SpaceX: Starship’s Tenth Flight Test
August 27th, 2025If you have any interest in this type of thing, it’s all extremely impressive.
Watch Starship's tenth flight test ? https://t.co/UIwbeGoo2B https://t.co/BFrpQPQFUw
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 26, 2025
IBM, AMD Partnership on “Quantum-Centric Supercomputing”
August 26th, 2025Via: IBM:
Today, IBM and AMD announced plans to develop next-generation computing architectures based on the combination of quantum computers and high-performance computing, known as quantum-centric supercomputing. AMD and IBM are collaborating to develop scalable, open-source platforms that could redefine the future of computing, leveraging IBM’s leadership in developing the world’s most performant quantum computers and software, and AMD’s leadership in high-performance computing and AI accelerators.
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In a quantum-centric supercomputing architecture, quantum computers work in tandem with powerful high-performance computing and AI infrastructure, which are typically supported by CPUs, GPUs and other compute engines. In this hybrid approach, different components of a problem are tackled by the paradigm best suited to solve them. For example, in the future, quantum computers could simulate the behavior of atoms and molecules, while classical supercomputers powered by AI could handle massive data analysis. Together, these technologies could tackle real-world problems at unprecedented speed and scale.
AMD and IBM are exploring how to integrate AMD CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs with IBM quantum computers to efficiently accelerate a new class of emerging algorithms, which are outside the current reach of either paradigm working independently. The proposed effort could also help progress IBM’s vision to deliver fault-tolerant quantum computers by the end of this decade. AMD technologies offer promise for providing real-time error correction capabilities, a key element of fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Trump to Allow 600,000 Chinese Students Entry to U.S. for College
August 26th, 2025Via: New York Post:
President Trump said his administration will welcome more Chinese students than ever into the United States to enroll in higher education as trade talks press on with Beijing.
Trump announced Monday that he plans to open the floodgates to another 600,000 Chinese college students, though it’s unclear when. There are currently around 270,000 Chinese students enrolled in US universities.
Broke Americans Complaining on Social Media
August 25th, 2025I read a series of books called, The Borrowed World by Franklin Horton.
Spoiler Alert:
When the shit hits the fan in the U.S., the things desperate Americans tend to have in abundance are guns and ammo. Food? No. Fuel? No. Water? Not so much.
I wonder if the military deployments to U.S. cities are more about the economic collapse situation you see in the video below and less about whatever President Warp Speed says it’s for.
Via: HighImpactVlogs:
Why Are More And More Americans Becoming Disabled?
August 25th, 2025Gee, I wonder…
What could it be?
In other news, why are covid vaccinated Czech women having 1/3 fewer children than unvaccinated Czech women?
Hmm. Baffling.
Via: ZeroHedge:
Bureau of Labor Statistics data reveals 1.1 million MORE Americans have become disabled in just the past 3 months.
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Prominent data analyst @DowdEdward reports that since February 2021, an additional 5.89 million Americans have answered “yes” to the Bureau of Labor Statistics household survey question on disability.
Burner Phones, Wiped Socials: People Trying to Avoid Being Detained When Visiting the U.S.
August 25th, 2025Don’t have too little data, because that’s also suspicious:
You might think the most protective options are to completely wipe your phone before traveling, use a burner or travel without a phone. But the EFF’s Cope said that could actually raise suspicions.
“People are damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” Cope said. “If you cross the border with no data on your device, that itself can be seen as suspicious.”
Instead, if you want to seem cooperative but do have data or texts stored on your phone that you wouldn’t want to be accessed, Cope suggests deleting that information selectively rather than wiping your whole device.
What happens if you turn up with no phone at all?
Via: Guardian:
More than a dozen countries have updated their travel guidance to the US. In Australia and Canada, government advisories were changed to specifically mention the potential for electronic device searches.
On the advice of various experts, people are locking down social media, deleting photos and private messages, removing facial recognition, or even traveling with “burner” phones to protect themselves.
In Canada, multiple public institutions have urged employees to avoid travel to the US, and at least one reportedly told staff to leave their usual devices at home and bring a second device with limited personal information instead.
“Everybody feels guilty, but they don’t know exactly what they’re guilty of,” said Heather Segal, founding partner of Segal Immigration Law in Toronto, describing the influx of concerns she’s been hearing.
“‘Did I do something wrong? Is there something on me? Did I say something that’s going to be a problem?’”
She advised travelers to assess their risk appetite by reviewing both the private data stored on their devices and any information about them that’s publicly accessible, and to consider what measures to take accordingly.
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YouTube Secretly Used AI to Edit People’s Videos
August 25th, 2025Side note: I found YouTube’s aggressive promotion of shortform video content to be extremely annoying. Hide Youtube-Shorts is very good at blocking those videos.
Via: BBC:
A growing share of reality is pre-processed by AI before it reaches us. Eventually, the question won’t be whether you can tell the difference, but whether it’s eroding our ties to the world around us.
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Now, after months of rumors in comment sections, the company has finally confirmed it is altering a limited number of videos on YouTube Shorts, the app’s short-form video feature.
“We’re running an experiment on select YouTube Shorts that uses traditional machine learning technology to unblur, denoise and improve clarity in videos during processing (similar to what a modern smartphone does when you record a video),” said Rene Ritchie, YouTube’s head of editorial and creator liaison, in a post on X. “YouTube is always working on ways to provide the best video quality and experience possible, and will continue to take creator and viewer feedback into consideration as we iterate and improve on these features.”
Israeli Military’s Own Data Indicates Civilian Death Rate of 83% in Gaza War
August 24th, 2025Via: Guardian:
Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare.
As of May, 19 months into the war, Israeli intelligence officials listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or “probably dead”, a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found.
At that time 53,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks, according to health authorities in Gaza, a toll that included combatants and civilians. Fighters named in the Israeli military intelligence database accounted for just 17% of the total, which indicates that 83% of the dead were civilians.
That apparent ratio of civilians to combatants among the dead is extremely high for modern warfare, even compared with conflicts notorious for indiscriminate killing, including the Syrian and Sudanese civil wars.
“You’re Not a Whistleblower, You’re Doing PR”
August 23rd, 2025"You're not a whistleblower, you're doing PR"
AJ from The Why Files doesn't believe "UFO Whistleblowers" that are cleared by the DOD pic.twitter.com/JTvaMh031N
— Red Panda Koala (@RedPandaKoala) August 23, 2025
Related: The One About Eric Davis Saying There Are Four Species of Aliens on Earth…
FBI Raids Ex-National Security Adviser John Bolton’s Home in Classified Documents Probe
August 22nd, 2025Via: New York Post:
FBI agents raided the Maryland home and Washington, DC office of President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton Friday morning in a high-profile national security probe involving classified documents.
Federal agents went to Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., at 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump administration official told The Post. They later went to Bolton’s office, but did not enter until a judge signed a warrant for that location late Friday morning.
