Peter Mandelson is a very strong appointment in my view. Possibly the best call Sir Keir has made.
Does it matter
It's not absolutely top rank but, in fairness, Ambassador to the US is pretty significant in terms of navigating the next four years.
We need to avoid economic harm, protect careful intelligence sharing, build a working relationship with Trump's wider team on the more sane side.
I think it's a strong appointment: like him or loathe him, Mandelson is a heavy hitter.
During the Blair years it was always said that his greatest ambition was to be foreign secretary but in the current circumstances this could be even better. He’ll be more influential than Lammy.
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
I'm away and haven't followed any of this but for one of the worst muck spreaders on here to want privacy just about takes the biscuit. if anyone doesn't want their opinions on white babies or similar published to a wider audience maybe they could moderate their posts. Or discuss them on Stormfront with like minded posters
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
I'm away and haven't followed any of this but for one of the worst muck spreaders on here to want privacy just about takes the biscuit. if anyone doesn't want their opinions on white babies or similar published to a wider audience maybe they could moderate their posts. Or discuss them on Stormfront with like minded posters
Should we doxx you for your views on polanksi and child sodomy roger?
I am not Roger, though I did meet him in a Nottingham pub once. He is charming and witty in real life too.
We all have some peculiar views. There are even Radiohead fans on here.
It's entirely appropriate that we should be discussing Leon's real-world identity on a thread about Gödel with a side order of Shrödinger and a Soufflé Heisenberg for dessert (perhaps). There is no real world. Once you understand that it all makes perfect sense.
Meanwhile, in "turned out nice again" news, there have been a couple of UK records for wind generated power in the last week or so- about 22.5 MW, so about half our teatime peak demand, and close to out nightwatch minimum.
Has something new been connected to the grid? It hasn't felt that blowy out there.
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
I'm away and haven't followed any of this but for one of the worst muck spreaders on here to want privacy just about takes the biscuit. if anyone doesn't want their opinions on white babies or similar published to a wider audience maybe they could moderate their posts. Or discuss them on Stormfront with like minded posters
I've always thought anonymous comments on the internet are a bad idea.
Why?
Just don't see the point of it. Most letters published in newspapers used to include the writers' name. Only occasionally would it be withheld.
Because people have relevant comments to make that they cant make if their boss gets wind of it. For example foxy making a comment about his health trust which is not complimentary, a teacher making a comment about ofsted or the dfe....dont be thick
While I often disparage wider health policy from all parties, I never knock my own Trust. It's not perfect, but I do have faith in our Senior Management Team. They have to deal with massively competing priorities, egotistical Consultants, and a significant overspend, and generally do it well.
I see water bills are going up again.Could anyone explain to me why, apart from selling the family silver, water was a) privatised and b) sold, and secondly why the companies need to run (presumably) expensive TV ads?
1) Misguided dogma that a private monopoly is any better than a state one. 2)Thatcher needed the cash for whatever at the time (see also council housing sale proceeds and N Sea oil. 3)The ads are to persuade you that the nice overseas owners deserve being bailed out with our cash.
That do ?
Major investment required - especially around leaks and water quality.
Which *was* delivered (see the timing of % leak reductions in eg England vs Scotland which got onto the issue approx. 15 years later), but after the first period (decade?) the regulator has been too weak.
Many years ago, I had an opportunity to take a cruise, on a company tanker (smallish, specialist, diesel carrier I think), round the North Cape to the Yenisey (I think to the port of Dudinka). Should have gone.
Is there still the sector of discounted and comfortable international travel on commercial ships?
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
I'm away and haven't followed any of this but for one of the worst muck spreaders on here to want privacy just about takes the biscuit. if anyone doesn't want their opinions on white babies or similar published to a wider audience maybe they could moderate their posts. Or discuss them on Stormfront with like minded posters
I've always thought anonymous comments on the internet are a bad idea.
Why?
Just don't see the point of it. Most letters published in newspapers used to include the writers' name. Only occasionally would it be withheld.
Because people have relevant comments to make that they cant make if their boss gets wind of it. For example foxy making a comment about his health trust which is not complimentary, a teacher making a comment about ofsted or the dfe....dont be thick
While I often disparage wider health policy from all parties, I never knock my own Trust. It's not perfect, but I do have faith in our Senior Management Team. They have to deal with massively competing priorities, egotistical Consultants, and a significant overspend, and generally do it well.
I am not saying you should knock them, my point was if something dodgy was happening if you are posting as dr realname you are less likely to mention it than if you are posting anonymously
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
I'm away and haven't followed any of this but for one of the worst muck spreaders on here to want privacy just about takes the biscuit. if anyone doesn't want their opinions on white babies or similar published to a wider audience maybe they could moderate their posts. Or discuss them on Stormfront with like minded posters
I've always thought anonymous comments on the internet are a bad idea.
Why?
Just don't see the point of it. Most letters published in newspapers used to include the writers' name. Only occasionally would it be withheld.
Because people have relevant comments to make that they cant make if their boss gets wind of it. For example foxy making a comment about his health trust which is not complimentary, a teacher making a comment about ofsted or the dfe....dont be thick
While I often disparage wider health policy from all parties, I never knock my own Trust. It's not perfect, but I do have faith in our Senior Management Team. They have to deal with massively competing priorities, egotistical Consultants, and a significant overspend, and generally do it well.
From your previous comments, they do sound one if the better ones.
Btw, any eye specialists here ?
Just learned I also have Fuch’s dystrophy (corneal problem), which complicates the decision on a cataract operation a bit. Was planning to have that done at the same time as the vitrectomy.
Musk isn't going to last much into next year as co-president imho.
Can't be long before this co-president/bros "arrangement" with Trump where Musk makes decisions and Trump goes along with them becomes the butt of TV jokes and is raised in focus groups.
I see water bills are going up again.Could anyone explain to me why, apart from selling the family silver, water was a) privatised and b) sold, and secondly why the companies need to run (presumably) expensive TV ads?
1) Misguided dogma that a private monopoly is any better than a state one. 2)Thatcher needed the cash for whatever at the time (see also council housing sale proceeds and N Sea oil. 3)The ads are to persuade you that the nice overseas owners deserve being bailed out with our cash.
That do ?
Major investment required - especially around leaks and water quality.
Which *was* delivered (see the timing of % leak reductions in eg England vs Scotland which got onto the issue approx. 15 years later), but after the first period (decade?) the regulator has been too weak.
My preferred model (FWIW) would be public ownership of the assets, and competitive bidding for the management of their operation.
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
I'm away and haven't followed any of this but for one of the worst muck spreaders on here to want privacy just about takes the biscuit. if anyone doesn't want their opinions on white babies or similar published to a wider audience maybe they could moderate their posts. Or discuss them on Stormfront with like minded posters
I've always thought anonymous comments on the internet are a bad idea.
Why?
Just don't see the point of it. Most letters published in newspapers used to include the writers' name. Only occasionally would it be withheld.
Because people have relevant comments to make that they cant make if their boss gets wind of it. For example foxy making a comment about his health trust which is not complimentary, a teacher making a comment about ofsted or the dfe....dont be thick
While I often disparage wider health policy from all parties, I never knock my own Trust. It's not perfect, but I do have faith in our Senior Management Team. They have to deal with massively competing priorities, egotistical Consultants, and a significant overspend, and generally do it well.
I am not saying you should knock them, my point was if something dodgy was happening if you are posting as dr realname you are less likely to mention it than if you are posting anonymously
Yes, potentially so. It is useful to have anonymous views at times.
For example when the Times doxxed NightJack we lost one of the most interesting blogs on the Internet.
Fundamentally Labour has a PR problem. Get Alastair Campbell in before it is too late.
Yes. I think Labour are being destroyed far more than they expected to be this quickly by a seriously effective opposition. By which I mean something rather more amorphous than the Conservative party, but by cross echoes from Twitter / US, the traditional media, Reform, Russian bots, commentators and the like. The traditional PCP is probably fourth or fifth on the list.
It is in opposition where you see how utterly ruthless the right is, from siding with fascists on Two Tier Keir, to the take down of Rachel's fairly normally timed budget and niggling at business confidence in the run up. I mean pretty much everyone on here must know the whole Rachel from Accounts thing is horseshit on stilts*, yet people are parroting it anyway.
Labour's PR has not moved from opposition mode, which they were very good at, to government mode and they do need to do so quickly in a serious way. And it is full scale wartime PR that is needed, rebuttal, counter misinformation, the works. It was said the Finns had worked out how to handle misinformation, but I've not heard much on that lately. In any case, I wonder if they need a full on military style party PR function of the type Zelensky has.
* the standing up of a new, large complaints team suggests it was to do with one of the misselling scandals, mid 00s PIP was well underway so endowment mortgages springs to mind as something that was going on there. Likely something whose handling was likely to have substantial bearing on the overall bottom line of the bank, perhaps some in the bank already knew it was existential. And understanding of the economics of stock markets within that team would have been relevant, alongside legal, to how things were going to be settled. There is a theme - this tends to hit female politicians, and how females backstab each other tends to be different from how males do it - the doing down of Rachel feels to me like the work of another woman. (the same could be said of Louise Haigh, though she was probably more bang to rights)
Very astute - great points made. I wonder also whether Labour are missing the likes of Owen Jones/Momentum who were actually not bad at pumping out left wing stuff which got views/some traction.
The Gateshead Flyover shambles continues (for non locals this is the main dual carriageway approach to the Tyne Bridge from the south which is closed, possibly forever, due to structural problems) with the Metro off in Newcastle City Centre as a result of following the road underground, or something.
Country is falling to bits
Hasn't Anabob explained yet that Gateshead is actually part of Edinburgh?
More seriously, I was planning to explain to Sabre Roads that it should be simply removed and a park created, as I just suggested to the Auto Shenangians channel about the Coventry Ring Road, but my style is cramped by the road traffic stats data website being offline.
In Nottingham we are gradually cutting out Maid Marian way - 4-6 lane urban dual carriageway - after the traffic on it fell by 40% in 20 years.
I was in Nottingham for the first time recently. I laughed when I saw what the dual carriageway was called. And laughed again when I saw the statue of Robin Hood in front of the "castle". Otherwise the place didn't seem too bad from what I could make out from a brief inspection.
Walk from the castle to the Old Market Square: nice early 18th century, nice early 18th century, HORRIBLE BRUTALIST RING ROAD, nice early 18th century, nice city centre. I'm glad they're doing something about MMW. They are a bit daft about Robin Hood in Nottingham, mind. Very possessive. I remember the disquiet when Doncaster elected to name its airport after him. Not a happy Nottingham.
I may still have a half of (a spare one of) Robin Hood's bronze bow somewhere, as dad was once commissioned to make some spares out of grp as the real ones kept getting nicked.
Quite right to to be possessive, too - bloody cheek of it. Robin Hood is Nottingham, or Edwin's Toe.
The problem is that no one notable ever came from Sheffield, which is where the airport is located - apart from my mum.
The Peter Stringfellow Airport, or Emily Maitlis Airport, doesn't quite measure up.
Wasn't Robin Hood Sir Robin of Loxley? Loxley being a suburb of Sheffield?
Something is gping drastically wrong with dementia in this country. We have the second highest age standardised death rate in the world. Yes we are a high latitude country but other high latitude countries like germany have death rates a fraction of ours.
Our demented patients are dying faster, or simply of different causes?
Reality looks like this
That top line follows age / demographics very closely. Current median age (2023):
It - 48.1 Es - 46.3 De - 46.7 Fr - 42.4 Ch - 44.0 NL - 42.2 Be - 41.9 GB - 40.6
The difference in prediction look in part like a weighting from recent large immigration eg Merkel's MIllion from Syria in 2015.
Fundamentally Labour has a PR problem. Get Alastair Campbell in before it is too late.
Yes. I think Labour are being destroyed far more than they expected to be this quickly by a seriously effective opposition. By which I mean something rather more amorphous than the Conservative party, but by cross echoes from Twitter / US, the traditional media, Reform, Russian bots, commentators and the like. The traditional PCP is probably fourth or fifth on the list.
It is in opposition where you see how utterly ruthless the right is, from siding with fascists on Two Tier Keir, to the take down of Rachel's fairly normally timed budget and niggling at business confidence in the run up. I mean pretty much everyone on here must know the whole Rachel from Accounts thing is horseshit on stilts*, yet people are parroting it anyway.
Labour's PR has not moved from opposition mode, which they were very good at, to government mode and they do need to do so quickly in a serious way. And it is full scale wartime PR that is needed, rebuttal, counter misinformation, the works. It was said the Finns had worked out how to handle misinformation, but I've not heard much on that lately. In any case, I wonder if they need a full on military style party PR function of the type Zelensky has.
* the standing up of a new, large complaints team suggests it was to do with one of the misselling scandals, mid 00s PIP was well underway so endowment mortgages springs to mind as something that was going on there. Likely something whose handling was likely to have substantial bearing on the overall bottom line of the bank, perhaps some in the bank already knew it was existential. And understanding of the economics of stock markets within that team would have been relevant, alongside legal, to how things were going to be settled. There is a theme - this tends to hit female politicians, and how females backstab each other tends to be different from how males do it - the doing down of Rachel feels to me like the work of another woman. (the same could be said of Louise Haigh, though she was probably more bang to rights)
Very astute - great points made. I wonder also whether Labour are missing the likes of Owen Jones/Momentum who were actually not bad at pumping out left wing stuff which got views/some traction.
Hm. But the Tories were also consistently attacked from across the board. Governments are.
Labour often tend to assume everyone attacking the Tories are really sympathetic to Labour, even if they don't say so explicitly. That they are not is coming as something if a shock to them.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
I see water bills are going up again.Could anyone explain to me why, apart from selling the family silver, water was a) privatised and b) sold, and secondly why the companies need to run (presumably) expensive TV ads?
1) Misguided dogma that a private monopoly is any better than a state one. 2)Thatcher needed the cash for whatever at the time (see also council housing sale proceeds and N Sea oil. 3)The ads are to persuade you that the nice overseas owners deserve being bailed out with our cash.
That do ?
Major investment required - especially around leaks and water quality.
Which *was* delivered (see the timing of % leak reductions in eg England vs Scotland which got onto the issue approx. 15 years later), but after the first period (decade?) the regulator has been too weak.
But no private investor puts in money out of the goodness of their heart -- they do it because they expect to get it back with a profit on top in future. So it's just moving in to the future the time that the government and/or water bill payers have to shell out. If the government wants to get money now to improve infrastructure and pay for it in the future they have a mechanism for doing that -- they can borrow money, generally at pretty decent rates. So the question really is "why was privatisation preferred to borrow-to-invest in this case?".
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5048431-rand-paul-elon-musk-speaker/ … The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress . . . ,” Paul wrote. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).” Later Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she would be open to supporting Musk to replace Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a post quoting Paul. “I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency,” Greene wrote on X. “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way,” she added.…
I'm wondering whether some of the thicker Republicans may have thought that it effectively gives them an extra vote, given how Trump has wrecked his own majority in Congress until the special elections are held for the Congress Members he has yanked out for his administration.
A speaker who is a Congress Member retains their right to vote.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
But, Google still has way too many guardrails. Have you tried Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental? Great, wow, all those tokens - but if you say a rude word it shuts down. Major issue
Fundamentally Labour has a PR problem. Get Alastair Campbell in before it is too late.
Yes. I think Labour are being destroyed far more than they expected to be this quickly by a seriously effective opposition. By which I mean something rather more amorphous than the Conservative party, but by cross echoes from Twitter / US, the traditional media, Reform, Russian bots, commentators and the like. The traditional PCP is probably fourth or fifth on the list.
It is in opposition where you see how utterly ruthless the right is, from siding with fascists on Two Tier Keir, to the take down of Rachel's fairly normally timed budget and niggling at business confidence in the run up. I mean pretty much everyone on here must know the whole Rachel from Accounts thing is horseshit on stilts*, yet people are parroting it anyway.
Labour's PR has not moved from opposition mode, which they were very good at, to government mode and they do need to do so quickly in a serious way. And it is full scale wartime PR that is needed, rebuttal, counter misinformation, the works. It was said the Finns had worked out how to handle misinformation, but I've not heard much on that lately. In any case, I wonder if they need a full on military style party PR function of the type Zelensky has.
* the standing up of a new, large complaints team suggests it was to do with one of the misselling scandals, mid 00s PIP was well underway so endowment mortgages springs to mind as something that was going on there. Likely something whose handling was likely to have substantial bearing on the overall bottom line of the bank, perhaps some in the bank already knew it was existential. And understanding of the economics of stock markets within that team would have been relevant, alongside legal, to how things were going to be settled. There is a theme - this tends to hit female politicians, and how females backstab each other tends to be different from how males do it - the doing down of Rachel feels to me like the work of another woman. (the same could be said of Louise Haigh, though she was probably more bang to rights)
Very astute - great points made. I wonder also whether Labour are missing the likes of Owen Jones/Momentum who were actually not bad at pumping out left wing stuff which got views/some traction.
Hm. But the Tories were also consistently attacked from across the board. Governments are.
Labour often tend to assume everyone attacking the Tories are really sympathetic to Labour, even if they don't say so explicitly. That they are not is coming as something if a shock to them.
I think the last govt could count on the Mail, Express, Telegraph to be reliably supportive whatever the story.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
Fundamentally Labour has a PR problem. Get Alastair Campbell in before it is too late.
Yes. I think Labour are being destroyed far more than they expected to be this quickly by a seriously effective opposition. By which I mean something rather more amorphous than the Conservative party, but by cross echoes from Twitter / US, the traditional media, Reform, Russian bots, commentators and the like. The traditional PCP is probably fourth or fifth on the list.
It is in opposition where you see how utterly ruthless the right is, from siding with fascists on Two Tier Keir, to the take down of Rachel's fairly normally timed budget and niggling at business confidence in the run up. I mean pretty much everyone on here must know the whole Rachel from Accounts thing is horseshit on stilts*, yet people are parroting it anyway.
Labour's PR has not moved from opposition mode, which they were very good at, to government mode and they do need to do so quickly in a serious way. And it is full scale wartime PR that is needed, rebuttal, counter misinformation, the works. It was said the Finns had worked out how to handle misinformation, but I've not heard much on that lately. In any case, I wonder if they need a full on military style party PR function of the type Zelensky has.
* the standing up of a new, large complaints team suggests it was to do with one of the misselling scandals, mid 00s PIP was well underway so endowment mortgages springs to mind as something that was going on there. Likely something whose handling was likely to have substantial bearing on the overall bottom line of the bank, perhaps some in the bank already knew it was existential. And understanding of the economics of stock markets within that team would have been relevant, alongside legal, to how things were going to be settled. There is a theme - this tends to hit female politicians, and how females backstab each other tends to be different from how males do it - the doing down of Rachel feels to me like the work of another woman. (the same could be said of Louise Haigh, though she was probably more bang to rights)
Very astute - great points made. I wonder also whether Labour are missing the likes of Owen Jones/Momentum who were actually not bad at pumping out left wing stuff which got views/some traction.
Hm. But the Tories were also consistently attacked from across the board. Governments are.
Labour often tend to assume everyone attacking the Tories are really sympathetic to Labour, even if they don't say so explicitly. That they are not is coming as something if a shock to them.
I think the last govt could count on the Mail, Express, Telegraph to be reliably supportive whatever the story.
It was getting an absolute kicking from the Telegraph on a daily basis.
But the views of the press are pretty marginal nowadays.
What has surprised me about this government has been the ambivalence to it of the Guardian and the BBC.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Peter Mandelson is a very strong appointment in my view. Possibly the best call Sir Keir has made.
Does it matter
It's not absolutely top rank but, in fairness, Ambassador to the US is pretty significant in terms of navigating the next four years.
We need to avoid economic harm, protect careful intelligence sharing, build a working relationship with Trump's wider team on the more sane side.
I think it's a strong appointment: like him or loathe him, Mandelson is a heavy hitter.
During the Blair years it was always said that his greatest ambition was to be foreign secretary but in the current circumstances this could be even better. He’ll be more influential than Lammy.
Influential with who?
It's Republicans we really need to be working on, particularly Reaganite ones like Rubio and Kellogg. What does Mandelson bring to the table? Undoubted political skills but someone who likes the limelight and more of a player than a supporter. Not really an Ambassador.
And wasn't the current Ambassador said to be doing really well and happy to carry on?
@Leon yes, agree that Google need to loosen up a bit, I'm not advocating that they should allow porn or deepfakes to be made but accepting prompts with slightly rude or mean language should be available. I think they will eventually ease up but it could be a while, Google doesn't have a free speech approach and will be dragged into it kicking and screaming by Grok/Elon Musk just as he forced YouTube to host videos that aren't aligned with Google's political values.
Fundamentally Labour has a PR problem. Get Alastair Campbell in before it is too late.
Yes. I think Labour are being destroyed far more than they expected to be this quickly by a seriously effective opposition. By which I mean something rather more amorphous than the Conservative party, but by cross echoes from Twitter / US, the traditional media, Reform, Russian bots, commentators and the like. The traditional PCP is probably fourth or fifth on the list.
It is in opposition where you see how utterly ruthless the right is, from siding with fascists on Two Tier Keir, to the take down of Rachel's fairly normally timed budget and niggling at business confidence in the run up. I mean pretty much everyone on here must know the whole Rachel from Accounts thing is horseshit on stilts*, yet people are parroting it anyway.
Labour's PR has not moved from opposition mode, which they were very good at, to government mode and they do need to do so quickly in a serious way. And it is full scale wartime PR that is needed, rebuttal, counter misinformation, the works. It was said the Finns had worked out how to handle misinformation, but I've not heard much on that lately. In any case, I wonder if they need a full on military style party PR function of the type Zelensky has.
* the standing up of a new, large complaints team suggests it was to do with one of the misselling scandals, mid 00s PIP was well underway so endowment mortgages springs to mind as something that was going on there. Likely something whose handling was likely to have substantial bearing on the overall bottom line of the bank, perhaps some in the bank already knew it was existential. And understanding of the economics of stock markets within that team would have been relevant, alongside legal, to how things were going to be settled. There is a theme - this tends to hit female politicians, and how females backstab each other tends to be different from how males do it - the doing down of Rachel feels to me like the work of another woman. (the same could be said of Louise Haigh, though she was probably more bang to rights)
Very astute - great points made. I wonder also whether Labour are missing the likes of Owen Jones/Momentum who were actually not bad at pumping out left wing stuff which got views/some traction.
Hm. But the Tories were also consistently attacked from across the board. Governments are.
Labour often tend to assume everyone attacking the Tories are really sympathetic to Labour, even if they don't say so explicitly. That they are not is coming as something if a shock to them.
I think the last govt could count on the Mail, Express, Telegraph to be reliably supportive whatever the story.
It was getting an absolute kicking from the Telegraph on a daily basis.
But the views of the press are pretty marginal nowadays.
What has surprised me about this government has been the ambivalence to it of the Guardian and the BBC.
It's almost as if the BBC is trying to fulfil it's mission. Fancy that!
Peter Mandelson is a very strong appointment in my view. Possibly the best call Sir Keir has made.
Does it matter
It's not absolutely top rank but, in fairness, Ambassador to the US is pretty significant in terms of navigating the next four years.
We need to avoid economic harm, protect careful intelligence sharing, build a working relationship with Trump's wider team on the more sane side.
I think it's a strong appointment: like him or loathe him, Mandelson is a heavy hitter.
During the Blair years it was always said that his greatest ambition was to be foreign secretary but in the current circumstances this could be even better. He’ll be more influential than Lammy.
Influential with who?
It's Republicans we really need to be working on, particularly Reaganite ones like Rubio and Kellogg. What does Mandelson bring to the table? Undoubted political skills but someone who likes the limelight and more of a player than a supporter. Not really an Ambassador.
And wasn't the current Ambassador said to be doing really well and happy to carry on?
Influential in setting British foreign policy. For example Mandelson's view on the question of how to balance relations with the US and EU will be more important than Lammy's.
@Leon yes, agree that Google need to loosen up a bit, I'm not advocating that they should allow porn or deepfakes to be made but accepting prompts with slightly rude or mean language should be available. I think they will eventually ease up but it could be a while, Google doesn't have a free speech approach and will be dragged into it kicking and screaming by Grok/Elon Musk just as he forced YouTube to host videos that aren't aligned with Google's political values.
Yeah, in the end they will have no choice. This is a pure example of Darwinian, free market capitalism. All the major US tech giants going toe to toe, PLUS the Chinese coming in, with a real chance, and swinging for a KO
Fascinating and exhilarating
And where is Europe in all this? Fucking nowhere. Mistral is kinda OK but no one cares, at least the UK has DeepMind which is driving much of the Google surge, so we have a kind of influence, and involvement, but modest
Germany? Nothing. Spain? Nothing. Scandinavia? Nothing. Italy? Zilch. It's incredible to see a supposedly advanced developed mature economic chunk of the world - the EU - simply overtaken and made irrelevant. It reminds me of China in about 1800, still with their clever exams and their big canals, unaware that the British are making mighty MACHINES
Something is gping drastically wrong with dementia in this country. We have the second highest age standardised death rate in the world. Yes we are a high latitude country but other high latitude countries like germany have death rates a fraction of ours.
Our demented patients are dying faster, or simply of different causes?
Reality looks like this
That graph doesnt add up. Italy has a very low death rate from dementia. No comparison to the uk.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Apple Intelligence is a simplified version GPT in a local running wrapper. It's shit because Apple doesn't have a specialist AI division like Google that has been implementing it for a decade and integrating it into their processes for 5+ years. Apple's own AI is probably 5-7 years behind Google and I actually think one of the reasons Google have gone so hard with Gemini this time is to get Apple on board for iPhone 17 onwards so Apple reach feature parity with Pixel phones. Apple are said to be very, very unhappy at how lame Apple intelligence has turned out and Google getting onto Apple phones will keep their search advertising income stream going for another decade.
Peter Mandelson is a very strong appointment in my view. Possibly the best call Sir Keir has made.
Does it matter
It's not absolutely top rank but, in fairness, Ambassador to the US is pretty significant in terms of navigating the next four years.
We need to avoid economic harm, protect careful intelligence sharing, build a working relationship with Trump's wider team on the more sane side.
I think it's a strong appointment: like him or loathe him, Mandelson is a heavy hitter.
During the Blair years it was always said that his greatest ambition was to be foreign secretary but in the current circumstances this could be even better. He’ll be more influential than Lammy.
Influential with who?
It's Republicans we really need to be working on, particularly Reaganite ones like Rubio and Kellogg. What does Mandelson bring to the table? Undoubted political skills but someone who likes the limelight and more of a player than a supporter. Not really an Ambassador.
And wasn't the current Ambassador said to be doing really well and happy to carry on?
Influential in setting British foreign policy. For example Mandelson's view on the question of how to balance relations with the US and EU will be more important than Lammy's.
Can't we just sack the entire Labour Front Bench and have Lord Mandelbrot as PM and he can hand choose his Cabinet? I bet it would be 5000% better than the chancers, dummies and time servers we have now. No way Mandelborg would have done the insane Chagos deal, which doesn't even fucking work
@Leon yes, agree that Google need to loosen up a bit, I'm not advocating that they should allow porn or deepfakes to be made but accepting prompts with slightly rude or mean language should be available. I think they will eventually ease up but it could be a while, Google doesn't have a free speech approach and will be dragged into it kicking and screaming by Grok/Elon Musk just as he forced YouTube to host videos that aren't aligned with Google's political values.
Yeah, in the end they will have no choice. This is a pure example of Darwinian, free market capitalism. All the major US tech giants going toe to toe, PLUS the Chinese coming in, with a real chance, and swinging for a KO
Fascinating and exhilarating
And where is Europe in all this? Fucking nowhere. Mistral is kinda OK but no one cares, at least the UK has DeepMind which is driving much of the Google surge, so we have a kind of influence, and involvement, but modest
Germany? Nothing. Spain? Nothing. Scandinavia? Nothing. Italy? Zilch. It's incredible to see a supposedly advanced developed mature economic chunk of the world - the EU - simply overtaken and made irrelevant. It reminds me of China in about 1800, still with their clever exams and their big canals, unaware that the British are making mighty MACHINES
AI is more likely to be used as a tool of social control than to make life better for ordinary people. Give me life in backwards Spain with good weather and fiestas over that. Tech stopped improving the world around 2007.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Apple Intelligence is a simplified version GPT in a local running wrapper. It's shit because Apple doesn't have a specialist AI division like Google that has been implementing it for a decade and integrating it into their processes for 5+ years. Apple's own AI is probably 5-7 years behind Google and I actually think one of the reasons Google have gone so hard with Gemini this time is to get Apple on board for iPhone 17 onwards so Apple reach feature parity with Pixel phones. Apple are said to be very, very unhappy at how lame Apple intelligence has turned out and Google getting onto Apple phones will keep their search advertising income stream going for another decade.
I have a brand new Apple 16 Pro Max, supposedly with Apple Intelligence. There is no sign of "intelligence"
When I compare it to the indepth human-like text chats I can have with a genius such as Claude, or the incredible real life VOICE chats I can have with ChatGPT 4o, it's.... bewilderingly poor
In terms of AI it's like Apple are still shipping glamorous abacuses in a world of pocket calculators. I accept that as smartphones Apple are still great, but in AI - nowhere. And that is the future
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5048431-rand-paul-elon-musk-speaker/ … The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress . . . ,” Paul wrote. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).” Later Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she would be open to supporting Musk to replace Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a post quoting Paul. “I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency,” Greene wrote on X. “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way,” she added.…
I'm wondering whether some of the thicker Republicans may have thought that it effectively gives them an extra vote, given how Trump has wrecked his own majority in Congress until the special elections are held for the Congress Members he has yanked out for his administration.
A speaker who is a Congress Member retains their right to vote.
I need to do a header on this, because the Republican majority in Congress is essentially non-existent right now.
So...
The House election results were 220-215 to the Republicans. But there are three Special Elections coming: Matt Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elise Stefanik. In addition, Victoria Spartz has announced she would leave the House Republican Conference, essentially becoming an Independent. I cannot see her voting for a Speaker who is not pro-Ukraine.
Which means that the House of Representatives - until Special Elections are held - is essentially 216 Republicans, 215 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
Now, two of the three Special Elections (Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz) are likely to be foregone conclusions. But Elise Stefanik's district might end up being pretty close; certainly it wouldn't surprise me if the Dems were to grab it in a low turnout special election.
Which would mean the House would be 218 Republicans, 216 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
That's one heart attack or car crash away from a tied House.
@Leon yes, agree that Google need to loosen up a bit, I'm not advocating that they should allow porn or deepfakes to be made but accepting prompts with slightly rude or mean language should be available. I think they will eventually ease up but it could be a while, Google doesn't have a free speech approach and will be dragged into it kicking and screaming by Grok/Elon Musk just as he forced YouTube to host videos that aren't aligned with Google's political values.
Yeah, in the end they will have no choice. This is a pure example of Darwinian, free market capitalism. All the major US tech giants going toe to toe, PLUS the Chinese coming in, with a real chance, and swinging for a KO
Fascinating and exhilarating
And where is Europe in all this? Fucking nowhere. Mistral is kinda OK but no one cares, at least the UK has DeepMind which is driving much of the Google surge, so we have a kind of influence, and involvement, but modest
Germany? Nothing. Spain? Nothing. Scandinavia? Nothing. Italy? Zilch. It's incredible to see a supposedly advanced developed mature economic chunk of the world - the EU - simply overtaken and made irrelevant. It reminds me of China in about 1800, still with their clever exams and their big canals, unaware that the British are making mighty MACHINES
The UK is very influential in AI without actually having a UK domiciled AI company which is disappointing but not very surprising. The investment appetite for pumping $20-30bn into a company with no prospect for return is very, very low in the UK (and across Europe).
What it comes down to for me wrt to Europe (though not the UK for this at least) is that the US innovates and the EU regulates. There is no single industry that EU bureaucrats don't think they know better than people in the industry itself. AI is just the latest casualty and we're heading down a similar path with the idiotic online safety bill which will seriously hurt AI innovation in the UK if it isn't changed before passing. Though the word is that Starmer wants to sign up for EU regulations anyway so we're going to wave goodbye to our AI industry anyway.
@Leon yes, agree that Google need to loosen up a bit, I'm not advocating that they should allow porn or deepfakes to be made but accepting prompts with slightly rude or mean language should be available. I think they will eventually ease up but it could be a while, Google doesn't have a free speech approach and will be dragged into it kicking and screaming by Grok/Elon Musk just as he forced YouTube to host videos that aren't aligned with Google's political values.
Yeah, in the end they will have no choice. This is a pure example of Darwinian, free market capitalism. All the major US tech giants going toe to toe, PLUS the Chinese coming in, with a real chance, and swinging for a KO
Fascinating and exhilarating
And where is Europe in all this? Fucking nowhere. Mistral is kinda OK but no one cares, at least the UK has DeepMind which is driving much of the Google surge, so we have a kind of influence, and involvement, but modest
Germany? Nothing. Spain? Nothing. Scandinavia? Nothing. Italy? Zilch. It's incredible to see a supposedly advanced developed mature economic chunk of the world - the EU - simply overtaken and made irrelevant. It reminds me of China in about 1800, still with their clever exams and their big canals, unaware that the British are making mighty MACHINES
AI is more likely to be used as a tool of social control than to make life better for ordinary people. Give me life in backwards Spain with good weather and fiestas over that. Tech stopped improving the world around 2007.
Which is a very fair argument. AI is scary, It scares me. It's so good now and everytime people say "oh it's stopped improving" there is another massive leap - see Veo this week, as @MaxPB says
However, we cannot stop it now, even if we wanted. The Chinese are clearly in pursuit of the same goal and if the west called a halt it would be like stopping the Manhattan Project to allow the Nazis to get there first, with all that entails
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
Something is gping drastically wrong with dementia in this country. We have the second highest age standardised death rate in the world. Yes we are a high latitude country but other high latitude countries like germany have death rates a fraction of ours.
Our demented patients are dying faster, or simply of different causes?
Reality looks like this
That graph doesnt add up. Italy has a very low death rate from dementia. No comparison to the uk.
Errrrr: that chart doesn't mention death rate, merely proportion of people with dementia.
The Gateshead Flyover shambles continues (for non locals this is the main dual carriageway approach to the Tyne Bridge from the south which is closed, possibly forever, due to structural problems) with the Metro off in Newcastle City Centre as a result of following the road underground, or something.
Country is falling to bits
Hasn't Anabob explained yet that Gateshead is actually part of Edinburgh?
More seriously, I was planning to explain to Sabre Roads that it should be simply removed and a park created, as I just suggested to the Auto Shenangians channel about the Coventry Ring Road, but my style is cramped by the road traffic stats data website being offline.
In Nottingham we are gradually cutting out Maid Marian way - 4-6 lane urban dual carriageway - after the traffic on it fell by 40% in 20 years.
I was in Nottingham for the first time recently. I laughed when I saw what the dual carriageway was called. And laughed again when I saw the statue of Robin Hood in front of the "castle". Otherwise the place didn't seem too bad from what I could make out from a brief inspection.
Walk from the castle to the Old Market Square: nice early 18th century, nice early 18th century, HORRIBLE BRUTALIST RING ROAD, nice early 18th century, nice city centre. I'm glad they're doing something about MMW. They are a bit daft about Robin Hood in Nottingham, mind. Very possessive. I remember the disquiet when Doncaster elected to name its airport after him. Not a happy Nottingham.
We drove from the Motorway to Restaurant Sat Bains last September in rush hour.
It was not a pleasant experience.
It's a strange area - right out in the middle of nowhere 2 miles from the City Centre. It's bleak with bits owned by the university, strangely like a bit of riverine Norfolk, and the Trent Valley Yachting Club which is sometimes flooded to 1st floor level further out, and Trent Lock, and it's right under the Clifton Boulevard River Trent Flyover too.
If you go further out there are a few railway carriage type weekend chalets on the riverbank that have been there since the 1950s (estimate).
I hope you didn't do it when the whole bit of ring road was being redone.
The sort of area Arthur Ransome would have written a kidnap mystery about, and where one imagines murder victims' bodies are abandoned by the Mafia in the River, and never found.
That can be quite difficult to get back to from the outer ring road. I worked on Abbeyfield Road up there for a few years.
And next door there is a bizarre gate with about 8 threatening signs on it. My quota:
The restaurant does sound quite like your "no-nonsense" views:
Before you book We can accommodate some food intolerances and allergies providing that these are mentioned when you make your reservation. Dietary accommodations we can make include those for vegetarian or pescatarian, those who are pregnant, and those with nut or shellfish allergies (you would be recommended to bring your epi pen). However, we cannot cater to dislikes, no Dairy, Vegan, Halal or Kosher diets, or to any dietary restrictions that we feel may compromise the ethos of our dishes within the style and makeup of our tasting menus. https://www.restaurantsatbains.com/visit/
(And about £600 for a week night stay with Tasting Menu. Oof - hope you enjoyed it.)
Something is gping drastically wrong with dementia in this country. We have the second highest age standardised death rate in the world. Yes we are a high latitude country but other high latitude countries like germany have death rates a fraction of ours.
Our demented patients are dying faster, or simply of different causes?
Reality looks like this
That graph doesnt add up. Italy has a very low death rate from dementia. No comparison to the uk.
Errrrr: that chart doesn't mention death rate, merely proportion of people with dementia.
Which means in Italy they must be getting very mild dementia.
@Leon yes, agree that Google need to loosen up a bit, I'm not advocating that they should allow porn or deepfakes to be made but accepting prompts with slightly rude or mean language should be available. I think they will eventually ease up but it could be a while, Google doesn't have a free speech approach and will be dragged into it kicking and screaming by Grok/Elon Musk just as he forced YouTube to host videos that aren't aligned with Google's political values.
Yeah, in the end they will have no choice. This is a pure example of Darwinian, free market capitalism. All the major US tech giants going toe to toe, PLUS the Chinese coming in, with a real chance, and swinging for a KO
Fascinating and exhilarating
And where is Europe in all this? Fucking nowhere. Mistral is kinda OK but no one cares, at least the UK has DeepMind which is driving much of the Google surge, so we have a kind of influence, and involvement, but modest
Germany? Nothing. Spain? Nothing. Scandinavia? Nothing. Italy? Zilch. It's incredible to see a supposedly advanced developed mature economic chunk of the world - the EU - simply overtaken and made irrelevant. It reminds me of China in about 1800, still with their clever exams and their big canals, unaware that the British are making mighty MACHINES
The UK is very influential in AI without actually having a UK domiciled AI company which is disappointing but not very surprising. The investment appetite for pumping $20-30bn into a company with no prospect for return is very, very low in the UK (and across Europe).
What it comes down to for me wrt to Europe (though not the UK for this at least) is that the US innovates and the EU regulates. There is no single industry that EU bureaucrats don't think they know better than people in the industry itself. AI is just the latest casualty and we're heading down a similar path with the idiotic online safety bill which will seriously hurt AI innovation in the UK if it isn't changed before passing. Though the word is that Starmer wants to sign up for EU regulations anyway so we're going to wave goodbye to our AI industry anyway.
Yes, it's deeply depressing. I have to use NordVPN to access some of the best US AI tech, because of our stupid laws and the EU's even stupider laws. Thierry Breton, take a fucking bow, you fucking cretin
There is no choice. It's obvious. AI is the future and the first economies to utilise its enormous power will gain enormously, and that pivotal moment is maybe only months away, certainly 3-4 years at most. And at this precise point, we have the ultimate analogue prime minister Sir fucking Kier fucking Starmer, who probably likes vinyl and would ban these new-fangled "CDs". God help us
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
As explained earlier when @MarqueeMark posted a similar post this is not relevant. If someone did want to do as you suggest they can anyway as @rcs1000 pointed out regardless of whether their profile is public or not. Nobody is going to hunt through post via the public profile to do this as there are easier ways.
Having the profile public does not help anyone to do this and having private does not stop it.
@Leon yes, agree that Google need to loosen up a bit, I'm not advocating that they should allow porn or deepfakes to be made but accepting prompts with slightly rude or mean language should be available. I think they will eventually ease up but it could be a while, Google doesn't have a free speech approach and will be dragged into it kicking and screaming by Grok/Elon Musk just as he forced YouTube to host videos that aren't aligned with Google's political values.
Yeah, in the end they will have no choice. This is a pure example of Darwinian, free market capitalism. All the major US tech giants going toe to toe, PLUS the Chinese coming in, with a real chance, and swinging for a KO
Fascinating and exhilarating
And where is Europe in all this? Fucking nowhere. Mistral is kinda OK but no one cares, at least the UK has DeepMind which is driving much of the Google surge, so we have a kind of influence, and involvement, but modest
Germany? Nothing. Spain? Nothing. Scandinavia? Nothing. Italy? Zilch. It's incredible to see a supposedly advanced developed mature economic chunk of the world - the EU - simply overtaken and made irrelevant. It reminds me of China in about 1800, still with their clever exams and their big canals, unaware that the British are making mighty MACHINES
The UK is very influential in AI without actually having a UK domiciled AI company which is disappointing but not very surprising. The investment appetite for pumping $20-30bn into a company with no prospect for return is very, very low in the UK (and across Europe).
What it comes down to for me wrt to Europe (though not the UK for this at least) is that the US innovates and the EU regulates. There is no single industry that EU bureaucrats don't think they know better than people in the industry itself. AI is just the latest casualty and we're heading down a similar path with the idiotic online safety bill which will seriously hurt AI innovation in the UK if it isn't changed before passing. Though the word is that Starmer wants to sign up for EU regulations anyway so we're going to wave goodbye to our AI industry anyway.
Yes, it's deeply depressing. I have to use NordVPN to access some of the best US AI tech, because of our stupid laws and the EU's even stupider laws. Thierry Breton, take a fucking bow, you fucking cretin
There is no choice. It's obvious. AI is the future and the first economies to utilise its enormous power will gain enormously, and that pivotal moment is maybe only months away, certainly 3-4 years at most. And at this precise point, we have the ultimate analogue prime minister Sir fucking Kier fucking Starmer, who probably likes vinyl and would ban these new-fangled "CDs". God help us
Starmer is a blockbuster store owner in the era of Netflix. The EU is the guy recording his TV shows on VHS.
There is no choice. It's obvious. AI is the future and the first economies to utilise its enormous power will gain enormously, and that pivotal moment is maybe only months away, certainly 3-4 years at most. And at this precise point, we have the ultimate analogue prime minister Sir fucking Kier fucking Starmer, who probably likes vinyl and would ban these new-fangled "CDs". God help us
Starmer's Desert Island Discs.
DISC ONE: Out on the Floor by Dobie Gray DISC TWO: Symphony No. 6 in F major, op. 68 “Pastoral” (5th) Movement by Beethoven, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, performed by Berlin Philharmonic DISC THREE: Welcome to My World by Jim Reeves DISC FOUR: Falling and Laughing by Orange Juice DISC FIVE: Oh Happy Day by The Edwin Hawkins Singers DISC SIX: Three Lions by Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds DISC SEVEN: Piano Concerto No.5, 2nd movement, Adagio un pocco mosso by Beethoven, performed by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (pianist and director) and Swedish Chamber Orchestra DISC EIGHT: Bridge Over Troubled Water by Artists For Grenfell, featuring Stormzy
BOOK CHOICE: A very detailed Atlas LUXURY ITEM: A Football CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Piano Concerto No.5, 2nd movement, Adagio un pocco mosso by Beethoven, performed by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (pianist and director) and Swedish Chamber Orchestra
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
It DOESN'T help ordinary people, at all, necessarily. Did the Industrial Revolution help ordinary people? Arguably, not remotely, as millions went from tough but kinda gentle and traditional rural lives to infernal and ugly factory-bound lives, walking in clogs to the Manchester mills
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
It DOESN'T help ordinary people, at all, necessarily. Did the Industrial Revolution help ordinary people? Arguably, not remotely, as millions went from tough but kinda gentle and traditional rural lives to infernal and ugly factory-bound lives, walking in clogs to the Manchester mills
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
Yes but this is where your argument falls down. In the industrial revolution those people didnt have a vote. Now they do. And a middle class reduced to serfdom will likely vote to rip the whole system apart. And who could blame them.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
It DOESN'T help ordinary people, at all, necessarily. Did the Industrial Revolution help ordinary people? Arguably, not remotely, as millions went from tough but kinda gentle and traditional rural lives to infernal and ugly factory-bound lives, walking in clogs to the Manchester mills
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
Yes but this is where your argument falls down. In the industrial revolution those people didnt have a vote. Now they do. And a middle class reduced to serfdom will likely vote to rip the whole system apart. And who could blame them.
They don't have any choice. No more than the Japanese did, trying to resist the modern world until Commodore Perry came along
A world where China and America are both ripped to buffdom with AGI is a world where Europe has zero jobs, but without even the benefits of AI because we have outlawed them
Something is gping drastically wrong with dementia in this country. We have the second highest age standardised death rate in the world. Yes we are a high latitude country but other high latitude countries like germany have death rates a fraction of ours.
Our demented patients are dying faster, or simply of different causes?
Reality looks like this
That graph doesnt add up. Italy has a very low death rate from dementia. No comparison to the uk.
Errrrr: that chart doesn't mention death rate, merely proportion of people with dementia.
Which means in Italy they must be getting very mild dementia.
Do you have any actual stats?
One thing to remember is cultural effects in reporting cause of death. When people die of old age (and its associated illnesses), the actual cause can reported n number of ways. We saw in COVID that even for something apparently simple as that, stats across nations were not directly equivalent for such reasons.
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
As explained earlier when @MarqueeMark posted a similar post this is not relevant. If someone did want to do as you suggest they can anyway as @rcs1000 pointed out regardless of whether their profile is public or not. Nobody is going to hunt through post via the public profile to do this as there are easier ways.
Having the profile public does not help anyone to do this and having private does not stop it.
Oops @DecrepiterJohnL I noticed you read and liked my previous post and I did enjoy your description of the problems a flintknapper might have.
Something is gping drastically wrong with dementia in this country. We have the second highest age standardised death rate in the world. Yes we are a high latitude country but other high latitude countries like germany have death rates a fraction of ours.
Our demented patients are dying faster, or simply of different causes?
Reality looks like this
That graph doesnt add up. Italy has a very low death rate from dementia. No comparison to the uk.
Errrrr: that chart doesn't mention death rate, merely proportion of people with dementia.
Which means in Italy they must be getting very mild dementia.
Errrr, no.
That chart basically just measures the proportion of your population that is old.
The greater the proprtion of old people, the greater the incidence of dementia.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
It DOESN'T help ordinary people, at all, necessarily. Did the Industrial Revolution help ordinary people? Arguably, not remotely, as millions went from tough but kinda gentle and traditional rural lives to infernal and ugly factory-bound lives, walking in clogs to the Manchester mills
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
Mm #1. It arguably did help ordinary people because - horrific as early industrial revolution existence looks to us now - it was highly preferable to starving to death in the countryside ( in particular, in the case of Manchester, in the Irish countryside). The industrial revolution happened because it offered people something better.
And mm#2 - you know better than this Leon. We live on a LARGE rainy archipelago. Not many archipelagos larger.
Peter Mandelson is a very strong appointment in my view. Possibly the best call Sir Keir has made.
Does it matter
It's not absolutely top rank but, in fairness, Ambassador to the US is pretty significant in terms of navigating the next four years.
We need to avoid economic harm, protect careful intelligence sharing, build a working relationship with Trump's wider team on the more sane side.
I think it's a strong appointment: like him or loathe him, Mandelson is a heavy hitter.
During the Blair years it was always said that his greatest ambition was to be foreign secretary but in the current circumstances this could be even better. He’ll be more influential than Lammy.
Influential with who?
It's Republicans we really need to be working on, particularly Reaganite ones like Rubio and Kellogg. What does Mandelson bring to the table? Undoubted political skills but someone who likes the limelight and more of a player than a supporter. Not really an Ambassador.
And wasn't the current Ambassador said to be doing really well and happy to carry on?
He has a very wide network of international contacts via eg Global Counsel.
Someone here can come up with a better comparison, but is he our closest analogue to Henry Kissinger?
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
It DOESN'T help ordinary people, at all, necessarily. Did the Industrial Revolution help ordinary people? Arguably, not remotely, as millions went from tough but kinda gentle and traditional rural lives to infernal and ugly factory-bound lives, walking in clogs to the Manchester mills
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
Mm #1. It arguably did help ordinary people because - horrific as early industrial revolution existence looks to us now - it was highly preferable to starving to death in the countryside ( in particular, in the case of Manchester, in the Irish countryside). The industrial revolution happened because it offered people something better.
And mm#2 - you know better than this Leon. We live on a LARGE rainy archipelago. Not many archipelagos larger.
Indeed, our island is the third most populated in the world after Java and Honshu (the one with Tokyo).
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5048431-rand-paul-elon-musk-speaker/ … The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress . . . ,” Paul wrote. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).” Later Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she would be open to supporting Musk to replace Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a post quoting Paul. “I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency,” Greene wrote on X. “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way,” she added.…
I'm wondering whether some of the thicker Republicans may have thought that it effectively gives them an extra vote, given how Trump has wrecked his own majority in Congress until the special elections are held for the Congress Members he has yanked out for his administration.
A speaker who is a Congress Member retains their right to vote.
I need to do a header on this, because the Republican majority in Congress is essentially non-existent right now.
So...
The House election results were 220-215 to the Republicans. But there are three Special Elections coming: Matt Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elise Stefanik. In addition, Victoria Spartz has announced she would leave the House Republican Conference, essentially becoming an Independent. I cannot see her voting for a Speaker who is not pro-Ukraine.
Which means that the House of Representatives - until Special Elections are held - is essentially 216 Republicans, 215 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
Now, two of the three Special Elections (Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz) are likely to be foregone conclusions. But Elise Stefanik's district might end up being pretty close; certainly it wouldn't surprise me if the Dems were to grab it in a low turnout special election.
Which would mean the House would be 218 Republicans, 216 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
That's one heart attack or car crash away from a tied House.
I believe the current gridlocked house is 220-215 Republican, and they have struggled for a majority on occasions.
On the subject of LLMs, there are a shocking number of really good ones.
Everyone should download Ollama and play with them locally. On my very average PC, I can run Llama with a one billion paramater model and it's really freakin' good. I mean, it's ChatGPT 3.5 quality, but running on consumer grade hardware, without even a dedicated GPU, and it's fast too.
(There are also uncensored versions of Llama for people who are into that kind of thing - like @Leon.)
There's also Llama 3.2 vision, which is pretty cool.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5048431-rand-paul-elon-musk-speaker/ … The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress . . . ,” Paul wrote. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).” Later Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she would be open to supporting Musk to replace Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a post quoting Paul. “I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency,” Greene wrote on X. “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way,” she added.…
I'm wondering whether some of the thicker Republicans may have thought that it effectively gives them an extra vote, given how Trump has wrecked his own majority in Congress until the special elections are held for the Congress Members he has yanked out for his administration.
A speaker who is a Congress Member retains their right to vote.
I need to do a header on this, because the Republican majority in Congress is essentially non-existent right now.
So...
The House election results were 220-215 to the Republicans. But there are three Special Elections coming: Matt Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elise Stefanik. In addition, Victoria Spartz has announced she would leave the House Republican Conference, essentially becoming an Independent. I cannot see her voting for a Speaker who is not pro-Ukraine.
Which means that the House of Representatives - until Special Elections are held - is essentially 216 Republicans, 215 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
Now, two of the three Special Elections (Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz) are likely to be foregone conclusions. But Elise Stefanik's district might end up being pretty close; certainly it wouldn't surprise me if the Dems were to grab it in a low turnout special election.
Which would mean the House would be 218 Republicans, 216 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
That's one heart attack or car crash away from a tied House.
I believe the current gridlocked house is 220-215 Republican, and they have struggled for a majority on occasions.
Ummm: actually I think it started at 222-213, and ended at 221-214. And yes, they struggled for a majority then.
They're starting at 220-215 this time around, and they've already lost one member of their caucus.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
It DOESN'T help ordinary people, at all, necessarily. Did the Industrial Revolution help ordinary people? Arguably, not remotely, as millions went from tough but kinda gentle and traditional rural lives to infernal and ugly factory-bound lives, walking in clogs to the Manchester mills
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
Mm #1. It arguably did help ordinary people because - horrific as early industrial revolution existence looks to us now - it was highly preferable to starving to death in the countryside ( in particular, in the case of Manchester, in the Irish countryside). The industrial revolution happened because it offered people something better.
And mm#2 - you know better than this Leon. We live on a LARGE rainy archipelago. Not many archipelagos larger.
The last famine in England was in the 1620s. We didn't need industry to sort out food supply, we had that fixed - one of the first countries to do so, in fact. If not the first
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5048431-rand-paul-elon-musk-speaker/ … The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress . . . ,” Paul wrote. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).” Later Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she would be open to supporting Musk to replace Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a post quoting Paul. “I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency,” Greene wrote on X. “The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way,” she added.…
I'm wondering whether some of the thicker Republicans may have thought that it effectively gives them an extra vote, given how Trump has wrecked his own majority in Congress until the special elections are held for the Congress Members he has yanked out for his administration.
A speaker who is a Congress Member retains their right to vote.
I need to do a header on this, because the Republican majority in Congress is essentially non-existent right now.
So...
The House election results were 220-215 to the Republicans. But there are three Special Elections coming: Matt Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elise Stefanik. In addition, Victoria Spartz has announced she would leave the House Republican Conference, essentially becoming an Independent. I cannot see her voting for a Speaker who is not pro-Ukraine.
Which means that the House of Representatives - until Special Elections are held - is essentially 216 Republicans, 215 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
Now, two of the three Special Elections (Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz) are likely to be foregone conclusions. But Elise Stefanik's district might end up being pretty close; certainly it wouldn't surprise me if the Dems were to grab it in a low turnout special election.
Which would mean the House would be 218 Republicans, 216 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
That's one heart attack or car crash away from a tied House.
I believe the current gridlocked house is 220-215 Republican, and they have struggled for a majority on occasions.
Ummm: actually I think it started at 222-213, and ended at 221-214. And yes, they struggled for a majority then.
They're starting at 220-215 this time around, and they've already lost one member of their caucus.
The one thing Harris did do, probably, was deliver a far closer result in Congress than would have Biden.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
It DOESN'T help ordinary people, at all, necessarily. Did the Industrial Revolution help ordinary people? Arguably, not remotely, as millions went from tough but kinda gentle and traditional rural lives to infernal and ugly factory-bound lives, walking in clogs to the Manchester mills
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
Mm #1. It arguably did help ordinary people because - horrific as early industrial revolution existence looks to us now - it was highly preferable to starving to death in the countryside ( in particular, in the case of Manchester, in the Irish countryside). The industrial revolution happened because it offered people something better.
And mm#2 - you know better than this Leon. We live on a LARGE rainy archipelago. Not many archipelagos larger.
The last famine in England was in the 1620s. We didn't need industry to sort out food supply, we had that fixed - one of the first countries to do so, in fact. If not the first
The workers of Northern England came first from the fields of the south, where there were more people than were needed to work the land (particularly in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, which left a huge surplus of rural workers) and second from Ireland (around 25% of the population of the industrial North in 1850 was Irish. Arguably this is an immigration wave which still hasn't been successfully assimilated 150 years later). The industrial north offered wages double or more that of the rural south. Life wasn't very pleasant but you could afford to eat.
My best bet during 2024 was undoubtedly backing Labour to get between 32% and 34% at odds of 110/1. The only downside was that I only put £1 on it, lol.
My best bet during 2024 was undoubtedly backing Labour to get between 32% and 34% at odds of 110/1. The only downside was that I only put £1 on it, lol.
On AI I think two things can be true - that the transformative potential is huge, but also that most AI start ups are just cash incinerators delivering little of value. So hype about specific ones often turns out to be disappointing, even if the industry delivers in the long run.
When ChatGPT can work out that £3500 is less than £4500 then we can talk.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
I'm not sure what the policy on genAI chat is but I've had a hands on with VEO2 for the last couple of days in the preview and it is absolutely incredible. I think VEO3 will make creative advertising agencies all go bankrupt. VEO2 isn't there yet but it's close for some simpler prompts. It's also quite a lot further down the road to realism in unpredictable movement of animals and humans than SORA.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
It's phenomenal. Also a mortal threat to OpenAI's SORA
Yes, it's really the first example of the trillion dollar behemoth looking to put OpenAI out of business. Grok is also nipping at OpenAI's heels for simple prompts and it's free with a Twitter account atm. I think there might be a bit of trouble ahead for Altman after he fucked over Elon Musk and tried to tangle with Google. This feels like Google dropping a proverbial nuke on OpenAI, very much an Empire Strikes Back moment. If only Anandtech was still going to cover it with the historic headline.
IF I am allowed to talk about this without being banned - c'mon, gimme a break, I just did TWO YEARS of taxes and receipts and exes in one week (thanks for nothing, HMG and your new self assessment rules) - then yes Google have dumped all over OpenAI's Twelve Days of Shipmas
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
Again how does this stuff help ordinary people. Its great for the tech oligarchs but if 90% of smart people suddenly lose their job you will have extremist political parties rising.
It DOESN'T help ordinary people, at all, necessarily. Did the Industrial Revolution help ordinary people? Arguably, not remotely, as millions went from tough but kinda gentle and traditional rural lives to infernal and ugly factory-bound lives, walking in clogs to the Manchester mills
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
Mm #1. It arguably did help ordinary people because - horrific as early industrial revolution existence looks to us now - it was highly preferable to starving to death in the countryside ( in particular, in the case of Manchester, in the Irish countryside). The industrial revolution happened because it offered people something better.
And mm#2 - you know better than this Leon. We live on a LARGE rainy archipelago. Not many archipelagos larger.
Indeed, our island is the third most populated in the world after Java and Honshu (the one with Tokyo).
And in the top 10 of big islands.
It's a real pet peeve of mine when people call it a small island. There might sometimes be an innocent point about scale compared to an entire continental landmass or in global terms, but usually it's said with a sneer (in this case it was actually the opposite, to suggest punching above weight).
It's extraordinarily mild briefing against someone. The Tory version these days would be 'Everyone's f***g had it with Reeves sh****g all over the economy - the mood in the party is dire - don't know how long she can carry on.'
The bottom line is that Rachel from Customer Complaints really isn't up to the job.
No, but if that rule were applied across the board, cabinet meetings could take place on a sofa.
PMs have preferred that approach.
The National Security Council (UK version) is eight people. OK, two sofas and four chairs, and presumably a coffee table for the wine. Cabinet is twenty-seven people, which is too many (hence the big table). From memory, the minimum Privy Councillors you need for an Order In Council is three, which is how the Task Force got deployed to the South Atlantic (Thatcher, Tebbit, Nott)
It is not necessary for Ministerial posts to be filled by different people, and in theory the PM can be all of them simultaneously - I think Boris was advised this when he attempted to recreate a new Cabinet whilst everybody was resigning. Obviously it would be politically impossible, but technically no problem.
Churchill was PM and Minister for War simultaneously during WW2. There is nothing stopping Starmer being PM and CofE simultaneously, and at need he could send the Foreign Minister abroad to do all the conference attending instead of him. The Treasury problem (he who holds the purse strings controls the Government) crops up frequently, and it would be a way of bringing it to heel.
The Gateshead Flyover shambles continues (for non locals this is the main dual carriageway approach to the Tyne Bridge from the south which is closed, possibly forever, due to structural problems) with the Metro off in Newcastle City Centre as a result of following the road underground, or something.
Country is falling to bits
Hasn't Anabob explained yet that Gateshead is actually part of Edinburgh?
More seriously, I was planning to explain to Sabre Roads that it should be simply removed and a park created, as I just suggested to the Auto Shenangians channel about the Coventry Ring Road, but my style is cramped by the road traffic stats data website being offline.
In Nottingham we are gradually cutting out Maid Marian way - 4-6 lane urban dual carriageway - after the traffic on it fell by 40% in 20 years.
I was in Nottingham for the first time recently. I laughed when I saw what the dual carriageway was called. And laughed again when I saw the statue of Robin Hood in front of the "castle". Otherwise the place didn't seem too bad from what I could make out from a brief inspection.
It's interesting how it has worked its way into local identity, as it's only been there since 1952. But it's iconic in the way of say Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh, or Nelson's Column or the Monument in London.
The castle rock, and the immediate area, has a fairly extensive network of sometimes inhabited caves.
Pleased with Mandelson's appointment. Good decision by Starmer.
Nope.
Too old for it.
Too partisan to represent UKs interests instead of Labours. Labour Party flooded US election with activists to prevent the winning administration, and here is a Labour member and Labour politician sent as Ambassador. Wave bye bye to any ear or influence. Utterly daft.
When ChatGPT can work out that £3500 is less than £4500 then we can talk.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
When ChatGPT can work out that £3500 is less than £4500 then we can talk.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
I strongly suspect ChatGPT can do that
I used it for some simple calculations and it hallucinated that £4500 was less than £3500.
I work with AI, trust me, it is overhyped.
Can it do cool stuff. Yes. Can you trust it, absolutely not.
Try asking it to write you some code, it will spit out gibberish.
When ChatGPT can work out that £3500 is less than £4500 then we can talk.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
I just tried it out and it gave the right answer. Maybe I was wording the question differently.
When ChatGPT can work out that £3500 is less than £4500 then we can talk.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
I just tried it out and it gave the right answer. Maybe I was wording the question differently.
When ChatGPT can work out that £3500 is less than £4500 then we can talk.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
I strongly suspect ChatGPT can do that
I used it for some simple calculations and it hallucinated that £4500 was less than £3500.
I work with AI, trust me, it is overhyped.
Can it do cool stuff. Yes. Can you trust it, absolutely not.
Try asking it to write you some code, it will spit out gibberish.
I think the problem here is that these are large LANGUAGE models. So people who are good at language - eg, me - actually have a significantly better understanding of them, and ability to exploit them, than people in STEM
When ChatGPT can work out that £3500 is less than £4500 then we can talk.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
I strongly suspect ChatGPT can do that
I used it for some simple calculations and it hallucinated that £4500 was less than £3500.
I work with AI, trust me, it is overhyped.
Can it do cool stuff. Yes. Can you trust it, absolutely not.
Try asking it to write you some code, it will spit out gibberish.
I think the problem here is that these are large LANGUAGE models. So people who are good at language - eg, me - actually have a significantly better understanding of them, and ability to exploit them, than people in STEM
As usual you don’t know what you are talking about.
I would suggest you do a bit of research into hallucinations.
When ChatGPT can work out that £3500 is less than £4500 then we can talk.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
I just tried it out and it gave the right answer. Maybe I was wording the question differently.
Do you understand how AI works?
To understand LLMs you need to understand the nuances of language. Which you clearly do not
Baffling that Leon should be the one who worries about being identified.
We all know he's Sean Trellis, works for the Oldie, lives in Camden above a disused sex-shop. 47e Artillery Terrace. If he's not at home then his local is the Edinboro Castle. And his barber is the one with the newly acquired Ferrari.
To be fair to Leon, the fear of having one's reputation (or career in local politics) ruined by a determined campaigner digging through old posts is not entirely unjustified. Imagine if Leon is up for Flintknapper of the Year and a rival digs up his holiday snaps showing more half-empty glasses than faux phalluses: instant disqualification! And jigsaw identification of other pseudonymous posters might easily be possible.
I'm away and haven't followed any of this but for one of the worst muck spreaders on here to want privacy just about takes the biscuit. if anyone doesn't want their opinions on white babies or similar published to a wider audience maybe they could moderate their posts. Or discuss them on Stormfront with like minded posters
I've always thought anonymous comments on the internet are a bad idea.
Why?
Just don't see the point of it. Most letters published in newspapers used to include the writers' name. Only occasionally would it be withheld.
Even the posters here who use their names are effectively anonymous, as apart from a face to face drinkies every now and again we don't really know each other anyway.
We're lucky that this isn't on the Internet then, otherwise everybody could see our comments....
With respect to retrieving past comments vis google, it's a bit hit-and-miss. The link https://www.google.com/search?q=site:politicalbetting.com+"viewcode" gives a lot of fine articles but not much in the way of comment history. It's further complicated by the fact that PB has been reorganised a few times and some of the comments, if not lost, are difficult to retrieve.
@rcs1000 mentioned an API. If he could advise how to use it, I would be grateful
Comments
Reckon I've done 5
+ 3 air hostesses
It's commentary like this that brings all the boys to the PB yard
It don't think it captures all wind generation, with most onshore in England and Wales, and some in Scotland, not measured.
Which *was* delivered (see the timing of % leak reductions in eg England vs Scotland which got onto the issue approx. 15 years later), but after the first period (decade?) the regulator has been too weak.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Trenton_Bridge
I suspect it would be useful for our troops to be trained by the Ukraine as much as train them in technical arts.
Future war is going to be mosquito war.
Btw, any eye specialists here ?
Just learned I also have Fuch’s dystrophy (corneal problem), which complicates the decision on a cataract operation a bit. Was planning to have that done at the same time as the vitrectomy.
Can't be long before this co-president/bros "arrangement" with Trump where Musk makes decisions and Trump goes along with them becomes the butt of TV jokes and is raised in focus groups.
For example when the Times doxxed NightJack we lost one of the most interesting blogs on the Internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Horton_(blogger)
I wonder also whether Labour are missing the likes of Owen Jones/Momentum who were actually not bad at pumping out left wing stuff which got views/some traction.
But a lot of the rest of the kit will still be needed.
It - 48.1
Es - 46.3
De - 46.7
Fr - 42.4
Ch - 44.0
NL - 42.2
Be - 41.9
GB - 40.6
The difference in prediction look in part like a weighting from recent large immigration eg Merkel's MIllion from Syria in 2015.
Labour often tend to assume everyone attacking the Tories are really sympathetic to Labour, even if they don't say so explicitly. That they are not is coming as something if a shock to them.
Videos by VEO2 don't feel fake when you first view them like a lot of SORA ones, I think Google are approaching the other side of the uncanny valley and this is the first example of them really pulling ahead in the AI race as many expected when Gemini flopped with its woke guardrails.
A speaker who is a Congress Member retains their right to vote.
But, Google still has way too many guardrails. Have you tried Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental? Great, wow, all those tokens - but if you say a rude word it shuts down. Major issue
But the views of the press are pretty marginal nowadays.
What has surprised me about this government has been the ambivalence to it of the Guardian and the BBC.
ChatGPT still rule voice with AVM and various niches with CustomGPTs (and some are truly incredible) but Google are not just catching up they are overtaking in other fields. Also, China is rapidly speeding up and the best Chinese AI is now almost as good as Gemini, Grok, ChatGPT
Why is Apple Intelligence SO BAD???
Honestly, I do not think 90% of smart people will have a serious cognitive career in 5-10 years (maybe much quicker). It's done. I can provide evidence if allowed by the mods, but I do not wish to be banned. We are approaching something epochal
It's Republicans we really need to be working on, particularly Reaganite ones like Rubio and Kellogg. What does Mandelson bring to the table? Undoubted political skills but someone who likes the limelight and more of a player than a supporter. Not really an Ambassador.
And wasn't the current Ambassador said to be doing really well and happy to carry on?
The one hand grenade payload ones are turned out by the 1000
The man carrying stretcher drones that the U.K. previously provided are quite a bit more expensive and rare.
Fascinating and exhilarating
And where is Europe in all this? Fucking nowhere. Mistral is kinda OK but no one cares, at least the UK has DeepMind which is driving much of the Google surge, so we have a kind of influence, and involvement, but modest
Germany? Nothing. Spain? Nothing. Scandinavia? Nothing. Italy? Zilch. It's incredible to see a supposedly advanced developed mature economic chunk of the world - the EU - simply overtaken and made irrelevant. It reminds me of China in about 1800, still with their clever exams and their big canals, unaware that the British are making mighty MACHINES
When I compare it to the indepth human-like text chats I can have with a genius such as Claude, or the incredible real life VOICE chats I can have with ChatGPT 4o, it's.... bewilderingly poor
In terms of AI it's like Apple are still shipping glamorous abacuses in a world of pocket calculators. I accept that as smartphones Apple are still great, but in AI - nowhere. And that is the future
So...
The House election results were 220-215 to the Republicans. But there are three Special Elections coming: Matt Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elise Stefanik. In addition, Victoria Spartz has announced she would leave the House Republican Conference, essentially becoming an Independent. I cannot see her voting for a Speaker who is not pro-Ukraine.
Which means that the House of Representatives - until Special Elections are held - is essentially 216 Republicans, 215 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
Now, two of the three Special Elections (Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz) are likely to be foregone conclusions. But Elise Stefanik's district might end up being pretty close; certainly it wouldn't surprise me if the Dems were to grab it in a low turnout special election.
Which would mean the House would be 218 Republicans, 216 Democrats and Victoria Spartz.
That's one heart attack or car crash away from a tied House.
What it comes down to for me wrt to Europe (though not the UK for this at least) is that the US innovates and the EU regulates. There is no single industry that EU bureaucrats don't think they know better than people in the industry itself. AI is just the latest casualty and we're heading down a similar path with the idiotic online safety bill which will seriously hurt AI innovation in the UK if it isn't changed before passing. Though the word is that Starmer wants to sign up for EU regulations anyway so we're going to wave goodbye to our AI industry anyway.
However, we cannot stop it now, even if we wanted. The Chinese are clearly in pursuit of the same goal and if the west called a halt it would be like stopping the Manhattan Project to allow the Nazis to get there first, with all that entails
We are forced to go for it. Such is Darwinism
If you go further out there are a few railway carriage type weekend chalets on the riverbank that have been there since the 1950s (estimate).
I hope you didn't do it when the whole bit of ring road was being redone.
The sort of area Arthur Ransome would have written a kidnap mystery about, and where one imagines murder victims' bodies are abandoned by the Mafia in the River, and never found.
That can be quite difficult to get back to from the outer ring road. I worked on Abbeyfield Road up there for a few years.
And next door there is a bizarre gate with about 8 threatening signs on it. My quota:
The restaurant does sound quite like your "no-nonsense" views:
Before you book
We can accommodate some food intolerances and allergies providing that these are mentioned when you make your reservation. Dietary accommodations we can make include those for vegetarian or pescatarian, those who are pregnant, and those with nut or shellfish allergies (you would be recommended to bring your epi pen). However, we cannot cater to dislikes, no Dairy, Vegan, Halal or Kosher diets, or to any dietary restrictions that we feel may compromise the ethos of our dishes within the style and makeup of our tasting menus.
https://www.restaurantsatbains.com/visit/
(And about £600 for a week night stay with Tasting Menu. Oof - hope you enjoyed it.)
Location: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.9249612,-1.1671897,196m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
There is no choice. It's obvious. AI is the future and the first economies to utilise its enormous power will gain enormously, and that pivotal moment is maybe only months away, certainly 3-4 years at most. And at this precise point, we have the ultimate analogue prime minister Sir fucking Kier fucking Starmer, who probably likes vinyl and would ban these new-fangled "CDs". God help us
Having the profile public does not help anyone to do this and having private does not stop it.
The PB brains trust can work out what it was.
DISC TWO: Symphony No. 6 in F major, op. 68 “Pastoral” (5th) Movement by Beethoven, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, performed by Berlin Philharmonic
DISC THREE: Welcome to My World by Jim Reeves
DISC FOUR: Falling and Laughing by Orange Juice
DISC FIVE: Oh Happy Day by The Edwin Hawkins Singers
DISC SIX: Three Lions by Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds
DISC SEVEN: Piano Concerto No.5, 2nd movement, Adagio un pocco mosso by Beethoven, performed by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (pianist and director) and Swedish Chamber Orchestra
DISC EIGHT: Bridge Over Troubled Water by Artists For Grenfell, featuring Stormzy
BOOK CHOICE: A very detailed Atlas
LUXURY ITEM: A Football
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Piano Concerto No.5, 2nd movement, Adagio un pocco mosso by Beethoven, performed by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (pianist and director) and Swedish Chamber Orchestra
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pdqz
I don't even think I need to make a snarky comment.
BUT the wealth generated in Britain by that Revolution enabled us to conquer half the world and become the world's dominant power for 150 years (and we still benefit now). Was THAT worth it? Who knows. You gain from it tho, We are a small rainy archipelago off the coast of Europe, we have influence way beyond what makes sense, and much of that is because we were the cradle of industrialism, and we went for it, and made ££££ from it, and accrued intellectual might and political influence (and the world's biggest empire)
AI is exactly the same, but wildly bigger and weirder. Whoever reaches AGI and ASI first will be Britain in 1780, times 300
A world where China and America are both ripped to buffdom with AGI is a world where Europe has zero jobs, but without even the benefits of AI because we have outlawed them
One thing to remember is cultural effects in reporting cause of death. When people die of old age (and its associated illnesses), the actual cause can reported n number of ways. We saw in COVID that even for something apparently simple as that, stats across nations were not directly equivalent for such reasons.
Only a guess, I don't know.
That chart basically just measures the proportion of your population that is old.
The greater the proprtion of old people, the greater the incidence of dementia.
Italy has an old population. Ditto Japan.
Spain, Germany and Greece aren't that far behind.
And mm#2 - you know better than this Leon. We live on a LARGE rainy archipelago. Not many archipelagos larger.
Someone here can come up with a better comparison, but is he our closest analogue to Henry Kissinger?
Everyone should download Ollama and play with them locally. On my very average PC, I can run Llama with a one billion paramater model and it's really freakin' good. I mean, it's ChatGPT 3.5 quality, but running on consumer grade hardware, without even a dedicated GPU, and it's fast too.
(There are also uncensored versions of Llama for people who are into that kind of thing - like @Leon.)
There's also Llama 3.2 vision, which is pretty cool.
They're starting at 220-215 this time around, and they've already lost one member of their caucus.
Seriously.
The industrial north offered wages double or more that of the rural south. Life wasn't very pleasant but you could afford to eat.
Until then it’s people with no technical foundation or knowledge telling us the sky is falling. None of these people work even vaguely closely to the field.
It's a real pet peeve of mine when people call it a small island. There might sometimes be an innocent point about scale compared to an entire continental landmass or in global terms, but usually it's said with a sneer (in this case it was actually the opposite, to suggest punching above weight).
It is not necessary for Ministerial posts to be filled by different people, and in theory the PM can be all of them simultaneously - I think Boris was advised this when he attempted to recreate a new Cabinet whilst everybody was resigning. Obviously it would be politically impossible, but technically no problem.
Churchill was PM and Minister for War simultaneously during WW2. There is nothing stopping Starmer being PM and CofE simultaneously, and at need he could send the Foreign Minister abroad to do all the conference attending instead of him. The Treasury problem (he who holds the purse strings controls the Government) crops up frequently, and it would be a way of bringing it to heel.
The castle rock, and the immediate area, has a fairly extensive network of sometimes inhabited caves.
Too old for it.
Too partisan to represent UKs interests instead of Labours. Labour Party flooded US election with activists to prevent the winning administration, and here is a Labour member and Labour politician sent as Ambassador. Wave bye bye to any ear or influence. Utterly daft.
I work with AI, trust me, it is overhyped.
Can it do cool stuff. Yes. Can you trust it, absolutely not.
Try asking it to write you some code, it will spit out gibberish.
Given @Cyclefree , potentially application of a definition around the Equality Act.
All the stuff I have seen in the papers is around claimed violations of things that are unclear or not determinable until end of term.
I think the problem here is that these are large LANGUAGE models. So people who are good at language - eg, me - actually have a significantly better understanding of them, and ability to exploit them, than people in STEM
I would suggest you do a bit of research into hallucinations.
With respect to retrieving past comments vis google, it's a bit hit-and-miss. The link https://www.google.com/search?q=site:politicalbetting.com+"viewcode" gives a lot of fine articles but not much in the way of comment history. It's further complicated by the fact that PB has been reorganised a few times and some of the comments, if not lost, are difficult to retrieve.
@rcs1000 mentioned an API. If he could advise how to use it, I would be grateful