Chartbook 370: Is a "Treasury market unwind" in progress? Wednesday morning and the overnight fin-fi panic. (Part 2) Adam Tooze
It's Republicans' Fault Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian
Dramatic sell-off of US government bonds as tariff war panic deepens Guardian
How do mpox outbreaks start? Dead baby monkey provides important clue Science
Public Domain Image Archive
Rebetiko Pioneers * Roza Eskenazi (6 recordings)
Even Optimists Say Recent AI Progress Feels Mostly Like Bullshit Alberto Romero
...recent AI progress is no such thing. And to allude to any LessWronger in the audience: AI progress has manifested on the map but not in the territory.
...a sincere effort at having some epistemic hygiene
...You can stretch [AIs] top performance as much as you want—to superintelligence levels even—but if the bottom performance stays in the same place . . . then perhaps what you have is an illusion product of your inability to be a decent evaluator of AI's real capabilities. We keep mistaking performance with competence, a lesson we should have already learned by now.
...As soon as they realized that people—especially opinion makers—were paying attention to the chatbot arena, they trained on it and thus tainted it.
Here's All of the Data That Elon Musk's DOGE May Have on You and Your Family gizmodo
Carl Jung on Creativity Marginalian
EFF's lawsuit against DOGE will go forward Cory Doctorow
Trump and the Favoritism Grift Nathan Heller at The New Yorker
...The shock is not simply the catalogue of constitutional infractions, which goes on queasily, or the course of change, which has been costly and swift. It's the scarce challenge that these upheavals have received, and the alacrity with which institutions have indulged the White House's whim.
..."I actually think that we have to destroy the universities in this country. They get too much money. They have too much power. I don't think they do anything good," J. D. Vance, a graduate of Ohio State University and Yale Law School who went on to become the Vice-President of the United States, said, in 2021.
...Trump tries to elicit deference and other rewards by imposing targeted punishments in an environment where those who earn his favor are allowed to thrive. Call it the favoritism grift: the more you give to some people while excoriating others, the more you can manage to take.
Coincidence? Unusual options activity before Trump's tariff reversal boingboing
...It seems to be a generally accepted fact that Trump, his family, and associates are just getting richer and consolidating power with these otherwise inexplicable and destructive moves. Decades of carefully negotiated globalization, matched with trillions in investment worldwide, have been thrown into turmoil. It appears that some options traders had information in advance. Who could they be?
...One of history's greatest grifters has been given a lever he can throw to start and stop the world economy. Whenever he wants some attention or money, he's going to give it a yank.
Largest mammalian brain map ever could unpick what makes us human New Scientist
The Most Beautiful Places in the World Maps Mania
10iv25
Being Human in 2035: Experts predict significant change in the ways humans think, feel, act and relate to one another in the Age of AI Elon University [Dafuq? Is "Elon University" in any sense 'real'?
...a private university in Elon, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1889 as Elon College, the university is organized into six schools, most of which offer bachelor's degrees and several of which offer master's degrees or professional doctorate degrees... sez Wikipedia... and No, not that Elon ... An NC university tries to distance itself from the DOGE leader
(via Stephen Downes. Read more about the institution at: "Raleigh News & Observer
)
A 'U.S.-Made iPhone' is Pure Fantasy Nick Heer at Pixel Envy
...Anyone who has spent time digging into the supply chains of just about any industry is probably similar parts amazed and disgusted by what they find, and rightfully so. It strains my ability to understand anything to know a device as precise as a smartphone can be made at scale, about as much as I am also baffled when I see Walmart selling a pair of jeans for less than $20. The only way this is possible is at a huge human cost. This happens far away and — in a way beneficial to the name brands involved — at third-party factories, subcontractors, or a component business deep in the supply chain. But this human exploitation is not relegated to over there; it happens closer to home too.
Trump's new loyalty test: "golden Trump bust lapel pins" boing boing. ...YCMTSU.
...There's a new dress code in Trump's Washington, and it's straight out of a dictator's playbook. Loyalists in the regime—congressmen, senators, the whole parade of sycophants—are now sporting golden Trump bust lapel pins, a garish little tribute to the man who's turned the White House into a shrine to himself. They've been quietly told to ditch their congressional or Senate pins in favor of this new badge of allegiance. It's not a suggestion; it's a loyalty test. And if you're paying attention, it's a chilling sign of where this country's headed....And let's talk about the man behind the pin. Trump's ego has always been the gravitational center of his universe, but now it's the defining force of his presidency. He's not just leading America—he's remaking it in his image, a golden age that's really just the Ego Age. Look at the evidence. He's throwing himself a $92 million military parade for his 79th birthday, a spectacle that makes Kim Jong-un's missile marches look frugal. The Pentagon's budget is already stretched thin, but Trump's got no problem diverting funds for a multi-day ego trip, complete with tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue and fighter jets spelling out "TRUMP" in the sky. It's not about national pride; it's about his pride. He wants the world to see him as a conqueror, a king, even as the country he's leading teeters on the edge.
--Dean Blundell at substack
Iran and US to enter high-stakes Nuclear Negotiations — hampered by a lack of Trust Informed Comment
Despite Proven Fraud, Trump to Boost Payments to Privatized Medicare Advantage by $25 Billion Informed Comment
The federal agency now headed by former television host Mehmet Oz announced Monday that it is substantially boosting payments to privately run Medicare Advantage plans, a boon for an industry notorious for overcharging taxpayers and denying patients necessary care...
...Health insurance company stocks jumped in response to the news of the Trump administration's payment hike, with shares of UnitedHealth Group—the largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans—rising more than 6% following the CMS statement.
Oz, whom the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed in a party-line vote last week, previously reported holding tens of millions of dollars worth of stock in companies with interests before CMS, including UnitedHealth.
"Oh ... it's only China". Or how to make the sudden decoupling of the world's two largest economies seem like a relief Adam Tooze
..."As I told everyone a week ago in this very spot, ‘Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded',"
It was an absurd proposition. How on earth could they expect that the rest of the world would put up with the antics of the American President without reaction? The rest of the world does not share the ludicrously one-sided interpretation of trade with the US.
But imagine we are in Trump world.
Imagine they have been plotting this over some time. Imagine the rationale goes something like this:
"Ok. We are going to shake things up. Hit everyone with some nasty tariffs. Some nice big numbers. Beautiful numbers. That will flush them out. Lets see how they react."
"Reward those who kiss the ring?"
"Well keep 10 percent. Keep talking. But yeah ... reward those who don't react."
"Ok. So if we are splitting the world into "team defy" and "team comply" (Baldwin), who do we know is least likely to kiss the ring? Who is going to retaliate?"
"China and maybe the EU. But China for certain."
"So then we are in a real trade war? ... with China? And maybe Europe?"
"You say that like it is a bad thing! No more, "small yard. high fence". Decoupling for real."
"Or, they surrender?"
"Or we get some kind of really big deal"?"
Unpacking claims that Canadian PM Mark Carney orchestrated a US Treasurys sell-off snopes.com
Why Mar-A-Lago is dated. Dedramatizing US globalization & the Emirates in Africa Adam Tooze
When Autocrats Screw Up
Maybe Trump really blew it this time Jennifer Rubin at Contrarian
Academia: Thy Banners Make Tyranny Comfortable
...If you are an American citizen, consider that Columbia University without any perceptible fight whatsoever has made enormous concessions to an extreme ideological attack from the government. As an undergraduate or graduate student, you might find yourself closely watched by a newly empowered campus police force even though you've done nothing wrong. You might find your access to services curtailed because the university has jettisoned those services in order to placate the Trump Administration. You might find a program of study that you intend to undertake restricted or eliminated or courses that interest you discontinued as the university tries to do the will of its new masters. In those courses which remain, you might find peers and professors who are afraid to speak freely or share what they know.
Imaginal Ecology
The science of re-enchantment Brooke Williams at Orion
...Mundus imaginalis, or the imaginal world, was the term French philosopher Henry Corbin coined during his studies of this ninth-century Persian mystical tradition, one the modern world has largely forgotten. Imaginal, I need to point out, is not the same as imaginary. We understand imaginary things are made up, are fantasy, but the imaginal exists in another realm. It is a form of reality involving pure imagination, which, according to philosopher and cosmologist Becca Tarnas, is "an organ of perception." She writes, "Imagination is the unifying principle permeating psyche, Earth, and cosmos, a means of perceiving the relationships between things." And so, the imaginal world is not fantastical, but it is what you might call enchanted. Most cultures throughout much of human history shared this view to some degree until we modern folk explained, reduced, objectified, and commodified the world and everything in it.
Though some suggest that the imaginal world is a bridge that connects ordinary and non-ordinary reality, I believe it contains the full borderless spectrum of all realities at once. It is expansive.
...CANADIAN SCHOLAR Kevin Richtscheid helped me make sense of this external/internal experience. In his 2006 essay, "Imaginal Ecology," he describes traditional views of nature as a "purely material phenomenon"—separate from us—or nature "as a living presence" that includes us humans.
FOOD OF THE 50 STATES, Part 9: Nevada Foodlotre & More
Why Trump Blinked, What it Means, and What Happens Next Umair Haque
...the world doesn't and can't trust America anymore.
—That is a long term trend. It doesn't really matter what the markets do on a daily basis. Some days will be up, some down, but over the next year, two, five, the markets have to price in this loss of trust and confidence in America itself.
—The loss of confidence in America has implosive depth. What that means is that when large investors “lose confidence,” in this global ones, they can do so for many reason. They might not trust an approach, or they might not believe in a group of companies, or what have you. This is different. It's as deep as it gets. This is about not being able to trust American institutions anymore. The rule of law. Basic rights. Democracy becoming autocracy. In that kind of society, people's freedoms are at risk, and so are capital's.
...the path America's on. The magnitude of what's happening is not changing. It is still heading for something like a Depression Level Event. Its institutions don't function, there are no functioning guarantees the world can trust, and the world is still going to withdraw from America. That will send markets down, profoundly.
Trump's Psychological Vulnerability Hobb;ledehoy
All his adult life, Trump has been ripping people off. That is his modus operandi. Rather than a conscience, he has the habit of displacement. It is not that he is ripping people off. Everyone else is ripping him off.
As he has aged this has grown into a vulnerability. He actually seems to believe that everyone is ripping him off. He makes no distinction between himself and the government. And he has no grasp of how any significant policy actually works. This means that anyone who has access to him and understands his vulnerability can generate a self-destructive American policy.
...Somewhere Trump got the idea that Ukraine was ripping off the United States. And once the idea was in his head, he was its slave. He kept repeating that the Ukraine owed the United States $350 billion.
This made no sense. The assistance in question was aid, not a loan. The value of the aid was about a third of what Trump claimed. Most of the military aid came in the form of spending inside the United States. And of course the Ukrainians have paid. They have fulfilled the entire NATO mission by themselves in holding off a Russian attack. They have suffered enormous losses of all kinds. And they have shared intelligence and innovations with the United States. But none of that matters to Trump. Once he is told that he is being ripped off, he is helpless, and others must suffer.
We don't know now, though it is not hard to guess, who told Trump that Ukraine was ripping him off. The Russians have a keen sense of psychological vulnerabilities, and they have been paying close attention to Trump for a long time.
11iv25
Should we give up on recycling plastic? Madeleine Cuff at New Scientist
...Instead of recycling, increasing numbers of countries are opting to burn their rubbish, with 34 per cent of plastic waste disposed of this way in 2022. In some regions, the proportion is much higher: Japan, China and the European Union, for example, burn 70 per cent, 60 per cent and 38 per cent of their plastic waste respectively.
In some ways, incineration is better than landfill, because it can be used to generate energy — but it releases greenhouse gases in the process. "It's not a circular use of plastic, says Brandt-Talbot.
The purpose of a system is what it does Wikipedia , via >Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does at Astral Codex Ten
Adam Tooze
from Financial Times:
Global shipowners are racing to tighten scrutiny of Chinese shipyards as soaring demand for liquefied natural gas carriers forces them to turn to inexperienced manufacturers in the world's second-largest economy. Shipping groups around the world are looking to tighten the reins on the shipyards to ensure they meet global standards for the construction of LNG vessels. The shipping groups are trying to carry out more thorough on-site inspections and demanding involvement in the regulatory process to soothe their jitters over Chinese manufacturers' ability to properly build the complex vessels. The trend highlights shipowners' growing dependence on Chinese shipyards, despite their limited experience in building LNG vessels. Demand for the super-chilled fuel has left more established shipyards in South Korea unable to meet the need for new vessels, forcing the industry to seek alternatives. … There is "huge demand for supervision teams" in Chinese shipyards, said Stephen Fewster, head of shipping finance at Dutch bank ING, which finances shipbuilding deals. “China doesn't have experience of building LNG ships in the same way. The supervision the owner puts on the yard has to be that much more intense.” The construction of LNG vessels, which transport gas liquefied by cooling it to below minus 160C, requires the installation of much more sophisticated containment and loading systems than those needed for other ships ... As well as sending more staff to construction sites, shipowners are also seeking contractual commitments from Chinese shipyards, according to two London-based lawyers who specialise in shipbuilding. They added that ship buyers have used negotiations to request permission to attend meetings between shipyards and classification societies, as well as to be copied into emails between these groups. Such demands have often been resisted by Chinese shipyards, who are in a stronger negotiating position when demand is exceeding capacity, the lawyers said. The global LNG carrier fleet is expected to rise from 660 to 1,040 vessels by 2029, according to analysis group Drewry. … Although Chinese shipyards built just 6 per cent of the current fleet by volume, they are due to deliver over a fifth of the LNG carriers on order, according to industry group the International Gas Union. Their increasing role in LNG carrier production mirrors China's earlier takeover of other shipbuilding sectors, as its state-backed shipyards drew orders by undercutting rivals in South Korea and Japan on price. The average cost of building an LNG carrier in China is about $247mn, compared with $265mn in South Korea, according to Drewry. Across all commercial ship types globally, Chinese shipyards built 46 per cent of the capacity delivered last year, according to the UN.
Trump Faces Palestine: The Colonial View of the World Never Dies Aviva Chomsky at Informed Comment
Unbroken Boundaries Andy Ilachinski
Undaunted: The Associated P:ress Jennifer Rubin at Contrarian
..."It is among the most basic tenets of the First Amendment that the government cannot retaliate against the public or the press for what they say. This is viewpoint discrimination based on a news organization's editorial choices and a clear violation of the First Amendment. (Julie Pace at NYT)
...Judge Trevor N. McFadden, a Trump appointee, delivered a 41-page scholarly opinion reaming the president and his lackeys. McFadden began:
"[T]he Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution requires no less......The AP claims, and the Court now finds, that the Government has singled out the AP because of its refusal to update the Gulf's name in its Stylebook, an influential writing and editing guide.”
McFadden noted, "Indeed, the Government has been brazen about this. Several high-ranking officials have repeatedly said that they are restricting the AP's access precisely because of the organization's viewpoint." The White House rarely conceals its illegal motives these days; the whole point is to publicize its vindictiveness.
"We create our own reality" - Trump's delirious negative-sum populism, or how the Empire comes home Adam Tooze
...So, you say, Trump is actually a left-wing populist in disguise. He is actually acting in the interests of the American working-class. But where is the mass base for this trade policy?
Unemployment is in fact low. The economy under Trump and Biden was growing more rapidly than any other rich economy. Less than ten percent of American workers, are employed in manufacturing. At the margin, some Americans might prefer to be employed in factories than in service sector work. Some of those jobs pay marginally better and offer marginally better benefits. But it depends who you work for and where. And most of the growth in manufacturing, if it is to happen, is likely to happen in non-union states. There simply is no mass movement clamoring for reindustrialization.
So far the damage has been mainly to financial markets, but the stagflation that is now coming into view, will inflict far wider damage. This is not so much positive sum, or zero-sum, as negative-sum populism. It is destruction with a promise of creation to come.
As Cam pointed out on the podcast we recorded yesterday, the "better America" with a revived manufacturing economy that would seem to be the logic telos of massive national protectionism, is in fact largely a figment of the Trumpian imagination.
Watch Bert Jansch "Dreamweaver" documentary
Elon Musk Is Annoying, Unfunny, and Should Probably Take a Drug Test, Trump Officials Reportedly Say gizmodo
Meanwhile, In real life Charlie Stross
Zuckerberg in the Dock Cory Doctorow
...In some ways, this is normal. Vicious, criminal corporate bosses have long employed a delay/deny/defer strategy to draw out the antitrust cases against them, betting that a change in government will let them off the hook. This worked for Amway, which drew out its FTC prosecution for being a pyramid scheme until Richard Nixon resigned and was replaced by Gerry Ford, who had been the congressman to Amway founders Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos. Ford ordered the FTC to let Amway off, so the FTC crafted the "Amway rule," which defines a list of of ruinously exploitative and dishonest tactics that are nevertheless legal. Every pyramid scheme since has been designed to fit within the confines of this rule. Whenever you hear from an old classmate hoping to sell you "leadership coaching," essential oils, tights, or any other gewgaw, know that they are the progeny of Gerry Ford and the Amway rule.
...So the big question now is, "Will Trump let Facebook walk?" There's not really any question that Facebook is guilty as hell, but Trump is practitioner of "boss politics." He's made it clear that, guilty or not, he is willing to protect you if you suck up to him. He's created several channels that corporations and individuals can bribe him: there's the Trump memecoin, a virtual tipjar for the Oval Office. There's his bizarre gambit of suing companies he wishes to demand fealty from (like Disney), inviting the companies settle the suits for tens of millions of dollars more than is reasonable, as a way to legally shuffle eight-figure bribes into the president's personal bank account.
...Zuck's got other ways to bribe Trump, of course. His pivot-to-culture-war-bullshit announcement *mdash; in which he declared an end to Meta's "feminine" use of fact checkers and moderation policies — was a naked gift to Trump, a guarantee that Trump and his henchmen could lie about anything from Haitians eating dogs to gay barbers being members of fearsome international terrorist gangs without threat of moderation or correction on Meta's platforms. For a compulsive liar like Trump, any relaxation of fact checking is a naked bribe
Social Security Admin Reportedly Moving All Communication to X, the Everything App gizmodo ... YCMTSU
The Social Security Administration backed off its plan to cut phone services, but it's still taking steps to limit the ways that people will be able to access information about the essential agency. The SSA plans to stop issuing communications through normal channels like press releases and will instead make statements exclusively on X....
See also Social Security Admin Reportedly Moving All Communication to X, the Everything App at gizmodo
12iv25
The Face You Put On Tom Crewe at LRB re: Cartes de visite
So You Want to Be a Dissident? The New Yorker
...The sitting President, elected on an explicit platform of revenge against his political enemies, entered office by instituting loyalty tests, banning words, purging civil servants, and installing an F.B.I. director who made his name promising to punish his boss's critics.
Retribution soon followed. For the sin of employing lawyers who have criticized or helped investigate him, President Donald Trump signed orders effectively making it impossible for several law firms to represent clients who do business with the government. For the sin of exercising free speech during campus protests, the Department of Homeland Security began using plainclothes officers to snatch foreign students—legal residents of the United States—off the streets, as the White House threatened major funding cuts to universities where protests had taken place. And for the sin of trying to correct racial and gender disparities, the government is investigating dozens of public and private universities and removing references to Black and Native American combat veterans from public monuments.
What the World Learned from Donald Trump's Tariff Week The New Yorker
State department staff told to report colleagues for ‘anti-Christian bias' The Guardian
As Trump triggers "sell America", will the result be "stage 4", the politicization of financial markets? Adam Tooze
On Monday - to get you set for the week ahead - Chartbook 399 outlined the stages:
- First shares sell.
- In a normal risk off" mood, folks shift from shares into the safe haven of bonds. But when panic takes hold, investors sell both shares and bonds.
- And when it gets really, really bad, they may want to exit America altogether, in which case they sell all three: shares, bonds and the dollar. Equity markets plunge. Yields surge as bonds sell off, but rather than rising, to reflect the better interest rates, the dollar falls.
Stage 3 is what happens to Emerging Markets when they get into serious trouble. Higher interest rates, rather than attracting new money, serve as a signal of panic.
On Thursday that is what was happening on Wall Street. The message was “sell America”. So how far are we from stage 4?
- In stage 4 in embattled emerging markets under massive financial pressure, one of the common reactions of populist leaders is to tear away the veil of neutrality that usually shrouds the markets. They call foul, denounce speculators, rumor mongers and the “interest rate lobby”. How far is the United States from that stage?
There are significant signs not just of market action, but of political pressure building in US financial markets right now.
...Last week, the anxiety was hugely compounded by the fact that anxiety spread from the bond market to the US currency itself. Normally, when bond prices fall and yields surge, that gives investors a buying opportunity. Expecting "reversion to mean", international portfolio managers come into the market snapping up the bargain prices on Treasuries, driving the dollar up. Knowing this, fx markets respond by revaluing the dollar, producing a very tight correlation between relative US yields and the exchange rate of the dollar. Higher yields, higher dollar. This week that correlation broke down. As bonds sold off and yields surged, investors exited the dollar too.
Zerohedge:
... Deutsche Bank's global head of FX, George Saravelos, argued yesterday that despite President Trump's reversal on tariffs the damage to the USD has been done: the market is re-assessing the structural attractiveness of the dollar as the world's global reserve currency and is undergoing a process of rapid de-dollarization.
Reserve currency alternatives such as the EUR may find that their fiscal space is going up, but they may also be burdened with greater currency appreciation that requires the respective central banks (ie the ECB) to turn more dovish.
Our concluding observation is that given the centrality of the dollar to the global financial system there are likely to be many unpredictable consequences to the epochal shifts in capital flow allocation that have been unleashed.
...JPMorgan's trading desk noted ominously that de-leveraging and deterioration of macro sentiment has morphed into a situation in which liquidity dynamics are now meaningfully impaired in liquid markets.
one to not lose sight of
13iv25
The Deep History of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Juan Cole
In the Wake of the Sandbound Nick Hunt at Emergence
All the Stops Philip Clark on Mahan Esfahani, NYRB
Neutrinos Have No Business Being This Freaking Small gizmodo
A new measurement finds the universe's teensiest particles weigh no more than one-millionth the mass of an electron.
(Editor's summary) The neutrino, a weakly interacting, uncharged elementary particle, has been shown to have a nonzero mass, the exact value of which remains unknown. This is not what the usually very reliable Standard Model of particle physics predicts, which means that measuring the neutrino mass may offer hints of physics that this model cannot account for.
...If the neutrino mass were more—around one electronvolt—KATRIN could have found its actual value. But with the particle being so freaking small, a new and improved detector—KATRIN++—may be required to measure its mass with precision.
from Professor Avi Shlaim's recent book, Genocide in Gaza: Israel's Long War on Palestine via Adam Tooze. And also from him:
...Arnold Haro held up a single bullet to his cellphone camera, loaded it into his Smith & Wesson and spun the chamber. It was 3:28 p.m. on Feb. 21, and he was in his ranch home in an isolated corner of California. He seemed in distress, scratching his scalp, breathing heavily. "If I die, I hope you guys turn this into a meme coin," he told his followers on X, where he was livestreaming. About three hours later, his dying wish came true. A crypto token named after Haro's social media handle skyrocketed to more than $2 million in total value, before crashing back to earth. It wasn't an isolated event. A gold rush ensued, and dozens of other copycat coins sprang up, some branded with stills from the livestream, as the meme coin community tried to profit on Haro's suicide. Meme coins started out as a joke in 2013 with the rise of dogecoin, a digital token meant as a sendup of the crypto world. Over time, an online subculture developed around the idea that any cultural moment could merit its own cryptocurrency. Tokens tied to celebrities, political leaders and anonymous edgelords hit the market, carrying no intrinsic value while hyping internet memes and personalities. (Wall St Journal)
History is watching. And this time, it's our names on the line Oliver Kornetzke at Hobbledehoy
de Tocqueville on American character via Lapham's
Watershed maps for NENA
Map of New Brunswick watersheds
New Brunswick by watershed
Maine watershed profiles
NENA watersheds
Lewiston Mills and Water Power System Historic District Wikipedia
Lewiston Textile Mills and Waterpower System Historic District SAH ARCHIPEDIA
Bates Mill Wikipedia
Bates Mill #4 and #5, Lewiston, ca. 1980 Maine Memory Network
Staff at the Hill Mill, Lewiston, 1912 Maine Memory Network
Androscoggin Mills (Cotton Mill), Lewiston, Me. [insurance map] Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center
Maine's Rich Textile History Bates Mill Store
Historic Lewiston walking tour (pdf)
Former Civil War Textile Mill is Given New Economic Life with the Help of $775,000 in Funding from the EPA Success Stories Brownfields in New England US EPA
PREINDUSTRIAL MILLS IN NEW ENGLAND AND NEW YORK
Jamie Eves
Early Industrialization in the Northeast cuny.edu
The Mill Girls of Lowell
Kulik New England Mill Village 1790-1860
The dark side of the Moomins New Statesman
Donald Junkins (died 2021)
New England Decorum Massachusetts Review (1985)
The hidden truth about Medicaid: 64% of recipients are employed workers
Maureen Herman at boing boing
14iv25
Trump's "1984"-Like Vision for a New World Order Alfred W. McCoy at Informed Comment
Across War Zones, targeting Healthcare has become a Strategy, not an Accident Informed Comment
mapsontheweb: Countries recognising Palestine in 2025
Under RFK Jr., Insiders Worry America's Health Agency Is a Cybersecurity Disaster Waiting to Happen Lucas Ropek at gizmodo
Language of Power: cartography Lorraine Daston at LRB
Behold the Pole Star re: Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction
by Jerry Brotton.
James Vincent at LRB
To Make Language Models Work Better, Researchers Sidestep Language Quanta
Trump's New Plan for Acquiring Greenland Is UBI for Its Residents—on Americans' Dime Lucas Ropek at gizmodo
Why "Made in America" dreams are a galaxy-brain-stupid fantasyBoing Boing
DHS orders American lawyer to self-deport: 'Time for you to leave' Boing Boing
State Terror: A brief guide for Americans Hobbledehoy
16iv25
Andy Irvine: A Beginner's Guide Hobbl;edehoy
It Certainly Looks Like Elon Musk's 'Legion' of Kids Is Bigger Than Anyone Imagined gizmodo
17iv25
The point of no return:Only days left to stop a totalitarian state in the US John Quiggen at crookedtimbver
A Scanning Error Created a Fake Science Term—Now AI Won't Let It Die gizmodo
How Trump's tariff plan is lining his and Musk's pockets boing boing
Homeland Security tells America-born doctor to get out of her own country boing boing
Peter Thiel's Spy Company Gets Into Bed With ICE as Trump Says He'll Deport U.S. Citizens gizmodo
18iv25
"Not with a bang but a whimper". How Trump's United States denounced the global agenda of sustainable development and no one noticed Adam Tooze
How to Quickly Set Up Your New Mac
New Proof Settles Decades-Old Bet About Connected Networks Quanta Magazine
19iv25
Why Harvard Defied Him>/a>
David Cole at NYRB
20iv25
The Kiln and the Quantum of Relationships Marginalian
Anything you give your time to and polish with attention will become a lens on your search for meaning, will lavish you with metaphors that become backdoors into the locked room of your most urgent reckonings.
21iv25
Japan DUMPED The US Dollar?!
Shubhransh Rai at Medium
Euler and the Seven Bridges of Königsberg A. Merriam at Meddium
How Yrump Worship Took Hold in Washington Antonia Hitchens at New Yorker
...to get ahead or to stay out of trouble, praise the President as much as he praises himself.
Gestures of servility come from all over. At a Cabinet meeting not long ago, Trump's secretaries took turns: "Your vision is a turning point and inflection point in American history" (Brooke Rollins, Agriculture); "You were overwhelmingly elected by the biggest majority—Americans want you to be President" (Pam Bondi, Attorney General); "What you're doing now is a great service to our country, but ultimately to the world" (Marco Rubio, State). Jeff Bezos announced that the newspaper he owns, the Washington Post, would no longer welcome opinion columns outside certain boundaries. Law firms are offering pro-bono services to Trump so that he will reverse executive orders that target them. Brendan Carr, the leader of the Federal Communications Commission, wears a gold lapel pin in the shape of the President's head.
How Trump Worship Took Hold in Washington Antonia Hitchens at New Yorker
22iv25
What really obvious thing have you only just realised? Reddit
...WHY DOES THE U.S. HAVE SO MANY TORNADOES?
Far more tornadoes strike the U.S. than any other country, and this is because of its geography. Wet, westerly winds from the Pacific Ocean become dry as they pass over the Rocky Mountains, then become high and cool as they blow farther east. Meanwhile warm, humid air streams northward from the Gulf of Mexico, moving at a lower elevation. Flat terrain along these paths allows the two streams to run into each other. The angles at which they collide tend to create unstable air and wind shear—two big factors that favor tornado formation.
...WHY IS TORNADO ALLEY SLIDING EASTWARD?
Most tornadoes are created by a supercell—a strong thunderstorm with a rotating updraft of air. Supercells tend to form when warm, humid, low-level air interacts with cool, dry, higher air. And climate change is now generating more of that warmer, moister air. Tornadoes also are more likely to develop when the local atmosphere is unstable, and warming increases instability. Climate change is warming the Gulf of Mexico as well, and this can send generous amounts of water vapor into the southeastern U.S.—farther east than it tended to travel decades ago. In addition, climate change has moved the rough north-south boundary between dry western U.S. air and moist, eastern U.S. air about 140 miles to the east.
(Scientific American)
Vibe Coding, Vibe Checking, and Vibe Blogging Orielly.com
...Science fiction is something between a card trick and a consensual con game, where the writer shows you just enough detail to make you think that the rest of it must be lurking somewhere in the wings. No one in sf has ever explained how consciousness uploading could possibly work, and neither have any of the advocates for consciousness uploading — the difference is that (most of) the sf writers know they're just making stuff up. (Cory Doctorow)
The Apocalypse Tapestry is a 14th century French work commissioned by the Duke of Anjou>/a> Other Sides of a Nobody
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Ferdinand de Saussure Wikipedia
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Morphic Resonance and Morphic Fields an Introduction sheldrake.org
Anthropomorphism Wikipedia
...Much of computing terminology derives from anthropomorphic metaphors: computers can "read", "write", or "catch a virus". Information technology presents no clear correspondence with any other entities in the world besides humans; the options are either to leverage an emotional, imprecise human metaphor, or to reject imprecise metaphor and make use of more precise, domain-specific technical terms.
Prosopopoeia Wikipedia
Pictorial map Wikipedia
Fantasy cartography Wikipedia
Thomas More's Utopia Wikipedia
...The word 'utopia', invented by More as the name of his fictional island and used as the title of his book, has since entered the English language to describe any imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.[39] The antonym 'dystopia' is used for hypothetical places of great suffering or injustice, including systems that present or market themselves as utopian but actually have terrible other sides to them.
New Horizons in Prescriptivism Research Stan Carey
The antibiotic that takes the bite out of Lyme ScienceDaily
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Exposomics (Science 25iv25)
...the exposome is posited as an integrated compilation of all physical, chemical, biological, and (psycho) social influences that "impact biology." The field of exposomics thus examines the comprehensive and cumulative effects of these factors by integrating data from interdisciplinary methodologies and data streams to drive discovery. (Science 25iv25)
Maps of where federal employees work Flowing Data
Introducing Smart Maps Maps Mania
I Have Reached My Limit. I Cannot Stand It. Too Much Sanewashing of the Trump Administration Has Broken My Brain Brad DeLong
