A few hours later, the "few details" emerge:
But he suggested that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise and that western military aid to Kyiv be halted during the 30-day ceasefire.
Some people probably say that "it was worth trying" (others would say it wasn't).
The executive order in question is likely no. 14215, currently disputed in court by the DNC. Among other things, it says:
"(b) "Agency," unless otherwise indicated, means any authority of the United States that is an "agency" under 44 U.S.C. 3502(1), and shall also include the Federal Election Commission.
...and also...
The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President's supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. The President and the Attorney General's opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties.
No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General's opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General.
It's easy to foresee that he wants to alter the constitutional order and establish an authoritarian regime.
Some sound advise to people in the US:
If the situation worsens, you will benefit from secure communications between people, to hold your councils, make smarter decisions and organize action.
Also, some controversial advise:
if you're into tech, find a nice hobby involving something like drones, model planes, airships, tethered blimps, kites, rockets, RC cars, boats, subs or even stationary robots - something that is interesting and fits your budget (let's hope you'll use your skills for fun and wholesome things, but life could make corrections)
it also benefits to know your way around communications: how to participate in a mesh network, how to establish a radio link to some distance, how to lay single mode bare fiber between 2 points exceptionally fast
I mostly agree. I have seen a local hydrogen gas station and they had to invest a lot in safety measures.
I don't see hydrogen as a viable street transport fuel.
However, I think it could be a viable stationary turbine or ship fuel, and a viable ingredient for synthesized methane or synthesized alcohols (provided that a cheap input of CO2 or CO is available).
The article itself provides the data to argue that it's sensationalist.
Hydrogen is therefore an indirect greenhouse gas with a global warming potential GWP of 5.8 over a 100-year time horizon. A future hydrogen economy would therefore have greenhouse consequences and would not be free from climate perturbations.
If a global hydrogen economy replaced the current fossil fuel-based energy system and exhibited a leakage rate of 1% then it would produce a climate impact of 0.6% of the current fossil fuel based system. If the leakage rate were 10%, then the climate impact would be 6% of the current system
P.S.
Nobody in their right mind will spend energy to manufacture a gas and then let 10% of it leak out unused.
Leak rates characteristic of fossil gas systems are related to the nature of fossil gas systems.
As far as today's news say, PKK has declared a ceasefire - they won't attack anyone unless attacked - and seems to be considering Öcalan's advise.
Even if Syrian Kurds correctly note that it doesn't have anything to do with them specifically, I think it indirectly has much to do with the fall of Bashar al Assad's regime in Syria, and negotiations to put together a new form of Syria.
I imagine (I could be wrong) that Kurdish people might have concluded that:
They might have concluded that it benefits to negotiate for peace. One of Turkey's foremost excuses for attacking Kurds has been the PKK. If the PKK agrees to dissolve, the excuse is gone and unless another excuse is found - maybe war will stop for a while.
Erdogan remains the same of course, but the geopolitical situation could be new for him too, since Trump could genuinely attempt to appease Russia and abandon Ukraine, while the rest of NATO could genuinely attempt to replace the United States and double its support for Ukraine. As a result, the Black Sea region could see changes in the balance of power.
If one uses a disco laser or laser pointer in the visible wavelength range, it's hard to inflict permanent blindness with it. During the time it would take to inflict thermal damage to the retina, reflexes kick in and the person looking into a laser will close their eye and turn their head.
Occurrences of permanent blindness are rare. This study, even if a bit old (2015) introduces the topic with helpful case reports, for example:
Two young soldiers (Cases 1 and 2) aged 27 and 28 years respectively, serving in the Oman army, projected penlight like devices emanating bright blue-green light into each others eyes (left eye for Case number 1 and right eye for Case number 2) for about 5–10 s. They competed with each other to determine who could bear the light longer while celebrating the success of a local football game.
Basically, they did the utmost stupidity: forcing oneself to stare into a laser at close range. They paid a price and damaged their vision, but didn't go blind from it.
Of course, it's a different story with cutting and engraving lasers, and lasers outside the visible wavelengths - you can stare into those without any reflexes helping avoid damage. The same article mentions another source, reporting about a guy (also military) who looked into a high-power range finder and perforated his fovea (the area where high-resolution vision occurs). It was most likely an infrared laser.
So, be careful but disco lasers won't strike a person blind.
A fun question for you: can a worker in China start an independent trade union?
The answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China
Independent unions are illegal in China with only the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) permitted to operate.
China is a mostly capitalist country with the state owning a lot of capital, and a "communist" party deciding without a mandate from people. But it retains some features of socialist policy.
In year 2021, Beijing was the city with the biggest number of billionaires living there (later, Mumbai took over).
If you take the list of countries by income inequality, you will see that China has greater inequality than most of neighbouring countries, and most of Europe.
Some Gini indexes of Asian countries, more equal first (source: United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research):
Some highlights from other continents:
Going by the Gini index, China has a lot in common with the USA and its closest matches among big countries are Russia and India.
China is a democracy.
Yes, the Republic of China appears to be a democracy.
About the People's Republic of China, we can read in Wikipedia:
A movement for increased democracy and liberalization stalled after the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989.
So, we read that democracy never came.
China is a unitary one-party socialist republic led by the CCP.
So, we read that only one party is allowed to exist and rule. We also read about CCP propaganda, which I think you have consumed too much:
The PRC officially terms itself as a democracy, using terms such as "socialist consultative democracy",[186] and "whole-process people's democracy".[187] However, the country is commonly described as an authoritarian one-party state and a dictatorship,[188][189] with among the heaviest restrictions worldwide in many areas, most notably against freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, free formation of social organizations, freedom of religion and free access to the Internet.[190]
I should note that according to its own words, the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) is also a "democracy", even if its passing of power among the Kim family resembles a hereditary monarchy. If you take words and slogans at their face value, you'll be easily mislead.
P.S.
little one
Don't troll. Also, don't spread disinformation.
Living off grid often correlates with poorly accessible locations - because that's where the infrastructure is not.
On certain latitudes, especially near bodies of water, especially in remote locations - do not ask who the snow comes for - it always comes for you (and with a grudge). So, what ya gonna do?
Over here, a tractor being incomplete (it is great folly to go into winter with an incomplete tractor), snow is handled by an electric microcar. Since the microcar is made of thin sheet metal and plastic, it cannot carry a plow... but the rear axle being solid steel, it can pull one.
The plow is one year old, and was previously pulled by a gasoline car. It is made of construction steel: 8 mm L-profiles shaped like a letter A with double horizontal bars. The point of connection on top ensures it doesn't lift too much while plowing. It's currently fixed with an unprofessional and temporary C-clamp (there will be an U-bolt soon). It is pulled with a chain.
If snow is heavy, the L-profiles lift the plow on top of snow, and you have to plow the same road many times. Sometimes it veers off sideways. Generally, you have to catch the snow early with this system - if you're late, you're stuck. :)
Not many advantages, but dirt cheap. Don't go plowing public roads with such devices - it is nearly invisible to fellow drivers, and cops would get a seizure.
To make no excessive claims, I have to admit I burnt a fair bit of wood during the night. In the morning however, around 9 o'clock, the solar fence (nominal power 2400 W) was giving 600 W and steaming vigorously. By 10 o'clock, it had thawed and gave 940 W. Later, other panel arrays took over and wattage decreased. The energy was used to run a heat pump.
P.S. Knowing that server resources aren't infinite, I hosted the image externally, I hope that hosting on "postimages.org" works smoothly.
The concept is new to me, so I'm a bit challenged to give an opinion. I will try however.
In some systems, software can be isolated from the real world in a nice sandbox with no unexpected inputs. If a clear way of expressing what one really wants is available, and more convenient than a programming language, I believe a well-trained and self-critical AI (capable of estimating its probability of success at a task) will be highly qualified to write that kind of software, and tell when things are doubtful.
The coder may not understand the code, though, which is something I find politically unacceptable. I don't want a society where people don't understand how their systems work.
It could even contain a logic bomb and nobody would know. Even the AI which wrote it may tomorrow fail to understand it, after the software has become sufficiently unique through customization. So, there's a risk that the software lacks even a single qualified maintainer.
Meanwhile some software is mission critical - if it fails, something irreversible happens in the real world. This kind of software usually must be understood by several people. New people must be capable of coming to understand it through review. They must be able to predict its limitations, give specifications for each subsystem and build testing routines to detect introduction of errors.
Mission critical software typically has a close relationship with hardware. It typically has sensors coming from the real world and effectors changing the real world. Testing it resembles doing electronical and physical experiments. The system may have undescribed properties that an AI cannot be informed about. It may be impossible to code successfully without actually doing those experiments, finding out the limitations and quirks of hardware, and thus it may be impossible for an AI to build from a prompt.
I'm currently building a drone system and I'm up to my neck in undocumented hardware interactions, but even a heating controller will encounter some. I don't think people will experience success in the near future with letting an AI build such systems for them. In principle it can. In principle, you can let an AI teach a robot dog to walk, and it will take only a few hours. But this will likely require giving it control of said robot dog, letting it run experiments and learn from outcomes. Which may take a week, while writing the code might have also taken a week. In the end, one code base will be maintainable, the other likely not.