thirdwave

The Guardian: "US military to reduce number of troops in Romania as start of European drawdown"

I bet the rise of the gerontocracy coincides with the rise of the uniparty. Both sides agree on the main economic system, but they need a modicum of "battle of ideas" between two things, at least the illusion of it, so both parties amp up culture war and superfluous divisions, that increases polarization, then boom: Gerontocracy.

Vox: "[T]he median age in the US Senate is over 65 years old. In fact, American politicians have aged so much that the United States has been dubbed a gerontocracy — a system of government where power is concentrated among the elderly..

There are two main reasons why House elections are so uncompetitive: polarization and gerrymandering. As Americans became more polarized, they became more loyal to their political parties. That meant that fewer and fewer Americans split their tickets — voting for, say, a Democratic presidential candidate while also voting for a Republican candidate for the House or Senate — making congressional districts safer during a general election. And more importantly, partisan gerrymandering, where lawmakers draw up congressional districts to benefit one party, has made competitive elections all the more rare."

The Register: "International Criminal Court kicks Microsoft Office to the curb.. The ICC will switch from Microsoft's productivity wares to openDesk, an open source office and collaboration suite provided by the Center for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior."

Link

Arnold doesn't seem to be fighting against Prop 50 all that much... Probably because he knows he will lose, he is being kinda stealth about it

ABC7: "New polls show Californians overwhelmingly support Prop 50 ahead of Election Day"

#EU

"@Tutanota@mastodon.social

🚨BREAKING: We've stopped #ChatControl.. !

Until a new Council Presidency tries again...

But for now, we can enjoy our success. Thanks everyone for fighting for #privacy along with us! ❤️ 👏'

#HeliumCooled #NuclearPower

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John Scalzi: "I have personally found a good way to spot-check “AI” is to ask it questions about me and see what it gets wrong, and so, in a similar fashion, I popped over to Grokipedia to see what its article about me says, and how accurate it might be.

And how accurate is it? As accurate as anything made with an LLM, which is to say: meh, not especially, because fundamentally LLMs aren’t built for accuracy, they’re built for statistical probability, and these really are two separate things. Grok can find out things about me on the Internet, and put those things into Grokipedia, but it doesn’t appear to have the ability to discriminate between what is truth and what’s not. If it shows up enough on the Internet, Grok’s happy to print the not truth."

Charles K.. That is a good move.

Reuters: "King Charles strips brother Andrew of titles and his mansion"

TR purchase of Eurofighters is an indirect admission the indigeneous fighter aircraft Kaan is not ready for prime time.

"Why are most Chinese still poor" #LeiRealTalk

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#China #Globalization #Firstpost

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The Lever: "How A Pharma Giant Is Looting The Pentagon.. The drug intermediary overseeing the military’s TRICARE pharmacy program is limiting access to care and overcharging taxpayers hundreds of dollars on average per prescription."

Politico: "[T]he Biggest Federal Worker Union Broke With Democrats on the Shutdown"