Funny Owls

 

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Monster Mash

 

Cartoons

Wiping Out Humanity

Google is placing a huge bet on an artificial intelligence start-up whose owners have admitted it could wipe out humanity.

The tech giant's parent company, Alphabet, has reportedly committed $2 billion in funding to Anthropic, a startup that develops AI systems.

Anthropic is seen as one of the biggest rivals to OpenAI, behind the hugely popular ChatGPT that took the world by storm this past year - leaving Google's Bard in the dust.

Anthropic's CEO and co-founder, Dario Amodei (left) said earlier this week that AI has a '10 to 25 percent' chance of destroying humanity.

The report has claimed an upfront $500 million has already been invested into the startup, and the rest will be allocated over time.

The whooping investment comes just one month after Amazon invested $4 billion in Anthropic, The Wall Street Journal reports.   READ MORE...

Oh Yeah

 

We Don't Have Free Will

After more than 40 years studying humans and other primates, Sapolsky has reached the conclusion that virtually all human behavior is as far beyond our conscious control as the convulsions of a seizure, the division of cells or the beating of our hearts.

This means accepting that a man who shoots into a crowd has no more control over his fate than the victims who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It means treating drunk drivers who barrel into pedestrians just like drivers who suffer a sudden heart attack and veer out of their lane.

"The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over," Sapolsky (left) said. "We've got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn't there."  READ MORE...

Just Jack

 

Are Your Religious or Spiritual?

What does it mean to be religious?

If one is religious does one, go to church?

Does it matter what church one attends?

Like:

1. Baptist
2. Methodist
3. United Methodist
4. Presbyterian
5. Orthodox
6. Pentecostal
7. Jewish
8. Islamic
9. Apostolic
10. Mormon
11. Church of God
12. Mennonite
13. Lutheran
14. Catholic

Why do we have so many denominations?

Is one better than another one?

But there is more to it than just being religious... and attending church...

ONE MUST BELIEVE IN GOD/JESUS

ONE MUST HAVE HOPE

ONE MUST BELIEVE IN THE AFTERLIFE

BUT, does one have to believe in Heaven?

But, there is more to this than just being religious, attending church, believing and having hope...

So, what is left, you may wonder?

Simply said...

You can talk the talk

But can you walk the talk???

And, therein lies our biggest problem...  being religious is not just about SUNDAYS, it is about living every day of the week as if it were a Sunday and treating others like you want to be treated, and not being prejudice or discriminatory...

I SERIOUS DOUBT THAT MANY PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIVE THEIR LIVES LIKE THAT...  IF THEY DID, WE WOULD NOT HAVE HATE IN THIS WORLD NOR WOULD WE HAVE PREJUDICE...

The problem with our religion and our religious beliefs is that we only believe in them and support them and incorporate them into our lives ON SUNDAYS...

Cartoons

 

Chaplin

 

Weak EV Demand

On Thursday, Ford withdrew its full-year results forecast, citing "uncertainty" over its tentative deal with the United Auto Workers and warned of continued pressure on electric vehicles as customers balk at paying a premium for EVs over other models.

"It's been a challenging situation, for sure," Ford CEO Jim Farley (right) said during the company's third-quarter earnings call after posting greater losses than expected on EVs. "Matter of fact, our business is never short of challenges, especially right now with the evolution of the EV market and new global competitors from China, as well as the technology disruptions."  READ MORE...

Cartoons

Born to be WILD

 

Art by Philip Leslie Hale (1865-1931)

 

Chinese Investors DUMP US Stocks

BRICS member China is pulling every trick up its sleeve to stall the growth of the US dollar and stocks. China is dumping both US treasuries and equities to keep the Yuan from ending at a new low against the US dollar. In August alone, China sold $21.2 billion worth of US treasuries and stocks to stop the rising dollar. The BRICS alliance combinedly indulged in a $123 billion worth of sell-off in US government bonds and treasuries this year. China is the flag-bearer for BRICS in its quest to free the world from the US dollar supremacy.

Somewhat Political

 

Not Enough Time

 Most of us talk about TIME or the lack of time in each day.  While that amuses me, it is a silly thing to say because we all have the same amount of time.

24 hours or 1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds...

Our problem is NOT THE LACK OF TIME but how we manage the TIME that we have...

• We spend 8 hours sleeping (on average)
• We spend 8 hours working (on average)

That leaves us with 8 hours to do with what we want...  however, some of that time is spent eating...  shall we say 2 hours?

Now we have 6 hours...  however, we must drive to and from work...  shall we say an hour?

Now we have 5 hours...  however, we need to get ready for work and change clothes when we return home from work...  shall we say an hour?

THAT LEAVES US WITH FOUR HOURS, typically in the evening assuming most of us work first shift.

So, how do you spend your FOUR HOURS?

• Watching television/cable/Satellite
• Listening to music
• Talking with friends on the phone or next door neighbors
• Zoning out in an effort to relax
• Working on a hobby
• Playing with pets
• Listening to the news
• Reading a novel

If you noticed, I have yet to include washing and drying clothes, or cleaning the house, or working outside in the yard or washing the car, or doing outside maintenance or other chores...  usually all of these tasks are left for the weekend...  however, what about watching sports on the weekends or entertaining or going out to eat or to a movie or to a party at a neighbor's house.

When we leave tasks for the weekend, those tasks usually occupy both days...  and if you are religious then there is not much work that you want to do on Sundays, so you try to get everything done on Saturdays.

And, you wonder why you do not have enough time...

Legs

 

IMAX Movie DEEP SKY

Featured in the IMAX® documentary DEEP SKY, this mosaic image stretches 340 light-years across. JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. [Photo: NASA]




Director Nathaniel Kahn probed the world of art sales in 2018’s The Price of Everything and the search for extraterrestrial life in 2021’s Emmy-winning Hunt for Planet B. His latest film, however, goes where no man has gone before: a million miles from Earth.


Deep Sky, a 40-minute Imax original documentary about NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that opened yesterday, showcases the mind-blowing images captured by the $10-billion telescope, which started beaming pictures of stars, nebulae, galaxies, planets, and a massive black hole back to Earth in July 2022. 

It is surely the most expensive “camera” Kahn, or any filmmaker, has had the privilege to work with, and viewed on nearly 100-foot-tall screens, the footage becomes transporting.


Kahn, who also wrote and produced the film, spoke with Fast Company about what drew him to the project, what the telescope’s “non-optical” electromagnetic spectrum revealed, and why it gives him hope for life on Earth.  READ MORE...