Week 32

"How the military-industrial complex captured US democracy" #AlJazeera

Technically it's not "FED printing money" that creates debt.. Printed money in circulation is at about 22 trillion. All outstanding debt denominated in dollars is at 102 trillion. How can there be more money sloshing around the system than printed money? Let's not forget private banks can create money out of thin air while lending. They are not bound by fractional requirements either, not anymore.

Ran an idea by an LLM, a modified Djikstra shortest-path of sorts, where the algorithm would go backwards from a node and do this a few levels back. LLM keeps telling me it would be "very inefficient" to do that. Setting aside the fact that I could create a specialized structure to make that fast (via an index), even sparse matrix libraries can perform this ouf of the box (the data btw is extremely sparse). Columns of the matrix is the target node, for nodes pointing to j, get the j'th column. I interrogated LLM on sparse access on a seperate session, it knows about it, well, it spat out the knowledge in an encyclopedic, parroty fashion, but it has the knowledge... But it can't put two and two together. That's because it doesn't truly know anything. LLM has no ability to research, trawl new ground. If something is not in the training data, it doesn't exist.

Lebanon might be walking towards another civil war. The West pressured Hesbollah to disarm, they said no. Pressure applied on Lebanon president to insist on disarming.. things are coming to a head. The buzz in Middle East is that once things "get going" US will unleash HTS on the Shites, taking over Lebanon.

"With or without Russia?"...

Did Russia give at least tacit support for the development of the corridor?

Al Jazeera: "Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said on Saturday that Tehran would block the initiative 'with or without Russia'"

The Times of Israel: "Iran threatens planned Trump corridor envisaged by Azerbaijan-Armenia peace deal.. It was not immediately clear how Iran, which borders the area, would block it, but the statement from Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, raised questions over its security. He said military exercises carried out in northwest Iran demonstrated the Islamic Republic’s readiness and determination to prevent any geopolitical changes."

Masse: "We [now] see that two material bodies do not directly attract each other; the apparent attraction is due to the ﬂow of aether into matter creating a pressure differential. As Lodge (1908) noted, 'when the mechanism of attraction is understood, it will be found that a body really only moves because it is pushed by something from behind.' Without the physical medium aether, gravitational force would not exist. Flowing aether carries with it any material body within the ﬂow. This answers the age-old question of how matter can appear to act where it is not. Matter acts through the aether it disturbs."

Robert Masse: "As the nineteenth century was ending, scientists were aware of a couple of perplexing problems that existed in physics. The British physicist Lord Kelvin (1901) referred to these problems as two 'nineteenth century clouds' over physics.

The ﬁrst 'nineteenth century cloud' that concerned Kelvin was how matter can move through aether if aether is an elastic solid. We see now that this cloud disappears once we realize that aether is a ﬂuid.

The second 'nineteenth century cloud' that concerned Kelvin was how aether can act as a ﬂuid for a solid body moving through it, but act as a solid for light propagating in it. We see now that this cloud also disappears once we realize that aether is a ﬂuid that has rigidity.

These two clouds contributed to the existence of aether being doubted in the twentieth century. A third source of doubt about the existence of aether were results obtained from the famous Michelson-Morley experiments conducted in the 1880s. These results are inconsistent with any aether motion parallel to the Earth’s surface, and yet a stationary aether at the Earth’s surface (resulting from the Earth’s atmosphere dragging the aether) was ruled out by other experiments. It was not realized in the twentieth century that, while aether is in motion at the Earth’s surface, all this motion is vertical to the Earth as aether ﬂows into the matter of the Earth. Aether ﬂowing vertically into the Earth is entirely consistent with results from the Michelson- Morley experiments.."

The arguments against aether theories are no longer valid. The proper theory can debunk them all.

The Lever: "Delta Air Lines recently came under fire for announcing that artificial intelligence will be setting 20 percent of its ticket prices for its domestic flights by 2026. While Delta subsequently denied using the tech to engage in “personalized” price gouging, many airlines, big businesses, and data brokers have allegedly been dabbling in 'surveillance pricing,' the growing corporate practice that exploits personal data to charge customers the most that they’re willing to pay."

Austerity = a by-product of encouraging inequality in society.

Murphy: "[L]arge numbers of young [UK] doctors who have been trained to work in either hospitals or general practice, and who have accumulated maybe £100,000 of debts to put them in this position, are not at this moment being offered jobs by the NHS, and the only possible explanation for that is that [officials] have connived to ensure that the funding to employ these essential people is not available.

The argument that we are now short of doctors, which was always the excuse for the shortage of NHS appointments, is, therefore, now wholly inappropriate. There are more than enough doctors to employ in the UK now, with more following on from them as they currently go through medical school. We could meet the demand for medical services in this country, but we don't do so solely because Labour will not fund our ability to do so...

I draw attention to the economic incoherence of those who think that they are in charge of our economy, but who are in fact slaves to the defunct, dangerous, and itself incoherent policy of austerity, which is the only agenda that the UK Treasury and the prevailing political narratives in the UK permits."

"US brokers a deal between long-hostile Armenia and Azerbaijan.. Key to easing the long-standing conflict is the agreement on the transit corridor, which includes a commitment to developing the mountainous stretch of Armenian territory between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave known as the Zangezur Corridor...

Armenia has agreed to award the U.S. exclusive special development rights on the Zangezur Corridor land for 99 years. The U.S. would sublease the land to a consortium that will develop rail, oil, gas and fiber optic lines and possibly electricity transmission along the 27-mile corridor"

I've heard mil experts say the plan is a suicide mission. They will be walking into Ambush Central and will likely lose hundreds of people daily.. It is hard to see the goal of this attempt within mil context, so it is likely political - trying to make a dissenting military brass look bad, trying to gain time..

This Zamir guy speaka some truth..

The Times of Israel: "Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir reportedly clashed over the government’s incipient plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip, with Zamir arguing that the decision constitutes a 'trap' for the IDF."

In terms of AI we barely scratched the surface.. The work that remains to be done is hundred-fold of what we have today.

"@eb@social.coop

I also think in a lot of ways the tech bros and their GPUs are hurtling towards some dead ends. Like the models keep getting bigger and more impressiver but they still fail in much of the same ways, they just get a little further than last time.

Like a couple days ago Google announced Genie 3—a sort of real time generative video that takes keyboard inputs. Genie 2 would fall apart after a few seconds of this. Genie 3 can go a few minutes. That's really great for them except I don't care?"

"@eb@social.coop

I feel like LLMs have gotten worse over time. Probably partly true (prompt overfitting), but also I think there was a lot of novelty initially. The fact it could do anything was amazing. Now I've sort of figured out what it can and can't do. As it turns out it can't do a lot of the things that I do. Every time I ask it to do one of these things I know it can't do I get a good laugh and am reassured that it won't be replacing me any time soon."

"Make America first again" #Buchanan

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Of course he was called an "anti-semite" back in the day for being against AIPAC.

Buchanan is the father of the MAGA movement

The Lever: "How Big Tech Powered A Justice Department Coup.. After a secret lobbying effort, Trump’s Justice Department ousted staff and reversed course on Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s proposed megamerger."

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CNBC: "[8/1] A fresh ultimatum demanding 'binding commitments' to lower U.S. drug prices sent pharma firms scrambling Friday. President Trump sent letters to 17 major firms outlining the steps they must take to cut costs. Healthcare stocks tumbled Friday."

Per Turchin's research, elite overproduction, a direct result of rising inequality, causes chaos in society and eventually leads to the destruction of the same elite.

Fortune: "Clubs, with free wi-fi, buffets of cold snacks and heated steam trays, and a range of complimentary drinks. The Sky Clubs were no match for the burst of revenge travelers. Bastian’s efforts to fix these problems in 2023—barring Basic Economy passengers and capping the number of visits allowed for credit card holders—sparked backlash on customers’ part and soul-searching for Bastian. 'We are victims of our own success,' he told Fast Company.. as he explained changes to benefits including access to Sky Club lounges. 'It’s hard to tell someone who’s been at a certain status for many years that what they’ve earned is no longer as valuable.'

That’s why the declining pleasure of the airport lounge resonates for a deeper reason: it’s a metaphor for the declining prospects of the upper middle class in an age of 'elite overproduction,' which argues that certain societies grow so rich and successful that they produce too many people of premium education for the number of premium jobs—or premium experiences—that the economy can actually support.

The elites have been so overproduced that you can literally see them—in lines stretching out of airport lounges"

Latest US Navy locations.. compared to previous map, there is movement towards Iran..

u.plot_us_navy("usnavy-0805.csv", "map13.html")

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He should've thought of that before he gave the green light for the Maidan coup.. He saw the light but it was too late.

Brookings: "[2016] Obama said Ukraine is a core interest for Moscow in a way that it is not for the United States. .. The administration rejected lethal military assistance. In our meetings last year with senior U.S. officials, it was apparent that the White House’s main concern was escalation"

Cato: "[2017] Both the Obama administration and most of the American news media portrayed the Euromaidan Revolution as a spontaneous, popular uprising against a corrupt and brutal government... It was a grotesque distortion to portray the events in Ukraine as a purely indigenous, popular uprising. The Nuland-Pyatt telephone conversation and other actions confirm that the United States was considerably more than a passive observer to the turbulence. Instead, U.S. officials were blatantly meddling in Ukraine. Such conduct was utterly improper. The United States had no right to try to orchestrate political outcomes in another country—especially one on the border of another great power. It is no wonder that Russia reacted badly to the unconstitutional ouster of an elected, pro-Russian government—an ouster that occurred not only with Washington’s blessing, but apparently with its assistance."

He is buddy-buddy with Zionist scum too of course. A one-time friend of Rabbi Schnozzy. But you know how it is, you can take the senator out of schnozz, you can't take the schnozz out of the senator.

CB is a pretty lukewarm centrist type, an "Old Democrat" of the Clinton, Obama mold, economic right social left.. Noone on the left should expect any favors from these people.

NY Post: "Cory Booker refuses to endorse Zohran Mamdani for NYC mayor"

GNN: "Australia’s Revolutionary Hydrogen Powder Is Easier and Cheaper to Use for Clean Energy.. The partnership from Curtin University and Velox Energy Materials devised a circular hydrogen industry consisting of hydrogen generation, the capacity to turn it into a powdered storage form, and the infrastructure to refill the expended powder with new hydrogen... funded by the Australian government, reports suggest this innovation will catapult Australia to the position of world leader in renewable hydrogen exportation... [I]t all starts with a powder: sodium borohydride, abbreviated (NaBH4).. The journey of NaBH4 from a component in the dyeing and paper-making industries to a surprise role as the lynchpin in a renewable energy revolution began in 2022, when Deakin University scientists in Australia applied the new science of mechanochemical reaction to infuse gas into powders by spinning it at high speeds in chambers filled with metal balls."

South Couscous.. The Russians are coming.

Euronews: "Russia increasing military presence in Armenia.. Ukrainian military intelligence said that Moscow was increasing its forces at the Gyumri base to exert greater influence in the South Caucasus"

A former businessman.. Of course. That makes sense perfect sense now.

Armenia will be rolled into this scheme?

Barrack tells TR to have the "millet system", tells Syrians "to unite", but it's fine if Syrian, Iraqi Kurds to join TR as "outside millets"?

Having said that, I have respect for religion, but intrusive noises from places of worship are not welcome. Church bells, loud badly read Adhan (most are).. Not cool.

Apparently his forebears were from the Ottoman Empire (Lebanon!), so tries to act like "homie", keeps promoting the "millet system" of Ottomans to current Turkese, a lot of homie falls for it. The "millet system" he talks about is worse than today's Lebanon. If you are minority they'd make you dress in your "ethnic clothing", you'll walk around like a f-ing clown and ring your church bell made out of wood. Have you ever heard a church bell made out of f-ing wood?

This guy is connecting everything to everything else.. US Amb. to TR.

Tom Barrack: "Just take the the Abraham Accords [arguing others should join].. Turkey as a non-Arab country with a Muslim-majority population, Israel, the Gulf, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and moving north, Azerbaijan, Armenia... When you unite these, the world's most powerful region emerges. Why not?"

"@afewbugs@social.coop

I think one of the (many) problems in England right now is that nothing works anymore after decades of underinvestment, but bureaucracy acts like it still does. Government website down? The deadline still exists. Documents lost in the post? Not an excuse because that's not supposed to be possible. Didn't buy a train ticket because the machine wasn't working and they've closed the ticket office? Still get a fine. Late for work because public transport is collapsing? No excuse."

"@vlepy@lewacki.space

In Finland, charging fees for tuition is illegal, which means rich kids have to mix with normal kids, which means rich families had to make sure the schools the kid went to were good, which meant the rich were prompted to invest in public schools. Finland, take a bow."

"@pezmico@mastodon.nz

While buying the refrigerator, the sales person enthusiastically pointed at one shiny new model fridge:

This one has a WiFi connection.
Nope. Don't want that.
It's alright, it's really only for firmware updates.
Nope. Nope. No internet at all for the fridge please.

Call me a luddite, but I am staunch in my belief that almost all of my home appliances have no business being online and are actually much better offline.

"Bye bye Microsoft.. An entire country, Denmark, a German Länder, dozens of communes, such as Lyon, France's third largest city... Slowly but surely, local authorities are switching to Linux, LibreOffice and NextCloud. The aim is not only economic, but also to assert their digital sovereignty."

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It was an anti-goverment pro-rich pro-corporate movie.. The bad people worked for the government, but thanks to Amazon drones and intrepid, "free-spirited" citizens the world was saved. They beat "the Matrix".

"@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social

Amazon made a War of the Worlds movie.. where Amazon is the hero corporation that spies on people and saves the world via Amazon orders"

Driving H2: "A small town in Washington state makes its own hydrogen fuel for only $4 per kg..In a quiet pocket of central Washington, where the Columbia River winds its way through fruit orchards and high desert, a small public utility has pulled off something that much of the hydrogen world still insists is too expensive to be done. They’ve built a fully functioning, publicly accessible green hydrogen station – and they’re selling fuel at four dollars per kilogram. You read that right, four bucks per kilogram."

I guess you could say US was made into a cultural Lebanon of sorts.

They want to turn "Turkey" into a Lebanon too. Tom Barrack is on the job.

In US you Zionify. For others it's about "Lebanonification". Iraq and Syria were turned into Lebanon, little minorities, fear their own shadows, do not feel fealty to their state... They get quotas for their little pieces in government. See the connection?

Yep hey literally named the place Zion. The Matrix was anti-government pro-corporate propaganda. Remember the hallway scene, that's a government building they enter and they shoot up the place kill government employees.

Corporate interests, the surface state probably wants every minority in US to be "Zionified". You should feel connected to an "outside state", real or imaginary, that is not your own (this is key, never develop an idea of homeland, so you demand less from your state, so the rich will not be taxed one day), you feel minor, small in your own land.. Blacks should idolize Wakanda, Jews should idolize Israel...

Whites need to pine after a Zion as well, but the one in The Matrix. Just like in the movie you have to be against your own government, "the system", fear it, and they have to fight it so one day they can end up in the mytical Zion.

Wakanda - an advanced ethno-centric state away from minority kins in other countries..

It sounds kinda like Israel.

I asked it to convert one type of code to another type.. Code reads a 3D object from an STL file, does some physics... G3 is like "yo I could not find the line that reads the file". The code literally has a line that says stl.mesh.Mesh.from_file. I would expect a mid-size LLM mode to be at worst half as dumb, not completely fucking dumb. This is stupider than the stupidest developer. I could ask the random guy off the street show him the code and he could tell which part of the code reads a file.

Tried out Gemma3, a reduced size local LLM (~3.5 GB). It goes berserk with large inputs (a local LLM does not mean they can process larger files) and while they can describe what is going on in images, they cannot do the same for audio. Its code writing ability is very crude. It makes shit up constantly, this is the famous hallucination problem. The larger Gemini is usable enough but models like that require the energy input of Ireland to be useful.

US navy deployment, as of 07/21, rough locations. Groups seem to be located in close proximity to both ISR, IRN and some RU. There is a group in the Indian Ocean they are probably the ones that tucked tail and ran away from Houthis to a "safe distance".

u.plot_us_navy('usnavy-0711.csv', "map12.html")

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#Ukraine 07/30 - 08/05

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