birdwatcher

slashdot.org -- More than 100 activists breached a Microsoft AI data center construction site in Amsterdam as part of coordinated protests against the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure. "These data centres are destroying our world. It's becoming uninhabitable because of all the resources they consume. That's why we're here today," protester Sam van der Beek said.
Печальная история. Люди интуитивно видят мал-инвестмент, но не умеют своё чувство по-человечески сформулировать.

Это вовсе не учёные. Это рубрика Арбата "Я хочу, чтобы либертарианцы сказали".

Пример из 2018 года: Я бы хотел, чтобы наши либертарьянцы, которые рассуждали о том, что тарифы это всегда плохо, подтвердили, что они считают, что сейчас стало хуже, чем было - поскольку новое соглашение выжато при помощи войны тарифов.
(кто не в курсе, тогда буквально стало гораздо хуже, чем было).

Пример из 2025 года: [Аргументы изоляционистов против войны с Ираном] сводятся к тому, что неужели мы не убедились до сих пор, что наше участие в какой-то войне делает все хуже? Мы не хотим ввязываться в очередную войну, мы не хотим менять режимы, Америке это не нужно! На мой вкус, три проблемы. Во-первых, они не объясняют, хуже, чем что?
(кто не в курсе, чем выиграть выборы).

Дети, не будьте такими, как Арбат. Слушайте либертарианцев и изоляционистов.

philg -- One big change in Florida is the loss of Ron DeSantis, albeit to term limits rather than to the election per se. He was a once-in-a-generation administrative talent and I’m sure that substituting almost anyone else would inevitably result in paying more in taxes and/or getting less in services (Florida state taxes are primarily consumption taxes, e.g., the 6% sales tax, though there is a 5.5 percent income tax on C corporations that do business within the state). DeSantis was instrumental in hardening the power grid here in Florida and also in organizing and motivating amazingly swift post-hurricane restoration, e.g., of bridges, local power lines, etc. DeSantis is being replaced by Byron Donalds. I wasn’t too excited about this race because his opponent, Democrat David Jolly, wasn’t an AOC/Mamdani/El-Sayed-style Democrat. I guess Byron Donalds is preferable because he happens to be Black and it will be entertaining to see white Democrats attacking a Black man as stupid, racist, Science-denying, etc. (They already do that with Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a Harvard M.D./Ph.D.)

но самые важные выборы всегда местные. На местных выборах всё неожиданно хорошо.

illinoispolicy.org -- Chicago Teachers Union candidates claim just 9 of 21 spots on Chicago Public Schools board. CTU and aligned groups spent at least $2.4 million on candidates, according to data from the Illinois State Board of Elections, but voters appear to have rejected CTU’s agenda at the ballot box.

Битва за будущее чикагских школ окончена.

Current Biology, 36, 21, November 02, 2026.
André B. da Cruz, Martina Francesconi, Alice Galotti, Tânia Minhós, Giulio Petroni, Elisabetta Palagi
A socio-sexual bond between a bull and a male donkey
Same-sex sexual behaviour is widespread in animals, yet to our knowledge observations of such behaviour between individuals of different taxonomic families remain rare. In a grazing area on an Ethiopian plateau (Debre Libanos, Oromia), Achille, a bull (Bos taurus/indicus), and Patroclo, a male donkey (Equus asinus), actively engaged in reciprocal socio-sexual interactions, thus forming an unusual association. Although interpreting this behaviour is challenging, the mounting attempts, taken together with the repeated and mutual affiliative interactions between the two animals, may signal the quality of their relationship. The interactions must have reproductive opportunity costs, in time and energy diverted away from potentially functional reproductive activities, and it would seem that these costs are outweighed by the strength of the animals’ social bond.

futurism.com -- OpenAI Sam Altman says sorry, mathematicians: the onslaught of AI math slop will continue.
Так и надо. Пока математики читают спам они не могут рекомендовать маски.

Rivka Galchen@newyorker (https://archive.is/9fJAn) -- Many mathematical geniuses have been as celebrated for their eccentricity as for their work. Тhe logician Kurt Gödel, whose incompleteness theorems revealed that no mathematical system could express every mathematical truth, came to believe that doctors had a secret book in which they wrote honestly about medications, that the I.R.S. was after him, and that his friend who had died decades before was still alive in the Soviet Union.

Tabarrok -- The biggest and most consequential change would be to allow payment to living organ donors. The End Kidney Deaths Act, H.R. 2687, proposes a $50,000 refundable tax credit over five years for qualifying nondirected living kidney donors. The act has bipartisan support. Because dialysis is so expensive—and the federal government pays for much of it through Medicare’s special kidney-failure entitlement—the Act could save taxpayers money as well as saving lives.

news.sky.com -- Crypto industry suffers 'largest bank heist in human history' as billions stolen in Binance hack. According to TRM Labs, which tracks the industry, digital assets worth more than $6.3bn (£4.7bn) have been taken from Binance by North Korean hackers.
_RichardTeng@twitter -- I want to speak to you directly about what happened.

slashdot -- Alphabet shares fell nearly 10% after Google disclosed that searches through its AI Mode generate less revenue than traditional search. Chief business officer Philipp Schindler said the slowdown was caused by "lower monetization we were seeing in AI Mode." That's a worry given that Google is spending enormous sums on infrastructure.

Кто не в курсе, оказывается, в СССР при нашей жизни действовала самая настоящая тоталитарная секта с рабынями, БДСМ-ом и всем остальным. Основателем был видный учёный и деятель здравоохранения В.Д.Столбун (wiki). Подробности можно прочитать в книге Анны Сандермоен «Секта в доме моей бабушки».
Отдельно известно, что одним из активных членов секты и основным жертвователем на её нужды был автор «Чебурашки» и «Каникул в Простовашино» Э.Н.Успенский. Всё это всплыло, когда в 2020 году его именем хотели назвать литературную премию «Большая сказка». Тогда его дочь возвысила голос и указала, что он был сумасшедшим маньяком и называть его именем сказочную премию нельзя (wiki). Её проигнорировали.
Конец истории.

Угадайте, о ком речь.

He then came to resent his father's literary use of the childhood games he played in [...], the inspiration for [...]. "It seemed to me almost that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son," he told the BBC in 1971. "Both my parents were fairly remote up to the age of about nine… I only saw them at particular periods during the day." He also claimed that the books weren't intended for him. "[My father] wasn't concerned with me. He was writing for himself."
In his memoir, [...] recalled how, when a journalist told his father that his books "seemed to show a great understanding and love of children", his response was that "I am not inordinately fond of them… and I've certainly never felt in the least sentimental about them".

( Правильный ответ: )

Torsten Slok@apollo -- Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech. Revenue per worker is rising for the Mag 7 but is flat for the S&P 493, see the first chart below. Profit margins are rising for the Mag 7 but are flat for the S&P 493, see the second chart below. And there are still no signs of AI boosting productivity growth, see the third chart below. With no impact on the bottom line, mainstream corporate America is pulling back and starting to view token spending not as a source of growth but as a cost center that weighs on margins.

Marseille (France) (AFP) -- President Emmanuel Macron on Monday accused social media of "damaging our democracies".

axios.com (https://archive.is/Kc5SW) -- Washington has always viewed Silicon Valley as culturally strange, but the current crop of AI leaders is becoming a political liability, sources close to the White House and Congress tell Axios. Lawmakers, hill staffers and Washington insiders in both parties wish AI founders would do what every other major industry chief does: put a sock in it and just build their products — safely.
By centering the conversation around digital sentience and global catastrophe, AI leaders are turning an already complicated regulatory debate into an impossible moral panic. Rather than leading the charge to persuade Americans about the benefits of AI, and the potential for shared prosperity — the core elements of any winning political campaign — industry leaders are constantly warning of its existential dangers.
Lawmakers say the message from AI execs too often alternates between prosperity and doom, sometimes in the same public appearances. The whiplash creates adds to political instability in the face of an already powerful public backlash, lawmakers and regulators say.
"It's obvious that they're tripping over their own shoelaces in trying to sell the value of this to the public," Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) told Axios. "It's very hard to imagine a group right now that operates more in a vacuum, more out of touch with everyday Americans, than the AI industry."
"CEOs like Sam Altman are saying the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Axios. "You cannot trust billionaires to make decisions to keep us safe."
"Your instinct is to wreak havoc on the public SI discourse," Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said in a letter to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earlier this month, complaining about Amodei's "panic-inducing commentary."

Сканини и Тосканави.

nypost.com -- A Tesla traveling at 70 mph struck and killed a 71-year-old pedestrian on a Bay Area freeway in the dead of night – with the driver claiming the car was in Full Self-Driving mode. The victim was crossing Interstate 80 in Vallejo early Thursday morning when the Tesla struck him near the I-780 interchange, according to the California Highway Patrol. The driver, a 26-year-old San Francisco man, told investigators the Tesla was operating in Full Self-Driving mode at the time of the deadly collision.
К сожалению, переходить пешком интерстейт в ночной тиши это самоубийство, и с недостатками и преимуществами автомобилей без водителя напрямую не связано.

- What is Russian for route?
- Marsh route.

interfax.ru -- РФ и Индия начали совместное межвидовое учение "Индра-2026"

nbcnews.com (https://archive.is/Gn5M1) -- Large study finds no link between ultra-processed food and colorectal cancer.
Это, видимо, как у математиков -- написано в угоду Трампу, чтобы он не сократил финансирование. Чего не сделаешь ради науки! Надо было ещё добавить, что исследование выполнено новейшей моделью искусственного интеллекта, специализированной для изучения колбасы.

fox32chicago.com -- According to prosecutors, Paporakis worked as a cashier at a Taco Bell in Arlington Heights for about seven months. A co-worker told investigators that Paporakis regularly made disparaging comments about people of other races, particularly people from India, openly identified as a white supremacist and frequently discussed Nazis and armed struggle.
The co-worker told prosecutors that Paporakis’ rhetoric intensified in the days leading up to the alleged plot.
On Saturday, Paporakis allegedly told the co-worker he could not wait to kill Indian people and said he was planning an attack at the largest Hindu temple in Aurora. He allegedly said he would use a large amount of ammunition. Another co-worker said Paporakis described the following day as a "special day."
The next afternoon, Paporakis contacted the first co-worker and asked him to call. During the conversation, Paporakis allegedly said his gun had jammed and he had gotten out of there "super-fast." The co-worker believed Paporakis was driving at the time, according to the proffer.
Paporakis then allegedly sent the co-worker a video showing an AR-style rifle failing to fire when the trigger was pulled, along with a photo of himself wearing a tactical vest. In their messages, Paporakis allegedly said he was lucky he had fired while inside his car and that no one had seen him. He also discussed possible fixes for the gun so he could "retry when I fix this," prosecutors said.
Paporakis allegedly told the co-worker that he did not believe in divine intervention but that the man he had fired at was "certainly saved by his God today."
The co-worker and another employee called 911 after the exchange, according to prosecutors. Palatine police located Paporakis at about 3:42 p.m. in a parking lot near his apartment in the 1300 block of North Baldwin Court.
На фото совсем мальчик впрочем.

Winnie-the-Pooh is a 1926 children's book by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The book was published on 14 October 1926.
(навёл piggymouse)

nbcnews.com -- Robertson was 17 years old when he went to prison in 1980 for burglary and assault. Years of convictions for escape, battery and weapons while in prison kept adding time to his total sentence. Hart was sent to prison in 2003 following a sexual battery conviction.
According to court records, Robertson was incarcerated at Charlotte Correctional Institution, north of Fort Myers, in December 2008 when he tied several socks together and strangled Hart while the other man slept. Robertson told investigators that the attack was unprovoked and that he killed his cellmate so that he would be sentenced to death, rather than having to live out his days in prison.
Robertson pleaded guilty and waived a penalty phase, where a jury would recommend the death penalty or life in prison. A judge sentenced Robertson to death, and he later waived all post-conviction proceedings. Robertson reiterated his position during a hearing earlier this month, telling a judge that he understood his execution had been scheduled and that he didn’t want to make any final appeals to the Florida Supreme Court or U.S. Supreme Court.
While proponents of the death penalty have long claimed that it is a deterrent, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty released a statement saying that this case demonstrates the opposite.