What birds can teach us about the ‘biological truth’ of sex The Transmitter
The Sex Lives Of Common Vegetables Noema
Ice Age Humans Were Experts at Wielding Fire, Study Finds Science Alert
‘Mini ice age’ possibly led to end of Roman Empire, suggests unusual rocks in Iceland Interesting Engineering
How the Roman Empire Lost its Gods History Today
Is our universe the ultimate computer? Phys.org
Student Rescued From Mt. Fuji Returns to Find His Phone, Needs to Be Rescued Again Gizmodo
Climate/Environment
On Compost London Review of Books
Pandemics
U.S. health officials inject new uncertainty into approval process for Covid boosters STAT
Vitamin D Nasal Spray: A New Hope for Smell Loss Treatment in COVID-19 and Beyond Forward Pathway
It’s #NationalSenseOfSmellDay so of course we asked @DrAllyLouks what her favourite smells are 👃
Dr Louks from @Peterhouse_Cam went viral after posting a picture of her thesis on the politics of smell in prose.
Explore more 👉 https://t.co/IzhfRUsAwi pic.twitter.com/gnalbjoU8L
— Cambridge University (@Cambridge_Uni) April 26, 2025
China?
Today, it is necessary to revisit On Protracted War. Beijing Daily (Sinocism translation).
Yan Anlin on the Drawbacks of a Timetable for Taiwan Sinification
European Disunion
India – Pakistan
Pakistan defense minister says military incursion by India is imminent Reuters
The Pahalgam abyss Indian Express
O Canada
Canadian voters return Liberals to power under new leader Mark Carney Anadolu Agency
Mark Carney says he’s a pragmatic outsider—but he’s a banker selling yesterday’s failed ideas The Breach. From February, still germane.
Old Blighty
UK and EU to defy Trump with ‘free and open trade’ declaration Politico.
Is Keir Starmer being advised by AI? The UK government won’t tell us NewScientist
Syraqistan
US Navy loses $60 million jet at sea after it fell overboard from aircraft carrier CNN
This is an extremely serious incident for U.S. Navy.
It would mean hostile missiles or drones got past the carrier’s layered defenses (fighters, AEGIS ships, CIWS), showing potential gaps in U.S. naval protection.
A group like the Houthis forcing a $13 billion carrier into… https://t.co/YvSuVvuNgr pic.twitter.com/njlVSUNwUf
— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 28, 2025
The elephant in the room is the fact that the modern US Navy doesn’t actually own enough missiles to fill the battle line’s VLS magazines more than once – ergo there was no point maintaining capability to reload them.
I wrote a post on this last year. See the first reply. https://t.co/QPne46oKbj
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) April 29, 2025
***
Netanyahu at JNS Conference: Israel will maintain military control over Gaza, will not install PA Ynet
REPORT: Biden Officials Admit They Never Pressured Israel for Ceasefire, as Israeli Leaders Boast of Playing Washington
“God did the State of Israel a favor that Biden was the president during this period… We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to… pic.twitter.com/2k6ISAmyfn
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) April 28, 2025
Israel wipes out entire families in Gaza; over 94 percent of last week’s victims were civilians Euro-Med
***
The US empire is on the side of fascists, sectarian supremacists, ethnosupremacists, ultranationalists and mass killers everywhere. Amerikkka. https://t.co/xCxth6eHzH
— Dan Kervick (@DanMKervick) April 29, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
Trump wants a permanent Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, White House says Reuters
Russia Rejects Trump’s Freeze Of The War In Ukraine Moon of Alabama
🇺🇦 Meanwhile Ukraine announces wave of murders and terrorism in Russia immediately after Putin’s ceasefire announcement.
“In the event of a freeze in hostilities being declared, Ukrainian services must intensify their activities in the Russian rear and carry out a whole series… pic.twitter.com/lPDM6bHRcx
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) April 28, 2025
Donald Trump, Not Barack Obama, is Responsible for Ukraine’s Dramatic Military expansion between 2011 and 2021 Larry Johnson
SITREP 4/28/25: Russian Vise Tightens as West Dawdles and Dallies with “Ceasefire” Sham Simplicius
Brief Frontline Summary – April 28, 2025 Marat Khairullin Substack
Russia Is Freaked: Why The Army’s Monstrous AbramsX Looks Unbeatable 1945. Back to the wonder weapons. Hopefully some tank mavens can comment.
“Liberation Day”
Trump has deal to ease auto tariffs, U.S. Commerce Secretary says. The Detroit News. A “deal” with who?
The Tariff Revenue Is Coming In Policy Sphere
Trump floats income tax cut to ease tariff impact The Hill
April is the Cruelest Month Phenomenal World. “Diversification and dedollarization in the world economy.”
Goldman Sachs Is Advising Countries Scrambling to Please Trump on Tariffs WSJ
New Goldman-Sachs analysis estimates that US tariffs on imported inputs could raise US manufacturers’ production costs by 5-15%, thus making them less competitive vs foreign producers (especially in overseas markets): pic.twitter.com/RGPCFYbqN2
— Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) April 28, 2025
Trump 2.0
‘Glaring Example of Misplaced Priorities’: GOP Unveils Plan to Give $150 Billion More to Pentagon Common Dreams
The GOP’s proposed cuts to FEMA and Medicaid reveal the paradox of red state dependence Fortune
The group chats that changed America Semafor. Commentary:
Most interesting part of the Semafor group chat story is this tidbit about tech’s centrism-to-right wing partisan pipeline. Centrism is just a means of laundering right wing partisanship. pic.twitter.com/5CN1bfjvsr
— Lee Hepner (@LeeHepner) April 28, 2025
DOGE
Musk’s Trump ties could wipe away $2.3 billion in legal exposure Musk Watch
MAHA
RFK Jr. autism data project stokes alarm over motives Axios
What’s the Deal With Autism Rates? Cremieux Recueil (Neutrino). A deep dive.
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Your Brain Data Is for Sale, Senators Warn Gizmodo
Milwaukee police consider trade: 2.5 million mugshots for free facial recognition access Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Police State Watch
Faceless Feds at War With America Ken Klippenstein
Immigration
Trump to sign executive order to target sanctuary cities The Hill
The ‘Necropolitics’ of the American Borderlands Inkstick
Private prison companies positioned to benefit from increased deportations Open Secrets
Groves of Academe
AI
Maga’s sinister obsession with IQ is leading us towards an inhuman future Quinn Slobodian, The Guardian
GPT-4o Is An Absurd Sycophant Don’t Worry About the Vase
OpenAI upgrades ChatGPT search with shopping features TechCrunch
Duolingo will replace contract workers with AI The Verge
Researchers Secretly Ran a Massive, Unauthorized AI Persuasion Experiment on Reddit Users 404 Media
Our Famously Free Press
Reality Check Where’s Your Ed At?
Mr. Market’s Mixed Emotions
Botox sales slip as consumer sentiment wrinkles Sherwood
Tesla up more than 9% after Trump administration relaxes self-driving regulations Sherwood
Healthcare?
When Hospitals Ditch Medicare Advantage Plans, Thousands of Members Get To Leave, Too KFF Health News
Oracle engineers caused days-long software outage at U.S. hospitals CNBC
Antitrust
“America First” antitrust enforcement is not regulation, DOJ official says Reuters
House GOP Proposes Eliminating Key Antitrust Law BIG by Matt Stoller
Class Warfare
Tens of thousands of LA County union workers are now on strike LAist
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Donald the Showman
(melody borrowed from Frosty The Snowman written by Walter “Jack” Rollins and Steve Nelson, and recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950)
(The more American voters learn and read about Trump’s Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the more they will perceive that there is no one in there to grasp our reality, or to govern our nation, only an old showman mumbling and bumbling along as he pretends to himself that he is a Stable Genius, which he is not. His increasingly obvious dementia, and loss of ability to fully grasp the concepts that words represent, only adds to his ongoing dilemma.)
Donald the Showman is a vacant, shattered soul
Narcissistic type who must strike a pose as he feeds an endless hole
Donald the Showman can’t let facts get in his way
When he’s idolized he tells extra lies just get through one more day
His inner life is tragic—it’s an endless battleground
He can’t keep track of what he’s said so his pile of lies will just astound
With Donald the Showman shuck and jive is all you’ll see
He’ll lead you astray then he’ll walk away, for his words are just debris
(musical interlude)
Donald the Showman shows dementia every day
Of the lies he’s spun he remembers none for his brain is in decay
For his inner image is The Genius In Command
Castles in the air, and he lives up there acting out as Superman
He can’t back down, he can’t slow down, his supply cannot stop
He cannot bear being in his skin so he spins just like a top
For Donald the Showman must be awesome all the day
As he lives a lie in his own mind’s eye ’cause that hole won’t go away
His inner life is tragic—it’s an endless battleground
He can’t keep track of what he’s said so his pile of lies will just astound
With Donald the Showman shuck and jive is all you’ll see
He’ll lead you astray then he’ll walk away, for his words are just debris
Bumpety, bump, bump, (bumpety, bump, bump)
Watch disasters grow!
Bumpety, bump, bump, (bumpety, bump, bump)
Donald is the show!
That one is a real banger, as the kids like to say. Thanks!
Mini Ice Age Roman Empire
Correct address:
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/mini-ice-age-roman-empire-end?group=test_a
“Russia Is Freaked: Why the Army’s Monstrous AbramsX Looks Unbeatable”
Is it going to be as good as the M10 Booker light tank? And then this happened-
‘As the 101st Airborne Division prepared last year to receive their first M10 Bookers—armored combat vehicles designed specifically for infantry forces—staff planners realized something: eight of the 11 bridges on Fort Campbell would crack under the weight of the “light tank.”’
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/04/army-made-tank-it-doesnt-need-and-cant-use-now-its-figuring-out-what-do-it/404877/
So, how many bridges will support the weight of that monstrous AbramsX?
Wow! Talk about a strategic waste of time and resources. My gut reaction is that someone(s) on the Army Requirements Oversight Council who said it didn’t need to fit onto a C-130 or be airdroppable had financial reasons to make that call. Otherwise, how in the world would one approve a build project for a system like this for an airborne unit? Did they think they’d pre-mail those armored vehicles to the drop zone?
re: Russia Is Freaked: Why The Army’s Monstrous AbramsX Looks Unbeatable 1945.
The “1945”-text is literally a joke. It has zero info on the actual tank, only idiotic ad-lingo and not a single argument supporting the headline. Wasn´t aware “1945” is this bad. Embarrassing.
So obviously there is no “Monstrous” and no “Unbeatable” anywhere on the horizon. Why should there?
By the way: the article “Russia Is Freaked: Why the Army’s Monstrous AbramsX Looks Unbeatable” is just a compendium of wishes — I learned nothing about what the AbramsX is and can do. For guffaws:
“US defense spending doesn’t have big margins for waste. For programs to survive, they must deliver on time, cost, and performance.”
mmmbwwahahahaha!
“Stealth is cool. Tanks are useless if they are survivable.”
I do not even understand what he means.
The Russians have the most modern tank on the planet, the T-14, with the biggest gun, a fully automated turret, plenty of electronic gizmos, and fancy active/reactive/proactive or whatever it is armour.
They also seem to have concluded from their experience during the SMO that it came either too late, fully equipped for the battles of the 1990s, or too early, without having the chance to incorporate the requirements of drone warfare from the 2020s (Nagorno Karabakh, Tigray, Ukraine) into the design. So far, the T-14 appeared only episodically amongst second-line Russian units.
Comment on what exactly? The article is as vague as it can be, and nothing specific about Army’s Monstrous AbramsX was said, except that is supposed to be more akin to what Russian tanks already are (“active protection system, lighter weight, more survivability, and of course reduced logistical burdens as well for the Army”).
The AbramsX was unveiled 3 years ago – it seems to simply have the status of a private initiative by the manufacturer, GDLS, to show what can be done with the existing chassis. It has the same sort of status of a concept car in car shows. It was completed before the lessons of Ukraine were established. Its not, so far as available information shows, an official pentagon project, more likely an attempt by GDLS to show that there is plenty of life left in the Abrams basic architecture. It may be that existing Abrams customers like the Saudi’s could take it on if the Pentagon passes on it.
The M10 Booker is a strange beast – it seems to be a design in search of a role, as can be seen by the contortions around its nomenclature – its been called everything from a light tank to a mobile gun with every variation in between. It does seem to fulfil a role as heavy infantry support – we’ve seen in Ukraine the difficulties faced by both sides in flushing out foxholes and trenches – even the Russians have had to resort to individual soldiers throwing mines rigged with timers. But when something like this ends up so heavy its basically a tank with a fairly weak gun, you’d wonder what the point is.
“Student Rescued From Mt. Fuji Returns to Find His Phone, Needs to Be Rescued Again”
Japanese authorities have stated that if they have to rescue him for a third time, they will just drop him into Mt. Fuji instead.
Just off the Inca Trail and what a walk it was…
So lush and so much Inca stonework along the way to Machu Picchu, I’m blown away by what they could accomplish, anything constructed by Native Americans in the USA is strictly kids play in comparison.
We were only a few miles in when we spotted a dead snake on the trail, and our Peruvian guide informed us it was a Bothrops, responsible for the most deaths of any snake in the Americas, which didn’t give us a warm and fuzzy feeling over the next 25 miles, lemme tellya!
I’m impressed with the Peruvian people, nice folks, and in our brief time in Cusco, I saw but 1 homeless person in a country a lot poorer than the USA.
Free range dogs are everywhere, we had a beautiful chocolate lab follow us to our first campsite 6 miles in, and dutifully ate our dinner leftovers, you get the feeling this wasn’t his first rodeo-
B. Asper also known as the Fer-de-lance. Not something you want to get bit from.
Happy trails and watch where you step!
Look for the native Peruvian Naked Dog. An icon of Peru. We have a very well-loved one here. They’re kind and gentle with an odd sense of humor that comes from being such a primitive race of pariah. The barking is just a front so they can get you to cuddle lol
Re: “Milwaukee police consider trade: 2.5 million mugshots for free facial recognition access”
Myself and others went in front of the Fire & Police Commission to talk about this. The FPC used to be a policymaking oversight body until the city de-fanged it as a part of a deal in which they’d recieve a share of state revenue to bail them out financially. The MPD representatives presenting there made sure to remind us that they weren’t asking for permission; they were informing us out of the goodness of their hearts, begging the question of why they’d even bother. I suspect their motives had to do with negotiating the terms of the deal with this company. Anyway, while we were there, one officer was texting his friends, and someone caught a look at his phone, on which he said something to the effect of ‘should we tell them they all [concerned members of the public, presumably] are having FRT (facial recognition technology) used on them right now’.
Maga’s sinister obsession with IQ is leading us towards an inhuman future?
I dunno, but applicants for China’s civil service need an IQ of 140 to be competitive*, higher than you need for a PhD in theoretical physics.
Says stable genius Donald Trump, ““People say you don’t like China. No, I love them. But their leaders are much smarter than our leaders. And we can’t sustain ourselves like that. It’s like playing the New England Patriots and Tom Brady against your high school football team.”
RE: What birds can teach us about the ‘biological truth’ of sex
And? All of this has been known for quite some time. I really don’t see the point of trying to tie it into the social issues of the day. What I find most annoying about this entire controversy is that many 21st century USians seem to feel as if they have just discovered all this when in fact the biological issues have been known and the social issues discussed for many thousands of years. Heliogabalus would like a word with those who don’t remember history.
lyman alpha blob: Aha! You make the mistake of thinking that USonians should read Dead White Men like Sappho or Plutarch or Korinna or Aristophanes. We all know that presentism rules and that feminism didn’t exist until Virginia Woolf wrote about a room of one’s own in 1928, in English.
Wait until one of these peeps chances on the Bakkhai by Euripides. Imagine the shock!
The article is interesting as a discussion of research, but it also was highly reductionist. In spite of the baroque tone of Anglosphere culture these days, much of the public discussion is reduced and insipid. In line with much vulgar thinking in the U S of A, there is an implication that sexuality and gender are all about hormones: Just add a few drops of an androgen to an egg, and voila!, the complications of sexuality and gender are revealed. The students are nonplussed~!
Well, thousands of years of writing, especially poetry, indicate that understanding human beings isn’t as simple as sorting people into “races,” as USonions do so well (genetics to the contrary) and denying what we see and how we interact (woke as religious belief).
No offense, but, Sappho as a dead white man? Intentional irony?
Intentional irony?
of this we can be certain
ChatGTP and sycophancy. It seems as if they stole the product features from the Shake Weight motivation voice.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7chgwMijEws&pp=ygUXc291dGggcGFyayBzaGFrZSB3ZWlnaHQ%3D
So, we are walking to the restaurant at our nice hotel in the Sacred Valley and and American couple is just ahead of us, and I inquire where are they from, and a lady my age says New Orleans, and then asks where we are from, and I say California, and she looks at me and says
‘I’m sorry’
I was taken aback by this unwarranted attack, how polarized we have become, thinking the worst of a state when overseas on neutral ground.
I wonder what she would have said if you had told her that you were Canadian.
Given the original reply I’d suspect she’d have suggested they get together after the border is removed post annexation.
Don’t take it personally.
I’ve been the butt of that joke for many years as I was born and raised in NJ.
Although it’s always been IN the USA, not abroad…
Yeah 1996 in my first project going through hand written hospital notes by consultants I had to avoid transcribing “NFN”
(Normal for Norfolk). They’d been told to stop doing that years before but medical friends told me it persisted well into 1980s.
It’s part of why a Brit will NEVER get access to their “other” medical record which contains a mixture of sensitive stuff but also comments by clinicians about you. Mine almost certainly says “he’s a whistle blower….. don’t eff with him…..bloody annoying git”. At least I HOPE it says all that ;)
What exit?
Sorry.
LOL 98…
Before he became famous Springsteen was playing a gig in San Francisco. In between sets he goes into the bathroom and the guy next to him says “you guys are pretty good. Where are you from?” Bruce says “New jersey” and the guy says” What’s that !!!!!”
Oh well. That is what you get for being “nosey”. sarcasm! LOLOLOLOL
Just a heads up: some in AZ seem to hate California as my friend who lives in Mesa says a Trump wall needed on the CA border to keep the Californians out. Seems many in the desert state blame the neighbors for the sprawl and ever rising cost of living–the thing the arriving Californians are of course fleeing.
Here in SC we maintain a more balanced view and see CA as “nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there.” Here some wonder if we should wall out the arriving Yankees. Hard to find a good julep these days.
One good thing in regards to the draft, was it gave everybody a chance to get know one another and not live via stereotype.
My version of the draft would be mostly community service-
“Trump wants a permanent Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, White House says”
‘The president has made it clear he wants to see a permanent ceasefire – first to stop the killing, stop the bloodshed.’
Meanwhile and at the same time – ‘Sixty-eight people were killed by a US airstrike on a detention facility for African migrants in Yemen’–
https://news.antiwar.com/2025/04/28/sixty-eight-reported-killed-by-us-airstrike-on-african-migrant-facility-in-yemen/
Taking a leaf from the Israeli playbook, he is just killing civilians and bombing civilian infrastructure in order to make their military quit fighting.
AbramX (the 737MAX of tanks), production cost $24m.
Armata T14, production cost $4m
The kicker is they can even make ammo for the T14
re: Irish group Kneecap investigated.
From Caitlin Johnstone on Medium:
Zionism Is The Single Greatest Threat To Free Speech In The Western World Today
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/zionism-is-the-single-greatest-threat-to-free-speech-in-the-western-world-today-ffff5f3a3521
flora: I enjoyed the article about Kneecap in the Daily Mail for its barely controlled hysteria. Whatever happened to stiff upper lips?
My knowledge of Kneecap came through my YTb feed, which includes a number of videos related to languages, especially Italian and French. Kneecap, and its involvement in preserving and expanding Irish, popped up. The story of Kneecap and their relation to Irish is worth seeking out.
As a writer, living at a time when so much of the arts is résumé-padding, grubbing for money, and social-media self-flatter, I’ll take this: “The group’s ‘Farewell to the Union’ tour in 2020 was promoted with an image of then prime minister Boris Johnson and former DUP leader Arlene Foster strapped to a rocket on top of a burning bonfire, as two band members crouched at the bottom holding a petrol bomb ”
If people want to know what it will take to get an effective social movement going in the U S of A (see today’s posting on the United Front again Trump), it is going to take more groups like Kneecap and fewer meditations on the powers of Taylor Swift.
I recommend this:-
Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?
Archived: https://archive.ph/RojUn
Original: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/will-the-humanities-survive-artificial-intelligence
I wouldn’t go as far as the author of this piece does, but primarily because I haven’t yet tried to go as far in using these tools.
Yet once starts digging in with them, one sees they can become tremendously powerful, for good and evil — potentially as powerful as something like the development electricity generation or even of language itself.
This is overwrought. Sexual differentiation in mammals is -not- diverse in this way, and even less so in primates. The way it works in birds is really not relevant.
Matthew: Interesting point. I did suspect that not much info would transfer to humans, as fascinating as birds are.
And a problem for humans: Most species of birds are monogamous.
Oh, well. We don’t want to take metaphors too far.
Had the geese across the road for 3 months.
Inadequate night light…so a fox got a few.
Last week, since grass in fallow bed behind house was knee and hip high, i moved them there.
One male kept escaping back to across road. Took me 6 days to find his well hidden hole in fence.
Turns out, his wife was one of the fox casualties…and he was returning to guard her remains.
This had a bigger effect on me than i anticipated…and im all teary eyed talkin to a gander about loss as i dri e him back to the rest of the herd.
” it gets a bit easier dude…”
Most discussions about this topic quickly turn to bringing up all the outliers and edge cases as if they applied far more generally. That seems to an argumentation tactic of pop pseudo-postmodernism.
re: What birds can teach us about the ‘biological truth’ of sex The Transmitter
This kind of article would receive the DEI label in order to dismiss or attack it. And therefore, endocrinology would be subject to attack, as would neuroscience and biology. And social and cognititive psychology, anthropology, sociology and behavioural economics, since these study bias and prejudice.
Re: “When ChatGPT users search for products, the chatbot will now offer a few recommendations, present images and reviews for those items, and include direct links to web pages where users can buy the products.”
Well, when the balance of links returned by a Google query tipped significantly toward ads and shopping, that was pretty much the end of google as a research and work tool. I don’t know why it will be different with ChatGPT. It will pay ChatGPTs bills, so maybe it will actually become profitable, but profitable useful.
“but profitable does not equal useful.” (symbols got lost in posting).
re: Germany BSW post-election
statement by member of the commission to decide whether to overturn the official election result for BSW or not:
“If mistakes were made, and they were made and perhaps will continue to be clarified, then BSW might actually have a chance of bypassing the five percent clause. But whether further errors have been made besides those already identified by the Federal Returning Officer, I cannot judge from here. The review by the Bundestag will reveal that. There are opportunities (…) I assume that we are already talking about a few weeks, probably more likely a few months, before a decision proposal from the Electoral Scrutiny Committee is available.“
I don’t know how the committee can take an objective decision that will satisfy all the parties, considering that it is controlled by the current coalition. Unless I’m missing something. It’s good that BSW decided to finally dispute the results though.
Re: Is our universe the ultimate computer? (Phys.org)
Humans being non-playing characters in some 5D version of Civilization or GTA would explain a lot.
A barbarian tribe, perhaps? (Civ reference, before IV)
A vessel the size of a small island can not turn on a dime, nor dodge guided weapons (not to mention the famous iceberg dodging). More likely, it was trying to avoid getting into the danger zone (and put in some distance while incoming drones/missiles were still far away), or maybe even bracing for an impact (in case they were closer). CIWS’ are close range (aka. last ditch defense), and anything going past them would score a hit (which did not happen, reportedly).
“Researchers Secretly Ran a Massive, Unauthorized AI Persuasion Experiment on Reddit Users”
Obviously the Ethics Committee of the University of Zurich has a lot of free time on their hands.
I read all about this before NC drew attention to it. I haven’t gone into detail since it bores 99.9% of readers…… but their idea of the delta to evaluate humanity is flawed from the get go.
So I’m following my old mentors strategy…… if their idea is too stupid to be redeemed say nothing.
I knew how to design and how to better beat these things 20 years ago. I’ve described it before so won’t bore people but colour me unimpressed. The only thing that worries me is that Macquarie Bank in Australia somehow learnt our stuff and use it to maintain profits.
10,500 drones form tanks and liberation flags to light up the sky of Ho Chi Minh City (in Vietnamese, video and pics are good)
Vietnam celebrates 50 years of National Reunification this week. This is the rehearsal flight for the state’s storytime drone show. It’s very Vietnamese stylistically. Actual flight May 1st.
My highlight: Ho Chi Minh in a lotus
Semafor chat- “Most interesting part of the Semafor group chat story is this tidbit about tech’s centrism-to-right wing partisan pipeline” the turn towards authoritarian government seems a rational response in the face of – well, fear. Fear of death, fear of change. Having made billions and used to servants handing you grapefruit spoons or whatever, seems logical to not want this to change.
Especially with multiple system failures on the horizon. The accelerationist ideology has its logic as well.
But there are competing ideas and movements based upon different ideas. Also arising in response to multi-system failures.
Curious to see – generally, locking things down and creating closed societies leads to some stagnation, doesn’t it? The interesting ideas will arise is other places. The fear driven policies will not produce the open, creative environment needed to move through the bottlenecks.
Thinking on a large scale, out of my wheelhouse but you know, it’s a generally unremarked upon public argument- what shape social construct through the bottlenecks. reminds me of John Kay’s book Obliquity
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/308233/obliquity-by-john-kay/
Re autism. I used to use Google advanced search to find old NC discussions relevant to the topic so we can all start from same point. Enshittification means 90% of the time this doesn’t work anymore for me. Google is clearly suppressing stuff, particularly older stuff.
But the autism debate was had on here AT LENGTH. My covid addled memory can’t be relied upon to say any conclusion was reached but people above my pay grade were suspicious of what we laughingly call “food” these days which is implicated in gut issues.
The medical brain trust here can no doubt say more but I’m just trying to bring up some interesting conclusions and hypotheses from early 2010s to act as starting point so we don’t revisit old stuff.
Re: Ukraine announces wave of murders and terrorism in Russia immediately after Putin’s ceasefire announcement…..
“…The presenter asked the deputy how he assessed the bombing of Russian General Moskalik in the Moscow region that happened the day before.
“I am pleased. This is good work by our special services. I think that even if we reach the point of stopping the war, the work of the special services will only just begin. And this will be a task for the next 10-30 years,” said Kostenko.
Anyone thinking they are only talking about within Russia and Ukraine is mistaken.
The usual suspects will take in the worst of the lot.
“GPT-4o Is An Absurd Sycophant”
I suppose that Sam Altman tested it personally and when it sucked up to him something chronic, he gave it his mark of approval as that is what he hears from people all day long.
LLMs remind me of a student that studies the teacher more than the subject. It can make a some students good test takers in certain subjects. The jury remains out for what they’ve actually learned in the long run.
A twiXet yesterday expressed shock that a deviation from the set point frequency (50 Hz in Europe) of 0.15 Hertz could lead to a blackout. Actually a deviation of half of that will put the operators of the utilities connected to a large grid into crisis mode. Initially fingers are pointing at a geomagnetic proximate cause of the blackout, but it will likely take weeks or months to identify root causes that made the grid vulnerable.
“SITREP 4/28/25: Russian Vise Tightens as West Dawdles and Dallies with “Ceasefire” Sham”
I really can’t understand Trump’s final plan. It’s like the Kellog plan but worse. They are offering things to Russia that they never asked for and things that they can’t deliver on. And ‘Security guarantees for Ukraine are provided by a military contingent of European states.’ In other words there will be a NATO garrison in the Ukraine. As for Zaporizhzhya NPP, the Russian Constitution will not allow for Russia to hand bits of Russian territory to Americans – the same people that have been running this war the past three years. Also, ‘Ukraine will receive full restoration and financial compensation.’ From who exactly? Do they mean Russia’s frozen $300 billion? And the Kinburn Spit? The Ukrainians keep on trying to land forces there and the Russian keep on shooting them to bits. Is that a bone for the Ukrainians. Based on this document, Trump’s team have not listened to a single thing that the Russians have been telling him for months now. And forget that Russia is winning this war and it is not a stalemate.
That video of the North Koreans is interesting. I wonder if among their number there will be future generals. I read accounts of British junior officers in the 19th century being assigned to extraordinary duties but which marked them for future promotions over those who just stayed with their Regiments or ships. Such may be the case here. The North Korean army is about to get an upgrade.
More of the west bargaining with themselves? I don’t think Ukraine will agree even to this ‘win’, so it may be more about shifting expectations. The ‘Victory Day’ ceasefire trick is pretty clever, the Ukrainians almost certainly have plans for that day, and now they will look un-ceasefire-ready when they pull them off. I wonder if they are feeling extra pressure to grab headlines, now that the Nuclear War Book swung the odds wildly towards the India-Pakistan conflict.
“Ice Age Humans Were Experts at Wielding Fire, Study Finds”
‘Fire was not just about keeping warm; it was also essential for cooking, making tools, and for social gatherings’
I really do not think that enough attention is paid to that last bit. After all, you don’t see animals gathered around a fire. If you want to know where the foundations of civilization were laid, it was around those prehistoric fires. People engaged in experimenting with thoughts and language. Developed social skills as a species as they swapped small talk and retold stories. Learnt new ideas. Watching those flames must have changed the way that they looked at things too. Just sitting there warm and safe and fed with warm food must have made this a special place for them. During the day you had hunting and gathering and all sorts of tasks. But at night, there was time for other things.
One thing most of us don’t have on hand is matches or lighters, unless you smoke.
All winter long as i waz winding down after dark, my muscovy ducks would line up on the other side of the fire and do that head bobbing thing they do.
Im certain that its language.
When i head bob back, they give me sideye
Re Euro-Med link
In the Euro-Med article: Civilian lives, including those of children and women, are not collateral damage to be overlooked; these are real people with personal stories, deliberately and systematically killed without the Israeli acknowledgement of any legal or even moral obligations.
Posted at Consortium News – Interview transcript b/w Hedges and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa a medical prof whose seen the real. Stan for Kneecap ’cause, well, if you have to ask, read the following interview in full.
And I’ve yet to read msm-slop about how those in Michigan, who helped vote in the R prez, perceive the lie that was sold.
One sample of a lengthy interview to underscore EuroMed’s line that non-combatants are being “deliberately and systematically killed without the Israeli acknowledgement of any legal or even moral obligations.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/04/28/chris-hedges-report-decimating-gazas-health-system/
Dr. Sidhwa, “I keep mentioning Mark Perlmutter. He’s a Jewish-American hand surgeon, orthopedic surgeon that I’ve been to Gaza with twice now. He talked about how he was actually having to implant not pins but drill bits themselves into children’s bones in order to fixate them because they just don’t have pins that are the size needed for children.”
Canva too:
Canva shocks employees with AI-related job cuts
They whacked basically the whole technical documentation and education team. That’s gonna go well.
Banana Republic territory
Secret Deals, Foreign Investments, Presidential Policy Changes: The Rise of Trump’s Crypto Firm
Go big or go home. Makes Biden’s petty corruption look pathetic and slight.
Another impressive European leader. I didn’t realize just how dark life was during the period of cold war neutrality. It sounds like hell. /s. There is quite a supply of these European warmongers.
Finnish Leader Warns the Kremlin: ‘You Don’t Play With President Trump’ NYT archive
But hey, he plays a near-pro golf game.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/28/trade-war-tariffs-full-blown-crisis-us-farm-exporters-say.html
I’ve never tried cocaine and can confidently state that I never will, but here in Peru, drinking tea made from coca leaves is a very ordinary thing, in fact I’m sipping on a cuppa in my hotel lobby.
I wasn’t all that enamored with having coca leaves in my mouth though, which is what I did on the Inca trail.