PSA: Artificial sweeteners may mess up your metabolism

It seems like there is a panic about artificial sweeteners every few years. Here's the latest
https://www.futurity.org/sugar-substitutes-gut-health-metabolism-3339882/

https://www.a16z.news/p/the-next-ai-goldrush-tokens-loops

QuoteAI was supposed to replace human labor.

It did the opposite.

For the first time in history, humans are cheaper than software.

And AI is creating more jobs than it eliminates.

Managing AI is harder than managing people, because AI scales dysfunction instantly.

Data centers have already hiked electricity prices on the public by $23 billion
https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/data-centers-23-billion-electricity-bills/

https://www.understandingai.org/p/an-openai-model-crushed-top-human

QuoteOpenAI's models last year weren't good enough to compete in the algorithmic division.

The 2026 competition, held this week, turned out very differently. Organizers chose a heuristic problem designed to help humans succeed. Despite that, OpenAI "completely demolished human competitors," Psyho noted after the two-day competition finished Wednesday night. It's hard to quantify exactly how big the AI's margin of victory was, but Psyho told me that he would guess that humans would need to work at least a few more days to match the AI's score — though he stressed that this is a hard number to predict exactly.

It shows activity and I guess each dot is a packet, but can you actually home in on a single signal from a single source (or both ends), grab the packets and decode with this?

Update:

"Tap on an RF source, and you can instantly isolate it and pass the signal on to your SDR programs to decode,"
https://scalerf.com/

So I guess that's a yes

Correction and retraction

Quote from: ergophobe on Today at 06:07:38 PMAnd in any case, it is not at all clear that LLMs are or will be not the most important form of AI,

I've seen demos where people measure output, then let it heat up, then measure again, then spray it with water and measure again.

I haven't dared try it with my panels, but I wonder if in the hottest places they will need to add cooling, which will take away a lot of efficiency, obviously.

> probably

Just to be pedantic here... I hate it when people talk about "using AI" or people claim that they "never use AI."

That almost always conceives of AI as LLM chatbots.

Anyone who uses Google, Facebook or Instagram is "using AI"

Anyone who uses adaptive cruise control or lane-keeping function in their car is "using AI"

Anyone using Siri is "using AI"

Anyone using Google image search is "using AI"

All of these things would have been considered AI not that long ago. But for a long time, AI progress was slow enough that we just kept moving the goalposts and redefining what AI is so that the definition became, "AI is something just beyond the horizon of current capabilities."

Then the chatbots came out and that seemed like magic because it was human language and we could understand what it was doing, but not how it was doing it, so that finally got labelled as AI.

But people persist in saying it isn't AI because it isn't actually intelligent because it isn't actually thinking, but we don't even have a clear definition or understanding of what thinking is, so we don't really have the ability to say that an LLM is thinking or not.

And in any case, it is not at all clear that LLMs are or will be the most important form of AI, but they have become the Kleenex or Chlorox of AI.

All of which is to say, enough already with the, "you probably can't escape it" stuff. You can NOT escape it and you are not escaping it unless you live alone off the grid far far from the madding crowds.

I don't think we can have intelligent and necessary debates about AI until people have a better sense of what it is, what it's doing, and how they ARE using it, whether they think they are or not.

"SMBs are the focus of intense research because they theoretically combine the best of both types of batteries."

Another battery tech that is probably like self-driving - promise, unforeseen challenges getting to market, eventually getting there, but delivering somewhat less than the promise.

But I should say that I mean that optimistically - like it's on the self-driving trajectory, not the fusion trajectory.

It used to be $5/gallon was a psychological barrier, at which point consumption in the US fell. I think that number is now more like $6 or $7. At $7, there is revolution in the street.

>only hope

Not so fast

Meta says US states are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties in August youth safety trial
https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-says-us-states-are-seeking-14-trillion-penalties-august-youth-safety-trial-2026-07-07/

California school districts seek money, changes to social media apps in lawsuits
https://edsource.org/2026/social-media-mental-health-lawsuit/761927

It's shaping up like the suits against big tobacco (big success) and against big oil (no success) in that a state/local strategy is more likely in the US than a national approach

>  $50 Straws

I got a couple of these. Unfortunately, the oxygenated water recommended by my detox coach is destroying the finish on it though.

If you stand in Montreal and look due east, you're looking at Milan, Venice, Bourdeaux

Paris would be on the north shore of Lake Superior

It's a fun meme

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/r2y20r/maps_of_the_us_and_canada_at_the_exact_same/

https://earthlymission.com/usa-europe-cities-latitude-comparison/

https://www.threads.com/@civixplorer/post/DR7uK8bkXQn/my-brain-refuses-to-accept-this-map-rome-is-actually-north-of-new-york-and

>> much further north

Paris is further north than Minneapolis or Chicago or Montreal.

We have talked about the break down in the ocean currents that keep Europe warm in the winter. So if those currents break down, European winters will get WAY colder.

There may be some good news
https://www.science.org/content/article/ocean-current-warms-europe-may-be-more-resilient-feared

Or maybe it's just bad news
https://gizmodo.com/scientists-say-a-critical-ocean-current-system-may-already-be-past-the-point-of-no-return-2000783571

It's kind of genius - weed control and extra income all in one.

> The more scarce land becomes

Of course, in the US we devote 30 million acres to produce 3% of the fuel for our vehicles, whereas much less than 30 million acres could produce 100% of the fuel for an EV fleet.

I don't know as "scarce" land is the problem.