China is actually in a dilemma with Russia. On one hand, they want the Russian regime to survive only because it provides a political counterbalance to the EU in Europe. However, they are frustrated with the Russians constantly expanding the war and threatening to attack other nations because they don't want the Russians to provoke NATO rearmament and remilitarization. So they are trying to calibrate to keep the Russians alive while making sure they don't give them so much that they'll start another war.

Just want to point out that automation is not new to journalism. Algorithms have been writing tons of articles for over a couple of decades now, from sports scores to earnings reports to reporting on earthquakes. LLM's are perhaps the final straw for a journalism profession that has is on the verge of collapse from the one-two punch of the Internet and automation with CEO's who are now experiencing AI psychosis having decided to pull the final plug on human written news articles.

It's pretty straight forward - it makes their jobs easier. However, the risk is, has always been, that even if they initially acquire and use the tool for the public good, it will abused whether by corrupt individual operators or corrupt government officials for their own personal gains. The temptation is great.

It's also a flawed strategy, one that various industries have seen over and over. The employees most likely to leave are the most skilled ones who have lots of options - i.e. the employees that Meta probably wants to keep. The ones who will probably grit their teeth and take it are the ones that have no other real options.

This is so easy to solve, so no need to panic. We just need to water them with Brawndo. Afterall, Brawndo's got what plants crave.

I believe that's why all of the eVTOL companies, which were initially focused on the commercial market, have pivoted to the defense market. They've realized that the growth of the commercial market is going to be much slower, and with a military market desperate for solutions and actively courting industry, they can get money to stay afloat.

This is going to be a very long while before it ever scales. First, don't ever underestimate the time it takes to certify a new aircraft. It takes years for traditional platforms which have established certification paths (conventional fixed wing aircraft and rotorcraft) - with the Bell 525, one of the latest helicopters seeking certification still not certified after first flight eleven years ago. Then the FAA is struggling even more with how to certify "powered lift" aircraft where eVTOL platforms are. Second, Joby, Archer and others are not yet solving the core problem that has capped this industry - the lack of pilots. The real promise of eVTOL was that the platforms would be autonomous, but, going back to the certification challenge, the FAA has yet to figure out how to certify autonomous aircraft let alone manage the air traffic in a sky full of them. The platforms today still going to need pilots which will limit their adoption. The Chinese are farther ahead in this space, with the CAAC leaning forward and even certifying a handful of autonomous eVTOL aircraft, but I'm curious how rapidly they will proliferate outside China until the FAA and EASA figure out how they want to move forward...

Believe me, if it was up to teachers, they would all ban phones in the classroom. The problem is that any time a school tries to ban them, parents step in aggressively to stop them. I think the reasons are a bit over reactive, but this reddit thread and this opinion piece gives some good perspective on the topic.

Elon is late to the party on this epiphany. Mark Zuckerberg has been wanting to evolve Facebook toward a WeChat model since 2019. Apple, Alphabet, and others have also been trying to figure out how to get there to the ultimate Silicon Valley Vision: the One App to Rule Them All. However, unlike in China where there wasn't (yet) any vested infrastructure in place, the West has struggled in development of such a super app because a lot of different and very powerful interests are (rightfully) afraid of one company securing all that power - credit cards don't want to lose control of de facto e-payment control, banks not wanting a repeat of credit cards strangling them on e-payments, telecom companies wanting a piece of the pie, and all of them genuinely afraid of one or two of these massive Silicon Valley players stealing it all. Then of course the civil liberties question: WeChat has also done well in China because it provides a convenient, one-stop shop for the CCP to monitor citizen activity and find individuals to "invite to tea".

Tolkien's quote never felt even more relevant whether from a capitalist or an authoritarian dystopia: One App to rule them all, One App to find them, One App to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Maybe we could mitigate it with an increase in vaccinations, additional medical research funding, stronger workplace safety, environmental policies to reduce ri --- NAH, MAN. ALIENS. AND ISLAMIC COMMUNIST LIBERALS. CUT THAT NONSENSE OUT AND PUT IT INTO DEPT. OF WAR TO PREPARE FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

Ah yes, let's trust the guy who couldn't even build (or convincingly lie) about electric cars and trucks to build a much more complex system like an airplane. Let's trust him on his AI approach that both traditional aircraft primes (Airbus, Boeing, COMAC, UAC, etc.) and startups (Anduril, Joby, Archer, etc.) are wrestling with and spending boatloads of money to figure out. What could possibly go wrong? The only reason you'd give this guy any money is if you've figured out a plan to con the conman.

It would not be an understatement to say that Bloomberg is THE global information broker for the financial sector - no one else has the same amount of data and analysis that they do. The Bloomberg Terminal is the defacto tool used by financial professionals globally, involved in moving trillions of dollars in assets every day. The amount of information hosted there is incredible: split second latest numbers for just about every financial and economic metric on the planet along with historicals going back decades, news before even news orgs start reporting out, proprietary intelligence and analysis that provide details into the supply chains of individual firms that the firms may not even have as clear of a view on, etc. They have a massive network effect advantage - their internal chat system has networked just about every major financial professional on the planet. There is also a regulatory advantage - the terminal is setup to navigate the complex web of financial regulations across dozens, if not hundreds, of regulatory bodies from a compliance perspective.

They are the defacto tool not just because they bring that data together in a way no one else on the market has, but it has a level of vetting, security, and support for a system that you'd expect for a tool that the entire financial sector depends upon. AI could do some of the data manipulation, but it would take years to negotiate access to the sheer number of proprietary data sets they have access to and find professionals to train the models.

Per the article, semi-annual reporting is already the norm in European stock exchanges, although companies are welcome to report more frequently if they desire. So one could see it as the US markets actually better aligning themselves with international norms.

They should have first announced that the vehicles would be built in a deep-red state like Alabama or an important swing state like North Carolina or Arizona. Then they would announce the cancellation and discuss mass layoffs and have the panicked MAGA governors put pressure on the administration to ease up at least for Honda. In the end in Georgia, they were practically begging the Koreans not to pull the plug after the ICE raid they pulled.