Two Mile Long Favela North of San Francisco
May 5th, 2023Via: Daily Mail:
Hundreds of locals in one of San Francisco’s wealthiest counties have been forced to pack up their lives into RVs and trailers after being pushed out of the housing market.
Shocking photos show the ever-growing line of trucks and other vehicles along 101 Highway – which now stretches over two miles in one of the largest encampments in the country.
Cities in Marin County, where on average homes cost $1.4million, are pushing for the line along the highway to end after the number of residents living in their cars ballooned during the pandemic.
Photos and video taken by DailyMail.com show families living in tents and using portable barbeques as their belongings spill out of the RV’s and trucks.
Some appear to have used flags to mark the area of road that they use for their home, with many pulling tarpaulin over their cars to protect their possessions.
Supposedly Leaked Internal Google Document Claims Open Source AI Will Outcompete Google and OpenAI
May 5th, 2023There will be closed and open source alternatives that will allow users to customize the models’ worldviews.
That didn’t take long. I thought it would take at least several months for them to attain something GPT3.5-like.
Nope.
I don’t know if this is real or not, but it makes for interesting reading.
Via: SemiAnalysis:
Open-source models are faster, more customizable, more private, and pound-for-pound more capable. They are doing things with $100 and 13B params that we struggle with at $10M and 540B. And they are doing so in weeks, not months.
…
People will not pay for a restricted model when free, unrestricted alternatives are comparable in quality. We should consider where our value add really is.
…
The more tightly we control our models, the more attractive we make open alternatives. Google and OpenAI have both gravitated defensively toward release patterns that allow them to retain tight control over how their models are used. But this control is a fiction. Anyone seeking to use LLMs for unsanctioned purposes can simply take their pick of the freely available models.
PacWest Bancorp Shares Crash
May 4th, 2023Via: AFP:
Shares of PacWest Bancorp were in free fall Thursday after the bank’s attempt to reassure investors fell flat amid another pummeling of US regional bank stocks.
Near 1600 GMT, shares of PacWest were down more than 50 percent.
Other leading banks were also on the back foot, including Western Alliance (-43 percent), Zions (-8.4 percent) and Comerica (-12 percent).
Large banks such as Citigroup and Bank of America had lost about three percent.
The rout comes after Monday’s sale of the embattled First Republic Bank to JPMorgan Chase under a process orchestrated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
There had been hopes that the transaction would mark an end to the panic, but that did not materialize.
Joe Biden ‘Engaged In A Bribery Scheme With A Foreign National’: FBI Internal Document Alleges
May 3rd, 2023Via: ZeroHedge:
President Joe Biden allegedly participated in “a criminal scheme” to exchange money for policy decisions, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. James Comer (R-KY), citing an internal FBI document they say contains evidence of the alleged bribery which took place when Biden was Vice President.
“We have received legally protected and highly credible unclassified whistleblower disclosures, ” reads a Wednesday letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. “It has come to our attention that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose.”
Organoid Intelligence
May 3rd, 2023Via: Forbes:
While the world has been captivated by recent advances in artificial intelligence, researchers at Johns Hopkins University have identified a new form of intelligence: organoid intelligence. A future where computers are powered by lab-grown brain cells may be closer than we could ever have imagined.
What is an organoid? Organoids are three-dimensional tissue cultures commonly derived from human pluripotent stem cells. What looks like a clump of cells can be engineered to function like a human organ, mirroring its key structural and biological characteristics. Under the right laboratory conditions, genetic instructions from donated stem cells allow organoids to self-organize and grow into any type of organ tissue, including the human brain.
Although this may sound like science-fiction, brain organoids have been used to model and study neurodegenerative diseases for nearly a decade. Emerging studies now reveal that these lab grown brain cells may be capable of learning.
Research Credit: DF
Russia Claims Drone Attack on Kremlin
May 3rd, 2023I don’t know. That looks like pyrotechnics, not high explosives, to me.
#BREAKING Clear footage of drone attack on Russia’s Kremlin overnight. pic.twitter.com/WYUqaGAq19
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 3, 2023
What do you think?
Via: The War Zone:
Video has emerged showing what appears to be a drone striking at the dome of the Senatsky Dvorets in the Kremlin in Moscow. Russian officials claim that the building came under attack by Ukraine and have vowed to retaliate, while a high-ranking Ukrainian official denies Kyiv’s involvement in the incident.
Video shows what appears to be a drone approaching the dome and then exploding in a ball of fire that lit up the sky. It seems that this drone did not impact the dome itself, but detonated very close to it, sending flaming debris falling. Two drones are suspected to have attacked the dome in succession.
Portland, Oregon: What Happened To This Place?
May 3rd, 2023Via: Hood Time:
Federal Reserve Pushes Interest Rates Above 5%, First Time Since 2007
May 3rd, 2023Via: Yahoo Finance:
The Federal Reserve raised the target range for its benchmark interest rate by 0.25% on Wednesday while left its options open on future rate hikes.
Bank Failures Visualized
May 3rd, 2023Via: Mike Bostock:
Related: The Banking Collapse Of 2023 Is Now Officially Bigger Than The Banking Collapse Of 2008
Nordstrom Shutting Down Stores in Crime-Ridden San Francisco
May 3rd, 2023Changed dynamics…
Via: Daily Mail:
Nordstrom announced it as closing all of its San Francisco stores, blaming the ‘changed dynamics’ of the city which has seen numerous major chains turn-tail in the face soaring crime.
The retailer told employees it would not be renewing its leases at the Westfield Mall or at the Nordstrom Rack across the street. The mall location will shutter at the end of August, and the Rack store will remain open until July 1, according to the Washington Post.
Nordstrom chief stores officer Jamie Nordstrom said the blamed state of San Francisco in recent years for reducing foot traffic ‘and our ability to operate successfully.’
