More than 4,000 species of moths flit about in Texas, and one scientist has photographed 550 of them in his own backyard. Texas Monthly
Girl discovers dinosaur footprints while walking on the beach BBC
Demystifying Sovereign Wealth Funds JSTOR Daily
climate
From growth fetish to post-growth Democratic Collaboration
JD Power reports EV public charging sees steady progress for second consecutive quarter (Press Release) J.D. Power
Large-scale analysis of EV charging stations reveals numerous reliability issues TechBrew. Explains:
Everything old becomes new again. What a noisy, polluting, wasteful century we have had to make the oil barons rich. pic.twitter.com/tzLNfju6Sg
— Henry Madison (@RageSheen) August 17, 2024
Aftertime Catalogue Via Negativa
Syndemics
What’s in your coronavirus emergency kit? Violet Blue
* * * Why you don’t need to panic about Mpox Jessica Wildfire, OK Doomer
Smallpox and mask bans – a recipe for disaster Judy Stone, Forbes, on North Carolina’s mask ban here and here. meanwhile:
Do you think there’s something wrong with the CDC recommendations?
(Source is below) pic.twitter.com/eXVcRTRMyJ
— Lazarus Long (@LazarusLong13) August 17, 2024
China?
China’s anti-corruption network makes risk-averse officials afraid to innovate South China Morning Post
China’s countryside calls out to city dwellers: Settle down, relax and revitalize rural areas South China Morning Post
Korean Peninsula
Made in Korea: When a British boy band got the K-pop treatment BBC
Shiraksta
Israeli settlers rampage through Palestinian villages (Video) Al Jazeera
* * * Biden says Gaza ceasefire in sight, warns against weakening deal Al Jazeera
US-led mediators present “bridge plan” to end Israel-Hamas war FT
Israeli negotiators leave for Cairo on Sunday to continue Gaza ceasefire talks Anadolu Agency
* * * How pro-Israel groups shape global media coverage of Palestine Declassified UK
“The Golan Heights will not accept any killings or regional wars in the name of our victims.” magazine
* * * Two peoples, zero state? Jewish thinkers consider mass exile return Haaretz
Great Game
‘Island of Freedom’: Inside Afghanistan’s secret beauty salons Al Jazeera
Dear Old England
“The Pain of Strikes” and “Has the Labour Party Lost Control of Trade Unions?” BBC
We must never forget the ugly prejudice of the Labour Party. Funding the future
A new cold war
Ukraine invades Russia, Kiev forces in dire straits on the eastern front The Wall Street Journal
Ukraine orders evacuation of east as Russia expands FT
Ukraine war: Kiev urges Pokrovsk civilians to evacuate as Russian forces approach South China Morning Post
* * * Ukraine offensive Natalya Gumenyuk, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Kursk Offensive and the Risk of a Wider War American Conservatives
What military history tells us about the invasion of Kursk in Ukraine land
* * * Dmitry Trenin: This European region could become the next Ukraine RT
Biden hints at major missile upgrade for Ukraine’s new F-16 fleet Military Watches
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry denies allegations of Russian ‘dirty bomb’ attack plot Ukrainska Pravda
* * * US oil services group SLB expands in Russia as competitors retreat FT
South of the Border
Ecuador denounces vice president’s gender allegations against President Novoa as attempted coup BNE Intellectual News
2024
Gov. Tim Walz shares ‘white guy’ taco recipe with Vice President Kamala Harris Fox
Why Democrats are open to Harris’ policy proposals POLITICO
Election officials keep Green Party presidential candidate on Wisconsin ballot AP
health care
Digital Watch
Has your paper been used to train an AI model? Almost certainly. Nature
Nvidia sued for YouTube scraping after 404 Media investigation 404 Media
Hidden data could reveal whether AI models were trained on copyrighted material Imperial College. The copyright trap.
Mosaic Memory: Fuzzy Overlap in the Copyright Trap of Large-Scale Language Models Igor Shilov, Matthieu Meeus, Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, Imperial College arXiv. From the abstract: “We propose to improve the content discoverability of newly released LLMs by inserting copyright traps into the original content.”
Protecting AI systems from malicious data pollution attacks CMB Insurance Brokers
* * * Will the data run out? The limits of scaling LLM based on human-generated data arXiv. From the abstract: “Our findings indicate that if current trends in LLM development continue, then between 2026 and 2032, or slightly sooner if the models are overtrained, models will be trained on datasets roughly the same size as the available stock of publicly available human text data.”
How to tell if what you’re reading was written by an AI Lifehacker
* * * California cuts AI safety bill amid fears of tech company exodus register
* * * AI Failures: An updated list of AI errors, mistakes, and blunders Tech.co
These cool but creepy features of AI phones will erode trust in everything Business Standard
Zeitgeist Watch
Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva’s Path: Shantideva on Virtue and Happiness Philosophy Review
Buddhist Anarchism: Theory and Practice Anarchist Library
* * * Emergence of Abstract Representations in Human Hippocampal Neurons During Reasoning Nature. From the abstract: “Learning inferences by trial and error or by verbal instructions led to the formation of hippocampal representations with similar geometric properties. The observed relationship between representational form and inference behavior suggests that abstract, disentangled representational geometry is important for complex cognition.”
Photon entanglement could explain the rapid brain signals behind consciousness Phys.org. “A Chinese research group has shown that large numbers of entangled photons can be generated within the myelin sheath that covers nerve fibers. This may explain the high-speed communication between neurons that was previously thought to be slower than the speed of sound, but is too slow to explain how neural synchronization occurs.”
Class struggle
Minnesota workers repeal opaque rules that restrict hiring freedom Workday Magazine
Mastercard plans to cut 3% of global workforce Anadolu Agency
Online “pig slaughter” scams are on the rise. Find out why they’re so successful. The Wall Street Journal
Today’s antidote (Barry O’Miller):
See yesterday’s link and the Antidote du Jour here.
