There was an engraving on a shell casing referencing a combo in the video game Helldivers 2. It included a series of arrows indicating the controller movements to trigger the combo (in the game, a large explosion). The investigators originally thought arrows indicated trans.
Hand engravers (sharp tip with a vibrator attached) are pretty effective and easy to use on soft materials, and also on harder materials if you’re patient (on harder materials you have to go over the marking multiple times to get it deep enough for legibility).
But latest word is in this instance the engraving thing was a misunderstanding
Pro-trans, anti-fascist. But the investigators aren’t standing by the report, at least not yet. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/charlie-kirk-shot/card/ammunition-in-kirk-shooting-engraved-with-transgender-antifascist-ideology-sources-pdymd1sXXMSlVRhpvR4b?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAgKvzG2b0FvFXcFPczXjOvCskYu3jEfXZkxNungHw8bJqObl38FQfAAHwwlGQ8%3D&gaa_ts=68c37bac&gaa_sig=OaA8buSo8cn-zHLtktUJDGj07ElRbp74Jzl2IaZOD2IzB_Lf3CJIDw98fYTyscm-QAHoUu_i_ZmKJ46-SruI7A%3D%3D
An early bulletin circulated widely among law enforcement officials said investigators found ammunition engraved with expressions of “transgender and anti-fascist ideology” inside the rifle that authorities believe was used in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. But some officials later Thursday cautioned against reaching conclusions based on the internal report.
The bulletin said an older-model .30 caliber hunting rifle was discovered in the woods near the scene of Wednesday’s shooting at Utah Valley University, wrapped in a towel with a spent cartridge still in the chamber. There were also three unspent rounds in the magazine, all with wording on them, it said.
No rebounding is going to happen for many presidential terms. It’s much easier, and faster, to destroy than to build up. The damage to investment and trade relationships being done, and the dismantling of worker protections and support for industry and job development, is going to take decades to reclaim.
As late as the 19th century? Belief in “like cures like” alternate medicines is still widespread today!
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7253376/
A European survey conducted in 2014 examined the use of homeopathy and other popular forms of “alternative/complementary” medicine… This survey covered 21 European countries and Israel and provided data from structured interviews with 40,185 individuals.
…the use of homeopathy is highly prevalent (≥10%) in France, Switzerland, Germany and Austria.
The principles of homeopathy were first introduced in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann… One core tenet is “similia similibus curentur” (like cures like), i.e. the principle of similarity: compounds, which can produce symptoms (at high doses), can cure a disease with similar symptoms (when administered at low doses).
I hope the AI-chat companies really get a handle on this. They are making helpful sounding noises, but it’s hard to know how much they are prioritizing it.
OpenAI has acknowledged that its existing guardrails work well in shorter conversations, but that they may become unreliable in lengthy interactions… The company also announced on Tuesday that it will try to improve the way ChatGPT responds to users exhibiting signs of “acute distress” by routing conversations showing such moments to its reasoning models, which the company says follow and apply safety guidelines more consistently.
I hadn’t previously come across the printing press as an influence on witch hunts, interesting. It is pretty far down the Wikipedia article, though, and a different book printed almost two hundred years later is also cited as highly influential. I devoutly hope we are not in for two hundred years of unchecked social media and AI driven misinformation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_hunt
…in 1487, Kramer published the notorious Malleus Maleficarum (lit., ‘Hammer against the Evildoers’) which, because of the newly invented printing presses, enjoyed a wide readership. It was reprinted in 14 editions by 1520 and became unduly influential in the secular courts.
The 1647 book, The Discovery of Witches, soon became an influential legal text. The book was used in the American colonies as early as May 1647, when Margaret Jones was executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts, the first of 17 people executed for witchcraft in the Colonies from 1647 to 1663.
Trump’s cuts to USAID are projected to kill 700,000 children every year (https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/USAID-cuts-global-impact-14-million-deaths). And that’s just one of the things he’s done.
But why bring up Trump in this thread at all? The post is about a Senator’s speech and Trump isn’t mentioned in the linked article.
Anti-intellectuallism is a repeating story in world history. Something about human genetics makes our communities susceptible to this. Khmer Rouge and China’s Cultural Revolution are a couple of examples of these movements gaining control of a government. Witch hunts (any woman with knowledge perceived to threaten church teaching must burn) were a long standing practice often driven from non-governmental actors.
It always passes, but previous iterations have taken decades or hundreds of years.
I’ve occasionally been part of training hourly workers on software new to them. Having really, really detailed work instructions and walking through all the steps with themthe first time has helped me win over people who were initially really opposed to the products.
My experience with salaried workers has been they are more likely to try new software on their own, but if they don’t have much flexible time they usually choose to keep doing the established less efficient routine over investing one-time learning curve and setup time to start a new more efficient routine. Myself included - I have for many years been aware of software my employer provides that would reduce the time spent on regular tasks, but I know the learning curve and setup is in the dozens of hours, and I haven’t carved out time to do that.
So to answer the question, neither. The problem may be neither the software nor the users, but something else about the work environment.
The skills of both writing useful minutes and prioritizing actually sending them out are frustratingly rare. An average meeting with five or six people has even odds of not including someone with both of those skills. I can see where reliably having a mediocre AI summary might be an advantage over sometimes having superb human-written minutes and sometimes having nothing.
Insurance might not pay if the person doesn’t meet CDC guidelines. The $140 cost will probably prevent a lot more vaccinations than the extra pharmacy hoops.
Given that kids sometimes play outside, or take some time to get loaded into or out of cars in a driveway, and I am also sometimes outside or driving to or from my house, I feel like I have a decent handle of what kids live where in a one block radius of my house. I may not know the parents, but I would know which door to knock on to meet them.
The vice signaling at the Fed level such as the “alligator” compound, and the “encampments bother my snowflake sensibility, just move them” shit being done in D.C. is not a carbon copy of whatever California is doing. Success at their self-stated goals is TBD, but the California government is putting actual resources to attempt to provide appealing options to those being displaced.
From the linked article, bolding mine:
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the creation of a statewide task force aimed at dismantling homeless encampments on state property and expanding access to shelter and services.
The State Action for Facilitation on Encampments, or SAFE Task Force, will coordinate efforts across multiple state agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, Caltrans, and the state’s health and housing departments.
The governor’s office stated that the task force will prioritize sites deemed unsafe and collaborate with local governments to connect individuals with shelter, health care and substance use services.
I think you are conflating chronic homeless (less than 25% of all homeless) with people who are homeless for the first time, or have gone in and out of homelessness one or two times. The transiently homeless are absolutely driven there by lack of housing. Chronically homeless tend to have multiple issues that make serving them a challenge, but targeted support programs have been shown to make significant inroads even there.
This page has a lot of detailed breakdowns: https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/
I don’t follow politics that closely, and am not aware enough of the up and coming ranks to have any idea who the options are. I’d appreciate any suggestions of who is worth looking into and hopefully getting excited about.
Rallying around a positive alternative is more likely to be successful than never-candidate-x campaigns. Are there candidates you favor?
I like Tildes for more nuanced conversations. It has the reply box all the way at the bottom of threads, which is a subtle discouragement of replying before reading the existing comments. It’s also just smaller and slower paced. It’s not immune to pile-on bubble-views, but it’s significantly toned down.
The first two links are different outlets reporting on the exact same study, which talks about a nationwide increase in death rates, not just California, and both have this quote from the study author early in the article:
Some of the increase in the mortality rate may be attributable to county death records keeping better track of who is homeless, Fowle said. Other than that, he and his team aren’t sure what else is behind the rising death rates — more research is needed, he said.
The third link is entirely about efforts to have better reporting, in order to figure out what policies might help. It has no policy recommendations or criticisms of current policy.
The fourth and fifth links are about suicide rates among transgender people nationally, not specific to California.
I am not tracking how any of these reflect on specific policies advocated for by Newsom.
It’s a longer term play. If 40% of the populace is committed against MAGA, and 40% is irredeemable invested in MAGA, that leaves 20% so out of touch with current events they haven’t formed any strong opinion. Yes, the MAGA administration is going to do the bullshit anyway. But feeding into the “both sides are the same” narrative might tip the balance of voters into re-voting in the bullshit doers.