toucana

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, the BBC have broadcast a new documentary about the mystery called ‘Why Planes Vanish:The Hunt for MH370’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001x0yh/why-planes-vanish-the-hunt-for-mh370 This documentary (currently available in UK on iPlayer) provides a concise history of the disappearance of the Boeing 777 flight with 239 souls aboard on March 8th 2014, and updates the story of the ongoing international search to find it. One of the most intriguing leads comes from new research by a retired Aviation engineer Richard Godfrey who has studied the possibility of using the WSPR network dataset to track the exact position of MH370 on the night of its disappearance. WSPR (weak signal propagation reporter) is an amateur radio protocol system set up in 2008 which is based on small MF and HF transmitters around the world that broadcast low power test signals to evaluate the conditions of their propagation paths through the earth’s atmosphere. The transmission and reception data is automatically logged in a large database. Richard Godfrey who likens WSPR to a global network of tripwires has suggested that close study of the WSPR data can disclose signal-to-noise and frequency drift anomalies caused by the passage of MH370 on its final flight into the southern Indian Ocean. It’s a suggestion that raised eyebrows and was met with much scepticism at first, but the idea of using WSPR as a form of OTH (over the horizon) radar happens to be testable. A number of proof of concept studies have been undertaken recently, including one led by Professor Simon Maskell at Liverpool University, and the results are said to be sufficiently encouraging that deep-sea search specialists Ocean Infinity are now negotiating with Australian and Malaysian authorities to resume their search for MH370. Richard Godfrey believes the WSPR data indicates that MH370 will be found within a 30Km sector just beyond those on the 7th Arc previously searched by Ocean Infinity. The hypothesis is that the pilot extended MH370’s flnal flight path by gliding the unpowered plane for another 20m or so after its engines flamed out from fuel depletion. (photo below)

The fanbase recently started a GoFundMe campaign to cover his costs after the latest Judge Engoron ruling. The GoFundMe allegedly raised around $84,000 in the first 24 hours - which equates to around 0.01% of the billion or so that TFG will need to cover all his legal costs, fines and interest payments. That's a "long row to hoe" as they say.

Roberta Kaplan the counsel for E. Jean Carroll recently recounted the experience of meeting Donald Trump at Mar a Lago to take a deposition, and of him telling her “See you next Tuesday” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/02/robert-kaplan-trump-c-word-e-jean-carroll-lawyer “What are you saying ?” she replied , “We are not due in court until next Wednesday ?”. It was only when she was being driven away from Mar a Lago that her staff explained to her what TFG had really meant. Meanwhile Trump who famously congratulated “The great state of Kansas” back in 2020 when the Kansas City Chiefs won Superbowl LIV (they play in Kansas City Missouri) is having another meltdown about the same team winning Superbowl LVIII at the w/e. https://www.marca.com/en/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/2024/02/12/65ca04b746163fa5638b457e.html Apparently it’s all a ‘Deep State’ psy-op involving Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift to prevent him from winning the 2024 election.

Donald Trump apparently confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi 4 times in a single sentence while addressing a rally in Concord NH on Friday. TFG was trying to run one of his habitual lies about the Jan 6 insurrection by claiming that the Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the lack of security around the Capitol that day. Unfortunately Trump’s cognitive failures are now so frequent (and so severe), that he thinks Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley are one and the same person, and that the latter was Speaker of the House in the last months of his presidency. He also referred to George Conway (not Concord) as the capital of New Hampshire in the same speech. This is unlikely to end well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGTJy1Ij4Qk

An integral part of Mexican cuisine ?

The SCOTUS will need to consider this interesting ruling which was penned by none other than Neil Gorsuch back in 2012 when he was a circuit judge on the appellate bench of the Tenth District. This was cited by the Colorado Supreme Court in their ruling this week. https://www.newsweek.com/neil-gorsuch-could-strike-death-knell-donald-trump-1853993

Donald Trump has just been kicked off the GOP primary ballot in Colorado by the Colorado Supreme Court. https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/colorado-trump-14th-amendment-12-19-23/index.html This reverses a finding by a Colorado District Court just a couple of weeks ago, where the judge reached the baffling conclusion that Donald Trump *had* engaged in insurrection, but should *not* be disqualified under section III of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, because even though he was the POTUS at the time, he wasn’t technically deemed to be an ‘Officer of the United States Government” in the sense referred to by the 14th Amendment. The Colorado Supreme Court made it clear in a 217 page ruling that they regarded this finding by the lower District Court to be a clear and reversible legal error. They also made it clear that the earlier finding that Trump had engaged in an insurrection was correct and factually based on evidence of record, and that Trump’s inflammatory speech which provoked the riot and breach of the Capitol was not protected political speech under the First Amendment. This latest ruling will undoubtedly be appealed immediately to the SCOTUS by Trump and his lawyers. In reality the Colorado decision by itself will make little difference to the calculus of the electoral college in the 2024 Presidential election, because Trump probably wouldn’t have have won any EC votes in Colorado to start with - but the new ruling does set a very interesting legal precedent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1PySqGo4L0

I think Burns Night is on the 25th of January ?

The title of my OP in this thread was a ‘HAL 9000’ joke about who was actually running OpenAI. But it’s a topic that has also been receiving some more serious attention recently e.g. https://www.reworked.co/digital-workplace/reduce-uncertainty-to-drive-ai-adoption/#:~:text=In%20a%20now%20famous%20quote,and%20should%20be%20held%20accountable. The article by Benjamin Granger from August 2023 cites a famous comment originally made by IBM in 1979.

From the original article by by Bruce Schneier in Slate Dec 4th 2023: https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/ai-mass-spying-internet-surveillance.html From the follow-up article by Benji Edwards in Ars Technica the following day Dec 5th 2023: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/due-to-ai-we-are-about-to-enter-the-era-of-mass-spying-says-bruce-schneier/?comments=1&comments-page=1

A recent article by Bruce Schneier (first published by Slate) highlights the risk of how a new era of mass spying may be triggered by advanced AI systems that enable a shift from observing actions to interpreting intentions, en masse. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/due-to-ai-we-are-about-to-enter-the-era-of-mass-spying-says-bruce-schneier/ In the context of OpenAi’s recently reported AI breakthrough Q*, this passage makes particularly worrying reading:

George Santos has been expelled from the House of Representatives after a vote on the house floor. https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/12/01/congress/santos-expelled-00129588 The voting went 311 - 114 in favour of his expulsion, following a damning Ethics Committee report. He becomes only the third politician to be expelled in this way without a federal conviction since the Civil War. The four top GOP leaders in the house (including Speaker Mike Johnson) voted against expelling him.

A report by Reuters on 30 November 2023 which went largely unnoticed, throws more light on what might have provoked the sudden 4 day ouster of Sam Altman the CEO of OpenAI: .https://www.reuters.com/technology/sam-altmans-ouster-openai-was-precipitated-by-letter-board-about-ai-breakthrough-2023-11-22/ The new model was able to solve certain mathematical problems in a way that made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success according to Reuter’s source.

Argentina has just elected a chain-saw wielding far-right ‘libertarian’ fringe candidate called Javier Milei as their new president. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67470549 Popularly known as ‘El Loco’ (the madman), his economic objectives include replacing the peso with the US dollar and “blowing up” the central bank. On social issues, he wants to loosen gun laws, abolish abortion - which was only legalised in Argentina as recently as 2020 - and allow the sale and purchase of human organs. The victory of Milei who won a decisive run-off by almost 12% against Mr Massa the economy minister of the outgoing left-wing government has been welcomed by Donald Trump and former president Bolsonaro of Brazil who say that he will “Make Argentina great again”. One salient factor that probably influenced many voters was a deep economic crisis that had seen the annual inflation rate rise to 143%, with around 40% of Argentines living below the poverty line.

The ongoing speculation over Sam Altman’s dismissal has provoked a heated discussion of some quite outre theories as to how and why it happened. BBC Technology Editor Zoe Kleinman who says her phone ‘blew up’ on Friday when the news broke, points out that there were only 6 people on the board of OpenAI, so it was just 4 of them led by the Chief Scientific officer who dismissed both the President and the CEO of the company. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67461363 Some have noted that Elon Musk’s company X (formerly Twitter) has recently released a new LLM chatbot called Grok, while others have drawn attention to a blog article published by Sam Altman on the OpenAI website on 24 February of this year titled “Planning For AGI and Beyond” https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond This article discusses his understanding of the nature of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) which is widely seen as the Holy Grail and next step of AI development, and sets out the possible timeline and challenges involved. The final part of the article includes this paragraph which seems to have a certain resonannce in the light of what has just happened:

New reporting says that Greg Brockman the president and co-founder of OpenAI who had been stripped of his board position on Friday, but was supposed to remain with the company because he was of “vital importance”, has also resigned and left OpenAI. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/openai-president-greg-brockman-quits-as-nervous-employees-hold-all-hands-meeting/ There is a good deal of speculation as to what has prompted the sudden ouster of the founders, with some commentators suggesting that concerns at boardroom level about the prioritisation of profit over safety in the future development goals of OpenAI played a key role. Others have drawn attention to Microsoft’s sudden ban on their own employees from using internal access to OpenAI tools which was implemented without warning on Friday - shortly before the dismissal of Sam Altman was announced. https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/10/microsoft_blocks_chatgpt/?td=keepreading This was said to be due to “data and security concerns”, which lines up with a recent report by UK spy agency GCHQ that sensitive prompts fed into public LLM (large language model) AI systems may allow them to learn confidential information from such inputs, and leak it to other users. https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/15/gchq_warns_against_sensitive_corporate/

Sam Altman the head of ‘OpenAI’ has been ousted by the company’s board in a move that has sent shockwaves through the sector. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67458603 Altman was the co-founder of the non-profit in 2015 which has become best known for its ground-breaking ChatGPT bot. The company which is now backed by Microsoft was recently reported to be in talks to sell shares to investors at a price that would value it at more than $80bn (£64bn). The company said its board members did not have shares in the firm and that their fundamental governance responsibility was to "advance OpenAI's mission and preserve the principles of its Charter". The Chief technology officer Mira Mirauti is set to take over on an interim basis.

One fundamental problem is that many people on the far right-wing of US politics don’t really believe in democratic values anymore, and nor do they wish to live in a constitutional democracy. A good few of them apparently want to live in a Christo-Fascist theocracy based exclusively on evangelical fundamentalist readings of the bible as interpreted by self-appointed ‘ayatollahs’, some of whom want to declare a holy war on unbelievers, and execute non-Christians (and no, that is not a joke or an exaggeration). https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/414450-fbi-investigating-washington-state-rep-for-manifesto-urging-all-males/ Intermingled with these Christian zealots are self-indoctrinated members of the QAnon cult which originally began as an online prank on the 4CHAN image board - a cult which some believe was secretly promoted and encouraged by Russian intelligence operatives as part of a black-ops campaign of psychological warfare against the USA. There is in fact some considerable overlap between the QAnon cult and various wings of the evangelical christian right. There are for example sub-chapters of QAnon that identify strongly with young earth creationists who are also flat-earthers, and follow Bishop Ussher’s chronology which teaches that the (flat) earth was created at 6pm on Tuesday 22 October 4004 BC. Closely associated with both the Christo-Fascist and QAnon cults is yet another bizarre group known as the Sovereign Citizen Movement who back in early 2021 were confidently predicting that Donald Trump would be sworn in as the *19th* president of the USA on 4th March 2021 - Basically this movement believes that every congress since 1871 has been invalid, and that Ulysses Grant the18th president was the last legitimate holder of that office. (For more detail see —> https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/qanon-conspiracy-theories-trump-tiktok-1118668/ ). A common thread linking all of these cults is what the French Sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858 - 1916) called ‘Anomie’. a word whose Greek root ἀνομία literally means ‘lawlessness’. Durkheim used this word in several ways, but the one that seems relevant here is a general breakdown of collective moral values caused by a conflict or mismatch between existing belief systems and rapidly changing social realities affecting ordinary people such as mass industrialisation, or the types of de-industrialisation and impoverishment seen in the rust-belt areas of the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie Many ordinary people in the USA feel alienated, betrayed, disempowered and fundamentally ignored both by modern corporate America, and by what by they regard as the self-centered ‘Washington bubble’ of mainstream american politics. This sense of anger and victimhood makes them ready converts to the teachings of conspiracy cults which provide self-referential explanations, convenient scapegoats (e.g. Immigrants, the ‘Deep State; ‘Fake News’, Liberals, Masks etc) and above all they provide a missing sense of community in the form of the companionship of fellow believers - people who will happily stand together on the Grassy Knoll at Dealey Plaza waiting for JFK or JFK jnr. to magically rise from the dead, restore Donald Trump to the presidency, and join him in his fight against the Deep State to purge the world of satanic child-eating cannibals. https://people.com/politics/qanon-believers-gather-dallas-john-f-kennedy-jr-died-1999/

INSURRECTION DAY II - THE SEQUEL (reposted by Donald Trump)

I fail to understand how. An interesting article in the Courier Journal about Daniel Cameron, the defeated GOP candidate in the Kentucky gubernatorial election who was heavily endorsed by Trump makes exactly the opposite point: “Once again Republicans learned the truth about Trump—he’s great in a primary but isn’t nearly as good in a general election, even in a red state like Kentucky. There’s no doubt that Trump’s endorsement of Cameron in the GOP primary sunk his deep-pocketed rival—Kelly Craft—and helped Cameron surge to the nomination. And in October, after falling far behind, Cameron used Trump’s endorsement again to nationalize the race and reel in Beshear, who had built up a large lead. But for as unpopular as President Joe Biden is in Kentucky (and believe me, it’s bad) Trump has his detractors, too. There are moderate, college-educated Republicans and independents in key counties in the Louisville, Lexington, and Cincinnati metro areas for whom Trump is a deal breaker" https://eu.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2023/11/08/beshear-won-trump-no-help-cameron/71500605007/#

Claims that Donald Trump "has already spoken out against the GOP on this issue" are likely to fare particularly badly in 2024 when videos of him saying the exact opposite start appearing in political ads. Have a look at the videos of Trump in this clip from the Alex Wagner slot on MSNBC slot last night - (from 3.35m elapsed onwards). Those attack adverts have already been cut, and will be on endless loop next year.

The locations cited happen to be ones that have just had elections or ballots within the last couple of days, which means that psephologists can study the actual voting data patterns that really took place, instead of trying to interpret potentially suspect pollster predictions from elsewhere,

Location Location Location……. Andy Beshear won re-election as Governor of Kentucky by +5 clear percentage points - in Kentucky, the home state of Mitch McConnell the Senate Republican minority leader - a deep red state which had previously voted 60/40 in favour of Donald Trump in recent presidential elections. The Ohio constitutional amendment on abortion rights passed by +12 percentage points - in Ohio the home state of ‘Gym’ Jordan, the Republican loudmouth, flamethrower-in-chief, and current chair of the House Judiciary Committee in Congress. In Virginia the Democrats took control of both houses in the General Assembly, and did so in spite of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s high profile involvement in pushing a 15 week abortion ban, and a ’Parents Rights’ agenda in education - thereby frustrating Youngkin’s hopes of a ‘trifecta’, and a possible late presidential run in 2024. They do say that only one poll really matters, and Tuesday night’s election results suggest that MAGA is now largely unelectable. The people have spoken and are saying that they do not wish to live in a Christo-Fascist theocracy governed by a ramshackle coalition of screaming trolls, book burners, and brain-addled Q-Anon Karens waving assault rifles.