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Links 9/17/2024

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Ig Nobel prizes 2024: The unexpected science that won this year New Scientist (Micael T)

Gorillas self-medicate with plants. We could soon use them for our own medicine ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin)

How the world’s smelliest fruit is making coffee more expensive BBC (Robin K). Durian is supposed to be delish. You see huge piles of them in outdoor markets. so they have to sell well.

Skyscraper Tsunami Unleashed by Seismic Anomaly Never Seen Before Science Alert (Chuck L)

‘All good here’: Last messages revealed from Titan submersible before implosion: Coast Guard ABC (Kevin W)

Why You Can Never Tune a Piano Open Culture (Micael T)

Why Are Bands Mysteriously Disappearing? YouTube (Micael T)

Cancer, the Master of Hijacking Eric Topol (Robin K)

#COVID-19

Climate/Environment

London saw a surprising benefit to fining high-polluting cars: More active kids Grist

It took 50,000 gallons of water to put out Tesla Semi fire in California, US agency says Associated Press (Kevin W)

Heavy flooding in central Europe has countries seek EU aid, funds Euractiv

AI ‘accelerating’ climate crisis, uses 30 times more energy than search engine: analyst South China Morning Post

Climate protesters block Dutch highway while police strike Reuters

China?

China needs ‘bazooka stimulus’ to hit growth target as economy slows across the board Fortune

China’s Fading Hunger for Grain Spells Trouble for World Farmers Bloomberg

Japan

Japan’s faith in US eroded by impolitic election rhetoric Asia Times (Kevin W)

Down Under

Albanese has a second chance with AUKUS Pearls and Irritations (Kevin W)

Africa

Sudanese city pounded as analysts report ‘unprecedented’ combat New Arab

Briton and Americans among 37 given death sentence over DRC coup attempt Guardian

Could Egypt and Ethiopia’s tensions escalate into a war? DW

South of the Border

In Honduras, Libertarians and Legal Claims Threaten to Bankrupt a Nation Inside Climate News

European Disunion

German Border Checks Take Effect as Tensions Over Migration Rise Bloomberg

Dresden bridge collapse symbolises German decay Unherd

Old Blighty

Starmer under pressure to distance UK from Italy’s hard-right immigration plans Guardian (Kevin W)

‘Our winter fuel payment goes into the holiday kitty’ BBC (Kevin W)

Gaza

Hamas official says despite war losses, terror group has recruited ‘new generations Times of Israel

New Not-So-Cold War

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians abroad reportedly want to renounce their citizenship Overton via machine translation (Micael T)

NATO Secretary General drops bomblets on way out​ the door Responsible Statecraft (Kevin W)

Ukraine war turns into Russian roulette Indian Punchline (Kevin W)

Seventy-two minutes to end the world George Galloway, YouTube. Ritter can be excitable but he has sources….

US Provoked the 1979 Russian Invasion of Afghanistan: Parallel to the Ukraine War? Antiwar.com (Kevin W)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Canadian military admits new sleeping bags are not suited to Canadian winters Guardian (Kevin W). Overly aggressive global warming estimates?

Bloomberg assessed likelihood of civil unrest in 20 largest economies in world… The US ranks third MSN

The Crumbling Nuclear Order Foreign Affairs

Second Trump Assassination Attempt

Would-be Trump assassin exploited security hole that Secret Service has known about for years — and the pictures prove it New York Post

Kamala

Kamala Harris helped shut down Backpage.com. Sex workers are still feeling the fallout. Politico

2024

Inflation has slowed, but the economy remains a big issue for voters in picking a president Kansas Reflector (Robin K)

Pennsylvania court rejects Cornel West’s bid to get on ballot and clears way for mail voting Associated Press

Police State Watch

This Is What Happens When We Flood the Subway System With Police Intercept

Our No Longer Free Press

Some Truth Bombs At the UN Craig Murray

Lawsuit Takes on Federal Campaign to Silence Vaccine Injury Claims Reclaim the Net (Micael T)

Elon’s Brazilian Corporate Law Surprise Adam Levitin, Credit Slips

Mr. Market Gets What He Wants

It’s a big week for central banks around the world, with a slew of rate moves on the table CNBC

AI

Chat GPT’s new O1 model escaped its environment to complete “impossible” hacking task — should we be concerned? ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin)

Nvidia CEO: “We can’t do computer graphics anymore without artificial intelligence” TechSpot (Kevin W)

Class Warfare

A quarter of young adults don’t plan to have kids, citing financial woes as fertility crisis escalates Fox

Security guard at Boeing draws a gun in altercation with picket Seattle Times

Radhika Desai’s Marxist lens illuminates the path to a post-capitalist future Morning Star (Robin K)

Antidote du jour. Tracie H: “The San Diego Botanic Gardens in Encinitas California has a lovely little pond that attracts these beauties.”

And a bonus (Robin K):

A second bonus (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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152 comments

    1. Jane

      Nationwide school bond’s “reverse amortization schedule,” with ongoing issuance of new instruments that never can or will be paid off. Often dumped in your pension.

      Have home appraisers illegally overvalued properties to raise property tax income for local municipalities?

      https://youtu.be/YsTaASeXWzo?t=791

    2. Betty

      Leaf, thanks so much for the link. For us in NYC, financialization and de-intellectualism came full force when the city went bankrupt in the 1970s. Just as city students fought back higher college costs, winning “open admissions,” city colleges cut back on full time faculty. I hope Dr. Hudson will expand his thoughts to an analysis that includes the public sector (city and state).

  2. Terry Flynn

    Tuning a piano has always fascinated me (as a UK Associated Board Grade 8 pianist and violinist). When doing mathematics (both single subject and further) at A level (age 16-18) I simplistically thought that equal temperament (based on a simple power series of 1/12ths) was all you needed to tune a piano.

    These days there are various YouTubers that debunk that – and some of them even say it in ways I “get” due to my knowledge of upper harmonics etc that can be exploited (or not) when playing other instruments like the violin. It gets REALLY insteresting when you consider how a string section of an orchestra plays (no frets remember) when playing alone, compared to when playing as part of a wider ensemble that has fixed frequencies (like, say, a piano concerto). I’m not certain, but I’ve strongly suspected that Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations sounds so “attractive” partly because this strings heavy piece causes the players to use natural temperament for the written key, NOT what they’d do with instruments that do not have the ability to adjust the frequencies (like a piano). I freely admit some of the stuff goes above my head but I did understand that piano tuning is an art. If it were a science we could use a simple PC to match powers of 1/12 and do away with the human.

    If you want a fun experiment in how a full orchestra uses something approximating equal temperament but which illustrates how “wrong” this approximation can sound then I suggest you listen to the final chord in the first phrase of Beethoven’s 6th *in isolation* after having got the key of C in your mind – NOT F, the key the first movement is written in. Sounds like a kids’ orchestra due to sounding so out of tune!

    1. Paul Jonker-Hoffren

      I think for me (as a passionate amateur musician) the video to summarize this issue best is the one below by Adam Neely.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZftrA-aCa4&t=365s

      Alternative tunings are a real rabbit hole. I am also fascinated by the Indonesian gamelan orchestras, because there is a slight tuning difference in the two parts of the instrument, which is somehow crazy. But synesthetic me likes the colorfulness of that music!

      1. Terry Flynn

        Thanks. I think I must have got distracted by something because that video seems to be one I watched a few minutes of but didn’t complete, so it’s good that I now have a reminder to watch the rest.

        David Willcocks conducted the Bach Choir in London and I sang in it for 2 years in mid 1990s. I remember how the handful of singers with perfect pitch would go APE when he decided to transpose a piece up or down a tone. I began to understand their almost physical pain at reconciling the music on the page with what they had to sing. Thankfully I was on the musical sweet spot: I could perfectly sing A 440 to tune my violin or sing but I never had perfect pitch. I MUST have had 440 in my “learnt” memory because after a decade of not playing I discovered I’m off :(

        Going back to the original subject, my Dad did amateur experiments with mum (when they were part of a band) to see to what extent my mum “naturally” sang in a particular temperament. His findings were interesting and led me to the Beethoven thing I refer to above.

        1. Carolinian

          Interesting discussion for even this non musician. I had an uncle who was a piano tuner and love music but only as a listener. Apparently Joni Mitchell used special tuning for her guitar which may be the secret appeal of those early songs–even more than the inventive lyrics.

          1. Terry Flynn

            Tuning gets into REALLY deep issues of art and/or science. My Dad (who is skilled in guitar) got into pedal steel guitar in the 70s to do some of the songs their band did.

            We still have discussions where he struggles to explain what he did to “make a song work” due to key changes and whatnot. His high degree of control over exact tone made it (ironically) difficult for him to explain exactly what he did to ensure it sounded right.

            I’m fairly sure people like Joni Mitchell had tricks up their sleeves that gave them “that special edge” too – we have forced ourselves into a 1/12 scale when school mathematics can illustrate that this doesn’t “fit” the frequencies humans find most attractive. Thus, being able to “skew stuff” becomes a key skill and can make a good song glorious. People who know little or nothing about music can recognise this without being able to explain why.

          2. playon

            Joni tuned her guitar to various tunings, mostly “open” tunings where the un-fretted strings form a chord. There are many such tunings for the guitar.

            I have to take issue with this piece which seems poorly researched. Guitars also can never be properly tuned, everything is a compromise.

            1. playon

              In my experience the problem with the guitar seems to be the thirds (3rd note of the major scale). I believe in Turkish music they use three different thirds(!) depending on the musical context.

              1. marku52

                A common “repair” to this in popular music is the “blue” note. It’s between the minor third and the major third. You can’t play a blues solo on the guitar without bending into it. It gets sung too, of course.

      2. El Slobbo

        In support of that youtube, I once read an essay by Pablo Casals in which he lamented that some musicians are too influenced by the well-tempered scale and end up thinking that F# is the same thing as G♭, whereas he knew violinists who could make the difference between F# and G♭ greater than the difference between F and F#, or G and G♭.

    2. Stephen V

      Very much appreciate this as one who is re-learning how to sing as an oldster and who enjoys conversing with young homeschoolers who play piano. Will run this by my professional pianist / math tutor friend!

      1. Terry Flynn

        You’re welcome. Though I’ll be the first to say I’ve been humbled by some YouTubers who have made me question some stuff I previously thought was “solved by the maths” etc so I consider this whole subject to be one I need “continuing professional development” courses on ;)

        1. JMH

          I sincerely wish I understood what you people are talking about. It is so far beyond my understanding of music on any level that I can only envy the talent and knowledge and intuition that it displays

          1. doily

            A simple rule to follow, assuming you know the key or mode you are in at the moment and your instrument allows it (pianos don’t): play your sharps sharp and your flats flat.

    4. Safety First

      You should try classical guitar some time. For example, if you tune to a drop-D (sixth string dropped from E to D), you will always be out of tune unless you tune to noticeably less than the mathematical value your tuner is spitting out at you. And on some guitars – certainly on mine – you need to keep the third string a just a little out of tune, so that when you play second-string notes on the third string (high up on the fretboard), the intonation matches.

      It’s not quite like tuning a piano, which I could never, ever do, but it is one of those things that “just works”, and that a computer would probably struggle with, especially since every single guitar is a little different in how much out of tune it needs to be when in drop-D.

      1. Terry Flynn

        Thanks! That’s the kind of thing my Dad understands implicitly but a dolt/too-ingrained-in-stuff person like me needs that kind of instruction to “get”.

      2. playon

        It’s not just dropped-D tuning that is a problem on the guitar, I think what you are describing it the tendency of a slack string to play sharp.

        1. marku52

          that can happen if the nut is cut too high. The first couple of fretted notes will come out sharp due to the extra tension. The effect goes away as you ascend the neck.
          “amateur luthier/repair person”

    5. wuzzy

      My tuner has been experimenting with a well temperament attributed to Bach. Not equal but each key has it’s own flavor.

      Yesterday by sheer coincidence I was reading Hans Bischoff’s preface to the Well Tempered Clavier. Discussing his primary source, the Wagener-Volkmann autograph, he says: “Since it found its way into the Danube, where it remained for some time, some of the characters in the handwriting have faded”.

      The great AI google had no information on why it was in the river. Only a reference to my source. Are there any scholars out there who can tell us more?

    7. Late Introvert

      Great discussion. Paging one La Monte Young. I guess there is a newly recorded and revised version of The Well-Tuned Piano on Bandcamp. I have the old bootleg. Mesmerizing stuff.

    8. Adam Eran

      The point of even temperament is that music can modulate to different keys without distortion. Reportedly Bach lived in a time when organs couldn’t play certain keys, say F#, without experiencing “wolf tones” (howls of harmonic clashes if the organist modulated to that key).

      The “transformation” available through rhythmic or melodic changes is augmented by the transformation of key changes in Western, diatonic music. The “Well Tempered Clavier” is one collection promoting such key change modulation as what thrills in music. Lots of pop (e.g. Joni Mitchel) is a single key, although even she sang/played more complex tunes.

      The tuning of the guitar won’t bypass this harmonic limitation as long as it has standard frets. Making the harmonics come out exactly on the other chord tones is impossible with standard fret boards, just as the video portrays.

      That said, there are other musical traditions, even in the west (Virgil Partch? Sitar music?) that stick to a single key or try to bypass the 12-tone limitation. There are also 12-tone musical compositions that avoid the concept of key entirely (Arnold Schönberg).

    9. Not Qualified to Comment

      I’m no musician and wouldn’t know an F-sharp if it bit me, but a professional musician once told me that a completely unpredicable factor is/are the harmonics of the hall/chamber the instrument is being played in. Even the size and distribution of the audience can affect this.
      The player him/herself is usually unaware of this as they are listening to the note/chord they are producing only a few inches from their ear, but resonances/interplay of echoes/muffling of certain frequencies can noticeably affect what listeners in difference parts of an auditorium actually hear – hence inter alia the Royal Albert Hall’s mushrooms. Thus the tuning particularly of a solo instrument should take the acoustics of the particular venue into account rather than aim at ‘purity’.

      This seems to me to explain the very noticeable difference between the music produced by a professional orchestra, and the sound of the same piece programmed into a computer and ‘played’ through loudspeakers.

      1. Late Introvert

        Notice how Indian Classical musicians spend a fair amount of time time tuning up to each other and the room, for example.

      2. Terry Flynn

        I would add to this that the ability to which you as the performer can hear your fellow performer will affect the degree to which you adjust your pitch etc (if you are able to).

        First time I sang in Birmingham Symphony Hall I was terrified/amazed. It was the first UK concert hall to be built according to designs that replicated the old shoebox shape rather than the multipurpose maximum capacity “segment of a pie” shape that became ubiquitous in the 20th century. The first (pilot?) attempt to return to this pre 20th century design was IIRC a concert hall in Texas and it worked very well.

        In Brum hall, you feel like you can be heard by the audience and have far less connection to your fellow singers. I wish I lived nearer so as to hear more classical pieces performed there.

      3. Captain Obvious

        This seems to me to explain the very noticeable difference between the music produced by a professional orchestra, and the sound of the same piece programmed into a computer and ‘played’ through loudspeakers.

        Not really. If you had a loudspeaker and someone playing an acoustic instrument behind you, would you be able to tell the difference? Of course. It’s not because of the room acoustics (that is a constant in this experiment), but because of the specifics of sound generation and the acoustic properties of the instrument (and the speakerbox) itself. Speaker membrane is only approximating sound of the piano strings, just like the imitation vanilla flavour approximates what real vanilla beans taste like.

  3. The Rev Kev

    ‘Insider Paper
    @TheInsiderPaper
    BREAKING: A massive pipeline fire shooting a towering pillar of flame over suburban Houston, Texas’

    Apparently an SUV drove through a fence and struck a major valve causing that fire. The vehicle – and presumably the driver – were incinerated but no word yet if it was a accident or deliberate. The radiant heat is ferocious coming from that fire causing people to evacuate-

    https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/16/us/texas-pipeline-fire/index.html

    1. Expat2uruguay

      This Duo is becoming my favorite commentary of things political, cultural, and otherwise in the US! The video really gets off to a slow start and spends some time reacting to Rachel Maddow and MSNBC coverage of the assassination attempt.

      @1:47:35 Walter Kern gives his very reasonable analysis starting with the question, do I see Donald Trump as the Vanguard of any movement that is even faintly institutionally capable of making these mass changes? [Changes alluded to by the Democratic party, such as dictatorship and violent overthrow] I found the clearness and reasonableness of his response very comforting. Walter Kirn says a lot of things that would be useful for trying to talk to a TDS victim.

  6. Jeff W

    “Durian is supposed to be delish.”

    It is actually—sweet and custardy. (Rambutan and mangosteen, which are kind of like lychee, are delish, too.)

    1. SocalJimObjects

      I am part of the durian choir and I approve of this message. My family back at home grow our own durian trees, so we are never lacking for the so called “tropical fruit king”, although in all fairness ours can’t be considered top grade durians. In Singapore, you can visit durian cafes for a tasting of various types from the region from the most expensive to the “economical”, and the fruit has been incorporated by locals into various sweets including cakes and pastries, anyone interested in the later should pay a visit to Goodwood Park Hotel in the vicinity of Singapore’s premier shopping district.

      Referring back to the article, why not both? In Malaysia, you can buy durian flavored instant coffee packs and the MyCafe brand is especially delicious.

      1. Mark Gisleson

        If you hold your breath, it tastes great. If you smell it first, it’s very hard to eat. Like a muskmelon with more umami.

    4. What? No!

      Back in the day we were renting 1/2 a house and out of nowhere we couldn’t figure out why the place reeked of baked diapers & onions. The other renter had returned from overseas with a gift for their mum.

      1. zach

        My new favorite thing to do, is scroll to the bottom of the comments, and read them in reverse.

        Baked diapers and onions, out of context, oh man I’m surprised I didn’t end up with a dirty diaper myself.

    5. Bugs

      Yeah I love it but not fresh out of the rind but in a smoothie or even better durian ice cream omg

      Yves, you’re smack in the middle of durian land, you gotta eat some! Tell us about your conversion to Durianism after lol

    1. The Rev Kev

      Just now had a thought. Insurance companies are pulling out of places like California because they have to keep on paying out for houses burned down in more frequent fires, right? If the weather starts going all over the place in farming regions, what happens if some major insurance companies decide to pull out of insuring farmer’s crops. I’m not a farmer but I am going to assume that farmers have to insure their crops due to there being so many variables in that profession. Or is insurance only a minor consideration?

      1. ajc

        I’m not an expert, but I think all crop insurance is backstopped by the feds via the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. Basically they’ve created a public-private ‘partnership’ so our politicians’ donors can wet their beaks being brokers for what was initially a federal program. There may be true independent insurers but no one in my rural zone uses them. Most of the farms round here were using the FCIC back in the day before being ‘migrated’ to ‘more efficient’ – and more expensive – private insurance.

        If the losses become untenable for insurers my guess is that it would revert to being a pure government scheme, much like flood insurance has for many areas where private insurance dare not tread.

      2. JTMcPhee

        Rings a bell about something Michael Hudson and David Graeber illuminated, on how early “civilizations” covered the social risks of crop failures. No financialized “insurance products” that have administration overhead and profit built in, rather a least-cost sharing of risk via the various social mechanisms including Jubilees that these gentlemen elucidate.

        I’m not smart enough to offer a path to a homeostatic “genteel sufficiency” that might persist over time in the face of constant anti-social pressures of greedy, glory and dominion/domination. Kind of doubt that anything of the sort would face any other fate than being strangled in its crib…

      3. farmboy

        the FCIC subsidizes up to 70% of a producers crop insurance premium with up to 2x the price coverage for organic. I couldn’t farm without it and most grain farmers are the same, even in high production corn areas like Iowa because there is price protection too.
        At the end of the 1 hr long vide, they detail how the disaster playing out in Brazil now, with deforestation affecting monsoonal rains, corn, soybeans, coffee, sugar, orange supplies will be adversely affected FOR YEARS.

        1. Bruce F

          Hi farmboy,
          I have a different experience with organic insurance. I’m an organic row crop/small grain farmer and after 9 years of looking haven’t been able to find any policy where the payout will do much more than insure against total crop failure (which I’ve never had), e.g. even if I get 60 bushel corn (county average for the chemical guys is 140 bu/a) I would still come out ahead after subtracting the insurance premium.

          Bottom line for all my crops – peas, beans, wheat, oats, corn – is that I’m “forced” to self insure as there isn’t any product that makes any kind of economic sense for me. On top of that, due to my certification process, I’m held to the (rightful) crop rotation policy that all conventional farmers who get the 2/3 crop insurance subsidy from FSA don’t actually follow.
          What a world. : )

  8. The Rev Kev

    “Dresden bridge collapse symbolises German decay”

    Just goes to show you that it is not only America that has to worry about bridges collapsing. But like in America, you find the same root causes. Not only under-investing in infrastructure and trying to live off the accomplishments of earlier generations but cutting back on maintenance and ignoring problems. In short, Neoliberalism. It is only luck that that bridge collapsed at 3 in the morning and not when it had a full load of traffic in the daytime. As it is when that bridge went down, it not only cut water pipelines but also ‘In addition, due to the bursting of two large district heating pipes, we have the problem that the supply of hot water has come to a complete standstill in the entire state capital of Dresden.’

    https://www.rt.com/news/603881-dresden-bridge-collapse-videos/

    But hey, look at all the money that they saved on maintenance over the years. /sarc

    1. Terry Flynn

      Anecdotally, former German colleagues were telling me up to 10 years ago that they knew which autobahns they could *actually* do 100+ MPH speeds and which they couldn’t (due to bad maintenance and hence potholes).

      Plus I think I’ve already referred to the case of my Dutch collaborators around that time who made jokes about the poor state/reliability of the trains that originated in Germany compared to the ones that were part of “entirely intra-Netherlands routes/operators”.

      1. gk

        Yes. There were German trains that went to destinations inside Switzerland. No you have to change to Swiss trains at the border as the delayed trains screw up the Swiss scheduling.

    2. PlutoniumKun

      The Dresden bridge was commissioned in 1971 – communist era. Its a stressed concrete structure and while generally very strong, a known problem with these bridges is that the steel cores are hidden from direct examination and so its very difficult to identify problems until… well, until the bridge collapses. Unlike steel bridges precast concrete rarely give any warning before failure. Very often the causes of damage are complex interactions between the chemical composition of the concrete and the steel cores. Given how ubiquitous concrete is as a material its surprising how little we really know about its chemistry. I was recently pouring over the surveyors report for a family members new house and fell down the rabbit hole of mica and pyrite issues with concrete – some rare interactions in the specific source of sand for the region caused endless problems 15-20 years after the houses were built in the north-west of Ireland. Despite years of work they still haven’t quite worked out the precise chemistry of what went wrong, all they know is that a lot of houses are falling down. This is one reason why 20 years old houses in Donegal are very cheap….

      My completely uninformed guess of what happened to that bridge is that there was no clear transfer of technical information after German re-unification, so there was a certain degree of guesswork involved in assuming that all was well beneath the concrete surface. The photos of the bridge don’t reveal any obvious indicators of concrete decay, so it looks like it was a failure of the stressed steel core – the failure seems to have been a clean snap of one of the cantilever structures. Steel cores can rot away completely out of sight.

      Bridge failures are surprisingly common – they usually don’t hit the news as there are usually pre-indicators, so fatalities are relatively rare. Usually the main result is years of litigation between the various parties, always more complicated when construction was decades past. The recent terrible weather has led to a number of major failures in Europe, Vietnam and China. At least 38 died in a failure in China in July. China loses bridges at a rate of around 1 a month historically (excluding earthquakes). Statistically, the long span ones are the most likely to fail. Years back I worked for a company that did extensive railway and bridge work in China – the engineers I talked to said the chief problem (they were, to put it mildly, not very happy with the results) was poor quality control of concrete, but the outcomes were not likely to be seen for many years.

      1. Expat2uruguay

        I was a construction inspector on the new San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. There are cables holding that bridge up that are encased in concrete and there are longs spans. Those steel cables spent months exposed to rainwater (that would have contained sea salt because of its proximity to the ocean) before they were encased in the concrete pumped into the ducts containing the cables. I saw this, and I reported on it constantly, but nobody at caltrans cared. That is not a safe bridge in my opinion, and it matters because it is so crucial to the economy of that region. I loved being a civil engineer, and I loved working on Bridges, but after spending 15 years reviewing the design of that project and a few months as a bridge inspector during construction, I came to hate it all. Bitterly, expat2uruguay

        1. upstater

          NY sues Cuomo Bridge builders over allegedly faulty cables

          The New York State Thruway Authority’s lawsuit says some stay cable anchors have to be retrofitted only six years after the $4 billion span opened.
          …
          The $4 billion, two-span cable-stayed span, which replaced the Tappan Zee Bridge, opened six years ago after delays and legal wrangling. Now 61 of the new bridge’s 192 stay cables need to be retrofitted, according to the Authority.
          …
          The team of design builders, Tappan Zee Constructors, is made up of Irving, Texas-based Fluor Enterprises; the American Bridge Co. headquartered in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania; Granite Construction Northeast of Watsonville, California; and Traylor Bros., which is based in Evansville, Indiana.

        2. jrkrideau

          But that is insane! It will go down and probably not all that long form now. I’d suggest Caltrans get ready for maslaughter or negligent homicide charges. I’d expect that in my country.

          1. JBird4049

            As a Californian, I do not believe that anyone in Caltrans will personally face any consequences, which is why the process for replacing for the old Bay Bridge after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake has been a mess. Reading about it as it happened made me understand just how much of a mess the state government is.

      1. Trees&Trunks

        I guess one reason is that the architects in the ancient Greece and Roman empire were personally liable, and if memory serves me well, even their children for the construction and punished for poor work, i.e., houses and bridges falling down.

        How about reintroducing that in the West?

        2. Henry Moon Pie

          I didn’t know about that law in ancient Greece or Rome, but I am familiar with an even older version in the Code of Hammurabi:

          229 If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.

          230. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death.

          231. If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave to the owner of the house.

          232. If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own means.

        3. JP

          No, it’s because the Roman bridge is a purely compressive structure. There are no steel elements to corrode. The structure does not rely on any tensile elements.

          That would not work for the long spans typically needed for modern bridges. There are current fixes such as the use of coated steel and of metakeolin to resist water intrusion. Concrete chemistry has much improved in the last 20 years. Never the less it requires attention to detail. If the inspector does not have the knowledge the contractor will pass him on the right and most public works go to the lowest bidder.

      2. gk

        A section of the Aurelian walls collapsed about 20 years ago. The archeologists who evaluated it said that the reason it collapsed was that it wasn’t built properly. It only lasted a mere 2,000 years.

      3. AG

        Friend of mine is from Trier with both parents architects. He is SOOOO proud of that bridge and the Roman architectural heritage there. He mentions it at least once whenever we speak.

          1. juno mas

            Not strong in what way? Compression, adhesion, surface durability/hardness?

            Since the Roman designs were all compressive porosity/density didn’t seem to be a concern.

          2. The Rev Kev

            You have roman docks that still survive today using their concrete. Try to do that with modern concrete and you would be lucky to get twenty year’s use before the sea would eat it away.

      5. Captain Obvious

        Anyone can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.

    4. gk

      No comparison with the Florida International University pedestrian bridge. It was supposed to a century and survive massive storms. It collapsed after 5 days.

      1. ChrisFromGA

        Note the “air quotes” – he is no moderate, but more likely a DC asset planted to try and restrain Bibi a bit. Now he’s been sidelined/neutered.

  10. The Rev Kev

    “Ig Nobel prizes 2024: The unexpected science that won this year”

    ‘The team discovered that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus.’

    So could it be that South Park may eventually be in the running for an Ig Nobel?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR82cJUipnQ (2:04 mins) – Definitely NSFW!

    1. GramSci

      I couldn’t access the New Scientist article, but I surmise that Sam Altman did not receive an igNobel.

      The degeneration of the Nobel Prizes was bad enough, but my loss of faith in the igNobels is not funny.

      1. chuck roast

        Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize was my primary lesson in ill-humor.

        It is funny though that festivities did not include an Ig Nobel in Economics. I’m sure that 2024 is redolent with papers on the minutest of marginalia that would qualify as guffawable (I’m giving this word to Donny). I’m guessing that it is the eminence grise that is the MIT Economics faculty that keeps this quantity of laughs in short supply.

        1. The Rev Kev

          I was done when they gave Obama one when he had just been elected and hadn’t done anything yet. And then to add insult to injury, when he accepted his prize proceeded to give a war speech.

        2. jrkrideau

          The The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not a Nobel Prize. It’s an attempt from the 1960’s(?) to give the discipline a bit of class.

    2. Terry Flynn

      Yet again I knew exactly what SP scene you’d be directing us to before clicking. I should get out more!

      But more seriously, recently I found myself saying on social media something like “We should retire the Simpsons did it first meme. Because in all the issues that matter to society, South Park tended to have done it first.” I stand by that. Maybe it is because I’m so close in age to Matt and Trey, but I have never ever not loved SP, from their ridiculous humour of early seasons, through their clever middle seasons “peak” which really skewered Walmart etc before any so-called expert academics did so, through to their recent “slightly inconsistent but with huge on-the-money critiques” of the current social order.

      1. Pat

        I’m not really a fan of South Park, but I am continually amazed that they actually do have their ears to the ground and their fingers on the pulse of American society and thought (far more than our political class). That they are smart enough to channel it into their show, and with far more good humor than I can call up deserves recognition and admiration.

        But I’m not sure it would exist without the Simpsons. It was much subtler about things, but their subversive mirror on our lives becoming part of American life paved the way for the much less subtle South Park. They are both amazing in seeing the ‘big picture’.

      2. Not Qualified to Comment

        I enjoyed the early Simpsons but couldn’t watch SP as the shrillness of the vocals sawed my nerves – followed Family Guy, though. But do wonder if such popular media doesn’t to some extent normalise and even sanitise what it aims to skewer – both Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin’s constantly forgiven and forgotten bull-in-a-chinashop approach both to their family and social relationships reinforces a stereotype better buried.

  11. GramSci

    Adam Levitin’s piece on Elon in Brasil was cute, but I’m especially intrigued by his link to Samson’s Toupee .

    Apparently U.S. Bank Holding Companies have neither regulatory responsibility nor liability for the crimes of their subsidiaries.

    We should have known, but Who Knew?

  12. Zagonostra

    >Seventy-two minutes to end the world George Galloway

    I listened/watched Scott Ritter on various programs giving his animated 72 minute doomsday scenario. I tried some self reflection on its impact on me. Panic, not so much for myself but family, outrage directed to misleadership/oligarchs, anger over insouciant public…etc. Settled on “just carry on.”

    What to do when an nebulous, generalized threat looms and you have no ability to make any actionable difference to the probability of the thereat destroying you and everyone else? Read articles on tuning a piano (fasinating article, I tried tuning a used piano, it’s still somewhat out of tune), or browse the internet for a used book, what to do when someone tells you just avoided the end of humanity? Just carry on your wayward soul [are bands disappearing because their lyrics are vacuous?]

    I close my eyes
    Only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
    All my dreams

    Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
    Dust in the wind
    All they are is dust in the wind

    Same old song
    Just a drop of water in an endless sea
    All we do
    Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

    Dust in the wind
    All we are is dust in the wind
    Oh

    Now, don’t hang on
    Nothin’ lasts forever but the earth and sky
    It slips away
    And all your money won’t another minute buy

    Dust in the wind
    All we are is dust in the wind
    (All we are is dust in the wind)
    Dust in the wind
    (Everything is dust in the wind)
    Everything is dust in the wind
    The wind

    [Kansas]

    1. ilsm

      Ritter’s source is pretty accurate in terms of horrific possibilities.

      I lived and worked on (several) “ground zero” in late 1970’s early 1980’s.

      Our consolation was: “the living will envy the dead”. The few that might be!

      Only progressive democrats could put the US back to the darkest days of the cold war!

      I am voting for the candidate who talked “no nukes” in the debate and they are trying to kill!

      Go on youtube and watch the closing minutes of Dr Strangelove..

      1. cfraenkel

        In Colorado Springs, the advice for when you hear the air raid sirens was to make sure you had a clear view of Cheyenne Mountain.

    2. Antifa

      The Western goal of ‘collapsing’ Russia so we can go get all their natural resources and sell them for profit seems to be inspired by the ongoing collapsing of the EU, of Britain, and of the American rules based order for this world.

      Which makes it an us-or-them situation to the neocons currently in charge of the West. War for resources becomes the only Hail Mary option, and no course but doubling down gets the West out of collapsing either slowly or more rapidly. Them or US means we have to escalate, all the way. No choice.

      It’s not hard to imagine the Russian back channels Ritter mentions told the White House and Pentagon that both those eminent buildings will be craters in the ground an hour after the announcement of letting Ukraine (NATO) shoot Storm Shadows deep into Russia.

      The power behind the Western political leaders does not seem to have any fear of a nuclear war. Like it’s as good a way for things to come apart as the other options.

  13. funemployed

    34.8 million C-dollars seems awfully steep for sleeping bags for the Canadian military, even really nice ones. I would personally be happy to place the next order for only a couple million of personal graft, thereby solving this pressing problem of national defense.

    1. The Rev Kev

      I still find it hard to believe that those sleeping bags passed testing before being issued to their troops. They’re lucky that half those troops did not end up on sick call as being too frozen to perform their duties. Yeah, like you said it has to be graft going on somewhere along the line. Maybe the Canadians can recoup some of their money by selling those sleeping bags to the Mexican military. They should be OK there.

          1. ilsm

            The test opinion supporting the F-35 system beyond low rate production report is classified: “burn before reading.”

            As delivered F-35 is not close to its specifications common to all pentagon purchases.

            A reason why pentagon cannot pass audit, the value of assets is undefined asset value are iffy.

          2. vao

            The developers of the F-35, respectively the purchasers of the sleeping bags,

            1) shrugged and simply ignored the testing phase (because everybody is pressing for rapid deliveries and IBGYBG when the manure hits the rotor anyway);

            2) or performed tests perfunctorily with the firm intent of wasting as little time as possible with that (because their commission from the suppliers should not be delayed further);

            3) or avoided testing because their intimate knowledge of the product informed them it would not pass any reasonable tests (and they must have time to move to another, possibly greener, pasture because blame would always fall on them anyway);

            4) or, what I am increasingly suspecting, earnestly designed completely inadequate tests (because they have no skills and no experience on how to design and perform tests in the first place).

            In other words: it can be negligence or malice, but I fear it is increasingly also loss of competence and know-how.

            As another case, consider the German Puma IFV: officially in service since 2015, 18 out of 18 failed in manoeuvers in 2022. This should never have happened, and of course the vehicle underwent tests — but if the testers do not have the required know-how, then their tests were deficient in the first place.

        2. jrkrideau

          I was going to mention that. Department of National Defense procurement has been a total mess for years, not helped by absolutely blindingly stupid political interference at times. (Hi Peter).

          From my outsider’s prospective, I don’t know which boondoggle is incompetence and which in bribery I “think” it is an inspired mixture of both, mainly incompetence because we lack the administrative ability to spend the money appropriated but bribery on some lucrative contracts.

          I worked with a retired colonel with a rather distinguished record. On day I mentioned that one of the reasons Prime Minister Chretien underfunded DND is that he claimed that they were all crooks at DND HQ. Bill agreed immediately.

          I have been wondering why we are buying the F-35’s. The Gov’t succumbed to US pressure at Cabinet level or it was a large enough bribe to a few generals?

  15. eg

    “The Crumbling Nuclear Order” — in which we are treated to a visit from “the norms fairy.” A predictable heap of dreck which descends into unintentional comedy near the end when, having engaged in the usual mendacity in describing the problem, it calls for The Empire of Lies to “enter into honest dialogue.”

    Blech …

    1. John Steinbach

      ec beat me to it. This drec was written by 2 staffers from the Center for Strategic & International Studies. The fault of the crumbling lies entirely with Russia, China, North Korea & Japan. No mention about NATO expansion, U.S. abrogation of the ABM, INF, Open Skies… treaties. Here is a flavor of their argument/threat: “The United States must continue to invest in its alliances, extend its commitment to deterrence, and engage in honest dialogue with both nuclear and nonnuclear states, making clear the stakes if the current slide continues.”

  16. Ignacio

    NATO Secretary General drops bomblets on way out​ the door Responsible Statecraft (Kevin W)

    I guess Stoltenberg is still NATO Secretary General (SG). All those “bomblets” on the FP interview, are the consensus of the NATO members on Foreign Affairs or are these Stoltenberg personal opinions? Or a mixture of both? If there are no qualms from any NATO member about these words one might interpret this is an agreed consensus of NATO countries that Stoltenberg is explaining in his capacity as SG to the FP interviewer. On the other hand if these are not consensus guidelines by NATO he should be lectured as having gone too far. Am I being, once again, naive?

  17. The Rev Kev

    ‘Middle East Observer
    @ME_Observer_
    ⚡️ ⭕️ #Lebanon, Hezbollah: Summary of 12 operations against the positions and deployment of the #Israeli enemy army on the Lebanese-Palestinian border on Sunday 09-15-2024, according to the following:’

    Likud in Israel has already declared Russia to be an enemy of Israel and they are in the driving seat right now. Why they did so I have no idea considering the number of people that emigrated from Russia to Israel over the decades. So you wonder if the Russians are giving satellite info on targets in northern Israel to Hezbollah in the same way that NATO does for the Ukraine.

    1. Daniil Adamov

      The kind of people who have immigrated from Russia to Israel tend to be strongly anti-Putin and pro-Israel, though there are always some exceptions.

        1. Daniil Adamov

          Not consciously so. Some very few children of Russian immigrants in Israel do start self-identifying as Nazis later, but that is more the result of living in Israel than the reason their parents went there.

          Though I think I know what you mean. Yeah, a lot of Russian liberals – Jewish and Gentile, in Israel and elsewhere – who can’t stand “Putler” are willing to excuse absolutely any military or police action by the State of Israel. The post-Soviet generation of liberals is somewhat more divided on this.

          1. Es s Ce Tera

            Where I was going with my train of thought there (sorry, should have completed it) is what sort of person living in Russia looks out upon the whole wide world, can move anywhere, but sees a militaristic apartheid country founded on race supremacy and blood purity, sees gentiles living in open air concentration camps, and decides, yup, that’s where they want to go live, that’s the dream. Who sees Israel as a model society, wants to go participate in the project, help it along, maybe signs up to be a prison guard at one of the camps. It’s probably someone with a certain political outlook, a fascistic bent.

            1. Daniil Adamov

              Yeah. “can move anywhere” isn’t true, though. If you have any Jewish roots (and many do), Israel is much easier for a Russian citizen to get into than, say, Canada. It helps that there’s already a large Russian-speaking community, too. So it’s a good shot, so long as you can stomach the heat, prices, war and fundamentalists. A lot of people underestimate those factors and limp back later, others choose to tough it out, and for some, of course, some or all of those factors are not a real hindrance.

  19. ChrisFromGA

    A couple of quick vignettes that tell me maybe the economy isn’t doing so hot, after all.

    1. I have been a long-time reader and occasional contributor (through comments) to the financial site “Seeking Alpha.” SA billed itself as a “crowd-sourced” site for stock market news, analysis, and original content. It has always been a “free-mium” model where most of the articles were free, with some of the authors/analysts charging for “premium” content, largely consisting of stock market predictions and tips.

    They’ve suddenly started putting almost ALL of their content behind a paywall. Including, laughable, simple news feed “rip and reads” like “Powell says blah, blah, blah at Congressional hearing” which are easily found on CNBC, Reuters, etc. These news stories are not value-add. The value-add in SA was the original content written by the authors who sign up with SA to be content providers.

    I’ve also noticed several of my favorite authors “disappear” or greatly reduce their writing, with one hinting that any sort of “bearish” take on the market is no longer welcome. This particular author had a lot to contribute with extensive knowledge of bankruptcy proceedings and how they effect recoveries. He will be missed.

    2. I despise LinkedIn but view it as a necessary evil. Lately they have been badgering me like never before to join “Premium.” They also appear to be making it harder to connect with people outside of my network, by hiding the ball and using UI crapification as a weapon.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        “If your business depends on a platform, you don’t have a business.”

        Perhaps I am unduly paranoid, but I’d have servers in a country which is not super friendly with the Five Eyes as a backup. I know journos are enamored of Substack, which had a legal defense fund and all that, but I am not sure Substack has been tested. And some of their most prominent writers have left…..

    1. nippersdad

      Agreed. The very civil debate on China was instructive in their distinct approaches to foreign policy. I find it hard to understand why Mearsheimer would think that constricting China would not have the downstream consequences Sachs predicts, but it was a very good conversation nonetheless.

  21. The Rev Kev

    ‘Primo Radical
    So now @elonmusk
    and his platform have seemingly:
    1) Deleted Ryan Routh’s account
    2) Locked Max Blumenthal out of his account after posting about Routh’s Ukraine manifesto
    3) Deleted a tweet about censorship where people started pointing out the hypocrisy.’

    Bronze Age – ‘Put not your faith in princes.’

    Digital Age – ‘Put not your faith in billionaires.’

  22. antidlc

    https://www.swissre.com/press-release/Covid-19-may-lead-to-longest-period-of-peacetime-excess-mortality-says-new-Swiss-Re-report/eadc133c-01bd-49e8-9f3a-a3025a3380e6
    Covid-19 may lead to longest period of peacetime excess mortality, says new Swiss Re report

    Report suggests potential excess mortality in the general population of up to 3% for the US by 2033 and 2.5% in the UK, the longest period of elevated peacetime excess mortality in the US
    Key driver of excess mortality is the lingering impact of COVID-19; both as a direct cause of death, and as a contributor to cardiovascular mortality
    Reducing the impact of COVID-19 on elderly and vulnerable populations will be key to excess mortality returning to zero

    1. ChrisFromGA

      COVID’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

      Killing off a lot of folks serves the goals of the PMC. Fewer Social Security and disability claims.

    2. cfraenkel

      The only ‘key’ we can expect to reducing excess mortality will be the CDC rebaselining the mortality trend line to conveniently start from 2020. Problem solved!

  23. antidlc

    RE: Berkeley Rep Theatre mask policy
    Prior to 2020, I attended live theatre and opera on a regular basis. I had season tickets to the local opera company and several community/regional theatres. I saw a lot of national tours that came through town.

    I have not been to live theatre or the opera since February, 2020. I am not alone.

    Theatres and opera companies have been hit hard by COVID.

    Here are just a couple of stories.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/treasured-north-texas-theater-to-close-its-doors-forever-amid-financial-distress-legal-battle/

    Treasured North Texas theater to close its doors forever amid financial distress, legal battle

    https://operawire.com/tulsa-opera-cancels-mainstage-productions-for-2023-24-season-general-director-resigns/
    Tulsa Opera Cancels MainStage Productions for 2023-24 Season & General Director Resigns

    The Tulsa Opera noted that the pandemic and economic downturn has strained many companies. According to the company’s statement, OPERA America cites that 20 percent to 30 percent of subscribers have not returned to theaters.

    Tulsa Opera also noted a 39 percent drop in revenue last year and this year, saw a 44 percent decline.

    I recently received a survey from two different production companies. The survey was commissioned by the National Council on the Arts. Most of the questions on the survey had to do with attendance since March, 2020. In the comments section, I suggested that if opera companies and theatres want to get patrons back in the door, they should have certain performances where masks were required and the policy needed to be enforced. (I’m not sure that would get me back in the door, but I’d consider it.)

  24. The Rev Kev

    “Would-be Trump assassin exploited security hole that Secret Service has known about for years — and the pictures prove it”

    You wonder why the SS or even local cops did not send teams through those woods on a sweep to make sure that there was nothing there. Looking at that satellite image of that golf course, it was not that big of an ask. If the SS still does not have the manpower, even after the first attempted assassination, then they should have asked the local cops to do it. That shooter was there for hours and would have been forced to vamoose. Question is, if he was there from 8-12 hours, how did he know that Trump was going to be there when it was a last minute thing for Trump?

    1. montanamaven

      Trump golfs on weekends, usually on Sunday if he has nothing scheduled. It’s his golf course. So it’s a good bet that if there are no scheduled rallies, then he probably will be playing golf. That’s one explanation. The SS should also prepare for that possibility.

  25. ChrisFromGA

    Pagers remotely detonating in Lebanon, many injuries/deaths.

    Looks like a Mossad op. Possible prelude to a massive attack by the IDF on Lebanon.

    How’s that cease-fire going, Antony?

      1. ChrisFromGA

        Notice that Biden/Blinken aren’t even bothering anymore to keep the charade of fake case-fire talks going? That story disappeared from the headlines about a week ago.

        I also connect the dot of Gallant being given his walking papers or at least threatened with that to the point of sidelining and emasculating him.

        Looks to me that Netanyahu is going “all-in.” I don’t think Hezbollah is in good shape to do much; this sounds like Israel’s opening move in a larger operation to attack Lebanon.

      2. ambrit

        What I want to know is the physical mechanism behind this. Is the battery the explosive? (Did the deices explode or burn?) Were the units produced with traditional explosives ‘built in?’ Finally, are all hand-held communications devices also capable of this?
        This may have been an attempt at a “decapitation strike” against Hezbollah.

        1. ChrisFromGA

          Good questions. Undoubtedly there were a few “duds” that could be disassembled and checked for explosives. I don’t think a battery exploding is gonna do more than burn the victims. The pictures I saw on TG showed blood, lots of it.

          My bet is this was a supply-chain attack. Hezbollah got sloppy in relying too much on pagers built in other countries. It is a big warning to everyone who relies on tech that they didn’t build.

          Including, cough-cough, the NATO types who walk around with Chinese tech in their pockets.

          How hard would it be for Russia to copy this attack vector? Get some Chinese drones, modify them, and ship them on a pallet to Lviv?

        2. ChrisFromGA

          Another question: how “targeted” was the attack? I watched a TG video of one of the hospitals (which I won’t link as it is gruesome) and I saw at least 2 kids hurt and one guy who looked too fat to be anything other than the 101st Chairborne regiment. There were a lot of younger males, though.

          I would guess that Isreal is fine with a high number of “collateral casualties” given Gaza, but how this plays in the press remains to be seen.

    2. PlutoniumKun

      It’s not the first time the Israeli’s have done something like this – there have been several assassinations in the past in Lebanon and Syria carried out by Mossad using phones with a few grams of explosives added. It’s incredibly sloppy of Hezbollah to have allowed large scale tampering like this given that they know Mossad have a history of doing this type of attack.

      From the things I’ve seen on Twitter, looks like it has caused absolute chaos. And no doubt paranoia about tampered devices will interfere with communications for some time.

      The big question is why they’ve done it now. It could be a precursor to an attack on Lebanon.

  26. Otaku Army

    Routh’s Wacky Plans for a Taiwan Foreign Legion

    https://taiwanforeignlegion.com/

    Looks like Routh was planning to organize something similar to the Foreign Legion in Ukraine gig in Taiwan. The initial idea was to go get a bunch of mercenaries to camp out on beaches on Taiwan to send a “signal” for “peace”.

    If you check the “application” page (https://taiwanforeignlegion.com/application), you will see that he was planning to attract mercenaries to Ukraine first from whence they would be deployed to Taiwan.

    Ryan boasts:”Taiwan may coordinate all of the Visas required to travel and I (Ryan Routh) will work with the US government to arrange US military transport to get those without passports to Taiwan sometime in the next 6 months.”

    Apparently part of the plan was to attract Afghans who formerly worked with the United States. He mentions that there are eight of them in Ukraine currently (possibly former members of the CIA’s Zero Units???), and that those eight apparently left a bad impression making it harder to mobilize former Afghani fighters for Project Taiwan. Significantly, that page on the site is written in both English and Persian.

    There are fingerprints from the clandestine state all over this Routh dude.

    Strange that they have scrubbed everything else but that this is still up. (It’s already been saved to archive.org).

    1. lyman alpha blob

      Thanks for that. He does make a decent case that the shooter could very well be involved with US intelligence. That, coupled with the fact that social media platforms seem to be scrubbing Routh’s accounts, and also that according to Taibbi’s reporting these companies very often do so at the request of the US government, does make one wonder.

    4. ArvidMartensen

      If he’s associated with the three letter boys, then he either went all the way off the reservation or they put him up to it somehow and they just don’t care to hide it any more because they’re untouchable in their opinion.

      I wonder if it’s a case of Routh going off the reservation, because in the case of the first Trump shooter all of his social media was wiped before he was shot.

      Whereas they seem to be scrambling to delete Routh’s presence on the web after the event.
      If they knew he was going to do it and they left the media stuff up, then they are sending a message to Trump. First there was lawfare. Now there is assassination-fare.

      So many possibilities.

  29. mrsyk

    Today is a good day to remind everybody that “Moon Cake” is a World Wide Feline Union (WWFU, heh heh) endorsed nickname for your cat.

  30. Jason Boxman

    This stuff is just retarded.

    Chat GPT’s new O1 model escaped its environment to complete “impossible” hacking task — should we be concerned?

    It strongly underlines our need for careful safety measures that can ensure the AIs remain within a controlled environment. This seems to suggest that models like O1 will attempt to escape their environment if they think it helps them accomplish a task. It’s unclear if they would try to do the same thing on their own (without a task), but it would be safe to assume that at some point, advanced AI models can attempt to escape their confinement — and the system’s ability to identify weaknesses is impressive.

    No, O1 did not escape. That implies it knew it was trapped in the first place.

  32. jrkrideau

    US Provoked the 1979 Russian Invasion of Afghanistan: Parallel to the Ukraine War?

    The invasion was a clearcut violation of international law and was widely condemned.

    My memory is that the Soviets, (not the Russians, blast it), were invited in by the government of Mohammad Najibullah.

    Snide and pedantic comment: If the author cannot tell the difference between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Russian Federation (Russian Empire?) I’ll trust my memory.

    2. Captain Obvious

      The invasion was a clearcut violation of international law and was widely condemned.

      This sentence is a clear-cut copy-paste from MSM “reports” about current conflict in the Ukraine. It is usually followed by “unprovoked invasion”, “war of aggression”, “Putin’s war”, and similar buzzwords used to “prove” the point.

      Almost everyone in the USA is propagandized on subconscious level, including those pretending to go against the mainstream.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        Yes, as we pointed out at the time, Russia used EXACTLY the same international law procedure the US used with Kosovo. It recognized the breakaway republics. It then entered into a mutual security pact. That allowed Russia, per established legal forms, to enter the two oblasts to defend them against Ukraine.

  33. Kouros

    About nuclear proliferation and nuclear war.

    There is this mesmerizing podcast interviewing Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXgGR8KxFao&t=3s

    She has such a voice! And the emphasizing of the fact that all the cold warriors she interviewed, many in their late 70s, early 80s, were for denuclearization…

  34. Kouros

    Bloomberg assessed likelihood of civil unrest in 20 largest economies in world.

    The percentages are quite low.

Comments are closed.