Home » Open thread 7/12/2025

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Open thread 7/12/2025 — 21 Comments

  1. This blip about these little mini-quakes passing under, through and around Mt. Rainier…
    see here
    I see this talk of an earthquake “swarm”, which seems silly. If we must have an aggregate noun for these, how about a “shudder” of earthquakes?
    What was the most recent earthquake you’ve experienced directly? My office felt the one in New Jersey last year.

  2. Every detectable earthquake in the PNW is posted online in seconds, if you watch you will see a lot of things. The Mt Rainier thing is “shark summer” clickbait, I think: take an unusual but not unheard of occurrence that most aren’t familiar with and try to generate fear about it.

  3. I enjoy reading old science fiction just to see what they got wrong and right.

  4. @Wendy K:I enjoy reading old science fiction just to see what they got wrong and right.

    I enjoy seeing what they didn’t think of at all. The 1950s Foundation is set twenty thousand years in the future, and people smoke tobacco and use very advanced slide rules. In the 1930s – 1950s Robot Novels and short stories, they have robots which are clearly a kind of artificial intelligence but not computers or software as we understand them. Not picking on Asimov, just the first examples that came to mind.

  5. The guys at All In podcast talk about the significance of Xai’s release of Grok 4 and attribute the speed Musk’s team have caught up and now lead the AI race to Colossus.

    The discussion on Grok 4 begins at 18:51, plus much more.

    Grok 4 Wows, The Bitter Lesson, Elon’s Third Party, AI Browsers, SCOTUS backs POTUS on RIFs
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KypnjJSKi4o

  6. Oh on earthquakes and Mt Rainier.

    PNW earthquake tracker. Ranier quakes are still up and ongoing, most recent one an hour before I posted this. But notice how many there are all the time that you never hear about. Watch it now and then for a few weeks and see for yourself.

    Also possibly of interest:Mt Rainier lahar hazard map.

  7. And asimov couldnt predict what a hash apple would make of his series what we see is technological evolution but in many respects societal devolution

    Even in the 90s virtual reality was the hoped for thing and the internet was not really invasioned in the shooting script for 2001 they did sort of imagine these type of devices (what bradbury would call shells)

  8. Incidentally, except for the future tense, the comments on Mt Rainier at Instapundit are exactly the same sort as those made by the pediatrician who said that MAGA voters deserved the Texas floods.

  9. I enjoy seeing what they didn’t think of at all.

    Yes, they’ll change some little thing and miss the cataclysmic developments. As the video pointed out, steam engines were already in use in 1899, but the pictures imagine boats towed by whales. I’ve read many old scifi stories featuring planet-ruling AIs, but very few that considered the impact of distributed computing power and widespread highspeed connections to a nearly unlimited central library, which was only dimly appreciated even 25 years ago.

  10. Sunday Open Thread x2 – One of these things is not like the other ….

    NATO’s New 5% Spending Target – U.S Pressure, Rearmament, Loopholes & Russia’s Dilemma – Perun

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQPQJUdKPec

    Interceptor Drones & The War in Ukraine – Affordable Air Defence & Russian Strategic Bombing – Perun

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4bHc4X5Ilw

    00:00 — Opening Words
    01:50 — What Am I Talking About?
    04:14 — Interceptor Drones 101
    05:02 — Evolution in Ukraine
    17:15 — Russian Adoption
    20:06 — the Shahed Threat
    27:00 — the Interceptor Option
    31:24 — Data and Claims
    35:25 — How Could We See This Used?
    41:13 — Why Does This Matter?
    47:10 — Channel Update

  11. I don’t think there are grounds for revoking citizenship for born US citizens based merely on residing in another country. Naturalized citizens have had citizenship revoked if they lied on their application paperwork.

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