Monday, June 30
Headlines
 Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images  Zuckerberg poaches more key talent from OpenAI. Meta has hired four leading AI researchers away from OpenAI, The Information reported, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has gone full recruiting beast mode to lure top AI talent from rivals with astronomical pay packages. At an all-hands meeting on Thursday, Meta execs denied they were dangling $100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees, as Sam Altman had claimed to much fanfare. Instead, they said Altman was getting frustrated with Meta because, “We are succeeding at getting talent from OpenAI.” Even before the latest coup, Meta reportedly snagged three OpenAI researchers last week and has brought on two other power brokers in the industry, Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman.  President Trump says he’s found a buyer for TikTok. Trump told Fox News on Sunday that he’s found a “group of very wealthy people” who want to buy the video-sharing app’s US operations. Congress passed a law last year forcing TikTok’s sale, citing security concerns about the app’s China-based parent company, ByteDance. Congress set a January deadline, but that date has been repeatedly postponed by Trump and is now penciled in for September 17. The Chinese government would need to approve the deal, and though it previously pledged to block a sale, Trump says he’s confident Beijing will come around.  A new Google app uses AI to let you virtually try on clothes. The experimental app, called Doppl, allows you to upload a photo of yourself along with pictures of any outfits you want to take for a test drive. The app will then show you an image of your AI doppelgänger wearing the clothes, with the option to generate a short video of you styling it. There are a few kinks to work out: According to The Verge, if you upload a mirror selfie, the app has a tendency to make your digital lookalike much thinner. It may also generate new AI feet for your body. Either way, one thing is clear: Movie makeover montages may never be the same again.  |
Robert Reich
Trump’s giant budget-busting, Medicaid-shattering, shafting-the-poor-and-working-class, making-the-rich-even richer bill is a travesty.
Friends,
One of my objectives in this daily letter is to equip you with the facts you need. As the Senate approaches a vote on Trump’s giant “big beautiful” tax and budget bill, I want to be as clear as possible about it.
First, it will cost a budget-busting $3.3 trillion. According to new estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Senate bill would add at least $3.3 trillion to the already out-of-control national debt over a decade. That’s nearly $1 trillion more than the House-passed version.
Second, it will cause 11.8 million Americans to lose their health coverage. The Senate version would result in even deeper cuts in federal support for health insurance, and more Americans losing coverage, than the House version. Federal spending on Medicaid, Medicare, and Obamacare would be reduced by more than $1.1 trillion over that period — with more than $1 trillion of those cuts coming from Medicaid alone.
At A Glance
Iceland tops list of most peaceful countries.
... and ranking the world's most beautiful restaurants.
Warren Buffett donates $6B to five foundations.
Americans save record 7.7% of paychecks for retirement.
Exploring how much energy AI prompts use.
... and how one AI chatbot ran a vending machine.
How to execute a good apology.
Thousands falsely notified they won Norway lottery.
Clickbait: How to heal heartbreak.
1440 NEWS
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| J.M.W. Turner, "Valley of Aosta: Snowstorm, Avalanche and Thunderstorm," 1836/37. Oil on canvas, 92.2 x 123 cm. Frederick T. Haskell Collection, Art Institute of Chicago. Image via Wikimedia Commons. |
What is romanticism?
Romanticism is a creative movement that spanned literature, visual art, music, poetry, and architecture in the 18th and 19th centuries. It elevated the role of the artist in society and formed modern ideas of individuality, originality, and personal experience (read 101).
The romantics embraced philosopher Edmund Burke’s concept of the sublime, with the era's painters showcasing grand scenes intended to draw strong reactions (see a list of famous romanticism paintings here).
Despite a similarity to the word “romance,” romanticism includes a broad range of positive and negative emotions and subjects beyond romantic love and ultimately played a significant role in major historical events like the aftermath of the French Revolution, German unification, and many nationalist movements.
... Read our full look at romanticism here.
Also, check out ...
> How romanticism's trope of the Byronic hero dominates culture today. (More)
> Explaining the technique of depicting a subject from behind. (More)
> The reasons photography moved art beyond romanticism. (More)
Under the Hood of the Chatbot
Large language models, explained
Large language models are sophisticated computer programs that process and generate natural language, providing the foundation for tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini (watch explainer).
By finding patterns in the sequence of words and subwords (prefixes, for example) in massive amounts of text, these models can predict the most likely next word in a generated sequence and repeat this prediction until the output is complete (learn how they know when to stop).
AI chatbots are user-friendly interfaces that act as intermediaries between users and the LLM framework. Because of the temperature parameter, insufficient data, or inadequate training, LLMs may hallucinate, generating false or misleading information. Due to the complex nature of transformer architecture, explicitly identifying what led to the hallucination is often impossible.
... Read our full explainer on LLMs here.
Also, check out ...
> See if you can prompt this LLM to reveal (fake) passwords. (More)
> The key computer chips that power generative AI. (More)
> What is an AI agent? (More)
Truths & Other Issues
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Declaration of Independence - Second Paragraph
Let's break this down or as some talking heads say, let's unpack this...
Self-evident truths:
- that all men are created equal
- a creator has given us rights that include:
- Life
- Liberty
- Pursuit of Happiness
First - all men are created equal does not include females unless we assume that men refer to mankind which does include females... still it lets us know that our founding fathers did not think too much of females.
Second - it does not take a brain surgeon to realize that all men (and women) ARE NOT created equal. This is obvious when it comes to:
- IQ
- Photographic memories
- Physical abilities
- Musical abilities
- Artistic abilities
- Surgical abilities
- Differences in internal organs
- Height
- Attractiveness
- Manual dexterity
Third - that all of us are entitled to life and freedom (liberty). Freedom is a relative term because everyone is free to act and make decisions and take actions as long as they are willing to take responsibility for those decisions and actions.
Fourth - this term happiness is also relative as what makes me happy does not necessarily make someone else happy and vice versa. So, from the getgo, we have different levels of happiness, and are we entitled to all levels of happiness or are these levels restricted depending upon our equality or inequality?
Fifth - This declaration of independence did not include the Africans that were brought here by slave traders, nor did it include any immigrants that elected to come to America after American independence was achieved.
Sixth - a handful of wealthy, educated, elite WHITE MALES created this Declaration of Independence FOR THOSE other residents who were living in this country WITHOUT THEIR INPUT OR APPROVAL, many of which DID NOT want independence from GREAT BRITAIN.
This Groundbreaking Quantum Clock Ticks With Incredible Precision and Almost No Energy Loss, Setting a New Global Standard
In a groundbreaking development poised to revolutionize precision technology, scientists have introduced a new type of quantum clock that achieves remarkable accuracy while significantly reducing energy consumption, challenging long-standing assumptions about the relationship between precision and entropy.
In an exciting leap forward for timekeeping technology, scientists have unveiled a groundbreaking quantum clock that promises unparalleled precision without the hefty energy cost traditionally associated with such accuracy.
This innovation, born from the intriguing principles of quantum mechanics, challenges long-held beliefs about the inevitability of entropy in precise timekeeping. The development of this clock not only marks a significant scientific achievement but also opens the door to more efficient technologies, potentially revolutionizing fields such as quantum computing and high-precision instrumentation.
Sunday, June 29
Science
Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images
Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even turn water into wine, and then turn the empty bottle into a hangover remedy.
Orcas were seen using tools in a first for ocean mammals. Seaweed spa treatments are a universal language: Marine biologists witnessed a group of killer whales off the coast of Washington state exfoliating each other with kelp, a practice similar to grooming behaviors that were previously thought to be mostly unique to primates. In the first-ever observed instance of mutual marine grooming, the orcas bit off pieces of seaweed, placed the strips between themselves and another pod member, and then rubbed their bodies together, seemingly to get rid of dead skin and parasites (and to bond). “These are probably the most monitored marine mammals in the world,” the study’s lead author said, so it’s surprising that it took so long to catch them grooming.
E. coli can convert plastic into acetaminophen. Your empty Poland Spring could be upcycled into a headache reliever, according to a new report published this week in Nature Chemistry. In a lab experiment, it took less than 24 hours for a genetically-engineered strain of E. coli to chemically convert 92% of a broken-down plastic water bottle into acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. If you’re wondering why anyone would do this, you may not know that acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol outside the US and Japan) is primarily manufactured from chemicals found in crude oil. Chemists have, in recent years, found greener ingredient alternatives in some trees, and this new discovery could help offset plastic waste.
Mice with two dads have kids of their own. In a major reproductive milestone that could one day help same-sex human couples start their own genetically related family tree, lab mice that were grown from an egg and two different sperm cells have fathered mouse children of their own. The babies were born to female mice that mated with the lab-grown dads. Earlier this year, another research team created mice with two fathers, but they didn’t grow up to be fertile like the new mouse dads. Human applications are unknowably far away because the success rate was very low, but this accomplishment was still a long time coming: Scientists created the first fertile offspring of two mother mice in 2004. Replicating the process for males was more of a challenge.—ML
Robert Reich
Sunday Thought: The One Branch of Government that Trump Wants to Keep Alive
While eviscerating the two others
Friends,
The hardest part of my nights usually occurs around 3 am when my brain starts obsessing about upsetting things, such as what Trump is doing to America.
I’m sure many of you are like me. Our days are filled with all sorts of distractions, but in the wee hours of the morning, we tend to drift back to big and often terrifying realities.
Last night I couldn’t get out of my head that Trump is intent on abolishing the two branches of the government with the constitutional duty to constrain him.
As every American school kid learns, the U.S. Constitution establishes three branches of government that are supposed to check and balance each other.
Every school kid, that is, except Donald Trump and the people around him who have been usurping congressional authority and going to war against the judiciary.
Trump and his lackeys want there to be only one branch of government — the executive branch, under Trump.
At A Glance
Ten films that circumvented Hollywood's mid-century censorship code.
How the fear of the self fuels obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The renaissance in the ancient art of calligraphy.
How much of your life do you actually control?
What makes the B-2 Bomber so sophisticated.
Everything you need to know about the Vietnam War.
Why are subway walls tiled?
Explaining galactic archaeology in 10 minutes.
Gen Z men are driving perfume sales.
How maps were made before modern times.
The stunning advances in observing living cells.
Fanfiction communities want AI off their work.
A method for remembering everything.
How "turn on, tune in, and drop out" became a hippie anthem.
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