Israeli "Iron Beam laser system is about to rewrite air defense, crushing drones and rockets for pennies"

From Israel's Ynet News, November 28:

Within weeks, Israel will field its first operational high-powered laser batteries, adding a cheap, rapid answer to drones, UAVs and rockets; developed in deep secrecy at Rafael, Iron Beam promises to transform air defense and slash interception costs 

The Shahed 101 is one particularly wicked piece of Iranian UAV hardware. It is 1.60 meters long, has a two meter wingspan and a carbon fiber body that makes it very hard to detect on radar. It is launched from Lebanon, slices through the sky in a chilling silence thanks to its electric motor, flies very far, up to 800 kilometers, and very low, almost brushing the treetops. In its belly it carries a cruel bomb weighing about eight kilograms. When it reaches its target, the Shahed 101 glides straight into it and explodes on contact with its shrapnel warhead, whose only purpose is to kill as many people as possible at once. It is a flying death machine, efficient and cheap, developed by Revolutionary Guards scientists with one central goal in mind: to hit as many Israeli soldiers as possible.

And indeed, soldiers serving on the northern border learned to recognize the Shahed 101’s spine chilling buzz, and also understood that there was no truly effective answer to this weapon. From the ground it is very hard to bring down, and by the time a helicopter or fighter jet manages to identify it, chase it and shoot it down, long minutes pass, sometimes deadly ones. What is left? Take cover well and hope it passes. Sometimes that does not help either. The Shahed 101 hit many communities in the north. In an attack on Kabri, for example, a reserve soldier was killed. There were also attacks in Eilat, in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere. Other UAV attacks took dozens more lives. At the Golani Brigade basic training base near Ramat Menashe, one UAV, as remembered, even made it from Lebanon to the prime minister’s home in Caesarea. Another came from Yemen and struck a building near the U.S. Embassy, killing a man. If against the rocket array the defensive layer provided by Iron Dome and Arrow performed impressively, with 90 percent to 95 percent interception rates, against drones and UAVs the numbers were far lower. Only about 50 percent were shot down in time.

But a little more than a year ago, that balance of terror was broken. It was in the evening hours when soldiers of the Dragon Battalion (946) in the north spotted a threat hovering over their sector. Dragon is a tactical battalion belonging to the Air Defense Array, reestablished after nearly 20 years since the previous battalion with the same name was disbanded. That night, the moment they had been waiting for finally arrived. Inside the battery’s operations trailer they tracked the target tensely. Then came the alert, then the lock. And then came the launch.

When the system was activated, no roar of a Tamir interceptor missile was heard outside. There was no terrifying boom of an Arrow launch either. In fact, aside from the soldiers’ strained breathing inside the trailer and the radio calls, there was no unusual sound. At first, nothing could be seen. But those minutes will enter history as the time of the first operational launch of an Israeli laser weapon....

....MUCH MORE    

"Michael and Susan Dell donate $6.25 billion to encourage families to claim ‘Trump Accounts’" (DELL)

Major league philanthropy.

From the Associated Press, December 2:

Billionaires Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25 billion Tuesday to provide 25 million American children under 10 an incentive to claim the new investment accounts for children created as part of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending legislation.

The historic gift has little precedent, with few single charitable commitments in the past 25 years exceeding $1 billion, much less multiple billions. Announced on GivingTuesday, the Dells believe it’s the largest single private commitment made to U.S. children.

Its structure is also unusual. Essentially, it builds on the “ Trump Accounts " program, where the U.S. Department of the Treasury will deposit $1,000 into investment accounts set up by Treasury for American children born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028. The Dells’ gift will use the “Trump Accounts” infrastructure to give $250 to each qualified child under 10....

....MUCH MORE

Deflation: National Gasoline Prices Fall Below $3.00, Lowest In Four Years

First up, the American Automobile Association:

Today’s AAA National Average

$2.998

Price as of
12/2/25

....MUCH MORE (interactive map, commentary, EV charging) 

And from Yahoo Finance via AOL, December 2:

Gasoline prices fall to $3 per gallon to hit lowest level since 2021 

Gasoline prices fell to an average of $3 per gallon this week to hit their lowest level since 2021.

As of Monday, at least 30 states saw an average of less than $3 at the pump, according to AAA data, as lower crude prices and less expensive winter blends give relief to drivers heading into the December holiday season.

“With refinery maintenance largely complete and OPEC increasing oil production for December, oil prices have struggled," GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan said on Monday.

"Combine those factors, and you have a solid recipe for continued downward pressure on gas prices in the weeks ahead."

De Haan noted a handful of stations in the Midwest have even seen prices slip below $2 per gallon, with that number expected to grow as the Christmas holiday season approaches.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) have increased output this year, sending Brent (BZ=F) and West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) futures down 14% and 16% year to date, respectively....

....MUCH MORE 

"California has a huge solar power problem. A fix is coming."

 From SFGate, December 1:

With the upcoming launch of a new energy-trading market for Western states, California is hoping to save ratepayers money and put more solar to use 

For years, California lawmakers were stymied. But now, at a crucial juncture for electricity in America, the state is embracing an ambitious and long-awaited plan: to buy and sell far, far more power across Western state lines. 

This coming year, a new energy trading market with its first participants is set to go online — a rollout that experts promise will lower monthly home electric bills and supercharge states’ green-energy production. California is set up to lead this push, thanks to its high-tech grid operator, its glut of renewable energy and a fresh bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that paves the way for the regional market.

The West currently trades its energy in what’s known as a “spot market,” where states and municipalities have only 15 minutes to offload their excess solar and wind power to other regions. The new market will widen that timeframe to a full day, giving western states more time to decide where unused energy should go and better prepare for sunny and windy days. As things stand, California often has to curtail its solar and wind production — or turn off the generators, wasting chances to produce energy from sunlight and wind.

“Curtailment is, by definition, a market failure,” Michael Colvin, who leads California energy policy for the Environmental Defense Fund, told SFGATE. “It is a moment of last resort, of saying, ‘We’ve got to keep the system in balance. We have charged all the batteries we can charge. We have sold all the power that we can sell.’”

This “market failure” is a regular occurrence of California energy waste. The state curtailed 3.4 million megawatt-hours of solar and wind output in 2024, up 29% from the year prior. That’s an amount equivalent to burning nearly 3.9 billion pounds of coal, or enough to power the entire state for almost four and a half days. This waste means that California isn’t making the most of its huge solar buildup — ratepayers helped fund solar farms, but don’t reap the full rewards....

....MUCH MORE 

Possibly also of interest:

• "Blackout: Enron and the California Power Crisis (Transcript)"
• The Spirit Of Enron Lives On In The Hearts Of Electricity Traders Everywhere
• "How to Manipulate Non-storable Commodities Markets

"This 2-Story Tiny House Has a Terrace That's Perfect for Entertaining—and It's Under $45K on Amazon"

Amazing.

From Better Homes and Gardens, November 28:

It also comes with plumbing 

 

If you think there’s a limit to what you can purchase on Amazon, think again. While the site may be your go-to for home essentials, like comfortable new sheets or luxe bath towels, you can also purchase an actual home. 

Take this $44,476 tiny home, for example, which includes two floors, a terrace, and plumbing. The modern design is also customizable, so you can choose the number of bedrooms, as well as the flooring, the style of the windows, and the exterior color. Still not convinced? The home is even easy to install, so you won’t have to wait months for construction to finish....

....MUCH MORE, it's expandable. Plus a $19,000 starter home. 

Big Paychecks Can’t Woo Enough Sailors for America’s Commercial Fleet

From the Wall Street Journal via MSN, November 29:

Some of America’s best starting salaries are at sea. And they aren’t luring enough workers.

Straight out of college, graduates from the country’s maritime academies can earn more than $200,000 as a commercial sailor, with free food and private accommodations. Commercial sailors travel the world. Coffee breaks come with an ocean view. At night, the sky explodes with stars.

Despite the pay and perks, maritime jobs go begging, and it is raising national-security concerns. America is already short of commercial seafarers for a cargo fleet President Trump wants to see grow. Very little cargo currently moves on American-flagged ships, partly because of staffing. U.S. shipping companies, which are generally required to hire Americans, say they are starved of crews.

The shortage is getting attention. An executive order from President Trump and proposed bipartisan legislation aim to resurrect America’s maritime industry across shipbuilding, ship ownership and shipboard staffing.

The Pentagon depends on commercial sailors and private ocean carriers to move its equipment. The U.S. employs an estimated 10,000 commercial sailors, a number that has fallen sharply over recent decades as America outsourced much of its shipping demands to China and other countries.

For the Navy, which operates only a small number of cargo ships and relies on commercial carriers and mariners for most of its needs, the shortfall could be crippling. The Navy last year mothballed 17 supply ships because there weren’t enough commercial crews to run them. In a conflict, America would likely struggle to position, reinforce and resupply its overseas forces.

“Assuming we can build ships or bring them back under U.S. flag, can we man them sufficiently?” asked retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, a U.S. Merchant Marine Academy graduate and former administrator of the Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration. “I don’t think so, not without some significant changes” that boost the number of marine-academy graduates and improve industry job retention, he said.

The U.S. began as a seagoing nation and the merchant marine—its corps of commercial sailors—played a vital role in winning World War II. But slowly over the years, the country’s shipping industry atrophied as U.S. dependence on inexpensive, foreign-made goods came to rely on foreign-operated cargo ships with foreign crews....

....MUCH MORE 

"Larry Fink and Rob Goldstein on how tokenisation could transform finance" (BLK)

From The Economist, December 1:

Larry Fink is BlackRock’s chief executive. Rob Goldstein is the investment firm’s chief operating officer. 

Ledgers haven’t been this exciting since the invention of double-entry book-keeping

Fifty years ago money moved at the speed of mail. When one of us (Larry) started his career in 1976, trades were placed over the phone and settled with paper certificates sent by courier. In 1977 a technology called swift brought standardised electronic messaging between banks, cutting transaction times from days to minutes. Today, trades between New York and London execute in milliseconds.

Now finance is entering the next major evolution in market infrastructure—one that could move assets faster and more securely than systems that have served investors for decades. It started in 2009 when Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonymous developer, launched bitcoin as a shared digital ledger that could record transactions without intermediaries. A few years later that same technology—the blockchain—sparked something even more transformative: tokenisation.

Tokenisation involves recording ownership on digital ledgers. It makes it possible for almost any asset, from real estate to corporate debt or currency, to exist on a single digital record that participants can independently verify. At first it was hard for the financial world—including us—to see the big idea. Tokenisation was tangled up in the crypto boom, which often looked like speculation. But in recent years traditional finance has seen what was hiding beneath the hype: tokenisation can greatly expand the world of investable assets beyond the listed stocks and bonds that dominate markets today.

Tokenising assets brings two broad benefits. First, it offers the potential to settle transactions instantaneously. Today’s markets operate on different settlement timelines, exposing buyers and sellers to the risk that one side might not fulfil its obligations. Standardising instantaneous settlement across global markets would be a leap beyond what swift ever made possible.

Second, private-market assets still rely heavily on paper—manual processes, bespoke settlements and records that haven’t kept up with the rest of finance. Tokenisation can replace paper with code, reducing the frictions that make assets costly and slow to trade. It can turn large, unlisted holdings such as real estate or infrastructure into smaller, more accessible units, broadening participation in markets long dominated by large institutions.

Technology alone won’t remove every barrier. Regulation and investor safeguards will remain essential. But by lowering cost and complexity, tokenisation can give more investors more ways to diversify.

There are early signs of progress. Tokens that represent “real-world” traditional financial assets (stocks, bonds and so on) remain a tiny share of global equity and fixed-income markets but are growing fast—up roughly 300% in the past 20 months.

Much of the early adoption is happening in the developing world, where banking access is limited. Nearly three-quarters of crypto holders live outside the West. Meanwhile, the economies that built modern finance—America, Britain and the eu—are falling behind, at least when it comes to where the trading is happening. It’s true that many of the companies best placed to lead the shift to a tokenised financial system, including the dominant players in stablecoins, are American. But that early advantage isn’t guaranteed.

If history is any guide, tokenisation today is roughly where the internet was in 1996—when Amazon had sold just $16m-worth of books, and three of the rest of today’s “Magnificent Seven” tech giants hadn’t even been founded. Tokenisation could advance at the pace of the internet....

....MUCH MORE 

Previously on BlackRock and tokenization:

• "Tokenized, Inc: BlackRock's Plan To Own The Fractionalized World"
• "BlackRock CEO wants SEC to ‘rapidly approve’ tokenization of bonds, stocks: What it means for crypto"
• "Tokenization’s trillion dollar promise: Wall Street leaders make their case to the SEC"
• "BlackRock Seeks to Tokenize ETFs After Bitcoin Fund Breakthrough"

And on double entry bookkeeping: 

• Steve Keen on Quantitative Easing and Double Entry Bookkeeping 

In 1994 there was great gaiety and celebration to mark the 500th anniversary of the publication of Luca Pacioli's treatise on, well, everything, hence the title: Summa. Accounting nerds around the world paid homage to the section on bookkeeping. You had to be there.

Unfortunately Benedikt Kotruljević had plowed the ground 36 years earlier with his Delia Mercatura et del Mercante Perfetto (Of Trading and the Perfect Trader) and the accounting profession had actually missed the quincentenary of the presentation of double entry bookkeeping to the world....

• "How a Medieval Friar Forever Changed Finance"  
• "Momentum Accounting & Triple Entry Bookkeeping"
•  Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica Fetches $1,215,000 At Christie's

"Bayer stock has its best day in 17 years after support from Trump’s solicitor general" (BAYN)

From MarketWatch, December 2:

Bayer shares rose as much as 15% on Tuesday after the U.S. solicitor general backed the company’s bid to get the Supreme Court to curtail litigation alleging its Roundup pesticide causes cancer.

Analysts said the move will support the German company’s attempts to resolve litigation around what’s called glyphosate by the end of 2026. Solicitor General D. John Sauer on Monday said the Environmental Protection Agency repeatedly has stated that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans and that the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels without cancer warnings.

Bayer welcomed the support in the lawsuit, Monsanto Co. vs. Durnell, and the issue of whether a federal insecticide rule preempts state law. Bayer said “tens of thousands” of cases on Roundup are overwhelmingly based on claims grounded in failure-to-warn theories....

....MORE 

New York Fed: "The Federal Reserve and Barbie"

A repost from November 17, 2015.

From the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Liberty Street Economics blog:

Historical Echoes: The Fed’s Ties to the Barbie Doll

Which of the following statements is true (you may choose more than one):  (a) you are more likely to get a job at the Fed if you look like a Barbie doll, (b) you are less likely to get a job at the Fed if you look like a Barbie doll, (c) the inventor of the Barbie doll sat on the Board of Directors of a Federal Reserve Bank, (d) a key cleaner/restorer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York building has strong ties to Architect Barbie, (e) a Federal Reserve Bank has used Barbie in its economic education program. 

Statements (c), (d) and (e) are true. Ruth Handler (1916-2002) was one of the founders of the Mattel toy company (1945) and the originator of the first Barbie doll (1959). Her children were named Barbara and Ken. Several sources (including a 1995 Lodi News-Sentinel article) identify her as the “first woman on the Federal Reserve Board.” They’re not talking about the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (that wasNancy Teeters). Handler sat on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (appointed by the Board of Governors) from 1971 to 1974. 

Barbara Campagna, architect, has blogged extensively about the social, psychological, and political implications of Architect Barbie (in this blog post, she states that her friends and colleagues were responsible for the launch of Architect Barbie). Campagna was instrumental in the 1996-99 cleaning and restoration of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s landmark building, leading the “effort to document and analyze the interior and exterior of the building, and restore its exterior and key interior spaces.” About the FRBNY cleaning and restoration, she states in her blog: “Developing the specifications for cleaning the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was one of the most complex preservation projects I have completed.” 

In 2013, Barbara Flowers (yes, another Barbara; almost everybody’s named “Barbara” in this post), economic education specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, compiled a vivid lesson plan for students in grades 6 through 12 called Barbie® in the Labor Force. Here’s the lesson plan in summary:

Since 1920, women have more than doubled their share of the labor force. More women are working, but has the type of work they do advanced similarly? What were the top occupations for women 20, 60, and 100 years ago, and how do those occupations compare with women’s choices today? In this lesson, students use primary documents to review historical trends in women’s share of the labor force and chosen occupations. Using Barbie careers as a time line, they speculate as to why Barbie represented certain careers for girls at different points in time since 1959. They choose which career Barbie might represent next year and explain that choice in a one-page essay.

The lesson plan includes many photographs of Barbie in her various occupations, intended to be cut out and glued to a timeline. It would not hurt most adults to go through this lesson plan. ...MORE

Liberty Street Economics home. 

Previously on our Barbie channel:

"Limited Edition Andy Warhol Barbie Hits the Shelves"
From artnet:

The Andy Warhol Foundation and toy manufacturer Mattel collaborated to create the doll.
Photo: via InStyle

• Huh, Apparently The Barbie Doll Began Life As a High-end German Call Girl Named Lilli
• Here Comes Artificial Intelligence Barbie

   The intelligence curve is so exaggerated it risks giving little girls an unrealistic image of I.Q.'s they'll meet in the real world.

• The Promise of 3D Printing, Fulfilled: Open source 3D printed medieval armor for your Barbie doll

Please don't judge me. 

"China Launches Rare Earth Bloc Against U.S. Supply Chain"

There is not yet a formal U.S. - China agreement on rare earths. In the Meantime, from Korea's Chosun Daily, November 25: 

Responds to U.S. ties with Australia, South Korea to reduce Chinese rare earth reliance

China announced the launch of an international cooperation body related to mineral mining, including rare earths, with 19 developing countries. It has built a “supply chain alliance” by leveraging rare earths, its most powerful “external weapon.” There are interpretations that China, which has been using “rare earth export controls” as a lever against the U.S., is now moving to establish a solid bloc to counter the U.S. using rare earths.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on the 24th, Chinese Premier Li Qiang officially announced the “Green Minerals Global Economic and Trade Cooperation Initiative” at the G20 (20-country) summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa, the previous day. In his speech at the meeting, Li Chang stated, “We must promote mutually beneficial cooperation and peaceful use of major mineral industries,” and added, “We should optimize profit distribution at each stage of the industrial and supply chains and better protect the interests of developing countries.” He also emphasized, “We must carefully address the military use of minerals to prevent safety risks.”

The countries joining the initiative include 19 nations such as Cambodia, Nigeria, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe, as well as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The Chinese Ministry of Commerce stated that the goal of this initiative is to “stabilize mineral supply” and strengthen open, mutually beneficial, fair, and reasonable trade cooperation. To this end, it proposed seven areas of cooperation: creating a stable policy environment, liberalizing green trade, fulfilling social responsibilities, expanding beneficiary groups, deepening technological exchanges, strengthening investment cooperation, and deepening multilateral mechanisms. Specific details such as the scale of Chinese investment and implementation schedules were not disclosed....

....MUCH MORE (bolding in original) 

"How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’"

I am unsure about both the veracity and the spin on this story but it fits with some previous observations, links below. 

From The Guardian, November 29:

At a time when distrust of big tech is high, Silicon Valley is embracing an alternative ecosystem where every CEO is a star

A montage of Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, and waving US flags set to a remix of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck blasts out as the intro for the tech billionaire’s interview with Sourcery, a YouTube show presented by the digital finance platform Brex. Over the course of a friendly walk through the company offices, Karp fields no questions about Palantir’s controversial ties to ICE but instead extolls the company’s virtues, brandishes a sword and discusses how he exhumed the remains of his childhood dog Rosita to rebury them near his current home.

“That’s really sweet,” host Molly O’Shea tells Karp.

If you are looking to hear from some of tech’s most powerful people, you will increasingly find them on a constellation of shows and podcasts like Sourcery that provide a safe space for an industry that is wary, if not openly hostile, towards critical media outlets. Some of the new media outlets are created by the companies themselves. Others just occupy a specific niche that has found a friendly ear among the tech billionaire class like a remora on a fast-moving shark. The heads of tech’s largest companies, including Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella and more, have all sat for long, cozy interviews in recent months, while firms like Palantir and Andreessen Horowitz have branched out this year into creating their own media ventures.

At a time when the majority of Americans distrust big tech and believe artificial intelligence will harm society, Silicon Valley has built its own network of alternative media where CEOs, founders and investors are the unchallenged and beloved stars. What was once the province of a few fawning podcasters has grown into a fully fledged ecosystem of publications and shows supported by some of the tech industry’s most powerful.

While pro-tech influencers like podcast host Lex Fridman have for years formed a symbiotic relationship with tech elites like Elon Musk, some firms have decided this year to cut out the middleman entirely. In September, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz announced that it had launched an a16z blog on Substack. One of its prominent writers, investor Katherine Boyle, has a longstanding friendship with JD Vance. Its podcast has meanwhile grown to more than 220,000 subscribers on YouTube, and last month hosted OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, who counts Andreessen Horowitz as a major investor.

“What if the future of media isn’t controlled by algorithms or legacy institutions, but by independent voices building directly with their audiences?” the firm wrote in its Substack announcement. The firm once invested $50m in the digital media upstart BuzzFeed with a similar vision, only to see it fall into penny stock territory.

The a16z Substack also announced this month that the firm was launching an eight-week new media fellowship for “operators, creators, and storytellers shaping the future of media”. The fellowship includes collaborating with a16z’s new media operation, which it describes as being made up of “online legends” creating a “single place where founders acquire the legitimacy, taste, brandbuilding, expertise, and momentum they need to win the narrative battle online”.

In addition to a16z’s media effort, Palantir launched a digital and print publication earlier this year called the Republic that mimics academic journals and thinktank-style magazines like Foreign Affairs. The journal is funded by the Palantir Foundation for Defense Policy and International Affairs, a non-profit of which Karp is the chair, though he only works there 0.01 hours per week, according to 2023 tax filings.

“Far too many people who should not have a platform do. And there are far too many people who should have a platform but do not,” states the Republic, which has an editorial team made up of senior Palantir executives.

A sampling of the articles the Republic has published includes an essay arguing that US copyright law restrictions will prevent US AI dominance and another from two Palantir employees on how Silicon Valley working with the military is good for society, a point Karp has himself made many times.

The Republic joins a burgeoning set of pro-tech publications like Arena magazine, which was founded late last year by the Austin-based venture capitalist Max Meyer. The outlet takes its motto, “The New Needs Friends”, from Disney’s film Ratatouille.

“At Arena, we don’t cover ‘the news.’ We cover The New,” a letter from the editors stated in its inaugural issue. “Our mission at Arena is to cheer on the people who are, slowly but surely – and sometimes very quickly! – bringing the future into the present.”....

....MUCH MORE 

If interested see:
Media and Tech: "The Unauthorized Story of Andreessen Horowitz"

...Following on the three stories immediately below:

• How Media Aided and Abetted The Rise of FTX and Bankman-Fried
• "Andreessen passed on FTX, and made a killing selling tokens"
• "The Dubrovnik Interviews: Marc Andreessen - Interviewed by a Retard"

here is the first of three flashbacks, this one originally linked in January 2021.

And:  Andreessen Horowitz and the Media: Yikes! (COIN) "Inside the nasty battle between Silicon Valley and the reporters who write about it."

Here Mr. A. is enabled by the media:

Nov. 2016
Marc Andreessen Speaks: "Flying cars are closer than you think"
And speaks, and speaks...
You know how he is....
May, 2015 
Marc Andreessen In the New Yorker:
13,000+ words.
Oct. 2014 
New York Magazine's Million Word Interview With Mark Andreessen
It's not really a million words but man-o-mandingo the guy likes to talk. 

And Nov. 2022: With Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes In The News, Here's A Piece Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Wrote For The New York Times   

Turning the microscope the other way: 

FTX/Bankman-Fried: When Outlets As Disparate As The Spectator and Vanity Fair Call For A Media Reckoning You Know Something's Up

Here's Tablet Magazine's description of Bankman-Fried's direct efforts to influence media:

.....Over the past two years, Bankman-Fried cultivated the media lavishly, if not carefully. Drawing on what then seemed like an unlimited pool of cash, SBF (as we’ll call the mythologized version of the real person) dispersed investments, advertising dollars, sponsorships, and donations to key news outlets—including ProPublica, Vox, Semafor, and The Intercept—with extraordinary effectiveness.....

Finally, from March 2023:
"A fake news frenzy: why ChatGPT could be disastrous for truth in journalism"
The Guardian is concerned about Truth In Journalism.

***** 

....The most worrying fact to be reiterated is that ChatGPT has no commitment to the truth. As the MIT Technology Review puts it, large language model chatbots are “notorious bullshitters”. Disinformation, grifting and criminality don’t generally require a commitment to truth either. Visit the forums of blackhatworld.com, where those involved in murky practices trade ideas for making money out of fake content, and ChatGPT is heralded as a gamechanger for generating better fake reviews, or comments, or convincing profiles.... 

***** 

It was at this point I started laughing. 

That line "...has no commitment to the truth." followed by “notorious bullshitters” reminded me of a story in the Guardian in 2018.

They employ someone called Luke Harding who [co-]wrote a story that ran in the paper on Tue 27 Nov 2018 09.23 EST. Going on five years ago:

Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy, sources say 

Trump ally met WikiLeaks founder months before emails hacked by Russia were published

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, the Guardian has been told.

Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 – during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump’s push for the White House.

In a statement, Manafort denied meeting Assange. He said: “I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him. I have never been contacted by anyone connected to WikiLeaks, either directly or indirectly. I have never reached out to Assange or WikiLeaks on any matter.” It is unclear why Manafort would have wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last apparent meeting is likely to come under scrutiny and could interest Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who is investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia....

....MUCH MORE

The thing to remember, for our readers who were going on about their lives rather than trying to figure-out a money-making angle in that day's headlines, was that what Harding, his editors and the Guardian claimed was impossible.

At the time the story was published the Ecuadoran Embassy in London was the most surveilled building in the world. The British had it staked out, both MI5 and MI6 were keeping tabs on who was coming and going, the Australians were down the block, the Americans had a plan for a CIA assassination team to supplant the watchers [Yahoo broke that story], Russia was there, I'm guessing Israel and maybe China too. The spooks were tripping over each other there were so many different groups.

And none of them saw what Harding reported.

The Ecuadorans didn't detect Manafort entering their embassy, no reports of sounds emanating from the sewers as a rather chonky Manafort made his subterranean way in, there were no articles about parachute drops/vertical insertions reported by the dozen or so media types that would come round to see if they could rustle up a story—though we did see this scoop from American public radio: 

"Assange's Cat Has Left The Ecuadorian Embassy : NPR". 

 

There were police on the scene, quite a few actually. In 2015 the Telegraph reported:

Julian Assange's three-year stay in Ecuadorean embassy has cost taxpayer £11.1m
Three years ago the WikiLeaks founder fled bail and sought asylum in Ecuador - resulting in millions being spent on policing the embassy

But none of these, what may have been hundreds of watchers, saw what Luke Harding reported.

And to this day the Guardian has not corrected or even appended an editor's comment to the reporting.

 

If patient and long-suffering is interested, here is Mr. Harding as he "explains why he believes the Trump-Russia dossier is not ‘fake news’."

 

Maybe just "to hell with all of them." 

"Data center energy demand forecasted to soar nearly 300% through 2035"

 From TechCrunch, December 1:

Planned data center construction shows no signs of fading, with new additions to require 2.7x — nearly triple — the sector’s current demand for electricity over the next decade, according to a new report from BloombergNEF.

By 2035, data centers will draw 106 gigawatts, up sharply from the 40 gigawatts they use today. Much of that growth will occur in more rural areas as facilities grow in size and as sites near urban areas become scarce, BloombergNEF said.

Driving part of the growth is the sheer scale of planned data centers. Today, only 10% of data centers draw more than 50 megawatts of electricity, but over the next decade, the average new facility will draw well over 100 megawatts. The biggest sites help skew the data: Nearly a quarter will be larger than 500 megawatts, and a few will exceed 1 gigawatts. 

Planned data centers are significantly larger than those currently in operation.Image Credits:BloombergNEF

At the same time, the utilization rate for all data centers is expected to grow from 59% to 69% as AI training and inference grows to nearly 40% of total data center compute.

In some ways, the findings in the new report aren’t surprising. AI companies have been racing to build more powerful data centers, helping to drive global investment in the facilities up to $580 billion this year. That’s more than the world spends finding new supplies of oil.

Still, the new report shows just how quickly the landscape is changing. It is a sharp revision upwards from a document the group published in April. The upswing was driven by a surge in new projects that have been announced since then. “With an average seven-year timeline for projects to come online, developments in earlier stages affect the tail end of our forecast the most,” the new report said....

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AI Architecture: "An AI Startup Looks Toward the Post-Transformer Era"

From the Wall Street Journal via MSN, December 1:

Most of the worries about an AI bubble involve investments in businesses that built their large language models and other forms of generative AI on the concept of the transformer, an innovative type of neural network that eight years ago laid the foundations for the current boom.

But behind the scenes, artificial-intelligence researchers are pushing into new approaches that could pack an even bigger payoff.

One early-stage startup developing a transformer alternative, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Pathway, plans to announce Monday that its “Dragon Hatchling” architecture now runs on Nvidia AI infrastructure and Amazon Web Services’ cloud and AI tech stack.

The company has shipped Dragon Hatchling architecture, but doesn’t plan to release the commercial models trained on it until next year. Once that happens, its Nvidia and AWS compatibility means companies would be able to put it into production “the next day,” Pathway said.

Dragon Hatchling imbues AI with memory that large language models can’t match, according to Pathway, theoretically enabling a new class of continuously learning, adaptive AI systems. The company also casts its approach as a potentially faster way to get to artificial general intelligence, which some people describe as similar to human-level cognitive ability.

The company isn’t alone in this quest. It regards large and well-established Anthropic as its biggest obstacle. It faces other challenges, too, such as convincing potential users who have just learned one set of AI vocabulary and skills that they should adopt something new.

Regardless of whether Pathway fulfills its ambitions, it will at least get a chance to make its case to the market. Its arrival also reinforces the intense scientific effort driving AI forward, even as big deals, big valuations and big personalities command the attention.

‘Equations of reasoning’

“This is just fun, right?” said Zuzanna Stamirowska, co-founder and chief executive officer at Pathway, when I met with her and another member of the team at Wall Street Journal headquarters in November. She was enthusing about Pathway’s approach, likening it to scientists’ discovery of thermodynamics, which accelerated the Industrial Revolution by shifting society from simply building engines to understanding the laws of heat and energy that govern them.

Pathway has identified what Stamirowska calls equations of reasoning, fundamental mathematical axioms that explain how intelligence emerges from smaller, local interactions in the brain, she said. That means it can explain how and why intelligence works, rather than just observing that it does, which has been a struggle with transformer-based models.

That also helps Pathway address large language models’ typical limits when it comes to building on previous interactions, by strengthening or weakening synapses over time according to their use, said Stamirowska, who holds a Ph.D. in complex systems and has published research on emergent behavior in dynamic networks. She has also received France’s i-Lab innovation prize and been called one of “100 geniuses whose innovation will change the world” by the magazine Le Point.

“Memory is key to intelligence and efficient reasoning,” Stamirowska said....

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Digging into the link-vault on transformer architecture which Google invented:

Google Research, August 31, 2017 -  Transformer: A Novel Neural Network Architecture for Language Understanding 

Nvidia's blog March 25, 2022 - What Is a Transformer Model? 

Techspot December 24, 2024 -  Meet Transformers: The Google Breakthrough that Rewrote AI's Roadmap
How Attention Replaced Recurrence and Changed the Rules of AI

And a couple of our posts:

February 2024 -  IEEE "Spectrum explains large language models, the transformer architecture, and how it all works"

November 2024 - While Google Slept: ChatGPT and Transformers

"Mortgage Rates Are Not Too High. What’s too High Are Home Prices that Exploded by 40-70% in 2 Years, Creating the 'Affordability Crisis'”

From Wolf Street, November 29:

But there is a solution to this affordability crisis. 

For about the past three months, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has been around 6.25%, give or take a few basis points. In the latest reporting week through November 26, it was at 6.23%, according to Freddie Mac data.

While this may seem high to people who have not seen anything beyond the QE era of 2009 through 2022, it’s at the low end of the historical range. There was a 40-year bond bull market from the early 1980s through 2020, during which longer-term yields kept zigzagging lower, and mortgage rates with them. But the final phase of this 40-year bond bull market was driven by QE, starting in 2009, when the Fed bought large amounts of securities, including mortgage-backed securities (MBS). This ended when the worst inflation in 40 years erupted.

The below 5% average 30-year fixed mortgage rates were an aberration caused by QE – an explicit policy by the Federal Reserve to repress mortgage rates to trigger the biggest bout of home price inflation this country has ever seen. The below 5% mortgage rates started in 2009, and in 2012, home prices began soaring. And then, amid the mega-QE during the pandemic, home prices exploded by 50%, 60%, even 70% in many markets in just two years.

Negative “real” mortgage rates were ultimately the result of the mega-QE from March 2020 through early 2022 – which included the Fed’s purchases of trillions of dollars in MBS – which pushed mortgage rates below 3% even as inflation was spiking.

By the beginning of 2022, inflation was heading toward 9%, and the most reckless Fed ever (as I called it at the time, you can google it) still had its short-term policy interest rates near 0% and was still doing QE to repress mortgage rates.

Mortgage rates were far below the rate of inflation at the time, so negative “real” mortgage rates (mortgage rates minus CPI inflation rates), and that turned out to be better than free money.

FOMO-addled buyers, armed with better-than free money, trampled all over each other, overbid, outbid each other, offered ridiculous amounts “over asking,” bid sight-unseen, waived inspections, etc., and home prices exploded by 50%, 60%, 70% in many markets in just those two years.

Negative real mortgage rates were not normal. They were the result of the most reckless Fed ever. They were an aberration.

Recently, mortgage rates have been in a normal range in relationship to inflation

Now CPI inflation is over 3%, the worst since May 2024, after having accelerated for months. Higher inflation also seems to be the new normal, as the Fed has been cutting its policy rates, and has been discussing further cuts, despite this inflation, and if it continues to cut, it would be an indication that the Fed is going to tolerate higher inflation over the longer term, that it’s comfortable with maybe 3% to 4% inflation. And higher inflation would entail higher bond yields, and therefore higher mortgage rates.

And there is no appetite for QE because it would cause inflation to explode in this already inflationary environment. Americans hate, hate, hate inflation and high prices, and they have a history of voting governments out of office under which that inflation occurred.

What is not in a normal range are home prices. Home prices move very differently in each market – but they soared in most major markets from 2012 to 2019, and then they exploded in most major markets in the two years from mid-2020 to mid-2022.

In a bunch of markets, home prices began sagging in the second half of 2022. In other markets, home prices continued to rise, but at a slower pace.

For example, in Austin, TX, prices of mid-tier single-family homes exploded by 64% in the two years from mid-2020 to mid-2022. That is not normal. It’s ridiculous. And from mid-2012 to mid-2022, over those 10 years, home prices exploded by 207%, from $225,000 to $690,000 for mid-tier single-family homes – having more than tripled in 10 years! That’s not normal; it’s ridiculous. Those are the effects of the Fed’s mortgage rate repression.

Since the peak, home prices in Austin have dropped by 24% as the market is in the slow process of repairing the affordability crisis. Undoing the craziness from 2020-2022 is the solution, along with rising wages over the years, not lower mortgage rates.....

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In September 2013's "Ben Franklin on Labor Economics (or how to create an underclass)" I intro'd with:

The easiest way to create a dependent class is to price them out of the real estate markets.

"In countries fully settled…those who cannot get land must labor for others that have it; when laborers are plenty, their wages will be low; by low wages a family is supported with difficulty; this difficulty deters many from marriage, who therefore long continue servants and single...."

—Haves and Have Nots: The Real Real Estate State and Artificial Scarcity, Technology and Planning

Also 2020's:
"Huge Human Inequality Study Hints Revolution is in Store for U.S."

As we, and before us (way before us) Ben Franklin* have pointed out, the surest way to create a permanent underclass is to keep a population from getting on even the first rung of the wealth accumulation ladder.

In most cases this means real estate, access to which is limited by zoning laws and construction regulations constricting supply. Politicians working for their political masters/funders.

Another way to keep the populace from accumulating wealth is to keep the cost of daily expenses, food, rent, transportation, equal to or a bit above income so there is no accumulation of capital and preferably a slide into debt.

A third way to make the rich richer and the poor poorer is to pump enough money into the system to inflate asset prices, benefiting those who already own the assets and combined with the other factors, keep folks in a hand-to-mouth existence.

There's more but that's just what comes to mind without thinking too hard....

You say you want a revolution? 

"The Weekender: Robots, Robots Everywhere (Even at the Litter Box)"

From PYMNTS.com, November 22:

Blame the elves. They saw generative artificial intelligence (AI) coming for their jobs and outsourced Christmas to robots. This holiday season, the digital economy’s strangest edges have gone gloriously mainstream: your drink is mixed by a bot, your window is squeegeed by a suction-climbing square, and your cat’s litter is analyzed like a lab sample. If it moves, beeps, cleans, scoots, mows, mixes or meows: there’s a robot for that.

Why this is suddenly everywhere

Robotics quietly jumped the fence from cute gizmos and warehouse pickers into home life because AI now gives machines better eyes, ears and timing. Vision models let mowers find grass without wires; sensor fusion keeps window bots from leaping off the glass; LLM-powered “companions” follow faces and voices; and even grills “learn” how you like your ribeye. The result? A Black Friday/Cyber Monday gift list that reads like a Fast Company fever dream and a snapshot of how automation is commercializing at the edges. Case in point: Whisker just launched a new LitterRobot with AI cat facial recognition and waste monitoring. Yes, for your cat. Welcome to 2025.

The Fringe Robotics Gift Guide: 10 Bots Invading Home, Yard and Pet Life

1. The AI Litter Box That Knows Whiskers From Whiskers
   Whisker’s LitterRobot 5 Pro adds cameras and on-device AI to tell which cat is doing what, feeding health insights into the app. If that’s a step too far, the still-current LitterRobot 4 remains the benchmark for quiet, self-cleaning convenience. Poop data is officially a product category now.

1. Robot Dog, No Walk Required
   The Unitree Go2 is the consumer-grade quadruped that turned robot dogs from YouTube novelty into programmable pets and dev kits. It ships with Unitree’s 4D LiDAR for 360° perception and learned “gaits” like obstacle climbing — equal parts STEM toy and living room conversation starter.

1. Your New (Algorithmic) Bartender
   Barsys 360 is an app-controlled cocktail robot that meters pours and walks you through recipes from a phone. You supply spirits and mixers; Barsys does the precision. Ideal for hosts who want probar consistency without memorizing 1,000 ratios.

1. A Window-Clinging Cleaner
   The ECOVACS Winbot W1 Pro treats panes like floors, auto-spraying and plotting back-and-forth paths that avoid edges — even on frameless glass. If you’ve ever squeegeed a second-story window in a stiff breeze, you already know why this is a “shut up and take my money” category.

1. Pool Robot = Saturdays Back
   Maytronics’ Dolphin Nautilus CC Plus (WiFi) scrubs floors and walls and lets you schedule cycles in the MyDolphin app. If “drag the hose around” was the old pool routine, this is the set-and-forget upgrade....

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Also at PYMNTS, November 29:

Yes, You Can Finance a Near-Orbit Ticket From Your Smartphone 

If your Cyber Monday cart still tops out at an air fryer and some half-off sweats, you’re thinking too small.

In 2025, the same thumb you use to doomscroll can quietly commit you to a gold-plated toilet, a 550,000-euro watch or a $125,000 ticket to the edge of space. No personal shopper, no hushed boutique, just a browser tab and a strong credit limit....

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Inside Finland’s Drone Food Delivery Revolution

From Arabateknik, November 30:

Table of Contents

• 1. Finland is spearheading a revolutionary shift in food delive...
• 2. A key development is a pilot project in Oulu, where autonomo...
• 3. The Finnish drone food delivery revolution is supported by c...
• 4. Companies like Manna Aero are also actively testing drone de...
• 5. Beyond the technological and operational aspects, the drone...
• 6. From a regulatory and safety perspective, European initiativ...
• 7. In sum, Finland’s drone food delivery revolution is not just...

Finland is spearheading a revolutionary shift in food delivery through the adoption of drone technology, transforming urban logistics and enabling rapid, efficient service that could redefine how residents receive their meals. In cities like Oulu and Helsinki, pilot projects and commercial initiatives are demonstrating that drones can deliver food within minutes, offering a glimpse into a future where airborne delivery becomes a standard urban service.

A key development is a pilot project in Oulu, where autonomo...

A key development is a pilot project in Oulu, where autonomous drone flights are being tested specifically for food delivery. This initiative highlights how drones can dramatically reduce delivery times and ease congested city logistics by transporting meals through the air rather than traditional road networks[1]. Similarly, Helsinki is set to see drone delivery services launched imminently by Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet, which is conducting a pilot project to deliver goods — including food — to residents in the Finnish capital, marking a significant expansion of drone logistics in Europe[6].

The Finnish drone food delivery revolution is supported by c...

The Finnish drone food delivery revolution is supported by collaborative research efforts, notably between VTT, one of Europe’s premier research institutions, and Manna Air Delivery, a drone company focused on safe and scalable unmanned air traffic. Their joint initiative explores the optimization of drone transport not only for medical logistics but also for urban delivery services such as food, aiming to enhance both efficiency and sustainability[2][7]....

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This story was generated by AI. Though you can still detect the machine aggregation the presentation is getting smoother and smoother.

"Louvre to raise ticket prices by 45% for most non-EU visitors"

A variation on the quote last seen gracing our pages a couple weeks ago.

“the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest 
possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.”

—attributed to  Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Controller-General of Finance (1668-83) under Louis XIV of France

From the Art Newspaper, November 28:

The Château de Versailles and the Château de Chambord have also announced new pricing structure 

The Louvre will raise ticket prices for non-European Union (EU) visitors by 45% from 14 January 2026, the Paris museum’s board decided yesterday.

The move will increase the cost of tickets for visitors from countries including the UK, US and China from €22 to €32, which the museum hopes will boost its revenue by around €17.5m annually.

Staff unions have denounced the project as an “unprecedented challenge to the universal mission of the museum since its birth in 1793”.

The Louvre previously increased its ticket prices by 30% in 2024, ahead of the Olympic Games, but has since faced a series of hefty budget cuts, including the loss of 7% of its public subsidies. These subsidies, which in 2015 amounted to half of the Louvre's budget, now represent only a quarter of it....

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I wonder if they will still waive the fee for those who bring their own lift to access the balcony entrance:

 

Louvre heist lift-maker seizes the moment with new ad campaign 

"When you need to move fast," reads a banner under the image. "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."

Capital Markets: "Dollar Losses Extended, while Stocks and Bonds Retreat"

From Marc to Market:

Overview: The US dollar is trading with a heavier bias today. Equities and bonds have also been sold on the first day of the new month. The dollar bloc and the sterling are laggards today, while the yen has been squeezed higher amid heightened speculation that the Bank of Japan will lift rates later this month. The recovery of the yen does not appear to be spurring an unwinding of carry trades, but the substitution of the yen's funding role with the Swiss franc and/or US dollar. Most emerging market currencies are also firmer but for a few Asian currencies (Taiwan, South Korea, India) and the Russian ruble. 

Rising rates and a stronger yen pushed Japanese equity indices down more than 1% today. Taiwan's Taiex also lost 1%. Despite disappointing PMI data, China's mainland markets and shares that trade in Hong Kong rallied, with the CSI 300 up a little more than 1%. Europe's Stoxx 600, which rallied every session last week, is nursing a loss (~0.35) that is unwinding the gains of the past two sessions. The S&P and Nasdaq futures are off 0.55%-0.65%. Bond markets have found no comfort in the equity market losses. European 10-year benchmark yields are up 3-4 bp, while the 10-year US Treasury yield, which slipped below 4% last week, is up three basis points to poke above 4.04%. Gold (and silver) are extending last week's gains. The yellow metal pushed above November's high (November 13, ~$4245) but has retreated after reaching almost $4262.50. January WTI, which traded to almost $57 in the middle of last week, has approached a six-day high near $60 following OPEC+ confirmation that it will pause its increase in output in Q1 26. 

USD: The Dollar Index fell every day last week for the first time since April and is trading with a heavier bias today. It has taken out last week's lows (~99.35), and the next support is seen near the November low, slightly below 99.00....

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