The Weekly Flail - September 14, 2024
OVERVIEW
After a month of a totally new game with Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden and five days since Kamala destroyed Donald in their first and now last debate, the dust settled, and nothing has changed. Trump has made it clear that he is unfit for the presidency or to be left alone in public, but that doesn’t matter to his followers. No one can figure out what this means.
The Harris campaign is building momentum by refusing to change anything and never saying the word Gaza, let alone genocide. School shootings will eventually fade away if not discussed, and the climate disaster can be improved by EVs and increased fracking while thinking green thoughts. Nothing else matters.
WAR
Israel’s war on Gaza live: At least 26 killed by Israeli strikes in one day [Aljazeera]
The Israeli army orders new evacuations for thousands of Palestinians in three areas of the northern Gaza Strip, stoking fears of an imminent deadly ground invasion.
An Israeli air strike hits another school-turned-shelter for war-displaced civilians, this time in northern Gaza City, with the civil defence agency reporting five people killed – including two children and a woman – and dozens wounded.
Thousands of Israelis rally in Tel Aviv, urging Gaza captives deal
Thousands of antigovernment Israeli protesters have gathered in central Tel Aviv, calling for more efforts to secure the release of captives held in Gaza.
The protesters gathered outside army headquarters and other government buildings on Saturday, chanting slogans against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urging him to reach a deal with the Palestinian group Hamas to ensure the return of about 100 captives still held in the war-battered strip. [Aljazeera]
Putin ally accuses NATO of already being party to Ukraine war [Reuters]
MOSCOW, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The chairman of Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, on Friday accused NATO of being a party to military action in Ukraine, suggesting it was already heavily involved in military decision-making.
The comments, by Vyacheslav Volodin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, came a day after Putin warned that the West would be directly fighting with Russia if it allowed Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western-made long-range missiles, a move he said would alter the nature of the conflict.
Volodin, who did not reference documentary evidence to back his assertions, accused the U.S.-led military alliance of helping Ukraine choose which Russian cities to target, of agreeing specific military action, and of giving Kyiv orders. . .
TECHNOLOGY/SCIENCE
OpenAI Announces a Model That ‘Reasons’ Through Problems, Calling It a ‘New Paradigm’ [Quartz]
Christopher Null September 12, 2024
The ChatGPT maker reveals details of what’s officially known as OpenAI o1, which shows that AI needs more than scale to advance.
OpenAI made the last big breakthrough in artificial intelligence by increasing the size of its models to dizzying proportions, when it introduced GPT-4 last year. The company today announced a new advance that signals a shift in approach—a model that can “reason” logically through many difficult problems and is significantly smarter than existing AI without a major scale-up.
The new model, dubbed OpenAI o1, can solve problems that stump existing AI models, including OpenAI’s most powerful existing model, GPT-4o. Rather than summon up an answer in one step, as a large language model normally does, it reasons through the problem, effectively thinking out loud as a person might, before arriving at the right result. . . .
AI chatbot gets conspiracy theorists to question their convictions [Nature]
Helena Kudiabor September 12, 2024
Researchers have shown that artificial intelligence (AI) could be a valuable tool in the fight against conspiracy theories, by designing a chatbot that can debunk false information and get people to question their thinking.
In a study published in Science on 12 September1, participants spent a few minutes interacting with the chatbot, which provided detailed responses and arguments, and experienced a shift in thinking that lasted for months. This result suggests that facts and evidence really can change people’s minds.
Tracking QAnon: how Trump turned conspiracy-theory research upside down
“This paper really challenged a lot of existing literature about us living in a post-truth society,” says Katherine FitzGerald, who researches conspiracy theories and misinformation at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. . .
Biobots arise from the cells of dead organisms − pushing the boundaries of life, death and medicine [The Conversation]
Alex Pozhitkov September 12, 2024
Life and death are traditionally viewed as opposites. But the emergence of new multicellular life-forms from the cells of a dead organism introduces a “third state” that lies beyond the traditional boundaries of life and death.
Usually, scientists consider death to be the irreversible halt of functioning of an organism as a whole. However, practices such as organ donation highlight how organs, tissues and cells can continue to function even after an organism’s demise. This resilience raises the question: What mechanisms allow certain cells to keep working after an organism has died?
We are researchers who investigate what happens within organisms after they die. In our recently published review, we describe how certain cells – when provided with nutrients, oxygen, bioelectricity or biochemical cues – have the capacity to transform into multicellular organisms with new functions after death. . .
More than 800 years ago, Polynesians sailed thousands of kilometres across the Pacific Ocean to one of the most remote islands on Earth, Rapa Nui.
Now, a study of ancient genomes from descendants of these voyagers has answered key questions about the island’s history, dispelling the idea of a population collapse hundreds of years ago, and confirming precolonial contact with Indigenous Americans.
Ancient voyage carried Native Americans’ DNA to remote Pacific islands
The theory that the early Indigenous inhabitants of Rapa Nui — also known as Easter Island — ravaged its ecosystem and caused the population to crash before the arrival of Europeans in the early eighteenth century was popularized in the 2006 book Collapse, by geographer Jared Diamond, but some other scholars have since criticized that theory.
The latest analysis, published on 11 September in Nature1, “serves as the final nail in the coffin of this collapse narrative”, says Kathrin Nägele, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. “It’s correcting the image of Indigenous people.” . . .
No nudity. No small talk. No tips. Massage robots have arrived in Miami [AXIOS]
Martin Vassolo September 9, 2024
Infrared sensors scan your skintight bodysuit before robotic arms dig into the knots in your back. A touchscreen below your face plays music and lets you adjust the pressure.
There's no nudity. No small talk. No human interaction.
Why it matters: The massage robots have arrived in Miami.
What they're saying: New York tech company Aescape believes its robots are the future of massage.
"I built Aescape, really, to be a solution for all the people out there who want to self-direct their massages — who want to be in control," founder and CEO Eric Litman tells Axios.
After launching at New York fitness clubs and hotels earlier this year, Aescape expanded to Miami's Kimpton EPIC Hotel in late August – the company's first installation outside New York.
Litman says he created the company to provide on-demand massages at an affordable price.
It's perfect for people who feel uncomfortable being nude or speaking up at massages, or those who don't want to shower afterward, he says.
How it works: The massage table is made of a memory foam mattress, with bolsters for your ankles and an armrest that allows you to control the touchscreen below your face or use your phone if needed.
The touchscreen allows you to adjust the headrest, armrest and bolsters. Choose your pressure, skip body parts you don't want massaged and select different music genres or backgrounds to guide your relaxation journey.
You need to wear a special compression suit to enable the robot arms — which are heated to 95 degrees — to more easily glide over your body.
The infrared scan creates a 3D model of your body and the robot uses that to customize its massage to your muscle structure.
The robot simulates the touch techniques of a massage therapist, imitating a human thumb, a cupped hand, an elbow and other methods.
Your body is displayed on the touchscreen and you can watch along as the robot works.
Safety: There's a pause button if you need a break and a kill switch in case of emergency.
Pricing: Customers can book online or through the app. Massages at the Kimpton start at $40 for a 15-minute appointment or $60 for half an hour.
Until Next Week.
Or you can buy me a coffee . . .