Nesson seemed like a serious old-timer at Berkman events >15 years ago and in this case I don’t think this is just because i was in my 20s

I read ”well charged” and thought jeez I hope all the static is grounded.

Also TIL from Hadfield: there’s been a 3/4-size travel guitar on the ISS since *2001* (!), it gets played pretty much every day (because music is important!) and it’s — kinda randomly! — from Larrivée and was made in Vancouver. #cancon vancouversun.com/business/ast...

the r/aww book of governance

Apart from your leverage, you have no leverage.

Later today!

Lots of good stuff here. But does ”Pentagon deputy” mean Hegseth or is this intentionally vague?

WSJ: When Pentagon officials last fall briefed President Trump on a draft of a bureaucratic defense strategy document, it framed China the same way it had for a decade: as the U.S.'s top security threat.

Trump balked and ordered his Pentagon deputy to rewrite it.

www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Cover of "Containerisation International Yearbook 1979" with an illustration of two children walking on a path beneath a rainbow.

not sure i should ask

I’m over here learning new Japanese onomatopoeia

Just use ai bro!

I'm sooooo fricking old

From the New York Times:

"The Cypherpunks interacted mostly through something called an internet mailing list. Ancestors of today’s message boards, mailing lists were large group emails in old typewriter font that subscribers received in their inbox."

well at least i feel better about never getting the workflow to work for me -- had been a subject of some angst

The narrative that a Trump-Xi meeting date in mid-May will meaningfully limit the continuation of hostilities in and around Iran strikes me as bafflingly credulous of people who obviously lack credibility. This even without the rather key fact that Iran and Israel each also have a vote.

This thought does recur

The hed/dek makes it sound like the journalists know the questioning happened. What they actually report includes no such knowledge, only that China's gov says questioning had preceded the death of an unnamed researcher, which the university says was Wang. archive.is/pDp2N

Confusing story. Death reportedly occurred inside a UM building after a fall from an upper level. Law enforcement questioning alleged by Chinese gov. Detroit News has nothing on this, says it asked FBI for comment, no sense of when. Based on posts on X, no link provided. Hopefully the folo has more.

I’m disappointed they don’t have an official photo of emptiness available. Surely space force has something on file.

The narrative that a Trump-Xi meeting date in mid-May will meaningfully limit the continuation of hostilities in and around Iran strikes me as bafflingly credulous of people who obviously lack credibility. This even without the rather key fact that Iran and Israel each also have a vote.

When Trump breaks laws in the US, the "so what" is that sometimes, in a decreasing number of areas, a court will effectively stop him.

When Trump's US government breaks international law, other governments need a "so what" beyond pointing out that fact. Action or there's no such law.

If you reject the framing implication that Asia was ”the USA’s” to lose, and that buying a bunch of Chinese solar gear makes countries “China’s,” this piece could land at a smarter observation about taking resiliency wherever you can get it.

If you reject the framing implication that Asia was ”the USA’s” to lose, and that buying a bunch of Chinese solar gear makes countries “China’s,” this piece could land at a smarter observation about taking resiliency wherever you can get it.

Little more Oakland for ya why not.

Some #filmphotography for you as I sign off for the weekend. The Bay provides, and so does #kodacolor200.

Ridiculously credulous journalism.

The set of things that apparently really happened on April Fool’s Day is a sure sign the universe has malfunctioned

I don't get it. Orange skies day was (1) kind of awesome, because it was just the one day and (2) is the rare thing around here you can't in any way blame on tech people. They don't control the fire and the wind.

Their blog post says, "In the coming days, we will also open-source smaller-scale variants, reaffirming our commitment to accessibility and community-driven innovation," which I think makes clear they don't intend to release the full model weights. qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen...

Alibaba's new Qwen model, 3.6-Plus, appears NOT to be open-weights. Available by API only, exclusively from Alibaba. This is essentially the OpenAI/Anthropic "closed" model structure.

Watershed moment in Chinese models moving away from open-weights release, or something specific from Ali?