Truth Seeker, Philosopher with a sense of humor. 0 limits, 0 agendas. Wrote a book once.
The Grid
Joined November 2011
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The last words from the Edmund Fitzgerald, 51 years ago today: "We are holding our own."
Within 10 minutes she was gone from radar. No distress call. 29 crew lost, about an hour from shelter.
The Coast Guard and NTSB still disagreed on why. Waves, hatches, or a shoal?
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In 1983, physicists showed black holes form abruptly, like water hitting a boil. Whether that held in tiny universes was a calculation laid out in 2003 and never finished.
Anthropic says its new AI, Claude Fable 5.2, just finished it. 🧵
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The number at the center of the reported US-Iran deal isn't new. It's 3.67%.
That's the exact enrichment cap from the 2015 nuclear deal the US walked away from in 2018. 🧵
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New Zealand's parliament is supposed to have 120 seats. After Saturday's vote, it may have 131.
Labour edged National on party votes, 29.4% to 29.2%. But National won 42 local seats, ~7 more than that share earns, and parties keep every seat they win.
Feature or bug?
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Two people could watch the same live speech and hear two different speeches.
A Microsoft patent filing describes AI that swaps words in a live feed within seconds, then redraws the speaker's lips to match.
Its main claim never mentions telling viewers. Should edits be labeled?
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Computers were supposed to make the whole economy richer, faster.
A viral clip from an NYU professor argues they didn't: global real GDP growth has been slower in the 40 years since the PC than before it.
Economists have had a name for this puzzle since 1987. 🧵
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131 years ago tonight, a physicist noticed a screen glowing across his dark lab. It shouldn't have been glowing.
Within weeks, he'd photographed the bones inside his wife's hand. 🧵
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The US can blockade Iran's ports. The Caspian Sea is another story.
All five shore states, Iran included, signed a 2018 deal barring outside militaries there. It's Iran's direct sea link to Russia.
CENTCOM's new answer, Task Force Iron Gate: ~20 staff in Tampa. Not a fleet.
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Five statehouses could change how we pick a president — no amendment needed.
A compact of 18 states + DC holds 222 electoral votes (live at 270). PA, MI, WI, AZ, and NV add 61 if they join: 283.
The Electoral College stays; they'd award their electors to the nationwide winner.
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An 18-year-old question in quantum computing may have just fallen — to an AI, on day three of a run.
The suspicion: exponential quantum speedups need a hidden pattern in the data. Random inputs don't get you there.
A proof assistant accepted the argument. Human experts still have to confirm it proved the right statement.
What it would mean if it holds:
🧵
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Physical Superintelligence says its internal research system — running a non-public Anthropic model — produced a complete proof of the Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture on the third day.
Lean, a proof assistant that checks every step, accepted it. PSI then pointed the system at related problems; it tightened the result twice. The paper and Lean 4 formalization are public. Staffer David Turturean scoped the work and takes responsibility for correctness.
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A Peter Thiel-backed startup built a robot whose only job is killing fish.
It might be one of the smartest bets in food tech.
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Marie Curie's lab notebooks are still radioactive, over a century later.
Born 159 years ago today, she's still the only person with Nobels in two different sciences.
France's national library seals the most contaminated pages in plastic. Radium-226's half-life: ~1,600 years.
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Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.
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Wall Street expected 59,000 new jobs in October. It got 165,000.
Unemployment dipped to 4.1%.
The line most people skipped: the average job search just hit 27.1 weeks, the longest since 2021.
Which number matches what you're seeing out there?
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Independent evaluators spent 11 weeks inside Anthropic.
Finding: the lab is improving AI capabilities ~2× as fast as before — and they guess most of that speedup is AI helping build the next AI.
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Four days after losing Congress, the White House swapped chiefs of staff.
Susie Wiles — first woman in the job, longer than any of Trump's first-term chiefs — moves to political ops. Stephen Miller starts Monday.
Midterm losses, then a personnel reset. Oldest play in the book.
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President Trump will make a decision SOON! How many times do we have to hear this? This was supposed to take 3 months.
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NATO's chief just said Ukraine's war likely ends without a winner.
Mark Rutte: these wars finish in a peace deal — "often a kind of compromise." Outright victory? Unlikely.
The quiet twist: once fighting stops, Russia's huge army isn't tied down anymore.
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Anthropic just locked in nearly $900 billion of compute spending.
Not a keynote slide. An amended SEC filing.
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