In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Dave Parker, baseball Hall of Famer, former NL MVP, and seven-time MLB All-Star, dies at age 74 (More) | D. Wayne Lukas, horse trainer who won 15 Triple Crown races, dies at age 89 (More)

> Brad Pitt's "F1" pulls in $55.6M in its opening weekend, the best-ever opening for an Apple-produced film (More) | Final installment of "Fast & Furious" franchise to feature the late Paul Walker's character, sets April 2027 release date (More)

> The 2025 NHL Draft wraps; see tracker of all 224 picks (More) | LeBron James picks up $52.6M player option to remain with Los Angeles Lakers next year; James will play an NBA record 23rd season (More)


Science & Technology
> Tesla provides first demonstration of a fully self-driving car leaving the factory and driving to the new owner's home without human assistance; Tesla Model Y traveled 30 miles in Austin (More, w/video) | Tesla explained (1440 Topics)

> Engineers develop smart pill that can monitor glucose, temperature, serotonin levels, and more after ingestion; approach may provide a cheap method for real-time monitoring of gut health (More)

> Chemists discover new spontaneous reaction that produces urea, a highly reactive molecule, from carbon dioxide and ammonia; researchers theorize process may have been involved in the origin of life on Earth (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close higher Friday (S&P 500 +0.5%, Dow +1.0%, Nasdaq +0.5%), with S&P 500, Nasdaq closing at record highs (More)

> US-Canada trade talks resume after Canada rescinds digital services tax the day before first payment was due; tax was set to impact high-earning tech companies including Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon (More)

> President Donald Trump says a group of wealthy buyers is prepared to purchase TikTok's US operations from parent company ByteDance, will unveil buyers in two weeks (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Former President Joe Biden, former VP Kamala Harris attend funeral for Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, killed weeks ago (More) | See previous write-up (More)

> Serbian police clash with protesters calling for early elections and end to 12-year rule of President Aleksandar Vucic (More) | Thailand protesters call for end of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra's rule over border dispute with Cambodia (More)

> Russia launches over 500 drones and missiles in largest aerial attack since start of its three-year war with Ukraine, downing F-16 (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

July 2025

 

For many of us, July of any year, represents the middle of summer...   cool spells disappear, summer rains are here, humidity starts to worsen, air conditioners are in full swing, out of school children have become either more demanding or more independent, and we are planning our FOURTH OF JULY celebrations.

I remember the follow slogan:

GET A FIFTH 

ON THE THIRD 

FOR THE FOURTH

Of course, for those who did not drink alcohol ignored it.

But this celebration is not just about alcohol...  it is about family and friends, picnics, parades, remembrances, our freedoms, and fireworks.

For me, JULY IS SUMMER...

By the time this month rolls around each year, I am usually spending more and more time inside rather than outside.  I am beginning to grow weary of mowing and weed eating, the mosquitos force me to wear long clothes or repellant, humidity makes it difficult to breathe, smoke from grilling constantly flows through the air, and there is absolutely nothing new on cable to occupy your time.

Being retired, I do not have to worry about all the additional traffic on the highways and around town because school is not in session.  Colleges are on summer schedules so most of the students have returned home, if you live in a college/university town which I do.

What is most intriguing to me is how light it still is at 9:00 pm or if you are on military time at twenty-one hundred hours.  During the non-summer months, I am usually in bed by 9:00/9:30, now it it 10:00/10:30 because of this light.  Our circadian rhythms change during the summer months, especially during the month of July.

However, July also means, if you have backyard gardens, that you are now eating your fill of tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, bell peppers, squash, zucchini, lettuce, cabbage, potatoes, and whatever else you might have planted like melons.  There has been plenty of rain for melons of all kinds and varieties.

Somewhat Political

 

Astronomers discover a tiny star with a giant planet that should not exist

Astronomers have spotted a giant exoplanet, named TOI-6894b, that’s bigger than Saturn and circling a red dwarf star only one-fifth the mass of the Sun.

This finding rewrites expectations about where massive planets can form and hints that such worlds may be common around the smallest stars. The discovery emerged from a survey of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) data.

TOI-6894 is a cool red dwarf that shines with far less light than the Sun. Yet its companion, TOI-6894b, is a puffed-up gas world whose radius exceeds Saturn’s while its mass is only half as large.

READ  MORE...

Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild (Live at Farm Aid 1986)

Part of Veil Nebula_ Wisps of an Ancient Supernova

 

Sarah Westall

 

A Japan Forest

 

Russell Brand

 

Songbow

 

The Shannon Joy Show

 

By the Cove

 

News Variable

 

Bookstore

 

TimcastIRL

 

Pizza & Wine

 

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. READ MORE...

Robert Reich

The Worst Bill in History
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.

READ MORE...

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.

Mediterranean Chickpea Salad, so good you’ll make it all summer long

Quick Clips

 

1440 NEWS

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

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.

Somewhat Political

 

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.

READ MORE...

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Foxey Lady (Miami Pop 1968)

Salty Duck

 

The Shannon Joy Show

 

Dinesh D'Souza

 

Mostly Black