Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Second rate reporter says what?

When we show up, we win.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

T R E 4 5 O N

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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Wednesday Night Open Thread

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Another day full of suck and disbelief on the political front for me, at least. This sums everything up nicely:

Cops rough-housing the man who sells ice cream is America in its purest state.

[image or embed]

— scott dagostino (@scottdagostino.ca) May 14, 2025 at 5:23 PM

Pretty much.

Something else that caught my eye but didn’t seem to be that big of a story but should is that real world twat acting as Secretary of Transportation rerouted his wife’s flight away from Newark while telling everyone else things are fine:

Sean Duffy, the Trump administration’s transportation secretary, has revealed that he switched flights for his wife this week to help her avoid flying out of beleaguered Newark Liberty, one of the busiest airports in the New York area.

Duffy’s disclosure on Monday followed his repeated assurances to the American public that it is safe to fly from Newark, despite a spate of dramatic outages affecting the airport’s radar systems that is causing ongoing disruption and delays. On Sunday, the transportation secretary went on NBC News’s Meet the Press and insisted Newark was safe.

“It is,” he protested. “I fly out of Newark all the time, my family flies out of Newark.”

Hours later, speaking to the conservative radio host David Webb on SiriusXM, he said: “My wife was flying out of Newark tomorrow, I switched her flight to LaGuardia”.

These people are just terrible.

***

I spent a decent amount of time on the mower today, and the artist du jour was Tyler the Creator. Can’t get over how much I liked Igor and the song What’s Good from that album is my new earworm and it is a banger. I really do not know how to describe him- he’s unlike anything I have heard. Hiphop, rap, neo soul, techno, but thematic like album oriented rock. It’s great stuff.

Still surfing and watching the Pitt at the same time. It’s a safe, non challenging, schlocky show that doesn’t require a whole lot of thought or attention so if you zone off thinking about summer tomatoes or peaches or while petting your cat or surfing the internet, it’s not gonna make you rewind because who fucking cares, really.

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  3. 3.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I watch the tv show Mayday: Air Disasters all the time on Youtube where re-enactment of air accidents are done as well as the investigations into their causes. It’s a very good show, I recommend it.

    It pisses me off tremendously to see the well-earned reputation and the capabilities of the FAA/NTSB be pissed away by these people.

    Sean Duffy has no business being the Secretary of Transportation. People are going to die on his watch and the only thing he is going to do is cry “It’s Biden’s/Pete’s fault!!1”

  4. 4.

    Percysowner

     

    In more tales of DHS cruelty. ‘Heartbroken’ band forced to cancel European tour after customs snatches drummer off plane

    “Our drummer, who is a Mexican citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States (green card holder) was forcibly removed from our flight to Europe by Customs and Border Patrol at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday May 12. He has not been released, and we have been unable to contact him. We are currently working with an immigration lawyer to find out more information and to attempt to secure his release.”

  5. 5.

    prostratedragon

    Medicaid markup:

    AOC yesterday
    explains how the Republican bill will:

    – Gut Medicaid
    – Increase premiums for private health insurance
    – Force rural hospitals to close

    All to give a giant tax handout to billionaires.

    Today, Booker, Smith, and Schatz are taking it to the House.

    Ben Cohen linked it:

    Ben of Ben & Jerry’s *arrested* after confronting RFK Jr. & Congress:

    “They need to let food into Gaza. They need to let food to starving kids! Congress is paying to bomb poor kids in Gaza, and paying for it by kicking poor kids off Medicaid in the US!”

  7. 7.

    Jackie

    This is delicious!

    Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan is moving to have the federal charges against her thrown out — and she’s citing the very ruling that gave President Donald Trump a presumption of immunity.

    Dugan, who was arrested earlier this year after Trump administration officials alleged she helped Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant in her courtroom on unrelated charges, attempt to escape from federal arrest, was formally charged this week with concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of proceedings.

    According to NBC News, lawyers representing Dugan wrote in response that the whole case was invalid due in part to Trump’s win at the Supreme Court last year as he sought to undermine federal charges against him for interfering in the 2020 election.

    ““The problems with this prosecution are legion, but most immediately, the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts,” wrote her legal team “Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset.” The lawyers explicitly cited the decision by the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States, which held that a president has a presumption of immunity for official acts.

    The attorneys focused on the Supreme Court’s holding that “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.” Because Dugan’s instructions within her courtroom constituted official conduct, they concluded, “Judge Dugan therefore has both immunity from conviction and immunity from prosecution.”

    Even leaving this argument aside, legal experts who have studied the case believe it to be flimsy on the merits.

  10. 10.

    cmorenc

    @john cole:

    If you find “The Pit” non-challenging and your attention easily distracted to other things while watching it, WADR you aren’t really watching it – it is extremely intense and realistic, according to my MD wife, MD older daughter and hospital RN younger daughter.  Perhaps your judgment has also been jaded by exposure to too many other hospital-based dramas that were indeed shallow and schlocky, or the genre simply is generically not your thing at all.

  15. 15.

    geg6

    Wow, I found The Pitt riveting.  But then, you like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, so I question your reviews of tv shows.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    Color me not shocked.

    The Trump administration plans to weaken drinking water rules meant to protect Americans from “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancer, reproductive risks, liver damage, and other health issues.

    Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the nation’s first legally enforceable federal drinking water limits on the most common types of forever chemicals. Today, the EPA announced an about-face.… Source

  19. 19.

    TS

    @Geoduck:

    Main story on the Washington Post as well – billionaire media write on democrats what they should be writing about trump, but they treat what he is doing as 100% business as usual.

  22. 22.

    geg6

    @cmorenc:

    My niece, a CAT and MRI tech at a Level I children’s trauma center, and my sister, a retired x-ray tech, agree with your medical posse.

  24. 24.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @geg6:

    Never watched either of them, but I’ve heard good things about Breaking Bad and watched a few clips

    What didn’t you like about it?

  25. 25.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Harrison Wesley:

    Ken Paxton is going after toothpaste manufacturers for “misleading claims”, so not even fluoridated toothpaste is safe

  26. 26.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    I am currently coaching my daughter’s 10U softball team. Zero wins, three losses and two rainouts so far. It’s still been a lot of fun. I don’t think I’ll catch Connie Mack, though.

  30. 30.

    geg6

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Pretty much everything.  Disgusting characters mainly.  I do not find these horrible people compelling.  Same with GoT and Succession.  People like that bore me.  I prefer to watch characters I can like, even if they might be a bit bad.  Never thought much of The Sopranos either.  The Wire is vastly, vastly better.

  31. 31.

    prostratedragon

    Josh Marshall (gift link) on that rogues’ gallery that went to Qatar:

    Now in fairness, trade delegations have always played a role in these visits. But this is at a totally, totally different level. In fact, if you step back, you see that this entire visit isn’t mostly about U.S. foreign policy at all. Trump is bringing “his” CEOs and everyone is cutting deals. And as the top dog, Trump is cutting his too — and to be clear, not as President of the United States, but as Trump. Eric Trump has already been in Qatar inking a whole slew of new deals with the country’s royal family.

    This is the right way to understand the 747 pimpmobile “gift.” It’s basically a sweetener to get a whole series of business and consummated relationships over the finish line, and yes a few of them are tied to the U.S. government. In a real sense, the sales of military hardware are the payback for the personal business deals. Calling it a “bribe” almost doesn’t do it justice. It’s more like the decked-out Maserati one Fortune 50 CEO gives to another after they ink a $100 billion merger — a kind of token of appreciation for a vastly larger transaction, which in the case of Trump involves subverting U.S. foreign policy to the interests not only of Trump’s pocketbook but cementing his power within the U.S. If Trump can use his power as President to cut in all the big CEOs on the money geyser in Saudi Arabia, you can bet they are going to stay securely on his side in the U.S.

  35. 35.

    Suzanne

    I flew through O’Hare today, for I think the eleventh or twelfth time in 2025 so far. My flight left on time, which was, I think, only the second or third time that has happened.

  37. 37.

    Jackie

    Springsteen’s gonna be detained when he comes through US Customs, isn’t he:

    Legendary rock star Bruce Springsteen kicked off this year’s European tour with a fiery tirade against President Donald Trump.

    According to Rolling Stone, Springsteen, performing in Manchester, England, issued the rebuke before launching into his hit song, “Land of Hope and Dreams.”

    “The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock and roll, in dangerous times,” he said. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, and has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.”

    “Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us, raise your voices against the authoritarianism, and let freedom ring,” he continued. “This is ‘Land of Hope and Dreams.”

    He’s going to get the Dixie Chick treatment by MAGA and FFOTUS.

  40. 40.

    geg6

    @Jackie:

    I very much doubt he gives a shit.  I am quite sure he’d be happy to be a symbol of the opposition.  Go ahead, MAGATs.  Come at him.

  43. 43.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jackie: ​
     

    He’s going to get the Dixie Chick treatment by MAGA and FFOTUS.

    It’s about half a century too late to try to marginalize Springsteen.

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    @Jackie: If there is a fanbase I would not most want to piss off, it’s Taylor Swift’s. Second-most would be Springsteen’s.

    But, you know, never interrupt your enemy while making a mistake, etc etc.

  46. 46.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Which do you think is the case? I thought he’d been overreaching, driving up disapproval and opposition

    I see your comment at #45. I get what you’re saying. Still, it’s disturbing to read Josh Marshall write that

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jackie: MAGAs have noticed by now that Bruce Springsteen isn’t on their side. Aaron Lewis’s obnoxious reactionary anthem “Am I The Only One” treats hating Springsteen as a defiant act of courage.

  49. 49.

    Jackie

    @Suzanne: Great points, Suzanne! I’m sure Bruce is more than ready to handle and deal with whatever challenges and/or threats he’s dealt with.

    I just can’t get a handle on what’s happening to our country. It’s a living nightmare :-(

  50. 50.

    prostratedragon

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  I think the next sentence says it. Whether or not it turns out to be true, they, and it clearly is “they,” think this kind of fascist alliance is the key to unbeatable dominance in this country.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jackie: Bruce Springsteen is 75 years old, immensely wealthy and has had a life of fantastical success. Under the circumstances, you probably figure that even if they’re tyrannical enough to toss you in a hole or kill you, you haven’t lost that much; it’s not like you’re going to live forever; it’s just the last and most dramatic chapter in that life–and maybe it accomplishes something, since there would be immense blowback.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He’s not going to be defeated and run out of town on a rail in a couple of months.  It’s going to take time and effort.  And he is going to fight it every step of the way.  One of the ways he will fight is by trying to make himself seem inevitable and all powerful by pushing boundaries.

  54. 54.

    Citizen Dave

    Neil Young is facing the same risk when he goes on tour soon across the pond. A couple months ago he said he was re-evaluating things.

  56. 56.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Citizen Dave: Neil Young’s a slightly different case because he’s Canadian and, though he has US citizenship, he was only very recently naturalized and it was delayed by a past cannabis conviction–in other words, he’s exactly the kind of person Stephen Miller might be motivated to make a high-profile example of by finding some pretext to “denaturalize” him.

    Doing that to Springsteen, a famously native-born New Jerseyite, is probably politically harder, though I wouldn’t put it past them.

  57. 57.

    prostratedragon

    @Jackie:

    Also Robert De Niro at the Cannes Film Festival:

    📌“In my country we are fighting like hell for the democracy we once took for granted. That affects all of us here because the arts are democratic. Art embraces diversity and that’s why art is a threat, that’s why we are a threat to autocrats and fascists.”

    “America’s philistine president has had himself appointed head of one of our premier cultural institutions,” De Niro opined.

    He further warned that Trump plans to cut funding to arts and education, while threatening to put a tariff on foreign films.

    “Let that sink in,” De Niro said. “You can’t put a price on creativity, but apparently you can put a tariff on it.”

    According to De Niro, 81, the president’s views on the arts represents a threat both at home and abroad. He told fellow filmmakers they’re being targeted for representing a “threat to autocrats and fascists” and encouraged peaceful but firm resistance to such things.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    …though there would be a kind of grim symmetry in them grabbing the “Born In The U.S.A.” guy and enacting upon him the plot of Cheech Marin’s parody “Born In East L.A.”

  59. 59.

    Princess

    @Citizen Dave: Canada will be happy to have Young back full time if it comes to that.

    When it comes to Cruzthough, he’s all yours. No give-backs.

  61. 61.

    prostratedragon

    Shine on, RFKJr.:

    The gotcha actually comes a bit later in the clip where Alsobrooks notes that it’s [Safe to Sleep program] not part of ACF but rather is part of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which is part of NlH and is NAMED AFTER RFK JR.’S AUNT.

  62. 62.

    prostratedragon

    @Jackie:  Doubt this is news to him, though having it go public might be an irritant. Pretty sure they’d have sized each other up in person back in the day.

  64. 64.

    JoyceH

    @prostratedragon: I saw some clips of RFK jr testifying, and man, he looks bad! Did he always look like that or is he getting worse? I know he likes to take off his shirt to show off his muscles, but geez, his face is a toxic waste dump!

  66. 66.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @NotMax: MBS is Bffs with Putin and we all know what Putin did to Prighozin. Does Orange Numbnuts not think that the Qataris aren’t capable of doing something like that to the pimpmobile plane?

  67. 67.

    YY_Sima Qian

    This is going to fly under most radars, but as the Trump Administration folded on the economic decoupling w/ the PRC, it is unsurprisingly doubling down on the tech. decoupling from the PRC:

    Jacob Feldgoise @jacob_feldgoise

    BIS just published three new guidance docs on advanced computing export controls:
    AI model training and catch-all (end use) controls: https://bis.gov/media/documents/ai-policy-statement-training-ai-models-may-13-2025
    Preventing diversion: https://bis.gov/media/documents/ai-counter-diversion-industry-guidance-may-13-2025.pdf
    Huawei Ascend chips: https://bis.gov/media/documents/general-prohibition-10-guidance-may-13-2025.pdf

    Essentially, entities anywhere using Chinese AI models, the vast majority of which are open source & low cost, will be sanctioned by the USG. Entities caught diverting US designed GPUs (by Nvidia & AMD) will be sanctioned by USG. Entities caught using Huawei‘s Ascent GPUs to train AI models will be sanctioned by USG. This a transparent attempt, telegraphed by JD Vance at the AI summit in Paris, to coerce the world into using US chips and closed source US AI models.

    IMO, just as the tech war to date (through Trump 45, Biden & Trump 47 terms), these efforts are doomed to fail, & serve as signal to the ROW of the competitive threat of PRC tech. (& thus their credibility) & lack of confidence on the US’ part in its tech competition w/ the PRC:

    1) It is laughable, & unenforceable, to prevent entities from using open source AI models from the PRC. Strictly enforced (for argument’s sake), it will merely consolidate AI in the US into the closed source oligarchy of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google & Meta, slow widespread adoption of AI tools and suppress the development of a vibrant ecosystem, ultimately to the detriment of the US. At the end of the day, widespread & rapid diffusion of new technology is where values are created. As for the ROW, if forced to choose between closed source & expensive to use US tools, & open source & cheap to use Chinese tools, most of them will choose the latter because they give these countries & entities a leg up on AI development & adoption, as well as higher “sovereign control”.

    2) The 3 Tier system for access to US designed GPUs, developed by the Biden team to minimize diversion to the PRC, was unrealistic & highly offensive to a lot of the US’ allies & partners (by grouping them into Tier 2 w/ restricted access), & doomed to failure. The new Trump plan is no more realistic. Two countries currently dominate the development & adoption of AI tools, the US & the PRC, & that will remain the case for the foreseeable future. Huge amounts of downgraded Nvidia GPUs were still being sold directly to the PRC, & restricted Nvidia GPUs were/are being sold to the likes of Malaysia, Taiwan & Singapore, either for transshipment to the PRC, or in the case of Singapore & Malaysia to go into data centers being built (often by PRC firms) to service PRC demand. Strictly enforced, it will crater Nvidia‘s & AMD‘s sales, which would reduce their wherewithal to invest in the R&D to stay ahead of the rising PRC competition. Unable to serve PRC customers, there would be huge overcapacity among the data centers being built in SE Asia & the Gulf States. So the incentives to skirt US restrictions will be overwhelming.

    3) There is no conceivable legal basis for the US to impose export controls over global (& especially Chinese) users of Huawei’s Ascend GPUs, designed by a Chinese firm using Chinese IP, fabricated in Chinese foundries, integrated into Chinese data centers, used to train Chinese AI models, hosted in China & mostly used by Chinese users. For the foreseeable future, Huawei will not be supplying to data center customers outside of the PRC, there is more than enough demand w/in the PRC. The PRC companies will continue to be strongly motivated to integrate Huawei solutions to de-risk from US tech., & in any case rules 1 & 2 are the US attempting to choke off their access to US tech & kill them off. Being placed on the Entity List is no deterrent, because so many of the PRC tech. companies are already on one US sanctions list or another, & those who are not yet sanctioned expect to be sanctioned sooner or later. In fact, the US Entities List has now become a become a badge of approval w/in the PRC, proof that the company has reached the technological frontier.

    Huawei (& other Chinese GPU designers such as Biren & Cambricon) are still constrained by the lack of access to Extreme UV lithography machines. Huawei has leveraged its world leading expertise in systems design & optical interconnects to design an AI training rack (CloudMatrix 384) that outperforms Nvidia’s current counterpart (GB200), making up for the lower performance of its individual GPUs (Ascend 910C) by integrating many more of them & & ensuring the computing resources are utilized very efficiently, albeit at the cost of much higher energy consumption (a consequence of using SMIC’s 7 nm processes as opposed to TSMC’s 3 – 5 nm for Nvidia). However, energy consumption is less of an issue for energy abundant countries such as the PRC (or the Gulf States, for that matter).

    US policy still rests on the assumption compute will be the limit factor in AI development, when there is no evidence that the major PRC firms lack computing resources even as adoption & use of AI tools in the PRC have exploded post-DeepSeek V3/R1, & where DeepSeek & other Chinese AI firms (& Google, too) have demonstrated & open sourced tech. pathways that are very compute efficient. If use of AI truly becomes ubiquitous, compute (& energy) might eventually become bottlenecks, but by that time the PRC semiconductor manufacturing equipment makers will probably have cracked EUV lithography machines. At that time, Huawei/Biren/Cambricon, as Chinese companies have done in so many industries once they become established & competitive, will drive the cost of GPUs to “cabbage prices”, & Nvidia’s market share & market cap will dive.

    The US, through administrations, are still trying to fight economic gravity & inevitable tech. diffusion, rather than incentivizing US industries to run faster & encouraging faster/wider adoption of new tech. in the US. The US wants to make AI a scarce resource that US oligopolies can rent seek off of, while the PRC is trying to make AI (like everything else) abundant. Guess which route is more attractive?

  68. 68.

    Gretchen

    @prostratedragon: It’s amazing how they admit they have no idea what’s going on in the agencies they claim to lead. You didn’t know that thousands of scientists were laid off? Why not? Who made that decision and why weren’t you involved in it? I don’t understand why this question isn’t asked of all these bozos.

  69. 69.

    Jackie

    @JoyceH:

    but geez, his face is a toxic waste dump!

    RFK Jr just got done swimming in a toxic creek over the weekend enjoying the said toxic creek with his grandkiddos.

  70. 70.

    VFX Lurker

    @YY_Sima Qian: I finished listening to Chip War earlier this week. Hard to believe one guy (Mao) held Chinese semiconductor progress back for 10-20 years.

    At that time, Huawei/Biren/Cambricon, as Chinese companies have done in so many industries once they become established & competitive, will drive the cost of GPUs to “cabbage prices”, & Nvidia’s market share & market cap will dive.

    That will be a most glorious day for those of us who rely on CUDA for fire/smoke simulations, GPU rendering and local LLMs.

    Inexpensive GPUs should also be a boon to realtime graphics artists in general. My friends and I had to recently spec out a machine for someone who wanted to learn Unreal Engine. She hoped to keep the total cost under $1000. It ended up being a $2000 machine, with a good chunk of that cost taken by the RTX 5070.

    Modern graphics workstations sometimes feel like mere hosts for those powerful GPU workhorses.

  71. 71.

    Gretchen

    @TS: OMG! That stupid book is the top story on WaPo! Trump is saying the bone saw guy is his best friend and grabbing Qatari money with both hands, and their idea of the most important topic is whether Biden was slightly less healthy than admitted?
    One of their « scoops » was that Biden’s doctor said that if he had a bad fall he might need a wheelchair! So would I, but since neither Biden nor I have had a bad fall, neither of us needs a wheelchair and that’s beside the point except for gossip purposes.
    Do these people still not understand how their failures have gotten us to where we are?

  72. 72.

    Gretchen

     

    I liked Lawrence O’Donnel’s point that they’re only giving Trump the plane because it’s too old and used for them to want any more and they’re buying a new one for themselves.  Trump is getting sloppy seconds.

  73. 73.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @VFX Lurker: Curious, how would the new BIS’ rules affect your work, assuming it has any impact?

    Do you think startups & research orgs. in the US will forgo DeepSeek & other Chinese open source models out of fear of USG enforcement? Or will they deem the rules unenforceable & ignore them? Or will they take the open source Chinese models, tweak/customize them (which they would do, anyway), & thus assert no violations of the rules?

  74. 74.

    divF

    @Matt McIrvin: Just last night, I was explaining to some younglings the iconic resonance of Asbury Park, New Jersey (They know about Springsteen, though).

  76. 76.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @VFX Lurker: I’ve purchased but not yet read Chip Wars. My impression from reviews by people who are knowledgeable is that Chris Miller, not having a STEM background, does not understand the nature & mechanics of technological advancement & diffusion.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    We are seeing three things.

    First, the possible end to this country – because a not insignificant percentage of citizens seems to want not what this country stands for.

    Second, the possible end to this country – because a not insignificant percentage of citizens seems to think that not playing within the rules – or even understanding that rules exist is OK.

    Third, the possible end to this country – because many of the people at the very top are the ones who most want to steal everything and are getting a not insignificant percentage of citizens to help them to do exactly that.

    This cannot end well for at least one of those groups – OR it may not end well for all of us.

    I have no idea which way it is going to go, I have no idea how to even slow it down, I have zero idea that I will even be able to eat long term if they screw up the current government because they would like to close Social Security, even as many of their supporters are using it. Just one example of their greed, stupidity, asinine behavior, concept of humanity and the general impression that they can steal everything and the cost to them will be zero.

  79. 79.

    Jackie

    @Gretchen:

    I liked Lawrence O’Donnel’s point that they’re only giving Trump the plane because it’s too old and used for them to want any more and they’re buying a new one for themselves.  Trump is getting sloppy seconds.

    I just got done watching that and needed a cigarette! 😂

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    @Gretchen:

    These are NOT highly intelligent humans. They are greedy, first, second and third. Anything that takes money that they do not understand – which is most every damn thing, just gets in their way and therefore they will likely end if possible. The point I’m making (not the only one doing so for sure) is that they are pompous, arrogant idiots. They would have been idiots back when people lived in caves, because they only care about two things, themselves and money. Of course if they go too far they may not have what might be considered food because they are so greedy and want control over everything but have zero concept of what that means. Life today is not all that difficult but could become that way if they shut everything down. Which might just happen if they go too far.

  81. 81.

    prostratedragon

    @JoyceH:  Saw some of those clips this weeknand thought his complexion looked — muddy, not even excessively sunburned.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    @Gretchen:

    It might be a lot worse than just used.

    Remember he’s not just screwing us, this country does a lot in many ways for parts of this world and with his buddies helping it’s not just us that are/will be losing. Which may upset more than a few others.

  83. 83.

    VFX Lurker

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Curious, how would the new BIS’ rules affect your work, assuming it has any impact?

    Do you think startups & research orgs. in the US will forgo DeepSeek & other Chinese open source models out of fear of USG enforcement? Or will they deem the rules unenforceable & ignore them? Or will they take the open source Chinese models, tweak/customize them (which they would do, anyway), & thus assert no violations of the rules?

    Anecdotes:

    A friend’s company banned AI assistants for its engineering staff when they first came out (ex: GitHub CoPilot). The management gave these reasons:

    • the company couldn’t legally copyright/own AI-generated code
    • the company didn’t know the provenance of AI-generated code — again, leaving the company exposed to legal peril

    Banning certain AI models won’t affect him or his company, because they’re not using them to code.

    At home, he has successfully used free LLMs to generate throwaway scripts. However, he won’t use them for his day job, even if his company lifted restrictions. He wants to know and understand what he’s writing.

    -+-

    An engineer working for a government contractor loved using ChatGPT/CoPilot, and she felt more productive. However, she confessed that she felt her finer skills blunting as she relied more on AI assistance.

    -+

    Hearsay from other engineers: GitHub CoPilot code can work, but it can also be sloppy stuff. Not the kind of code you want others to study for best practices.

    -+-

    Ever since JetBrains opened the door to running local LLMs in their IDEs last month, I’ve been trying to get one to work (via Ollama) to see if I can get a positive result.

    I’ve read that some happy coders cancelled their GitHub CoPilot subscriptions after getting qwen2.5-coder:32b — a 20Gb model — to run locally. On my RTX 4080 machine with 16GB VRAM, that mighty model runs at 300 baud speed. I can run the smaller qwen2.5-coder:7b and 14b models. I can also run the 7b and 8b versions of DeepSeek.

    JetBrains themselves recommended qwen2.5-coder and DeepSeek R1 for local LLMs suitable for coding. I also downloaded the lightweight yi-coder. And…

    …well, I’m still trying to learn how to use these local models. In my day-to-day work, I’m getting way more out of the inline JetBrains AI autocomplete in the IDE, even though that one wants to go down all kinds of rabbit holes. I’ve had a few successes with the local LLMs, but far more time-wasting misfires.

    Have you had a chance to try running any local LLMs via LM Studio or Ollama? Just wondering if you’ve had better luck than me in getting results. So far, these lightweight local LLMs have acted more like toys than tools.

  84. 84.

    Joey Maloney

    Umm…am I the first one to notice that this year’s Pets of Balloon Juice calendar has two May 25ths?

  85. 85.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @VFX Lurker: Fascinating anecdotes! My impression has been that the biggest productivity gain from the LLMs is in coding, w/ content creation a distant 2nd (because AI tends to generate soulless slop, but then so do humans).

    So, do you think any of the US users of the open source Chinese models will be deterred by the new BIS rules, since they apply to “US persons” (including citizens & permanent residents), too? In theory, I as a US citizen could be in violation if I use the DeepSeek/Qwen/Kimi  models through their APPs on my iPhone here in the PRC. In theory, it would be illegal for sites like Perplexity to host the open source Chinese models. However, I can’t imagine how USG would enforce against running the open source Chinese models locally.

    As for your last question, I don’t actually work in AI development. I am just an interested observer of technology trends. My use of AI tools is limited to chatting & searching via the APPs. I mostly use ChatGPT, DeepSeek, & Tencent‘s Yuanbao (which also incorporates the DeepSeek R1), but I have cancelled my ChatGPT subscription. Why pay for a service when I can get very comparable product for nearly free?

    I certainly do not run LLMs locally. That is hardcore!

  89. 89.

    VFX Lurker

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Fascinating anecdotes! My impression has been that the biggest productivity gain from the LLMs is in coding, w/ content creation a distant 2nd (because AI tends to generate soulless slop, but then so do humans).

    I tell fellow coders to treat AI like fire. It can warm your home or burn it down. I’ve seen amateurs learning how to code use ChatGPT to build something that almost works…but none of has been usable.

    I had a similar experience with the local LLMs — they can code something plausible, but not code that works as-is. If I’m lucky, I can fix it to make it work. Otherwise, I close the chat window and figure it out on my own.

    The inline JetBrains AI’s been mostly-good. It hasn’t gotten to the point where I’ve turned it off. The local LLMs might be useful to me, but I need to figure out how to use them.

    So, do you think any of the US users of the open source Chinese models will be deterred by the new BIS rules, since they apply to “US persons” (including citizens & permanent residents), too? In theory, I as a US citizen could be in violation if I use the DeepSeek/Qwen/Kimi  models through their APPs on my iPhone here in the PRC. In theory, it would be illegal for sites like Perplexity to host the open source Chinese models. However, I can’t imagine how USG would enforce against running the open source Chinese models locally.

    I skimmed the PDFs you posted upthread. They ban some (all?) Americans from training Chinese AI models, but not from using them. I’m not planning to train custom models at this time.

    (Microsoft did ban its employees from using DeepSeek, though).

    As for your last question, I don’t actually work in AI development. I am just an interested observer of technology trends. My use of AI tools is limited to chatting & searching via the APPs. I mostly use ChatGPT, DeepSeek, & Tencent‘s Yuanbao (which also incorporates the DeepSeek R1), but I have cancelled my ChatGPT subscription. Why pay for a service when I can get very comparable product for nearly free?

    I certainly do not run LLMs locally. That is hardcore!

    I, too, am a user and not an AI creator. I’m also too cheap to pay for an AI subscription, which is why I only started trying local LLMs in earnest when JetBrains made it possible to use them in their IDEs.

    The free Ollama and LM Studio software applications make it easy for the casual user to try different LLMs on their home machines. LM Studio may be easier, because it offers a user interface. I’m using the commandline Ollama because I only need it to handle LLMs for my IDE.

    Do you pay for a DeepSeek R1 subscription? The biggest version of that model needs a datacenter to run it. 404Gb!!!!

  90. 90.

    Marc

    @VFX Lurker: Have you had a chance to try running any local LLMs via LM Studio or Ollama? Just wondering if you’ve had better luck than me in getting results. So far, these lightweight local LLMs have acted more like toys than tools.

    Heh, good luck on that. There are better ways to organize and train ML based coding engines than brute-forcing things with an LLM.  It’s just going to take them a while to figure it out.

    I’ve been doing a lot of work with generative AI for image and video generation here at home.  Two servers, one with 96 gb and a GTX 5080, the other with 64 gb and an RX 7800 XT.  Both run at decent image generation speeds (a few seconds per frame) and are quite usable for Stable Diffusion and other tools.

    The truth is that open source image/video generative tools are actually quite sophisticated compared to whatever “fine-tuning” hack jobs are used for code generation. The key to building a fast and reliable models is decomposing it into a pipeline of smaller functions and models that can be more tightly controlled to produce the desired output.  Pipelines can be built in Python code, or using visual node-based editors.  I guess the reason those tools exist is that AI generated porn is one of the few “bright” spots in the industry 8^)

  92. 92.

    JoyceH

    @Gretchen: I’ve been making that point everywhere I can on social media and hope the buzz gets back to Trump. Right now he’s enthralled because the plane is big and gold and shiny. I’m saying that if these guys really respected Trump, they’d give him a new plane. But as a hand-me-down, it demonstrates contempt. “Well, we don’t want it anymore but it’s good enough for Trump.”

  95. 95.

    David_C

    @cmorenc: The Pitt is one of those shows that pulled me in pretty quickly, and then got more intense.

    That arrest was at RFK, Jr’s HELP testimony? It would be a shame if the news story turned away from his lies and horrible decision to gut biomedical research and other public health efforts in the US.

  97. 97.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Marc: ​
     

    I guess the reason those tools exist is that AI generated porn is one of the few “bright” spots in the industry 8^)

    As the old song goes, the Internet is for porn. No reason why the same shouldn’t be true of AI!

  98. 98.

    BellyCat

    @Matt McIrvin: Jah. Artists doing prison performances are a thing. But, Springsteen singing “Jailed in the USA”  while incarcerated will raise that bar a smidge.

  99. 99.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Marc:

    I guess the reason those tools exist is that AI generated porn is one of the few “bright” spots in the industry 8^)

    Now I have to wipe my tea off my keyboard.

  100. 100.

    Anyway

    @Suzanne: If there is a fanbase I would not most want to piss off, it’s Taylor Swift’s

    I was pretty disappointed that Taylor Swift’s reputed vast fan base didn’t come through for KH. Same for Bey. Their followers seem geared for lifestyle and branding opportunities not for real stuff. That’s why Rogan is more dangerous — he has a solid pro-R/ antiD message baked in to his supplements-hawking and just-asking-questions shtick.

  101. 101.

    Another Scott

    @VFX Lurker: I’m not a coder, but can sometimes hack around existing code (in a couple of languages) to modify it to do something I need.

    I think a better use of all the energy going into coding with LLMs would instead be something like a NIST-certified repository of “best practices” modules that people could grab and snap together for their needs.  Why have everyone reinvent the wheel all the time, or have some LLM burn up the planet to try to synthesize something that “almost works” by stealing stuff others have written but having no actual understanding??

    I know there are repositories for projects that people put together, but (AFAIK) every one of them has their own coding style and dependencies and all the rest.  It’s great, but it’s not quite the same.

    Back in the DOS days, I found something called “Spontaneous Assembly” that was sorta like what that.  Dozens or hundreds of tiny little routines in assembly language that was optimized and documented and clear and worked.  And being assembly language, was incredibly fast.  A lot of the tiny Gnu utilities were kinda like that, also too.

    As I say, I’m not a coder, but the stories I hear (even at work) about LLMs being “pretty good” at writing code just give me the willies – it’s such a waste…  And it seems to be of the pseudo-Libertarian mindset – “I’m a Free Man and will do what I want!  I don’t need any help from anyone else; I don’t care what was done in the past, I will Do My Own Research!  Yada yada yada…” – no matter the consequences for everyone else.  :-/

    Having a simple, fast LLM that only looked at such a NIST database and recommended modules to snap together for some job would be fine and potentially useful.  Having some gigantic thing that tries to be an all-purpose tool to crush all competition and eliminate humans is something else.

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    @Anyway: Maybe they helped more than in the case of some counter-factual, but it wasn’t enough?  It’s good they were on our side and willing to speak up.

    As usual, there’s no one weird trick.  We’re a big, complicated country.  Many powerful interests are stacked against us; voter suppression is still a thing; gerrymandering is still a thing; trumped-up apathy is still a thing; humans being illogical and contradictory animals is still a thing.

    Power will not give up power willingly.

    We have to keep pushing forward to make the better future we want.

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  104. 104.

    VFX Lurker

    @Another Scott: As I say, I’m not a coder, but the stories I hear (even at work) about LLMs being “pretty good” at writing code just give me the willies – it’s such a waste…

    I, too, kept hearing these stories. It’s one of the reasons I’m trying to figure out a place for AI in my toolbox now.

    My evaluation so far is: “Cool, but messy, and you have to watch it like a hawk to keep it from writing non-functional slop.”

    -+-

    I can name three tools that do some of what you recommend upthread:

    • The PEP8 style standard for Python
    • The wonderful Black formatter for Python, which tidies up your PEP8 styling
    • Design patterns, which can work with any language

    …not sure if these tools go far enough on their own, though.

  105. 105.

    VFX Lurker

    @Marc: The truth is that open source image/video generative tools are actually quite sophisticated compared to whatever “fine-tuning” hack jobs are used for code generation. The key to building a fast and reliable models is decomposing it into a pipeline of smaller functions and models that can be more tightly controlled to produce the desired output. Pipelines can be built in Python code, or using visual node-based editors.

    I’ve seen good uses of AI in VFX, myself:

    • AI denoisers (Optix, OIDN)
    • AI object removal
    • The Avatar 2 ML system that gave Weta animators a starting point for translating facial capture from actors to CG characters

    Best use cases I’ve seen so far in VFX put AI in an assistant role, not a creative role.

  106. 106.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @VFX Lurker:

     

    @Another Scott:

     

    @VFX Lurker: AI absolutely sucks for doing legal research, though, as it hallucinates fake legal citations to cases that don’t actually exist. This annoys the judges and gets the filings thrown out and the lawyers who submit the bad filings fined.  And the patent examiners are complaining on Reddit now that some of the applicants are using AI in replying to Office Actions, which I would personally consider legal malpractice.

    My elevator pitch summary of generative AI is “we have taught the computers how to steal and how to lie”

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