Over 4,000 Moth Species Flit Across Texas. One Scientist Captured 550 in His Backyard. Texas Monthly
Girl finds dinosaur footprints on beach walk BBC
Demystifying Sovereign Wealth Funds JSTOR Daily
The weather
From the growth of life to the participation of post-growth democracy
Public EV Charging Sees Consistent Growth for Two Consecutive Quarters, JD Power Finds (press release) JD Power
An extensive analysis of EV charging stations finds many problems with Tech Brew’s reliability. Comment:
Everything old is new again. What a noisy, polluting, wasteful century we’ve just had, all to make the oil carts rich. pic.twitter.com/tzLNfju6Sg
— Henry Madison (@RageSheen) August 17, 2024
A Retrospective Catalog of Negatives
Syndemics
What’s in your Covid emergency kit? Violet Blue
****** Why You Don’t Need To Panic About Mpox Jessica Wildfire, OK Doomer
Mpox and Mask Ban – A Recipe for Disaster Judy Stone, Forbes. See NC on the mask ban here and here. Currently:
See anything wrong with the CDC recommendations?
(Sources follow.) pic.twitter.com/eXVcRTRMyJ
— Lazarus Long (@LazarusLong13) August 17, 2024
Schools have made little progress against record truancy, with millions of kids still skipping AP classes
China?
China’s anti-corruption agency has risk-averse officials afraid to launch the South China Morning Post
China’s countryside beckons city dwellers: live, rest and revitalize rural regions South China Morning Post
The Koreans
Made in Korea: When a British boy band gets the K-pop BBC treatment
Syracistan
Israeli settlers raid Palestinian village (video) Al Jazeera
****** Biden says Gaza is ending fighting, warns of efforts to undermine deal Al Jazeera
US-led mediators present ‘bridge proposal’ to end Israel-Hamas war FT
Israeli negotiating team to travel to Cairo on Sunday to continue talks on Gaza ceasefire, Anadolu Agency
****** How Pro-Israel Groups Shaped International Media Coverage of Palestine Reduced in UK
‘The Golan will not accept any killing or regional war in the names of our victims’ 972 Magazine
****** Two People’s Zero Regions? Jewish Thinkers Reflect on Mass Return to Exile Haaretz
The Great Game
‘Island of freedom’: Inside Afghanistan’s secret salons Al JazeeraT
Hello Old Blighty
‘The pain of beatings’ and ‘have workers lost control of the unions?’ BBC
Never forget the negative bias of labor Funding for the Future
The New Cold War
As Ukraine Attacks Russia, Kyiv’s Soldiers Are in Trouble on the Eastern Front WSJ
Ukraine orders east evacuation amid continued Russian gains FT
Ukraine war: as Russian troops approach, Kyiv urges residents to evacuate Pokrovsk South China Morning Post
****** Ukraine in Provocation Nataliya Gumenyuk, Foreign Minister
The Kursk Offensive and the Risk of a Wider War The American Conservative
The Military History Teller About the Kursk Invasion of Ukraine RAND
****** Dmitry Trenin: This European region could be the next Ukraine RT
Biden Hints at Major Missile Upgrade for Ukraine’s New F-16 Air Force Watch
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry denies Russia’s accusations of planning a “dirty bomb” in Ukrainska Pravda
****** US oil services group SLB is expanding in Russia as rivals withdraw FT
South of the Border
Ecuador condemns vice president’s sex complaint against President Noboa as coup attempt BNE Intellinews
2024
Gov. Tim Walz shares his ‘white man’ taco recipe with VP Kamala Harris FOX
Why Dem lawmakers are giving Harris permission to make policy proposals Politico
Election officials retain the Green Party presidential candidate in the Wisconsin AP poll
Health care
The sad reality of lung cancer patients in their 20s is revealed by an oncologist who reveals his ‘serious’ diagnosis to the Daily Mail.
A digital clock
Has your paper been used to train an AI model? Almost certainly Nature
Nvidia sued for scraping YouTube After 404 media investigation 404 Media
Hidden data can be revealed if the AI model was trained on Imperial College proprietary material. Copyright traps.
The Memory of Moses: The Uncanny Replication of Copyrights in Major Language Models Igor Shilov, Matthieu Meeus, Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, Imperial College arXiv. From the Abstract: “Copyright traps are proposed to be included in original content, to improve content availability in newly released LLMs.”
Protecting AI Systems from Malicious Data Poisoning Attacks CMB Insurance Brokers
****** Will we run out of data? LLM scaling limitations based on human-generated data arXiv. From the Abstract: “Our findings indicate that if current trends in LLM development continue, models will be trained on datasets roughly equal in size to the available stock of human text data between 2026 and 2032, or sooner if models are overtrained.”
How To Tell If What You’re Reading Was Written By An AI LifeHacker
****** California passes AI safety bill amid fears of technology outage Register
****** AI Wrong: An Updated List of Errors, Errors and Failures of AI Tech.co
These cool but scary features of AI calls will destroy trust in the entire Business Standard
Zeitgeist Watch
Buddhist Ethics and the Path of the Bodhisattva: Śāntideva on Virtue and Welfare Philosophical Review
Buddhist Anarchism: Theory and Practice The Anarchist Library
****** Abstract representations from human hippocampal neurons during inference Nature. From the Abstract: “Learning to make predictions by trial and error or by verbal instruction led to the formation of hippocampal representations with similar geometric structures. The observed relationship between representational format and directed behavior suggests that abstract and discrete representational geometries are important for complex cognition. “
Photon entanglement can explain the brain’s immediate symptoms after learning Phys.org. “A group of researchers in China has shown that multiple bound photons can be generated within the myelin sheath that covers nerve fibers. It may explain the rapid communication between neurons, thought to be so far below the speed of sound, which is too slow to explain how neural synchronization occurs. “
Class War
Minnesota Workers Strike Down Dark Provision That Limits Their Workday Freedom
Mastercard plans to reduce the number of employees worldwide by 3% Anadolu Agency
‘Pig Surgery’ Internet Scams on the Rise. Here’s Why They Work So Well. The WSJ
Antidote du jour (Barry Aumiller):
See yesterday’s links and the Antidote du Jour here.
