What are you reading?
Comments
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Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.
New research sheds light on how mediocre employees help would-be authoritarians maintain power.2 -
"How to Not Lop Off Your Fingers" by Charlie Chainsaw.
"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis4 -
Game On Navessa Allen 👀
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I'm reading my Dad's letters from the time he went into the Army in1943 till he arrived home in 1945. He was the only survivor of his mortar squad when his unit was overrun in the winter during the Battle of the Bulge. He was trapped in his foxhole for ten days with Germans all around him. He was lucky.
My Vietnam memoir is based on the letters I sent home from my war and that he saved for me. My sister gave me a box with his letters last week.
I'm making notes as there may be another book in me.9 -
Would live to read it. Paying for the book this time, though.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
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How do crows tell each other apart?
With the same black plumage, how do crows tell one another apart? Earlier research has shown that their calls are individually specific, functioning in the same way as human voices. Female crows tend to have higher voices than males, partly due to body size.
Crows also vary in body size and shape and have similarly diverse bills; the tips grow continuously, but the bill shape is stable nearer the base. One crow family that Clark has observed featured a member with a bill shaped almost like a Roman nose, while his mate had a petite, straight bill; their offspring exhibited one or the other.
Clark hypothesizes that, like humans, crows may also be able to recognize individuals by how they move — in their case, fly. One older crow, sitting in her territory at sunset, didn’t respond as other crows winged by overhead, returning home after a day of foraging. That is, until she saw one specific bird fly overhead; she perked up and apparently called a greeting, at which it looked down while in flight and replied, Clark recounted.
“Our recognition of the quality and identity of our social companions uses many sensory modalities,” Clark said. “What we’ve shown is that the black of a crow does vary and has information in it, even though it’s sexually monomorphic.”
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I wonder if crows from other countries all look the same to them.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
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It's a frightening digital world growing by leaps and bounds
"Finally, we provide an assessment of whether internal AI agents in Feb–Mar 2026 had the means, motive, and opportunity to start a “rogue deployment” — a set of agents running autonomously without human knowledge or permission — and make it robust against varying degrees of security and monitoring measures. Overall, we believe that internal agents at the time of our assessment plausibly had the means, motive, and opportunity to start small rogue deployments, but they did not have the means to make them highly robust."
If.you want to get into the weeds:
https://metr.org/blog/2026-05-19-frontier-risk-report/#agents-had-significantly-worse-judgment-and-reliability-than-human-experts2 -
a BBC article about custard apples https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8pmrp0m47o reminded me of I growing a cherimoya in my greenhouse back in the day, I agree with Mark Twain who called it “the most delicious fruit known to man.”
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Microsoft reports are exposing AI’s real cost problem: Using the tech is more expensive than paying human employees
https://fortune.com/2026/05/22/microsoft-ai-cost-problem-tokens-agents/
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@silvermouse said:
Microsoft reports are exposing AI’s real cost problem: Using the tech is more expensive than paying human employeeshttps://fortune.com/2026/05/22/microsoft-ai-cost-problem-tokens-agents/
Now that's an oxymoron!
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Summary: A new study revealed that while people are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence chatbots for emotional and mental health support, the vast majority of users view these systems as supplements to, not substitutes for, human therapy. The research analyzed more than 4 million Reddit posts to map user interactions with large language models.
The findings expose a critical “bond paradox”: while AI provides genuine value for practical, goal-oriented coping strategies, forming a deep emotional bond with a chatbot frequently accelerates negative psychological risks, including emotional dependence, worsening symptoms, and intense feelings of shame or guilt.
Key Facts
The Mental Health Tech Surge: General-purpose AI tools have experienced a massive wave of adoption for psychiatric support. Data highlights that nearly half of U.S....
More here:1 -
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4909947-great-debt-debacle-has-arrived
The United States has now crossed a line that no developed economy in world history has ever crossed and survived intact. In just the past decade, our national debt has doubled. Not grown modestly. Not increased in line with GDP. Doubled. And that is merely the headline federal debt number. When you add in private debt - corporate, household, municipal, bank - the United States now sits atop over $100 trillion in total outstanding obligations. In fact, total business debt alone has skyrocketed to $22 trillion, or 70% of GDP - the same percentage that ushered in the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. That alone should terrify any rational investor. Oh, and then there’s the unfunded liabilities, which add another $80 trillion to the dung pile.
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Was reading that Baltimore MD historic murder rate has slowed to a trickle due to a combination of community outreach and a tough prosecutor, one may not be as effective without the other.
A little dirt never hurt3 -
I Profile Celebrities for a Living. Nothing Prepared Me for Tilly Norwood.
The A.I. actress on her craft, the future of film and how she definitely does not intend to murder us.0 -
Silicon Valley Is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass
Listen · 28:34 min
Share full article1.6k
By Jasmine SunMs. Sun writes about A.I. and Silicon Valley culture on Substack.
April 30, 2026
Most people I know in the A.I. industry think the median person is screwed, and they have no idea what to do about it.Whether you talk with engineers, venture capitalists, founders or managers, or with doomers, accelerationists, lefties or libertarians, the so-called San Francisco consensus on the impact of A.I. for workers is bleak. Many are convinced that advanced A.I. will soon surpass human capabilities. This would produce tremendous growth and scientific achievement, but it would also displace millions of jobs as fewer humans are needed to make the economy run. The technology will depress economic mobility and exacerbate inequality, while ferrying power and wealth to the A.I. companies and the existing owners of capital.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/opinion/ai-labor-work-force-silicon-valley.html?unlocked_article_code=1.m1A.Vx0u.qou-42mZO5e3&smid=url-share1 -
Why So Few Babies? We Might Have Overlooked the Biggest Reason of All.
This is not simply a matter of affordability, the buzzword so often invoked to explain why people are choosing to have smaller families. Government support for parents can help, but overall, people are having fewer children both in countries that offer very little and in those renowned for their generous family benefits; moreover, the trend holds among those who are struggling to make ends meet and among those who, like the Riveras, have advanced degrees and salaried jobs. What unites these disparate cultures, policy environments and demographics, researchers are now realizing, is young people’s inescapable and crushing sense that the future is too uncertain for the lifelong commitment of parenthood. Call it the vibes theory of demographic decline.
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@silvermouse said:
Silicon Valley Is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass
Listen · 28:34 min
Share full article1.6k
By Jasmine SunMs. Sun writes about A.I. and Silicon Valley culture on Substack.
April 30, 2026
Most people I know in the A.I. industry think the median person is screwed, and they have no idea what to do about it.Whether you talk with engineers, venture capitalists, founders or managers, or with doomers, accelerationists, lefties or libertarians, the so-called San Francisco consensus on the impact of A.I. for workers is bleak. Many are convinced that advanced A.I. will soon surpass human capabilities. This would produce tremendous growth and scientific achievement, but it would also displace millions of jobs as fewer humans are needed to make the economy run. The technology will depress economic mobility and exacerbate inequality, while ferrying power and wealth to the A.I. companies and the existing owners of capital.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/opinion/ai-labor-work-force-silicon-valley.html?unlocked_article_code=1.m1A.Vx0u.qou-42mZO5e3&smid=url-share
“but it would also displace millions of jobs as fewer humans are needed to make the economy run.”
The thinking behind this line right here is why we are doomed as a country. Fewer humans cannot make the economy run. Too many people have been led to believe the economy is the stock market. What too many fail to realize is that the stock market is based on intangible assets. The economy boils down to the buying and selling of goods, not numbers. Without humans that have actual tangible assets….there is no economy.
If it don’t bother me, it don’t bother me. Just leave me alone.
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Our tech overlords are planning for conscious AI to conquer the cosmos. What could go wrong?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/31/transhuman-silicon-valley-ai
And
China has approved the world’s first invasive brain-computer chip—here’s what’s next
Sitting in the courtyard of his house in China’s Henan province last October, Dong Hui decided to try holding a pen. Six years after a car accident left him paralyzed from the neck down, he slowly wrote his name, “Thank you,” and the date.The breakthrough was made possible by a brain implant called NEO. In March, it became the world’s first invasive brain-computer interface approved for use beyond clinical trials. The approval is expected to accelerate China’s push to become a global leader in brain implants.
Read the full story on how China reached this milestone—and what it means for the future of brain-computer interfaces.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/01/1138133/china-world-first-brain-chip/1 -
@silvermouse you may find this interesting
If it don’t bother me, it don’t bother me. Just leave me alone.
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Thank you Rusty.
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Bees and few other community animals work so well together.
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In another apparent affront to press freedom from the Trump administration, journalists may no longer enter the Pentagon’s press office, which has been designated as a classified space.
The defense department began rolling out new restrictions to press access in September, when the military demanded journalists pledge not to gather any information – including unclassified documents – that had not been authorized for release, or else risk revocation of their press passes.
Joel Valdez, the acting defense department press secretary, said in a social media post: “This is the most transparent war department in history. No amount of spin from the Fake News media will change that.” He claimed the redesignation was because “speechwriters from the Office of the Secretary of War” shared the facility.
How have the media reacted? After the defense department announced sweeping restrictions in October, many longtime reporters refused to agree and began turning over their press passes. The department then announced a “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” featuring 60 journalists from far-right outlets. The New York Times sued the Pentagon over those policies, which designated journalists as “security risks”, and a federal judge found in the Times’s favor in March.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/01/pentagon-journalists-press-office-access-revoked
and this (funking politicians)
‘Like a Klingon prison’: inside Barack Obama’s audacious, near-windowless, $850m presidential library
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See a helicopter destined for Mars and a spectacular flowery frame for the Milky Way — May's best science images
The month’s sharpest science shotshttps://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-01609-2/index.htmlted by Nature’s photo team.
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Bees can problem-solve on the fly
Bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) can suss out how to use a tool to complete a set task without explicit training. Bees were shown a ceiling-mounted artificial flower, which contained a tasty sucrose treat, and then separately, a styrofoam ball. Then, the insects were put into an environment with both. The bees worked out that they could roll the ball under the flower for a leg-up to their reward. The insects were never explicitly shown that they could use the ball for this purpose, which suggests they have the cognitive capacity to problem-solve.https://www.science.org/content/article/bees-just-did-something-no-other-insect-has-been-shown-do
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@silvermouse said:
See a helicopter destined for Mars and a spectacular flowery frame for the Milky Way — May's best science images
The month’s sharpest science shotshttps://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-01609-2/index.html by Nature’s photo team.
FIFY (the link)
Join us on Zoom vHerf (Meeting # 2619860114 Password vHerf2020 )1 -
Suss out?
If it don’t bother me, it don’t bother me. Just leave me alone.
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