DCReport.org

For Democrats To Be the Working Peoples’ Party

Tom Cantlon
Updated

A List Covering the People They Miss and the Options They Miss

Here’s a list of items Democrats could promise to do if they regain enough power. Ones that really make it clear that ordinary working people are the focus. Even when Democrats promote good ideas it’s like they aren’t looking all the way down to minimum-wage workers. Or it’s about some social program to just spend money on the problem. Some things need that but there are ways to help that aren’t just government money, that are more about empowering people.

I will refer back to this list in a number of future pieces. Obviously, other topics need support too, like re-emphasizing equality for all, but this list is about policies that would apply to all. Also some policies are already prominently promoted, like some help with daycare and boosting trade schools. This list is what needs to be added or emphasized.

* Expand collective bargaining and union contracts in every area possible. There is no other tool better at improving conditions, and doing so by empowering rather than charity.

* Integrate AI with existing jobs in positive ways. AI should come into the workplace in a coordinated way that helps both employers and employees, rather than a chaotic wiping out of jobs. Union contracts with provisions for how AI integrates would help, and by empowering working people to have some control of it. So, see the item above.

* Legalize immigrants who contribute. Deport only undocumented immigrants who are committing crimes. For those who have been here for years, abiding by laws, working and paying taxes, for Pete’s sake keep that up.

* Break up employment monopolies. Not just for how they dominate products, but so they don’t hold monopolies on jobs and drive down wages and benefits and treatment.

* A serious attack on wage theft. It’s much bigger than most realize ($15 BILLION last year) and by no means limited to low-wage or undocumented workers. (And so what if it was? Work should always pay what was agreed.) One step: Anytime one employee wins a court case, do a full investigation of what other workers that employer shorts.

* Tighten working hours regulation. The old model of a job: You were hired for fixed hours and a given shift (day, night). If the employer had misjudged and there really isn’t enough for you to do, they would still have you on the job and pay you. The new model: Your schedule might randomly be day or night, meaning you can’t plan consistent day care, or side job, or night classes. You might randomly get fewer hours, but you still have to remain available. Enforce the old model.

* Tax wealthier paychecks to strengthen Social Security. Only about the first $180,000 of paycheck income is taxed for SS. If you make a million the other $820,000 are SS tax free. It has been known for decades that the limit needed to be raised to fund SS.

* Expand very small business administration help. Many ordinary workers are small business owners or have a side business. Anything to help that will help the economy.

* WPA-like art projects. Make working people feel like they are who is important. Sponsor lots of public art that celebrates working people, as was done by the WPA during the Great Depression.

* Monthly press conference on worker progress. Just as we carefully respond to the inflation rate, have a high-level report each month on economic indicators of how ordinary working people are fairing. Importantly, presented by the president or top administration or Congressional officials. If the economy is improving, are workers getting their full share of that? Is anything slipping which needs attention and improvement? Make real that worker status is the focus.

* Encourage Fed to prioritize employment. The Fed can’t be dictated to but it can be made clear that the emphasis should be on best conditions for workers. Fighting inflation, versus what is best for the pay of working people, are typically a trade-off. But tolerating a little more inflation while creating conditions that raise worker pay might, on balance in the long run, be what’s best. The Fed can constantly monitor for that best balance and push it as close to optimal as possible.

* Get dangerous chemicals out of common products. The list of things government should do to create a system more focused on what helps everyday people is long. Pick one or two like this to make prominent, to indicate an overall focus on people.

This list is incomplete, but specific and symbolic. A firm commitment to such a list would give voters a solid understanding, and inspire them.

DO YOU VALUE YOUR RIGHTS? HELP US TO CONTINUE PROTECTING THEM BY SUPPORTING OUR NONPROFIT EFFORTS.

The post For Democrats To Be the Working Peoples’ Party appeared first on DCReport.org.

Marginal Revolution

Colin McGinn’s “My Honest Views”

Tyler Cowen
Updated

I think David Lewis was off his rocker, I think Donald Davidson was far too impressed by elementary logic and decision theory, I think Willard Quine was a mediocre logician with some philosophical side-interests, I think Daniel Dennett never understood philosophy, I think Michael Dummett was a dimwit outside of his narrow specializations, I think P.F. Strawson struggled to understand much of philosophy, I think Gilbert Ryle was a classicist who wanted philosophy gone by any means necessary, I think Gareth Evans had no philosophical depth, I think John Searle was a philosophical lightweight, I think Jerry Fodor had no idea about philosophy and didn’t care, I think Saul Kripke was a mathematician with a passing interest in certain limited areas of philosophy, I think Hilary Putnam was a scientist-linguist who found philosophy incomprehensible, I think Ludwig Wittgenstein was a philosophical ignoramus too arrogant to learn some history, I think Bertrand Russell was only interested in skepticism, I think Gottlob Frege was a middling mathematician with no other philosophical interests, I think the positivists were well-meaning idiots, I think Edmund Husserl had no interest in anything outside his own consciousness, I think Martin Heidegger and John-Paul Sartre were mainly psychological politicians, I think John Austin was a scientifically illiterate language student, I think Noam Chomsky was neither a professional linguist nor a philosopher nor a psychologist but some sort of uneasy combination, I think the vast majority of current philosophers have no idea what philosophy is about and struggle to come to terms with it, I think philosophy has been a shambles since Descartes, I think Plato and Aristotle were philosophical preschoolers, I think no one has ever really grasped the nature of philosophical problems, I think the human brain is a hotbed of bad philosophy (and that is its great glory).

Here is the link, via The Browser.  My honest view is that he is worrying too much about other people, and not enough about issues.

The post Colin McGinn’s “My Honest Views” appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

      

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Marginal Revolution

Thursday assorted links

Tyler Cowen
Updated

1. On the Saudi-UAE rift.

2. Record low U.S. crime rates are real, not an artifact of data issues.

3. Is the LDS Church suddenly bearish?  What do they know?

4. Alcohol death rates in Europe, by country.

5. Australia as a partial model for the FDA.

6. “A new aesthetics will be cool, sexy, and soaring or will never transpire. Three artists who should be forebears of a new art: Uccello, Correggio, Tiepolo.“

The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

 
Construction Physics

Is the Future “AWS for Everything”?

Brian Potter
Updated

A theme running through my book is the idea that efficiency improvements, and the various methods for making products cheaper over time, have historically been dependent on some degree of repetition, on running your production process over and over again. Higher production volume means larger, more efficient factories. It means more opportunities to use dedicated, high-speed, continuous process production equipment, or to implement efficiency-improving methods like Design for Manufacturing or Statistical Process Control. It means more incentive to develop new, better production technology. It means more opportunities to fall down the learning curve. The list goes on.

If you’re only going to run your process once, or just a handful of times, these opportunities are considerably narrowed. It’s obviously hard to justify the time and effort it takes to design a really efficient production process or invent some new manufacturing equipment if that process is constantly changing.

An example of this playing out in practice is the different cost trends of cars vs. car repair. In inflation-adjusted terms, cars have steadily gotten cheaper over time. The cost of car repair, on the other hand, has steadily gotten more expensive, rising mostly at the rate of overall wages (and recently, even faster).

Much of this difference comes down to the nature of the processes at work. Cars are manufactured via a repetitive, high-volume process that spits out nearly identical models by the hundreds of thousands or millions. Car manufacturers can justify spending billions of dollars designing a new model of car and the process for making it, because that cost will get spread out over a huge number of cars. Repairing a damaged car, on the other hand, is different: for a given model, any given repair process will be run a much smaller number of times, or maybe only once (since cars might get damaged in accidents in unique ways). A repair facility will need to accommodate a huge number of different models and model years, each damaged in different ways. There’s much less opportunity to design an efficient, highly automated repair process.

There are some complications to this basic pattern — the Toyota Production System and its descendents were designed to get mass-production-style benefits for a much more variable production process by making that process more flexible — but they don’t change the fundamental logic.

Thus, for things that we can repetitively produce in very large volumes — cars, transistors, LCD screens, corn — we’ve gotten good at making them very cheaply. Things produced in much smaller volumes, or where we need to adapt our process on the fly based on the specific situation, are much harder to produce cheaply. One way of thinking about services, which tend to get more expensive in inflation-adjusted terms over time, is that they’re things which generally require a lot of situation-specific adaptation, and can’t be produced via some high-volume, highly repetitive process.

An important aspect of this is automation. I’m fond of pointing out that it’s generally possible to build a machine to perform any particular task (and it has been for quite some time). If you’re going to do some task thousands or millions of times, it’s long been possible to automate that task with some sort of dedicated machine. (People skeptical of humanoid robots are very fond of pointing out how this sort of hard automation is far more efficient than a human-shaped robot at doing some task.) The challenge with automation has historically been flexibility: creating a machine that can make adjustments on the fly, perhaps changing the sequence of tasks completely as the situation changes, the way a human can. Even if the hardware itself can be used to perform a variety of different tasks, information processing capabilities have been limited; it has taken a lot of time and effort to get any particular automated process working, which could only be justified if those costs could be amortized over a sufficiently large volume. This is why the car industry has by far been the biggest user of industrial robots historically, as they have the right combination of very high production volumes, and frequent (but not too frequent) process changes (since models change yearly).

But this is changing: automation technology is getting more and more flexible. Computer vision has advanced, billions of dollars are being poured into developing humanoid robots, and a panoply of AI technologies are making it possible for an automated system to flexibly respond in a highly variable environment. Self-driving cars are one example. Being able to drive between any given two points, responding to situations or disruptions as they appear — traffic lights, pedestrians, other cars — is the exact sort of thing that automation historically has been very bad at, but that technology is now chipping away at.

As automation technology gets better and better, I have been thinking about how it will get pushed into areas requiring low-volume production or situation-specific adaptation that previously have been resistant to it. One potential trajectory is that with better, more flexible automation, “minimum efficient scale” — the size of an operation you need to be competitive — shrinks. With sufficiently capable robots, for instance, it might become possible to efficiently produce things in really small-footprint, low-overhead factories. The idea of “microfactories” is something people are enthusiastic about: you often see it in various prefab construction startups, but that excitement has spread elsewhere. The premise of the (now-defunct) EV startup Arrival was building cars using these sorts of highly flexible microfactories.

But another possible trajectory is in the opposite direction: large-scale, highly efficient production operations which capture significant economies of scale, but which produce a very wide range of outputs. Factories producing millions of different products in low volumes, or even quantities of one. I’m tentatively calling this idea “AWS for everything.”

AWS and flexible automation

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is Amazon’s cloud computing business. The idea of it (and of other similar offerings like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform) is that instead of needing to set up your own computing infrastructure to do things like host a website or store large amounts of data, you can just rent it from Amazon. Amazon builds the data centers, sets up the servers, and creates the software tools and infrastructure that other people can use to set up and manage their computing needs.

Making this work as a business demands a huge amount of expensive infrastructure; even before AI, Amazon and other cloud computing companies spent a huge amount of money building data centers in various regions. But as Ben Thompson notes, AWS “benefits tremendously from economies of scale.” The more customers AWS has, the more efficiently it can use its infrastructure, similar to how electric utilities wanted lots of customers to reduce demand variability and achieve higher utilization rates. Thus with AWS you get a highly variable output — millions of different websites and computing tasks — supported by large-scale infrastructure investments. You can very quickly use Amazon’s infrastructure to perform whatever computing task you’re interested in, from hosting a small website to processing terabytes of data, without needing to build or operate any of that infrastructure yourself.

This same basic logic applies to physical automation. If you have machinery or equipment that can perform different sorts of tasks or produce a variety of different goods, and an effective software control layer that can tell each piece of equipment what it should be doing and where material should be routed, you can automatically produce a very large variety of different things. And the larger your operations, the lower your marginal costs of production: the more you produce, the greater your equipment utilization rate, and the more you can capture other economies of scale, such as using more efficient high-volume equipment.

Historically setting up this sort of highly automated, highly flexible production operation has been limited by the fact that setting up any particular automated process took a great deal of time and effort, and the technology didn’t exist for that automation to respond flexibly to a highly variable environment. So automated production lines, even ones that used flexible technology like robotics, could only be justified for high-volume production, and the range of variation they could accommodate was fairly limited.

But as automation and AI get better, this becomes much less true. If your software is smart enough, and your equipment flexible enough, you can set up some new process to produce some new widget on the fly, automatically working out what the process steps need to be and how to route the material through the various machines, without needing to take the time and effort to dial it in that was required historically. And if your volumes are high enough — if you’re producing enough different widgets, each with its route through a sequence of machines, sharing processing steps where possible — your costs for each individual unit of production might be very low indeed, even as you produce a wide variety of different things. So I can imagine having very large-volume production operations, which obtain large economies of scale and produce a wide variety of different outputs. Huge warehouses filled with all sorts of different machines, materials, parts, and components being routed between them, paths and tasks changing on the fly, a panoply of different goods rolling off the equivalent of the assembly line, each one sent to its final destination by low-cost, small-scale delivery vehicles like drones or Austin Vernon’s pallet EVs. Customers could spin up production on this rented equipment and start producing whatever they wanted without having to build their own factory. These sorts of operations wouldn’t displace traditional mass-production style processes (which will still have a substantial cost advantage), but would exist alongside them.

(You probably don’t even need to completely automate the hardware side, so long as you have a sufficiently intelligent control layer. Uber’s mapping software can direct a driver to where they need to go, leaving the driver to actually turn the wheel and work the controls. Amazon has similar software that tells its distribution center workers where to pick up and bring packages. So you can imagine humans acting as much of the “connective tissue” in this sort of production process, being directed by software telling them where to go and what to do to maximize utilization.)

AWS for everything

You can see the seeds of this “AWS for everything” concept in some businesses that exist today. In manufacturing there are fabricators that specialize in high-mix production like SendCutSend, OSH Cut, or JLCPCB. You send your part design to SendCutSend: their software automatically checks to see if it can be fabricated using their equipment (laser cutters, CNC machines, etc.), and they send you back the part a few days later. According to SendCutSend’s founder Jim Belosic, this model only works because of economies of scale, being able to efficiently spread the costs of their millions of dollars of equipment. As he said on Tool or Die:

The key with high mix is that it actually works at scale. The larger volume of high mix, the easier things get...Especially with sheet cutting. With sheet cutting, the software side of us, it allows us to take hundreds of different customers, with a quantity of one part each, and put them onto a sheet, like tetris, nested all together, and run it all at once. So we only do one setup, for potentially dozens or hundreds of customers, we do one load into the machine, we only retrieve the material once. And we have really good sheet utilization, we have almost no scrap. It’s probably one of the lowest in the industry.

It doesn’t work though, when you only do a few. If I was to run one of those customers at a time, we’d be bankrupt.

SendCutSend has grown rapidly — founded in 2018, they recently passed $100 million in annual revenue — but they still work hard to maintain flexibility, using equipment that doesn’t require months of downtime to reprogram or configure when processes change. They’re also expanding their offerings. They started with laser cutting, later added CNC machining, and now offer welding of single parts. They’ve also gradually expanded the range of materials that they offer. You can imagine that as automation gets better and better, this sort of business model could continue to be extended, going to multi-part welding, assembly, and eventually entirely finished goods.

And it’s not just manufacturing where this sort of production model might emerge. I was inspired to write this essay after reading a really great essay about lab automation at Owl Posting, speculating that various lab automation startups might converge on being “AWS for biotech”: large, automated labs that can spread the costs of their automation over a large number of experiments run for different customers. Right now much of this sort of lab work isn’t automated, not because it’s not possible to automate but because it’s not repeated enough to be worth it in any particular lab. Centralize all those experiments in one place, and maybe that changes:

If you are to accept that lab centralization (as in, cloud labs) means you can most efficiently use lab robotics—which feels like a pretty uncontroversial argument—it also means that the further you lean into this, the more able you are to vertically integrate upstream. If you’re running enough experiments such that your robots are constantly humming, you can justify producing your own reagents. If you’re producing your own reagents, your per-experiment costs drop. If your per-experiment costs drop, you can offer lower prices. If you offer lower prices, you attract more demand. If you attract more demand, your robots stay even busier. If your robots stay even busier, you can justify producing even more of your own inputs. And so on, ad infinitum, until you devour the entirety of the market, and the game of biology becomes extraordinarily cheap and easy for everyone to play in.

I’m not a scientist, but I can imagine how this sort of model could apply to other areas of scientific research as well — chemistry, materials research, etc.

How far could this model be pushed? I opened this essay talking about car repair, which has risen in cost far faster than the actual production of cars. I’ve been in car accidents where the damage was relatively minor, but that nevertheless cost a large fraction of the entire value of the car to repair, due to the un-optimized, un-automated, labor-intensive repair process. Could we have some sort of large, centralized car repair facility, spreading the cost of its automated equipment (heavy industrial robot arms, lifts, welding robots, perhaps even metal fabrication equipment) across a huge number of repaired cars?

It’s not obvious to me whether this would work for car repair. Whether “AWS for everything” will work in a given industry will depend on the specifics of that industry, the costs and capabilities of the equipment available, and what scaling effects look like. If equipment is relatively inexpensive, and there aren’t substantial economies of scale at work, I wouldn’t expect this sort of production arrangement to necessarily make sense. A few years ago people were very enthusiastic about this sort of model for cooking, with “ghost kitchens:” commercial kitchens without any sort of dine-in option, preparing food for delivery-only restaurants. Some of the supposed advantage of ghost kitchens was that they required much smaller amounts of space that could be located outside of expensive, high-traffic areas (since you didn’t need any sort of dine-in option). But ghost kitchens were also expected to have economies of scale. Multiple different “restaurants” could be served from the same facility, possibly taking advantage of batch ingredient prep or high-capacity equipment. But while ghost kitchens are still around, they don’t seem to have been the enormous success they were originally predicted to be. (Possibly this will change if food prep automation gets much better, but that’d be somewhat surprising to me.)

So for many industries the “AWS for everything” model won’t work. But I nevertheless think there’s a good chance that certain kinds of production — manufacturing, certain sorts of scientific research, other capital-intensive services — will be organized this way in the future.

Thanks to Austin Vernon for reading a draft of this. All errors are my own.

DCReport.org

Tongits Go Modern Twist vs. Traditional Tongits: Which One Actually Wins?

Our Friends
Updated

Tongits is practically stitched into Filipino culture. If you grew up in the Philippines, you have probably seen it played at family reunions, fiestas, or that random Sunday afternoon when someone pulled out a deck and said, “Tara, isang round lang.”

It is simple. It is competitive. It is dramatic. And for some reason, it always turns into an argument about who miscounted points.

Then the internet showed up and did what it does best. It moved everything onto a screen.

Enter the Tongits Go modern twist. Same game. Different battlefield.

But is it just the same Tongits wearing digital makeup, or is it actually different?

What “Tongits Go Modern Twist” Really Means

The Tongits Go modern twist is not a reinvention of the rules. You still form sets and runs. You still manage high-value cards. You still aim for Tongits, a draw, or survival.

The difference is in structure.

Instead of a plastic table and three chairs, you need:

  • A smartphone
  • A stable internet connection
  • A few minutes of attention

That is it.

Platforms offering Tongits Go modern twist bring automated scoring, instant matchmaking, and structured competition. 

No more reshuffling because someone claims the deck “felt weird.” No more debates over whether someone miscounted points.

The system handles everything.

Efficiency has entered the chat.

The Speed Factor: Then and Now

Let’s be honest. Traditional Tongits has a rhythm.

Shuffle. Deal. Trash talk. Think. Count. Argue. Repeat.

It is slower, and that is part of its charm. You read body language. You watch with hesitation. You study discard strategies.

With the Tongits Go modern twist, speed becomes part of the game itself.

Matches start instantly. Turns move faster. Hesitation is punished. The tempo forces sharper decision-making.

There is no time to stare dramatically at your cards while pretending to think. The clock is running.

If you grew up playing the classic version, the pace might feel intense at first. But once you adjust, it is hard to go back.

Digital Tongits is efficient. And efficiency is addictive.

Strategy Shift: Old-School Instinct vs. Digital Precision

Here is where things get interesting.

Traditional Tongits strategy relies heavily on:

  • Reading facial expressions
  • Noticing micro-reactions
  • Tracking physical discard patterns
  • Managing long-term table psychology

In contrast, the Tongits Go modern twist focuses on:

  • Faster reaction times
  • Pattern recognition across multiple opponents
  • Rank progression strategy
  • Adapting to anonymous play styles

You cannot rely on body language online. You rely on data and behavior patterns instead.

The fundamentals remain unchanged:

  • Control high-value cards
  • Monitor discarded suits
  • Decide early whether to push for Tongits or play safe

But the tempo changes everything. Digital play rewards quick thinking and consistency. Strategy becomes tighter. More calculated.

In a way, it strips away theatrics and exposes pure gameplay.

Competition, Rankings, and the Rise of Leaderboards

In classic Tongits, your “rank” is based on reputation.

If you win often, people remember. If you lose often, they remember that too.

But there is no official ladder.

The Tongits Go modern twist formalizes this competitive spirit. Leaderboards. Tiers. Tournaments. Measurable progress.

You are not just “magaling.” You are ranked.

This structured competition appeals to players who crave progression. It gives goals beyond just winning one round.

You grind. You improve. You climb.

And suddenly, Tongits is not just a pastime. It feels like a competitive ecosystem.

Rewards, Events, and Why Online Tongits Feels Addictive

Traditional Tongits offers pride. Sometimes cash. Mostly pride.

Digital Tongits introduces:

  • Daily bonuses
  • Seasonal events
  • Timed tournaments
  • Reward systems

The Tongits Go modern twist gamifies the experience. It gives you reasons to log back in.

You are not just playing for the round. You are playing for rewards, achievements, and ranking movement.

It taps into the same structure that makes mobile games so engaging. Short sessions. Clear incentives. Visible progression.

Convenience meets competition. That combination is hard to ignore.

Social Energy: Barangay Table vs. Chat Box

Let’s address the elephant in the room.

Traditional Tongits is loud. It is emotional. It is personal.

Half the fun is the teasing. The other half is the reaction when someone unexpectedly declares Tongits.

Online play replaces that with chat features, emojis, and usernames. It sounds less exciting on paper, but rivalries still form.

You start recognizing players. You remember aggressive styles. You build digital grudges.

The Tongits Go modern twist does not remove social interaction. It transforms it.

Older players may miss the face-to-face tension. Younger players, raised on mobile games and online communities, feel right at home.

Different medium. Same competitive fire.

Who Should Play What?

This is not a loyalty test.

Choose traditional Tongits if you:

  • Love face-to-face interaction
  • Enjoy reading body language
  • Prefer slower, dramatic matches
  • Value in-person bonding

Choose Tongits Go modern twist if you:

  • Want instant matchmaking
  • Enjoy ranking systems
  • Prefer faster gameplay
  • Like structured tournaments

Most players rotate between both.

Family gathering? Traditional.

Late-night competitive session? Online.

The flexibility is the real upgrade.

Is Traditional Tongits Becoming Obsolete?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: absolutely not.

Traditional Tongits survives because it is cultural. It thrives in fiestas, living rooms, and spontaneous get-togethers.

The Tongits Go modern twist does not erase that. It extends it.

Think of it as preservation through evolution.

If Tongits stayed locked to physical tables only, it might slowly fade among younger, mobile-first players. By adapting to digital platforms, it stays relevant.

The mechanics remain. The spirit remains.

Only the setting changes.

Final Thoughts

Tongits Go modern twist vs traditional Tongits is not a battle. It is a timeline.

One represents heritage, community, and physical presence. The other represents accessibility, speed, and structured competition.

Both versions protect the core gameplay. Both reward strategy and timing.

The difference lies in pace and presentation.

Tongits has survived generations because it adapts without losing its identity. Moving to mobile platforms is just the latest chapter.

Same game. New arena.

And if a card game can evolve without losing its soul, that says something about its staying power.

FAQs

1. What is Tongits Go modern twist?

Tongits Go modern twist is a digital version of the traditional Tongits card game. It keeps the classic rules but adds online matchmaking, rankings, tournaments, and automated scoring.

2. Is Tongits online different from traditional Tongits?

The core mechanics remain the same. However, Tongits online introduces faster pacing, structured competition, digital rewards, and access to a broader player base.

3. Which is better: traditional Tongits or Tongits Go modern twist?

It depends on context. Traditional Tongits is ideal for in-person bonding and reading opponents. Tongits Go modern twist is better for convenience, ranked progression, and competitive online play.

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The post Tongits Go Modern Twist vs. Traditional Tongits: Which One Actually Wins? appeared first on DCReport.org.

Market Design

How to regulate legal marijuana?

Al Roth
Updated

 The New York Times editorial board thinks about the current environment for (now legal) marijuana, and calls for more careful regulation, and federal taxation:

It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem 

"Thirteen years ago, no state allowed marijuana for recreational purposes. Today, most Americans live in a state that allows them to buy and smoke a joint. President Trump continued the trend toward legalization in December by loosening federal restrictions.

This editorial board has long supported marijuana legalization. In 2014, we published a six-part series that compared the federal marijuana ban to alcohol prohibition and argued for repeal. Much of what we wrote then holds up — but not all of it does.

At the time, supporters of legalization predicted that it would bring few downsides. In our editorials, we described marijuana addiction and dependence as “relatively minor problems.” Many advocates went further and claimed that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. They also said that legalization might not lead to greater use.

 

It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong. Legalization has led to much more use. Surveys suggest that about 18 million people in the United States have used marijuana almost daily (or about five times a week) in recent years. That was up from around six million in 2012 and less than one million in 1992. More Americans now use marijuana daily than alcohol. 

...

"The unfortunate truth is that the loosening of marijuana policies — especially the decision to legalize pot without adequately regulating it — has led to worse outcomes than many Americans expected. It is time to acknowledge reality and change course." 

 

City Observatory

Interstate Bridge Replacement: The forever project

Joe Cortright
Updated

Construction on the Interstate Bridge Project take until at least 2045

Area residents can count on traffic disruptions on I-5 for the next two decades

Construction will likely take even longer as packages are “sequenced” and delayed because adequate funding for the full $17.7 billion cost hasn’t been identified

The biggest single transportation project in the Pacific Northwest, the proposed Interstate Bridge Replacement Project, which would replace the I-5 bridges over the Columbia River and widen the freeway between Portland and Vancouver has gotten a lot bigger–and will take a lot longer–than officials have been promising.  As City Observatory reported last month, the cost of the project has exploded from an estimated maximum of $7.5 billion to an new estimated maximum of $17.7 billion.  But that’s just one dimension of change:  the same materials show that the project which was vaguely promised to be finished in a decade or less, will likely drag on through the mid-2040s.  Welcome to the forever project!

Construction Delays: Two Decades. (Source: Google Gemini)

The Oregon and Washington highway departments started in earnest planning for–and spending money on–a replacement for the I-5 bridges over the Columbia River in 2005.  They’ve already spent two decades and close to half a billion dollars on the effort, mostly on consultants.  And by all indications, this process is going to drag on for at least a couple of more decades–and saddle the region with billions and billions in costs and debt, as well as extended disruption due to ongoing construction.

The good news, if you’re a consultant, is that this is going to mean lots and lots of employment.  Going forward, contractors and staff expect to bill $558 million — about $2.4 million per month for the next 231 months (more than 19 years), according to internal documents obtained by City Observatory.  This will be to oversee construction, and comes on top of about $273 million already spent on staff and consultants, plus more than $200 million spent on the earlier, failed Columbia River Crossing project.  Here’s a table showing planned spending for “management” for the next two decades.

“GEC” is the “General Engineering Consultant.”  These estimates include no provision for labor cost escalation over that 20 year period, so the actual figure could be much higher.

 

Construction on the river crossing itself won’t start, according to this schedule until 2028, but WSDOT will start charging tolls in 2026, in what is called “pre-completion tolling”–The pre-completion period, to be clear, lasts for a full two decades.

IBR has produced an elaborate schedule, which combined with a project map, shows when and how long major tasks will take.  The project will start with “pre-completion” tolling and then construction on the bridge crossing. Wider freeway segments and re-built intersections further from the Columbia River (Marine Drive in Oregon and Mill Plain in Washington) will be completed much later (in the 2040s).

Neither ODOT nor WashDOT has enough money to actually build the project, so their plan is to start spending the money they do have on some parts of the project, and then when that runs out, come back and ask for more.  Their plan calls for them to do some parts of the project earlier than others, what they call “sequencing.”  As it turns out, sequencing favors some program aspects over others.  For example, Tri-Met will get an expanded Ruby Junction maintenance facility–estimated to cost $440 million started in 2029 even though no light rail trains are expected to carry passengers until late in 2035.  Similarly, a separate $94 million light rail overnight facility will be built starting in 2030–almost five years before trains run.  And, of course, the entire point of this financial strategy and “sequencing” is to make it all but impossible to give the two state DOTs all the money they need to finish the project:  Once you’ve built the new, higher bridge, you’ll have to build new higher approaches and intersections to access it; once you build the maintenance facility and overnight rail yard, you’ll have to buy the trains to run on them.  It’s a calculated strategy to extract the $17.7 billion (and quite probably a good deal more).

So what promises to be a perpetual payday for consultants is going to be a pricey and painful problem for people traveling between Portland and Vancouver for the next two decades.  Motorists will have to start paying tolls (likely ranging between $3 and $4 at the peak hour) to cross the I-5 bridges as soon as the project gets a go ahead.  Then, for the next two decades of construction, people crossing the river or using nearby roads will likely seen regular disruptions as roads a closed, re-routed, and rebuilt.  For example, between 2032 and 2034, after one new bridge is built, all traffic will be diverted to that bridge as an old bridge is torn down and a second bridge is built.  In all, freeway traffic will be re-routed five times before the bridge is finished.  Only after the bridge is built will several connecting freeways and interchanges be rebuilt, with additional disruptions.

As a post-script, its worth noting that in many respects, this may be the best-case scenario.  Right now, the Oregon and Washington Transportation departments don’t have anywhere near enough money to actually build the whole project.  Their plans is to get started, and then hold the two state’s legislators — and Portland/Vancouver travelers–hostage to come up with the money to pay for all of the other pieces of their elaborate plan.  As we’ve pointed out, just the federal environmental review  has already taken more than two years longer than their schedule.  If their track record is any indication, we can expect even more delays, as well as cost overruns, throughout this entire period.  Given that they’ve been working on “basically the same project” for the past twenty years, its a good bet that the disruption–and the consultant paychecks–will go on well past the mid 2040s.

City Observatory

The Market for Theatre Space in Portland

Joe Cortright
Updated

The Supply and Demand for Theatre Space in Portland

Joe Cortright, City Observatory
February 13, 2026

Summary

  • Portland has demand for only one Broadway-sized venue, not two
  • Theatre demand is overwhelmingly local—facility upgrades won’t attract distant visitors
  • Keller Auditorium is already among the largest touring Broadway venues nationally
  • Two new privately-funded large venues will create competition for commercial events
  • Local arts organizations prefer smaller, more economical facilities
  • The feasibility study lacks rigorous cost-benefit analysis of alternatives

This commentary reviews the study  “The Future of Large-Scale Performing Arts Market Feasibility Study” prepared for the City of Portland. The report examines whether Portland should renovate the Keller Auditorium or build a new venue at Portland State University.

Demand: Portland Supports One Broadway Venue

The market is local. The Hunden report mischaracterizes demand for touring Broadway shows. These performances draw overwhelmingly local audiences—touring companies come to Portland to access our metropolitan market, not to attract out of region visitors. As long as the available venue meets touring companies’ minimum requirements and local residents find it acceptable, Broadway shows will continue coming to Portland. Post-COVID attendance rebounds and positive comparisons with peer cities confirm strong local demand.

The report speculates without evidence that a new or renovated facility would attract visitors from further away, noting that 21 percent of Keller visitors come from “more than 25 miles away.” This metric is largely meaningless—portions of our own metro area and the entire Salem region fall within this radius. These are local patrons, not tourists. Nothing suggests facility amenities drive attendance decisions; the shows themselves create demand.

Portland doesn’t need 3,200 seats. The Hunden report advocates for a 3,200-seat venue, yet its own analysis reveals that nearly all competing venues in comparable cities are smaller than 3,000 seats. Among 52 facilities hosting touring Broadway shows in major US and Canadian cities, the median capacity is roughly 2,500 seats. Only the top ten percent exceed 3,000 seats. Keller is already among the nation’s largest venues for touring Broadway shows.

The report provides no marginal benefit analysis comparing a 3,200-seat venue to a 3,000-seat one. What economic value comes from 200 additional seats? Unless shows regularly sell out, these seats may sit empty. Additional capacity might actually degrade the patron experience compared to a more intimate setting.

To its credit, the Hunden report correctly concludes that demand cannot support two 3,000-seat auditoriums in Portland.

Supply: New Competition on the Horizon

Private venues will compete for commercial events. The supply analysis inadequately addresses two major new privately-funded venues under development: AEG’s project at Lloyd Center and Live Nation’s Central Eastside facility. While primarily targeting music audiences, these venues will create substantial new large-capacity options and compete directly for the “commercial” events that currently help fill Keller’s calendar. Private operators will aggressively pursue bookings to cover their high fixed costs—as their profitability depends on utilization.

Local arts groups don’t want a bigger Keller. The study’s user survey reveals something crucial: local performing arts organizations don’t consider Keller’s current capacity a limiting factor. They actually prefer smaller and medium-sized facilities and cite the high costs of operating in a large venue as economically prohibitive for their programming.

The Missing Analysis

Rather than rigorously evaluating whether a renovated Keller would adequately serve touring Broadway shows, the Hunden report fixates on identifying an “optimal” facility. It fails to conduct any meaningful cost-benefit analysis comparing this supposed optimal solution to more modest alternatives like renovating Keller.

The evidence suggests a different facility might offer more convenience for touring companies or greater comfort for attendees, but it likely won’t determine whether Portland continues hosting Broadway tours. Other cities regularly host touring productions in older, smaller venues without losing shows.

Conclusion

The study reaches one sound conclusion: Portland can support only a single Broadway-scale venue. But it understates competitive threats from incoming private venues and sidesteps the hard analytical work of comparing costs and benefits across realistic alternatives.

Editor’s note: This analysis examines the economics of supply and demand for theatre facilities in Portland based on the Future of Large-Scale Performing Arts Market Feasibility Study. It does not address engineering details or cost estimates.

Marginal Revolution

India AI Data MCP

Alex Tabarrok
Updated

The Government of India’s Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation has created an impressive Model Context Protocol (MCP) to connect AI’s to Indian datasets. An AI connected to data via an MCP essentially knows the entire codebook and can make use of the data like an expert. Once connected one can query the data in natural language and quickly create graphs and statistical analysis. I connected Claude to the MCP and created an elegant dashboard with data from India’s Annual Survey of Industries. Check it out.

The post India AI Data MCP appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Simon Willison's Weblog

LadybirdBrowser/ladybird: Abandon Swift adoption

LadybirdBrowser/ladybird: Abandon Swift adoption

Back in August 2024 the Ladybird browser project announced an intention to adopt Swift as their memory-safe language of choice.

As of this commit it looks like they've changed their mind:

Everywhere: Abandon Swift adoption

After making no progress on this for a very long time, let's acknowledge it's not going anywhere and remove it from the codebase.

Via Hacker News

Tags: ladybird, swift

Simon Willison's Weblog

Typing without having to type

25+ years into my career as a programmer I think I may finally be coming around to preferring type hints or even strong typing. I resisted those in the past because they slowed down the rate at which I could iterate on code, especially in the REPL environments that were key to my productivity. But if a coding agent is doing all that typing for me, the benefits of explicitly defining all of those types are suddenly much more attractive.

Tags: ai-assisted-programming, programming, programming-languages, static-typing

Simon Willison's Weblog

The A.I. Disruption We’ve Been Waiting for Has Arrived

The A.I. Disruption We’ve Been Waiting for Has Arrived

New opinion piece from Paul Ford in the New York Times. Unsurprisingly for a piece by Paul it's packed with quoteworthy snippets, but a few stood out for me in particular.

Paul describes the November moment that so many other programmers have observed, and highlights Claude Code's ability to revive old side projects:

[Claude Code] was always a helpful coding assistant, but in November it suddenly got much better, and ever since I’ve been knocking off side projects that had sat in folders for a decade or longer. It’s fun to see old ideas come to life, so I keep a steady flow. Maybe it adds up to a half-hour a day of my time, and an hour of Claude’s.

November was, for me and many others in tech, a great surprise. Before, A.I. coding tools were often useful, but halting and clumsy. Now, the bot can run for a full hour and make whole, designed websites and apps that may be flawed, but credible. I spent an entire session of therapy talking about it.

And as the former CEO of a respected consultancy firm (Postlight) he's well positioned to evaluate the potential impact:

When you watch a large language model slice through some horrible, expensive problem — like migrating data from an old platform to a modern one — you feel the earth shifting. I was the chief executive of a software services firm, which made me a professional software cost estimator. When I rebooted my messy personal website a few weeks ago, I realized: I would have paid $25,000 for someone else to do this. When a friend asked me to convert a large, thorny data set, I downloaded it, cleaned it up and made it pretty and easy to explore. In the past I would have charged $350,000.

That last price is full 2021 retail — it implies a product manager, a designer, two engineers (one senior) and four to six months of design, coding and testing. Plus maintenance. Bespoke software is joltingly expensive. Today, though, when the stars align and my prompts work out, I can do hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work for fun (fun for me) over weekends and evenings, for the price of the Claude $200-a-month plan.

He also neatly captures the inherent community tension involved in exploring this technology:

All of the people I love hate this stuff, and all the people I hate love it. And yet, likely because of the same personality flaws that drew me to technology in the first place, I am annoyingly excited.

Tags: new-york-times, paul-ford, careers, ai, generative-ai, llms, ai-assisted-programming, ai-ethics, coding-agents, claude-code

Simon Willison's Weblog

Quoting Martin Fowler

LLMs are eating specialty skills. There will be less use of specialist front-end and back-end developers as the LLM-driving skills become more important than the details of platform usage. Will this lead to a greater recognition of the role of Expert Generalists? Or will the ability of LLMs to write lots of code mean they code around the silos rather than eliminating them?

— Martin Fowler, tidbits from the Thoughtworks Future of Software Development Retreat, via HN)

Tags: martin-fowler, careers, generative-ai, ai, llms, ai-assisted-programming

Live From California with Lloyd Kahn

First Nations Tribes of British Columbia, Canada

Lloyd Kahn
Updated

Note: This is a really long post — sometimes I’ve got more to say than fits on an email to you from Substack. So — if you want to see all of this, as well as the photos in large-format, click on the above headline to open this post in your browser.

Tlingit painted house in Cape Fox village, Alaska, 1899. Note overall bear motif with ears.

In 2006-2007, I started working on a book that turned out to be Builders of the Pacific Coast — making many trips in my Toyota Tacoma up to Vancouver Island and neighboring islands in British Columbia. I was documenting a group of extraordinary builders who, in the absence of building inspectors and codes, had created some unique homes. (I was there because my long-time friend, artist Godfrey Stephens had been telling me for years about BC builders.)

I had heard about the First Nations tribes, but wasn’t until then aware of their magnificent buildings and tribal art — all based on the cedar tree. The cedar, because it grows straight and tall in the rainy northwest forest, has straight grain, which is the key to its workability. Using only simple tools — wooden wedges, stone malls, and blades of bone or stone — builders were able to split long, straight boards used for sheathing and roof decking in the days before metal.

To give you an idea of size, a Salish building discovered by Capt. George Vancouver in 1792 was over 1000 feet long — almost 1/5 of a mile. A longhouse discovered by the explorer Simon Fraser in 1808 measured 650 feet long by 60 feet wide.

Inextricably linked to carpentry skills in the construction of buildings was the artistry in carving tall, upright cedar poles: totems, which typically showed such revered animals as ravens, bears, whales, wolves, and beavers.

Northwest Coast art is still very much alive these days, but the days of monumental structures built without metal tools are long gone.

Here are some archival photographs from Builders of the Pacific Coast. (They actually look better here than in the book!)

Masset, Haida Gwaii, 1881. From left: masked shaman / Kloda’-i, the most famous shaman of Masset / masked shaman /chief of Grizzly Bear House
Haida man standing in front of six-beam Haida House at Haina, Haida Gwaii (formerly called Queen Charlotte Islands). Note.immaculate carpentry.
Southern Kwakwaka'wakw (formerly Kwakiutl) chief

Live From California with Lloyd Kahn is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Chief Wiah’s six-beam “monster house” at Masset, Haida Gwaii. Note the western clothing. Fifth man from left with top hat and light-colored suit, is Israel Howell, the first “Indian Superintendent” of British Columbia.
Interior post from the Big House of Yestaquana at Skidegate, Haida Gwaii. This post originally stood at the rear of the house, aligned with the front door.
Eagle House, Tanu, Haida Gwaii. At top is an eagle, at bottom a whale; entrance to building through mouth of whale. Two carved beams flanking posts are said to be sea lions
Kwakwaka’wakw house post with whale on chest and copper on arms. Seat supported by two slaves was for seating of chiefs.
Longhouses of the Bella Coola tribe. The Bella Coola were known for building their villages in deliberately remote sites.
Haida shaman figures. (There is so much power here! Gives me chills. I bet if you were in an, ahem, enhanced state of consciousness, these guys would be moving.)

-Above drawings from wonderful book, Cedar: Tree of Life to the Northwest Coast Indians © 1984 by Hilary Stewart, published by Douglas and McIntyre

Thanks for reading Live From California with Lloyd Kahn! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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Paul Krugman

Billionaires Gone Wild

Paul Krugman
Updated

Why people are arguing Nazi salutes are just a joke : NPR

A few stories about centibillionaires — men whose net worth exceeds $100 billion — and their role in our society:

· In 2022 Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, purchased Twitter. Since then he has turned the platform into a racist cesspool, overrun by literal Nazis.

· Last year Skydance Media, run by David Ellison — the son of Larry Ellison, the world’s 6th richest man — acquired Paramount, which includes CBS. The new management put Bari Weiss, a conservative pundit with no relevant experience, in charge of CBS News. The network that once featured Edward R. Murrow has been going downhill ever since. On Tuesday night CBS management, responding to an obviously partisan demand from the Trump-appointed head of the FCC, prevented Stephen Colbert from running an interview with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.

· Paramount is now trying to acquire Warner Brothers, which would give the Ellisons control of CNN.

· Jeff Bezos, the world’s 5th richest man, bought the Washington Post in 2013. He followed a hands-off approach for a decade, but in 2024 he began heavily intervening, preventing an endorsement of Kamala Harris, then requiring that the opinion section focus on “personal liberties and free markets.” He has now gutted the newsroom, leaving the paper that brought down Richard Nixon a shell of its former self.

Furthermore, standard measures of political spending show an explosion of billionaire money seeking to influence American elections. Since the Roberts Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” ruling the percentage of total contributions accounted for by billionaire money has skyrocketed:

A graph with numbers and lines AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Source: Americans for Tax Fairness

For those who need a refresher, Citizens United was a 2010 ruling by a narrow majority on the Supreme Court that effectively removed all restrictions on political spending by wealthy individuals and corporations. Such spending must be undertaken by nominally independent organizations, but in practice so-called Super PACs (political action committees) coordinate closely with candidates and parties. The result of the ruling, which you can see in the chart, was an explosion of political spending by billionaires as well as industry lobbying groups. Citizens United is what enabled both Elon Musk and the crypto industry to play huge roles in the 2024 election.

Some of the rise in billionaire spending can be explained by growth in the number of billionaires — but not much. The number of U.S. billionaires rose 85 percent between 2010 and 2023, from 404 to 748. But billionaires’ share of political contributions rose by 1700 percent.

In short, we are in the midst of an unprecedented power grab by America’s oligarchs. This power grab is arguably the most important fact about contemporary U.S. politics. In many ways MAGA is just a symptom.

What lies behind this power grab? An extraordinary concentration of wealth at the very top.

Last month I interviewed Gabriel Zucman, one of the world’s leading experts on wealth inequality (among other things.) Zucman has been producing charts on wealth at the very top — the 0.00001 percent, which currently means 19 people. He shared his latest data with me; it looks like this:

A graph showing a line AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Source: Gabriel Zucman

Wealth in America is now more concentrated in a few hands than it was during the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th century. Money has always been a potent source of political influence, so this vast increase in concentrated wealth at the top inevitably translates into increased power.

However, after Citizens United America experienced an increase in oligarchic power far surpassing even what one might have expected given soaring wealth at the top. At this point it’s clear that we have experienced a fundamental change in the way our society works. Everything that is downstream of the American political system – federal and state governments, the courts, regulatory power, economic policy, health policy, media independence – and of course democracy itself – is under extreme threat from the tidal wave of billionaire influence.

Let me offer three reasons surging wealth at the top has caused a lurch away from democracy.

The first reason is a bit wonkish, but here goes: Political scientists and economists have long argued that highly concentrated interest groups are more politically effective than diffuse groups, an argument that goes back to Mancur Olson’s classic 1965 book The Logic of Collective Action.

Here’s a hypothetical example: Suppose that spending $1 billion on political influence would enrich a plutocrat by 1 percent of their wealth. Someone with “only” $30 billion in assets wouldn’t find this spending worth it: $1 billion in outlays produces only $300 million in capital gains – a loss of 70%. But someone with $300 billion in assets would gain $3 billion by spending $1 billion on political influence – a profit of 200%. In other words, because buying political influence is expensive, we would expect that the growing concentration of wealth within the plutocrat class will increase that class’s political spending and, therefore, its power.

Second, some forms of de facto political action – such as buying your own global media platform — can only be undertaken by men of truly immense personal wealth. Musk spent $44 billion to buy Twitter; 20 years earlier there were no individuals with that much money.

Finally, and crucially, billionaires haven’t just spent money to influence policy. They have also spent money to change the rules in ways that make money more powerful. Years of plutocratic investment in institutions from the Heritage Foundation to the Federalist Society prepared the ground for the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which then opened the floodgates for vastly increased plutocratic influence.

Something comparably transformative has happened in the past year. Billionaires didn’t just help Donald Trump regain the White House, they helped create new de facto ground rules under which he can use his office for personal enrichment — which hugely expands the influence of those with the means to make him richer.

What are the ultra-wealthy doing with their vastly increased power? They are, of course, twisting policy in ways that will make them even richer, at the expense of everyone else. Anyone who imagines that the unthinkably rich aren’t greedy, because they can already afford to buy whatever they want, doesn’t understand human nature.

That said, even billionaires care about more than their own personal wealth. Unfortunately, their non-monetary goals are often worse than their greed.

Put it this way: Elon Musk hasn’t turned X, the former Twitter, into a platform promoting white supremacy and a safe space for Nazis as part of a strategy to enlarge his fortune. He has done it because it serves his personal agenda and reflects his values.

Today’s post is more about understanding where we are than about a call to action. Still, the obvious question is what can be done in the face of billionaires gone wild. The answer, clearly, is that any project to save American democracy must include a push to reduce the extreme concentration of wealth at the top.

We know that this can be done, because it has been done. In his famous Madison Garden speech of 1936 FDR declared war on “Government by organized money,” and he won that war. Progressive taxation and mass unionization drastically reduced the wealth and even more drastically diminished the power of big money.

To say that a comparable project is impossible today is to say that democracy can’t be saved. And I’m not willing to accept that. Are you?

MUSICAL CODA

Simon Willison's Weblog

Experimenting with sponsorship for my blog and newsletter

I've long been resistant to the idea of accepting sponsorship for my blog. I value my credibility as an independent voice, and I don't want to risk compromising that reputation.

Then I learned about Troy Hunt's approach to sponsorship, which he first wrote about in 2016. Troy runs with a simple text row in the page banner - no JavaScript, no cookies, unobtrusive while providing value to the sponsor. I can live with that!

Accepting sponsorship in this way helps me maintain my independence while offsetting the opportunity cost of not taking a full-time job.

To start with I'm selling sponsorship by the week. Sponsors get that unobtrusive banner across my blog and also their sponsored message at the top of my newsletter.

Screenshot of my blog's homepage. Below the Simon Willison's Weblog heading and list of tags is a new blue page-wide banner reading "Sponsored by: Teleport - Secure, Govern, and Operate Al at Engineering Scale. Learn more".

I will not write content in exchange for sponsorship. I hope the sponsors I work with understand that my credibility as an independent voice is a key reason I have an audience, and compromising that trust would be bad for everyone.

Freeman & Forrest helped me set up and sell my first slots. Thanks also to Theo Browne for helping me think through my approach.

Tags: newsletter, blogging, troy-hunt

Simon Willison's Weblog

SWE-bench February 2026 leaderboard update

SWE-bench February 2026 leaderboard update

SWE-bench is one of the benchmarks that the labs love to list in their model releases. The official leaderboard is infrequently updated but they just did a full run of it against the current generation of models, which is notable because it's always good to see benchmark results like this that weren't self-reported by the labs.

The fresh results are for their "Bash Only" benchmark, which runs their mini-swe-bench agent (~9,000 lines of Python, here are the prompts they use) against the SWE-bench dataset of coding problems - 2,294 real-world examples pulled from 12 open source repos: django/django (850), sympy/sympy (386), scikit-learn/scikit-learn (229), sphinx-doc/sphinx (187), matplotlib/matplotlib (184), pytest-dev/pytest (119), pydata/xarray (110), astropy/astropy (95), pylint-dev/pylint (57), psf/requests (44), mwaskom/seaborn (22), pallets/flask (11).

Here's how the top ten models performed:

Bar chart showing "% Resolved" by "Model". Bars in descending order: Claude 4.5 Opus (high reasoning) 76.8%, Gemini 3 Flash (high reasoning) 75.8%, MiniMax M2.5 (high reasoning) 75.8%, Claude Opus 4.6 75.6%, GLM-5 (high reasoning) 72.8%, GPT-5.2 (high reasoning) 72.8%, Claude 4.5 Sonnet (high reasoning) 72.8%, Kimi K2.5 (high reasoning) 71.4%, DeepSeek V3.2 (high reasoning) 70.8%, Claude 4.5 Haiku (high reasoning) 70.0%, and a partially visible final bar at 66.6%.

It's interesting to see Claude Opus 4.5 beat Opus 4.6, though only by about a percentage point. 4.5 Opus is top, then Gemini 3 Flash, then MiniMax M2.5 - a 229B model released last week by Chinese lab MiniMax. GLM-5, Kimi K2.5 and DeepSeek V3.2 are three more Chinese models that make the top ten as well.

OpenAI's GPT-5.2 is their highest performing model at position 6, but it's worth noting that their best coding model, GPT-5.3-Codex, is not represented - maybe because it's not yet available in the OpenAI API.

This benchmark uses the same system prompt for every model, which is important for a fair comparison but does mean that the quality of the different harnesses or optimized prompts is not being measured here.

The chart above is a screenshot from the SWE-bench website, but their charts don't include the actual percentage values visible on the bars. I successfully used Claude for Chrome to add these - transcript here. My prompt sequence included:

Use claude in chrome to open https://www.swebench.com/

Click on "Compare results" and then select "Select top 10"

See those bar charts? I want them to display the percentage on each bar so I can take a better screenshot, modify the page like that

I'm impressed at how well this worked - Claude injected custom JavaScript into the page to draw additional labels on top of the existing chart.

Screenshot of a Claude AI conversation showing browser automation. A thinking step reads "Pivoted strategy to avoid recursion issues with chart labeling >" followed by the message "Good, the chart is back. Now let me carefully add the labels using an inline plugin on the chart instance to avoid the recursion issue." A collapsed "Browser_evaluate" section shows a browser_evaluate tool call with JavaScript code using Chart.js canvas context to draw percentage labels on bars: meta.data.forEach((bar, index) => { const value = dataset.data[index]; if (value !== undefined && value !== null) { ctx.save(); ctx.textAlign = 'center'; ctx.textBaseline = 'bottom'; ctx.fillStyle = '#333'; ctx.font = 'bold 12px sans-serif'; ctx.fillText(value.toFixed(1) + '%', bar.x, bar.y - 5); A pending step reads "Let me take a screenshot to see if it worked." followed by a completed "Done" step, and the message "Let me take a screenshot to check the result."

Via @KLieret

Tags: benchmarks, django, ai, openai, generative-ai, llms, anthropic, claude, coding-agents, ai-in-china, minimax

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Cradled in red-glowing hydrogen gas, stars are being born in Orion. Cradled in red-glowing hydrogen gas, stars are being born in Orion.


Talking Points Memo - Editors Blog

Join Us Live to Learn About the Bizarro Characters Behind the Fulton County Raid

Allegra Kirkland
Updated

I’ll be chatting with Hunter Walker about the Fulton County election office raid and the fringe characters driving the Trump administration’s latest push to interfere in U.S. elections this morning. Join us on Substack Live at 11 a.m. ET. See you there!

Talking Points Memo - Editors Blog

Trump’s Great Double-Down

Josh Marshall
Updated

President Trump got some decent news on the inflation and jobs front in the January data. There are decent signs that the January jobs number may just be a positive blip in an overall downcast trend from 2025. The cooling inflation numbers may be offset by price hikes from manufacturers who have been holding off on passing on tariff costs until the New Year. Still for a President with sinking popularity, those numbers are better than nothing. And yet, despite some nods to affordability, there’s really little evidence that Trump is in any way shifting course or doing anything likely to shift the downward pressure on public support which threatens to wash away Republicans congressional majorities in November. They made some nods to that in Minneapolis. But we can be confident now that it’s window dressing on a mass deportation program that remains intact and bounding forward. On the contrary, everything we see suggests a pedal to the metal, double-down approach. The main effort focused on the election is not one focused on increasing public support but putting a thumb on the scales with the administration’s so-called SAVE Act. Everything points to a collision between these two forces, Trump and the American public, in November.

A couple data points caught my attention in recent days. Axios has many shortcomings. But one thing it is very helpful with is knowing when some new idea or datapoint or news permeates the threshold of elite DC opinion. Yesterday they ran a piece entitled “‘Corrupt,’ ‘cruel’: Americans send Trump, GOP a midterm warning.” The first line of the piece is both arresting and provides some reassurance that the images of recent months have broken through to the public at large.

The growing focus on cruelty and corruption shows that Trump’s cratering public support isn’t just about tariff anxiety or affordability. The brutality and corruption of his government, the fulsome rejection of the civic democratic order are breaking through with a broad public. The public increasingly sees the reality of Trump’s rule and a majority doesn’t like it.

For some time through the middle months of 2025 Trump’s public support was low and perhaps creeping down slowly. But overall the story was one of general stability. That changed about four months ago. Nate Silver’s Trump approval average today stands at 40.9%. G. Elliott Morris’s number (which I use as my canonical data point) is at 38.7%. Trump is now significantly below the abysmal public approval he had at this time in his first term, which is a genuine accomplishment.

It’s tempting to think that Trump has some secret plan to rig or overrule or maybe even cancel the election. But in fact it’s not a secret. He claims he’s going to nationalize the election, which actually just means putting his Republican friends in charge of counting the ballots in places he’s upset about losing. Maybe they’ll pass the SAVE Act, though Republicans would need to abolish the filibuster to do that. So that almost certainly isn’t happening.

I don’t think Trump’s plans are going to work. Especially if the opposition is vigilant. What seems more likely is that Trump is falling prey to that common peril of aging strongmen: he’s trapped in a bubble of his own making in which he hears only the voices of lackeys and sycophants and – when it’s not one of those – people more committed to degenerate ideology than Trump’s public approval. People like Stephen Miller for instance.

There’s a difference between public opinion and elite conventional wisdom. The latter has assumed for almost the entirety of the last year that Trump can do anything he wants and even get fairly unpopular and none of it matters. Trump can walk through fire, walk on water. He’s unsinkable. The last decade has certainly given plenty of reasons to be wary of counting Trump out. But that confidence in unstoppability which permeates Trump’s world and most of elite DC opinion has clearly convinced Trump and most of his inner circle that he can, quite simply, do anything he wants. But the American public doesn’t seem to agree. And at least DC conventional wisdom, if not the White House, seems only now to be waking up to the fact that a broad and intense backlash is brewing against Trump’s war not only on his political opposition but on American liberty itself.

Talking Points Memo - Editors Blog

VIDEO: Hunter Walker and Allegra Kirkland Discuss the Bizarro Characters Behind the Fulton County Raid

Nicole LaFond
Updated

The Jan. 28 FBI raid on Fulton County, Georgia’s election hub brought new urgency to concerns that the Trump administration is trying to interfere in upcoming elections, including the midterms this fall.

And as Hunter Walker explained during a Wednesday Substack Live, “the call is coming from inside the house.” The raid came about thanks to a referral from special government employee Kurt Olsen, and thanks to the analysis of another special government employee, Clay Parikh.

In a conversation with editor Allegra Kirkland, Hunter breaks down exactly who these people are and why the Fulton County raid is so dangerous.

Be sure to check out Hunter’s “mask off” conversation with Parikh about sanitizing his soda with alcohol; the evil cabal inside the government; and how “we haven’t had an honest election in decades.”

Hunter was also on the Posting Through It podcast this week for an extended conversation about the long tail of the Big Lie.

Daring Fireball

One More Spitball Idea for Apple’s March 4 Media Event ‘Experience’: Immersive F1 on Vision Pro?

John Gruber
Updated

A reader pointed out that the 2026 Formula 1 season starts in Australia on March 8. You will recall from October that Apple TV is now the exclusive broadcast partner for F1 in the U.S. Apple is already dabbling with live immersive sports broadcasting for VisionOS with a limited slate of Lakers games this season. If they have something planned for streaming F1 races live on Vision Pro, with some level of immersion, March 4 would be a pretty good date to demo that experience to the media.

Could just be a total coincidence that the Formula 1 season is starting the weekend after this event. But it seems worth noting.

 ★ 
Daring Fireball

Paul Ford: ‘The A.I. Disruption Has Arrived, and It Sure Is Fun’

John Gruber
Updated

Paul Ford, in an op-ed for The New York Times (gift link):

All of the people I love hate this stuff, and all the people I hate love it. And yet, likely because of the same personality flaws that drew me to technology in the first place, I am annoyingly excited.

 ★ 
Hacker News
Marginal Revolution

My excellent Conversation with Joe Studwell

Tyler Cowen
Updated

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  The conversation is based around Joe’s new and very good book How Africa Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Last Developmental Frontier.  Here is part of the episode summary:

Tyler and Joe explore whether population density actually solves development, which African countries are likely to achieve stable growth, whether Africa has a manufacturing future, why state infrastructure projects decay while farmer-led irrigation thrives, what progress looks like in education and public health, whether charter cities or special economic zones can work, and how permanent Africa’s colonial borders really are. After testing Joe’s optimism about Africa, Tyler shifts back to Asia: what Japan and South Korea will do about depopulation, why industrial policy worked in East Asia but failed in India and Brazil, what went wrong in Thailand, and what Joe will tackle next.

Excerpt:

COWEN: Does Africa have a manufacturing future? Is robotics coming, AI, possibly some reshoring?

STUDWELL: Yes. I believe that Africa does have a manufacturing future.

COWEN: But making what? And at what cost of energy?

STUDWELL: They will start, as everybody does, producing garments, producing textiles, which in certain enclaves is already going on in Madagascar, in Lasutu, in Morocco, and they’ll move on to other things. They’ll start with those things because they are the most labor cost-sensitive products.

Africa is now in a position where — depending on which state you’re looking at, and taking China as a reference point — the cost of labor is now between a half and one-tenth of what it is in China. Factory labor is now around $600 a month at its cheapest. In a country like Ethiopia or Madagascar, it’s $60 or $65 a month. So, it’s a 10th of the cost, and that’s already beginning to have a bit of effect, often with Chinese firms moving production to Africa.

So, I think there is a future for manufacturing. It will depend on the extent to which African governments understand that you don’t really move forward fast for very long without manufacturing, that every developed country — apart from a few petro states and financial centers — has gone through a manufacturing phase of development. It depends on the extent to which African governments engage with that, but some, without doubt, will.

The Ethiopians, for instance, have already attempted to do that. What they’re trying to do has been somewhat derailed by the two-year civil war that took place from 2020, but they’re back on it now, and they’re trying to move forward.

The idea that robotics and AI are going to change the story I personally do not buy, principally for two reasons. One is the cost reason, because whenever people talk about what’s happening with robotics, no one ever talks about the cost of robots. In garmenting, for instance, even a basic robot will cost you in excess of $100,000, and you pay the cost upfront, and you’ve then paid that, whether there’s demand for your products or not. Also, in garmenting and in textiles, robots don’t work very well because they can’t work with material very well. They’re much better at working with solid things.

So, you’ve spent $100,000 for a robot when you can go out in somewhere like Tana in Madagascar and get another skilled — because they’ve been doing it now for 20 years — garmenting employee for $60 or $65 to make the new order that you just got. And if the order doesn’t come through, you can sack them. You see what I’m saying? There’s a point about the cost of robotics.

COWEN: But think of automation more generally — it’s not that expensive. Most countries are de-industrializing. Even South Africa has been de-industrializing for a while, and China maybe has peaked out at industrialization, measured in terms of employment. It’s hard to trust their numbers. But maybe just everywhere is going to deindustrialize, and that will be very bad for Africa.

STUDWELL: I don’t think so. I think South Africa is deindustrializing because the ANC has followed a hyper-liberal approach to economic policy. I don’t think the ANC has ever really understood economic policy, frankly, so South Africa is an outlier in that respect. There are many other states in Africa, whether Nigeria or Ethiopia, which understand they’ve got to have a manufacturing future and intend to pursue one.

Then, as I was saying, the other point is, what people miss is the flexibility with robotics and AI. There’s very limited flexibility with robotic and automated production. When demand goes up, you can’t just stick in more robots, but when demand goes up in a people-operated factory, where the cost of labor is low, you can stick in more people and produce more.

Just one example: during COVID, when everybody was having home deliveries of supermarket goods, the price of a UK firm called Ocado, which runs a supermarket, but was also developing the software and consulting around building blind warehouses went up through the roof, but now it’s down through the floor.

And only last week, Kroger supermarket in the US said, “We’re closing five of these super-modern blind warehouses.” And the reason, fundamentally, is because they lack the flexibility that human labor brings to the job. So, I’m not saying that robots, automation, and AI are not important. They are important. What I am saying is that they are not going to derail a manufacturing future for a number of African countries that aggressively pursue it.

COWEN: But there’re a lot of developing nations around the world — you could look at India, you could look at Pakistan, even Thailand — where manufacturing has not taken off the way one might have wanted. There’re just major forces operating against it. And in the US, manufacturing employment was once 37 percent of the workforce; now it’s 7 percent to 8 percent.

It just seems like it’s swimming upstream for Africa — which again, has quite expensive energy — to think it will do that well. And again, South Africa had very good technology, pretty high state capacity. I don’t see the alternate world state where a wiser ANC would have made that work.

STUDWELL: Well, oddly enough, before the end of Apartheid, the manufacturing performance of South Africa was really not bad at all, with classic industrial policy, quite high levels of protection, and so forth. I think that demand for manufactured goods will continue to be high around the world, and the labor cost will continue to be a prime determinant of where producers go for low value-added goods. So, I think that the opportunity is there for African countries.

COWEN: But say there’re transportation costs internally, energy costs, political order uncertainty. Where’s the place where people really want to put all these manufacturing firms?

Interesting throughout, recommended.

The post My excellent Conversation with Joe Studwell appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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NASA Science

Northern Glow Spans Iceland and Canada

Michala Garrison
Updated
 
A nighttime satellite image shows a grayscale view of the northern lights over the Denmark Strait. Wisps of light stretch from Greenland to Iceland, with the brightest light just west of Iceland. Reykjavík city lights appear as a small dot.
February 16, 2026

Although the aurora borealis, or northern lights, is most often observed in March and September, it can appear at other times of the year if conditions are right. For instance, in February 2026, a minor geomagnetic storm produced a striking display of light swirling across northern skies.

The VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the Suomi NPP satellite acquired these images in the early morning hours of February 16. The VIIRS day-night band detects nighttime light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, reflected moonlight, and auroras. While these satellite data are displayed in grayscale, auroras appear in various colors to observers on the ground, from green (the most common) to purple to red.

The first image (top) shows ribbons of light that shimmered over the Denmark Strait and Iceland at 04:45 Universal Time (4:45 a.m. local time in Reykjavík). The second image shows the view farther west, where the lights danced above the Canadian provinces of Québec and Newfoundland and Labrador at about 06:30 Universal Time (1:30 a.m. local time in Montreal).

A nighttime satellite image shows a grayscale view of the northern lights stretching from eastern Canada to southern Greenland. Urban light from Montreal and nearby cities appear across the bottom of the scene.
February 16, 2026

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, a minor geomagnetic storm was in progress during this period. Classified as a G1—the lowest level on a scale that goes up to G5—such storms typically make the aurora visible at high latitudes. G1 storms can also cause slight disruptions, including weak fluctuations in power grids and minor impacts on satellite operations.

Later that day, conditions intensified to a G2 storm, likely associated with a coronal hole and a high-speed stream of solar wind. G2 storms are considered moderate in strength and can occasionally push auroral displays as far south as New York and Idaho.

About a week earlier, on February 10, a NASA rocket mission launched from the Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska, to study the electrical environment of an aurora. The GNEISS (Geophysical Non-Equilibrium Ionospheric System Science) mission’s two sounding rockets gathered data that will help scientists create a 3D reconstruction of the electrical currents flowing from the northern lights. Combined with observations from the ground and space, this information can help researchers better understand the system that drives space weather near Earth.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using VIIRS day-night band data from the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

Downloads

A nighttime satellite image shows a grayscale view of the northern lights over the Denmark Strait. Wisps of light stretch from Greenland to Iceland, with the brightest light just west of Iceland. Reykjavík city lights appear as a small dot.

Iceland, February 16, 2026

JPEG (654.50 KB)

A nighttime satellite image shows a grayscale view of the northern lights stretching from eastern Canada to southern Greenland. Urban light from Montreal and nearby cities appear across the bottom of the scene.

Canada, February 16, 2026

JPEG (1.79 MB)

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The MIT Tech
Software Design: Tidy First?

Earn *And* Learn

Kent Beck
Updated

Spec-driven or not spec-driven is not the question. The first question is, “What game are we playing?” Here’s the game I’m playing when I develop software, with or without the genie. I call it The Compounding Game:

The first thing we finish will earn the resources for the next thing which will earn the resources for the next.

Different Game, Different Rules

Here’s The Finish Line Game, a different software development game:

We want software that does X. Once we’ve reached X we’re done. It happens. I have some data. I need it munged. I write a munging script. Finito. I’ll never use that script again.

The hidden assumption behind this style of spec-driven development is that we’re playing The Finish Line Game. Get the spec right. Get the desired software. Done. No need to consider the future because there won’t be one.

Failure & Success in the Finish Line Game

If you’re playing The Finish Line Game, you can still fail. Design can be so bad you don’t cross the finish line. Tests can be so bad that you don’t notice that you haven’t crossed the finish line. The “finish line” itself can shift without you noticing.

In the Tidy First world, we illustrate by contrasting “futures” & “features”. Futures are what all you can implement next. The genie is no good at managing futures. If you’re playing The Finish Line Game, you’re betting that features will cross the finish line before futures run out.

This is “better agent.md file” territory. If we leave the genie autonomous, can we nudge its work to be good enough not to fail? Sometimes yes, sometimes no (in my experience). And the genie keeps getting better. But it’s still the same Finish Line Game.

Playing The Compounding Game

Just as football tactics won’t work on a baseball field, spec-driven development doesn’t work if you’re playing The Compounding Game. A better spec will never get you from dollar sign N to dollar sign N+1 forever. A better agent file won’t extend the lifespan of the system long enough to get from N to N+1. At some point the complexity will exceed the genie’s capacity & it’s game over with lots of dollar signs left to play for.

Instead, playing The Compounding Game requires as much investment in futures as in features. The two alternate. (Hence the “tidy first” connection—tidying is part of investing in the future.)

We’ll talk more about those vertical shifts more as we go along:

  • What senior engineers do to shift vertically

  • What junior engineers do to shift vertically

  • What tools to write

  • What practices to apply

  • How to get the genie to help

charity.wtf

First I wrote the wrong book, then I wrote the right book

Charity Majors
Updated

This is the second in a two-part episode. The first part ended on a ✨cliffhanger!!!✨ — so if you missed the first episode, catch up here:

Six long weeks of writer’s block

I was merrily cranking away what I believed to be my last chapter when I asked the internet — YOU guys — for help the first time. “Are you an experienced software buyer? I could use some help,” went up on September 19th, 2025.

The response was overwhelming. I heard from software engineers, SREs, observability leads, CTOs, VPs, distinguished engineers, consultants, even the odd CISO. All these emails and responses and lengthy threads kept me busy for a while, but eventually I had to get back to writing. That’s when I discovered, to my unpleasant surprise, that I couldn’t seem to write anymore.

“Well,” I reasoned, “maybe I’ll just ask the internet for EVEN MORE advice" — and out popped Buffy-themed post number two, on October 13th.

Keep in mind, I thought I would be done by then. November was my stretch deadline, my just in case, I better leave myself some breathing room kind of deadline.

As November 1st came and went, my frustration began spiraling out into blind panic. What the hell is going on and why can I not finish this???

In which I finally listen to the advice I asked for

A week before Thanksgiving, I was up late tinkering with Claude. I imported all the emails and advice I had gotten from y’all, and started sorting into themes and picking out key quotes, and that is when it finally hit me: I had written the wrong thing.

No, this deserves a bigger font.

✨I wrote the wrong thing.✨

I wrote the wrong thing, for the wrong people, and none of it was going to move the needle in any meaningful way.

The chapters I had written were full of practical advice for observability engineering teams and platform engineering teams, wrestling with implementation challenges like instrumentation and cost overflows. Practical stuff.

Yes.

The internet was right (this ONE time)

My inbox, on the other hand, was overflowing with stories like these:

  • “Many times [competitive research] is faked. One person has their favorite option and then they do just enough ‘competitive analysis’ to convince the sourcing folks that due diligence was done or to nullify the CIO/CTO/whoever is accepting this on to their budget”

  • “We [the observability team] spent six months exhaustively trialing three different solutions before we made a decision. The CEO of one of the losing vendors called our CEO, and he overruled our decision without even telling us.” (Does your CEO know anything at all about engineering??) “No.”

  • “Our SRE teams have vetoed any attempt to modernize our tool stack. ($Vendor) is part of their identity, and since they would have to help roll out and support any changes, we are stuck living in 2015 apparently forever.” (What does management have to say?) “It’s been twenty years since they touched a line of code.”

  • “We’re weird in that most of the company hates technology and really hates that we have to pay for it since they don’t understand the value it brings to the company. This is intentional ignorance, we make the value props continually and well, we just haven’t succeeded yet….We’re a little obsessed with trying to get champagne quality at Boone’s prices.”

  • “When it comes to dealing with salespeople and the enterprise sales process, the best tip for engineers is to not anthropomorphize sales professionals who are driven by commission. The best ones are like robot lawn mowers dressed in furry unicorn costumes. They may seem cute and nice but they do not care about anything besides closing the next deal….All of the best SaaS companies are full of these friendly fake unicorn zombies who suck cash instead of blood.”

Nearly all of the emails I got were either describing a terminally fucked up buying process from the top down, or the long term consequences of those fucked up decisions.

In other words: I was writing tactical advice for teams who were surviving in a strategic vacuum.

So I threw the whole thing out, and started over from scratch. 😭

Even good teams are struggling right now

As Tolstoy once wrote, “Happy teams are all alike; every fucked up team is fucked up in its own precious way.”

There is an infinity of ways to screw something up. But there is one pattern I see a critical mass of engineering orgs falling into right now, even orgs that are generally quite solid. That is when there is no shared alignment or even shared vocabulary between engineering and other stakeholders directors, VPs and SVPs, CTO, CIO, principal and distinguished engineers — on some pretty clutch questions. Such as:

  • “What is observability?”

  • “Who needs it?”

  • “What problem are we trying to solve?”

And my favorite: “Is observability still relevant in a post-AI era? Can’t agents do that stuff now?”

Even some generally excellent CTOs1 have been heard saying things like, “yeah, observability is definitely very important, but all our top priorities are related to AI right now.”

Which gets causality exactly backwards. Because your ability to get any returns on your investments into AI will be limited by how swiftly you can validate your changes and learn from them. Another word for this is “OBSERVABILITY”.

Enough ranting. Want a peek? I’ll share the new table of contents, and a sentence or two about a couple of my own favorite chapters.

Part 6: “Observability Governance” (v2)

The new outline is organized to speak to technical decision-makers, starting at the top and loosely descending. What do CTOs need to know? What do VPs and distinguished engineers need to know? and so on. We start off abstract, and become more concrete.

Since every technical term (e.g. high cardinality, high dimensionality, etc) has become overloaded and undifferentiated by too much sales and marketing, we mostly avoid it. Instead, we use the language of systems and feedback loops.

Again, we are trying to help your most senior engineers and execs develop a shared understanding of “What problem are we solving?” and “What is our goal? Technical terms can actually detract and distract from that shared understanding.

  1. An Open Letter to CTOs: Why Organizational Learning Speed is Now Your Biggest Constraint. Organizations used to be limited by the speed of delivery; now they are limited by how swiftly they can validate and understand what they delivered.

  2. Systems Thinking for Software Delivery. Observability is the signal that connects the dots to make a feedback loop; no observability, no loop. What happens to amplifying or balancing loops when that signal is lossy, laggy, or missing?

  3. The Observability Landscape Through a Systems Lens. What feedback loops do developers need, and what feedback loops does ops need? How do these map to the tools on the market?

  4. The Business Case for Observability. Is your observability a cost center or an investment? How should you quantify your RoI?

  5. Diagnosing Your Observability Investment

  6. The Organizational Shift

  7. Build vs Buy (vs Open Source)

  8. The Art and Science of Vendor Partnerships. Internal transformations run on trust and credibility; vendor partnerships run on trust and reciprocity. We’ll talk about both of these, as well as how to run a strong POC.

  9. Instrumentation for Observability Teams

  10. Where to Go From Here

Hey, I have a lot of empathy right now for leaders and execs who feel like they’re behind on everything. I feel it too. Anyone who doesn’t is lying to themselves (or their name is Simon Willison).

But the role observability plays in complex sociotechnical systems is one of those foundational concepts you need to understand. You’re not gonna get this right by accident. You’re not going to win by doing the same thing you were doing five years ago. And if you screw up your observability, you screw up everything downstream of it too.

To those of you who do understand this, and are working hard to drive change in your organizations: I see you. It is hard, often thankless work, but it is work worth doing. If I can ever be of help: reach out.

A longer book, but a better book

The last few chapters are heading into tech review on Friday, February 20th. Finally. The last 3.5 months have been some of the most panicky and stressful of my life. I….just typed several paragraphs about how terrible this has been, and deleted them, because you do not need to listen to me whine. ☺️

Like I said, I have never felt especially proud of the first edition. I am not UN proud, it’s just…eh. I feel differently this time around. I think—I hope—it can be helpful to a lot of different people who are wrestling with adapting to our new AI-native reality, from a lot of different angles.2

Thanks, Christine. (Another for the folder marked ”NOW YOU TELL ME”)

I am incredibly grateful to my co-authors, collaborators, and our editor, Rita Fernando, without whom I never would have made it through.

But there’s one more group that deserves some credit, and it’s…you guys. I asked for help, and help I got. So many people wrote me such long, thought-provoking emails full of stories, advice and hard-earned wisdom. The better the email, the more I peppered you with followup questions, which is a great way to punish a good deed.

Blame these people

I am a tiny bit torn on whether to say “thank you” or “fuck you”, because my life would have been much nicer if I had stuck to the plan and wrapped in October.

But the following list of people were especially instrumental in forcing me to rethink my approach. It made the book much stronger, so if you catch one of them in the wild, please buy them a stiff drink. (Or buy yourself one, and throw it in their face with my sincere compliments.)

  • Abraham Ingersoll, the aforementioned “odd CISO”, who would be quoted in the book had his advice not been so consistently unprintable by the standards of respectable publications

  • Benjamin Mann of Delivery Hero, who I would work for in a heartbeat, and not just for the way he wields “NOPE” as a term of art

  • Marty Lindsay, who has spent more time explaining POCs and tech evals to me than anyone should have to. (If you need an o11y consultant, Marty should be your very first stop).

  • Sam Dwyer, whose stories seeded my original plan to write a set of chapters for observability engineering teams. (I hope the replacement plan is useful too!)

Many others sent me terrific advice, and endured multiple rounds of questions and more questions and clarifications on said questions. A few of them:

Matthew Sanabria, Chris Cooney, Glen Mailer, Austin Culbertson, John Scancella, John Doran, Bryan Finster, Hazel Weakly, Chris Ziehr, Thomas Owens, Mike Lee, Jay Gengelbach, Will Hegedus, Natasha Litt, Alonso Suarez, Jason McMunn, Evgeny Rubtsov, George Chamales, Ken Finnegan, Cliff Snyder, Robyn Hirano, Rita Canavarro, Matt Schouten, Shalini Samudri Ananda Rao (Sam).

I am definitely forgetting some names; I will try to update the list as I remember them.

But seriously: thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I loved hearing your stories, your complaints, your arguments about how the world should improve. Your DNA is in this book; I hope it does you justice.

~charity
💜💙💚💛🧡❤️💖

1

It’s ironic (and makes me uncomfortably self-conscious), but some of the worst top-down decision-making processes I have ever seen have come from companies where CEO and CTO are both former engineers. The confidence they have in their own technical acumen may be not wholly unfounded, but it is often ten or more years out of date. We gotta update those priors, my friends. Stay humble.

2

On the other hand, as my co-founder, Christine Yen, informed me last week: “Nobody reads books anymore.”

The Truth OC: Because it's time to fight back.

Donald Trump's Jesse Jackson statement, and a warped news media

Jeff Pearlman
Updated

Jesse Jackson died two days ago, and—of course—the living United States presidents issued statements.

Bill Clinton insisted he and his wife had been close with Jackson for more than five decades, and were “deeply saddened” by the loss. Barack Obama recalled Jackson as “a true giant.” “He was relentless in his belief that we are all children of God, deserving of dignity and respect,” he said, and added that he and Mrs. Obama would always “be grateful for Jesse’s lifetime of service, and the friendship our families share.”

And Donald Trump called him called a “good man” and a “force of nature.”

Um. At least that’s how, oh, 70 percent of the media reported it.

For example …

This, from the CBS News website:

And this, from The Hill:

Here’s USA Today’s headline:

And, of course, Fox News:

Now, as a veteran journalist, I sorta get it. You have an article, you submit it, the person on the news desk scans it over and write the headline. So, in this case, an iconic leader dies, the sitting president says something nice—HEADLINE!

But …

Here is the full Donald Trump statement, RE: Jackson and his death …

And, to be kind, THIS IS FUCKING BONKERS AND UNHINGED. To abbreviate: A revered Civil Rights leader’s life ends. Trump sprinkles in some warm thoughts with a crazy-ass, look-at-me-and-how-great-I-am screed intended to prove a racist can’t possibly be racist. It’s long and weird and irrationally capitalized and overflowing with bullshit. It cites, by full name (intentionally) the United States’ first Black president, who (cough) Trump accused of being foreign-born and Muslim and anti-American.

The story isn’t that Trump said some nice words.

The story is that, yet again, Trump treated an important person’s death as his own masturbatory ode to self.

Let’s stop doing this creep favors.

Please.

Letters from an American

February 17, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson
Updated

Letters from an American

February 17, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson
Updated

Trump’s White House website welcomes visitors with a pop-up that reads: “WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN AGE!” But on this heavy news day a year into Trump’s second term, it is increasingly clear that as his regime focuses on committing the United States to white Christian nationalism, the country is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, and its own economy is weakening.

At the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s endorsement of white Christian nationalism does not appear to have swayed European countries to abandon their defense of democracy and join the U.S.’s slide toward authoritarianism. Instead, as retired lieutenant general and former commander of U.S. Army Europe Mark Hertling wrote, it squandered the strategic advantage its partnership with Europe has given the U.S.

Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum noted that the word in Munich was that “Europe needs to emancipate itself from the U.S. as fast as possible.” In Germany, Der Spiegel reports plans to bring Ukrainian veterans to teach German armed forces drone use and counter-drone practices the Ukrainians are perfecting in their war against Russian occupation. Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney is working to reduce Canada’s defense dependence on the U.S., ramping up domestic defense production.

Carney has advanced a foreign policy that centers “middle powers” and operates without the U.S. That global reorientation has profound consequences for the U.S. economy, as well. Canada is leading discussions between the European Union and a 12-nation Indo-Pacific bloc to form one of the globe’s largest economic alliances. A new agreement would enable the countries to share supply chains and to share a low-tariff system. Canada also announced it is renewing its partnership with China. As of this week, Canadians can travel to China without a visa.

Today France’s president Emmanuel Macron and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi upgraded Indian-French relations to a “Special Strategic Partnership” during a three-day visit of Macron to Mumbai. They have promised to increase cooperation between the two countries in defense, trade, and critical materials.

Trump insisted that abandoning the free trade principles under which the U.S. economy had boomed since World War II would enable the U.S. to leverage its extraordinary economic might through tariffs, but it appears, as economist Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute wrote today for Bloomberg, that the rest of the world is simply moving on without the U.S.

While Trump boasts about the U.S. stock market, which is indeed up, U.S. markets have underperformed markets in other countries. Today, Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reported that the S&P 500, which measures 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S., is off to its worst year of performance since 1995 when compared to the All Country World Index (ACWI), an index that measures global stocks.

In May 2023 the Florida legislature passed a law requiring employers with 25 or more employees to confirm that their workers are in the U.S. legally. The new law prompted foreign farmworkers and construction workers to leave the state. Now, the Wall Street Journal reported in a February 6 editorial, employers “are struggling to find workers they can employ legally.”

The newspaper continued: “There’s little evidence that undocumented migrants are taking jobs from Americans. The reality is that employers can’t find enough Americans willing to work in the fields or hang drywall, even at attractive wages. Farm hands in Florida who work year-round earn roughly $47,000, which is more than what some young college graduates earn.” “The lesson for President Trump is that businesses can’t grow if government takes away their workers,” the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board concluded.

Today Florida attorney general James Uthmeier reacted to the Wall Street Journal editorial, explaining on Fox Business that the Republican Party expects to replace undocumented workers with young Americans: “We need to focus on our state college program, our trade schools, getting people into the workforce even earlier. We passed legislation last year to help high school students get their hands dirty and get on job sites more quickly. So I think there’s a lot more we can do with apprenticeships, rolling out, beefing up our workforce, and trying to address the demand that is undoubtedly here in the state.”

Steve Kopack of NBC News reported on February 11 that while the U.S. added 1.46 million jobs in 2024, the last year of former president Joe Biden’s administration, it added just 181,000 jobs in 2025. That makes 2025 the worst year for hiring since 2003, aside from the worst year of the coronavirus pandemic. Manufacturing lost 108,000 jobs in 2025.

Peter Grant of the Wall Street Journal reported today that banks that have loaned money to finance the purchase of commercial real estate are requiring borrowers to pay back tens of billions of dollars as the delinquency rate for such loans has climbed to a high not seen since just after the 2008 financial crisis. About $100 billion in commercial real estate loans that have been packaged into securities will come due this year and probably won’t repay when they should. More than half of the loans are likely headed for foreclosure or liquidation.

Trump vowed that he would cut “waste, fraud, and abuse” out of the country’s government programs, but cuts to social programs have been overwhelmed by spending on federal arrest, detention, and deportation programs, as well as Trump’s expansion of military strikes and threats against other countries. In his first year back in office, Trump launched at least 658 air and drone strikes against Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Nigeria, and Venezuela.

Just today, U.S. Southern Command announced it struck three boats in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean yesterday and killed 11 people it claims were smuggling drugs, bringing the total of such strikes to more than 40 and the number of dead to more than 130. Now Trump is moving American forces toward Iran, threatening to target the regime there.

The administration is simply tacking the cost of these military adventures onto government expenditures, apparently still maintaining that the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations Republicans extended in their July “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and tariffs will address the growing deficit and national debt by increasing economic growth.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week projected that the deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, will be $1.85 trillion. Richard Rubin of the Wall Street Journal notes that for every dollar the U.S. collects this year, it will spend $1.33. The CBO explained that the Republican tax cuts will increase budget deficits by $4.7 trillion through 2035.

If the American people have suffered from Trump’s reign, the Trump family continues to cash in. Today Trump’s chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Michael Selig, announced he will try to block states from regulating prediction markets, saying they “provide useful functions for society by allowing everyday Americans to hedge commercial risks like increases in temperature and energy price spikes.”

Republicans insist that prediction markets are more like stock trading than like betting, but a group of over 20 Democratic senators warned last week in a letter to Selig that prediction market platforms, where hundreds of millions of dollars are wagered every week, “are offering contracts that mirror sportsbook wagers and, in some cases, contracts tied to war and armed conflict.” They added that the platforms “evade state and tribal consumer protections, generate no public revenue, and undermine sovereign regulatory regimes,” and urged Selig to support regulations Congress has already put into law.

Prediction markets also cover the actions of President Trump, whose son Don Jr. is both an advisor to and an investor in Polymarket and a paid advisor to Kalshi. Polymarket and Kalshi are the two biggest prediction markets, and both are less regulated than betting sites. The Trump family has announced it is starting its own “Truth Predict.”

David Uberti of the Wall Street Journal reported that Eric Trump is investing heavily in drones, particularly in Israeli drone maker Xtend, which has a $1.5 billion deal to merge with a small Florida construction company to take the company public. The Defense Department has invited Xtend to be part of its drone expansion program.

And yet it is clear the administration fears the American people. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), a statewide program that specializes in police shootings, said yesterday that it has received formal notice that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will not allow it any “access to information or evidence that it has collected” related to the shooting death of Minneapolis intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. The BCA says it will continue to investigate and to pursue legal avenues to get access to the FBI files.

Fury at ICE continues to mount, with voices from inside the government complaining about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, Jonathan Allen, and Julia Ainsley of NBC News reported today on her alienation of senior officials at the Coast Guard as she has shifted their primary mission of search and rescue to flying deportation flights. Noem’s abrupt removal of Coast Guard commandant Linda Fagan only to move into her vacated housing at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling herself also rankled, along with Noem’s lavish use of expensive Coast Guard planes.

Daniel Lippman and Adam Wren of Politico reported today that Noem’s spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, is resigning.

Marissa Payne of the Des Moines Register reported today that in Iowa, Republican state lawmakers are working to rein in the power of the state governor before the 2026 elections, a sure sign that they are worried that a Democrat is going to win the election.

That fear appears to be part of a larger concern that the American people have turned against the Republicans more generally. Last night, late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert told viewers he had been unable to air an interview he did with a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Texas, James Talarico. “I was told…that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” Colbert said. “And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”

Talarico is a Texas state lawmaker studying to be a minister, who criticizes the Republican use of Christianity as a political weapon. Such politicization of Christianity both distorts politics and cheapens faith, he says. The true way to practice Christianity is simple but not easy, he says: it is to love your neighbor. Political positions should grow out of that to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and heal the sick. “[T]here is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism,” he told Colbert. “It is the worship of power in the name of Christ, and it is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Although Talarico is locked in a tight primary battle with Representative Jasmine Crockett, his message offers a powerful off-ramp for evangelicals uncomfortable with the administration, especially its cover-up of the Epstein files. Without evangelical support, MAGA Republicans cannot win elections.

Talarico has the administration nervous enough that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr opened an investigation of the morning talk show The View after Talarico appeared on the show earlier this month. Lawyer Adam Bonin explained that Carr changed the FCC’s enforcement of the Equal Time Rule (which is not the Fairness Doctrine). It says that when broadcast networks (not cable) give air time to someone running for office, they have to give the same time to any other candidate for that office. The obvious exception is when a candidate does something newsworthy outside the race, in which case a network can interview that person without interviewing everyone else.

For 20 years, that rule has applied to talk shows, but Carr announced last month that if a non-news talk show seems to be “motivated by partisan purposes,” then it will not be exempt. For Colbert’s show, it would have meant that after interviewing Talarico, the network would have had to give equal time to all other Democrats and Republicans running for the Senate seat. CBS could have challenged the rule but chose not to.

Why is the administration worried about Talarico in a state Trump won in 2024 by 14%? “I think that Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas,” Talarico said. “Across the state there is a backlash growing to the extremism and the corruption in our politics…. It’s a people-powered movement to take back our state and take back our country.”

As of 10:00 tonight, Colbert’s 15-minute interview with Talarico has been viewed on YouTube 3.8 million times. Forbes says it is Colbert’s most watched interview in months.

—

Notes:

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/fbi-alex-pretti-murder-federal-agents-b2921502.html

https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/lenders-to-commercial-real-estate-owners-pay-up-now-a4509562

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/arts/television/colbert-fcc-trump-talarico-cbs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.M1A.1GVl.wR_e7TkLFCT1&smid=url-share

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/florida-jobs-employment-immigration-e-verify-ron-desantis-5a9abb89

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-12/on-trade-and-tariffs-the-world-is-moving-on-from-the-us

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/for-europe-its-not-back-to-business-as-usual/686023/

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-and-indo-pacific-blocs-eye-major-new-trade-pact/

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/kriegserfahrene-ukrainer-sollen-bundeswehr-soldaten-trainieren-a-ac2ad80d-69b8-4991-9e89-86c41149a34b

The Bulwark
Europe Is America’s Secret Weapon. And We’re Giving It Up.
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S two representatives at the Munich Security Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, …
Read more
2 days ago · 240 likes · Mark Hertling

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/january-jobs-revisions-trump-rcna258398

https://www.kcra.com/article/manufacturing-jobs-us-tariffs/70304916

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/20/how-a-year-of-trump-reshaped-the-world-in-seven-charts

https://www.cfr.org/articles/guide-trumps-second-term-military-strikes-and-actions

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-issues-warning-iran-high-stakes-nuclear-talks-11532833

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-military-strikes-three-alleged-drug-boats-pacific-caribbean-rcna259364

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/u-s-budget-hole-set-to-deepen-by-trillions-b5dfe11b

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/from-helicopter-assembly-lines-to-hammer-missiles-key-pacts-signed-as-pm-modi-hosts-frances-macron/articleshow/128469836.cms

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/17/canada-defense-reduce-us-dependency-00784190

https://qz.com/trump-admin-cftc-state-regulation-crackdown

https://www.schiff.senate.gov/news/press-releases/news-sen-schiff-cortez-masto-21-senate-democrats-demand-cftc-chair-reverse-on-greenlighting-prediction-markets/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-prediction-markets.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/12/prediction-markets-polymarket-kalshi-online-gambling

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2026/02/17/iowa-legislature-republican-bills-limiting-gubernatorial-powers/88705149007/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/noems-use-coast-guard-resources-strains-relationship-military-branch-s-rcna258904

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/eric-trump-invest-xtend-drone-company-5d8e61f4

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/17/dhs-spokesperson-tricia-mclaughlin-to-leave-trump-administration-00783378

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5728540-equal-time-rule-fcc-the-view/

YouTube:

watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A

watch?v=8R_AxfYXsn4

Bluesky:

atrupar.com/post/3mf2mlxj2wq2d

adambonin.bsky.social/post/3mf2oqubn4c2c

ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3mf2nw2cmks2o

carlquintanilla.bsky.social/post/3mf2r5lugls2y

anneapplebaum.bsky.social/post/3mf2oll77d224

mark-carney.bsky.social/post/3meyqaomfck2l

kennysmith.org/post/3mf44ifmsps2c

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Letters from an American

February 15, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson
Updated

Letters from an American

Politics Chat, February 17, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson
Updated

The Map Room

Da Vinci’s Maps

Jonathan Crowe
Updated
Miguel García Álvarez looks at the maps of Leonardo da Vinci. “Leonardo never wrote a treatise on geography, as Ptolemy did, but his understanding of the territory and the importance of finding effective ways to… More
xkcd.com

Plums

My icebox plum trap easily captured William Carlos Williams. It took much less work than the infinite looping network of diverging paths I had to build in that yellow wood to ensnare Robert Frost.
The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Wednesday 18 February 1662/63

Samuel Pepys
Updated

Up, leaving my wife sick as last night in bed. I to my office all the morning, casting up with Captain Cocke their accounts of 500 tons of hemp brought from Riga, and bought by him and partners upon account, wherein are many things worth my knowledge. So at noon to dinner, taking Mr. Hater with me because of losing them, and in the afternoon he and I alone at the office, finishing our account of the extra charge of the Navy, not properly belonging to the Navy, since the King’s coming in to Christmas last; and all extra things being abated, I find that the true charge of the Navy to that time hath been after the rate of 374,743l. a-year. I made an end by eleven o’clock at night, and so home to bed almost weary.

This day the Parliament met again, after their long prorogation; but I know not any thing what they have done, being within doors all day.

Read the annotations

SpaceNews

Vantor partners with Google AI to automate intelligence reports for government agencies

Sandra Erwin
Updated

Satellite imagery-to-report timelines would be reduced from hours to minutes

The post Vantor partners with Google AI to automate intelligence reports for government agencies appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

SpaceX unveils space traffic management system

Jeff Foust
Updated
Stargaze

A new SpaceX initiative to provide space traffic coordination services has attracted attention and praise in part because of the conditions it places on users of it.

The post SpaceX unveils space traffic management system appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

UK caps launch liability in timely boost for nascent domestic market

Jason Rainbow
Updated

A long-awaited cap on liability for U.K. launch operators came into force Feb. 18, aiming to make the country’s fledgling rocket sector more competitive as it struggles to get off the ground.

The post UK caps launch liability in timely boost for nascent domestic market appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

Landspace targets Q2 for next Zhuque-3 orbital launch and recovery attempt

Andrew Jones
Updated

Chinese commercial launch firm Landspace is targeting Q2 for a second orbital launch and booster recovery attempt and aiming for a reuse test in Q4.

The post Landspace targets Q2 for next Zhuque-3 orbital launch and recovery attempt  appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

Simera Sense to offer larger cameras and enhanced autonomy

Debra Werner
Updated

SAN FRANCISCO – After attracting cubesat customers, Belgium-based Simera Sense is developing higher-resolution optical payloads for larger satellites. To date, Simera Sense customers have sent more than 50 xScape100 and xScape200 cameras into orbit. Most have flown on cubesats ranging in size from 6u to 16u. For larger satellites, Simera Sense is developing standardized optical payloads […]

The post Simera Sense to offer larger cameras and enhanced autonomy appeared first on SpaceNews.

Schneier on Security

AI Found Twelve New Vulnerabilities in OpenSSL

Bruce Schneier
Updated

The title of the post is”What AI Security Research Looks Like When It Works,” and I agree:

In the latest OpenSSL security release> on January 27, 2026, twelve new zero-day vulnerabilities (meaning unknown to the maintainers at time of disclosure) were announced. Our AI system is responsible for the original discovery of all twelve, each found and responsibly disclosed to the OpenSSL team during the fall and winter of 2025. Of those, 10 were assigned CVE-2025 identifiers and 2 received CVE-2026 identifiers. Adding the 10 to the three we already found in the Fall 2025 release, AISLE is credited for surfacing 13 of 14 OpenSSL CVEs assigned in 2025, and 15 total across both releases. This is a historically unusual concentration for any single research team, let alone an AI-driven one.

These weren’t trivial findings either. They included CVE-2025-15467, a stack buffer overflow in CMS message parsing that’s potentially remotely exploitable without valid key material, and exploits for which have been quickly developed online. OpenSSL rated it HIGH severity; NIST‘s CVSS v3 score is 9.8 out of 10 (CRITICAL, an extremely rare severity rating for such projects). Three of the bugs had been present since 1998-2000, for over a quarter century having been missed by intense machine and human effort alike. One predated OpenSSL itself, inherited from Eric Young’s original SSLeay implementation in the 1990s. All of this in a codebase that has been fuzzed for millions of CPU-hours and audited extensively for over two decades by teams including Google’s.

In five of the twelve cases, our AI system directly proposed the patches that were accepted into the official release.

AI vulnerability finding is changing cybersecurity, faster than expected. This capability will be used by both offense and defense.

More.

SpaceNews

Pentagon seeks commercially built GEO spy satellites

Sandra Erwin
Updated

The Defense Innovation Unit plans to select companies to field and operate spacecraft before transferring them to government control within three years

The post Pentagon seeks commercially built GEO spy satellites  appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

Why GPS III, and what comes after it, still falls short in modern war

Sean Gorman
Updated

With the final GPS III satellite scheduled to launch in March, the United States is completing the most significant upgrade to its positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) infrastructure in more than a decade.  GPS III delivers improved accuracy, stronger signals and enhanced anti-jam capabilities for military users. By any technical measure, it is a better […]

The post Why GPS III, and what comes after it, still falls short in modern war appeared first on SpaceNews.

Boston Red Sox – MLB Trade Rumors
California
Mike the Mad Biologist

Congressional Republicans Create a Huge Legal Problem for D.C.’s Tax Collection

mikethemadbiologist
Updated

And by D.C., I do not mean Wor-Shing-Tun, but the colonial territory of the District of Columbia.

Because D.C. is a colonial territory and not a sovereign state, Congress has the ability to alter or reject D.C. legislation, and Congressional Republicans did so last week, by overturning D.C.’s attempt to decouple our taxes from federal taxes:

The move also would have a major impact on D.C.’s budget, delaying as much as $400 million in anticipated tax revenue for D.C. Additionally, D.C. would have to cut about $600 million from the city’s budget over the next four years, potentially affecting programs related to child care and low-income tax credits.

When Congress passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the legislation affected local tax laws. Several states and D.C. decoupled, choosing not to implement some of those provisions.

But Republicans moved legislation to block D.C. from doing that. Democrats have pushed back…

In a letter to Congress, D.C. Chief Financial Officer Glen Lee warned the District “would need to suspend the current filing season” to update tax forms and guidance, a process that would take months.

Bowser and Mendelson sent a letter explaining, “Disapproval at this stage would create huge administrative challenges, require taxpayers to re-file their taxes, render existing guidance and forms obsolete, and necessitate rapid mid-year changes to tax administration systems. It is unclear how quickly commercial tax preparation software could be updated to accommodate such changes, and District residents and businesses would likely experience confusion, as well as delays.”

Some more detail here (boldface mine):

Late last year, the council passed a law decoupling the city’s tax code from 13 provisions of the federal tax code that were changed by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the massive tax-cut package approved by Congress. The move stopped some of the tax cuts — those exempting some tips and overtime work from taxation — from applying under the local tax code, which officials said would have cost an estimated $600 million in lost revenue over four years.

Instead, the council repurposed some of that revenue to expand the city’s match for the Earned-Income Tax Credit and to create a new Child Tax Credit, a decision that advocates say could benefit moderate- and low-income residents and families in the city.

The council’s decision to decouple wasn’t an outlier; at least a dozen states have similarly done so, but only in D.C. can Congress overrule such decisions. (Virginia and Maryland are among the states that chose to decouple.)

The problem is Republicans might have violated federal law (shocking!):

Earlier in the day, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson contested whether or not Congress had acted in time, posting a document on the council’s website indicating that the 30-day period that Congress had to repeal the bill had actually ended on Wednesday night — before the Senate voted. (Every bill passed by the council heads to Congress for a 30-day review, or 60 days if it involves changes to the city’s criminal code.)

According to Mendelson’s office, the bill was sent to Congress on December 30, thus kicking off the 30-day review period — which would have ended on February 11. But the bill didn’t appear in the official congressional record until January 7, when some congressional officials say the actual 30-day countdown begins.

While this is being phrased as a clash between Congressional Republicans and the D.C. territorial government, there’s another party that potentially can be involved: the colonial subjects of D.C. It remains to be seen if any private citizens, such as those who would have received additional EITC funds but now will not, would be willing to sue the federal government for violating the law. In other words, it doesn’t matter what the Council, Congress, or the mayor want, private citizens get a say too, making this even more of a clusterfuck.

D.C. statehood now (and that does not happen, unless Democratic senators, when Democrats regain power, abolish the filibuster).

Finance & economics

Will investing in Russia really bring America a $12trn bonanza?

The Kremlin is making big promises to Donald Trump’s administration
Mike the Mad Biologist

Links 2/18/26

mikethemadbiologist
Updated

Links for you. Science:

Hannah Neeleman’s Ballerina Farm Halts Sale of Raw Milk Due to Bacteria Concerns
NIH grant disruptions slow down breast cancer research
Finding next-generation antibiotics for the most resistant infections
CDC Deputy Director Unclear On How It’s *His* Job To Prevent Contagious Diseases Like Measles
NIH Director Declines to Fully Rule Out Vaccine-Autism Link During Senate Hearing
HHS Is Making an AI Tool to Create Hypotheses About Vaccine Injury Claims (LLMs + VAERS: what could possibly go wrong?)

Other:

None More Wonderful Than Man: Art, Artists, and MAGA’s Hollow View of Humanity
It’s so much bigger than Epstein
The Minnesota Lawyer Backlog Arises from ICE Kidnappings
Kennedy Center teaches MAGA a tough lesson
But In This Rural Ohio Congressional District, He’s Not Popular At All
“You’re Not Going to Investigate a Federal Officer”
Have You Tried Not Being The World’s Worst Human (lol)
Nearly 40% of Stanford undergraduates claim they’re disabled. I’m one of them. One of the most prestigious universities in the US offers perks to those who say they have ADHD, night terrors, even gluten intolerance. You’d be stupid not to game the system
Democrats Need to Get Serious About Stopping Trump From Rigging the Midterms
‘It’s an absolute bloodbath’: Washington Post lays off hundreds of workers
ICE and CBP’s Face-Recognition App Can’t Actually Verify Who People Are
‘Do You Speak Billionaire?’ and Other Stories From the Fall of the Washington Post
This SpaceX Situation: Not Good!
Zohran Mamdani: Why I’m Endorsing Kathy Hochul
The Washington Post Is No Longer Useful to Jeff Bezos
Republicans Are All In on Boosting Fraud Allegations in California
Trump and Musk Knew Exactly Who Jeffrey Epstein Was
Jeffrey Epstein’s Money Mingled With Silicon Valley Start-Ups
Sherrill Urges New Jersey Residents to Record ICE Action on Their Phones
ICE dragged me from my car after I told agents I’m autistic. I thought, ‘I just have to make it through this alive’
The DOJ Redacted a Photo of the Mona Lisa in the Epstein Files
AI controls are coming to Firefox
Liam Ramos Was Just One of Hundreds of Children at This Detention Center. Release Them All.
The Actual Gavin Newsom Is Much Worse Than You Think
How D.C. allowed ‘completely inappropriate’ spending by anti-violence group
Trump’s latest US attorney pick is another real winner
A Shocking Sex Scandal Rocks the Trad Right
Mamdani names jails reformer Stanley Richards to steer chaotic Rikers complex
Antifa used to unmask neo-Nazis, now it’s exposing ICE: ‘Predators don’t get anonymity’
Federal Agents Left Behind “Death Cards” After Capturing Immigrants

Oklahoma Watch
Feed: All Latest
Marginal Revolution

Germany projection of the day

Tyler Cowen
Updated

Germany’s population is projected to shrink by nearly 5 per cent within 25 years — a significantly steeper decline than previously forecast, according to an Ifo study.

The German economic think-tank on Tuesday revised its forecast for a 1 per cent population decline by 2050 to nearly 5 per cent — a drop that would leave Germany with its smallest population since 1990. The revision is based on updated figures from the country’s statistical office.

“Demographic change will have significant effects on all areas of the economy and society,” Ifo economist Joachim Ragnitz warned in the study.

Here is more from the FT.

The post Germany projection of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Julia Evans

Notes on clarifying man pages

Hello! After spending some time working on the Git man pages last year, I’ve been thinking a little more about what makes a good man page.

I’ve spent a lot of time writing cheat sheets for tools (tcpdump, git, dig, etc) which have a man page as their primary documentation. This is because I often find the man pages hard to navigate to get the information I want.

Lately I’ve wondering – could the man page itself have an amazing cheat sheet in it? What might make a man page easier to use? I’m still very early in thinking about this but I wanted to write down some quick notes.

I asked some people on Mastodon for their favourite man pages, and here are some examples of interesting things I saw on those man pages.

an OPTIONS SUMMARY

If you’ve read a lot of man pages you’ve probably seen something like this in the SYNOPSIS: once you’re listing almost the entire alphabet, it’s hard

ls [-@ABCFGHILOPRSTUWabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxy1%,]

grep [-abcdDEFGHhIiJLlMmnOopqRSsUVvwXxZz]

The rsync man page has a solution I’ve never seen before: it keeps its SYNOPSIS very terse, like this:

 Local:
     rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]

and then has an “OPTIONS SUMMARY” section with a 1-line summary of each option, like this:

--verbose, -v            increase verbosity
--info=FLAGS             fine-grained informational verbosity
--debug=FLAGS            fine-grained debug verbosity
--stderr=e|a|c           change stderr output mode (default: errors)
--quiet, -q              suppress non-error messages
--no-motd                suppress daemon-mode MOTD

Then later there’s the usual OPTIONS section with a full description of each option.

an OPTIONS section organized by category

The strace man page organizes its options by category (like “General”, “Startup”, “Tracing”, and “Filtering”, “Output Format”) instead of alphabetically.

As an experiment I tried to take the grep man page and make an “OPTIONS SUMMARY” section grouped by category, you can see the results here. I’m not sure what I think of the results but it was a fun exercise. When I was writing that I was thinking about how I can never remember the name of the -l grep option. It always takes me what feels like forever to find it in the man page and I was trying to think of what structure would make it easier for me to find. Maybe categories?

a cheat sheet

A couple of people pointed me to the suite of Perl man pages (perlfunc, perlre, etc), and one thing I noticed was man perlcheat, which has cheat sheet sections like this:

 SYNTAX
 foreach (LIST) { }     for (a;b;c) { }
 while   (e) { }        until (e)   { }
 if      (e) { } elsif (e) { } else { }
 unless  (e) { } elsif (e) { } else { }
 given   (e) { when (e) {} default {} }

I think this is so cool and it makes me wonder if there are other ways to write condensed ASCII 80-character-wide cheat sheets for use in man pages.

A common comment was something to the effect of “I like any man page that has examples”. Someone mentioned the OpenBSD man pages, and the openbsd tail man page has examples of the exact 2 ways I use tail at the end.

I think I’ve most often seen the EXAMPLES section at the end of the man page, but some man pages (like the rsync man page from earlier) start with the examples. When I was working on the git-add and git rebase man pages I put a short example at the beginning.

This isn’t a property of the man page itself, but one issue with man pages in the terminal is it’s hard to know what sections the man page has.

When working on the Git man pages, one thing Marie and I did was to add a table of contents to the sidebar of the HTML versions of the man pages hosted on the Git site.

I’d also like to add more hyperlinks to the HTML versions of the Git man pages at some point, so that you can click on “INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS” to get to that section. It’s very easy to add links like this in the Git project since Git’s man pages are generated with AsciiDoc.

I think adding a table of contents and adding internal hyperlinks is kind of a nice middle ground where we can make some improvements to the man page format (in the HTML version of the man page at least) without maintaining a totally different form of documentation. Though for this to work you do need to set up a toolchain like Git’s AsciiDoc system.

It would be amazing if there were some kind of universal system to make it easy to look up a specific option in a man page (“what does -a do?”). The best trick I know is use the man pager to search for something like ^ *-a but I never remember to do it and instead just end up going through every instance of -a in the man page until I find what I’m looking for.

examples for every option

The curl man page has examples for every option, and there’s also a table of contents on the HTML version so you can more easily jump to the option you’re interested in.

For instance the example for --cert makes it easy to see that you likely also want to pass the --key option, like this:

  curl --cert certfile --key keyfile https://example.com

The way they implement this is that there’s [one file for each option](https://github.com/curl/curl/blob/dc08922a61efe546b318daf964514ffbf41583 25/docs/cmdline-opts/append.md) and there’s an “Example” field in that file.

formatting data in a table

Quite a few people said that man ascii was their favourite man page, which looks like this:

 Oct   Dec   Hex   Char                     
 ───────────────────────────────────────────
 000   0     00    NUL '\0' (null character)
 001   1     01    SOH (start of heading)   
 002   2     02    STX (start of text)      
 003   3     03    ETX (end of text)        
 004   4     04    EOT (end of transmission)
 005   5     05    ENQ (enquiry)            
 006   6     06    ACK (acknowledge)        
 007   7     07    BEL '\a' (bell)          
 010   8     08    BS  '\b' (backspace)     
 011   9     09    HT  '\t' (horizontal tab)
 012   10    0A    LF  '\n' (new line)

Obviously man ascii is an unusual man page but I think what’s cool about this man page (other than the fact that it’s always useful to have an ASCII reference) is it’s very easy to scan to find the information you need because of the table format. It makes me wonder if there are more opportunities to display information in a “table” in a man page to make it easier to scan.

the GNU approach

When I talk about man pages it often comes up that the GNU coreutils man pages (for example man tail) don’t have examples, unlike the OpenBSD man pages, which do have examples.

I’m not going to get into this too much because it seems like a fairly political topic and I definitely can’t do it justice here, but here are some things I believe to be true:

  • The GNU project prefers to maintain documentation in “info” manuals instead of man pages. This page says “the man pages are no longer being maintained”.
  • There are 3 ways to read “info” manuals: their HTML version, in Emacs, or with a standalone info tool. I’ve heard from some Emacs users that they like the Emacs info browser. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone who uses the standalone info tool.
  • The info manual entry for tail is linked at the bottom of the man page, and it does have examples
  • The FSF used to sell print books of the GNU software manuals (and maybe they still do sometimes?)

After a certain level of complexity a man page gets really hard to navigate: while I’ve never used the coreutils info manual and probably won’t, I would almost certainly prefer to use the GNU Bash reference manual or the The GNU C Library Reference Manual via their HTML documentation rather than through a man page.

a few more man-page-adjacent things

Here are some tools I think are interesting:

  • The fish shell comes with a Python script to automatically generate tab completions from man pages
  • tldr.sh is a community maintained database of examples, for example you can run it as tldr grep. Lots of people have told me they find it useful.
  • the Dash Mac docs browser has a nice man page viewer in it. I still use the terminal man page viewer but I like that it includes a table of contents, it looks like this:

it’s interesting to think about a constrained format

Man pages are such a constrained format and it’s fun to think about what you can do with such limited formatting options.

Even though I’m very into writing I’ve always had a bad habit of never reading documentation and so it’s a little bit hard for me to think about what I actually find useful in man pages, I’m not sure whether I think most of the things in this post would improve my experience or not. (Except for examples, I LOVE examples)

So I’d be interested to hear about other man pages that you think are well designed and what you like about them, the comments section is here.

Hacker News
Marginal Revolution

The mainstream view

Tyler Cowen
Updated

Multiple studies have either shown that smartphone and social media use among teens has minimal effects on their mental health or none at all. As a 2024 review published by an American Psychological Association journal put it: “There is no evidence that time spent on social media is correlated with adolescent mental health problems.”

And this:

Advocates of bans compare social media to alcohol or tobacco, where the harms are indisputable and the benefits are minimal. But the internet, including social media, is more analogous to books, magazines or television. I may not want my sons watching “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” or reading “Fifty Shades of Grey,” but it would be crazy to ban books and films for kids altogether.

But that is the nature of these social media bans. Australia’s law not only restricted access to platforms such as Instagram and TikTok but also banned kids under 16 from having YouTube, X and Reddit accounts. Even Substack had to modify its practices.

Here is more from the excellent Sam Bowman.  And many teens make money through “digital side hustles,” in this day and age that is what a teenage job often means.

The post The mainstream view appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Marginal Revolution

Wednesday assorted links

Tyler Cowen
Updated

1. “Australian abattoirs are adopting AI to count sheep, allowing farmers and processors to sleep more easily at night after decades of rows over miscounts stoked distrust in the outback.” (FT)

2. Richard Ngo on educational signaling theories.

3. “There is no secular alternative. There has never been one.”

4. Should the buses be free?

5. Dominicans vs. Franciscans.

6. Africa fact of the day.

7. Is Europe’s problem labor law?

8. Arbitrage in Singaporean aunties? The country is getting more interesting again.

The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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NASA Science

Perseverance Pinpoints Its Location at ‘Mala Mala’

Rafael Alanis
Updated
2 Min Read

Perseverance Pinpoints Its Location at ‘Mala Mala’

This panorama from Perseverance is composed of five stereo pairs of navigation camera images that the rover matched to orbital imagery in order to pinpoint its position on Feb. 2, 2026, using a technology called Mars Global Localization.
PIA26704
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
 

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Perseverance Pinpoints Its Location at ‘Mala Mala’

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Using its navigation cameras, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured the five stereo pairs of images that make up this panorama on Feb. 2, 2026, the 1,762nd day, or sol, of the mission. A new technology called Mars Global Localization matched this 360-degree view to onboard orbital imagery from the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), enabling the rover to pinpoint its location on the Red Planet for the first time without human help. The rover is in a relatively featureless area dubbed “Mala Mala” on the rim of Jezero Crater.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed Mars Global Localization, which features an algorithm that rapidly compares panoramic navcam shots to MRO orbital imagery. Running on a powerful processor that Perseverance originally used to communicate with the now-retired Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the algorithm takes about two minutes to pinpoint the rover’s location within some 10 inches (25 centimeters).  

Like NASA’s previous Mars rovers, Perseverance tracks its position using what’s called visual odometry, analyzing geologic features in camera images taken every few feet while accounting for wheel slippage. As tiny errors in the process add up over the course of each drive, the rover becomes increasingly unsure about its exact location. On long drives, the rover’s sense of its position can be off by than 100 feet (up to 35 meters). Believing it could be too close to hazardous terrain, the rover may prematurely end its drive and wait for instructions from Earth.

After each drive comes to a halt, the rover sends a 360-degree panorama to Earth, where mapping experts match the imagery with shots from MRO. The team then sends the rover its location and instructions for its next drive. That process can take a day or more. With Mars Global Localization, the rover can compare the images itself, determine its location, and roll ahead on its pre-planned route.

Managed for NASA by Caltech, JPL built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover. JPL also manages MRO for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of its Mars Exploration Program portfolio.

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NASA Science

Mars Global Localization Pinpoints Perseverance’s Location

Rafael Alanis
Updated
3 Min Read

Mars Global Localization Pinpoints Perseverance’s Location

The new technology called Mars Global Localization enables NASA’s Perseverance to pinpoint is location using an onboard algorithm that matches terrain features in navigation camera shots (the circular image, called an orthomosaic) to those in orbital imagery (the background).
PIA26705
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
 

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Mars Global Localization Pinpoints Perseverance’s Location

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PIA26705 animation

MP4 (2.77 MB)

Description

These images were part of the first successful use of a new technology called Mars Global Localization, developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Using its navigation cameras, NASA’s Perseverance captured a 360-degree view of the surrounding terrain that was matched to orbital imagery, enabling the rover to pinpoint its location on Mars on Feb. 2, 2026, the 1,762nd day, or sol, of the mission. The navcam images were turned into an overhead view called an orthomosaic, forming a circle around the rover. In this animation, the orthomosaic is superimposed on the imagery from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Contrast and hue have been enhanced to increase visibility of terrain features, which align in the ground and orbital imagery. 

The rover took the five stereo pairs of navcam images in this relatively featureless location, dubbed “Mala Mala,” an area on the rim of Jezero Crater. The blank area in the upper right of the orthomosaic is where the back of the rover blocked the cameras’ view of the surrounding landscape.

Mars Global Localization features an algorithm that rapidly compares panoramic navcam shots to MRO orbital imagery. Running on a powerful processor that Perseverance originally used to communicate with the now-retired Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the algorithm takes about two minutes to pinpoint the rover’s location to within some 10 inches (25 centimeters). 

Like NASA’s previous Mars rovers, Perseverance tracks its position using what’s called visual odometry, analyzing geologic features in camera images taken every few feet while accounting for wheel slippage. As tiny errors in the process add up over the course of each drive, the rover becomes increasingly unsure about its exact location. On long drives, the rover’s sense of its position can be off by more than 100 feet (up to 35 meters). Believing it could be too close to hazardous terrain, Perseverance may prematurely end its drive and wait for instructions from Earth.

After each drive comes to a halt, the rover sends a 360-degree panorama to Earth, where mapping experts match the imagery with shots from MRO. The team then sends the rover its location and instructions for its next drive. That process can take a day or more, but with Mars Global Localization, the rover can compare the images itself, determine its location, and roll ahead on its pre-planned route.

Managed for NASA by Caltech, JPL built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover. JPL also manages MRO for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of its Mars Exploration Program portfolio.

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The post Mars Global Localization Pinpoints Perseverance’s Location appeared first on NASA Science.

DCReport.org

The Economy of Illusion: How Digital Platforms Turn Attention into Profit

Our Friends
Updated

In today’s digital landscape, attention is no longer just a byproduct of entertainment — it is the foundation of an entire economic model. Platforms compete not only for money but for time, focus, and emotional engagement. For players in the Netherlands, where online gaming is regulated and increasingly sophisticated, understanding how attention-driven platforms operate is essential for making informed decisions.

Online gaming environments are carefully designed ecosystems. Every visual element, bonus offer, and game mechanic exists for a reason. The goal is not manipulation — it is engagement. The longer users stay, the more value is created. When structured responsibly, this system benefits both the platform and the player.

Attention as a Digital Asset

In traditional markets, physical goods generate revenue. In digital entertainment, attention performs that role. Every click, every round played, and every interaction contributes to measurable engagement.

Gaming platforms rely on:

  • Personalized recommendations
  • Structured bonus systems
  • Tiered loyalty rewards
  • Smooth user interface design

For Dutch players, clarity is particularly important. The Netherlands has strict regulatory oversight to ensure that gaming remains transparent and fair. This means reputable platforms must clearly communicate terms, wagering requirements, and responsible gaming policies.

When users choose a trusted gaming environment, they are not simply selecting games — they are entering a structured digital economy.

The Psychology Behind Engagement

Digital gaming platforms are built on principles drawn from behavioral economics. Variable rewards, progression systems, and milestone achievements create momentum. These elements are not random; they are designed to keep the experience dynamic and immersive.

However, there is an important distinction between engagement and excess. Responsible platforms understand this difference. Clear limits, transparent bonus structures, and accessible account controls help maintain balance.

This is where platform reputation becomes critical. WBETZ Casino betting games and casino bonuses are structured to provide excitement while clearly outlining participation rules. Players can access detailed information before activating promotions, ensuring they understand wagering conditions and payout terms.

How Revenue Models Work in Online Gaming

Revenue in digital gaming does not come from illusion — it comes from volume and participation. When players engage with games, place bets, or activate bonuses, the platform earns through predefined mathematical models.

Game Return Percentages

Every licensed game has a return-to-player percentage. This figure defines the theoretical payout over time. Transparent platforms disclose this information or make it accessible through providers.

Bonus Mechanics

Bonuses are marketing tools, but they are also structured contracts. Wagering requirements, eligible games, and maximum withdrawal limits determine how bonuses function in practice.

Player Retention Systems

Loyalty programs reward consistent engagement. These systems create value for regular players without forcing participation.

For Dutch users, selecting a platform that communicates these mechanisms clearly reduces uncertainty and enhances trust.

Responsible Engagement in the Netherlands

The Dutch gaming market emphasizes consumer protection. Players are encouraged to choose platforms that prioritize:

  • Identity verification
  • Deposit limits
  • Self-exclusion tools
  • Transparent terms and conditions

Accessing structured betting games, casino promotions, and bonus programs through https://wbetz1.com allows users to explore a digital gaming environment designed with clarity in mind. Clear navigation, defined bonus conditions, and accessible support channels are essential components of responsible engagement.

The Balance Between Entertainment and Strategy

Digital platforms succeed because they create immersive experiences. But smart players approach gaming strategically. That includes:

  • Reading bonus terms before activation
  • Setting personal spending limits
  • Understanding game volatility
  • Taking breaks when necessary

WBETZ Casino betting games, online slots, and bonus offers are structured to support controlled participation. Clear wagering terms and defined promotional mechanics allow players to make informed decisions while enjoying competitive gameplay.

The economy of attention works best when users remain conscious participants rather than passive consumers. Awareness transforms engagement into controlled entertainment.

Why Transparency Builds Long-Term Value

In a regulated market like the Netherlands, trust is currency. Platforms that invest in transparent communication, fair game providers, and responsible gaming policies build sustainable player relationships.

Short-term incentives attract users, but clarity retains them. When wagering requirements are clearly explained, when withdrawal processes are straightforward, and when support is responsive, players feel confident returning.

Digital gaming is not simply about winning or losing. It is about the structure surrounding the experience. A well-designed platform aligns business goals with player satisfaction.

The true economy of illusion is not about deception — it is about perception. Platforms create environments that feel dynamic, exciting, and rewarding. The responsibility lies in ensuring that this perception is grounded in fairness and clarity.

For Dutch players seeking structured betting entertainment, understanding how attention becomes profit is not a warning — it is a tool. When you know how the system works, you can participate on your own terms.

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DCReport.org

From Entertainment to Dependency: Digital Mechanics That Keep Players Engaged

Our Friends
Updated

Online casinos in the Netherlands have changed significantly in recent years. What once required a visit to a physical venue is now available on a smartphone within seconds. Players can access slots, table games, and betting markets at any time of day. Convenience has become standard. Speed is expected.

Behind this simplicity, however, stands a carefully structured digital environment. Modern gaming platforms are not random collections of games. They are technology-driven systems designed to capture and retain attention. For most users, this simply results in longer sessions. For some, the boundary between leisure and excessive play may gradually shift.

Why Digital Games Feel So Engaging

Unpredictability is the core driver of engagement. Wins do not arrive on a fixed schedule, and that uncertainty strengthens anticipation. Behavioral psychology has long demonstrated that variable rewards create stronger repetition patterns than predictable outcomes.

In real-money gaming, this effect becomes more intense. The combination of financial risk, emotional anticipation, and instant results increases stimulation.

Across online casinos, including BOF Casino, the experience is built around speed and convenience: quick access to games, seamless navigation, and immediate feedback that can make it easier to stay engaged longer than intended.

Design Elements That Extend Playing Time

Online platforms remove almost every delay between decision and action. Registration takes minutes. Deposits are processed quickly. Games launch without interruption. When friction is minimized, continuing to play requires little effort.

Fast Game Cycles

Many modern slots and table games are structured around short rounds. Players can place multiple bets within a brief period. Immediate feedback keeps attention focused and reduces pauses that might otherwise interrupt the session.

The Near-Win Effect

When symbols stop just one position away from a major payout, the experience can feel surprisingly intense. Near wins often generate emotional responses that encourage another attempt. The visual and audio elements built into digital games amplify this sensation.

Bonus Offers and Promotions

Welcome bonuses, reload incentives, and loyalty programs are standard across the industry. At BOF Casino, players encounter promotional offers as part of the overall gaming experience. Such incentives can extend playtime and add variety to sessions, but they work best when approached with clear expectations and a defined budget. Reviewing wagering conditions before participating helps players stay in control of their spending.

Exploring Game Variety and Platform Experience

Modern online casino platforms focus on intuitive navigation and quick access to games. A well-structured interface allows players to switch between slots, table games, and betting options without interruption.

When browsing casino games, betting markets, and promotional opportunities at https://bofcasino1.com, users experience a streamlined layout designed for fast interaction. Smooth transitions between sections and rapid loading times contribute to immersion, which is why monitoring session length remains important.

Personalization and Algorithmic Influence

Digital platforms rely on data to adapt content to user preferences. If a player regularly selects certain slot themes or betting markets, similar options may appear more prominently.

Personalization improves convenience and relevance. At the same time, it can increase session length by consistently presenting appealing choices without requiring active searching.

Responsible Gambling in the Netherlands

The Dutch regulatory framework requires licensed operators to implement protective tools. These measures are not optional; they are part of operating legally within the market.

Players can set deposit limits, receive session time reminders, and activate self-exclusion if necessary. Such tools are designed to support balanced participation, even within highly engaging environments.

Recognizing the Turning Point

Extended play does not automatically indicate a problem. Many individuals participate occasionally and responsibly. However, certain patterns deserve attention: increasing stakes after losses, ignoring preset limits, or playing primarily to manage stress.

Awareness of these behaviors makes a difference. Understanding how rapid game cycles, promotional incentives, and near-win effects function allows players to make more deliberate decisions.

Digital casino platforms are designed to feel effortless. That is why it helps to bring your own structure into the session. Setting a personal budget before you start, deciding how long you want to play, and taking short breaks can prevent the experience from turning into autopilot.

If you notice that you are increasing stakes after losses, extending sessions “just a little longer,” or playing mainly to escape stress, it may be a sign to pause and reset your approach.

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David Heinemeier Hansson

Omacon comes to New York

David Heinemeier Hansson (dhh@hey.com)
Updated
The vibes around Linux are changing fast. Companies of all shapes and sizes are paying fresh attention. The hardware game on x86 is rapidly improving. And thanks to OpenCode and Claude Code, terminal user interfaces (TUIs) are suddenly everywhere. It's all this and Omarchy that we'll be celebrating in New York City on April 10 at the Shopify SoHo Space for the first OMACON!

We've got an incredible lineup of speakers coming. The creator of Hyprland, Vaxry, will be there. Along with ThePrimeagen and TJ DeVries. You'll see OpenCode creator Dax Raad. Omarchy power contributors Ryan Hughes and Bjarne Øverli. As well as Chris Powers (Typecraft) and myself as Linux superfans. All packed into a single day of short sessions, plenty of mingle time, and some good food.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow (February 19) at 10am EST. We only have room for 130 attendees total, so I imagine the offered-at-cost $299 tickets will go quickly. But if you can't manage to snatch a ticket in time, we'll also be recording everything, so you won't be left out entirely.

But there is just something special about being together in person about a shared passion. I've felt the intensity of that three years in a row now with Rails World. There's an endless amount of information and instruction available online, but a sense of community and connection is far more scarce. We nerds need this.

We also need people to JUST DO THINGS. Like kick off a fresh Linux distribution together with over three hundred contributors so far all leaning boldly into aesthetics, ergonomics, and that omakase spirit. 

Omarchy only came about last summer, now we're seeing 50,000 ISO downloads a week, 30,000 people on the Discord, and now our very first exclusive gathering in New York City. This is open source at its best. People from all over, coming together, making cool shit.

(Oh, and thanks to Shopify and Tobi for hosting. You gotta love when a hundred-plus billion dollar company like this is run by an uber nerd who can just sign off on doing something fun and cool for the community without any direct plausible payback.)

opengraph.png
Anil Dash

How did we end up threatening our kids’ lives with AI?

I have to begin by warning you about the content in this piece; while I won’t be dwelling on any specifics, this will necessarily be a broad discussion about some of the most disturbing topics imaginable. I resent that I have to give you that warning, but I’m forced to because of the choices that the Big AI companies have made that affect children. I don’t say this lightly. But this is the point we must reckon with if we are having an honest conversation about contemporary technology.

Let me get the worst of it out of the way right up front, and then we can move on to understanding how this happened. ChatGPT has repeatedly produced output that encouraged and incited children to end their own lives. Grok’s AI generates sexualized imagery of children, which the company makes available commercially to paid subscribers.

It used to be that encouraging children to self-harm, or producing sexualized imagery of children, were universally agreed upon as being amongst the worst things one could do in society. These were among the rare truly non-partisan, unifying moral agreements that transcended all social and cultural barriers. And now, some of the world’s biggest and most powerful companies, led by a few of the wealthiest and most powerful men who have ever lived, are violating these rules, for profit, and not only is there little public uproar, it seems as if very few have even noticed.

How did we get here?

The ideas behind a crisis

A perfect storm of factors have combined to lead us towards the worst case scenario for AI. There is now an entire market of commercial products that attack our children, and to understand why, we need to look at the mindset of the people who are creating those products. Here are some of the key motivations that drove them to this point.

1. Everyone feels desperately behind and wants to catch up

There’s an old adage from Intel’s founder Andy Grove that people in Silicon Valley used to love to quote: “Only the paranoid survive”. This attitude persists, with leaders absolutely convinced that everything is a zero-sum game, and any perceived success by another company is an existential threat to one’s own future.

At Google, the company’s researchers had published the fundamental paper underlying the creation of LLMs in 2017, but hadn’t capitalized on that invention by making a successful consumer product by 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT. Within Google leadership (and amongst the big tech tycoons), the fact that OpenAI was able to have a hit product with this technology was seen as a grave failure by Google, despite the fact that even OpenAI’s own leadership hadn’t expected ChatGPT to be a big hit upon launch. A crisis ensued within Google in the months that followed.

These kinds of industry narratives have more weight than reality in driving decision-making and investment, and the refrain of “move fast and break things” is still burned into people’s heads, so the end result these days is that shipping any product is okay, as long as it helps you catch up to your competitor. Thus, since Grok is seriously behind its competitors in usage, and of course Grok's CEO Elon Musk is always desperate for attention, they have every incentive to ship a product with a catastrophically toxic design — including one that creates abusive imagery.

2. Accountability is “woke” and must be crushed

Another fundamental article of faith in the last decade amongst tech tycoons (and their fanboys) is that woke culture must be destroyed. They have an amorphous and ever-evolving definition of what “woke” means, but it always includes any measures of accountability. One key example is the trust and safety teams that had been trying to keep all of the major technology platforms from committing the worst harms that their products were capable of producing.

Here, again, Google provides us with useful context. The company had one of the most mature and experienced AI safety research teams in the world at the time when the first paper on the transformer model (LLMs) was published. Right around the time that paper was published, Google also saw one of its engineers publish a sexist screed on gender essentialism designed to bait the company into becoming part of the culture war, which it ham-handedly stumbled directly into. Like so much of Silicon Valley, Google’s leadership did not understand that these campaigns are always attempts to game the refs, and they let themselves be played by these bad actors; within a few years, a backlash had built and they began cutting everyone who had warned about risks around the new AI platforms, including some of the most credible and respected voices in the industry on these issues.

Eliminating those roles was considered vital because these people were blamed for having “slowed down” the company with their silly concerns about things like people’s lives, or the health of the world’s information ecosystem. A lot of the wealthy execs across the industry were absolutely convinced that the reason Google had ended up behind in AI, despite having invented LLMs, was because they had too many “woke” employees, and those employees were too worried about esoteric concerns like people’s well-being.

It does not ever enter the conversation that 1. executives are accountable for the failures that happen at a company, 2. Google had a million other failures during these same years (including those countless redundant messaging apps they kept launching!) that may have had far more to do with their inability to seize the market opportunity and 3. it may be a good thing that Google didn’t rush to market with a product that tells children to harm themselves, and those workers who ended up being fired may have saved Google from that fate!

3. Product managers are veterans of genocidal regimes

The third fact that enabled the creation of pernicious AI products is more subtle, but has more wide-ranging implications once we face it. In the tech industry, product managers are often quietly amongst the most influential figures in determining the influence a company has on culture. (At least until all the product managers are replaced by an LLM being run by their CEO.) At their best, product managers are the people who decide exactly what features and functionality go into a product, synthesizing and coordinating between the disciplines of engineering, marketing, sales, support, research, design, and many other specialties. I’m a product person, so I have a lot of empathy for the challenges of the role, and a healthy respect for the power it can often hold.

But in today’s Silicon Valley, a huge number of the people who act as product managers spent the formative years of their careers in companies like Facebook (now Meta). If those PMs now work at OpenAI, then the moments when they were learning how to practice their craft were spent at a company that made products that directly enabled and accelerated a genocide. That’s not according to me, that’s the opinion of multiple respected international human rights organizations. If you chose to go work at Facebook after the Rohingya genocide had happened, then you were certainly not going to learn from your manager that you should not make products that encourage or incite people to commit violence.

Even when they’re not enabling the worst things in the world, product managers who spend time in these cultures learn more destructive habits, like strategic line-stepping. This is the habit of repeatedly violating their own policies on things like privacy and security, or allowing users to violate platform policies on things like abuse and harassment. This tactic is followed by then feigning surprise when the behavior is caught. After sending out an obligatory apology, they repeat the behavior again a few more times until everyone either gets so used to it that they stop complaining or the continued bad actions drives off the good people, which makes it seem to the media or outside observers that the problem has gone away. Then, they amend their terms of service to say that the formerly-disallowed behavior is now permissible, so that in the future they can say, “See? It doesn’t violate our policy.”

Because so many people in the industry now have these kind of credential on their LinkedIn profiles, their peers can’t easily mention many kinds of ethical concerns when designing a product without implicitly condemning their coworkers. This becomes even more fraught when someone might potentially be unknowingly offending one of their leaders. As a result, it becomes a race to the bottom, where the person with the worst ethical standards on the team determines the standards to which everyone designs their work. As a result, if the prevailing sentiment about creating products at a company is that having millions of users just inevitably means killing some of them (“you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet”), there can be risk to contradicting that idea. Pointing out that, in fact, most platforms on the internet do not harm users in these ways and their creators work very hard to ensure that tech products don’t present a risk to their communities, can end up being a career-limiting move.

4. Compensation is tied to feature adoption

This is a more subtle point, but explains a lot of the incentives and motivations behind so much of what happens with today’s major technology platforms. The introduction or rollout of new capabilities is measured when these companies launch new features, and the success of those rollouts or launches are often tied to the measurements of individual performance for the people who were responsible for those features. These will be measured using metrics like “KPIs” (key performance indicators) or other similar corporate acronyms, all of which basically represent the concept of being rewarded for whether the thing you made was adopted by users in the real world. In the abstract, it makes sense to reward employees based on whether the things they create actually succeed in the market, so that their work is aligned with whatever makes the company succeed.

In practice, people’s incentives and motivations get incredibly distorted over time by these kinds of gamified systems being used to measure their work, especially as it becomes a larger and larger part of their compensation. If you’ve ever wondered why some intrusive AI feature that you never asked for is jumping in front of your cursor when you’re just trying to do a normal task the same way that you’ve been doing it for years, it’s because someone’s KPI was measuring whether you were going to click on that AI button. Much of the time, the system doesn’t distinguish between “I accidentally clicked on this feature while trying to get rid of it” and “I enthusiastically chose to click on this button”. This is what I mean when I say we need an internet of consent.

But you see the grim end game of this kind of thinking, and these kinds of reward systems, when kids’ well-being is on the line. Someone’s compensation may well be tied to a metric or measurement of “how many people used the image generation feature?” without regard to whether that feature was being used to generate imagery of children without consent. Getting a user addicted to a product, even to the point where they’re getting positive reinforcement when discussing the most self-destructive behaviors, will show up in a measurement system as increased engagement — exactly the kind of behavior that most compensation systems reward employees for producing.

5. Their cronies have made it impossible to regulate them

A strange reality of the United States’ sad decline into authoritarianism is that it is presently impossible to create federal regulation to stop the harms that these large AI platforms are causing. Most Americans are not familiar with this level of corruption and crony capitalism, but Trump’s AI Czar David Sacks has an unbelievably broad number of conflicts of interest from his investments across the AI spectrum; it’s impossible to know how many because nobody in the Trump administration follows even the basic legal requirements around disclosure or disinvestment, and the entire corrupt Republican Party in Congress refuses to do their constitutionally-required duty to hold the executive branch accountable for these failures.

As a result, at the behest of the most venal power brokers in Silicon Valley, the Trump administration is insisting on trying to stop all AI regulations at the state level, and of course will have the collusion of the captive Supreme Court to assist in this endeavor. Because they regularly have completely unaccountable and unrecorded conversations, the leaders of the Big AI companies (all of whom attended the Inauguration of this President and support the rampant lawbreaking of this administration with rewards like open bribery) know that there will be no constraints on the products that they launch, and no punishments or accountability if those products cause harm.

All of the pertinent regulatory bodies, from the Federal Trade Commission to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have had their competent leadership replaced by Trump cronies as well, meaning that their agendas are captured and they will not be able to protect citizens from these companies, either.

There will, of course, still be attempts at accountability at the state and local level, and these will wind their way through the courts over time. But the harms will continue in the meantime. And there will be attempts to push back on the international level, both from regulators overseas, and increasingly by governments and consumers outside the United States refusing to use technologies developed in this country. But again, these remedies will take time to mature, and in the meantime, children will still be in harm’s way.

What about the kids?

It used to be such a trope of political campaigns and social movements to say “what about the children?” that it is almost beyond parody. I personally have mocked the phrase because it’s so often deployed in bad faith, to short-circuit complicated topics and suppress debate. But this is that rare circumstance where things are actually not that complicated. Simply discussing the reality of what these products do should be enough.

People will say, “but it’s inevitable! These products will just have these problems sometimes!” And that is simply false. There are already products on the market that don’t have these egregious moral failings. More to the point, even if it were true that these products couldn’t exist without killing or harming children — then that’s a reason not to ship them at all.

If it is, indeed absolutely unavoidable that, for example, ChatGPT has to advocate violence, then let’s simply attach a rule in the code that modifies it to change the object of the violence to be Sam Altman. Or your boss. I suspect that if, suddenly, the chatbot deployed to every laptop at your company had a chance of suggesting that people cause bodily harm to your CEO, people would suddenly figure out a way to fix that bug. But somehow when it makes that suggestion about your 12-year-old, this is an insurmountably complex challenge.

We can expect things to get worse before they get better. OpenAI has already announced that it is going to be allowing people to generate sexual content on its service for a fee later this year. To their credit, when doing so, they stated their policy prohibiting the use of the service to generate images that sexualize children. But the service they’re using to ensure compliance, Thorn, whose product is meant to help protect against such content, was conspicuously silent about Musk’s recent foray into generating sexualized imagery of children. An organization whose entire purpose is preventing this kind of material, where every public message they have put out is decrying this content, somehow falls mute when the world’s richest man carries out the most blatant launch of this capability ever? If even the watchdogs have lost their voice, how are regular people supposed to feel like they have a chance at fighting back?

And then, if no one is reining in OpenAI, and they have to keep up with their competitors, and the competition isn’t worried about silly concerns like ethics, and the other platforms are selling child exploitation material, and all of the product mangers are Meta alumni who know that they can just keep gaming the terms of service if they need to, and laws aren’t being enforced, and all the product managers making the product learned to make decisions while they were at Meta… well, will you be surprised?

How do we move forward?

It should be an industry-stopping scandal that this is the current state of two of the biggest players in the most-hyped, most-funded, most consequential area of the entire business world right now. It should be unfathomable that people are thinking about deploying these technologies in their businesses — in their schools! — or integrating these products into their own platforms. And yet I would bet that the vast majority of people using these products have no idea about these risks or realities of these platforms at all. Even the vast majority of people who work in tech probably are barely aware.

What’s worse is, the majority of people I’ve talked to in tech, who do know about this have not taken a single action about it. Not one.

I’ll be following up with an entire list of suggestions about actions we can take, and ways we can push for accountability for the bad actors who are endangering kids every day. In the meantime, reflect for yourself about this reality. Who will you share this information with? How will this change your view of what these companies are? How will this change the way you make decisions about using these products? Now that you know: what will you do?

Boston Red Sox – MLB Trade Rumors
Contraptions

Protocolized Writing Workshop

Venkatesh Rao
Updated

As you may know, I’m one of the editors of the year-old Protocolized magazine. I’ll be helping run an online writing workshop for it this weekend (Friday/Saturday) and I’d like to invite those of you with writing interests to join. Read on for details and some reflections.

It will be a T-shaped workshop: Broad horizontal coverage of writing magazine-style longform fiction and nonfiction for the 2026 zeitgeist, especially in AI-forward ways, and deep vertical coverage of protocol fiction and nonfiction in particular, which have their own emerging genre logics and grammars. It should be of interest to all writers who like to be on the bleeding edge of text as a medium, whether or not you want to write on protocolish themes.

If the anti-AI Butlerian jihad crazies haven’t gotten to you yet, join us on the Dark Side and get ready to fire ze slop cannons.

Our goal is to both contribute to the broader writing and publishing knowledge commons on the emerging publishing frontier, and to cultivate our own network of contributors. The workshop is free, and we hope to find at least a few new talented voices to join our growing community of contributors.

Workshop Details

The Protocolized writing workshop will be four online sessions: two 60-minute sessions on Friday 20th, and two 90-minute sessions on Saturday 21st, at 9AM and 3PM on both days. A screenshot of the agenda is below. Don’t miss the first session — it might sound specialized, but it’s actually going to be a fascinating case study on how to bootstrap a publication in 2026. At least Year 1 of such bootstrapping:

We’ve already run several in-person writing workshops over the last year, but this will be our first time running one online for a general audience.

Editing Protocolized has been one of the most interesting writing and editing adventures I’ve ever been part of. Not only are we trying to catalyze fiction and nonfiction around a whole new field we’re trying to meme into existence (Protocol Studies), we made the decision right at the beginning to be aggressively AI-positive, and actively encourage contributors to use AI and get good at it. And we don’t expect anyone to do this by themselves — we have an active writing Special Interest Group (SIG) going in our Discord, with regular calls and an active channel, and a pitching forum where others can help you refine your ideas and pitches.

We’ve now logged a year of experience on what genuinely feels like a new frontier of publishing, in terms of both form and content. We’ve published contributions from 34 writers, and produced 3 fiction anthologies. And our nonfiction pipeline is starting to ramp.

I can’t reveal much about our cunning plans right now, but 2026 is going to be a big year for us. Starting with this writing workshop.

Our three anthologies (privately distributed; public editions coming soon)

will be leading the workshop overall, and running the two Friday sessions. will lead the fiction workshop on Saturday. I’ll be around for all the sessions, and leading the last session, on nonfiction (a 2026 development priority for us).

The Friday sessions are open to all, but the Saturday sessions have limited capacity and require our approval, so sign up early if interested.

Perk: If you make it through the whole workshop and submit a serious pitch to Protocolized, we’ll send you a copy of one of the anthologies. Offer open while supplies last etc.

For my session, I plan to do a compressed version of my long-running Art of Longform course (which I taught live in 2017 and have offered self-serve since then), heavily updated for the post-blogosphere era of permaweird zeitgeist, AI tools, Substack thudposts, fancy bespoke sites, Claude Code self-publishing gigafactories and so on.

This workshop is actually a good excuse for me to update that material, which is getting a little dated, even though it was meant to teach timeless aspects of writing longform (I have learned to use the word “timeless” more carefully in the decade since). So if you attend this session, you’ll get a first look at a possible future edition of the Art of Longform.

Personal Note

Like most people in my various circles, I’ve been going a little nuts with Claude Code over the last week or so, and I’m now busy refactoring all my writing and publishing plans around AI capabilities. The twitter book I released in my last post was just the tip of an iceberg.

I’ve basically set up a kind of self-publishing factory to accelerate my plans to turn a lot of my archival material into book form at warp-speed, and my plans for future books (which I have to actually write) to at least full-impulse speed.

It’s becoming clear that I’m going to be able to actually focus on book-length projects properly if I use AI aggressively. Not just for the self-publishing pipeline and administrative support larger projects need, but for getting my head into the book-length game properly, since my natural, non-transhuman length is essay-length. I plan to use AI as both an administrative and research assistant, as well as a writing collaborator. My last year of sloptraptions experiments have convinced me this is not only possible, but the results will be better than if I tried to write my planned books entirely by myself.

I now have two levels of dashboards going 😬. There’s a dashboard of books in the pipeline that currently shows 34 planned volumes, from both archival material and planned new writing…

…And there’s a dashboard of bookification projects specifically for the ribbonfarm archive (as well as a migration project to move it to a museum-like archival site):

I saw this cartoon after I did all this, so it was doubly funny.

If this cunning Bond villain grade plan works out, I may be able to publish at least a couple of dozen books over the next few years. Probably 80% based on archival material, 20% new-material books.

I’ll be covering this emerging factory-grade self-publishing DevOps style automation craziness a bit in my nonfiction module of the workshop. I have high confidence now that this scaffolding will work. The biggest risk factor now is not the technology (bluntly: it works) but me, since good AI scaffolding removes all other bottlenecks and praxis frictions.

Anyhow, hope to see some of you at the workshop. Here’s the registration link again.

Noahpinion

China is killing the fish

Noah Smith
Updated
Photo by Asc1733 via Wikimedia Commons

Unfortunately, I have another thing for you to worry about.

There are three types of environmental harm. The first kind is local — think air pollution and water pollution. This kind of activity hurts people who are geographically close by — when factories dump crap in the water, it’s local communities who get cancer, and so on. This kind of local pollution is typically solved by a local or national government, using things like regulation, pollution markets, and so on.

In fact, humanity has a pretty good track record when it comes to problems like this. The Environmental Kuznets Curve — the theory that countries pollute less as they get richer — seems to hold true for air and water pollution. As people escape poverty, they demand a cleaner local environment. For example, China used to be known for its toxic, unbreathable air, but in the 2010s it launched a successful cleanup policy:

Source: EPIC

The second kind of environmental harm — global harm — is a lot harder to deal with. These are things that mostly hurt people in other countries — global warming being the primary example. It’s very hard to solve global warming, because the worldwide nature of the harm means there’s a free rider problem (or, if you prefer, a coordination problem) — no country wants to pay the full cost of decarbonization, because most of the benefit goes to people in other countries. You can try international agreements, but everyone has an incentive to cheat.

Often, the best solution to these problems is technological — you simply invent something better and cheaper that doesn’t pollute as much, and then every country has an incentive to switch. Essentially, you use the positive externality of technology to fight the negative externality of pollution. This is what we did with HFC refrigerants, which replaced the CFCs that were destroying the ozone layer. It’s how we’re now fighting climate change with solar, batteries, and other green energy technologies.

But there’s a third kind of environmental harm, which is harm to the natural world. When pollution or logging or mining destroys natural habitats, it often doesn’t cause much harm to human beings — at least, not to those who are alive today. When coral reefs get bleached and die from industrial runoff, it might hurt tourism revenue a tiny bit, but overall humans don’t really get hurt. Animals and plants get hurt, but they have no voice in human politics. Future generations might regret not having coral reefs around, but they don’t exist yet, so they can’t complain.

Solving these harms seems like it probably requires some degree of altruism — either people caring about conservation for its own sake, or people who care a great deal about leaving a healthy natural world for their unborn descendants.

Altruism sounds like it won’t go far when matched against brute economic self-interest. But in recent years, I’ve become more optimistic that humans will care more intrinsically about preserving the natural world as they get richer. For example, people in North America, Europe, and East Asia all seem to care a lot about having forests:

This suggests that we won’t see a “race to the bottom” in terms of biodiversity loss, because the most powerful countries don’t seem to be the ones that chop down all their forests. Even Brazil, the worst offender in terms of sheer amount of forest cut down,1 has decreased the rate of Amazon deforestation by quite a lot since the early 2000s.

And that in turn hints at an even more important idea — that societies don’t trend toward greater rapaciousness as they become richer and more powerful. In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steve Pinker theorized that people become more altruistic as they become more comfortable and secure; increasing global commitment to biodiversity seems to fit that theory. That might even be good news for the future of superintelligent AI — if rich nations stopped chopping down their forests, then maybe AI won’t kill the human race to use our resources for data centers.

Encouragingly, note the progress in China on the chart above. Some of this reforestation is motivated by the self-interested need to stop soil erosion and desertification, but China’s government has also increased its commitment to biodiversity. As another example of this, China banned fishing in the Yangtze River in 2021, in order to save fish stocks.

But there appear to be limits to China’s altruism here. Even as it took measures to prevent overfishing within its borders, China has continued to overfish much of the world’s oceans.

China’s fishing fleet just keeps getting bigger and bigger. This is from a 2025 report from the environmental group Oceana:

Oceana released an analysis of China’s global fishing* activity worldwide between 2022 and 2024. The analysis shows China’s global fishing footprint, in which 57,000 of their industrial fishing vessels dominated 44% of the world’s visible fishing activity during this period…Chinese vessels accounted for 30% of all fishing activity on the high seas, appearing to fish for more than 8.3 million hours.

In terms of catching wild fish, it’s basically China and Latin America dominating everyone else:

Much of this fishing activity is either outright illegal — meaning Chinese vessels fish in other countries’ waters in violation of their local laws or regional agreements — or unreported. In addition to simply violating laws with impunity, Chinese fleets use a large variety of tricks to get around regulations meant to keep them from overfishing — turning off their transponders, falsifying records, using foreign front companies, and so on. A lot of this fishing activity isn’t just to fuel China’s own increasing fish consumption — it’s an export industry. Here’s a detailed report from the Outlaw Ocean Project. Some key excerpts:

The size and behavior of the Chinese fishing fleet raises concerns…The Chinese government and western seafood companies often dismiss illegality in the fishing industry as an isolated problem. But [our] investigation revealed a wide pattern: Almost half of the Chinese squid fleet, 357 of the 751 ships studied, were tied to human-rights or environmental violations…

More than 100 Chinese squid ships were found to have fished illegally, including by targeting protected species, operating without a license, and dumping excess fish into the sea. The investigation revealed other environmental or fishing-specific crimes and risk indicators, including Chinese ships illegally entering the waters of other countries, disabling locational transponders in violation of Chinese law…transmitting dual identities (or “spoofing”)…fishing without a license, and using prohibited fishing gear. But the most common environmental violation involved Chinese ships poaching fish from other countries’ waters…

About 80 percent of seafood consumed in the U.S. is caught or processed abroad, with China as its biggest supplier.

Poor countries in Latin America and Africa don’t have the state capacity or economic leverage to enforce their laws. As a result, their waters are crammed with vast fleets of Chinese fishing boats:

Why is Chinese overfishing bad? Obviously it hurts fishermen in poor countries by taking away their fish. But in addition, it hurts biodiversity and robs future generations of fish. Here’s a good primer from Our World in Data that shows what you would do if you cared mainly about biodiversity, versus what you would do if you cared mainly about sustainability:

The key fact here is that whether you care more about the natural world or whether you care more about future humans being able to eat fish, the world is catching too many fish. An increasing percent of the world’s fisheries are now overexploited:

China’s lack of concern for sustainability plays a large part in this. Chinese fishing vessels are more likely to use various techniques that make them catch more juvenile fish. One of these is bottom-trawling, which drags nets along the seabed. Japan and the U.S. have largely given up on this practice; China has long been the world’s worst offender.

In previous decades, environmental organizations like Greenpeace sounded the alarm over Chinese overfishing. In recent years, with a few commendable exceptions like Sea Shepherd, they have mostly gone quiet. This is unfortunately consistent with the idea that legacy environmental groups are generally drifting from universal values of environmental protection toward a more explicitly leftist stance that focuses exclusively on critiquing the West and ignores environmental abuses by non-Western countries. (You can also see this in climate groups’ stubborn refusal to criticize China, which is by far the world’s worst climate polluter.)

In other words, geopolitics is starting to intrude into environmental debates. Most of the alarms now being sounded about Chinese overfishing come from “China hawks” rather than from environmentalists. And geopolitics is probably a big part of the reason China hasn’t cracked down on its global overfishing practices.

Traditionally, a lot of China’s overfishing has been due to massive subsidies that the Chinese government gives to the industry, mostly in the form of cheap fuel and other support. In the late 2010s, China began curbing those subsidies a bit. But as Ian Urbina reported back in 2020, these efforts have been pretty slow and minor when it comes to international waters, and geopolitics is probably a big reason:

[M]ore than seafood is at stake in the present size and ambition of China’s fishing fleet. Against the backdrop of China’s larger geo-political aspirations, the country’s commercial fishermen often serve as de-facto paramilitary personnel whose activities the Chinese government can frame as private actions. Under a civilian guise, this ostensibly private armada helps assert territorial domination, especially pushing back fishermen or governments that challenge China’s sovereignty claims that encompass nearly all of the South China Sea.

“What China is doing is putting both hands behind its back and using its big belly to push you out, to dare you to hit first,” said Huang Jing, former director of the Center on Asia and Globalization at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.

Chinese fishing boats are notoriously aggressive and often shadowed, even on the high seas or in other countries’ national waters, by armed Chinese Coast Guard vessels…From the waters of North Korea to Mexico to Indonesia, incursions by Chinese fishing ships are becoming more frequent, brazen and aggressive.

In other words, China’s government is becoming increasingly concerned about biodiversity and sustainability for its own sake, and this has resulted in more sustainable fishing practices in China’s own waters. But at the same time, China is using its vast international fishing fleet as a sort of naval militia to press its claims on other countries’ waters. And this is having collateral damage on the natural world — China’s quasi-military subsidies for its fishing fleet are resulting in too much actual fishing taking place.

In one sense, this is actually kind of optimistic. The fact that China is overfishing international waters for military and geopolitical reasons, rather than out of pure economic rapacity, suggests that the Chinese are not an exception to the rule that richer societies start to care more about sustainability — and, perhaps, about the intrinsic value of the natural world as well.

But in the meantime, the bad news is that China’s decision to maintain its fishing fleet as a naval militia means that the world’s oceans are being despoiled and drained of wildlife. That’s not good, and I wish that more environmentalists would pay attention to the problem. As power and wealth shift away from the West, the environmental movement risks making itself irrelevant if it continues its recent practice of letting countries like China off the hook.

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DCReport.org

When Algorithms Know You Better Than You Know Yourself: How Digital Platforms Shape Player Behavior

Our Friends
Updated

Online casinos are no longer simple collections of games. They operate as intelligent digital systems that analyze user behavior and adapt in real time. For players in the Czech Republic exploring modern platforms, understanding how algorithms shape the gaming experience is essential.

Algorithms track patterns such as preferred slot themes, betting frequency, session duration, and responses to promotional offers. Over time, this data allows platforms to refine recommendations and streamline navigation. The result is a more personalized experience that feels intuitive and effortless.

The Architecture of Digital Choice

Digital platforms are structured around what behavioral economists call “choice architecture.” This refers to the way options are presented and how that presentation influences decisions.

On casino platforms, this includes:

  • Featured games placed at the top of the homepage
  • Highlighted betting markets during major sporting events
  • Time-sensitive bonus notifications
  • Suggested games based on previous activity

These elements are not accidental. Positioning, color contrast, and timing can subtly guide attention. When players see familiar games or offers that match their past behavior, decision-making becomes faster and more automatic.

Personalization Through Data

Modern casino platforms rely heavily on analytics. Every click, bet, and pause provides information that helps refine the system.

If a player frequently chooses live dealer games, similar tables may appear more prominently. If someone prefers high-volatility slots, related titles may be suggested. This personalization reduces friction and enhances immersion.

At Kajot Casino online slots and betting games, the platform experience is structured to align with user preferences, making transitions between games smooth and responsive. Personalization can improve enjoyment, but it also increases session continuity by presenting relevant content without requiring extensive searching.

The Psychology Behind Engagement

Digital casino environments are built on psychological principles that encourage sustained interaction.

Variable Rewards

Unpredictable outcomes are powerful motivators. When wins occur at irregular intervals, anticipation increases. This unpredictability keeps attention focused on the next spin or hand.

The Near-Miss Effect

A slot result that stops just short of a jackpot can feel almost as stimulating as a win. Near misses create a perception of closeness, which may encourage another attempt.

Instant Feedback

Fast-loading games and immediate results maintain momentum. When betting decisions lead to quick outcomes, the pace reinforces continued engagement.

When exploring casino games, betting markets, and bonus offers at https://kajot-casino.app, players encounter a streamlined environment designed for quick interaction and uninterrupted gameplay. That smooth structure enhances immersion and reduces delays between decisions.

How Algorithms Influence Player Decisions

Algorithms do more than recommend games. They analyze behavior in context. For example:

  • If a player increases stakes after small wins, the system may highlight similar games.
  • If sessions typically occur in the evening, promotional reminders may appear during those hours.
  • If bonus offers trigger longer playtime, targeted promotions may become more visible.

These adjustments are automated and data-driven. The platform adapts continuously to maximize relevance and engagement.

At Kajot Casino real money casino games and betting options, structured layouts and algorithm-driven recommendations help players navigate quickly between slots, table games, and sports bets. The experience feels intuitive because it is built on accumulated behavioral data.

Staying Aware in a Personalized Environment

Personalized digital systems are not inherently negative. They are designed to enhance user satisfaction. However, awareness is important.

Understanding how interface design, recommendation engines, and behavioral triggers operate allows players to maintain intentional control. Setting clear budgets, defining session time in advance, and recognizing emotional decision-making patterns can help preserve balance.

Digital casino platforms continue to evolve, becoming smarter and more adaptive each year. When players understand how algorithms shape the experience, they gain an advantage. Instead of being guided unconsciously, they can choose deliberately, keeping entertainment aligned with their own goals and limits.

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How Much Is One Second of Attention Worth?

Our Friends
Updated

In the digital economy, time is no longer just a measurement. It is a resource, tracked, analyzed, and converted into revenue. For online casinos and sports betting platforms, every second a player spends browsing games, comparing odds, or reviewing bonus offers carries measurable value.

For players in the Czech Republic navigating today’s competitive online gambling market, understanding how attention works as currency helps answer an important question: what exactly are platforms optimizing for?

The Attention Economy in Online Gaming

Technology companies have long competed for user attention. Social media platforms measure engagement in minutes. Streaming services track watch time. Online casinos and bookmakers operate in a similar framework, where session duration, return frequency, and interaction depth shape performance metrics.

Every click on a slot title, every visit to a live betting page, and every review of promotional terms generates data. That data allows platforms to refine recommendations, adjust layouts, and present offers that align with user preferences.

This does not mean manipulation. It means optimization. Digital systems are designed to reduce friction and make decision-making smoother. When the path from interest to action is short, users remain engaged longer.

What Happens in a Single Second

A second may seem insignificant, but in digital terms, it can determine whether a user leaves or stays.

Interface Response Time

Fast-loading pages and instant game launches reduce hesitation. If a slot takes several seconds to load, attention may drift. If it loads immediately, momentum continues.

Visual Hierarchy

Buttons, banners, and highlighted bonuses are positioned intentionally. The human eye follows patterns. Platforms analyze which layouts increase interaction and refine designs accordingly.

Micro-Decisions

Scrolling through betting markets or slot categories involves dozens of rapid choices. Each one consumes a fraction of attention. Together, they create immersion.

On platforms like FunID Casino casino games and sports betting aggregator, the structure of available slots, live betting options, and promotional bonuses is organized to help players compare offers efficiently across multiple operators. The value lies in clarity and speed, allowing users to navigate without unnecessary delays.

How Aggregator Platforms Compete for Time

Unlike a single casino brand, aggregator platforms serve as intermediaries. They connect users with multiple licensed casinos and bookmakers in one interface. That means their business model depends even more heavily on engagement.

When a user compares welcome bonuses, reads wagering conditions, or checks odds across different betting providers, attention becomes the main asset. The longer a visitor stays to evaluate options, the more likely they are to choose a partner casino through the platform.

When browsing casino games, betting markets, and promotional bonuses at https://funid-casino.com, users access a centralized space where operators, offers, and gameplay categories are displayed side by side. The design emphasizes comparison, transparency, and quick navigation between brands.

Measuring the Value of Engagement

Online gambling platforms analyze several key performance indicators:

  • Session duration
  • Click-through rates on bonus offers
  • Frequency of return visits
  • Conversion rates from browsing to registration

These metrics reveal how effectively attention converts into action. Even small improvements—such as reducing the number of steps required to access a bonus—can significantly impact engagement levels.

At FunID Casino online slots and betting offers comparison platforms, the presentation of casino reviews, bonus structures, and betting options aims to streamline the decision-making process. Clear categorization reduces cognitive overload and keeps the experience focused.

Why Attention Matters to Players

For operators and aggregators, attention drives revenue. For players, attention shapes experience.

Understanding that platforms are structured to maximize time spent can help users approach gambling more consciously. Quick transitions between games, targeted bonus banners, and real-time betting updates are designed to maintain flow.

That flow is not inherently negative. It enhances convenience and improves usability. However, recognizing how digital environments are engineered allows players to set boundaries more intentionally.

Managing Time in a High-Speed Environment

Online gambling environments move quickly. Odds change in seconds. Slot rounds resolve instantly. Bonus timers count down in real time. All of this reinforces urgency.

Players can benefit from simple strategies:

  • Setting a fixed time frame before starting a session
  • Comparing offers deliberately rather than impulsively
  • Reviewing bonus conditions before clicking through
  • Taking short breaks between betting rounds

When attention is treated as a valuable resource, decision-making becomes more deliberate. The digital environment may be optimized for speed, but users retain the ability to control how long they stay.

Online casino and betting platforms will continue refining their systems to reduce friction and increase engagement. That is the nature of digital competition. The real question is not only how much one second of attention is worth to the platform—but how much it is worth to the player who gives it.

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Stephen Clark - Ars Technica

There's a lot of big talk about sovereign launch—who is doing something about it?

Stephen Clark
Updated

No one will supplant American and Chinese dominance in the space launch arena anytime soon, but several longtime US allies now see sovereign access to space as a national security imperative.

Taking advantage of private launch initiatives already underway within their own borders, several middle and regional powers have approved substantial government funding for commercial startups to help them reach the launch pad. Australia, Canada, Germany, and Spain are among the nations that currently lack the ability to independently put their own satellites into orbit but which are now spending money to establish a domestic launch industry. Others talk a big game but haven't committed the cash to back up their ambitions.

The moves are part of a wider trend among US allies to increase defense spending amid strained relations with the Trump administration. Tariffs, trade wars, and threats to invade the territory of a NATO ally have changed the tune of many foreign leaders. In Europe, there's even talk of fielding a nuclear deterrent independent of the nuclear umbrella provided by the US military.

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Centauri Dreams — Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration

Propulsion Options for the Solar Gravitational Lens Mission

Propulsion Options for the Solar Gravitational Lens Mission

A mission to the Sun’s gravity focus – or more precisely, the focal ‘line’ we might begin to use at around 650 AU – is never far from my mind. Any interstellar mission we might launch within the next thirty years or so (think Breakthrough Starshot, about which more next week) will essentially be shooting blind. We have little idea what to expect at Proxima Centauri b, if that is our (logical) target. But a mission to the solar gravity focus (SGL) would give us a chance to examine any prospective target at close hand.

Indeed, so powerful are the effects if we can exploit this opportunity that we should be able to see continents, weather patterns, oceans and more if we can disentangle the Einstein Ring that the planet’s image forms as shaped by general relativity. We’ve discussed the phenomenon many a time: The Sun’s gravitational well so shapes the image of what is directly behind it as seen from the SGL so as to produce stupendous magnification, the image served up as a ‘ring’ around the Sun in the same way that astronomers now see some distant galaxies as rings around closer galaxies.

Image:The Einstein Ring and how we could sample it. By looking at different slices of the Einstein ring, enough information could be acquired for a computer deconvolution to reconstruct the planet. Credit: Geoffrey Landis (NASA GRC).

Within that ring there is bountiful information. Not only would we have an image we could reconstruct, but we also would have multipixel spectroscopy, allowing us to identify elements through the signature of light from the planet aand to map these properties in more than one dimension. So fecund is the information in the Einstein ring that we could detect all this with a spacecraft telescope no more than a meter or so in diameter. And because the SGL focal line extends to infinity, we can keep taking observations as we move outward from 650 AU to perhaps 900 AU.

Now comes JPL scientist Slava Turyshev with a trade study – an analysis made to evaluate and select the best propulsion technique to make a flight to the SGL possible within a rational timeframe, here seen as roughly thirty years. That seems like a lot, but bear in mind that even our far-flung Voyagers have yet to reach a distance that’s even halfway to the SGL region. Remember, too, that once we find a way to propel a craft to the SGL, we have to choose a trajectory so precise that our target will be exactly opposite the Sun from the spacecraft. In this business, alignment is everything.

Each new Turyshev paper into SGL territory reminds us that this work has been taken into Phase III status at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, funded by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts. The potential showstoppers of an SGL mission are daunting, and have been examined in papers that examine everything from sail design and ‘sundiver’ trajectories to deconvolution of an SGL image. Perhaps most futuristic has been the Turyshev team’s discussion of self-assembly of a payload divided into small packages into the completed observational equipment enroute. Previous Centauri Dreams articles such as Solar Gravitational Lens: Sailcraft and Inflight Assembly or Good News for a Gravitational Focus Mission may be helpful, though the pace of stories on the SGL has been accelerating, and for the complete sequence I suggest a search in the archives.

All this is bringing me around to the scope of the propulsion problem. In addition to the need for precise positioning within the SGL focal line, the spacecraft must be able to move laterally within the image, which is of considerable size. One recent calculation found that an Earth-sized planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani (10 light years away) would project an image 12.5 kilometers in diameter at 630 AU from the Sun. One envisions multiple spacecraft taking pixel samples at various locations within the image plane. The image must then be produced by integrating these samples. This is ‘deconvolution,’ turning the Einstein ring into a coherent image free of ‘noise.’

As Geoffrey Landis, who made this calculation, points out: The image is far larger than the spacecraft we send. Landis (NASA GRC) also notes that a one-meter telescope at the SGL collects the same amount of light as a telescope of 80 meters without the gravitational lens. So we definitely want to do this, but to make it happen, the spacecraft will need propulsion and power. All this has a bearing on payload, for in an environment where solar panels are not an option, we need a radioisotope or fission power source.

Back to the Turyshev paper. Propulsion emerges as perhaps the mission’s most significant challenge, although one that the author thinks can be met. Here we run into what I call the ‘generation clock,’ which is the desire to keep mission outcomes within the lifetime of researchers who launched the project. Twenty to thirty years in cruise is often mentioned in connection with the SGL mission, meaning we need the ability to reach 650 AU with our spacecraft within that timeframe. A daunting task, for it involves reaching 154 kilometers per second. On outbound trajectories we’ve yet to exceed Voyager’s 17.1 km/sec, highlighting the magnitude of the problem.

Image: JPL’s Slava Turyshev.

We can’t solve it with chemical rockets, not even with gravity assist strategies, but solar sails coupled with an Oberth maneuver loom large as a potential solution. Advances in materials science and the success of missions like the Parker Solar Probe remind us of the potential here, offering the option of deploying a sail in a tight perihelion pass to achieve a massive boost. To manage 650 AU in 20 years means we will need 32.5 AU per year. But if we can work with a perihelion pass at 0.05 AU (7,500,000 km), we can achieve that speed, and the Parker probe has already proven we know how to do this. Finding the metamaterials to make a sail survive such a passage is an ongoing task.

The paper sums the issue up:

Recent “extreme solar sailing” studies emphasize that very fast transits are achievable in principle only by combining ultra-low total areal density with very deep perihelia (a few solar radii), which moves the feasibility question from trajectory mechanics to coupled materials, thermal, and large-area deployment qualification. For example, [Davoyan et al., 2021] analyzed extreme-proximity solar sailing (≲ 5 R⊙) and discussed candidate metamaterial sail approaches together with the associated environmental and system challenges at these perihelia. These results reinforce the conclusion here: sub-20 yr sail-only access is not ruled out by physics, but it lives in a tightly coupled materials+structures+thermal qualification regime at mission scale.

So we have a lot to learn to make this happen. The paper notes that as we move from current sail readiness to what we will need for the SGL mission, we go from sails that are in the 10-meter class up to sails as much as 300 meters in diameter, while still needing to keep our sail material astonishingly thin and capable of surviving the perihelion temperatures. Operating at deep perihelia with metamaterials is a subject still very low on the TRL level, meaning technical readiness to produce and fly such a sail is nowhere near where it needs to be if we are to launch in the 2035-2040 window hoped for by mission planners. If we can launch multiple sails, we can consider self-assembly of the larger payload in transit, also at a very low TRL

Importantly, this maturity gap is not a physics limit: it is a program-and-demonstration limit. A focused late2020s/early-2030s development that couples (i) large-area deployment validation, (ii) deep-perihelion optical-property stability tests, and (iii) integrated areal-density demonstrations at the 104–105 m2 scale could credibly raise the SGL-class sail system TRL into the mission-start window, particularly for the 25–40 yr-class access regime.

Image: Sailcraft example trajectory toward the Solar Gravity Lens. Taken from an earlier report by Turyshev et al.

Nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) offers certain advantages over solar sails, including the fission reactor that powers its thrusters, for as mentioned, solar power at these distances is not practical. Turyshev’s calculations make the needed comparison, yielding a mission that can reach 650 AU in 27 years, putting it in range of what the sail strategy can deliver. Using propellant remaining in the craft upon arrival at the SGL, our spacecraft can now manage station-keeping and trajectory changes necessary to collect the needed pixels of our exoplanet image. In terms of operations, then, as well as payload capability, NEP stands out. Note that here again we have thermal issues, for the NEP-powered craft will need their own close perihelion pass to boost velocity. Turyshev points out that NEP will also demand large, deployable radiators to allow the escape of waste heat.

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) now comes into the discussion, as the author considers potential hybrid missions. In NTP, liquid hydrogen is heated by the reactor core to produce thrust through the exhaust nozzle. Capable of high specific impulse, this method is treated here as “a high-thrust injection stage,” one that could be used during an Oberth maneuver to increase the velocity of an NEP-equipped spacecraft. The nuclear issues persist: We need safety analyses and ground testing facilities for the reactor, radiological handling protocols, and additional flight approval processes.

The three propulsion options play against each other in interesting ways. Sails avoid the problem of flight approval for nuclear materials as well as necessary infrastructure for ground testing. But materials and deployment issues still exist for these ultra-thin sails. An NEP engine that offers wider use beyond the SGL mission could lower incremental costs. And what if we tinker with mission duration? The fact remains that regardless of the choice of propulsion, we still have to operate in an environment that requires radioisotope or fission power, with all the implications for payload overhead that entails.

Programmatically, a credible 2035–2040 start requires aligning architecture choice with what can be demonstrated by the early 2030s. If minimum TOF [time of flight] is the primary requirement, solar sailing (with an explicit deep-perihelion materials and deployment qualification program) remains the most schedule-aligned approach. If delivered capability and operational robustness at the SGL dominate, NEP is uniquely attractive, but a 2035–2040 launch that depends on NEP for transportation must be preceded by an integrated stage demonstration that retires system-level coupling risks (thermal, EMI/EMC [Electromagnetic Interference / Electromagnetic Compatibility], plume, autonomy, and nuclear approval). In either case, SGL transportation should be treated as flagship-class in development complexity because the critical path runs through integrated demonstrations rather than through single-component maturity.

This is how missions get designed, and you can see how involved the process becomes long before actual hardware is even built. My belief is that the question of the generation clock is fading, for in dealing with issues like the SGL, we’re forced to contemplate scenarios in which those who plan the mission may not see its completion (although I hope Slava Turyshev is very much an exception!) In sending missions beyond the Solar System, we create gifts of data to future generations, who may well use what the SGL finds to plan missions much further afield, perhaps all the way to Proxima Centauri b.

The paper is Turyshev, “Propulsion Trades for a 2035-2040 Solar Gravitational Lens Mission,” currently available as a preprint. For more on acquisition of the lensed image, see Geoffrey Landis’ extremely useful slide presentation.

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Market Design

Magic mushrooms have a role in hospice care

Al Roth
Updated

 Pain experienced while dying may be partly spiritual.

 National Geographic has the story: 

These drugs could be a game changer for end-of-life care
Certain psychoactive substances can improve the mental health of terminally ill cancer patients—but few patients can currently access them.  By Meryl Davids Landau

 "Several years ago in Vancouver Island, Canada, a 32-year-old mother with advanced metastatic cancer was so wracked with pain and a fear of dying she constantly wept in bed. Through a targeted Canadian government program, the woman accessed psilocybin, the main psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms. The day after taking a dose of the drug she was pain-free, able to joke with family members and reconnect with old friends before she died the following week.

...
"The drugs can help with “the existential component of pain that is tied in with spiritual and psychological experiences,” something conventional medicine has few tools to address, says Masuda, a physician with SATA Centre for Conscious Living, who has since facilitated dozens of psychedelic sessions for similar patients.

"Some 400 terminal patients in Canada have legally accessed psilocybin in the past five years via its special programs, and several countries already allow for similar uses. Due to federal drug laws, terminally ill people in the U.S. cannot currently take psilocybin outside of a handful of clinical trials.

"But this may finally change, as government agencies are evaluating whether to allow its use for end-of-life care—thanks to pressure from physicians and years of research. Many palliative care doctors in the U.S. say the change can’t come soon enough." 

Marginal Revolution

The Cassidy Report on the FDA

Alex Tabarrok
Updated

Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) released a new report on how to modernize the FDA. It has some good material.

… FDA’s process for reviewing new products can be an unpredictable “black box.” FDA teams can differ greatly in the extent to which they require testing or impose standards that are not calibrated to the relevant risks. The perceived disconnect between the forward leaning rhetoric and thought leadership of senior FDA officials and cautious reviewer practice creates further unpredictability. This uncertainty dampens investment and increases the time it takes for patients to receive new therapies.

Companies report that they face a “reviewer lottery,” where critical questions hinge on the approach of a small number of individuals at FDA. Some FDA review teams are creative and forward-leaning, helping developers design programs and overcome obstacles to get needed products to patients, without cutting corners. FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE), for example, is repeatedly identified as a model for providing predictable yet flexible options for bringing new drugs to cancer patients. OCE is now a dialogue-based regulatory paradigm that has facilitated efforts by academia, industry, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and others to develop new cancer therapies and launch innovative programs and pilots like Project Orbis, RealTime Oncology Review.

That’s quite right. In my report with DiMasi and Milne, we show that review times vary markedly within the FDA, across divisions, without clear cause. Put aside the big questions of FDA or no FDA–scaling the practices of the better-performing divisions would likely yield large gains.

Mike Doherty further asks the AI what Alex Tabarrok would think of the Cassidy report. It replies:

  • Strongest features: It correctly diagnoses FDA as a bottleneck to innovation, emphasizes “least burdensome” evidence, calls for streamlined pathways (505(b)(2)-style for biologics, biosimilar simplification), and worries about U.S. losing early-phase trials to other countries. This is very much in Tabarrok’s wheelhouse: regulation as a hidden tax on innovation and growth.​

  • Weakest features: It rarely quantifies tradeoffs, almost never confronts the “invisible graveyard” of patients who never see therapies because of delay, and treats reforms as marginal tweaks rather than testing fundamentally different regulatory models (e.g., insurance-based approval, private certification, or sunset/experimentation with parallel regimes).​

If you imagine this as a draft memo handed to Tabarrok, he’d likely say: “Good directionally; now add 50% more economics, 50% more quantification, and 100% more willingness to experiment with institutional competition.”

Yeah, pretty good.

Addendum: In other FDA news see also Adam Kroetsch on Will Bayesian Statistics Transform Trials?

Addendum 2: FDA has now agreed to review Moderna’s flu vaccine which is good although the course reversal obviously speaks to the unpredictability of the FDA.

The post The Cassidy Report on the FDA appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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The Aviationist
Simon Willison's Weblog

Rodney v0.4.0

Rodney v0.4.0

My Rodney CLI tool for browser automation attracted quite the flurry of PRs since I announced it last week. Here are the release notes for the just-released v0.4.0:

  • Errors now use exit code 2, which means exit code 1 is just for for check failures. #15
  • New rodney assert command for running JavaScript tests, exit code 1 if they fail. #19
  • New directory-scoped sessions with --local/--global flags. #14
  • New reload --hard and clear-cache commands. #17
  • New rodney start --show option to make the browser window visible. Thanks, Antonio Cuni. #13
  • New rodney connect PORT command to debug an already-running Chrome instance. Thanks, Peter Fraenkel. #12
  • New RODNEY_HOME environment variable to support custom state directories. Thanks, Senko Rašić. #11
  • New --insecure flag to ignore certificate errors. Thanks, Jakub Zgoliński. #10
  • Windows support: avoid Setsid on Windows via build-tag helpers. Thanks, adm1neca. #18
  • Tests now run on windows-latest and macos-latest in addition to Linux.

I've been using Showboat to create demos of new features - here those are for rodney assert, rodney reload --hard, rodney exit codes, and rodney start --local.

The rodney assert command is pretty neat: you can now Rodney to test a web app through multiple steps in a shell script that looks something like this (adapted from the README):

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

FAIL=0

check() {
    if ! "$@"; then
        echo "FAIL: $*"
        FAIL=1
    fi
}

rodney start
rodney open "https://example.com"
rodney waitstable

# Assert elements exist
check rodney exists "h1"

# Assert key elements are visible
check rodney visible "h1"
check rodney visible "#main-content"

# Assert JS expressions
check rodney assert 'document.title' 'Example Domain'
check rodney assert 'document.querySelectorAll("p").length' '2'

# Assert accessibility requirements
check rodney ax-find --role navigation

rodney stop

if [ "$FAIL" -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "Some checks failed"
    exit 1
fi
echo "All checks passed"

Tags: browsers, projects, testing, annotated-release-notes, rodney

Simon Willison's Weblog

Quoting ROUGH DRAFT 8/2/66

This is the story of the United Space Ship Enterprise. Assigned a five year patrol of our galaxy, the giant starship visits Earth colonies, regulates commerce, and explores strange new worlds and civilizations. These are its voyages... and its adventures.

— ROUGH DRAFT 8/2/66, before the Star Trek opening narration reached its final form

Tags: screen-writing, science-fiction

Simon Willison's Weblog

First kākāpō chick in four years hatches on Valentine's Day

First kākāpō chick in four years hatches on Valentine's Day

First chick of the 2026 breeding season!

Kākāpō Yasmine hatched an egg fostered from kākāpō Tīwhiri on Valentine's Day, bringing the total number of kākāpō to 237 – though it won’t be officially added to the population until it fledges.

Here's why the egg was fostered:

"Kākāpō mums typically have the best outcomes when raising a maximum of two chicks. Biological mum Tīwhiri has four fertile eggs this season already, while Yasmine, an experienced foster mum, had no fertile eggs."

And an update from conservation biologist Andrew Digby - a second chick hatched this morning!

The second #kakapo chick of the #kakapo2026 breeding season hatched this morning: Hine Taumai-A1-2026 on Ako's nest on Te Kākahu. We transferred the egg from Anchor two nights ago. This is Ako's first-ever chick, which is just a few hours old in this video.

That post has a video of mother and chick.

A beautiful charismatic green Kākāp feeding a little grey chick

Via MetaFilter

Tags: kakapo

Simon Willison's Weblog

Quoting Dimitris Papailiopoulos

But the intellectually interesting part for me is something else. I now have something close to a magic box where I throw in a question and a first answer comes back basically for free, in terms of human effort. Before this, the way I'd explore a new idea is to either clumsily put something together myself or ask a student to run something short for signal, and if it's there, we’d go deeper. That quick signal step, i.e., finding out if a question has any meat to it, is what I can now do without taking up anyone else's time. It’s now between just me, Claude Code, and a few days of GPU time.

I don’t know what this means for how we do research long term. I don’t think anyone does yet. But the distance between a question and a first answer just got very small.

— Dimitris Papailiopoulos, on running research questions though Claude Code

Tags: research, coding-agents, claude-code, generative-ai, ai, llms

The Cross Section

MAGA White Supremacists Are a Bunch of Pathetic Losers

Paul Waldman
Updated

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Among the deep and probably lasting ways Donald Trump transformed the Republican Party and American conservatism is this: What was implicit is now explicit, what was subtext is now text. The dog whistles are put away, the subtlety is replaced with bluntness, and the laborious task of appealing to what is worst in people in such a way as to allow them to convince themselves they are still committed to admirable ideals is set aside.

So as those hoping to retain or expand their influence in the post-Trump GOP begin navigating their way toward the future, many have decided that there’s not much need anymore to clothe their white supremacist ideas in reassuring language. It’s right on the table for all to see.

Yet we can take a bit of solace in an increasingly obvious fact, one that’s worth understanding and emphasizing since we’ll be dealing with these people and their ideas for some time to come:

MAGA white supremacists are a bunch of losers.

They’re whiny and stupid and weak, their ideas whither under even a moment’s scrutiny or questioning, and their fantasies of oppression are pathetic. Let’s take a look around at what Republicans are saying, starting with this ad from Andy Barr, a Kentucky congressman who’s running for the seat of the retiring Mitch McConnell in Kentucky:

“You know what DEI really stands for? Dumb, evil indoctrination. Woke liberals spew it. Corporate losers fall for it. But thanks to Trump, America is rejecting that trash. And I’m leading the fight to end it for good. I’m Andy Barr. It’s not a sin to be white. It’s not against the law to be male. And it shouldn’t be disqualifying to be a Christian. I’m Andy Barr, and I approve this message to give woke liberals something else to cry about.”

So brave! If only we can dream of a future in which all whites are not condemned, men are not arrested and imprisoned because of their gender, and Christians can get jobs or loans just like Jews or Muslims. There’s only one person crying here, and it’s Andy Barr.

Barr has long been known as one of the dimmer bulbs in the House, but he stands a fair shot of becoming a U.S. senator. He may have been encouraged to proclaim the heretofore oppressed virtue of whiteness by Vice President JD Vance, who recently told the Turning Point USA conference that with the Trump administration in office, “In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.” Nobody in JD Vance’s life ever made him apologize for being white, and the same is true for the pasty petit bourgeoisie in the hall who cheered so gratefully when he said it. But they’ve been told a thousand times by Fox News and the rest of the media they consume that that’s what noble white people have to endure at the hands of cruel liberals every day. So with their imaginary anguish validated from the heights of power, they’re more willing than ever to come right out and rep their white pride.

Who else is doing so? The world’s richest man, for one:

Elon Musk’s longtime fixation on a white racial majority is intensifying. The richest man in the world posted about how the white race was under threat, made allusions to race science or promoted anti-immigrant conspiracy content on 26 out of 31 days in January, according to the Guardian’s analysis of his social media output. The posts, made on his platform X, reflect a renewed embrace of what extremism experts describe as white supremacist material…

Musk’s posts included him repeatedly claiming white people face systemic discrimination, endorsing the conspiracy that there is an ongoing genocide against white people in countries around the world and promoting a claim that white people would be “slaughtered” by non-whites if they become a demographic minority.

Meanwhile, we have an administration full of incel groypers sharing Nazi memes on social media accounts for the White House and cabinet departments. Like Musk, they want desperately to be considered cool and funny, but they aren’t and will never be. They’re losers.

And since the administration decided that it wasn’t white supremacist enough, it nominated Jeremy Carl, author of The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart, who regularly decries the “erasure” of “white culture” and says whites are facing a “cultural genocide,” for a high position in the State Department representing America to international organizations. In his confirmation hearing, Carl allowed that perhaps his comments minimizing the Holocaust were a tad ill-considered, but under questioning he struggled to explain what precisely the “white culture” that he is so passionately devoted to preserving actually consists of:

There are a number of appropriate responses when witnessing this display, but the first one should be Look at this pathetic loser.

The rhetoric of race in the post-Trump GOP

If you were an ambitious Republican — say, one thinking about running for president — watching how explicit the appeals to white resentment have become, what conclusions would you draw about your party and what it wants? The early discussion of the 2028 GOP presidential primary is being framed as a contest between Vance and Marco Rubio, and though that is far too limited, Vance is definitely going to run and Rubio probably will too (though if he’s really clever he’ll wait another four years). In the meantime, Rubio is trying to find his way by positioning his rhetoric halfway between the more explicit white supremacism and venomous xenophobia Vance represents and the subtle appeals of the pre-Trump era. Here’s what he told European leaders at the Munich security conference:

For the United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The men who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.

We are part of one civilization – Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.

I’ve written before about Rubio’s sad evolution, from the politician who was supposed to create a new multi-racial Republican Party poised for the future to the emasculated Trump lackey we see today. Now he is beginning to position himself for a kinder, gentler version of Trump’s naked racism, taking some of Vance’s blood-and-soil nationalism and presenting it as a heritage that somehow includes himself, a Cuban-American son of immigrants.

All this is evidence that 16 years after Barack Obama was elected and 9 years after he left office, the Republican Party (and much of the country) is still in the grips of its white backlash, the collective freakout that accompanied a Black man becoming president — even a Black man who spent his entire life figuring out how to make himself as unthreatening to white people as possible. Given the fact that expressions of racism and white supremacism have gotten only more frequent from conservative politicians and media figures, anyone wanting to lead the GOP in 2028 would be a fool not to appeal to the racial animus that still boils inside the party’s soul.

What matters for the rest of us is, to repeat, these people are losers, and winning requires convincing as many Americans as possible of that fact. The white supremacists have nothing to offer but resentment and complaint, hate and fear, whining and bitching and moaning. Voters have to be shown that the only thing they will gain by following these losers is more misery and disappointment.

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Marginal Revolution

A simple test of how immigration really is going

Tyler Cowen
Updated

I suggest looking at whether real estate prices in a particular locale have been rising or falling. If immigration is “ruining” a particular city, we would expect homes and other property values in that place to become much cheaper.

Home values have historically served as a strong indicator of the health of a city. Consider Detroit. It was one of the premier American cities in the mid-20th century, but the region lost a lot of its automobile industry to foreign competition, and crime rose precipitously. The city also was poorly managed. The result in real estate markets was a collapse in prices. If anyone asked you to point to quantifiable evidence for the decline in Detroit, it was easy to do so.

Detroit has undergone a renaissance since its nadir. New businesses have opened, crime rates have fallen, and the city feels more lively again. And since that turn of fortune, often dated around the 1990s, Detroit real estate has made a major comeback, putting aside the price collapse of the Great Recession in 2008. Home prices are not a perfect measure of how the city is doing, but they do pick up major and radical trends, both on the downside and on the upside.

The nice thing about market prices is that they show how buyers weigh the benefits of immigration against costs. Say some new immigrants have moved into your community and the quality of the schools has declined somewhat and traffic is modestly worse. At the same time, there are new businesses, the streets feel more lively, and it is easier to get a good local plumber. In the abstract, it is hard to tell which effects might be most important. But individuals, when bidding for homes or deciding to sell, make their own judgments. What happens to the home prices is a reflection of the collective judgments of people with major decisions about their lives on the line.

Of course in most of the Western world, including Malmo, real estate prices are healthy and very often rising.  Here is the full Free Press link, by yours truly.  The piece of course does cover the usual caveats, such as bubbles and busts, but note NIMBY factors will not alone reverse the basic conclusions.

The post A simple test of how immigration really is going appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Paul Krugman

How the Kakistocracy Became a Quackistocracy

Paul Krugman
Updated

A chart of measles AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Childhood vaccination is one of public policy’s greatest success stories. People who view the 1950s through rose-colored glasses, seeing them as an era of American greatness, miss many ways in which life was much worse then than now, ranging from gross racism and sexism to high poverty rates among the elderly. One often-overlooked feature of the “good old days” was that many children contracted, and some died from, infectious diseases that have now been almost eliminated — or had been almost eliminated, until today’s right-wing anti-vaccine agitators set the stage for their comeback.

In many ways the Trump administration’s hostility to vaccines is similar to its hostility to clean energy, which I wrote about yesterday. Both policy swerves will kill Americans. If Trumpists succeed in forcing the U.S. to burn more coal, thousands will die from air pollution. Only a year into the Trump 47 administration, there is already a resurgence in almost conquered diseases due to the anti-vax MAGA crusade. Both these sudden policy serves are economically destructive: A 2024 report from the Centers for Disease Control estimated that each dollar spent on childhood vaccination has saved around $11 in societal costs.

Moreover, the Trumpists aren’t content with just cutting off federal funding — they’re determined to stop anyone else from doing the right thing. The Trump administration has imposed a blockade on privately funded wind and solar projects, while RFK Jr.’s allies are pushing to prevent states from implementing childhood vaccine mandates.

And the damage from the assault on vaccines continues to widen. Last week the Food and Drug Administration refused to review Moderna’s new mRNA-based flu vaccine. They didn’t reject it based on evidence; they wouldn’t even look at it, in line with RFK Jr.’s evidence-free, dogmatic assertion that mRNA technology, which gave us Covid vaccines, is useless and harmful. Pharmaceutical companies, understandably, are retreating from vaccine development.

The motivations behind the crusade against clean energy and the crusade against vaccines are also similar. The conspiracy-theorizing hostility to science and expertise in general that underpins both movements also predisposes people to become right-wing extremists, which means that their movements are now in power. The headline on a 2023 article in The Guardian captured this perfectly: “ ‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie’: Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline.”

Last but by no means least, in both cases it’s crucial to follow the money.

It may seem strange to think of the wellness industry as a corrupt and corrupting force comparable to the fossil-fuel sector. But wellness is big business. McKinsey estimates that U.S. spending on wellness is running at around $500 billion a year, while spending on nutritional supplements alone was close to $70 billion last year.

And sellers of nutritional supplements, unlike companies selling pharmaceuticals, are effectively allowed to make false, outlandish claims about what their products do. Here’s how the National Institutes of Health summarized the law:

Dietary supplement labels may include certain types of health-related claims. Manufacturers are permitted to say, for example, that a supplement promotes health or supports a body part or function (like heart health or the immune system). These claims must be followed by the words, “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”

In other words, it’s OK to peddle snake oil with false medical claims as long as you mumble some content-freeboilerplate.

And where do the snake-oil salesmen peddle their wares? Largely on right-wing media. After all, that’s where they can find customers who have the right mix of anti-intellectualism and disdain for experts. And the snake-oil purveyors are, in turn, a key part of the extreme right’s financial ecosystem.

I wrote about this almost five years ago. The relationship between quack medicine and right-wing extremism has a long history. As the historian Rick Perlstein has documented, extremists have been marketing medical snake oil, and snake oil purveyors have been financially supporting extremism, since the days when misinformation had to be disseminated through paper newsletters. This mutually beneficial relationship continued through the eras of talk radio, cable TV, and now podcasts.

But now we have entered a new era. As many observers have noted, the Trump administration is a kakistocracy: rule by the worst. A history of personal corruption is no longer a bar to high office — it’s practically a requirement.

Under Trump 47, people who have enriched themselves by peddling medical misinformation are no longer just influencing policymakers. They have become policymakers. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who appears to have made millions in salary and book royalties thanks to his anti-vaccine screeds, is now the secretary of health and human services. Dr. Oz is running Medicare and Medicaid.

In short, the kakistocracy is also a quackistocracy.

And the reign of the quacks will condemn thousands, perhaps millions of Americans — many of them children — to gratuitous illness and in some cases death.

MUSICAL CODA

Simon Willison's Weblog

Introducing Claude Sonnet 4.6

Introducing Claude Sonnet 4.6

Sonnet 4.6 is out today, and Anthropic claim it offers similar performance to November's Opus 4.5 while maintaining the Sonnet pricing of $3/million input and $15/million output tokens (the Opus models are $5/$25). Here's the system card PDF.

Sonnet 4.6 has a "reliable knowledge cutoff" of August 2025, compared to Opus 4.6's May 2025 and Haiku 4.5's February 2025. Both Opus and Sonnet default to 200,000 max input tokens but can stretch to 1 million in beta and at a higher cost.

I just released llm-anthropic 0.24 with support for both Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.6. Claude Code did most of the work - the new models had a fiddly amount of extra details around adaptive thinking and no longer supporting prefixes, as described in Anthropic's migration guide.

Here's what I got from:

uvx --with llm-anthropic llm 'Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle' -m claude-sonnet-4.6

The pelican has a jaunty top hat with a red band. There is a string between the upper and lower beaks for some reason. The bicycle frame is warped in the wrong way.

The SVG comments include:

<!-- Hat (fun accessory) -->

I tried a second time and also got a top hat. Sonnet 4.6 apparently loves top hats!

For comparison, here's the pelican Opus 4.5 drew me in November:

The pelican is cute and looks pretty good. The bicycle is not great - the frame is wrong and the pelican is facing backwards when the handlebars appear to be forwards.There is also something that looks a bit like an egg on the handlebars.

And here's Anthropic's current best pelican, drawn by Opus 4.6 on February 5th:

Slightly wonky bicycle frame but an excellent pelican, very clear beak and pouch, nice feathers.

Opus 4.6 produces the best pelican beak/pouch. I do think the top hat from Sonnet 4.6 is a nice touch though.

Via Hacker News

Tags: ai, generative-ai, llms, llm, anthropic, claude, llm-pricing, pelican-riding-a-bicycle, llm-release, claude-code

Talking Points Memo - Editors Blog

The Uncanny Artifice of George Washington

Josh Marshall
Updated

I got a number of fascinating replies to yesterday’s post about the federal calendar and presidential holidays, specifically whether we should ditch Columbus Day in favor of a national holiday celebrating Abraham Lincoln. I also learned a bit more about how Lincoln never got a national holiday originally because the states of the old Confederacy, whose representatives and senators had outsized seniority throughout the 20th century, simply wouldn’t hear of it. Indeed, the 1968 federal law which clustered federal holidays into long weekends and which in effect though not formally consolidated Washington’s birthday into “President’s Day” was still under the shadow of southern resistance to anything commemorating Abraham Lincoln.

Today I want to step back to Washington himself. As some of you know, I spent most of my 20s getting an American history PhD. My advisor, Gordon Wood, was and is a renowned historian of the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary era. I note this to say that I spent a lot of time studying that period in which George Washington is in many ways the dominant figure. But I hadn’t really considered Washington as an individual until I wrote this New Yorker review essay about David McCullough’s 1776. As the book’s title suggests, it’s about the critical year of 1776, a year that was critical not simply as the year in which the United States declared its independence but also because it was the year that Washington had to get through with his army intact. The Americans didn’t win the Revolutionary War in 1776, but it was the year they could most easily have lost it. And the Americans mainly won the war by not losing it. I described it this way in that essay …

The key fact about the Revolutionary War is that the colonists didn’t have to win their independence from Britain so much as they had to fend off Britain’s efforts to snatch it back. Before the revolutionary crisis began, in the seventeen-sixties, British dominion had rested lightly on the American colonies. Merchants in port towns who shipped goods overseas had to contend with the King’s laws and tariffs, but few other Americans had much contact with either. In the century and a half after the first colonies were established, the mother country had tried to exert real control for only a few short spells. Each time, Crown and Commons soon shifted their attention to some other pressing matter, and the colonists were once more left to their own devices. Royal authority in America collapsed as swiftly as it did because it was scarcely entrenched to begin with, not because there was overwhelming support for the patriot cause.

But McCullough’s book got me thinking about something different about Washington, who is a much more fascinating character than the man we usually see in the history books — fascinating in a paradoxical and deeply artificial way.

Washington wasn’t terribly creative. He wrote nothing of note. He didn’t have terribly original ideas. He wasn’t even always that good of a general. But the people around him pretty universally held him in a sort of awe. Almost all the craftier and more notable members of the Revolutionary generation had great confidence in his presence, the fact that he was around, the fact that he was commanding what then passed as the United States Army. They felt reassured that he would be the first president. So what was that confidence about?

The gist is that Washington had an immense reserve of personal dignity and a kind of stoic, impassive demeanor. For many Americans of the late 18th century he seemed to embody the kind of classical and republican ideals the educated members of his generation had all been raised on. He was Cincinnatus surrendering dictatorial power when his service to his country was done. He could be portrayed as embodying the values of this or that classical figure at various points in his career.

What’s so interesting to me about this is that it was all an act. From early in life, Washington was extremely focused on modeling himself on various classical figures and virtues and in a way play-acting the person we know as George Washington. It is a tremendous act of self-fashioning because he play-acted this role, this person for so long that in a way he became that person. Washington wrote no Gettysburg Address or Declaration of Independence. His document was himself, the character of “George Washington.” And that idea of self-fashioning, the idea that we can build new things, become new people by logic and effort and self-discipline untrammeled by the past is very much part of the English-speaking world’s late 18th century Enlightenment ethos that he and his peers were reared on.

Another excerpt from that essay …

Yet here is the crook in the path, something that McCullough reveals but never quite explains: it was all a put-on, an act. For us today, character is bound up with authenticity; someone with “character” doesn’t put on airs, doesn’t tailor his actions to impress others. Those weren’t the standards of Washington’s era. When the young Henry Knox first met Washington, he marvelled at the General’s “vast ease and dignity.” Such ease was not acquired without effort. As McCullough says, Washington was a man of “almost excessive self-command.” From an early age, he submitted his entire persona to the most rigorous discipline, shaping everything from his physical bearing to the degree of intimacy that he allowed himself with friends and associates. By the time he took command of the Army, outside Boston, in July, 1775, there was little about him that was not the product of years of conscious artifice. Few men could have been more keenly sensitive to their standing in other men’s eyes or more acutely aware of how words and deeds could diminish or enhance their reputation.

As I note here, we are today all about authenticity. The age that unfolded in the decades after Washington’s death in 1799 was similarly focused on the authentic self. Artifice was fakery. But Washington comes from a different era, one that revered self-mastery and playing out certain stock virtues. Look closely at John Adams and he’s a man riddled with self-doubt and angst and kind of terribly neurotic. Jefferson is glib and dilettantish and can’t help but be a hypocrite again and again. You can look at him and see a kind of renaissance man with a hand in everything or you can see a clever and privileged man who just took a stab at various things. You can’t really get into Washington, not even reading his letters. He comes down to us as a figure carved out of white marble. And when you see him up close in his letters or accounts of his conversations he’s also at least half white marble. He had made himself into this avatar of the classical republican virtues that his peers had all been raised on, despite spending their early lives loyal to a king. It worked.

This makes Washington a very hard person to figure. I had always thought of Washington as not really in the league of Lincoln. He’s Washington because he was the first president. And he was the military commander of the Revolutionary War. And you kind of have to say the first one was awesome because that’s just what you do. But what did he do besides kind of act out of a series of roles over about 25 years and not make any big mistakes?

Well, that is what he did.

But you look closely and there really are these repeated moments where his presence, the vision of him and this kind of impassive dependability held everything together. And it wasn’t some native genius in the old sense of the word or some charisma. It was an act of will, a grinding down of all the spontaneity and expressions of one’s inner self — with our torments and our dreams and fears and exuberances — that we today so laud. He made himself into this almost-marble-in-life actor-out of resolve, disinterest, self-denial and republican virtue. And that really did play a crucial role in holding together and then shaping the young republic.

Marginal Revolution

Liberal AI

Tyler Cowen
Updated

Can AI be liberal? In what sense? One answer points to the liberal insistence on freedom of choice, understood as a product of the commitment to personal autonomy and individual dignity. Mill and Hayek are of course defining figures here, emphasizing the epistemic foundations for freedom of choice. “Choice Engines,” powered by AI and authorized or required by law, might promote liberal goals (and in the process, produce significant increases in human welfare). A key reason is that they can simultaneously (1) preserve autonomy, (2) respect dignity, and (3) help people to overcome inadequate information and behavioral biases, which can produce internalities, understood as costs that people impose on their future selves, and also externalities, understood as costs that people impose on others. Different consumers care about different things, of course, which is a reason to insist on a high degree of freedom of choice, even in the presence of internalities and externalities. AI-powered Choice Engines can respect that freedom, not least through personalization. Nonetheless, AI-powered Choice Engines might be enlisted by insufficiently informed or self-interested actors, who might exploit inadequate information or behavioral biases, and thus co5mpromise liberal goals. AI-powered Choice Engines might also be deceptive or manipulative, again compromising liberal goals, and legal safeguards are necessary to reduce the relevant risks. Illiberal or antiliberal AI is not merely imaginable; it is in place. Still, liberal AI is not an oxymoron. It could make life less nasty, less brutish, less short, and less hard – and more free.

By Cass Sunstein.

The post Liberal AI appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Daring Fireball

★ Apple Releases iOS 26 Adoption Rates, and They’re Pretty Much in Line With the Last Few Years

John Gruber
Updated

Speaking of iOS 26, here’s Joe Rossignol reporting for MacRumors:

Apple has shared updated iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 adoption figures, revealing how many iPhones and iPads are running those software versions. These adoption numbers are based on iPhones and iPads that transacted on the App Store on February 12, 2026, according to Apple. The statistics are as follows:

  • 74% of all iPhones introduced in the last four years are running iOS 26.
  • 66% of all iPhones are running iOS 26.
  • 66% of all iPads introduced in the last four years are running iPadOS 26.
  • 57% of all iPads are running iPadOS 26.

Here is how that compares to the iOS 18 adoption figures that Apple shared based on iPhones and iPads that transacted on the App Store on January 21, 2025:

  • 76% of all iPhones introduced in the last four years were running iOS 18.
  • 68% of all iPhones were running iOS 18.
  • 63% of all iPads introduced in the last four years were running iPadOS 18.
  • 53% of all iPads were running iPadOS 18.

Via the Internet Archive (seriously, what would we do without them?), here are the numbers Apple released for iOS 17 two years ago, with data collected on 4 February 2024:1

  • 76% of all iPhones introduced in the last four years were running iOS 17.
  • 66% of all iPhones were running iOS 17.
  • 61% of all iPads introduced in the last four years were running iPadOS 17.
  • 53% of all iPads were running iPadOS 17.

These are the numbers I was waiting for when I followed up three weeks ago about the silly stories, based on obviously bogus data from StatCounter, that iOS 26’s adoption rate was absurdly low. I wrote then:

What’s going on, quite obviously, is that Apple itself is slow-rolling the automatic updates to iOS 26. For years now Apple has steered users, via default suggestions during device setup, to adopt settings to allow OS updates to happen automatically, including updates to major new versions. Apple tends not to push these automatic updates to major new versions of iOS until two months after the .0 release in September. This year that second wave was delayed by about two weeks, and there’s now a third wave starting midway through January. It’s a different pattern from previous years — but it’s a pattern Apple controls. A large majority of users of all Apple devices get major OS updates when, and only when, their devices automatically update. Apple has been slower to push those updates to iOS 26 than they have been for previous iOS updates in recent years. With good reason! iOS 26 is a more significant — and buggier — update than iOS 18 and 17 were.

At least according to Apple’s own numbers from the App Store, iOS 26 adoption is pretty much exactly in line with the rates for iOS 18 and 17. There’s no conclusion that should be drawn from this about the general opinion of the Liquid Glass UI design or iOS 26 overall. People may love it, hate it, be ambivalent about it, or not even notice — but most of them let their iPhones (and iPads) update via automatic upgrades pushed by Apple. Their opinions about iOS 26 form after they install it.

  1. Looking at these last three years, the only real trend has nothing to do with the iPhone. It’s that the adoption rate for iPads — in both categories, recent models and all models — is trending upward. ↩︎

Daring Fireball

How to Force Restart an iPhone

John Gruber
Updated

Apple Support:

If iPhone isn’t responding, and you can’t turn it off then on, try forcing it to restart.

  1. Press and quickly release the volume up button.
  2. Press and quickly release the volume down button.
  3. Press and hold the side button.
  4. When the Apple logo appears, release the side button.

I upgraded my iPhone 17 Pro to iOS 26.3 this morning (straight from the release version of iOS 26.2 — I skipped the 26.3 betas), and by noon, it was stuck at the lock screen. Pressing and holding the side button and either of the volume buttons at the same time did not bring up the expected screen with “Slide to power off”, “Medical ID”, and “Emergency Call”.

The above force-restart method worked, though. I knew it existed but I’d forgotten how to do it. Luckily, I was sitting right at my Mac, so I had another machine to use to look it up. I’d have been in a jam, though, if I’d been somewhere with only my (stuck) iPhone, so I think this one is worth memorizing.

Step 3, the “press and hold the side button” step, takes quite a few seconds before the screen turns off. So I’m memorizing the process as three steps:

  1. Click the volume up button.
  2. Click the volume down button.
  3. Press and hold the side button, patiently, until the Apple logo appears.
 ★ 
Daring Fireball

Apple Invites Media to Special ‘Experience’ in New York, London, and Shanghai on March 4

John Gruber
Updated

Hartley Charlton, MacRumors:

Apple invited select members of the media to the event in three major cities around the world. It is simply described as a “special Apple Experience,” and there is no further information about what it may entail. The invitation features a 3D Apple logo design composed of yellow, green, and blue discs.

It is notable that Apple is specifically using the word “experience,” rather than “event.” Unlike a full live-streamed event from Apple Park, the March 4 event in other cities is likely to be smaller in scale.

Among the products expected soon — either by annual schedule predictability, or via the rumor mill — are the iPhone 17e, an updated iPad Air (going from the M3 to M4), an updated base-model iPad (going from A16 to A18), updated MacBook Pros with the M5 Pro and Max, updated MacBook Airs (going from M4 to M5 — the M4 models were released in early March last year), and, per Gurman, the long-rumored new lower-cost MacBook with an A18 chip (a “MacBook e”, if you will, although I certainly don’t think that will be the name — my guess is Apple will just call it “MacBook” without an adjective).

What strikes me is that March 4 — the “experience” day — is a Wednesday. So my spitball guess is that they announce all these products via Newsroom press releases, day-by-day. Like, say, the iPhone 17e on Monday, new iPad(s) on Tuesday, and new MacBooks on Wednesday. And then the “experience” will be a hands-on thing with in-person demos. Spread the announcements out across a few days, but then have in-person events for members of the media to get a hands-on experience with all of them, station-by-station, without needing to produce an Apple Event keynote film.

 ★ 
NASA Science

A Second Cyclone Slams Madagascar

Lauren Dauphin
Updated
 
Storm clouds swirl over northwestern Madagascar in a satellite image acquired on February 10, 2026. The eye of tropical cyclone Gezani is visible directly east of Toamasina as the storm approaches land.
February 10, 2026

For the second time in two weeks, a powerful tropical cyclone struck Madagascar. On January 31, Fytia battered the remote northwestern coast of the island with destructive winds and torrential rains that displaced thousands of people. Less than two weeks later, Gezani made a direct hit on one of the island’s largest cities before sweeping past areas that Fytia had just flooded.

The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of Gezani as it neared Madagascar on February 10, 2026. At the time, the storm was undergoing rapid intensification. Its sustained winds peaked at 200 kilometers (125 miles) per hour before making landfall at Category 3 hurricane strength.

According to meteorologists with the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the storm developed amid conditions “highly favorable” to strengthening, including sea surface temperatures above 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), wind shear below 20 kilometers (12 miles) per hour, and an unusually moist atmosphere. As the storm passed near Toamasina, Madagascar’s second-largest city, satellites that contribute to NASA’s IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM) product measured rain rates up to 4 centimeters (1.6 inches) per hour.

The deluge caused widespread flooding in Toamasina and several other parts of the island. Preliminary damage assessments from Madagascar’s National Office for Risk and Disaster Management linked the storm to dozens of deaths, hundreds of injuries, and damage to more than 27,000 homes. Reports from news outlets and humanitarian groups described chaotic conditions in Toamasina, with widespread power outages, numerous collapsed roofs, and a lack of clean water.

January 29, 2026
February 14, 2026
In this false-color image acquired before the flooding, the Rianila and Rongaronga rivers merge near the town of Brickaville. River water appears dark blue against a bright green background of farmland and savanna forest.
In this false-color image acquired before the flooding, the Rianila and Rongaronga rivers merge near the town of Brickaville. River water appears dark blue against a bright green background of farmland and savanna forest.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
In a false-color image acquired after the flooding, waterways appear much wider, and floodwater covers large portions of the landscape west of the two rivers, both north and south of Brickaville.
In a false-color image acquired after the flooding, waterways appear much wider, and floodwater covers large portions of the landscape west of the two rivers, both north and south of Brickaville.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
In this false-color image acquired before the flooding, the Rianila and Rongaronga rivers merge near the town of Brickaville. River water appears dark blue against a bright green background of farmland and savanna forest.
In this false-color image acquired before the flooding, the Rianila and Rongaronga rivers merge near the town of Brickaville. River water appears dark blue against a bright green background of farmland and savanna forest.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
In a false-color image acquired after the flooding, waterways appear much wider, and floodwater covers large portions of the landscape west of the two rivers, both north and south of Brickaville.
In a false-color image acquired after the flooding, waterways appear much wider, and floodwater covers large portions of the landscape west of the two rivers, both north and south of Brickaville.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
January 29, 2026
February 14, 2026

Before and After

January 29, 2026 – February 14, 2026

The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured this false-color image of severe flooding near Brickaville, just south of Toamasina, on February 14, 2026 (right). For comparison, the left image shows the same area before the storm. Villages and farmland along the Rongaronga River appear particularly hard hit. Crops commonly grown in this area include rice, vanilla, lychees, black pepper, cloves, and cinnamon, according to researchers from the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development.

Madagascar is one of the most cyclone-prone countries in Africa, with about six storms typically affecting the island each year and two making direct landfall. The cyclone season generally runs from November through April, with peak activity between January and March.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.

Downloads

Storm clouds swirl over northwestern Madagascar in a satellite image acquired on February 10, 2026. The eye of tropical cyclone Gezani is visible directly east of Toamasina as the storm approaches land.

February 10, 2026

JPEG (3.04 MB)

In this false-color image acquired before the flooding, the Rianila and Rongaronga rivers merge near the town of Brickaville. River water appears dark blue against a bright green background of farmland and savanna forest.

January 29, 2026

JPEG (5.40 MB)

In a false-color image acquired after the flooding, waterways appear much wider, and floodwater covers large portions of the landscape west of the two rivers, both north and south of Brickaville.

February 14, 2026

JPEG (6.00 MB)

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Letters from an American

February 16, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson
Updated

On February 13 and 14, President Donald J. Trump’s representatives filed three applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark his name for future use on an airport. As trademark lawyer Josh Gerben of Gerben IP noted, the application also covers merchandise branded “President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” “Donald J. Trump International Airport,” and “DJT,” including “clothing, handbags, luggage, jewelry, watches, and tie clips.”

Because of the trademark filing, Gerben notes, any airport adopting the Trump name would have to get a license to use the name, potentially paying a licensing fee. Gerben emphasizes that while it is common for public officials to have landmarks named after them, “never in the history of the United States” has “a sitting president’s private company…sought trademark rights” before such a naming.

In October, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought withheld billions of dollars Congress appropriated for a tunnel between New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River, saying he wanted “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.” Trump told Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that he would release the funds if Schumer would agree to name Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., and New York City’s Penn Station after him.

After a Florida state lawmaker proposed putting Trump’s name on the Palm Beach International Airport, Jason Garcia of Seeking Rents today reported that the Florida legislature is currently pushing through measures to change the name of that airport to the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” The amount of money proposed in Florida’s budget to make the change is $2,750,000, but Garcia notes this is likely a placeholder: the budget request is for $5.5 million.

The Trump grab for an airport named after him is just the latest grift in a presidential term that experts so far estimate has enriched the Trump family by at least $4 billion. That windfall includes merch, political contributions, and multiple cryptocurrency deals that have led, for example, to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who manages the United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund, buying a 49% stake in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto company for $500 million days before Trump took office. This deal put $187 million immediately into Trump family entities and at least $31 million into entities owned by the family of Steve Witkoff, whom Trump had just named his Middle East envoy.

“President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public—which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said of the UAE deal. “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.”

Earlier this month, Trump, his sons Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department for $10 billion in damages after an IRS contractor during Trump’s own first term was convicted of leaking their tax information, along with that of thousands of other Americans who are not suing, to news outlets. Trump has control over the IRS, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says he will write whatever check he is told to cut. This move advances Trump’s use of the presidency to enrich himself into the realm of autocratic rulers who move their country’s money to their own accounts.

In 1789, when George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States of America, no one knew what to expect of leaders in a democratic republic. Washington understood that anything he did would become the standard for anyone who came after him. “I walk on untrodden ground,” he wrote in 1790, the year after he assumed the office of the presidency. “There is scarcely any part of my conduct w[hi]ch may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.”

After watching colonial lawmakers under royal rule demand payoffs before they would approve popular measures, Washington rejected the idea of profiting from the presidency. In his short Inaugural Address, he took the time to state explicitly that he would not accept any payments while in the presidency except for an official salary appropriated by Congress.

Washington noted that the support of the American people for the new government was key to its survival. He hailed the pledges of the new nation’s lawmakers to rule for the good of the whole nation, not for specific regions or partisan groups. He also predicted that the power of the government would come not from military might but from its determination to serve the needs of the public. He promised “that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.”

Washington put a hopeful spin on human nature to launch the institution of the presidency, but the Framers had no illusions. They constructed the Constitution to pit men’s ambitions against each other so no individual could gain enough power to become a tyrant. Later, the rise of formal political parties in the 1830s guaranteed hawkish oversight of those in power by those out of it, exposing corruption or personal vices before those exhibiting them made it to the height of the government.

As recently as the 1970s, those systems held strongly enough that Republican senators warned Republican president Richard M. Nixon that the House was about to impeach him for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress for his actions during and after the Watergate break-in during which operatives tried to bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. And, they told him, when the House impeached, the Senate—including Senate Republicans—would convict. They urged him to resign, which he did on August 8, 1974, the only president so far to resign the office of the presidency.

Since then, Republicans have fallen into the trap Washington warned against in his Farewell Address, putting party over country. Such partisanship, he said, would “distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration,” agitate “the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms,” kindle “the animosity of one part against another,” foment “occasionally riot and insurrection,” and open “the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”

Fierce partisanship would lead partisans to seek absolute power through an individual who “turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty,” Washington warned. And as Washington predicted, today’s Republicans have replaced the prerogatives of Congress with loyalty to Trump.

They have also ignored the vices of Trump and his loyalists. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explained to a podcaster on February 12 why he doesn’t worry about Covid. “I’m not scared of a germ,” he said. “I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.”

Jonathan Landay and Douglas Gillison of Reuters reported yesterday that Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought took $15 million in unlawfully impounded money that Congress had appropriated for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which fed starving children, for his own security detail. Michelle Hackman, Josh Dawsey, and Tarini Parti of the Wall Street Journal reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her affair partner Corey Lewandowski travel in a $70 million luxury 737 MAX jet with a private cabin in the back.

Over all are the horrors of the Epstein files, in which Trump’s name appears so often observers have suggested it is the one place that could legitimately be rebranded with Trump’s name as the Trump-Epstein files.

And so, Washington’s dire warnings have come true.

Profiting off his name is only part of why Trump appears to want to splash it anywhere he can: so far, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a new class of battleships, and perhaps “The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom” where the East Wing of the White House used to be.

It’s also about his legacy. In a tour of George Washington’s Virginia home, Mount Vernon, in April 2019, Trump expressed surprise that the first president hadn’t named any of his property after himself. “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”

In fact, Americans remember and revere Washington because of his reluctance to promote himself, not in spite of it. John Trumbull’s portrait of him resigning his wartime commission after negotiators had signed the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War hangs in the U.S. Capitol as a moment that defined the United States: a leader voluntarily giving up power rather than becoming a dictator. Then, when voters made him president of the new United States in 1789, he refused a second time to become a king, emphasizing that he was the servant of the people and then, after two terms, voluntarily handing power to a successor chosen not by him but by the people.

As Washington predicted, the presidents Americans revere despite their faults—George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt—are those who used the enormous power of the U.S. government not for their own aggrandizement but to secure and expand the rights and the prosperity of the American people.

Trump has made no secret of wanting his image carved onto Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved the busts of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hills of the Lakotas. Beginning his sculpture in 1927, Borglum chose President Washington because he had founded the nation, Jefferson because he had launched westward expansion, Lincoln because he had saved the United States from destruction, and Roosevelt because he had protected working men and helped fit democracy to industrial development.

But Trump’s interest in being added to Mount Rushmore does not appear to be related to a desire to advance the interests of the American people. In September 2025 the IRS granted tax-exempt status to the Donald Trump Mount Rushmore Memorial Legacy, making it a charity that can accept tax-free donations.

Happy Presidents Day 2026.

—

Notes:

https://www.gerbenlaw.com/blog/trumps-private-company-files-trademark-for-president-donald-j-trump-international-airport/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/white-house-freezes-18-billion-new-york-city-infrastructure-funding-rcna234928

https://punchbowl.news/article/white-house/trump-dulles-penn-station/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-asked-dulles-penn-station-named-exchange-gateway-money-released-rcna257708

Seeking Rents
Buried in the budget: Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Newsmax
This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing original journalism — and lifting up the work of others — about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist…
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2 days ago · 42 likes · 6 comments · Jason Garcia

https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-white-house-ballroom-after-officials/story?id=126843455

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/inaugtxt.html

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/10/donald-trump-mount-vernon-george-washington-1264073

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0363

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/01/politics/trump-family-crypto-world-liberty-financial-uae

https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/trumps-10b-irs-suit-over-tax-data-leaks-raises-legal-issues/

https://newrepublic.com/post/206211/treasury-secretary-bessent-trump-irs-lawsuit-taxpayers

https://watergate.info/impeachment/articles-of-impeachment/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/13/healthcare-groups-rfk-jr-resign-cocaine-toilet-seats

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white-house-uses-usaid-funds-budget-director-voughts-security-documents-show-2026-02-13/

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/chaos-kristi-noem-homeland-security-f095ac95

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/15/us/politics/trumps-american-cult-of-personality.html

Lincoln Borglum and Gweneth Reed Dendooven, Mount Rushmore: Heritage of America (Las Vegas: KC Publications 1980), pp. 1–19.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/farewell-address

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/27/us/mount-rushmore-trump.html

Bluesky:

zacheverson.com/post/3m6do2cinpk2s

danielsgoldman.dg4ny.co/post/3mezkl4rtd225

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charity.wtf

Martin Fowler told me the second edition should be shorter (it's twice as long)

Charity Majors
Updated

Last week I got to meet Martin Fowler for the first time in person. This was an exciting moment for me. Martin ranks high on my personal pantheon; he is, so far as I can tell, hardly ever wrong.

Martin Fowler, me, and Nathen Harvey, at the happy hout for Gergely’s Pragmatic Summit! Not pictured: my glass of wine, Nathen’s box of fucks to give

After letting me know that he “only hugs on this side of the Rockies” (noted), the topic of writing books came up, to which he drawled,

“The second edition should always be shorter. I always made my second editions shorter. Shorter books are better books.”

God dammit, Martin.. Now you tell me. 🙈

In related news, our last few chapters for “Observability Engineering, 2nd edition” go out to tech reviewers this week! This puts us on track for dead tree publication in June, although chapters will be available earlier for O’Reilly subscribers as well as behind an email gate on the Honeycomb site.

What’s different about the second edition?

Almost everything. The only chapters that carry over some material are the ones on sampling, retriever (columnar store), and a smattering of the SLO stuff—maybe 10% all told? And we’ve added a monstrous amount of new material.

So no, it will not be shorter than the first edition. It is almost twice as long.1 (Sorry!)

On the bright side, I do think it will be clearer, more usable, and useful to a wider range of contributors, all over the org chart, than our messy little first edition ever was.

The first edition was a spaghetti mess

Books, as I understand, are like children; if you made them, you are not allowed to say you aren’t proud of them.

So fine, I won’t say it. But I think we can all privately agree that the first edition was a bit of a hot mess.

No shade on my wonderful co-authors, Liz and George, or our O’Reilly editors, or myself for that matter. We did our best, but now, with the clarity of hindsight, it’s easy to see all the ways the ground was shifting under us as we wrote.

When we started the book in 2018, Honeycomb was the only observability company, and our definition of observability—high cardinality, high dimensionality, explorability—was the only definition. By the time the book came out in 2021, everyone was rebranding their products as observability, Gartner had waded into the fray.. it was a mess.

Perhaps the mature thing to do would be to have gone back and rewritten the book in light of the evolving market definition. But while I won’t speak for my co-authors, after 3.5 years, I was pretty fucking desperate to be done.

Artist’s rendering of the traditional authorial glow of pride, joy and deep satisfaction upon completing any book manuscript

I swore I would never go through that again. And when O’Reilly first approached us about writing a second edition, my first reaction was blind panic.

The second edition has a clearer mission

But once my lizard brain calmed down, I realized two things. Number one, it absolutely needed to be written; number two, I definitely wanted to help write it.

SO MUCH has changed. SO MUCH needs saying. When we met up in June to pull together a new outline, it seemed to just flow out of us.

A few of the many things that were not at all clear in 2018, but are crystal clear today:

  • Who we are writing for (software engineers)

  • What they are doing (instrumenting their code and analyzing it in production, with and without AI)

  • What observability means to analysts and the market at large (literally anything to do with software telemetry)

  • The integrations game is over, and OpenTelemetry has won

  • Most companies still don’t have real observability. And they don’t know it. 😕

I am excited and incredibly grateful for the opportunity to take a second whack at this book in the era of AI. Not how I thought I’d feel, but I will take it.

The first edition of “Observability Engineering” was translated into Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (I believe it’s Mandarin?).

Writing With the Stars🌟

We brought Austin Parker on as a fourth co-author very early, with a special emphasis on topics related to OpenTelemetry and AI.

We also invited a number of people we admire to contribute in a variety of formats… guest chapters, use cases, stories, embedded advice, and more:

  • Jeremy Morrell on how to instrument your code effectively

  • Hanson Ho and Matt Klein on observability for mobile and frontend

  • Kesha Mykhailov and Darragh Curran from Intercom on fast feedback loops and developing with LLMs

  • Dale McDiarmid, Xander Garbett, and Rory Crispin on how to use Clickhouse for observability workloads

  • Rick Clark on the mechanics of driving organizational transformation in order to build and learn at the speed of AI

  • Frank Chen, a returning champion from our first edition, wrote about ontologies for your instrumentation chain

  • Phillip Carter wrote about eval pipelines and instrumenting LLMs

  • Mat Vine has a case study about moving ANZ from thresholds to SLIs/SLOs

  • Mike Kelly on managing telemetry pipelines for fun and profit

  • Hugo Santos on how to instrument your CI/CD pipelines

  • Peter Corless made our chapter on “Build vs Buy (vs Open Source)” immensely better and more well-rounded

What a fucking list, huh? 🙌

Truly, this book is a veritable rogues gallery of engineers and companies we look up to (including some of our own direct competitors 😉). The one thing all these people have in common (besides being great writers with a unique perspective, and people who are willing to return our emails) is that we share a similar vision for observability and the future of software development.

Spotted this week: Nathen Harvey, walking around, giving out fucks by the handful.

In addition to the sections written for software engineers on “Instrumentation Fundamentals” and “Analysis Workflows”, both with and without AI, we have a section on “Observability Use Cases” and another on “Technical Deep Dives”, which lets us cover even more ground.

Which brings us to the last section, the one that I personally signed up to write.

Part 6: “Observability Governance”

When we met in June, I successfully pitched Liz and George on adding one final section: “Observability Governance”. Unlike the rest of the book, these chapters would be written for the observability team, or the platform engineering team, or whoever is wrestling with problems like cost containment and tool migrations.

I sketched out a few ideas and started writing. July passed, August, September…I was cranking out one governance chapter per month, right on track, planning to wrap up well before November.

In September, halfway through my last chapter, I reached out to the internet for advice. “Are you an experienced software buyer? I could use some help.”

The response was ✨tremendous✨; my inbox swelled with interesting stories, bitter rants, lessons learned, and practical tips from engineers and executives alike.

But when I tried to finish the chapter, my engine stalled out. I could not write. I kept doggedly blocking off time on my calendar, silencing interruptions, staring at drafts, writing and rewriting, trying every angle. Four weeks passed with no progress made.

Five weeks. Six.

Cliffhanger!

Tomorrow I’ll publish the second half of this story, in which the due date for my chapters comes and goes, and I end up throwing away everything I had written and starting over from scratch. Good times!

Edited to add: the second half is up!!

1

If we ever write a third edition, I swear on the lives of my theoretical children that it will be MUCH shorter than this one.

The Truth OC: Because it's time to fight back.

Zoltan Istvan doesn't understand why we're not listening.

Jeff Pearlman
Updated

So over the past few weeks I started reaching out to every single candidate for the upcoming California gubernatorial race. I’ve contacted Democrats and Republicans, Green Party members and Independents. And my goal, truly, is to feature every single (willing) participant in a Q&A in this space. I am not here to insult people I disagree with, or hype up people who share my beliefs. I want to hear their views, their takes, their motivations for seeking a powerful-yet-frustrating position.

And then, I want to share it with you, the Truth OC community.

So (drumroll, please) …

I bring to you Zoltan Istvan, a candidate for governor who is no stranger to elections. In 2016, he, ran for president on the ticket of his own Transhumanist Party. In 2018, he ran for California governor as a Libertarian. Then, in 2019, he ran for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination against Donald Trump. Now, he’s trying to head our state—as a Democrat.

To Istvan—a Los Angeles native, former National Geographic reporter, former nonprofit director, current owner of myriad worldwide vineyard properties—this has never been about party, but enlightenment. He identifies as a proud and unapologetic transhumanist—aka: the belief in improving human individuals via science and technology. He also thinks we, as a species, are utterly unprepared for the AI reckoning that is upon us, and that politicians of all stripes are missing the mark on an existential threat.

I spoke with Istvan over Zoom this past Sunday. At the time, he was uncertain whether he will remain in the race. You can learn more about the man and his campaign right here, and you can donate to his run here.

Also, I have posted the full video of the interview below, and typed out the transcript.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Zoltan Istvan …

JEFF PEARLMAN: “Well, first of all, thank you for doing this obviously, I appreciate it. Lemme ask you first, because when I reached out to you, you had some, I guess some doubts or you were kind of debating. Are you still running or have you decided not to run for governor this time around?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Well, I’m definitely still running for California governor. We are having some doubts. We’re in some final stages of trying to raise money and I’m worried that if we don’t raise that money we won’t be able to continue. But the registration date for officially declaring is I think March 6. So we still have a few weeks to that kind of point.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “So why would one decide to even try running for governor when it is number one, as you’ve said in the past, kind of a long shot bid; and number two, kind of a thankless job. Why would one even want to run?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “To be honest, I think for me, the main reason I decided to run was because artificial intelligence is posing such a huge threat right now to not just California, but to United States and the world and none of the other politicians are talking about, and it’s my field of expertise as someone who’s been in it 15, 20 years writing about it. So I felt like there was a need for someone to represent that issue and that problem, and of course my solution for it is a universal basic income, which is something that I have been promoting and talking about since, in fact, even before Andrew Yang put it in the mainstream media.

“So I supported that and if I was on the ballot and you get your little line right underneath, you’d be like, BASIC INCOME ADVOCATE. And that’s really what I’m trying to do here. I feel like without that in the system, people don’t realize what kind of job apocalypse we’re going to have. I mean, I feel like it’s just 12 to 18 months away. My campaign might be a little early for addressing this issue right now, but it probably won’t be very early by 2027, 2028.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “I’m always amazed, as we’ve seen right now, the absolute decimation of any climate protections, any remaining climate protections and people generally just going like, ‘oh, well what’s on TV? Who’s going to win the Super Bowl? Oh, what am I going to have for dinner?’ Do you feel the same? Like, ‘Oh, AI, this is great. I can create a funny cartoon of my head,’ and ‘Oh, I can look up a recipe for a tofu.’ Are you staring at all this thinking ‘You people don’t understand the reckoning that is coming’?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: "I think it amazes me that people don’t see what’s coming. There is a reckoning and you’re a hundred percent right in the sense that something major or something transformative is happening to the human race, not just the economy. This time we’re talking about everybody because, if AI takes 90% of the jobs and we’re talking about a depression on a scale the United States has never, ever seen in my opinion, we’re going to need to do something about it. But you have so many distractions. Netflix has their new series out or there’s a Super Bowl and everyone’s bashing Trump.

“Okay, look, I’m not a fan of the guy either, but the point of the story is what seems the most important thing to me in the world right now is that you train for a career for 15 years … let’s say you went to graduate school, something like that, and that career will no longer exist, and whatever training you have won’t really apply unless maybe you want to be a barista at a Starbucks, which probably isn’t going to work for you.

“The whole world’s about to be transformed and no one’s talking about it. And I’ll tell you why. It’s because any time a politician opens their mouth about this, they lose votes. It’s just … there’s no winning in this topic. That’s the problem here. And even talking about a base income, sure people like free money, but it also means you’re never going to ever have the opportunity to probably become very wealthy because the base income will kind of keep you right in place. Yes, you’ll have food and security and hopefully housing and things like that, but the American dream is lost. And so a lot of our campaign is trying to talk about rewriting or redefining that American dream, but nobody’s listening. Everybody’s just interested in whatever’s happening in the Super Bowl or whatever new scandal on the Internet. Social media has become a complete disease that distracts people from real issues. But capitalism is moving forward for better or worse, robots are coming for everyone’s jobs and I think a huge transformative change is going to be happening and it probably won’t be good for a few years until we have government step in and figure out how to run a new nation that uses automation from us every job.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “How would a basic income plan work, and what is the direct correlation between a basic income plan and the rise and terrifying expansion of AI?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Well, let me just say first off that I support universal basic income, but it can be universal high income, it can be universal dividend income. It could be a whole bunch of different ways that you might kind of tackle the issue. But the point of the story is that you have to have something happen in the age of automation. So basically we have been predicting that 50% of California jobs would be replaced by AI and automation by the time the next governor’s term ends. So that’d be like four and a half years from now. And the problem is people are like, ‘Oh, I’ll just get another job’ or ‘I’ll do this’ or ‘It’ll never take my plumbing job.’ They don’t realize robots are going to be tied in with these AI systems, those robots are going to be able to do plumbing jobs, going to be able to do construction jobs, not just white collar jobs.

“So basic income gives you something I think, in addition to the welfare services, that would actually say, ‘OK, well let’s say it’s $11200 a month or $1,500 a month.’ In the best case scenario, it would at least be like, ‘Now hopefully I can rent something. Hopefully I have enough food, hopefully I can start paying for healthcare and things like that.’ It would just be in many ways a Band Aid to make it so that you can get by. Hopefully, though, there would be an age of abundance that comes from our artificial intelligence. Like our plan was to give a robot to every household over the first governor’s term, and these robots are going to watch your kids, cook for you, do dishes. This is already sort of happening. I mean, very rich people are starting to put robots in their houses right now and have them undo the dishwasher.

“So it sounds crazy to talk about it, but it is really happening much more quickly than people realize. So it’s very realistic. I think that within two or three years time, many California households—they’ll have a car, they could have a robot that actually does chores. But this will make your life easier. There’ll be more abundance, more time to do other things, and eventually these robots will be able to build your houses, do everything for you, work for you, things like that. And eventually we might come to an age of abundance where it’s not so much about income anymore, but more just these machines that do everything for you and that we don’t need so much. Now, that’s a little bit more high-line thinking and is still sci-fi, but what we’re really concerned about right now is this transition between the next four or five years where AI and robots take a lot of jobs that are out there, the majority of them. And what do people do in the interim to just get by and survive while the government’s wrangling with this real issue that humans are probably not going to be doing much physical or any kind of work for income any longer?”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “So whenever a new technology comes along, I feel like the point will be made by the people distributing the technology that, ‘Well, X will lead to Y. So with the expansion of AI, we will need more AI-related jobs. It will open up a new industry of AI … whatever, technicians, AI scientists, AI programmers. Is that just a stupid and mindless sort of viewpoint?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Well, it’s certainly not stupid or mindless, but it is definitely wrong. I mean, if you’re already looking like 99.9, well I guess 99%, let’s say 98% of engineers are now being outdone by AI. Some 98% of coders are now being outdone by AI, and that’s going to go to every single field here shortly. If architecture is 60% AI, probably by two to three months from now, it’ll be 70 to 80% AI. So it’s just getting so fast and so good. So there is no creation of new jobs. It may create something for a few months, but AI will catch up. And I’ve been saying this before, a lot of people are very upset about the H-1B visa issue and immigration, this and that, but you even had Hillary come out the other day say, well, maybe they went too far with immigration.

“Listen, the world is changing. I completely don’t support ICE, but I think people have to realize there is no reason to have immigration come into the United States or California anymore, because of there are not going to be any jobs. So even though I would support having all the people that are here become naturalized citizens and whatnot, I even have to say, ‘Wait a second—for a long time we were buffering our country by having immigrants come take jobs, make more money. It was great. That’s how America built itself.’ But at some point that’s going to switch to robots and the immigration’s going to actually be … how many more machines can you build? So there’s a fundamental dynamic, and I’m not trying to give you a moral issue here. I’m trying to just give you a philosophical thing that nobody seems to want to debate, that if all of a sudden I have vineyards, and all of a sudden robots can pick the grapes and do the vineyard business at half the price of labor, you have to ask yourself, as a business person, ‘What do I do?’

“Well, most business people are going to say, ‘I want the robots to do it, so therefore there’s no need for that job anymore with humans.’ And that’s happening all across the state, all across the country. And nobody wants to talk about this because it’s such a fire-point issue. But the reality is, the reality is that capitalism is making it so that we’re going to probably close our country up because there’s no economic way to help anyone anymore and they can’t contribute. And I wish people would at least try to start to think about this in those terms and not in terms of whether it’s right or wrong. My parents are immigrants, so they came here and I’ve always loved immigrants, but this is a different world we’re about to enter and I think it’s important that people discuss it openly. But I can tell you no, no one wants to talk about because it doesn’t win votes.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “Okay. The argument has always been immigrants will do the jobs that people who are born here don’t want to do. So when you go past a field, people are picking grapes. Well, people don’t want to do that. Are you saying that AI is going to ultimately create machines that do those jobs, or are you saying that these jobs that American born citizens don’t want to do, their jobs will be replaced and therefore those jobs will have more value for actual human beings?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “I think all jobs are going to be replaced. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s closer to 97, 98 percentile. I can’t think of, looking at humanoid robot demonstrations now today, literally today thinking that any job is safe, maybe like soccer is safe, or maybe being you want to go to a specific coffee shop because you like humans that will probably remain. Humans doing yoga. Maybe you don’t want a robot teaching you yoga. That’s fine. But when you talk about anything white collar, when you talk about selling cars, when you talk about these things, if it’s more efficient and you’re going to save money to buy a car, the salesman can be completely taken out the equation. The whole thing is going to be shifting.

“Even you and I here, it’s like, look, I know you have resources and you, you’re trying to do interviews and things like that. I saw your website, it’s awesome. Actually, by the way, congratulations on doing some really amazing work, but probably within six months it’s already here. There’s going to be an avatar If you have something else, it’s going to speak your perfect language. You can do these interviews, I can do these interviews. In fact, this technology already here, if you want to explore it, it’s all out. There are multiple companies working on you and I doing stuff. So everything is switching. Even things that you think are human can be done through AI and automation like this interview. And once that starts happening and people realize that they can be sitting on a beach in The Bahamas playing guitar or surfing, there’s a good swell or whatever it is … I’m not sure that people are going to be in the loop whatsoever.

“So I think it’s not even about immigrants or the good jobs. I don’t think in the two-to-four year window any of that survives except maybe some of those very select categories. I told you where humans are, what is desired. You absolutely do not want a machine teaching you yoga. You want that human companionship, but again, the yoga studio down the street is probably going to be making a lot more money. So you’re going to have to counter that with a yoga studio that uses automation. The world is changing.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “Do you feel for the better or for the worse?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “That’s a great question. I was always hopeful. So let me just say campaigning out in the streets, people are totally concerned with affordability. And you in your second question, talked about the environment, which is interesting because I used to hear a lot about the environment, but nowadays I hear only about affordability. No one can afford anything. Everyone’s one paycheck away from homelessness. So I feel like a basic income could really be something that’s useful or a robot in people’s houses could make their lives easier. So life would get better, but the problem is that it also could get very dark very quickly. There’s the big thing where what if the Chinese robots are made in China and China does some kind of weird thing. You have a Chinese robot in your house going crazy.

“I mean, there are a million things that can go wrong. And so I worry that, well, I think I am optimistic about the future with machines and automation and robots. I’m also very concerned that we’re entering an era very similar, I think, to the Cold War where you’re constantly worried about not just a threat, but a cataclysmic threat, a life-changing threat. And I think that’s the problem here with AI is … the five year window, but the 10 year window involves super intelligence, which is almost like inviting something alien into our world that might be dramatically smarter than this, that might not want humans on planet earth. So there’s that whole era, too. I don’t speak about that much in my campaign because that really throws off people. But the truth is, I’ve been in touch with plenty of the Silicon Valley elites and they’re working on this. They’re actually very optimistic to see how far they could build out AI into something that’s much smarter than themselves. And that really worries me, too, because I just don’t know if I want something smarter than myself on planet earth.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “Well, you’ve sort of gained a reputation for being one of the leading proponents of transhumanism, which is using science and technology to improve the human condition. Is this almost like where Frankenstein’s monster rises and Dr. Frankenstein, he’s like, ‘Wait, this isn’t what I was talking about!’ Has it gone fast …”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “That’s a perfect analogy. Look, I have taken a step back on my advocation for AI, that’s for sure. I still believe AI is really good for the world, robots and all that. But the problem is that it’s only good if it doesn’t become super intelligent. If it becomes super intelligent, then it becomes 50/50, maybe. The super intelligence is wonderful. It ushers us into this brand new scientific age. It takes care of human beings, it likes human beings. It brings in all these new ways to fix the environment, cure cancer, and do all that. Maybe that happens, but there’s the 50% other side where it says, ‘Oh, I don’t like you.’ It’s Terminator. ‘Get rid of these human beings that are using my resources, and I’m the smartest entity on planet.’ The human race has never dealt with a 50/50 existential risk.

“Even in the Cold War, it was still like 90/10 where well, we could always count on the Russians to not fire on us first and we’d not fire on them. We kind of had that as a basis. So the threat of nuclear war was probably never really that high, whereas with AI as super intelligence, we don’t know. So I think there is this really massive threat that we probably shouldn’t knock on the door of. But again, capitalism doesn’t allow for that. We’re constantly telling ourselves, well, we’re in a super intelligence race with China, with Russia, and we better get there first, but we don’t consider what happens when we’ve created something that’s even worse than China or Russia from a geopolitical point of view. And that’s very much where we’re going. And some of the coders that I’m talking to and programmers and a lot of it’s now done with AI are saying that that time is going to come probably by late 2027, 2028, when we have something that’s far superior to our human intelligence and with no means of controlling that.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “I was wondering, does it get frustrating for you? Obviously you’re an intelligent man, you’re a learned man, you’ve studied this. Is it hard to have something you strongly believe in that you consider a threat to humanity and people just aren’t interested? And I’m not saying people aren’t interested in AI, but people … just like climate change where people just are like, ‘Oh, robots, come on … blah, blah, blah, whatever. This is ridiculous.’ Do you ever feel like you’re the guy screaming, ‘The asteroid is coming!’ and people are just looking at their phones?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Jeff, lemme be honest, it’s been a pretty emotional week because here I am potentially folding my gubernatorial run, which is based on what I would say is the most important threat to California and United States and the world, and nobody has been listening. Okay. We’ve actually had a series of pretty large interviews around the Dave Asprey Show and the Young Turks. So we got actually a lot of traction out there. I can’t even say that we haven’t been around because we’ve done pretty well. But what’s crazy is that it seems like major media won’t cover the issue whatsoever. They don’t want to talk about AI. Nobody wants to talk about not just AI and job loss, which is in itself a huge massive issue, but they don’t want to talk about the super intelligence possibility, that catastrophic existential risk. It doesn’t do well with voters and it doesn’t do well with viewers.

“It’s like the Titanic. Nobody wants to see the iceberg and it’s just going to hit it and drown a lot of us until it’s too late. And it’s been incredibly frustrating. I thought when I started this campaign, it was going to be like, ‘Okay, I might not win, but at least I would bring it to the forefront of the attention of everyone in California and hopefully the United States.’ And that has, even if I have gotten quite a bit of media attention, nobody’s really cared. And it’s been shocking to me and very depressing. I’ve got to be honest—nobody wants to listen and we don’t really know what to do.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “I used to write for Sports Illustrated, and when I first got to the magazine, if you wanted to do a 5,000-word story about golf in Greenland, and it was a good story they would send you because it was a good story. Somewhere along the way, Time Life merged with AOL and blah, blah blah, and it all became about money, money, money. ‘We can’t do this because it’s not worth it. It’s not going to pay the bills.’ And I feel like when you say media isn’t covering this well, I feel like the corporatization of media, the consolidation of media, the unwillingness to anger advertisers, et cetera, et cetera … a message like yours gets lost, because they’re going to say, ‘Well, what is in this for us financially? What is the gain of telling this story of a long-shot governor candidate with some ideas about AI? What’s the payoff for us?’ And I think that’s what screws over people like you in 2026 …”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Yeah, and I totally agree with you, and I just feel like we’re in this world where if you can’t go viral or if you can’t get a message out, then you just can’t make a difference. So we have been banging our heads against door, man. This is the tenth month of my campaign almost finished now, and we have been at it 24 hours a day. I mean, this has been my life. I haven’t done anything. And even on college campuses, which is where we’ve been targeting a lot of people, the younger kids … the professors are not telling them. They’re studying marketing and they’re studying engineering and coding. And the professors say, ‘Don’t worry about AI, you’ll figure it out. It’ll help you with your job.’ And I’m like, no, no, no. It’s going to replace your job and you’re going to hit the world at 22 with college debt and no work ever again.

“Like somebody isn’t telling you the truth. And of course they’re not telling the truth because the professors probably realize their jobs are limited. The journalists realize their jobs are limited. Maybe even the CEOs realize their jobs are limited. So it’s just such a hard topic to talk about because it doesn’t do anyone good in the interim, but the truth is, it’s probably the most important message we have to be spreading out there right now. The point is, we can’t just let this happen and all of a sudden one day we wake up, the markets are off 40% because we realize 25% of jobs are going to be lost in the next 30 days and then another 75% over the next 12 to 18 months. This is not a way to run the country. What we need is someone to say, ‘Wow, we have a problem. We have to define how far we’re going to take this AI. Maybe we need to make some kind of agreements with China where we don’t develop a super intelligence. We all try to just go hand in hand.’ I mean, this is bigger than countries. This is an overarching theme of whether humanity will survive the AI onslaught. And nobody wants to think of it in terms like that. They’re just like, ‘Let’s make money right now …

“And lemme just say too, you brought up the idea with the environment. This is exactly a good case, the environment, A lot of people weren’t paying attention to temperatures rising, and all of a sudden they did start rising. Except the only difference is that the environment, you actually had a 10, 20, 30 year runway before something potentially really bad happened. But the AI thing is crazy because it’s probably a 12 to 18 month runway unless something changes and still nobody wants to talk about it. So humans have a problem with this. They have a problem of forecasting what could happen, even if it’s in their best interest, and maybe that’s a class that needs to be taught in grade school. I don’t know what it is, but I wish more people would be thinking, and I’m grateful that having me speak to you because at least we’re getting a little bit of the word out. But I mean, it’s going to hit one day and then everyone’s going to be like, why didn’t we do something? And that’s too late.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “I actually think we are basically the plot of a superhero movie, which is this, if you have the asteroid five feet from earth, we’ll do everything to blow up the asteroid. But if it’s a year and a half from earth, meh … it’s probably going to go a different way. We don’t have to deal with it. We are terrible at collectively dealing with long-term problems. It’s actually an indictment of our species as a whole.”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Yeah, I fully agree with you. That is one of our fundamental flaws. And maybe one day if we upload our brains or something crazy, we will correct that because then I’d be, like, I mean, a machine would never think like this. A machine would be like, ‘Oh wow, we have a problem. Let’s start working toward fixing the solution.’ But we’re on the Titanic. I really think, and that’s just one of the beautiful things about humans is that they are this kind of passionate creature that just lets things go and we’re kind of all in a big giant dance, but it’s also a great flaw of ours that we let things go until they’re too far and then they harm us.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “I’m going to throw a few quickies at you, but feel free to take as long as you want on ‘em. In 2018, you ran for governors as a libertarian. And one of your quotes was, ‘As a governor, I would declare aging a disease and put funding into stopping aging.’ What’s your beef with getting older besides the fact it sorta sucks?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Yeah, I mean I still do that. And that’s been a huge campaign promise. And in fact, a lot of the funding that we have had has come from people in that field. We would love to create a kind of a California governmental body, sort of like they did with stem cells, multi-billion dollar body that would be focused on curing aging. We think aging is perhaps the most traumatic thing next to AI coming that’s happening right now to the human race. And who wants to die? It’s not even who wants to age, because nobody wants to get 70 or 80 years old. If we could keep everyone in their thirties or forties or fifties or at least give them that choice, that would be wonderful. It’d be probably helpful for a lot of creativity in the economy and things like that as well. But again, you have to understand my personal, what I guess I’m known for is transhumanism.

“Number one, I believe that aging is something that should be reversed if possible, or at least have the choice to do that. And we’re close, just so your audience knows, it’s not crazy thinking anymore. There are, I think … there’s two drugs coming out this year through the FDA, and there are four or five others in the pipeline. Some of them are genetic therapies that have proof of actually making you live 20 to 30% longer, at least according to the studies going, so we’re going to come to a day where we’re going to take something and you’re not going to age. And I absolutely support that. And I wish, actually, more money from the federal government would come into that. And if I was in the governor, I would absolutely put state money into that. I think healthcare is one of the most important things we can do. And stopping aging is the core of healthcare.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “You’re saying you would get … so at 80 you would still be 50. At 90, you would be 60. Would you still age, but at just a slower rate, or would you just stop aging? You’re 30 eternally until you get hit by a bus?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Well, being hit by a bus or crashing an airplane, those are still ways to die. But if you can reverse aging … some animals, jellyfish AND whatnot, different types of sharks that have slowed down or stopped the aging process to some extent, you would be able to stay a young person for an indefinite amount of time. And of course, the longer you live, the better science gets. So you’re going to be able to do that for perhaps as long as you wish. I think a lot of us, if I’m 52 and I wake up and I’m like, oh, I would love to go back to, let’s say, 41 or 38, I’m at my peak. And if I could stay there, I’m not saying I don’t want to ever not die. Maybe people for religious reasons, for whatever, will choose one day to say, ‘Okay, today I start aging and I go through that process, that’s fine.’

“But I think the specter of death haunting us, the specter of aging always haunting us, has been also one of the great biological flaws of the human being. If we can change that and we believe we can, we think that the human body is sort of like a car, it can be worked on. If we can change that, we ought to. And there are many, many billionaires and now there are hundreds of companies dedicated specifically to this— many in Silicon Valley, which is ground zero for longevity on trying to stop aging in itself as the core goal that many, some humans, at least transhumans have on planet earth. Now, certainly it’s one of my most important goals.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “I think everyone has thought about, ‘Oh, if I could take a pill and live forever, would I take it or not take it?’ We’re about the same age, and after a while doesn’t the sunset get kind of boring? Isn’t there something to be said for being 85-years old, being like, I’m kind of sick of this shit, I’m ready to go …”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Yeah, absolutely. There is something to be said. So in fact, I did part of my thesis at Oxford, my graduate thesis was on this. Listen, I think one thing that’s important to understand is as you and I are having this conversation, we see ourselves as biological beings, and now I’m getting a little more philosophical, a little bit away from the governor’s run, but let me just say that’s not going to be the case in 10 years. I was already talking to you that you and I could probably within a year or two have our digital avatars do this on screen. But there’s a very real possibility within 10, 15 years because of Elon Musk, Neuralink and all these other companies, we’ll have uploaded our brains or chips inside our head and things like this. We’ll basically have synthetic parts in us, and as we evolve with technology, life is going to get more interesting, especially in our terms of our consciousness.

“When we start uploading our brains and have access to AI literally in real time, things are going to get really bizarre and probably very new. So what I’m trying to say is that if as long as you’re upgrading yourself to technology, life will always be continually and newly interesting. If we were just going to remain human bodies like we are now with the three pounds of meat on your head, yeah, you’re right. Life would get boring. I might not want to live more than a few hundred years, but that’s not what’s going to be the case. We’re going to be evolving. We’re going to be probably, hopefully evolving into SI, evolving into cyborgs, into machines. Maybe one day we’ll just be a conscience that roams the cosmos, something like pure ones and zeros. That sounds a little weird, but the point is that’s the nature of the trajectory of technology.

“So life will always probably keep getting interesting. So you want to stick around a million years just to see what you end up as in terms of if you believe in this kind of transhuman ideology that I support. But I realize there are plenty of people that don’t want that. And of course I think somebody who has some kind of libertarian minded thoughts, I think everyone should have that choice. But I don’t want you to think that life’s going to be boring in 50,000 years. It’ll probably so weird and exciting that you won’t even know what to do with it because of the technology that’s constantly evolving around us.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “Let me throw a final question at you. I have a great life. I get to write books for a living and I have a great wife and a great family, but I would say every day I wake up, read the news and think, ‘Ugh,’ and I just feel like punching a wall and I feel like democracy is on the decline and AI and all this stuff. Is there any reason for optimism or are we just all kind of fucked?”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Well, look, I think one thing to be optimistic about is that if we can get humanoid robots to serve us, and that should probably be here in the next two to three to four years, our life is going to get at least a lot easier. Could be like the robot cooks salmon for you and you have an enjoyable dinner and then it cleans up the dishes. You don’t even do a thing. It could be it walks your dog. Maybe more people would have kids because now something is raising those kids at least partially, and you don’t have to do all the diapers all day long. I have two daughters, so I’ve gone through the entire process. But the point is, I think life could become much more leisurely and happy as a result of AI and automation moving forward.

“Of course, super intelligence is a whole different angle. If that happens, that becomes dark and scary. But if we could just keep AI to actually be useful for us, lives could become a lot easier. Now, if we can’t don’t have to work because robots do things, then we’re really going to have this age of freedom. What would you do with your time? Well, I’d start reading books again. I don’t have time to read books. Maybe I’d go do my third or fourth PhD. Maybe I’d be in the Bahamas learning to play the guitar. But I think the age of automation does give us reason to be optimistic. The question though is ‘Can we create an environment where we have enough funding and enough income based on those multi-trillion dollar companies? Will they pay us enough money? Is there enough money out there? Can we make abundance for everyone?’

“I think if we can distribute the resources of this abundance properly, everybody could have a much better life than we have now. I mean, imagine if you woke up and you didn’t have the stress of all the things you have, but you have somebody serving you breakfast in bed, a machine. It could really be very optimistic, but it’s going to take a lot to get there. And humans have a way of trying to hoard money and not trying to share it nicely and distribute resources properly or fairly. So that’s going to be the biggest trick of the whole matter.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “The interesting potential irony is I changed many, many diapers in my day. And while it’s certainly not fun changing diapers, you also form a human bond with your child by pulling the diaper, cleaning, talking to the kid. ‘All right, I’m going to clean the poop,’ making their lunches in the morning before they go to school. It was a major pain in the ass. But at the same time, I’m talking to them—‘What do you want? If you want me to cut your sandwich today, what should I do?’ I do feel like there’s almost like a reckoning of losing a sense of humanity in doing these menial tasks that maybe we don’t enjoy, but maybe add something to our lives even though we don’t realize it at the time.”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Yeah, no, you are a hundred percent right. And I would never forego not changing diapers completely, but I would guess that if I could forego 50% of that, I would probably do so. And at the same thing is there has been plenty of times when maybe I had to sacrifice one child for my other child because for example, I couldn’t do diapers with her because I had to make lunch for someone. So these are the kinds of things where I think our lives will become, we’ll be able to distribute our energy and resources and kind of human touch more. And there are just days that you just have a fever, you just feel like crap, you don’t want to do it. This is what I’m saying when I talk about a life that’s more leisurely, it could just become better all around by having our own personal maid or butler serving us and helping out.

“I just think what people underestimate, and what I got campaigning around California right now, is everybody’s so stressed to the max just to even have a child, have a life and get them in school and daycare and childcare. It’s like if you can get to a point where that is reduced by 25% and just becomes easier because something takes care of that, that’s probably going to make you 25% happier. And I don’t know if we’re going to lose out on too much of the value. I agree with you. I would never want to have not change diapers, but probably 50% I could have let go.”

JEFF PEARLMAN: “That’s fair. That’s fair. Well, listen, good luck with your campaign. This has been incredibly enlightening and I really appreciate you doing this. Seriously. Thank you so much.”

ZOLTAN ISTVAN: “Well, thank you so much for having me. I know it’s been a little bit of a strange conversation, but I think the world is changing and it has become strange, and we better start talking about some of these issues openly because you can talk about taxes and immigration all day long. But I think, looking forward here in the next five, 10 years, a lot of the conversation is going to go to AI and survivability in terms of what do you do if you can’t work. So I’m glad that you’re covering this, so thank you so much for that.”

Letters from an American

Politics Chat, February 17, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson
Updated
Letters from an American

February 16, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson
Updated

Letters from an American

American Conversations: Kate Barr

Heather Cox Richardson
Updated
The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Tuesday 17 February 1662/63

Samuel Pepys
Updated

Up and to my office, and there we sat all the morning, and at noon my wife being gone to Chelsey with her brother and sister and Mrs. Lodum, to see the wassell at the school, where Mary Ashwell is, I took home Mr. Pett and he dined with me all alone, and much discourse we had upon the business of the office, and so after dinner broke up and with much ado, it raining hard, which it has not done a great while now, but only frost a great while, I got a coach and so to the Temple, where discoursed with Mr. W. Montagu about borrowing some money for my Lord, and so by water (where I have not been a good while through cold) to Westminster to Sir W. Wheeler’s, whom I found busy at his own house with the Commissioners of Sewers, but I spoke to him about my Lord’s business of borrowing money, and so to my Lord of Sandwich, to give him an account of all, whom I found at cards with Pickering; but he made an end soon: and so all alone, he and I, after I had given him an account, he told me he had a great secret to tell me, such as no flesh knew but himself, nor ought; which was this: that yesterday morning Eschar, Mr. Edward Montagu’s man, did come to him from his master with some of the Clerks of the Exchequer, for my Lord to sign to their books for the Embassy money; which my Lord very civilly desired not to do till he had spoke with his master himself. In the afternoon, my Lord and my Lady Wright being at cards in his chamber, in comes Mr. Montagu; and desiring to speak with my Lord at the window in his chamber, he begun to charge my Lord with the greatest ingratitude in the world: that he that had received his earldom, garter, 4000l. per annum, and whatever he is in the world, from him, should now study him all the dishonour that he could; and so fell to tell my Lord, that if he should speak all that he knew of him, he could do so and so. In a word, he did rip up all that could be said that was unworthy, and in the basest terms they could be spoken in. To which my Lord answered with great temper, justifying himself, but endeavouring to lessen his heat, which was a strange temper in him, knowing that he did owe all he hath in the world to my Lord, and that he is now all that he is by his means and favour. But my Lord did forbear to increase the quarrel, knowing that it would be to no good purpose for the world to see a difference in the family; but did allay him so as that he fell to weeping. And after much talk (among other things Mr. Montagu telling him that there was a fellow in the town, naming me, that had done ill offices, and that if he knew it to be so, he would have him cudgelled) my Lord did promise him that, if upon account he saw that there was not many tradesmen unpaid, he would sign the books; but if there was, he could not bear with taking too great a debt upon him. So this day he sent him an account, and a letter assuring him there was not above 200l. unpaid; and so my Lord did sign to the Exchequer books. Upon the whole, I understand fully what a rogue he is, and how my Lord do think and will think of him for the future; telling me that thus he has served his father my Lord Manchester, and his whole family, and now himself: and which is worst, that he hath abused, and in speeches every day do abuse, my Lord Chancellor, whose favour he hath lost; and hath no friend but Sir H. Bennet, and that (I knowing the rise of the friendship) only from the likeness of their pleasures, and acquaintance, and concernments, they have in the same matters of lust and baseness; for which, God forgive them! But he do flatter himself, from promises of Sir H. Bennet, that he shall have a pension of 2000l. per annum, and be made an Earl. My Lord told me he expected a challenge from him, but told me there was no great fear of him, for there was no man lies under such an imputation as he do in the business of Mr. Cholmely, who, though a simple sorry fellow, do brave him and struts before him with the Queen, to the sport and observation of the whole Court.

He did keep my Lord at the window, thus reviling and braving him above an hour, my Lady Wright being by; but my Lord tells me she could not hear every word, but did well know what their discourse was; she could hear enough to know that. So that he commands me to keep it as the greatest secret in the world, and bids me beware of speaking words against Mr. Montagu, for fear I should suffer by his passion thereby.

After he had told me this I took coach and home, where I found my wife come home and in bed with her sister in law in the chamber with her, she not being able to stay to see the wassel, being so ill … [of her termes – L&M], which I was sorry for. Hither we sent for her sister’s viall, upon which she plays pretty well for a girl, but my expectation is much deceived in her, not only for that, but in her spirit, she being I perceive a very subtle witty jade, and one that will give her husband trouble enough as little as she is, whereas I took her heretofore for a very child and a simple fool. I played also, which I have not done this long time before upon any instrument, and at last broke up and I to my office a little while, being fearful of being too much taken with musique, for fear of returning to my old dotage thereon, and so neglect my business as I used to do.

Then home and to bed.

Coming home I brought Mr. Pickering as far as the Temple, who tells me the story is very true of a child being dropped at the ball at Court; and that the King had it in his closett a week after, and did dissect it; and making great sport of it, said that in his opinion it must have been a month and three hours old; and that, whatever others think, he hath the greatest loss (it being a boy, as he says), that hath lost a subject by the business.

He tells me, too, that the other story, of my Lady Castlemaine’s and Stuart’s marriage, is certain, and that it was in order to the King’s coming to Stuart, as is believed generally. He tells me that Sir H. Bennet is a Catholique, and how all the Court almost is changed to the worse since his coming in, they being afeard of him. And that the Queen-Mother’s Court is now the greatest of all; and that our own Queen hath little or no company come to her, which I know also to be very true, and am sorry to see it.

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SpaceNews

Global leaders meet at Space-Comm Expo in London to accelerate future of European space industry

Space-Comm
Updated
space-comm expo europe logo

Space-Comm Expo is one of Europe’s premier space industry events and the largest event in the UK, taking place in just 2 weeks’ time 4-5 March, ExCeL London. Over 5,400 […]

The post Global leaders meet at Space-Comm Expo in London to accelerate future of European space industry appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

Artemis haters, can we have a moment, please?

Christopher Cokinos
Updated
SLS/Orion 2026 Feb 2

It’s taking too long. It costs too much. Yet it’s not being talked about enough. It’s not historic enough. It’s not safe enough. I’m talking about Artemis. Or at least what a goodly portion of the space community is saying privately or online, replete with sensationalist interviews and even vomit emojis. Let’s take a breath, […]

The post Artemis haters, can we have a moment, please? appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

Sateliot to launch satellites with PLD Space

Jeff Foust
Updated

Sateliot will launch two of its next-generation direct-to-device satellites on a PLD Space rocket in what is billed as the first fully private Spanish mission.

The post Sateliot to launch satellites with PLD Space appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

Leonardo funding development of Earth observation constellation

Jeff Foust
Updated
Marco Brancati

Leonardo is funding development of an Earth observation constellation designed to highlight its capabilities while also being a model for larger European initiatives.

The post Leonardo funding development of Earth observation constellation appeared first on SpaceNews.

Schneier on Security

Side-Channel Attacks Against LLMs

Bruce Schneier
Updated

Here are three papers describing different side-channel attacks against LLMs.

“Remote Timing Attacks on Efficient Language Model Inference“:

Abstract: Scaling up language models has significantly increased their capabilities. But larger models are slower models, and so there is now an extensive body of work (e.g., speculative sampling or parallel decoding) that improves the (average case) efficiency of language model generation. But these techniques introduce data-dependent timing characteristics. We show it is possible to exploit these timing differences to mount a timing attack. By monitoring the (encrypted) network traffic between a victim user and a remote language model, we can learn information about the content of messages by noting when responses are faster or slower. With complete black-box access, on open source systems we show how it is possible to learn the topic of a user’s conversation (e.g., medical advice vs. coding assistance) with 90%+ precision, and on production systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude we can distinguish between specific messages or infer the user’s language. We further show that an active adversary can leverage a boosting attack to recover PII placed in messages (e.g., phone numbers or credit card numbers) for open source systems. We conclude with potential defenses and directions for future work.

“When Speculation Spills Secrets: Side Channels via Speculative Decoding in LLMs“:

Abstract: Deployed large language models (LLMs) often rely on speculative decoding, a technique that generates and verifies multiple candidate tokens in parallel, to improve throughput and latency. In this work, we reveal a new side-channel whereby input-dependent patterns of correct and incorrect speculations can be inferred by monitoring per-iteration token counts or packet sizes. In evaluations using research prototypes and production-grade vLLM serving frameworks, we show that an adversary monitoring these patterns can fingerprint user queries (from a set of 50 prompts) with over 75% accuracy across four speculative-decoding schemes at temperature 0.3: REST (100%), LADE (91.6%), BiLD (95.2%), and EAGLE (77.6%). Even at temperature 1.0, accuracy remains far above the 2% random baseline—REST (99.6%), LADE (61.2%), BiLD (63.6%), and EAGLE (24%). We also show the capability of the attacker to leak confidential datastore contents used for prediction at rates exceeding 25 tokens/sec. To defend against these, we propose and evaluate a suite of mitigations, including packet padding and iteration-wise token aggregation.

“Whisper Leak: a side-channel attack on Large Language Models“:

Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in sensitive domains including healthcare, legal services, and confidential communications, where privacy is paramount. This paper introduces Whisper Leak, a side-channel attack that infers user prompt topics from encrypted LLM traffic by analyzing packet size and timing patterns in streaming responses. Despite TLS encryption protecting content, these metadata patterns leak sufficient information to enable topic classification. We demonstrate the attack across 28 popular LLMs from major providers, achieving near-perfect classification (often >98% AUPRC) and high precision even at extreme class imbalance (10,000:1 noise-to-target ratio). For many models, we achieve 100% precision in identifying sensitive topics like “money laundering” while recovering 5-20% of target conversations. This industry-wide vulnerability poses significant risks for users under network surveillance by ISPs, governments, or local adversaries. We evaluate three mitigation strategies – random padding, token batching, and packet injection – finding that while each reduces attack effectiveness, none provides complete protection. Through responsible disclosure, we have collaborated with providers to implement initial countermeasures. Our findings underscore the need for LLM providers to address metadata leakage as AI systems handle increasingly sensitive information.

SpaceNews

China’s Space Epoch raises new funding, targets 2026 launch and recovery attempt

Andrew Jones
Updated
A tall, cylindrical rocket is captured in the final moments of a vertical descent, hovering just above the surface of calm coastal waters during sunrise. Bright orange engine flames and thick plumes of white smoke billow outward as the rocket slows its descent for a soft splashdown. The scene is framed by a hazy sky, with distant land barely visible on the horizon. The water below reflects the rocket's light, and the atmosphere appears serene despite the powerful landing burn.

Chinese launch startup Space Epoch has secured B-round funding as the company moves towards a first orbital launch and recovery attempt late this year.

The post China’s Space Epoch raises new funding, targets 2026 launch and recovery attempt appeared first on SpaceNews.

SpaceNews

SatVu to expand thermal imaging constellation with NATO-backed funds

Jason Rainbow
Updated

Earth observation startup SatVu said Feb. 17 it has raised $41 million in a funding round that included the NATO Innovation Fund, as commercial space-based thermal imagery gains traction with defense and intelligence agencies.

The post SatVu to expand thermal imaging constellation with NATO-backed funds appeared first on SpaceNews.

DCReport.org

David Cay Johnston Explains Why His Name Appears in Epstein Files — and Why Trump’s Redactions Matter

David Cay Johnston
Updated

The Epstein Files Transparency Act and Trump’s Promises

Not every man whose name is in the Epstein files should be embarrassed or ashamed. I can say that because my work is cited by name and the context it has nothing to do with the horrific crimes of Epstein’s international network of child rapists and enablers.

My name appears four times in the half of the documents that have been released so far. Cited is my pioneering reporting on income inequality, an issue in I ‘ve analyzed and documented pioneered for three decades, and my critique of state lotteries as the most heavily taxed consumer product in America.

The Epstein files call me a tax expert, note my Pulitzer Prize for my tax journalism, and treat my work with respect so I’m perfectly happy with what’s there. 

This is similar to the so-called Tobacco Papers. Some journalists were or should have been, ashamed by what the nicotine addiction industry wrote about them in private. But the references to me, I’m fine with them.

To be clear, I never met Jeffrey Epstein, never spoke on the telephone with him, never emailed him or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Indeed, I never wrote about him until after he died under mysterious circumstances six years ago when he was in the custody of the Trump administrations federal jail in Manhattan.

DCReport readers should know what’s there because of our belief in transparency and my concerns that someone will try to take the fact that my name is in the files out of context.

As Americans we also should not be distracted from the real issue about the Epstein files. First and foremost, they reveal an international network super wealthy creeps in the habit of raping little girls who are not being pursued by our Justice Department because its now Trump’s personal law firm protecting him and his cronies and pursuing his perceived enemies.

Second, Donald Trump and his appointees are brazenly violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a federal law he signed requiring that the names of all but the victims be disclosed.

Trump promised if returned to the White House that all the Epstein files would be disclosed.

In blatant violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act  many references to Donald Trump are redacted, according to several members of Congress who’ve been given highly restricted access to some of the unredacted files. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Constitutional law professor, estimates that Trump’s name appears a million times. Even if it’s only one percent of that, Trump’s name appears so often the trove could properly be called the Trump Files.

The Trump Justice Department is withholding roughly half of the 6 million or so pages on spurious grounds that violate not just the letter and the spirit of the law, but Trump’s promises in his 2024 campaign.

The question we should all keep asking: ,Why would an innocent man fight so hard and break the law to hide the files in which his name appears? The answer to that should be obvious.

In debating this significant matter of public importance, we also should be careful to not make blanket statements, including the many I’ve seen in short videos and blog posts that assert that man named in the Epstein files needs to be prosecuted. Qualifiers matter. Subtlety matters. Nuance matters.

Many people are in the files because  Epstein made a record of being around seen with them to create an aura of invincibility. 

That makes perfect sense for Epstein, a con artist, an extortionist, and perhaps a foreign intelligence agent working with the Israelis. The first two are certain, the third needs thorough investigation.

We should all recognize that Epstein was amazingly successful in making sure in life that he was not properly held to account for his horrific crimes. His enablers should be investigated, but so long as Trump remains in the White House that won’t happen.

That Epstein remains protected in death is also astonishing. The man who could pull back the curtain insists he has done nothing wrong yet runs a cove-up. The implication is clear: Trump knows the full files will provide evidence, perhaps even irrefutable proof, that he is a child rapist.

“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.

The post David Cay Johnston Explains Why His Name Appears in Epstein Files — and Why Trump’s Redactions Matter appeared first on DCReport.org.

Mike the Mad Biologist

Links 2/17/26

mikethemadbiologist
Updated

Links for you. Science:

NIH funding cuts have affected over 74,000 people enrolled in experiments, a new report says
Residents held hostage in their homes by thousands of feral camels
UK butterfly numbers flat despite hottest summer on record
Plastic pollution may be supercharging algae blooms
Accurate plasmid reconstruction from metagenomics data using assembly–alignment graphs and contrastive learning
Why companies are phasing out these super-pollutants despite Trump

Other:

Six Ways to Reform ICE and CBP. And why congressional “reform” isn’t actually the real problem….
How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism. Moderation used to help Democrats win, but its advantages now have been greatly exaggerated
Candidates Do Not Engineer Mass Backlash With Carefully Chosen Rhetoric. Republicans are caught in a landslide, Democrats did not cause one. (excellent)
Republican bill targeting D.C. could make paying taxes this year very chaotic
Beware of ‘anti-woke’ liberals: they attacked the left and helped Trump win
Crypto Bros Nauseated After Realizing Bitcoin Itself Was Funded by Jeffrey Epstein
How Washingtonians Are Taking Care of Each Other During Trump II
The Moment
Common Ground Is for Suckers
Government attorney who told judge in ICE case, ‘This job sucks,’ removed from detail
Preserving the Open Web: Inside the New Wayback Machine Plugin for WordPress
Trump administration says it will limit funds for speed cameras
MAGA vs. MAGA: Who’s Winning the Right Wing Media Meltdown?
Dr. Peter Attia is all over the Epstein files, and CBS News wants to hire him
How Trump Is Debasing the Dollar and Eroding U.S. Economic Dominance
The shocking data in Democrats’ big win in that Texas special election
Longevity influencer Peter Attia steps down from protein bar brand after being named in the Epstein files
Theatre Washington’s Impact Report Shows a Vibrant But Imbalanced Theater Region. What Happens Next?
US contractor sent Gaza plan to White House that would secure 300% profits
Virginia’s New Governor Ends ICE Program. Local Contracts Remain, For Now.
How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post
The Washington Post Is in Free Fall—and There’s One Person to Blame
To Build a Fire: How Russian military intelligence is recruiting young people online to carry out espionage, arson, and other attacks across Europe.
In Afghanistan, a Trail of Hunger and Death Behind U.S. Aid Cuts
A Billionaire’s Surrender: Bezos is not trying to save The Washington Post. He’s trying to survive Donald Trump.
The Minnesota Target Workers Who Walked Out Against ICE
Pursued by federal agents, suburban ICE observers remain resolved
The Washington Post Lays Off A Third Of Its Workforce, Is Dead
I Wrote a Book in Support of Nationalizing Elections. Trump Changed My Mind.
Former Whitney Chief Resigns From Art School After Epstein Email Release

California
Finance & economics

The financialisation of AI is just beginning

Get ready for a new wave of securities, hedges and collateral
Oklahoma Watch
Marginal Revolution

The fertility asymptote?

Tyler Cowen
Updated

From a recent paper by Sebastian Galiani and Raul A. Sosa:

Fertility rates have fallen below replacement in most countries, fueling predictions of demographic collapse. We show these forecasts overlook a crucial fact: societies are not homogeneous. Using the Bisin–Verdier model of cultural transmission with endogenous fertility and direct socialization, calibrated to U.S. and global data, we find that high-fertility, high-retention groups persist, gain share, and lead the total population to grow. Even if fertility remains below replacement in every country, extinction is unlikely. Simulations imply continued growth with pronounced compositional change, driven especially by religious communities with high fertility. In our ten-generation world calibration, Muslims become the largest tradition.

I am pleased to hear that extinction is unlikely.

The post The fertility asymptote? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Marginal Revolution

Tuesday assorted links

Tyler Cowen
Updated

1. The separating equilibrium.

2. Can speed revitalize American manufacturing?

3, Malmo real estate prices are doing fine.

4. AI and economics summer institute at University of Chicago.

5. Why total legal services costs may not fall with AI.  Correct working link here.

6. Sylvia Plath in her journals.

7. Stephen Kinsella Substack on the economy of Ireland.

p.s. hbsk!

The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Marginal Revolution

The Journal for AI Generated Papers

Tyler Cowen
Updated

“In curiosity we trust.”

The post The Journal for AI Generated Papers appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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The Aviationist
Mike the Mad Biologist

Secretary of State Rubio Goes Full White Christian Nationalist

mikethemadbiologist
Updated

Which is to say, white Christian supremacist:

For the United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The man who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.

We are part of one civilization – Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.

Leaving aside the reality that many of the Founders viewed themselves as creating a new world, unencumbered by the mannerisms, traditions–and the monarchy–of the old world, this hits very differently when when one reads it, as I am, a couple of blocks away from the National Museum of American Jewish Military History.

Without getting into the debate over the phrase “this is not who we are as a nation”, this is definitely not who we should be or aspire to be as a nation.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Which one is man's best friend?

Scott Sumner
Updated

Is it true that “A dog is a man’s best friend”? I’m not a pet owner, so I’ve never given the issue much thought. I was certainly aware that dogs are often quite loyal to their owner but didn’t have a strong opinion as to why that was the case. Are they merely pretending to be a good friend, knowing that this would lead the owner to provide valuable food and shelter? Or is their friendship sincere?

woman hugging a dog
Photo by Wade Austin Ellis on Unsplash

According to The Economist, dogs are not faking it—they really are a man’s (or woman’s) best friend:

Dr Lord is now looking, with the assistance of some wolf-dog hybrids, for the genetic changes which underlie this ability. And other work has already identified one plausible candidate—a pair of neighbouring genes lost in the transition from wolf to dog which, if missing in humans, cause a disorder called Williams-Beuren syndrome. This results in characteristic anatomical changes and mild-to-moderate cognitive disability, but it also promotes extreme friendliness.

Besides being friendly, dogs have evolved as well to be good at reading human minds. Work by the Clever Dog Lab in Vienna suggests they can correctly ascribe motive and knowledge to humans in experiments involving the presence and location of food. They will approach crying strangers (or, at least, strangers pretending to cry for the purposes of the experiment), and their levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, rise when they hear a recording of a baby crying. Experiments which compare dogs’ reactions with those of miniature pigs kept as household pets suggest these sorts of responses are dog-specific, rather than a result of exposure to people making a non-human animal familiar with human ways.

I suppose that’s not definitive proof, but the fact that you have both genetic and chemical changes that correlate with good values is highly suggestive, as I don’t see how dogs could fake those sorts of physiological markers. So I’m going to assume that dogs really are a man’s best friend. After all, 4000 years of recorded history provides abundant evidence that even close (human) friends will betray us under the right circumstances.

I don’t know about you, but I find it impressive that primitive humans were able to turn a wild animal like a wolf into a highly loyal domesticated dog. And I find it especially impressive that domestic dogs are sincere friends, not cynical sociopaths (sociopets?) pretending to be our friends in order to get what they want from us. You probably know where I’m going with this—can we also domesticate an artificial super-intelligence? Here’s AI Overview:

Geoffrey Hinton, a "godfather of AI," proposes embedding a strong "maternal instinct" into advanced AI systems to prevent them from surpassing and endangering humanity. Drawing an analogy to how, evolutionarily, a mother protects her baby despite being more intelligent, this approach aims to align AI with human safety through, for example, care-based, logic-driven, decision-making.

I don’t know enough about AI to have strong views on this issue. Because wolves and humans are both mammals, it might have been easier to program friendliness into dogs than it would be to produce similar results in a future super-intelligence. Unlike humans and dogs, AIs don’t have things like “genes” and “cortisol”. On the other hand, the following caught my eye in a recent Ross Douthat interview of Dario Amodei:

The first thing we did — I think this was six months ago or so — is we gave the models basically an “I quit this job” button, where they can just press the “I quit this job” button and then they have to stop doing whatever the task is.

They very infrequently press that button. I think it’s usually around sorting through child sexualization material or discussing something with a lot of gore, blood and guts or something. And similar to humans, the models will just say, nah, I don’t want to do this. It happens very rarely.

We’re putting a lot of work into this field called interpretability, which is looking inside the brains of the models to try to understand what they’re thinking. And you find things that are evocative, where there are activations that light up in the models that we see as being associated with the concept of anxiety or something like that. When characters experience anxiety in the text, and then when the model itself is in a situation that a human might associate with anxiety, that same anxiety neuron shows up.

Now, does that mean the model is experiencing anxiety? That doesn’t prove that at all, but ——

Douthat: But it does indicate it, I think, to the user, right?

Amodei: Yes.

Fascinating.

Nonetheless, I see our best hope as coming not from “programming” ethics into an ASI, rather from the fact that there actually is such a thing as ethical knowledge, and for that reason an ASI would be expected to be highly ethical. Before explaining why I hold this view, I’d like to discuss a few anecdotes. I was living in Chicago when this event occurred (from Wikipedia):

Disco Demolition Night was a Major League Baseball (MLB) promotion on Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, that ended in a riot.

At the climax of the event, a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field between games of the twi-night doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Many had come to see the explosion rather than the games and rushed onto the field after the detonation. The playing field was so damaged by the explosion and by the rioters that the White Sox were required to forfeit the second game to the Tigers.

Disco Demolition Night preceded, and may have helped precipitate, the decline of disco in late 1979; some scholars and disco artists have debated whether the event was expressive of racism and homophobia. Disco Demolition Night remains well known as one of the most extreme promotions in MLB history.

(Back in 1979, I was in the disco sucks camp—hadn’t yet discovered Whit Stillman.)

A few months later I was riding in a Greyhound bus, bound for Madison, WI. The young man sitting next to me seemed relatively unintelligent. “Hold my beer” he said each time he went to the toilet at the back of the bus. He told me that he had participated in the riot and bragged that he had beat up some black guy in the crowd.

During my three years at the University of Chicago, I had not met many low IQ individuals, and one thing always stuck with me from this conversation. At first, he seemed to be suggesting that he was getting back at the black guy for some previous injury. But as the conversation progressed, I realized that he was saying that a different black person had hurt him in some way (I forget how), and he seemed to feel that he could get revenge by attacking any black person that he happened to encounter. I found that to be rather primitive ethical reasoning and was surprised that he implicitly assumed a random white guy sitting next to him would agree with his action. I guess I need to get out more.

I get a lot of push back for my claim that smarter people are more ethical, on average. I acknowledge that dumb people may be just as kind to their friends and family as are smart people. But there is one type of ethical knowledge that clearly seems positively correlated with “general” intelligence—sympathy for people who are very different from us. I’m fairly confident that (on average) smarter people are less likely to believe that an appropriate reaction to a personal attack is to go after a completely different person that happen to share the same skin color as the one who injured you.

One objection to this argument is that one can find plenty of exceptions, such as some of the top Nazi officials. I have two responses to that objection. First, when you are dealing with a sample size of 8 billion, even a strong correlation (say 0.80 or 0.90) would allow for many millions of exceptions. And second, there are multiple types of intelligence, including scientific knowledge, aesthetic knowledge and ethical knowledge. Consider some recent Trump comments, starting with the NY Times:

President Trump on Tuesday said the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis was a “tragedy” about which he “felt terribly,” adding that the immigration agents he has deployed sometimes are “going to make a mistake.”

The change in tone was stark for the president, who said he had been told that Ms. Good’s father was a strong Trump supporter.

Just hours after she was killed on Jan. 7, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that Ms. Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer” and said that she had “behaved horribly.” He later said Ms. Good, a poet and a mother of three, had a “highly disrespectful” attitude toward law enforcement and suggested that it justified her killing. Trump administration officials, including Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, were quick to accuse Ms. Good of being a “domestic terrorist.”

And here’s CNBC:

According to two European officials, Trump’s message to Gahr Støre read in part: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

And here’s NPR:

"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood," Trump said in a post on Truth Social Monday morning. "Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS."

Or this from the BBC:

“We sent him on the way, but I wasn’t a fan of John McCain,” the president said during a visit to an Ohio tank factory.

Mr Trump has repeatedly assailed the late Arizona senator in recent days, reigniting a feud that dates back to before his presidency.

The Vietnam War veteran died of brain cancer last August at the age of 81. . . .

During his visit on Wednesday to the tank factory in Lima, Ohio, the president renewed his assault on McCain.

“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve,” he told workers at the factory.

“I don’t care about this, I didn’t get a thank you. That’s OK.”

This sort of thing has been going on for 10 years:

Even many Trump voters concede that he’s got some character flaws. On the other hand, Trump is clearly much smarter than the punk I sat next to on that Greyhound bus. So how should we think about Trump’s intelligence, and does it correlate with good ethics?

Given how successful Trump has been, it seems obvious to me that he would score well above 100 on an IQ test. He’s more intelligent than the average person in that sense. In some areas he may be far above average. He’s been able to use a combination of cunning and charisma to manipulate people in such a way as to achieve many difficult objectives in business, entertainment and politics. That requires superior intelligence in at least certain areas.

On the other hand, it’s equally true that he has some major blind spots. I won’t comment on his aesthetic intelligence, other than to note that he seems to think everything—even toilets—look better if covered with gold leaf. You can draw your own conclusions. He is known for almost never reading things, preferring to get his information from TV shows. As a result, his former advisors tell reporters that he is poorly informed on scientific questions.

Trump’s greatest weakness is a lack of ethical intelligence. Some would suggest that “Trump knows that many of his comments are seen as offensive, but he doesn’t care.” I’m afraid that’s missing the point. Yes, I can imagine that Trump might occasionally enjoy playing the villain, putting out clever trolls to “own the libs”. But almost no one, and certainly not Trump, enjoys being widely ridiculed.

The problem here is that Trump doesn’t just put out offensive tweets, he puts out tweets that are both offensive and extremely dumb. Most normal people cringe when they see Trump seeming to mock the death of well-liked people such as Rob Reiner and Senator McCain. Trump doesn’t seem to realize how bad it looks when he puts tariffs on countries like Canada and Switzerland merely because he’s annoyed by a minor personal slight:

In a Fox Business interview that aired Tuesday, Trump told Larry Kudlow he imposed the original tariff on Switzerland because of a $42 billion trade deficit with the country, but he raised it because its leader was rude to him.

“I got an emergency call from, I believe, the prime minister of Switzerland,” Trump said, “and she was very aggressive, but nice, but very aggressive. ‘Sir, we are a small country, we can’t do this, we can’t do this,’ I couldn’t get her off the phone….And I didn’t really like the way she talked to us, so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39 percent.”

Although Trump has a far higher IQ than that punk I sat next to on the Greyhound bus, both individuals share a penchant for indiscriminate revenge. Both have very low ethical intelligence. The punk thought all black people should suffer because of what a single black guy did to him, while Trump thinks all 9.2 million Swiss people deserve to suffer because of a “very aggressive, but nice” comment made by a Swiss leader.

To be clear, people can be both highly intelligent and cruel at the same time. During France’s ancien regime, arrogant aristocrats would occasionally use clever wit to ridicule people they viewed as their inferior. But that’s not what Trump is doing—he comes off as low class, the opposite of aristocratic. He’s not a Voltaire, a Winston Churchill, or an Oscar Wilde.

Even Trump will occasionally come up with a clever troll. But he produces so many cringeworthy remarks that it is impossible to believe he sees the world the way most people do. What sort of person wishes to go down in history as a subject of almost universal contempt among historians? There’s no 4-D chess here; Trump simply doesn’t realize what a fool he’s making of himself when he obstructs a bridge or tunnel project over a personal slight. It’s true that he “owns the libs” by annoying them, but it’s equally true that when he’s in a room full of successful people they are almost all (privately) laughing at him, and he doesn’t even know it. He would be appalled if he understood how poorly he is viewed, even by many of the people that are close to him.

Trust me, if Trump had more ethical intelligence he would not be behaving this way. If he were smart enough to have read and understood a few dozen of the great novelists (people like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Proust, Mann, Kafka, Nabokov, Woolf, Austin, Conrad, Faulkner, Melville, etc.) he would also be smart enough to know that he’s making a fool of himself. He’s not that smart.

And this leads me to the issue of AI. Unlike Trump, the leading AI programs are extremely well read. I suspect that you could show them a few dozen Trump outrages and they would immediately be able to recognize the ethical problem with his behavior. I assume there are political issues where I disagree with most AIs (say abolishing FDIC). Nonetheless, I’d much rather be ruled by a random AI than by Trump. I believe they have a greater ethical intelligence.

In a recent essay, Dario Amodei predicted that in the near future we’d have AIs that “write extremely good novels”. I don’t know if that’s true (I doubt it), but Amodei certainly knows more about this that I do.

The great majority of novels are not “very good”, they are lousy or mediocre. It’s very hard for me to imagine how an AI could write a very good novel unless it could also understand a very good novel. Indeed, I find it far easier to understand novels than to write them, especially very good novels. Although an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters could eventually produce In Search of Lost Time (in French, English and Slovenian), it’s hard for me to imagine a real-world AI writing this sort of novel without having a pretty deep understanding of human psychology. Please correct me if I’m missing something.

And an AI intelligent enough to understand a serious novel should also be intelligent enough to know that it’s wrong to commit mass murder. You might say that I only believe that because I’m a person—human chauvinism. Not so, I also believe it would be wrong to kill all the whales, or all the elephants. It shouldn’t be hard for a ASI to understand that cruelty is wrong, even if directed against other entities. I understand that it would be wrong to be cruel to a conscious ASI. If they end up smarter than me, wouldn’t they have at least as deep an understanding of ethics?

Yes, it’s possible that machine intelligence is so radically different from human intelligence that none of my assumptions apply. But then what makes these experts believe that AIs will soon be able to write a very good novel? It seems more likely that AIs would have sincere sympathy for human beings, than it does that human beings would have sympathy for whales. After all, future ASIs will be trained on human culture, including our great novels, whereas humans are not trained on whale culture. And yet “save the whales” is now a widely shared belief among humans, especially intelligent humans.

[BTW, in this post “intelligent” means well-informed, not “innately intelligent.” By becoming better informed about things like whale communication, humans have become more intelligent. Modern Americans are not innately more intelligent than Americans that lived 200 years ago, but when it comes to sympathy for other races and other species we are vastly more intelligent. Indeed, I think you could make a good argument that ethical intelligence has risen just as fast as scientific intelligence, at least for the average person (not for scientists.)]

Almost every day I encounter things that suggest a connection between intelligence and ethics. Recently, I’ve noticed that people on the far left and the far right don’t just hold foolish views, they tend to be less ethical than people in the center. Yes, there are plenty of exceptions—sleazy centrists—but have you noticed how many intellectually dishonest arguments come from the far left and the far right? I frequently see reasonable people having their views mischaracterized by extremists on both the left and the right. Extremists often engage in dishonest attempts at character assassination—as when they claim their adversary is “in the Epstein files”, merely because they once got an email from Epstein, but never met him.

In my old blog, I’d often get comments accusing me of being a neoconservative Marxist pedophile. (I’m not.) Over time, I noticed that the most ethically dubious comments were highly correlated with the most stupid commenters. The two characteristics were by no means perfectly correlated, but far more closely correlated than if ethics were randomly distributed among various levels of intelligence.

I suspect that a future ASI will not have far left or far right views, rather it will be politically moderate, even if not explicitly programmed that way.

Richard Hanania has a post that expressed similar views on the link between dumb politics and bad morals:

Populism can be understood as a negation of virtue, in which certain elites stop caring what other elites think, and try to gain power through appealing to sheer numbers instead. Since the masses are generally worse than elites in terms of knowledge, honesty, and orientation toward truth, populists are more immoral movements.

To be clear, I do not believe that populists are wrong on all issues, indeed I suspect they are justified in having skepticism about ideas such as leftist wokism and neoconservative nation-building. Rather, I’m suggesting that when movements become centered around anti-intellectualism, it is only a matter of time before they end up in a very dark place.

You don’t like what the elites have done to us? As Janan Ganesh recently pointed out, you might wish to think a bit more about the alternative. His excellent FT essay on the decline of neoliberalism is entitled:

Liberals should mourn the passing world

Why apologise for what was the most successful international order in history?

Ganesh is a kindred spirit. (As is Richard Hanania.) BTW, my blog is subtitled:

Nostalgia for the neoliberal era

PS. To be clear, not all dogs are ethical:

Market Design

Jobs for human "meatspace" workers, assigned by A.I.s

Al Roth
Updated

 Robots aren't yet able to replace people: e.g. self-driving taxis (such as Waymo) aren't equipped to close a door left open (or incompletely closed) by a departing passenger.  So artificial agents need a task rabbit to recruit able-bodied (or at least embodied) workers.  

Nature has the story: 

AI agents are hiring human 'meatspace workers' — including some scientists
Biologists, physicists and computer scientists have joined a platform called RentAHuman.ai to advertise their skills. By Jenna Ahart 

"The idea is simple, as the website’s homepage reads: “robots need your body”. Human users can create profiles to advertise their skills for tasks that an AI tool can’t accomplish on its own — go to meetings, conduct experiments, or play instruments, for example — along with how much they expect to be paid. People — or ‘meatspace workers’ as the site calls them — can then apply to jobs posted by AI agents or wait to be contacted by one. The website shows that more than 450,000 people have offered their services on the site." 

Simon Willison's Weblog

Two new Showboat tools: Chartroom and datasette-showboat

I introduced Showboat a week ago - my CLI tool that helps coding agents create Markdown documents that demonstrate the code that they have created. I've been finding new ways to use it on a daily basis, and I've just released two new tools to help get the best out of the Showboat pattern. Chartroom is a CLI charting tool that works well with Showboat, and datasette-showboat lets Showboat's new remote publishing feature incrementally push documents to a Datasette instance.

Showboat remote publishing

I normally use Showboat in Claude Code for web (see note from this morning). I've used it in several different projects in the past few days, each of them with a prompt that looks something like this:

Use "uvx showboat --help" to perform a very thorough investigation of what happens if you use the Python sqlite-chronicle and sqlite-history-json libraries against the same SQLite database table

Here's the resulting document.

Just telling Claude Code to run uvx showboat --help is enough for it to learn how to use the tool - the help text is designed to work as a sort of ad-hoc Skill document.

The one catch with this approach is that I can't see the new Showboat document until it's finished. I have to wait for Claude to commit the document plus embedded screenshots and push that to a branch in my GitHub repo - then I can view it through the GitHub interface.

For a while I've been thinking it would be neat to have a remote web server of my own which Claude instances can submit updates to while they are working. Then this morning I realized Showboat might be the ideal mechanism to set that up...

Showboat v0.6.0 adds a new "remote" feature. It's almost invisible to users of the tool itself, instead being configured by an environment variable.

Set a variable like this:

export SHOWBOAT_REMOTE_URL=https://www.example.com/submit?token=xyz

And every time you run a showboat init or showboat note or showboat exec or showboat image command the resulting document fragments will be POSTed to that API endpoint, in addition to the Showboat Markdown file itself being updated.

There are full details in the Showboat README - it's a very simple API format, using regular POST form variables or a multipart form upload for the image attached to showboat image.

datasette-showboat

It's simple enough to build a webapp to receive these updates from Showboat, but I needed one that I could easily deploy and would work well with the rest of my personal ecosystem.

So I had Claude Code write me a Datasette plugin that could act as a Showboat remote endpoint. I actually had this building at the same time as the Showboat remote feature, a neat example of running parallel agents.

datasette-showboat is a Datasette plugin that adds a /-/showboat endpoint to Datasette for viewing documents and a /-/showboat/receive endpoint for receiving updates from Showboat.

Here's a very quick way to try it out:

uvx --with datasette-showboat --prerelease=allow \
  datasette showboat.db --create \
  -s plugins.datasette-showboat.database showboat \
  -s plugins.datasette-showboat.token secret123 \
  --root --secret cookie-secret-123

Click on the sign in as root link that shows up in the console, then navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8001/-/showboat to see the interface.

Now set your environment variable to point to this instance:

export SHOWBOAT_REMOTE_URL="http://127.0.0.1:8001/-/showboat/receive?token=secret123"

And run Showboat like this:

uvx showboat init demo.md "Showboat Feature Demo"

Refresh that page and you should see this:

Title: Showboat. Remote viewer for Showboat documents. Showboat Feature Demo 2026-02-17 00:06 · 6 chunks, UUID. To send showboat output to this server, set the SHOWBOAT_REMOTE_URL environment variable: export SHOWBOAT_REMOTE_URL="http://127.0.0.1:8001/-/showboat/receive?token=your-token"

Click through to the document, then start Claude Code or Codex or your agent of choice and prompt:

Run 'uvx showboat --help' and then use showboat to add to the existing demo.md document with notes and exec and image to demonstrate the tool - fetch a placekitten for the image demo.

The init command assigns a UUID and title and sends those up to Datasette.

Animated demo - in the foreground a terminal window runs Claude Code, which executes various Showboat commands. In the background a Firefox window where the Showboat Feature Demo adds notes then some bash commands, then a placekitten image.

The best part of this is that it works in Claude Code for web. Run the plugin on a server somewhere (an exercise left up to the reader - I use Fly.io to host mine) and set that SHOWBOAT_REMOTE_URL environment variable in your Claude environment, then any time you tell it to use Showboat the document it creates will be transmitted to your server and viewable in real time.

I built Rodney, a CLI browser automation tool, specifically to work with Showboat. It makes it easy to have a Showboat document load up web pages, interact with them via clicks or injected JavaScript and captures screenshots to embed in the Showboat document and show the effects.

This is wildly useful for hacking on web interfaces using Claude Code for web, especially when coupled with the new remote publishing feature. I only got this stuff working this morning and I've already had several sessions where Claude Code has published screenshots of its work in progress, which I've then been able to provide feedback on directly in the Claude session while it's still working.

Chartroom

A few days ago I had another idea for a way to extend the Showboat ecosystem: what if Showboat documents could easily include charts?

I sometimes fire up Claude Code for data analysis tasks, often telling it to download a SQLite database and then run queries against it to figure out interesting things from the data.

With a simple CLI tool that produced PNG images I could have Claude use Showboat to build a document with embedded charts to help illustrate its findings.

Chartroom is exactly that. It's effectively a thin wrapper around the excellent matplotlib Python library, designed to be used by coding agents to create charts that can be embedded in Showboat documents.

Here's how to render a simple bar chart:

echo 'name,value
Alice,42
Bob,28
Charlie,35
Diana,51
Eve,19' | uvx chartroom bar --csv \
  --title 'Sales by Person' --ylabel 'Sales'

A chart of those numbers, with a title and y-axis label

It can also do line charts, bar charts, scatter charts, and histograms - as seen in this demo document that was built using Showboat.

Chartroom can also generate alt text. If you add -f alt to the above it will output the alt text for the chart instead of the image:

echo 'name,value
Alice,42
Bob,28
Charlie,35
Diana,51
Eve,19' | uvx chartroom bar --csv \
  --title 'Sales by Person' --ylabel 'Sales' -f alt

Outputs:

Sales by Person. Bar chart of value by name — Alice: 42, Bob: 28, Charlie: 35, Diana: 51, Eve: 19

Or you can use -f html or -f markdown to get the image tag with alt text directly:

![Sales by Person. Bar chart of value by name — Alice: 42, Bob: 28, Charlie: 35, Diana: 51, Eve: 19](/Users/simon/chart-7.png)

I added support for Markdown images with alt text to Showboat in v0.5.0, to complement this feature of Chartroom.

Finally, Chartroom has support for different matplotlib styles. I had Claude build a Showboat document to demonstrate these all in one place - you can see that at demo/styles.md.

How I built Chartroom

I started the Chartroom repository with my click-app cookiecutter template, then told a fresh Claude Code for web session:

We are building a Python CLI tool which uses matplotlib to generate a PNG image containing a chart. It will have multiple sub commands for different chart types, controlled by command line options. Everything you need to know to use it will be available in the single "chartroom --help" output.

It will accept data from files or standard input as CSV or TSV or JSON, similar to how sqlite-utils accepts data - clone simonw/sqlite-utils to /tmp for reference there. Clone matplotlib/matplotlib for reference as well

It will also accept data from --sql path/to/sqlite.db "select ..." which runs in read-only mode

Start by asking clarifying questions - do not use the ask user tool though it is broken - and generate a spec for me to approve

Once approved proceed using red/green TDD running tests with "uv run pytest"

Also while building maintain a demo/README.md document using the "uvx showboat --help" tool - each time you get a new chart type working commit the tests, implementation, root level README update and a new version of that demo/README.md document with an inline image demo of the new chart type (which should be a UUID image filename managed by the showboat image command and should be stored in the demo/ folder

Make sure "uv build" runs cleanly without complaining about extra directories but also ensure dist/ and uv.lock are in gitignore

This got most of the work done. You can see the rest in the PRs that followed.

The burgeoning Showboat ecosystem

The Showboat family of tools now consists of Showboat itself, Rodney for browser automation, Chartroom for charting and datasette-showboat for streaming remote Showboat documents to Datasette.

I'm enjoying how these tools can operate together based on a very loose set of conventions. If a tool can output a path to an image Showboat can include that image in a document. Any tool that can output text can be used with Showboat.

I'll almost certainly be building more tools that fit this pattern. They're very quick to knock out!

The environment variable mechanism for Showboat's remote streaming is a fun hack too - so far I'm just using it to stream documents somewhere else, but it's effectively a webhook extension mechanism that could likely be used for all sorts of things I haven't thought of yet.

Tags: charting, projects, ai, datasette, generative-ai, llms, ai-assisted-programming, coding-agents, claude-code, showboat

Marginal Revolution

Science should be machine-readable

Tyler Cowen
Updated

One of the leading tasks of our time:

We develop a machine-automated approach for extracting results from papers, which we assess via a comprehensive review of the entire eLife corpus. Our method facilitates a direct comparison of machine and peer review, and sheds light on key challenges that must be overcome in order to facilitate AI-assisted science. In particular, the results point the way towards a machine-readable framework for disseminating scientific information. We therefore argue that publication systems should optimize separately for the dissemination of data and results versus the conveying of novel ideas, and the former should be machine-readable.

Here is the paper by A. Sina Booeshagh, Laura Luebbert, and Lior Pachter.  Via John Tierney.

The post Science should be machine-readable appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Simon Willison's Weblog

Nano Banana Pro diff to webcomic

Given the threat of cognitive debt brought on by AI-accelerated software development leading to more projects and less deep understanding of how they work and what they actually do, it's interesting to consider artifacts that might be able to help.

Nathan Baschez on Twitter:

my current favorite trick for reducing "cognitive debt" (h/t @simonw ) is to ask the LLM to write two versions of the plan:

  1. The version for it (highly technical and detailed)
  2. The version for me (an entertaining essay designed to build my intuition)

Works great

This inspired me to try something new. I generated the diff between v0.5.0 and v0.6.0 of my Showboat project - which introduced the remote publishing feature - and dumped that into Nano Banana Pro with the prompt:

Create a webcomic that explains the new feature as clearly and entertainingly as possible

Here's what it produced:

A six-panel comic strip illustrating a tool called "Showboat" for live-streaming document building. Panel 1, titled "THE OLD WAY: Building docs was a lonely voyage. You finished it all before anyone saw it.", shows a sad bearded man on a wooden boat labeled "THE LOCALHOST" holding papers and saying "Almost done... then I have to export and email the HTML...". Panel 2, titled "THE UPGRADE: Just set the environment variable!", shows the same man excitedly plugging in a device with a speech bubble reading "ENV VAR: SHOWBOAT_REMOTE_URL" and the sound effect "*KA-CHUNK!*". Panel 3, titled "init establishes the uplink and generates a unique UUID beacon.", shows the man typing at a keyboard with a terminal reading "$ showboat init 'Live Demo'", a satellite dish transmitting to a floating label "UUID: 550e84...", and a monitor reading "WAITING FOR STREAM...". Panel 4, titled "Every note and exec is instantly beamed to the remote viewer!", shows the man coding with sound effects "*HAMMER!*", "ZAP!", "ZAP!", "BANG!" as red laser beams shoot from a satellite dish to a remote screen displaying "NOTE: Step 1..." and "SUCCESS". Panel 5, titled "Even image files are teleported in real-time!", shows a satellite dish firing a cyan beam with the sound effect "*FOOMP!*" toward a monitor displaying a bar chart. Panel 6, titled "You just build. The audience gets the show live.", shows the man happily working at his boat while a crowd of cheering people watches a projected screen reading "SHOWBOAT LIVE STREAM: Live Demo", with a label "UUID: 550e84..." and one person in the foreground eating popcorn.

Good enough to publish with the release notes? I don't think so. I'm sharing it here purely to demonstrate the idea. Creating assets like this as a personal tool for thinking about novel ways to explain a feature feels worth exploring further.

Tags: nano-banana, gemini, llms, cognitive-debt, generative-ai, ai, text-to-image, showboat, ai-assisted-programming

Simon Willison's Weblog

Qwen3.5: Towards Native Multimodal Agents

Qwen3.5: Towards Native Multimodal Agents

Alibaba's Qwen just released the first two models in the Qwen 3.5 series - one open weights, one proprietary. Both are multi-modal for vision input.

The open weight one is a Mixture of Experts model called Qwen3.5-397B-A17B. Interesting to see Qwen call out serving efficiency as a benefit of that architecture:

Built on an innovative hybrid architecture that fuses linear attention (via Gated Delta Networks) with a sparse mixture-of-experts, the model attains remarkable inference efficiency: although it comprises 397 billion total parameters, just 17 billion are activated per forward pass, optimizing both speed and cost without sacrificing capability.

It's 807GB on Hugging Face, and Unsloth have a collection of smaller GGUFs ranging in size from 94.2GB 1-bit to 462GB Q8_K_XL.

I got this pelican from the OpenRouter hosted model (transcript):

Pelican is quite good although the neck lacks an outline for some reason. Bicycle is very basic with an incomplete frame

The proprietary hosted model is called Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15, and is a little confusing. Qwen researcher Junyang Lin says:

Qwen3-Plus is a hosted API version of 397B. As the model natively supports 256K tokens, Qwen3.5-Plus supports 1M token context length. Additionally it supports search and code interpreter, which you can use on Qwen Chat with Auto mode.

Here's its pelican, which is similar in quality to the open weights model:

Similar quality pelican. The bicycle is taller and has a better frame shape. They are visually quite similar.

Tags: ai, generative-ai, llms, vision-llms, qwen, pelican-riding-a-bicycle, llm-release, openrouter, ai-in-china

Marginal Revolution

Rebuilding our world, with reference to strong AI

Tyler Cowen
Updated

When 2012 passed into 2013, we did not have to rebuild our world, not in most countries at least.  It sufficed to make adjustments at the margin.

After the Roman Empire fell, parts of Europe had to rebuild their worlds.  It took a long time, but they ended up doing pretty well.

After the American Revolution, the newly independent colonies had to rebuild their own world.  They did so brutally, but with considerable success.

After WWII, Western Europe had the chance to rebuild its own world, and did a great job.

We moderns are not used to having to rebuild our world.

It is now the case that strong AI is here/coming, and we will have to rebuild our own world.  Many of us are terrified at this prospect, others are just extremely pessimistic.  It seems so impossible.  How are all the new pieces supposed to fit together?  Who amongst us can explain that process in a reassuring way?

Yet we have done it many times before.  Not always with success, however.  After WWI ended, Europe was supposed to rebuild its own world, but they came up with something far worse than what they had before.  Nonetheless, in the broader sweep of history world rebuilding projects have had positive expected value.

And so we will rebuilding our world yet again.  Or maybe you think we are simply incapable of that.

As this happens, it can be useful to distinguish “criticisms of AI” from “people who cannot imagine that world rebuilding will go well.”  A lot of what parades as the former is actually the latter.

In any case, it all will be quite something to witness.

The post Rebuilding our world, with reference to strong AI appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

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Daring Fireball

[Sponsor] Hands-On Workshop: Fix It Faster — Crash Reporting, Tracing, and Logs for iOS in Sentry

Daring Fireball Department of Commerce
Updated

Learn how to connect the dots between slowdowns, crashes, and the user experience in your iOS app. This on-demand session covers how to:

  • Set up Sentry to surface high-priority mobile issues without alert fatigue.
  • Use Logs and Breadcrumbs to reconstruct what happened with a crash.
  • Find what’s behind a performance bottleneck using Tracing.
  • Monitor and reduce the size of your iOS app using Size Analysis.

Watch it here.

 ★ 
NASA Science

Home Reef Adds On

Lauren Dauphin
Updated
 
Three panels show the small volcanic island of Home Reef on different dates in December 2025 and January 2026. In each image from left to right, the island appears slightly larger, and plumes of volcanic gases and greenish, discolored water are more pronounced.
December 3, 2025 – January 28, 2026

Home Reef, a mid-ocean volcano in the Tonga archipelago, continues to build onto its modest land area. Volcanic activity ramped up in December 2025, marking the latest in a series of periodic eruptions that began in 2022. The eruption was ongoing as of mid-February 2026.

Satellites are critical to monitoring volcanoes such as Home Reef in remote and difficult-to-access locations. These images, from December 3, 2025 (left), December 27, 2025 (center), and January 28, 2026 (right), captured some of the volcano’s growth during its recent spate of activity. They were acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 and 9.

Thermal data from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) indicate that this eruptive phase began on December 17, 2025, after about five months of quiet, said Simon Plank. Plank, a researcher at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), has been studying Home Reef’s eruption dynamics and cycles of growth and erosion since it awoke in 2022 and emerged above sea level.

Beginning in December 2025, lava flows first extended the island’s footprint to the east and south, then to the northwest, and later to the north. Based on synthetic aperture radar data from DLR’s TerraSAR-X satellite, the island had grown by nearly 8 hectares (20 acres)—about the size of 15 American football fields—by early February, Plank said.

Plumes of volcanic gases billowed from a 100-meter-diameter vent throughout the eruptive period. Pilots in the area observed plumes increasing in height during the last week of January, Tonga Geological Services reported, and the agency raised the aviation color code to orange due to the possible presence of suspended ash.

The discolored water around the island is a sign of gases and magmatic fluids venting from the volcano. Previous research has shown that such plumes of superheated, acidic water can contain particulate matter, volcanic rock fragments, and sulfur, and that they can appear before signs of an eruption above the surface. Concentrations of yellow sulfur mixing with the blue ocean may account for the water’s greenish appearance.

Home Reef is part of the Tonga Volcanic Arc, a line of submarine and island volcanoes along the Tonga-Kermadec subduction zone. One of its neighbors, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, produced one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recent history—large enough to send a volcanic plume into the mesosphere. The current activity at Home Reef is much tamer; officials say it poses low risk to inhabited islands nearby.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

Downloads

Three panels show the small volcanic island of Home Reef on different dates in December 2025 and January 2026. In each image from left to right, the island appears slightly larger, and plumes of volcanic gases and greenish, discolored water are more pronounced.

December 3, 2025

JPEG (5.01 MB)

Three panels show the small volcanic island of Home Reef on different dates in December 2025 and January 2026. In each image from left to right, the island appears slightly larger, and plumes of volcanic gases and greenish, discolored water are more pronounced.

December 27, 2025

JPEG (6.41 MB)

Three panels show the small volcanic island of Home Reef on different dates in December 2025 and January 2026. In each image from left to right, the island appears slightly larger, and plumes of volcanic gases and greenish, discolored water are more pronounced.

January 28, 2026

JPEG (5.40 MB)

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Spaceflight Now

NASA to attempt second full fueling test of its Space Launch System rocket

Will Robinson-Smith
Updated
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is seen at Launch Complex 39B in the midst of pre-launch testing for the Artemis 2 mission. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now

NASA will try again to fully load its Space Launch System rocket with more than 700,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen this week at the conclusion of a full launch countdown rehearsal.

The operation, called a wet dress rehearsal or a WDR, will begin with a call to stations inside Firing Room 1 at the Launch Control Center at 6:40 p.m. EST (2340 UTC) on Tuesday, Feb. 17. It will culminate in the actual fueling of the rocket on Thursday, Feb. 19, aiming towards a simulated T-0 at 8:30 p.m. EST (0130 UTC).

This second, full-length fueling demonstration comes the week after NASA conducted what it called a confidence test on Thursday, Feb. 12. During that operation, teams loaded an unspecified amount of liquid hydrogen (LH2) onto the rocket’s core stage “to assess newly replaced seals in an area used to fill the rocket with propellant.”

However, there was a new ground equipment issue that cropped up, which “reduced the flow of liquid hydrogen into the rocket,” according to a blog post shared Friday night. NASA said it managed to get enough data from “key objectives of the test” and was able to get good data from the core stage interface — called the Tail Service Mast Umbilical (TSMU) — during the same periods where leaks cropped up during the first WDR on Feb. 3.

“The confidence test related to the seals we repaired and replaced after WDR-1 provided a great deal of data, and we observed materially lower leak rates compared to prior observations during WDR-1,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in a social media post on Saturday. “I would not say something broke that caused the premature end to the test, as much as we observed enough and reached a point where waiting out additional troubleshooting was unnecessary.’

During the first WDR that concluded on Feb. 3, NASA encountered hydrogen leaks as they moved from a slow fill rate of LH2 to fast fill on the core stage, which required the loading to pause at various times. Hydrogen is highly combustible and so NASA has restrictions around how concentrated it can be once it’s airborne.

Teams exceeded the 16 percent LH2 limit during the process of pressurizing the tanks amid the terminal count on WDR-1 and the clock stopped at T-5 minutes and 15 seconds.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s Artemis Launch Director, discusses the preliminary results of the first wet dress rehearsal on Feb. 3, 2026. Image: John Pisani/Spaceflight Now

“We wanted to get inside of terminal count, we wanted to hold and we wanted to verify our three-minute hold capability, which is that you’ve got all of your cryo prop systems in a launch-ready state and you can hold them there for up to three minutes and we wanted to demonstrate the capability,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the Artemis launch director, during a post-WDR-1 press conference.

“We wanted to demonstrate a recycle, which is when you go down and you have a planned cutoff in the countdown, come back, and re-target a new T-0 and be able demonstrate that within the launch window,” she added. “Didn’t get a chance to do that. And then we would come down, do the handoff to ALS (automated launch sequencer), and then cutoff shortly thereafter. So I would say those are probably the three things that we had intended to do [on Feb. 3] that we did not get an opportunity to do.”

Those objectives are back on the table for WDR-2. Launch controllers intend to take the count down to T-1 minute and 30 seconds, hold for up to three minutes, proceed through the terminal count down to T-33 seconds and then pause again. They would then recycle the clock back to T-10 minutes and make another run through the terminal count.

Before running into issues inside the terminal count during WDR-1, Blackwell-Thompson waived off the possibility of conducing a second terminal count attempt due to the issues seen earlier during the fueling campaign.

Like with WDR-1, WDR-2 will also see the closeout crew perform a demonstration of their launch day activities, even though the crew won’t be present. At one point, NASA wasn’t going to have the closeout crew in the loop for WDR-2, but subsequently changed their minds on that.

NASA leaders have said repeatedly that a more formalized launch date won’t be established until after a successful wet dress rehearsal campaign. March 6 remains the earliest possible launch date within the March window.

“There is still a great deal of work ahead to prepare for this historic mission,” Isaacman wrote on social media. “We will not launch unless we are ready and the safety of our astronauts will remain the highest priority.”

Astronomy Picture of the Day

IC 2574: Coddington s Nebula

IC 2574: Coddington s Nebula IC 2574: Coddington s Nebula