dude overreacted a bit ngl

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/46689577

Archived

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In a society where political plurality is crushed, pointing out the existing problems that may eventually put blame on the government and political establishment is dangerous.

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Democracy is vital not only because our rights should be protected, but also because the mechanisms of checks and balances, and division of powers, builds resilience against those in power misbehaving. The collapse of political diversity and the rise of authoritarian governance come with consequences much more far-reaching than the imprisonment of political figures.

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In the face of the tragedy [of the deadly Hong Kong fires], people demand answers about why so many safety procedures and warnings are being ignored. There should not only be arrests of advisors and contractors, but also a truly independent investigation, expanding the scope for civil actors to hold the government accountable.

A typical data centre now requires significant, concentrated power—sometimes equivalent to the needs of tens of thousands of homes. As the sector expands, these large, site-specific demands can add pressure to local parts of the grid and create challenges for connecting new developments. These pressures make it harder and more costly to bring forward new homes, with implications for London’s wider economic growth and its ability to meet housing targets.

A typical data centre now requires significant, concentrated power—sometimes equivalent to the needs of tens of thousands of homes. As the sector expands, these large, site-specific demands can add pressure to local parts of the grid and create challenges for connecting new developments. These pressures make it harder and more costly to bring forward new homes, with implications for London’s wider economic growth and its ability to meet housing targets.

As if usual content for children isn't bad enough.

Found from Bruce Shneier's blog. This model is free, ad-free, privacy respecting, and likely to stay that way. If you or folks you know are heavily using GPT, and likely to be hurt when it starts introducing ads (and otherwise enshittifying) soon, do make sure they know there are alternatives like this.

This particular chat model uses a system prompt chosen by the swiss government, with the intention of providing LLM access as a public utility (like a library). I believe models are intentionally trained on ethical datasets (see the details of Aptertus here), with an effort towards sustainable energy use.

Open source React executes malicious code with malformed HTML—no authentication needed.

Can Kiro win the hearts of startup founders above the many AI coding tools they already have? Amazon hopes a free year will tempt them.

US-based Micron will retire memory products sold under the Crucial brand, which includes NVMe SSDs and external storage, as well as DDR4 and DDR5 RAM.

Consumer shipments will continue until February 2026. Going forward, Micron will focus on supplying memory for AI data centers, a more lucrative business that has been hogging memory supply at the expense of consumer products.

“Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments,” EVP Sumit Sadana said in the announcement.

Research firm TrendForce reports that Micron was the third largest supplier of DRAM behind Samsung and SK Hynix. The three companies also dominated the DRAM market with a 92% market share.

As a result, Micron’s exit leaves a sizable hole in the consumer memory market, depriving PC builders of the trusted Crucial brand. It also remains unclear if any company can fill the gap when analysts are warning that the memory shortage could last for years. Samsung and SK Hynix are also reportedly prioritizing profitability over risky expansions.

In addition, the news might not bode well for PC graphics cards since Micron supplied GDDR7 video memory to Nvidia’s RTX 5000 series, in addition to Samsung and SK Hynix.

I'm getting through of Varoufakis's "Technofeudalism" and I'll hold off judgement until I've relearned my political economy [this project has expanded much more than I thought it would] but I really despise his truisms about AES states.

I'm not saying a work can't be good without being explicitly made by a Leninist [Princes of the Yen and Confessions of an Economic Hitman are both pretty good despite their authors], but...let me elaborate more

Varoufakis occasionally throws in a couple lines about AES states being bad. He says they "had a dogmatic idea about equality" [note: he calls these "socialists of the east" despite cuba being...a thing?] and later says the states turned out something closer to "George Orwells animal farm or 1984." [Conviently ignoring that both of these works were propaganda pieces against the soviet union]. Or that he and his father had concerns that "the same people they fought with [the greek communists] would throw him into a gulag," But...he never proves this. [The last thing he doesn't have to prove, but I still have problems with it]

I'm not saying he has to, but "no investigation, no right to speak." Maybe he has a later section, but currently he throws these out with the basic premise that the reader uncritically agrees with him. But the book is tailored towards the left or those curious about it or who dislike capitalism [in its current form], and makes active references to marxism. So what does this serve? The book is not explicitly a criticism or analysis of AES states.

I think, if I can get into his headspace, he either is getting too conversational [as the book is a letter to his late father, which he and his father agree on AES states and such], so he doesn't feel the need to justify it but, poetically, cannot stop himself from bringing it up.

There's also the possibility that it is his own anxieties that he aims to keep down by repeating a mantra.

More materially there is hegemony, and of course cue the Parenti article.

But I criticize these truisms both because they lack creative and critical thoughts, but also because they are unnecessary. Why denounce leninism in this way, when your book is going to be seen by leftists? Yes there are many of the western left who agree, but plenty also disagree, and others can be undecided. In any case it's either pure selfishness, pure ideology, or uncritical thinking which is concerning for his future study, and only serves to deradicalize people, which is antithetical to what he is [ostensibly] trying to do.

I know Varoufakis published another book recently focusing on Revolution and resistance. I have a lot on my plate right now, but if this would shed more light onto his thinking, then I might read it at some point.

https://archive.is/F9e42

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/54299359

Washington is unhappy that some European arms programs limit U.S. participation.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Wednesday slammed European NATO allies for prioritizing their own defense industry over American arms suppliers, according to three NATO diplomats.

The intervention came during Wednesday's meeting of NATO foreign ministers — which was skipped by Landau's boss Marco Rubio.

Landau, a longtime NATO skeptic who spoke first at the closed-door meeting, told ministers not to “bully” his country’s defense firms out of participating in Europe’s rearmament.

Taiwan expressed thanks and China was upset on Wednesday after Donald Trump signed into law legislation requiring the U.S. State Department to regularly review and update guidelines on how the United States officially interacts with Taipei.

The United States is Taiwan's most important international backer despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, and the issue is a constant source of irritation in Sino-U.S. relations given Beijing views the democratically-governed island as its own.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung told reporters more frequent reviews of the guidelines would allow Taiwanese officials into federal agencies for meetings, for example, though the legislation does not make explicit mention of this.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said China firmly opposes any form of official contact between the United States and "the Taiwan region of China".

Revelations of secret F-35 fighter jet parts shipments to Israel have exposed a yawning hole in Australia’s sovereign national defence.

Exclusive reports by Declassified Australia of at least 71 packages of F-35 fighter jet weapons parts being exported from Sydney to Israel have revealed that Australia has forfeited control over the plane’s spare parts stored here for Australia’s fleet of F-35s.

Australia has signed up to a system where, at a moment’s notice, those ‘parts and components’ may be whisked off the shelves at the RAAF Williamtown Air Base in New South Wales on the whim of a foreign state to be exported to a foreign country in a distant war zone.

While it may be known to defence experts and insiders, this was the surprise public admission by a senior Defence official, Deputy Secretary Hugh Jeffrey. He was responding to questions about the F-35 parts exports, that had been earlier revealed by reports in Declassified Australia, during a Senate interrogation ... “These are US owned goods. They’re managed by Lockheed Martin. Australia does not direct the export of those goods. It does not control the export of those goods..."