,
(excluding flax, hemp (cannabis sativa L.), and ramie)

WION: "[Ousted Bangladeshi PM] Sheikh Hasina blames US for ouster as PM, cites her refusal to surrender St. Martin Island as cause"

"@loke@functional.cafe

@flaki the actual cost of having someone drive you in a car is the same as the service that drove you in a car. Shocking.

It's even more surprising that someone managing a computer for you to run code on is more expensive than you managing a computer for you to run code on"

"@erik@infrageeks.social

@flaki To be fair, the cloud was never cheap. But yeah, point taken."

"@funnymonkey@freeradical.zone

@flaki It's almost like the entire point of tech 'innovation' is to damage legacy players, and then the 'innovators' can replicate their abusive practices, but with added surveillance and extractive data collection"

@flaki@flaki.social

'Business Insider: Tech's broken promises: Streaming is now just as expensive and confusing as cable. Ubers cost as much as taxis. And the cloud is no longer cheap'"

Swift boat type attack on Walz? It's hard. He looks tough, does not have the "cocktail gentleman" demeanor of Kerry who "looked French anyway", the attack won't stick.

Not perfect, sure.. but still a good choice

Responsible Statecraft: "Walz has some foreign policy experience from his time as a House member. He was first elected to Congress in 2006 running on opposition to the Iraq war, and voted for withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2007. Breaking with the Obama administration in 2013, he opposed military action in Syria over the 'red line' episode. In 2017, Walz was an early co-sponsor of one of the first House war powers resolutions directing the president to remove U.S. forces from involvement in the Saudi coalition war on Yemen.

On the other hand, Walz initially said he was 'cautiously optimistic' about the 2011 intervention in Libya in its first weeks, but added that 'I think our engagement needs to be very narrow, it needs to be very defined and it needs to have a clear out time.' Walz seems to be generally skeptical of military intervention, but he has not opposed intervention in every case"

The Onion: "Billionaire Credits Millionaire Friends With Keeping Him Humble.. Pointing out that most of them don’t even own a professional sports team, local billionaire Felix Stacey gave his millionaire friends credit Monday for keeping him humble. 'It’s easy to become out of touch when you have billions and billions of dollars, but I can always count on my millionaire friends to keep me grounded,' said Stacey"

"@istuetzle@zirk.us

#Ownership of nursing homes by #PrivateEquity funds "increases mortality by 11%. Declines in measures of patient well-being, nurse staffing, and compliance with care standards help to explain the mortality effect."

#CapitalismKills / via Philipp Heimberger"

"One of the oldest in the world" says Wiki

Border stayed the same since 16th century! Get a load of that

Asia Minor and Persia (Iran) did fight wars but the border between them has been the same for a long time. In fact I remember a story where someone from US Congress was talking out of his ass about Iran, and TR having to "do more" about its neighbor while he was visiting and he was told by someone at TR State "that border between us and them is older than your country". Mic drop.