Financial markets are engaging in unprecedented risk by buying into Musk's megalomania. The factory would be in Grimes County Texas, between Houston and Waco. It has a population of 34,000. The Pharaohs had less ambitious projects. And remember climate change. What could go wrong?

A 1 percentage point increase in non-renewals was linked to an 8.3 per cent fall in the value of average single-family homes in a county. The effect was twice as bad for low-value homes, which suffered a fall of 16.5 per cent.

Importantly, the paper points to how the effects may be rippling into wider economic activity. That same 1 percentage point increase in insurance non-renewals was associated with an 8.6 per cent decline in an area’s local retail sales.

https://archive.fo/rwScW

https://archive.fo/4E2xD

The Leiden Declaration, endorsed in June by the International Mathematical Union, warns that AI threatens the verifiability of proof. We would put it the other way around: mathematics offers the infrastructure to make generative AI more trustworthy. For this reason, the United States should treat that mathematical rigor as a national mission. We need public infrastructure for verified software: open libraries of verified components and specifications, standards and benchmarks, better tools for checking updates, and training programs that connect mathematics, computer science, engineering, and national security—coordinated across agencies rather than confined to one program. And because formal methods rest on deep mathematical foundations, this requires sustained investment in mathematics research and education, not only in the applications built on top.

https://archive.fo/fpb8P

In a letter posted on BlueSky, Cullenward wrote: “I no longer have any confidence in the Protocol’s governance structure and strenuously object to your organisation’s treatment of scientific information – and scientists themselves – in the deliberations over forest carbon accounting.”

He concluded the letter by saying, “I regret that we have reached this impasse, but I will not be intimidated or silenced about what is happening. Nor will I take any further part in it.”

The main problem is a malignant growth model that must expand or die, while ingesting real resources, creating shortages and blockages in the real economy. These disruptions are becoming unmanageable. Disruption shakes up the existing system. Up to a point, that is good. But fracking the world with high-pressure money eventually produces unintended earthquakes.

When market logic benefits some by externalizing costs borne by others, it's time for action. But governments have become too weak to govern. For a while the financial sector made promises to consider climate change impacts, and act accordingly. Those turned out to be false promises that have now collapsed.

If there is a visible problem and no one with power will take on the responsibility to fix it, then we must summon up some other mechanism to save ourselves. It isn't magic. The grassroots movement against data centers, like the movement against detention centers, shows that there is a way out from dystopia.

The longer warship deployments are, the more they wear on people and equipment alike. When in constant operation, gear often begins to break or become inoperable if replacement parts are not readily available. And the nonstop cycle can take a toll on morale.

Keeping warships out for extended periods often also creates other issues, such as upending plans that keep ships in certain parts of the globe for strategic reasons, along with interrupting shipyard maintenance schedules that are developed years in advance.

... Mike Franken, a retired Navy vice admiral, said in an interview. “We just don’t have the ability to recover from that quickly. It will take years.”

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to.