Odds and Ends — 9 May 2025

about 11 hours ago

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:

EU to Track Crypto Transfers Under New AML Rules: Eurogroup President

Senate Democrats on Thursday voted down a procedural motion that would allow the upper chamber to take up landmark GOP-led cryptocurrency legislation, delivering a stunning blow to Republicans on one of their first major policy pushes since clinching a trifecta.

ChatGPT a ‘schizophrenia-seeking missile’

Coronavirus and Public Health:

Evidence of Origins of the COVID-19 Outbreak Disputes the Lab Leak Theory

RFK Jr.’s Running Mate Says Someone Is ‘Controlling’ Him

“I don’t know if RFK very clearly lied to me, or what is going on. It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions (and it isn’t President Trump).”

Mike Osterholm on how the Trump administration is reshaping public health in America

Former CDC staff warn of 'a five-alarm fire'

https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1920312724271034525

Politics:

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1920456735795392718

Um, maybe because you committed perjury: ‘You’re Accusing Me Of Committing Perjury!’ FBI Director Kash Patel Rages Over House Dem Suggesting He Lied at Confirmation Hearing

https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1920259855014670426

———— Leo XIV ————

Not sure if Cramer deleted this tweet or if it’s fake:

New Pope Leo XIV Bashed Trump and JD Vance on Twitter Just Weeks Ago

https://twitter.com/SarahIronside6/status/1920544894700933126

https://twitter.com/deedydas/status/1920537165995397516

https://twitter.com/GodCloseMyEyes/status/1920527774206349460

https://twitter.com/itsJeffTiedrich/status/1920513996114808855

———— Kalaallit Nunaat ————

Trump’s Threats Push Greenlanders Closer to Denmark

…Trump has frequently said that he covets Greenland, a self-ruled part of the Danish kingdom, for its strategic position in the warming Arctic and largely untapped natural resources. In this pursuit, the White House had hoped to capitalize on the resentment that many Greenlanders feel about Denmark’s colonial legacy.
But for now, at least, this pressure from Washington has had an opposite effect on the 56,600 Greenlanders, most of whom are indigenous Inuit people who jealously guard their culture. In recent weeks, Greenland and Denmark have moved closer together as officials in Nuuk and Copenhagen sought to reinvigorate their relationship and to look with fresh eyes at outstanding problems.

———— Autocracy R Us ————

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1920487407385764309

The Disturbing Rise of MAGA Maoism

Trump seems to be ceding the future to China while emulating its past…
Trump’s approach to countering China has been so scattershot, so inept, so face-smackingly absurd, that it sometimes seems like covert policy to destroy America’s reputation. Rather than build a global trading and supply-chain alliance to match the scale of China, we’ve threatened to invade Canada and slapped new tariffs on our European and East Asian allies.

Because of course: Justice Dept. investigating N.Y. attorney general who has targeted Trump

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into real estate transactions involving New York Attorney General Letitia James — the first known criminal probe of a law enforcement official who took action against President Donald Trump.

“If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?” — Michael Connelly

———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————

The U.S. Already Has a Trade Surplus with the U.K.

But back to that UK ‘deal.’ Nobody knows what will eventually come out of it, but we can be sure of one thing: It won’t lead to any significant opening of the British market to U.S. goods. Why? Because that market was already wide open before Trump stomped in.

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1920451498888007808

https://twitter.com/Matthewtravis08/status/1920506679273062504

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was fired Thursday morning.
Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s acting administrator, has told people that he was terminated, leaving the nation’s disaster agency without a top official three weeks before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season and as Congress scrutinizes FEMA’s proposed budget for fiscal 2026.

Trump Pulls Ed Martin’s Nomination to Be U.S. Attorney

…Donald Trump said Thursday that he will replace interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin, his embattled nominee to serve as the top prosecutor for D.C., after 15 tumultuous weeks in office marked by his threats to investigate Trump’s perceived political adversaries and firings and demotions of career prosecutors who investigated the president and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Because one bad pick leads to another: Trump Eyes Fox News Host for U.S. Attorney

…Donald Trump is strongly considering installing Fox News host and former prosecutor Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

West Virginia coal miners lose black lung screenings after Trump slashes worker safety agency NIOSH

Trump abruptly fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden

Hayden was nominated to lead the Library of Congress by President Barack Obama and was sworn in for a 10-year term in September 2016. She was the first woman and the first African American to serve in the position.

Serendipity:

https://twitter.com/ATRightMovies/status/1920448604566925383

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1 comments

@shanibeer 73

about 10 hours ago

Over the past 18 months, hallucination rates for LLMs asked to summarize a news article have fallen from a range of 3%-27% down to a range of 1-2%. (Hallucinate is a technical term that means the model makes shit up.)

But new “reasoning” models that purportedly think through complex problems before giving an answer hallucinate at much higher rates.

OpenAI’s most powerful “state of the art” reasoning system, o3, hallucinates one-third of the time on a test answering questions about public figures, which is twice the rate of the previous reasoning system, o1. O4-mini makes stuff up about public figures almost half the time.

ChatGPT a 'schizophrenia-seeking missile'

It's quite easy to trigger hallucinations, intentionally or not, as any seasoned Hiver who asks a question about Hive will find out. One of the major problems seems to be that the system doesn't know what it doesn't know. For example, if you've read a book that the AI hasn't had access to, it will hallucinate all sorts of nonsense rather than say the AI equivalent of "I haven't read it". Once the system starts hallucinating, it is very easy to lead it down the garden path. As the system seems to be iterative, I imagine being fed and encouraged to manufacture nonsense is a problem.