timelets

Quote of the Day

2026-06-15T04:18:32Z

Intelligence is not what you know, it's what you do when you don't know.

--- Jean Piaget.

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timelets @ 2026-06-11T22:17:00

2026-06-12T05:18:57Z

Military historian Phillips O’Brien: There have been no U.S. peace efforts in Ukraine.

There have been efforts to get Putin a very good deal, forcing Ukrainians to give up more territory and people. That is not peace. That is Washington trying to deliver Putin a success.

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timelets @ 2026-06-06T09:43:00

2026-06-06T16:44:30Z

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Quote of the Day

2026-06-03T03:24:13Z

“youths and men of such a temper who would calmly suppress their own reflections and opinions in which original thought is so impatient to manifest itself, such listeners attentive to the facts as Plato portrayed them, could hardly be imagined in a modern dialogue; and even less could one count on readers of similar disposition”

-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Science of Logic.

Our youth and men are no different than those of two hundred years ago. I suspect Plato's patient listeners were to a greater degree imagined rather than real. In short, we can formulate the following law of impatience conservation: in a philosophical discourse, the difference between patience of the audience and patience required by the author is less than zero over duration of the discourse. dp/dt < 0.

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timelets @ 2026-06-01T20:24:00

2026-06-02T03:29:43Z

"Хорошо ли это для Израиля?"

https://www.axios.com/2026/06/01/trump-netanyahu-israel-lebanon-call

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Иосиф Бродский против Дональда Трампа

2026-06-01T20:11:38Z

Иосиф Бродский в Нобелевской лекции:

В антропологическом смысле, повторяю, человек является существом эстетическим прежде, чем этическим.
...

Ибо человек со вкусом, в частности литературным, менее восприимчив к повторам и заклинаниям, свойственным любой форме политической демагогии. Дело не столько в том, что добродетель не является гарантией шедевра, сколько в том, что зло, особенно политическое, всегда плохой стилист. Чем богаче эстетический опыт индивидуума, чем тверже его вкус, тем четче его царственный выбор, тем он свободнее – хотя, возможно, и не счастливее.

https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2025/04/brodsky-lecture-russian.pdf
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1987/brodsky/lecture/

Эстетически, твиты, картинки (AI slop) и золотые статуи Трампа - поток эксрементов. Причем, говнометание (flooding the zone with shit) в публичной сфере уже давно стало его сознательной медийной стратегией. Люди с минимальным вкусом должны чувствовать, что Трамп представляет собой зло; зловоние, расползающееся и проникающее во все щели общества. Поддержка, или даже нейтральное отношение к Трампу, означает эстетичскую инвалидность. Дело не в _политике_, о которой внезапно отказываются говорить трусы вроде часовщика, а в нежелании или неспособности называть говнюка говнюком.

re: https://yakov-a-jerkov.dreamwidth.org/2390711.html

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timelets @ 2026-05-31T19:59:00

2026-06-01T03:04:23Z

Several pages of “The Dog’s Gaze” are devoted to the most memorable little dog in art, the one in Carpaccio’s late-Quattrocento painting of St. Augustine in his beautiful Venetian study. The Maltese—who watches his master as the translucent apparition of St. Jerome appears at his study window—is alert and attentive without being capable of complete apprehension. We are reminded of dogs as an intermediary between mankind and the rest of creation, both sublunary and celestial; dogs remind us daily of our animal selves and are audience to our higher moments.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/01/the-dogs-gaze-a-visual-history-thomas-w-laqueur-book-review

When the weather is good and walk my dog in the park I feel like the happiest, the smartest, the most beautiful person in the world. I don’t know how or why this happens, but it’s an unmistaken feeling.

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TIL

2026-05-30T05:21:14Z

Stephen Kotkin in today's Uncommon Knowledge told this joke when the host asked him about the current negotiations b/w US and Iran:

There’s a well known joke about a tourist in Ireland who asks one of the locals for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies: ‘Well sir, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here’.

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timelets @ 2026-05-26T19:22:00

2026-05-27T02:40:02Z

“It’s an old question in the philosophy of physics. People have been talking about it since Fermat first formulated it in the 1600s; Planck wrote volumes about it. The thing is, while the common formulation of physical laws is causal, a variational principle like Fermat’s is purposive, almost teleological.
...
Well, if I can speak anthropomorphic-projectionally, the light has to examine the possible paths and compute how long each one would take.” He plucked the last potsticker from the serving dish.
“And to do that,” I continued, “the ray of light has to know just where its destination is. If the destination were somewhere else, the fastest path would be different.

Gary nodded again. “That’s right; the notion of a ‘fastest path’ is meaningless unless there’s a destination specified. And computing how long a given path takes also requires information about what lies along that path, like where the water’s surface is.

I kept staring at the diagram on the napkin. “And the light ray has to know all that ahead of time, before it starts moving, right?”

...
That day when Gary first explained Fermat’s principle to me, he had mentioned that almost every physical law could be stated as a variational principle. Yet when humans thought about physical laws, they preferred to work with them in their causal formulation. I could understand that: the physical attributes that humans found intuitive, like kinetic energy or acceleration, were all properties of an object at a given moment in time. And these were conducive to a chronological, causal interpretation of events: one moment growing out of another, causes and effects creating a chain reaction that grew from past to future.

In contrast, the physical attributes that the heptapods found intuitive, like “action” or those other things defined by integrals, were meaningful only over a period of time. And these were conducive
to a teleological interpretation of events: by viewing events over a period of time, one recognized that there was a requirement that had to be satisfied, a goal of minimizing or maximizing. And one had to know the initial and final states to meet that goal; one needed knowledge of the effects before the causes could be initiated.”

-- Ted Chiang. “Stories of Your Life and Others.”

To understand LLMs and maybe other types of AI, one has to think like hectapods from Ted Chiang's story. Category theory is a bit like that too. First, you have to see roughly the entire diagram, e.g. topos or Kan extension, then think sequentially through its arrows second.

Thomas Nagel's philosophy fits right in too (Mind and Cosmos). AI models _are_ teleological. They know everything there's to know.

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Kleptocracy chronicles

2026-05-20T03:03:11Z

Trump’s Deal With His Administration Also Ends His Tax Audits

WASHINGTON—President Trump’s extraordinary agreement with the federal government expanded Tuesday to end all pending tax audits of him and his businesses, according to a document posted by the Justice Department.

In the document, signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the government said it would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from pursuing certain claims against Trump, his businesses and family members. The agreement specifically blocks the government from taking any action regarding tax returns that already have been filed.

Tuesday’s addendum includes broad language in which the U.S. pledges to cease pursuing any matters that are or could be pending with the IRS and with other agencies or departments. The statement includes family members and “related or affiliated individuals,” although it doesn’t clearly define those terms.

“He gets the money to spread among his friends and allies and also gets immunity for any review or audit. These guys just have no limit to what they’ll try to get away with.”

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/government-deal-with-trump-expands-to-end-tax-audits-aad8f2bc

Real banana republic stuff.

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timelets @ 2026-05-19T09:15:00

2026-05-19T16:16:54Z

The fucking moron is now trying to bankrupt the country.

also see:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-19/us-long-bond-yield-hits-highest-since-2007-on-inflation-concern

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Kleptocracy chronicles

2026-05-19T02:25:48Z

For example:

The accounts purchased at least $1.75 million of Nvidia’s stock in the quarter, including $500,000 on Jan. 6. A week later, the administration cleared the way for Nvidia to send its H200 artificial-intelligence chips to China. Last week, Trump invited Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to travel aboard Air Force One for the state visit to China.

Pure luck, I guess.

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The Greatest Negotiator of All Time

2026-05-18T01:34:06Z

The breakdown of total U.S. agricultural and related product exports to China over the last 10 years (2016–2025) reveals a distinct rollercoaster pattern: [1, 2]

2016: $20.8$ billion
2017: $19.6$ billion
2018: $9.1$ billion (Dipped sharply due to retaliatory tariffs and trade disputes)
2019: $13.8$ billion
2020: $26.4$ billion (Rebounded following the Phase One Trade Agreement)
2021: $33.0$ billion
2022: $36.4$ billion (All-time high for agricultural prices and resilient demand)
2023: $31.6$ billion
2024: $27.3$ billion (China heavily shifted sourcing toward South America)
2025: $\$8.3$ billion (Deteriorated as the trade dispute ratcheted back up) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Last year (because of Trump's trade war) US sales of ag products to China fell to the lowest level in more than a decade. Moreover, in 2024 when Biden was the president US sales for 2025 were projected at $25B. Then Trump came in and the actual number for the year was three times lower than the estimate.

Now, the Great Negotiator announced a major achievement of his visit: China promised to buy $17B worth of American ag products. In other words, during Trump's two years (2025-26) China is going to buy as much from the US as it would've bought in one year, had Trump not thrown the tariff tantrum in the first place. A whole year of sales is lost.

Art of the Deal in action!

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timelets @ 2026-05-13T10:15:00

2026-05-13T17:24:18Z

Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, plays an integral role in Trump’s Truth Social activity. She brings the president stacks of printed-out draft social-media posts for his approval. The proposed posts often recycle content from other accounts that Harp or advisers think would appeal to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Harp then logs onto the president’s account—at times outside of normal work hours—and posts batches of Trump-approved messages, the people said. Trump personally signs off on all of the content posted to his account. While Harp often posts content on Trump’s behalf, the president posts some messages himself, White House officials said.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-truth-social-late-night-posts-167cb47a

A thirty-something lady is the most powerful media influencer in the world. And her job, funded by US taxpayers, is to flood the world with shitposts.

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Театр одного зрителя

2026-04-27T03:35:22Z

Пару дней назад Яков сделал пост о том, как RFJ jr, один из трамповских жополизов (по совместительству наш министр здравоохранения), объясняет, что Трамп был по-своему прав, когда заявлял о снижении цены лекарств на 600%, если она, по его словам, падала с $600 до $100.
https://yakov-a-jerkov.dreamwidth.org/2386697.html

"Логика" объяснения в том, что снижение в 6 раз можно каким-то образом представить как снижение на 600%. Объяснение потребовалось потому, что на слушаниях в Конгрессе сенаторы публично высмеяли трамповские заявления о 600%, и RFK jr., как и положено лояльному жополизу, пришлось Трампа защищать.

Я прочитал пост Якова и удивился, потому что накануне, в день слушаний в Конгрессе, в твиттере была ссылка на оригинальное видео, где RFK jr защищал 600% Трампа, но там были другие числа. Тогда он говорил про снижение с $600 до $10 и тоже объяснял, что у Трампа своя логика. https://x.com/krassenstein/status/2046991286649884740

Вопрос в том, почему вдруг понадобились отдельное публичное выступление RFK jr, теперь уже в присутствии самого Трампа, но с новыми числами. Оба объяснения 600% абсурдны с точки зрения не только математики, но и Американского Свода Коммерческих Правил (The Uniform Commercial Code). Если бы компания рекламировала в интернете или газете снижение цены на товар на 600%, ей бы пришлось сделать соответствующую скидку по требованию покупателя, т.е. доплатить за покупку.

Тем не менее, в администрации Трампа посчитали необходимым публично защитить дурака-начальника с версией расчетов, которые бы выглядели более правдоподобно, чем в выступлении RFK jr. в Конгрессе. Они поменяли числа и организовали новое выступление для прессы, теперь уже в присутствии самого Трампа, чтобы RFK jr. унизился и вылизал боссу задницу у всех на виду еще раз. Интересно, сколько людей в правительстве, кроме самого Президента и министра здравоохранения, занимались всей этой херней. (Но даже для них изначальнoe $600 -> $10 выглядело еще более необъяснимо, чем $600 -> $100, поэтому пришлось менять одну липу на другую.)

В свое время, когда после перестройки были опубликованы материалы ЦК КПСС и КГБ, люди с удивлением обнаружили, какой херней занимались советские руководители на самом высшем уровне. Похоже, в трамповской администрации царит тот же маразм, что и в брежневской.

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timelets @ 2026-04-26T10:43:00

2026-04-26T17:47:58Z

Now, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is taking the next step, one that would have been unthinkable even as recently as 2024. By word and deed, he’s showing Europe and the world how the post-American free world can preserve its liberty and independence.
...
No nation can match American might, but for the first time in my adult life, the moral and strategic heart of the defense of liberal democracy doesn’t beat in Washington. It doesn’t beat in London or Paris or Berlin or Ottawa, either. It’s in Kyiv, where a courageous leader and a courageous people have picked up the torch America has dropped.

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Собачье Сердце

2026-04-20T19:47:20Z

-- Stith Thomson, The Folktale.

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TIL: The Dragon Slayer

2026-04-16T20:02:17Z

Пьеса Шварца "Убить Дракона" написана по мотивам одной из самых распространенных в мире сказок "The Dragon Slayer":

He discovers that a seven-headed dragon who lives on a mountain in the neighborhood demands: periodically a maiden asa sacrifice, else he will lay waste the entire country. The sacrifice has been agreed upon and the lot has fallen to the princess. The king promises that whoever saves her shall have her hand and half his kingdom.

-- Stith Thomson. The Folktale, 1978. UC Press.

This probably goes back to the Minotaur myth.

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timelets @ 2026-04-15T19:35:00

2026-04-16T02:42:16Z

Россия переходит из состояния "людоеды" в состояние "трупоеды".

В Смоленской области на территории мемориального комплекса «Катынь» открылась выставка «Десять веков польской русофобии». Об этом сообщили организаторы выставки — Российское военно-историческое общество (РВИО), которое возглавляет помощник президента РФ Владимир Мединский.

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timelets @ 2026-04-10T21:20:00

2026-04-11T05:07:44Z

Peggy Noonan:

They [two Trump's posts on Iran: 1. open the f-ing strait; 2. civilization will die tonight] constituted hitting a new bottom, a new and infernal, face-lit-by-flames bottom, in world communications. The posts weren’t showbiz, they were sinister. You destabilize the world when, as the American president, you say such things. You make all the babies in this delicately poised, always knock-down-able world less safe. You rob your own nation of a claim to moral seriousness in the military action in which it’s engaged: You are saying we’re not trying to protect life but plan to attack, and in the attacking kill noncombatants who are members of the targeted civilization. The moral high ground is relinquished. You lower the bar for all potential response. You encourage violent action by trumpeting your readiness for it.

It bolsters the position of your enemies—their animus is justified, their commitment deepened. It allows them to pretend they’re fighting for the continuation of their people and not only the continuation of their regime.

Donald Trump plays the part of the madman every day. His head fake would be sanity. If his advisers thought this was a good negotiating tactic—“Give ’em a little madman theory, Mr. President”—they really are hicks.

Mr. Trump’s trust in his gut seems to have grown overwhelming—not in his reasoning power, not his analysis of intelligence data, but gut.

A lot of gut instinct is pattern recognition—I’ve lived long, experienced much, and know how this movie ends. But that means gut is weighted toward past experience.

Sometimes gut is mere emotion dressed up as instinct. Sometimes it’s wishful thinking that feels like conviction. Sometimes it conveniently pre-empts hard reasoning.

You can trust your gut straight into catastrophe.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/in-gut-we-trust-dde164b6

_Hick_ is the right term for describing Trump's supporters of the Art-of-the-deal flavor.

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And the winners are...

2026-04-08T19:45:21Z

What started as a tongue-in-cheek observation that “Trump always chickens out” has become a consistently profitable pattern. It works especially well when there’s a specific deadline like Tuesday night’s Strait of Hormuz ultimatum since there’s less danger of being right but getting the timing wrong.

Over the 300-plus trading sessions since Trump took the oath of office last year, nine of the S&P 500’s 10 biggest gains have had to do with relief over tariffs or Iran. Owning stocks on just those days would have earned an investor 52% on their money compared with 12% for buying and holding an index fund throughout. Wednesday’s cease-fire rally might crack the top six.

https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/iran-bounce-these-tacos-are-getting-stale-1f69dd3a

Also of interest:

A Trump insider opened a $51,000,000 oil short position — hours before Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran. This guy is now 16 for 16. $170 million in profit. A perfect streak.

"We placed the bet." "The ceasefire dropped." "We cashed out." Sixteen times in a row.
https://x.com/JamesTate121/status/2041908860576002256

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timelets @ 2026-03-29T14:45:00

2026-03-29T21:59:07Z

“Ultimately, the task of parenting hasn’t changed, despite the demoralization of AI. It’s still about: How can we raise adaptable, grounded humans, who can respond to disruption—and, even more important, who believe they can respond to disruption,” says Dr. Elkins.

Resiliency is the key to functioning in a world moving so quickly under their feet.

Dr. Elkins assures me this will be easier than I think. “If you see your kid is doing a great job tolerating frustration, say, the videogame console breaks and instead of throwing it against the wall they fix it, that’s an opportunity to be like, ‘Hey, you dealt with that really well,’” she says. “Or when you notice flexibility—they were supposed to go to a friend’s house and someone got sick, but they pivoted nicely. You can say, ‘I saw you rebounded really well.’”

She suggests encouraging your kids to take initiative rather than waiting for instructions, to take healthy risks and do things more independently. “These are core skills that research tells us over and over are related to long-term adaptability,” says Dr. Elkins.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/relationships/ai-parenting-anxiety-c054a54b

The school of hard knocks is back in favor. In education, it's a lot less about a specific skill than general adaptability. Everyone is an explorer now and from that perspective building a team of explorers is the key skill. Also, once you find something valuable, you should switch into the _exploit_ mode as fast as you can (per Alison Gopnik) and rebuild your team.

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timelets @ 2026-03-23T15:20:00

2026-03-23T22:28:06Z

"We are prone to think that we have here are degrees of certainty, with 2+2=4 enjoying the highest certainty. We don't realize that what we have here are not degrees of certainty, but kinds of certainty. And the kinds of certainty are as various as the kinds of proposition in question. *"

This crucial point is often lost in probability calculations. Nassim Taleb gets it though.

* “Different kinds of certainty have different kinds of grounds. And what it is that is certain is, in each such case, a categorially different kind of proposition. The grounds for mathematical certainty are deductive proofs, and mathematical propositions are rules, not descriptions. The certainty of a perceptual statement such as ‘The curtains are red’ lies in its being evident to the senses – look and see! The certainty of an empirical prediction is determined by its conclusive empirical evidence. And the certainty of a highly theoretical proposition of science, such as e = mc2, is determined by the holistic confirmation of the theory of which it is a part.
...
What applies to certainty applies also to truth.
..
Empirical propositions, mathematical propositions, logical propositions and ethical propositions are categorially different. And that’s why what it is for propositions of categorially different kinds to be true is also so different, even though the term ‘true’ is unequivocal.”

Peter Hacker;. “A Beginner's Guide to the Later Philosophy of Wittgenstein.”

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MEGA!

2026-03-23T18:45:47Z

Make Earth Great Again!

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Соскочит или нет?

2026-03-20T22:35:44Z

President Donald Trump said he was considering “winding down” US military efforts against Iran, saying that the US was close to achieving its objectives as the conflict, which has roiled financial markets and the region, nears a fourth week.

“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump said. “If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them.”

Trump, a little over an hour before his social media post, had rejected the idea of declaring a halt to hostilities and expressed confidence Hormuz would reopen “itself” despite allies’ reluctance to offer assistance.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-20/trump-says-he-doesn-t-want-ceasefire-in-iran-conflict

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