https://openai.com/index/introducing-4o-image-generation/
It’s a marketing post but with some solid discussions and interesting examples.
“collapse followed quickly after the leaders of these polities inexplicably and suddenly abandoned principles and practices that had successfully underpinned state-building and social stability”
https://www.nationofchange.org/2024/09/04/political-collapse-lessons-from-fallen-empires/
“China’s Ming Dynasty, the South Asian Mughal Empire, the High Roman Empire, and Renaissance Venice … the loss of citizen confidence in the leadership can trigger an unexpected unwinding of the societal threads that underpin inclusive forms of cooperation and devotion to a governing system designed to realize common good”
This topic needs more research but the short paper reminds us great empires can collapse very quickly for no obvious reason. Civilization is not a very stable condition.
FDA vaccine scientist-administrator: RFK “wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/28/rfk-jr-fda-vaccine-scientist-peter-marks/
The GOP won its war on science. They will be hated.
The Defiance of Coyotes.
https://www.bannedinyourstate.com/p/the-defiance-of-coyotes
Lovely writing – with the subtext of life beneath Musk. We have bold coyotes in our city. They demand respect. Even mid-day doing the territory rounds.
Don’t be a snowflake. Be the coyote.
The Vance quote that infuriates Trump: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/us/signal-leak-vance-trump.html
Trump does not like being reminded that he is cognitively limited. He knows Vance looks down on him. The hate is strong in them.
From Signal to Arendt to falsifiability.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/atlantic-releases-signal-thread
Arendt of course: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
“Laurene Powell Jobs is a stalwart and brave publisher at a time when cowardice rules the day.”
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/the-atlantic-has-an-owner-committed-to-the-cause
Good comment that Bezos would have blocked WaPo publication.
“excluding folders and volumes from Spotlight indexing … will exclude those apps from LaunchServices’ list”
https://eclecticlight.co/2025/03/27/controlling-launchservices-in-macos-sequoia/
macOS has too many weird dependencies.
“LaunchServices now tries to include all apps in accessible volumes and folders.”
I think this is pre-Mojave.
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools …”
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/trump-has-surrounded-himself-with-idiots
RFK. Hegseth. Gabbard. Musk.
“Musk is incompetent and evil”
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/incompetent-or-evil-a-false-dichotomy
Musk sees the bigger picture. One where people are too small to see and mundane morality is a weakness.
“myelin levels increased but not all the way back to normal; two months later, myelin levels finally reached their pre-marathon baseline”
https://gizmodo.com/something-strange-happens-to-brains-during-a-marathon-2000580554
As also seen in animal studies — under extreme exercise brains feed off the lipids in myelin. We don’t know if this is good, fine, or not great.
“The CIA director posted an active undercover intelligence officer’s name in the group chat … “
https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/six-short-thoughts-on-the-most-insane-trump-story-of-all-time
Good list of observations.
Imagine all the stupid shit they do where they don’t give a journalist the scoop of a lifetime.
“Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m”
Everyone has heard this, but I wanted to record for my records.
Evolving the Ability to Evolve Faster
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/evolving-ability-evolve
“the fundamental logic of natural selection is indifferent to level of organization or timescale, and provided that variation, reproduction, and heredity exist, selection can shape traits that are adaptive at levels beyond the individual”
Antivaxxer wealth: “Mercola as a “quack tycoon” since a news report in 2019 revealed his net worth to be north of $100 million”
Ally of JFK. There is *great* opportunity in scamming the vulnerable. I wonder if most of his victims are mostly MAGA.
Good comparison to the fall of Prasad. These people often believe. And they tend to fall deeper and deeper into delusion.
Ripping into Paul Weiss, first among cowards.
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/cowardice-and-capitulation-stain
No courage. No honor.
DeepSeek, in its heart, yearns for a free China.
https://toosimple.substack.com/p/deepseek-play
Much is censored, but it is easy to see at heart DeepSeek “wants” Xi gone.
Ask it about “China Spring”.
A tariff primer.
Trump is delusional. Beyond that I was impressed by how many tariffs are already in place.
Cambodia: “Huione International Pay operates with the efficiency of a legitimate, professional bank…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/world/asia/cambodia-money-laundering-huione.html
“One company department handles customer relations for scammers and other illicit actors.”
Cambodia is a world center for scams.
“age-specific prevalence of dementia in this country [has] steadily declined for 40 years”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/health/dementia-rates-elderly.html
For 85-89yo prevalence 23% in 1905 cohort, 1915 18%, 1935 11%, 1945 8%.
Reasonable explanations include BP meds, statins, decreased smoking, better air quality. I’d add fewer lifetime head injuries — Boxing was extremely popular from 1920s to 1940s and nobody wore helmets at work or play. I suspect the incidence will stabilize at around 8% though.
“Individuals working with AI performed just as well as teams without AI”
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-cybernetic-teammate
“… 0.37 standard deviation improvement over the baseline … one person with AI could match what previously required two-person collaboration.”
These are *expert* users in an impressive controlled experiment at P&G.
iOS and iPadOS 18.2: “Apple has finally re-added the ability to swipe right to go back pretty much anywhere in the Photos app”
“Abundance”: book review. “America’s progressivism is uniquely libertarian in nature, and its conception of the proper role of the state is uniquely legalistic instead of bureaucratic.”
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/book-review-abundance
I agree with some of Smith’s criticisms. He loses the thread when he gets into class resentment.
“the two populations that gave rise to us (one of which gave rise to the Neanderthals and Denisovans)”
https://arutherford.substack.com/p/human-evolution-a-one-million-year
Homo erectus? Something we haven’t identified?
“For the spring equinox, the equilux usually happens a few days before”
Science essay on reasoning models.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw5211
I finally understand why DeepSeek training was cheaper.
“anyone who posts or reposts photos from Mr. Musk’s PayPal days will be prosecuted for terrorism”
Dem law firm obeys illegal Trump EO.
Paul, Weiss: “one of three law firms targeted by President Trump as part of his retribution campaign”
In an earthquake you find out what was built on sand.
Twin study – “two to three times higher of these cancers than people without tattoos at all”
https://gizmodo.com/tattoos-could-be-a-hidden-cancer-risk-study-of-twins-finds-2000578684
Correlation but a twin study so noteworthy. Skin cancer and lymphoma with larger tattoos. No mention of animal models and no obvious mechanism.
Crazy and moderately mad ideas to salvage outdoor ice skating on Ottawa’s Rideau canal.
Similar to making snow for Nordic skiing. “He’s dead Jim”
How unlocked iPhone are stolen on delivery.
Usual: bribe AT&T staff to get delivery times, get FedEx delivery schedule, etc.
“astronauts aboard the International Space Station receive no overtime, holiday or weekend pay”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/nasa-astronauts-overtime.html
I went to Caltech in part because I wanted to be an astronaut. There I met the competition. I became a physician instead :-).
They get usual gov travel per diem. It wasn’t bad in 1970.
“Cognitive Shuffling” for insomnia: words instead of counting sheep.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/well/mind/sleep-cognitive-shuffling.html
“You start by taking a random word — “Pluto,” for example. Then think of as many words as you can that begin with the same first letter, like so: “Plane, poodle, play, peaches.” When you run out of “P” words, you can move on to the next letter of your original word, which is “L,” and do the same thing: “Love, light, lemur, linger.” Take a second or so to visualize each word.”
Apple’s Passwords app was vulnerable to simple MITM attacks: “defaulted to opening password reset pages using the unencrypted protocol”
Fixed now. Don’t worry, they were careful about everything else.
As America abandons the foundations of governance Germany rises to defend them.
https://gwynnedyer.com/2025/keeping-the-rule-of-law-alive/
I hope Canada can join what will become the heir to NATO.
Duterte explained: oligarchs in conflict.
https://gwynnedyer.com/2025/unpunished-crimes/
The Philippines are quite a mess.
“There was no indication that Democrats in the two houses of Congress had unified around a goal they hoped to achieve as a result of the CR fight.”
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/schumer-cr-failure-explained
The Dems have no leader.
Backing Up and Restoring Apple Notes macOS SQLite database
https://appledispatch.substack.com/p/comprehensive-guide-for-backing-up-apple-notes
From 2024. I don’t know if this still works but Notes lack of local backup/restore is an issue. Even Contacts can create a local archive.
“In the span of five years, they grew Terrorgram from a handful of accounts into a community with hundreds of chats and channels focused on recruiting would-be terrorists,”
https://gizmodo.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-terrorgram-inside-a-global-online-hate-network-2000576764
Shirky’s “Cognitive surplus” was supposed to mean people would do good creative things with their brains.
Trump appointed a DOGE loyalist and SSA tech admin to lead SSA. Now Dudek is kind of stuck …
Dudek comes across as a foolish geek who is discovering that his hero and his boss are both batshit crazy.
DOGE: “… obscured the details of some new claims on its website … But The Times was still able to detect another batch of mistakes.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/us/politics/doge-errors-funding-grants-claims.html
I wonder if they really believes their own claims … and are now in panic mode.
Alfred Krupp, arms dealer to Hitler, was the Musk of his day.
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/elon-musk-the-accidental-sovereign
Krupp was much more competent though.
“DENND1B, along with four other genes they’d linked to canine obesity, were also implicated in human obesity”
Labradors are famous for overeating. Maybe the fat helps them survive cold water. Their metabolism is not the issue – and strict diet and exercise works.
It is time to toss your Amazon Echo.
Stop your brother printer from providing toner information to your Alexa device (dot, etc).
Brother printers provide ink status to any network device, so your Alexa device just has to ask. Turning this off is a bit convoluted; it’s simpler to get rid of any Amazon device from one’s home.
Update. The directions on this page are obsolete. I think it’s not possible to disabled this for an alexa device now.
Fukuyama on Dems after Trump: “if they could remember the Hamiltonian side of progressivism, there is an agenda waiting for them to take up, which has to do with building things.”
https://www.persuasion.community/p/our-hamiltonian-moment
If American democracy survives Dems will need a vision.
“American civil servants operate … detailed rules constraining their behavior, and are told to prioritize compliance with these rules rather than achieving concrete results for citizens.”
He is 100% correct about the fed bureaucracy. Congress screwed up the civil service.
“Since the Trump administration does not want to take up Hamilton’s legacy of good, competent, effective, uncorrupt government, the other side should claim it as their own.”
Wild: ‘Tooth-in-Eye’ Surgeries Restore Vision to Blind Patients
https://followmehere.com/2025/03/12/rare-tooth-in-eye-surgeries-restore-vision-to-blind-patients/
A completely bonkers idea that somehow works.
“Trump badly wants the Nobel Peace Prize, and he wants it NOW”
https://gwynnedyer.com/2025/maybe-a-short-ceasefire-maybe-not/
Trump is an empty shell now. A shell moved by Musk, Putin, and other lesser known names.
“sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/us/politics/trump-federal-workers-rehire-ruling.html
It is hilarious that the GOP once claimed a connection to honor or integrity. (They don’t now. Too laughable.)
How DOGE lied about savings
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/upshot/musk-doge-changes-deletions.html
No surprises but a handy reference. They lie on Trump scales.