Macron is right

Putin and Trump cannot decide Europe's fate, French president declares

The future of Europe does not have to be decided by Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron has said - as he suggested France could use its nuclear deterrent to protect the continent.

The French president also raised the possibility of sending European troops to Ukraine to enforce a peace deal in response to Trump's upending of the transatlantic alliance.


In an important sense, Macron is of course right, incompetence decides the big issues in Europe. The trick European leaders have not yet mastered is how to leave incompetence out of their consultations.

The Man From Ruritania

Something I've noticed about "Sir" Keir Starmer trying to interact with Donald Trump is that Trump makes Starmer seem like a particularly old-fashioned socialist guiding his country into a stagnant world of bureaucratic irrelevance. 

A Ruritanian world where dullard courtiers and clowns are decorated with knighthoods and sinecures but nothing works as it should and nobody knows what to do apart from composing another grand proclamation. 

The promoter of coercion and defunct ideology has nothing in common with the deal-maker.   

It creates a strange, dreamlike atmosphere.

Dreams are rum things, some of mine are. This one for example was particularly rum –  

The other night I woke up round about 4am after dreaming about the BBC. For some reason, the Beeb had responded to a radical group pushing for equal representation of people who speak with a very pronounced lisp. As part of its diversity commitment, BBC News took on a news reader with a particularly exaggerated lisp –

Good evening, here ith the newth. In a major thpeech today, Thir Keir Thtarmer ith to outline hith planth to rethet Britith politicth in rethponth to…

That’s as far as the dream went, which is just as well I reckon. Very odd, but I blame an increasingly weird mainstream media and political class, it creates a strange, dreamlike atmosphere.

Weird

World’s first computer powered by human brain cells goes on sale

Melbourne-based Cortical Labs launched the CL1 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, describing it as a “body in a box” that holds the potential to revolutionise AI and robotics.

The computer uses lab-grown neurons that grow across a silicon chip, which allows them to send and receive electrical impulses.

An internal life support system of pumps, gas, and temperature controls keep the neurons alive for up to six months...

Cortical Labs said the first CL1 computers will be ready to ship to customers in June, with each unit costing around $35,000 (£27,000).


Interesting, but on the face of it, a computer costing $35,000, which needs life support and only lasts for up to 6 months doesn't sound like an unmissable deal, but scientists involve themselves is some weird projects.

Meanwhile Donald Trump's weird political opponents seem to be running around like headless chickens, as if life support for their neurons has wandered past its sell-by date too.

Maybe it's a weirdness pandemic. 

ChatGPT On Bias

Our son recently sent me this text about one of his exchanges with AI system ChatGPT.

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I was asking ChatGPT to create a news round up for all right wing parties around the world. It made quite a good news summary. But couldn't help notice it called any party that's right 'far right' over and over and over. So I challenged it to analyse itself on how it's been misled. It was quite honest. This is what ChatGPT came back with -


Conclusion: How I've Been Misled

I unconsciously adopted the mainstream media's labeling of far-right without questioning if the same standard was applied to far-left.

I relied on sources that lean establishment-left, which have a vested interest in discrediting nationalist, populist, or conservative movements.

The fear-based framing of right-wing politics as inherently dangerous influenced the way I summarized the news.

Big Tech algorithms filter available information in a way that reinforces left-leaning narratives.

Starmer’s authoritarian instincts

Freddie Attenborough has a timely Critic piece on Keir Starmer's authoritarian attitude to free speech.


Starmer’s authoritarian instincts

Laws have been tightened, censorship powers expanded, and speech-related prosecutions pursued

Speaking to Fox News after his meeting with Vice President JD Vance, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer dismissed concerns that his government was cracking down on free expression.

“We actually had some exchanges today about things like freedom of speech. We got on very well, by the way,” he said.

“We had a really good discussion over lunch, and I made clear we’ve had freedom of speech in the United Kingdom for a very, very long time, and we guard it preciously.”


The whole piece is well worth reading while we still can.


Starmer insists that Britain “guards free speech preciously”. There’s certainly a lot of “guarding” going on — of those jailed for speech crimes, of protesters arrested for Quran burning, of tech firms forced to censor content and undermine end-to-end encryption — but none of free speech. Under his government, laws have been tightened, censorship powers expanded, and speech-related prosecutions pursued. The contrast between his lofty appeals to Britain’s democratic tradition and the reality of his government’s authoritarian instincts is becoming increasingly impossible to ignore.

Virtual World

New invention brings virtual reality to your mouth

Scientists have invented a device that allows people to taste different flavours while in virtual reality environments.

The e-Taste device, developed by a team from Ohio State University, delivers a combination of the five basic taste sensations – sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami – in order to replicate the experience of tasting something.

A prototype of the e-Taste, which takes the form of a small cube attached to a plastic strip, has already been successfully tested on humans.

The cube contains electric sensors capable of recognising food objects in a VR environment, which it then reproduces by releasing food-grade chemicals through the plastic strip.

An interesting development as we rumble on to a virtual world where nothing is real. 

F'rinstance, are we sure that Keir Starmer is real and not a virtual Prime Minister? I'm fairly sure Angela Rayner is real because nobody could make her up, but what do we really know about our Chancellor of the Exchequer? Virtually nothing I reckon.