June 6, 1944. An American paratrooper jumps into Normandy in the dark and lands on the roof of a church. By the end of the war he had been declared dead, held a funeral he didn't attend, escaped the Nazis, and fought his way toward Berlin in a Soviet tank unit. His name was Joseph Beyrle. He's believed to be the only American soldier to serve in both the US Army and the Red Army during World War Two. Beyrle was from Muskegon, Michigan. He joined the 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles. His buddies called him Jumpin' Joe. On D-Day night his plane was hit by flak and he jumped early. He came down on a church roof, slid off, and lost his unit in the chaos. For a few days he fought on his own, blowing up a power station and cutting German communications. Then he was captured. Here's where it gets strange. A German soldier ended up wearing Beyrle's uniform and dog tags. That German was killed. When the body was found, the Americans identified it as Joseph Beyrle. The army told his parents their son was dead. His hometown held a funeral mass for him. His obituary ran in the local paper. Meanwhile, he was very much alive, being moved from one German prison camp to another. He escaped more than once. One time he and two other prisoners jumped off a train heading east. They thought they were heading for Russia and freedom. They got lost and ended up in Berlin, where they were caught by the Gestapo, beaten, and tortured. In January 1945, from a camp in eastern Germany, he finally made a clean escape. He went east, toward the gunfire. Toward the Soviets. When he found a Soviet tank unit, he walked out with his hands up, holding a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and shouted the only Russian he knew. American comrade. It worked. He asked to join them. And they said yes. For about a month, an American paratrooper rode with Soviet tank crews as they pushed toward Germany. He used his demolition training. He fought. He was reportedly welcomed by a Soviet officer who was one of the rare women commanding a tank battalion. Then a German dive bomber attacked. Beyrle was badly wounded. He was evacuated to a Soviet hospital. Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov reportedly visited, heard his story, and gave him papers to get to the American embassy in Moscow. When he showed up, the embassy didn't believe him. As far as the US was concerned, Joseph Beyrle was dead. They held him under guard until his fingerprints proved who he was. He made it home to Michigan in April 1945. In 1946 he got married. In the same church where they'd held his funeral. Decades later, in 1994, he was honored at the White House by President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin for serving both countries. And the last twist. His son, Joseph Beyrle II, grew up to become the United States Ambassador to Russia.

.@jonstewart unpacks AI’s dubious promise of a better future, from the fate of our jobs to an "age of abundance"

Satya was born in India. Lisa was born in Taiwan. Elon was born in South Africa. Jensen was born in Taiwan. Sergey was born in Russia.

Premise: Incentives drive all human behavior. The corollary: How to destroy a country: A vast social security and support system that serves as a magnet for those who would rather not work. An open immigration policy that does not screen immigrants to determine their ability and willingness to provide for themselves and their families. An open immigration policy that does not screen for political and/or religious ideologies that are a threat to the country. Economic incentives large enough to incentivize immigrants on the state dole to have large numbers of children, but insufficient for educated and economically productive mothers to be able to quit to raise a family. The declining fertility of the most educated and productive women due to their delay to begin a family as a result of their desire and/or need to advance their careers, among other reasons, to live a life they deem consistent with their educational achievements and/or to repay their student debts. Amnesty programs that give citizenship and voting power to illegal immigrants without consideration of their economic productivity or their threat to the country due to their religious or political ideologies. The changing demographics and increased population due to the above factors. The state responding to protests by increasing social support. The continued failure to punish and hold accountable violent and looting rioters. Government managed by a massive and growing unelected bureaucracy. Government fraud, waste, and abuse contributed to ballooning budgets. Anti-business legislation that makes it difficult for businesses to compete in a global marketplace being disrupted by AI, including restrictions on firing even poorly performing employees. Overly burdensome, globally uncompetitive, corporate taxation. Continuous increases in personal taxes to raise funds to provide for the rapidly growing welfare state. The substantial majority of the tax burden levied on a small percentage of the population. A growing percentage of the electorate paying no taxes and receiving welfare. The introduction or threat of a wealth tax including the taxation of unrealized gains, i.e., taxes on paper wealth. The flight of the most productive business builders and highest taxpayers to lower tax countries with lesser security concerns. A growing percentage of the electorate voting for candidates that support increased welfare and laws favorable to, and/or that match the cultural and ideological needs and desires of a growing unproductive immigrant population. The rapid rise in anti-semitism and inadequate efforts to address this hatred. Increased borrowing by the state to fund the growing social burden. Higher sovereign interest rates due to all of the above. The resulting need to reduce expenditures to make the math work. Increasingly violent protests that make life less livable for the productive and law abiding citizens leading to their accelerated departure. And so on…

Succession Doomer Themed Ep. 2: Sam And Dario Clear The Air

I am rich and have no idea what to do with my life. Where I talk about leaving Loom, giving up $60m, larping as Elon, breaking up with my girlfriend, insecurities, a brief stint at DOGE, and how I'm now in Hawaii self-studying physics. vinay.sh/i-am-rich-and-have-…

The most dangerous moment is right after you win. You did it. You made the money. You quit your job. You built the physique. You got the girl. Now what? Most people let themselves decline into misery because their driving force has now vanished. You need another mountain to climb. You need to understand that it is a gift, not a curse, to always be in the pursuit of your potential - the constant balance of challenge and skill is what makes life meaningful. There is no final top of the mountain.

The New York Times reveals their list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.

Agents already make up the majority of inference. This will quickly trend toward nearly all inference over the next year or two. The vast majority of tokens used in the world will be agents that are executing unbelievable amounts of tasks for us in the background 24/7. Agents will be deployed to read all code changes to secure our software, process all of our data inside of workflows, handle a significant majority of the research that goes into recruiting and customer prospecting, review every event stream and log from every system in the world, go out and execute tasks for us in our personal lives, and hundreds of other use cases. The rate of new agents coming online that will be consuming insane amounts of tokens is not slowing down. Just in the past week I’ve introduced multiple completely new workflows that would not have been possible technically even a month ago. Incredible time to be doing anything in inference and of course building on top of all of this.

You need to stop and read this again… Warren Buffet’s final words of advice from his very last annual letter 🥹 "One perhaps self-serving observation. I’m happy to say I feel better about the second half of my life than the first. My advice: Don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes – learn at least a little from them and move on. It is never too late to improve. Get the right heroes and copy them. You can start with Tom Murphy; he was the best. Remember Alfred Nobel, later of Nobel Prize fame, who – reportedly – read his own obituary that was mistakenly printed when his brother died and a newspaper got mixed up. He was horrified at what he read and realized he should change his behavior. Don’t count on a newsroom mix-up: Decide what you would like your obituary to say and live the life to deserve it. Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior. I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however). Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman." And then today, his last letter to shareholders as chairman…