Week 22
Food Processing: "Kellanova UK Factory Makes Cereals With Hydrogen Instead of Natural Gas.. A government-funded demonstration project last August used the cleaner-burning fuel to power the toasting oven at the factory, lowering the plant’s carbon emissions"
"@waldoj@mastodon.social
Somebody posted the source code to the IRS’s Direct File to GitHub"
Politico: "Trump goes after Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society in fury over court ruling.. Trump’s attack came after the U.S. Court of International Trade struck down his tariffs..
The blame, Trump said, lay with the Federalist Society... 'I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,' he wrote. 'This is something that cannot be forgotten!'"
News Wise: "One approach to solar hydrogen generation uses materials called metal oxides, including one that combines the elements bismuth and vanadium. Scientists demonstrated that higher temperatures in the electrolyte surrounding cells increase the activity of a bismuth-vanadate electrode by 40%."
NS News: "District of North Vancouver grants permits for $140M hydrogen plant.. The liquefaction plant in North Van's Maplewood neighbourhood will be the largest of its kind in Western Canada"
Sussex Bylines: "Why has Sangita Myska (LBC) not been on the air since interviewing Israeli Government spokesman, Avi Hyman, in April?..
In the UK, we celebrate having a free press. News that is fettered to a particular view point is more accurately considered propaganda... Most readers would be horrified to think that our news outlets are censored if they stray from a particular line, especially if the line to be taken is dictated by a foreign state.
In the middle of April, Myska interviewed.. Hyman. Many news sources had reported that Israel had attacked Iran’s consulate in Syria and, two weeks later, that Iran had launched 200 drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation.
Myska referred to the convention that consulates and embassies are considered sovereign territories of their Government, and asked Hyman whether Israel’s actions had therefore escalated an already fragile situation. Hyman took issue with the question, specifically Myska’s use of the term consulate, despite her simply referring to what had been reported widely elsewhere. Following that interview, Myska has not been on air..
As recently as 5 May, the Al-Jazeera channel was shut down in Israel. International Federation of Journalists general secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said: 'Banning journalists and shutting down broadcasters are moves straight from the despot’s playbook'"
"@GeofCox@climatejustice.social
The EU is Israel's biggest market, but is now moving to suspend its preferential trade arrangements. Human rights and respect for international law are legally “essential elements” of the EU-Israel agreement (article 2). The suspension requires the support of 15 out of 27 states (which it already has) but also the support of states representing 65% of the EU population. This means one at least of Germany or Italy has to move to support it.
Please ask your German and Italian contacts to lobby for this."
Politico: "On Chinese student visa rollback, MAGA scores another victory over tech"
Reuter: "Sinopec sets up $690 million hydrogen-energy-focused venture capital fund "
"@ben@werd.social
Commuting into NYC. Call me crazy, but I think the solution to high demand on public transit is to add more trains, not to raise prices. It's infrastructure that has knock-on effects on the whole economy, not a business that needs to be profitable in isolation."
The Lever: "Trump May Let Private Equity Rob Your Retirement.. The president may soon grant a longtime industry wish and hand over Americans’ retirement plans to private equity."
Terrible.. Terrible..
ABC Oz: "Should first home buyers be able to use their [retirement fund] superannuation to buy a house?.. The [Liberal Party] scheme proposes that Australians should be allowed to take up to $50,000, or 40 per cent, of their superannuation fund to buy their first home. Currently, superannuation funds are largely locked away from people, until they reach retirement age in their 60s and can start using them. The idea behind this is to make Australia less reliant on the pension"
Truly sad.. Don't tax the rich, but have people work longer.. In a world where multigenerational mortgages are being discussed I bet soon someone will find a way for you to work after death.. Generating electricity with your decomposing corpse maybe? 24/7 well-paying job!
Semafor: "Denmark raises state retirement age to 70"
The Lever: "Billionaires want Dems to talk about democracy, tout 'abundance,' and play dead. But anti-oligarch politics is the only way to fight Trump.."
TAC: "Trump Will Walk Away From Ukraine.. And that’s a good thing. 'This is not my war,' stated President Donald Trump emphatically to a dubious —nay, hostile— White House Press Corps when asked about the potential outcome of negotiations with Russia over ending the Ukraine War... the president was essentially acknowledging that he had no real leverage over Russia to get them to end the war. So, rather than needlessly drag out this hopeless conflict (for the NATO side of the proxy war with Russia), where 5,000 young men die every week, Trump is readying to cut his, and America’s, losses"
.. and of course if too many (wealthy) people buy REITs, or mREITs they would be contributing to rising housing prices. This is how median home now costs nearly half a f**ing million dollars. The uber-wealthy did that to you America. Know thy enemy.
There are even REIT ETF instruments, you don't have to buy REIT stock, you buy shares of a REIT ETF that buys those stocks. There are trillions in REIT and related instruments.
"A REIT is a company that owns, operates, or finances income-producing real estate REITs enable [investors] to benefit from owning shares in valuable real estate, and having access to dividend-based income and total returns... mREITs (or mortgage REITs) don’t own real estate directly, instead they finance real estate and earn income from the interest on these investments"
What is this talk about real-estate being hard to invest in? It is easy. Investors can just buy a REIT
Notice the first serious coup attemp against a sitting president in US was arranged by businessmen and the wealthy. They are the true gangsters in America. The surface state.
Rolling Stone: "The plot against American Democracy that isn’t taught in schools.. In an excerpt from Gangsters of Capitalism, Jonathan M. Katz details how the authors of the Depression-era 'Business Plot' aimed to take power away from FDR and stop his 'socialist' New Deal"
Wiki: "The Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch and the White House Putsch, was a political conspiracy in 1933, in the United States, to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt"
Galloway: "The 0.1% have insulated themselves from the general public with their own schools, health care, transportation, security, and justice system. The members of this rarefied class are unfazed by the chaos unfolding outside their gated properties... They’re invested in hedge funds and fine art, not in the future of America. With the means to hire shrewd defense attorneys and aggressive PR firms that weaponize social media bots, the superrich are protected by the law, but not bound by it. The lower 99% are bound by the law, but not protected by it.
Living in their bubble, the extremely rich express shock and horror, but opt not to rock the $300 million boat... With vast wealth comes enormous influence. Money is a proxy for power. The top 0.1% have more than five times as much wealth as the bottom 50%. Just 100 billionaire families invested a record 2.6 billion in federal elections last year, 1 of every 6 dollars spent overall. These wealthy individuals could galvanize politicians and push back against policies that undermine American values, but they’re largely quiet...
In his first 100 days as president in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved swiftly to lift the country out of the Great Depression, building the foundation for his New Deal. As historians have observed, he had another objective: to prove democracy works. But the president’s programs sparked criticism from rich Americans, who regarded him as a traitor to his class. A powerful group, including the DuPonts, the founders of General Motors, and assorted oil millionaires, launched the American Liberty League to fight back.
Today we again need some bold class traitors to address America’s worsening inequalities"
Mfkers might patch that now (its maintainers can add a system prompt so LLM reverts to an actual hand-coded counter algorithm), but the fact that it could not now, could not reach to that point with its own training, points to fundemantal deficiencies.
Just tested an LLM with a letter count task (e.g. count how many 'a' letters in some word). It failed miserably. The tech which supposedly already surpassed human intelligence, nearing "singularity", cannot count letters in a word.
That was the Freudian slip per excellence. The word "overload" instead of "reset". Turned out to be prescient.
The reset button moment.. Classic #RU #US
Or, mentioned before, Tony Blair / Farage one-sided smackdown.. TB starts "there are three groups of people..", he is like fidgeting with his tie or something, as if to say he is really busy with that and doing the bashing on the side, just a drive-by smackdown. It is iconic knowing what happened later, Brexit. Farage, the humiliated man, became the victor.
You have to know your iconic moments.. representative slices in time.. Like when Biden started to spaz out during that debate and Trump did a double-take? Like that.
Why would Al Gore institute UHC? All signs before the election were he would be another economic-right social-left shitlib Democrat in the mold of Bill Fucking Clinton (he debated Ross Perot on NAFTA, some don't seem to recall).
The episode does sound like an Utopia in the sense that an establishment Democrat pushing for universal health care. That is just crazy.
"In [a Family Guy episode] Peter creates an alternate timeline, where Al Gore is the President of the United States instead of George W. Bush, which results an Utopian world. He institutes universal health care"
There could be alien UFOs.. I only said all data I looked at so far failed to present an obvious pattern whereby a conclusion jumps out at you. Until that happens, or we see media proof other than grainy videos, our current state is 'unconvinced'. Some earlier data analysis is below.
E-douche is an overrated diva.. Let's also not forget who created this cunt; Obama.. which proves he was an average president, meaning anything he's done, any tech his admin pushed should be viewed with suspicion, e.g. battery electric cars.
Firstpost: "SpaceX's Starship spins out of control minutes after 9th test launch, crashes over Indian Ocean"
The Guardian: "UK must impose sanctions on Israel to meet legal obligations, say more than 800 lawyers"
Scheerpost: "Former Israeli PM: Enough Is Enough. Israel Is Committing War Crimes.. Ehud Olmert is the former Israeli prime minister from 2006 to 2009... was a member of the Likud party from 1973 to 2006"
Informed Comment: "Siege Politics: By now, it should surprise no one that Benjamin Netanyahu prefers the echo chamber of his own making to the international chorus demanding accountability. The Israeli prime minister, clinging to office as tenaciously as he clings to delusion, has managed to place himself among the most cynically manipulative leaders of our time, a man who governs not by vision, but by vindictiveness."
"@zoul@boskovice.social
I’ve just realized how RADICAL it feels to open a Wikipedia app on my phone and look up a topic without anyone trying to sell me something, steal my data or hit me with random genAI nonsense. What have we done?"
LLM's attention "leaks", it is hard to have it focus on a given text, on a given set of structured output. The reason must be they are written to shoot the shit, they "dress to impress" they need to ramble on, "creatively" answering questions as their reason for being is chat, which makes them ill-suited for mission-critical tasks that require structure, and repetitive accuracy.
"JCB secures full EU type-approval for pioneering hydrogen engine.. This means that JCB’s hydrogen engine has been approved for sale and for use in machines and third-party OEM equipment in each of the 27 EU member states, and all other territories recognising EU type-approvals (e.g. EEA and EFTA territories). The EU type-approval certificate has been issued in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/1628 and certifies JCB’s hydrogen combustion engine to prevailing EU Stage V emissions norms"
Epstein's "suicide" was likely ordered by Trump.. That's why FBI is keeping things hush-hush. There is no deep state.
A lot of these Epstein deaths seem to happen during Trump admin.
Hmmm 🤔
"Virginia Giuffre, one of the most outspoken Jeffrey Epstein accusers, has died by suicide"
Firstpost: "India approves building of 5th generation fighter plane"
CNBC: "Businesses are finding a workaround for tariffs — and it's entirely legal.. The "first sale rule" is a concept in U.S. customs law that allows importers to use the lowest cost of a good to calculate duties"
NYT: "For months, Israel’s strongest allies had been reluctant to join a wave of global censure against the war. Now, even the Trump administration appears to be growing impatient"
Informed Comment: "Gaza 'a Gaping Wound on Humanity:' Spain Convenes Int’l Conference to call for Arms Embargo on Israel"
The Star: "Retired Russian colonel and combat veteran Anatoliy Matviychuk, who served in Afghanistan and Syria, breaks down the military rationale behind Russia’s push to create a buffer zone along its border with Ukraine.
'This won’t just be a demilitarized belt — it’s about shielding Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk, Crimea, Zaporozhye, Kherson and Donbass regions from NATO artillery fire.'
Why 100 km?
'NATO-supplied long-range artillery can hit targets from 70 km. Add a 30 km safety margin — and you get a 100 km deep buffer,' the expert explains"..
[Where?] Sumy, Chernigov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov regions — territories bordering both the old and new Russian regions"
RT: "A new front: Russia expands into Ukraine to build a military buffer zone.. Putin’s buffer zone aims to create space – both literally and politically – from Ukraine’s firepower"
TAC: "Mike Johnson and Rand Paul Clash Over Budget Bill.. Paul criticized the bill’s spending cuts as 'wimpy and anemic', warning that the legislation would 'explode the debt'"
Aspects of Woke seem to rest on ignoring reality, making others accept the subjective reality of a singular individual... In that these viewpoints are extremely unscientific, carry that pungent smell of Post Modernism. Maybe in an era where science itself has lost its connection to reality (multiverses, bing bangs that did not happen, black holes that do not exist, particles that cannot be in two places at once), we should not fault others to follow suit.
Old Dem shitlibs walking around like zombies.. Is this another type of identity politics? One type says "I'm a non-binary gender-neutral two-spirit, I believe it, so I am it, people and legislation needs to treat me as such", maybe that extends to "I declare myself a 20-year old, you treat me as such".
Dems are looking on like fools while Reps are stealing left issues from them (economic left, not social). Where is your principled stance on anti-trust, inequality, corporate overreach?
CNN: "Around 40% of Walmart’s merchandise is imported, while roughly half of Target’s and Home Depot’s products come from overseas... Walmart.. was outspoken about the trade war impact, saying higher tariffs will lead to higher consumer prices. That prompted a strong reaction from Trump, who said Walmart should “eat” the cost. Days later, Home Depot and Target tiptoed around price hikes from tariffs during their own earnings calls."
NYT: 'Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,' Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media site. 'Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected.' He called on Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, to 'EAT THE TARIFFS' and keep prices down. 'I’ll be watching, and so will your customers,' he wrote."
Yahoo Finance: "Digging into Allstate’s recent financial statements, Senator Josh Hawley questioned the company’s decision to reward the C-suite after boosting revenue and profits while policyholders like Migal struggled to get compensated for their losses"
Josh Hawley is really grilling that AllState guy..
#Ukraine - 05/18 - 05/25
Fountain Of Youth.. Not bad..
Blogmobly: "When the system forces you to code with a hallucinating clown, eventually you stop resisting. You let him type. You let him be 'productive.' You check out. You surrender your brain to the noise and just float... I [am] describing GitHub Copilot. Or Claude Codex. Or OpenAI lmnop6.5 ultra watermelon. This isn’t about tools or productivity or acceleration. It’s about the illusion of progress..
A real copilot, on a commercial airline.. know[s] the plane. The systems.. done the simulations... [MS] Copilot isn’t that. It’s just the ghost of a thousand blog posts and cocky stack-overflow posts whispering, 'Hey, I saw this once. With my eyes. Which means it's good code. Let’s deploy it.' Then.. the app hits production and the landing gear won’t come down. If you let that ghost fly the plane, you deserve the ball of flames you go up in"
TAC: "The Gen Z Right Is Pat Buchanan’s Lasting Legacy.. A new culture of realism has prevailed among American youth, and it may finally put to rest the conservative status quo... Their affinities lie not with Reaganite optimism or Bush-era globalism, but with the sobering, culture-first realism of Pat Buchanan. These are the heirs to the original Buchanan Brigade, animated by a blend of cultural traditionalism, economic nationalism, and a deep-seated skepticism toward America’s post–Cold War trajectory"
Some want India to be the new attack vector into its own region..
During the past 50 yrs there's been conflict in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine... What is common to all of these countries? If we look at the map and we notice the middle of all of those countries... It is Gobble Gobble, doing the Wobble Wobble. Turkland. Was homie the unknowing (!) attack vector, the battering ram reaching deep inside this area..?
Anatolians had their reasons to include outsiders, the Anglo in this region, historically the neighbor Russia was always feared, outsiders from afar were allowed in and exercise influence in the region trying to balance out Russia. But the cost of this involvement might have been steep.
Effin businesses will do and say anything to justify their profits
WaPo: "Judge rejects claim chatbots have free speech in suit over teen’s death... Google and Character.AI unsuccessfully argued that a chatbot’s messages were protected by the First Amendment."
Earth.com: "Massive hydrogen reserves discovered beneath Earth’s mountains"
The Lever: "MAGA dominance, brought to you by aging Dems. Today, the House passed Republicans’ budget narrowly by a 215-to-214 vote — meaning Democrats could have blocked the bill from moving to the Senate if three of their voting members hadn’t died this session. That includes Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who passed at 75 yesterday, just hours before the vote. He’s joined by Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, 77, and Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas, 70. (Turner passed after succeeding longtime Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died in office last year at 74.) Eight members of Congress have died in office since November 2022 — and all were Democrats"
Kash Patel has a dog who ate the Epstein files.. the ones that said he was suicided..? That must be it...
What happened? Where is the deep state?
Fox News: "FBI bosses insist Jeffrey Epstein killed himself after reviewing his file"
Informed Comment: "As US Pushes For Zero Enrichment, Iran Insists It Won’t Give Up Nuclear Program"