timelets

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 05:07:44 GMT

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...

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 19:45:21 GMT

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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Sun, 29 Mar 2026 21:59:07 GMT

“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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Mon, 23 Mar 2026 22:28:06 GMT

"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!

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 18:45:47 GMT

Make Earth Great Again!

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Соскочит или нет?

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 22:35:44 GMT

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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Sat, 14 Mar 2026 19:21:21 GMT

As usual, Trump will create a lot of mess, proclaim a victory, then get bored, leave and let others cleanup his shit.

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Great Negotiator!

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:17:01 GMT

President Trump said in the Oval Office that he believed Iran was “going to attack first,” as he discussed his reason for striking Iran.

That perspective developed during negotiations with Tehran, he said.

“We were having negotiations with these lunatics,” he said, referring to Iran. “It was my opinion that they were going to attack first.”

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-israel-us-strikes-2026/card/trump-says-he-thought-iran-was-going-to-attack-first--4ELJsHHebf6NV5Je3uF2

Our stable genius believed that when faced with a historic American and Israeli military buildup in the region and after its air defenses were pummeled in the last year's confrontation Iran would attack first. I hope he's lying as usual. The alternative would be he's dumb as a rock.

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Thoughts and Prayers!

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:05:13 GMT

First lady Melania Trump expressed condolences to families who have lost loved ones to death and injury during an address to the United Nations on Monday that described “these challenging times.”

In an unprecedented role for a first lady, she opened a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on behalf of the U.S. as the country assumed the rotating presidency of the council. “I extend my earnest wishes for a swift and smooth recovery to all those who have been injured. You are in my thoughts and prayers during these challenging times,” Trump said, without mentioning any particular conflict.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-israel-us-strikes-2026/card/speaking-at-un-melania-trump-expresses-condolences-for-the-dead-4oUsYCq5A2LzcAeEHn9Z

It's like watching a really bad movie about geopolitics.

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Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:59:20 GMT

In 2020, China's initial efforts to contain COVID worked reasonably well, with no broad lockdowns in important cities like Shanghai. It all changed with the emergence of the highly contagious omicron variant. The system went berserk, including the use of drones:

An even more bewildering use of drones took place in the early days of the Shanghai lockdown. The city’s top mental health official introduced an unexpectedly sparky phrase in an otherwise drab press conference on the course of the virus, demanding that Shanghainese “repress your soul’s yearning for freedom.”

“One night in April, as the lockdown swung into high gear, a drone carrying a megaphone began blasting that message into apartments full of huddling residents: “Repress your soul’s yearning for freedom,” with a woman’s voice played on loop while a light blinked from the drone. “Do not open your windows to sing, which can spread the virus.”

-- Daniel Wang. “Breakneck: Chinas Quest to Engineer the Future.”

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Thu, 26 Feb 2026 18:50:22 GMT

We asked Amodei and four other leaders in AI how they think about their own children’s futures and what advice they give them.
...
--There are two areas that I think will be vibrant in the short to medium term. One is energy. The other is healthcare.

-- In terms of what he should study in college... I’d rather it be something in the space of mathematics because logical thinking is something that will be required in any future role because of how AI works.

-- My kids are interested in broad careers like law and medicine, so I’m less worried. I think generalist jobs, where there are many different skills bundled together, are good jobs in an AI world. .. A liberal-arts education matters more than ever.

-- Metacognitive skills will be very important—flexibility, adaptability, experimentation, thinking critically, being able to challenge things. Developing critical-thinking skills requires friction, doing things that are hard, doing deep thinking.

For that, a traditional liberal-arts education is really important.

-- So, if anything—and this sounds funny to say about future teenagers—I might orient my kids toward more socializing and understanding how they relate to people in their own unique way.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/what-ai-executives-tell-their-own-kids-about-the-jobs-of-the-future-1ba43f65

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Последние новости из тоталитарной России

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 03:33:45 GMT

Новые документальные свидетельства о систематических преступлениях российских военных против граждан Украины:

Российский военачальник Роман Демурчиев хвастался родным и сослуживцам пытками, казнями и надругательствами над телами украинских военных. Это следует из архива его переписки за 2022-2024 годы, который изучили "Схемы" и "Система". Мы подтвердили подлинность переписки и восстановили контекст упомянутых в ней событий. Многочисленные описания, фото и видео зверств доказывают: российское командование не просто знает о подобных практиках на фронте, но и поощряет их.

https://www.currenttime.tv/a/systema-schemy-demurchiev/33682482.html

Стирание памяти о систематических преступлениях государства против своих граждан:

Москва. 20 февраля. INTERFAX.RU - Первый национальный Музей памяти, посвященный жертвам геноцида советского народа, появится на месте Музея истории ГУЛАГа*.

"В Москве откроется Музей Памяти. Он будет посвящен памяти жертв геноцида советского народа. Экспозиция охватит все этапы военных преступлений нацистов в годы Великой Отечественной войны", - говорится в сообщении на сайте.

Согласно сообщению на сайте мэра и правительства Москвы, открытие музея состоится в 2026 году.

"В его основу лягут архивные материалы проекта "Без срока давности", инициированного Поисковым движением России", - сообщается на сайте.

Новым директором музея стала Наталья Калашникова, которая, как уточняется на сайте, с апреля 2025 года возглавляет музей "Смоленская крепость", имеет опыт работы по сохранению памяти жертв геноцида советских граждан в рамках организации тематических выставок и издания исторических книг.

* В ноябре 2024 года стало известно о том, что Музей истории ГУЛАГа в Москве с 14 ноября временно прекратил работу из-за нарушений пожарной безопасности. Как уточнили в департаменте культуры столицы, решение о приостановке деятельности музея принято для безопасности посетителей.

https://www.interfax.ru/russia/1073861

Больше о современной России думать не имеет смысла. В течение ближайших трех поколений страна будет во власти военных преступников и их наследников. В лучшем случае, лет через 15-20 начнется переход от тоталитаризма обратно к авторитаризму, но, как показывает опыт Ирана, вероятность этого достаточна мала, чтобы следить за развитием событий из соображений прагматики.

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Fri, 20 Feb 2026 05:26:20 GMT

“[China] embraced a vision of technology radically different from Silicon Valley’s: the pursuit of physical and industrial technologies rather than virtual ones like social media or e-commerce platforms. In China, technology is not represented by shiny objects; rather, it is embodied by communities of engineering practice like Shenzhen, where technology lives inside the heads and in the hands of its workforce. ”
...
Chinese officials climbed over each other to host a Foxconn facility. They salivated at the number of jobs and amount of tax revenues the company could create for their jurisdiction, which could elevate them to higher office. Local officials promised to satisfy Foxconn’s extraordinary labor demands. In Chengdu, minor bureaucrats had to hit quotas on the number of workers to rustle up for factory work; those who failed might receive an order to work at assembly lines themselves.
...
A 2012 story in the New York Times reported that Apple needed to hire nearly nine thousand industrial engineers in the earlier days of iPhone production. The company’s analysts expected recruitment to last nine months to hire that many engineers in the United States. In China, they were able to do it in two weeks.

-- Daniel Wang. “Breakneck: Chinas Quest to Engineer the Future.”

The difference in the vision reflects the nature of capital provenance: state and state affiliated banks vs venture. The Chinese state can take on risks and invest so much money into hardware and equipment that no VC can afford.

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Tue, 17 Feb 2026 03:58:11 GMT

“I came to realize the inadequacy of twentieth-century labels like capitalist, socialist, or, worst of all, neoliberal. They are no longer up to the task of helping us understand the world, if they ever were. Capitalist America intrudes upon the free market with a dense program of regulation and taxation while providing substantial (albeit imperfect) redistributive policies.

Socialist China detains union organizers, levies light taxes, and provides a threadbare social safety net. The greatest trick that the Communist Party ever pulled off is masquerading as leftist. While Xi Jinping and the rest of the Politburo mouth Marxist pieties, the state is enacting a right-wing agenda that Western conservatives would salivate over: administering limited welfare, erecting enormous barriers to immigration, and enforcing traditional gender roles—where men have to be macho and women have to bear their children.”

-- Daniel Wang. “Breakneck: Chinas Quest to Engineer the Future.”

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Who cares about Epstein when real courts deal with real issues

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 04:01:11 GMT

Federal prosecutors in Washington sought and failed on Tuesday to secure an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video this fall that enraged President Trump by reminding active-duty members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders.

It was remarkable that the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington — led by Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump’s — authorized prosecutors to go into a grand jury and ask for an indictment of the six members of Congress, all of whom had served in the military or the nation’s spy agencies.

But it was even more remarkable that a group of ordinary citizens sitting on the grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington forcefully rejected Mr. Trump’s bid to label their expression of dissent as a criminal act warranting prosecution.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/us/politics/trump-democrats-illegal-orders-pirro.html

It's really remarkable because the standard for a grand jury indictment is rather low:

Threshold: Probable cause (not "beyond a reasonable doubt").
Requirement: At least 12 of 16-23 members must agree.
Evidence: Based solely on evidence presented by the prosecutor.

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Stating the obvious

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 17:32:21 GMT

Факты – упрямая вещь, и эти факты говорят нам о том, что при «слабом» Байдене Москва не могла и близко позволить себе того, что сходит ей с рук при «сильном» Трампе.

Без Трампа у Путина не было уверенности в том, что «энергоцид» Украины и массовый расстрел городов-миллионников баллистическими ракетами сойдет ему с рук. Теперь она есть. Всеми своими действиями, какими бы благими намерениями он ни руководствовался, Трамп последовательно поощрял Путина к террору. Он создавал у него уверенность в том, что «ответка» от Америки не прилетит.

https://t.me/v_pastukhov/1809

Эпизод с Гренландией открыл глаза европейским русским на Трампа.

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Fri, 06 Feb 2026 20:57:34 GMT

When it comes to honesty assessments of the Trump administration, Democrats are much closer to Independents than Republicans. Essentially, Republicans are opposite of Independents, not Democrats.

Democrats (93 - 2 percent) and independents (65 - 20 percent) think the Trump administration has not given an honest account of the incident, while Republicans (60 - 19 percent) think the Trump administration has given an honest account of the incident.

https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3947

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Банальность зла 2

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 18:48:54 GMT

«Полицейские не ходили по квартире, они ездили по льду»

Пережившая Холокост киевлянка замерзла в центре города, обесточенного российскими ракетами.

Никто не знает точно, когда умерла баба Женя. Знают только, от чего: от холода. Пережившая Холокост киевлянка умерла от Холодомора — в историческом центре города, на Подоле, в многоквартирном доме на улице Почайнинской. День памяти жертв Холокоста пополнился еще одним именем в мартирологе: Евгения Михайловна Бесфамильная.

Полиция отказывалась заходить в ее квартиру еще и потому, что «запаха нет — значит, и трупа нет». Был бы труп — вы бы уже почувствовали, объясняли полицейские. А соседи еще полночи сидели и придумывали аргументы, как заставить полицейских открыть дверь.

Разгадка оказалась проста: труп был замерзший.

https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/01/27/politseiskie-ne-khodili-po-kvartire-oni-ezdili-po-ldu

После таких новостей не то, что читать, даже открывать русский ЖЖ физически противно. Недавно, в очередном обсуждении котиков там прозвучали вопросы:

Каким способом можно видеть тоску или радость, представлять себе, развеселит нечто другого или напугает?

https://ivanov-petrov.livejournal.com/2632133.html

Как будто трудно себе представить, что Россия своими ракетными и дроновыми атаками на украинские города обрекает людей на холод и смерть. Те, кто запускают ракеты и дроны по тепло- и электростанциям прекрасно знают, чего они добиваются. А культурные русские люди живут в состоянии проклятой неизвестности.

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mini-Musks

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 06:14:53 GMT

Women who were surveyed by Obi were essentially evenly split when it comes to choosing Waymo or Tesla, with Zoox a distant third at 8%. But 56% of men surveyed preferred Tesla to Waymo (25%) or Zoox (7%).

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/27/the-price-gap-between-waymo-and-uber-is-narrowing/

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TIL: Personal animosity matters

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 01:53:36 GMT

In the early 2000s, Huawei survived Cisco's IP lawsuit because it partnered with 3Com, whose CEO Bruce Chaflin hated John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco.

“An alliance between 3Com and Huawei was attractive to both sides. Huawei would get the immediate legal protection of 3Com’s deep patent portfolio; 3Com would get Huawei’s lower production costs and its connections to the vast China market. Soon after the two announced their joint venture, called H3C, 3Com’s lawyers filed a motion to intervene in the Cisco case, calling 3Com an interested party.”

--- Eva Dou. “House of Huawei.”

Ultimately, both the 3Com alliance with Huawei and Cisco itself failed, while Huawei survived and prospered by copying technologies from the West and selling them to the rest of the world. But in the beginning, the Cisco lawsuit looked quite scary because it threatened Huawei's very existence.

“Ren told his trusted deputy, Guo Ping, who was now Huawei’s executive vice president, to get to the US as quickly as he could. Ren invoked the fable of ancient Chinese military general Han Xin*, who had accepted the humiliation of crawling between another man’s legs to prevent a deadly fight.”

* The fable of General Han Xin’s humiliation, known as "crawling between the legs" (胯下之辱), tells of a young, poor Han Xin being challenged by a bully in his hometown of Huaiyin to either kill him or crawl through his legs. Choosing to endure this shame rather than waste his life on a petty killing, Han Xin crawled through, later becoming a renowned military strategist and rewarding the man for testing his resolve.

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Sun, 25 Jan 2026 02:39:58 GMT

Video clearly shows that Alex Petti is on his knees, pinned to the ground by multiple ICE agents. One ICE agent removes Petti's gun, stored in the holster in his back. After that, another ICE agent pulls out his gun and shoots Petti in the back multiple times.

https://x.com/evanhill/status/2015244452743258324
https://www.instagram.com/p/DT6KrVBFBrz/?hl=en

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Thu, 22 Jan 2026 04:24:55 GMT

Jamie Dimond of JPM about AI in his business and beyond

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Thu, 22 Jan 2026 04:16:46 GMT

at around 3:30, he says, I'm suspicious of philosophy.

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Wed, 21 Jan 2026 03:03:30 GMT

“Ren saw a Russia devastated by hyperinflation... Ren felt that the United States was partly to blame: Washington had coaxed the leader of the new Russia, Boris Yeltsin, to apply “shock therapy” to the economy with a rapid shift to capitalism, he wrote, but Washington did not follow through with the financial aid it had dangled. “They always give you some bait to get you to change some policies, but when you’ve made changes according to their demands, they raise further demands,” Ren wrote. “You still cannot get ‘sincere’ help from the United States.”

At the end of the day, the Russians remained wary about installing Chinese switches in their networks. “We are still unsure how much we know about Russia and if we can really open up the market,” Ren wrote to staff.

( Read more... )

-- Eva Dou. “House of Huawei.”

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Tue, 20 Jan 2026 19:13:06 GMT

WSJ Editorial Board is praying for the SCOTUS to grow balls:

The world is waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the legality of President Trump’s “emergency” tariffs, and Mr. Trump’s weekend tariff spree against European allies underscores again why his abuse of his authority needs to be reined in.

The episode puts in sharp relief how open-ended Mr. Trump’s claim of tariff emergency authority is. He can declare an emergency on his own, he can decide which countries and goods he can hit with the border taxes, and at what rate. This means he can use tariffs essentially whenever he wants for whatever reason he wants. Congress gave him no such expansive power under IEEPA or any other statute.

Tariff apologists will say the Greenland tariffs show the uses of border taxes for foreign policy, but the taxing power is Congress’s under the Constitution unless expressly delegated to the President.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-greenland-ieepa-supreme-court-2a4a6591

On polymarket the current bet is 31% chance they won't.

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