Link. Bezos and Ellison are similar that way. It’s not personal. You are grass.

With Musk it’s personal.

Link. I doubt this will work quickly enough but the idea is nice.

Link. “… a country where people can be persecuted purely for their membership in an undesirable group. Some Americans do want that. If you want that, vote for Trump”

Like Elon Musk. Any means to an end where the end is power. Or, in the case of Musk, wealth and power.

Link. Israel has been preparing to go to war with Iran for a long time.

Link. So Dec 24 rather than April 25 for me

Link. “Comparing RNA-seq and proteomics profiles of the two aged groups (treatment and control) with the two younger cohorts showed that metformin treatment rolled things back from 4 to 6 years”. 3 years of metformin for middle-aged cynomolgous monkeys.

I didn’t believe this result when I first read it. China has immense science fraud problems and the effect seems much too big. Published in Cell, but not, fwiw, in Nature or Science. I still think it’s too big an effect but if true it’s kind of Nobel gimme.

Link. I like to wait until April for macOS updates. I always hit the bugs.

Link. European bats are much less effected and American bats are evolving resistant traits. In the meanwhile researchers have identified several effective mitigations.

Link. If you think of American gun culture as a component of a proto-religion it is easier to understand and perhaps manage.

Link. Similar to adolescent pruning of key neural networks. Suggests optimizing or locking-in some bonding behaviors that favor infant survival. (But may decrease maternal survival. )

“By the ninth week of gestation, 80 percent of 400 brain areas analyzed showed decreases in gray matter volume and cortical thickness that continued through pregnancy, with areas shrinking by 4 percent on average. Change was particularly pronounced in the default mode network, which is instrumental in perceiving other people’s feelings and perspectives.”

Link. COVID accelerated this science. We will know more within a year. (mRNA original use case was cancer, not COVID)

Link. Reminiscent of Xerox and the mouse. Great business school case.

Link. Nothing prepared me for the 20s as well as my childhood years wasted on 1970s science fiction.

“The group proposed that countries set up A.I. safety authorities to register the A.I. systems within their borders…

…All three are winners of the Turing Award”

Link. If we have learned anything in the past decade it is that many people are above the law.

Link. I enjoyed this overview.

Link. Better to invest malware resources elsewhere?

Link. Costa Rica fears Mexican narco-terrorism.

Link. If you are someone who weeps every time they have to use #%^# Photos.mac this helps.

If Apple made PhotoKit less half-assed Houdah could replace all the decrepit photo asset management of Apple’s turd.

Link. Thanks Joe!

Link. Xi might be dimmer than Trump though.

Link. We need an SLR (are there any left?) to support JPEG-XL.

Link. “Palestinians interviewed by The New York Times expressed frustration with Hamas, particularly over its practice of embedding in civilian areas”

“intelligence intercepts show that Hamas leaders have ordered their fighters to kill hostages if it appeared that Israeli troops were moving in and could potentially rescue them”

Link. I’ve read that while o1-preview is better at complex problems it tends to confabulate more. The good news is that at our current rate of improvement the AI impact will be more of a vast economic disruption precipitating a brewing “mass disability” socioeconomic crisis rather than the end of humanity. At least for the next 10 years.

Link. “Israeli drones attacked Syrian troops who rushed to the scene”

Link. PBI is the Chinese Lib.

Link. “That’s ominous, but more importantly Pinboard is a one person show and that person is no longer responding to support emails. Maciej is no longer active on social media that I know of.”

PS. This post was authored and shared from Pinboard. Irony is eternal.

Link. OpenAI’s o1-preview.

Link. “The Ca’ Granda crypt includes some 2.9 million bones distributed among 14 brick-lined chambers…

The remains of two people showed evidence of cocaine ingestion”

Link. It might suggest that they did not like each other … and genetically this isn’t a great strategy. It might have been a part of why the Neanderthal did not survive. But OTOH, sapiens was having a day …

Link. Viruses are the real problem solvers. (Any resemblance to machine learning mechanisms is not at all coincidental.)

Link. “By creating the illusion of complete autonomy, companies can fuel interest in their technology and raise the billions of dollars they need to build a viable robot taxi service.”

They use remote monitors. Far from commercially viable. But like Siri. Musk takes this approach to an extreme

Link. I was a Peak Oil fanboy 20y ago. But now investors are concerned we have too much oil. If true more excitement awaits.

Link. A map of overlapping lives of the famous. Catnip for me. #history

Link. Noah’s proposals to jump to 2001 levels all seem persuasive from a distance. He skirts Poland’s political and demographic issues.

Link. THE only good essay on American school shootings I have ever read. From their book.

(Useful writing is most often done by domain experts with editor assistance. Journalists rarely have time to do useful writing on hard topics. Publishes in a local digital news service.)

Link. This is weird and needs confirmation. It’s not clear the high altitude microorganisms are disease related.

Link. This is not thought to be due to COVID directly, but rather a general stress response. Under conditions of high stress human adolescent brains may convert to adults mode faster than usual. What’s new is that the conversion is more marked in girls than boys and it’s associated with anxiety disorders in girls. It’s easy to imagine this is a primate adaptive response.

Link. America needs two sane parties. One sane party is not enough.

Link. I dug this up because I believe 1960s progressive-liberal “blank slate” ideology was one of the great intellectual errors of the left.

It was a reaction to early 20th century eugenics and to ongoing deep and pervasive racism. But it led to a misplaced focus on college for all and fed into disastrous 1990s trade policies. It was also really dumb.

Link. It was about 25% a few years ago. Cigarette smoking now 1.6%. Many popular nicotine vapes are illegal Chinese products sold illegally.

(NYT confuses hemp derived/ synthetic delta-8 THC sold to teens in vape form with cannabis delta-9)

Link. Killer drones whir gently though the school corridors, small passages ease them by the blast door. Every word, gesture and motion is monitored. Those who have passed the four tier security cordon are tagged and routed.

Link. Good to know.

Link. Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin.

“paid at least $8.7 million to the top three influencers, who were not named but who appear to be Mr. Rubin, Mr. Pool and Mr. Johnson”

Link. Many surprises here.

Link. I stopped reading at this point. For me this a show-stopper. It’s huge lock-in for a now subscription app. I’ll stick with Reeder Classic and look for alternatives.

Link. “ …. Puppeteer’s … Node-based scripts that could scrape iCalendar feeds from Python-resistant web calendars”

Even if you dread calendars the the tech Jon uses is worth the read.

Link. A weakness Trump understands well. Journalists are human and humans will believe most anything if it is repeated frequently and “sincerely”.

Link. The ending was expected; the abrupt termination of adoptions in progress is a classic Xi asshole move.

Link. “Most … assembled locally, with parts imported cheaply from China under a no-tariff policy”.

Supposedly under 110 lbs, cost about $700US, commonly used by mothers to take children to school. Many difficult legal and regulatory issues.

Link. Makes it very unlikely cell phone or AirPod use increases glioma risk.