James Pitt retweeted
"U.S. inspectors documented egregious conditions at two Chinese factories making key components for compounded GLP-1 drugs popular in America, including black mold on equipment and gross contamination on floors at one plant."
latimes.com/science/story/20…
James Pitt retweeted
if you're actually worried about ai taking your math/tech job, why are you not in construction school? why are you not becoming a General Contractor?
I don't normally do paid work in my neighborhood but a few years ago I conditioned my neighbors attic and crawl space with spray foam. They were pretty blown away by the comfort improvement, but they moved out. I just met the new owner, and they've already vented assemblies on the advice of their GC
James Pitt retweeted
Type of thing referenced in a 7th century manuscript by a guy named Theobald of Cremona that later scholars conclude is obviously made up
Priest gave sermon on spontaneity of death just before falling crucifix killed him during livestreamed mass trib.al/z1QhWvA
James Pitt retweeted
On the train yesterday, table of middle aged women next to me talking about AI. All ChatGPT, pronounced "chat GBT", no idea why lol
One of them was disappointed because she asked it to make a small crossword and it couldn't
I thought surely not. I use these models every day, they do things in minutes that'd take me hours. So I got the app out and asked for one myself
Every down clue is a copy of an across clue. "You ___ here" is apparently EST. The down answers are CET, ASE and TTN. Then it tells me its own puzzle isn't a proper crossword
No wonder people outside tech think it's a fad. The stuff that blows my mind at work they'll never see, and the first thing they try falls over
James Pitt retweeted
i’ve seen them breach a couple of times and it is kinda crazy
James Pitt retweeted
One of Bismarck’s trademark habits was to openly weep and wail and threaten to resign, harm or kill himself when he was not getting his way with the Kaiser. He would genuinely throw tantrums and cry and on one such occasion walked up to an open window and threatened to jump.
James Pitt retweeted
Home decorating isn’t unique to Homo sapiens.
More than 40,000 years ago, bands of Neanderthals turned a spacious rock shelter in the mountains of Spain into a cozy home, fashioning wood into tools and windbreaks and burning it for heat and light.
That picture comes from a first-of-its-kind trove of Neanderthal wooden artifacts from a domestic space, found at a cliffside site called Abric Romaní, 50 kilometers west of Barcelona.
Learn more: scim.ag/4hO4R4l
James Pitt retweeted
As a subterranean base appreciator I am eternally grateful to the Nordic countries for being the enduring holdouts in Europe.
Occupational exposure to specific solvents is linked to increased odds of Parkinson’s disease (PD), with the risk increasing as the number of solvent types rise.
In a cross-sectional analysis of more than 31,000 participants, several solvents used in industrial cleaning and manufacturing were associated with higher odds of PD. The strongest associations involved trichloroethylene (TCE), kerosene, and carbon tetrachloride. Read more: mdsc.pe/4e9IvJt
James Pitt retweeted
Replying to @SYNESTHEIZURE
astrology here isn’t even Indian so much as from the broader Overpowered Classical State Formers zone stretching from the Hellenistic world, Mesopotamia, Persia, and classical India.
one thing they all shared was a huge zeal for inherited hierarchies and stratification
James Pitt retweeted
the two big takeaways
1. you cannot endlessly optimize human existence and if you try, people will embrace misery for its own sake. this is both deeply annoying and understandable
2. get the fuck out of your own head before you hurt someone
seem more relevant now than ever
James Pitt retweeted
Huge hole blown in drug regulation. There's a quote in this story that calls this a victory for "medical freedom." But to me a system that disincentivizes the study of whether medicines work or not & what their side effects are before they are sold is NOT freedom.
NEW: Kennedy's HHS has submitted an “interim access policy” on peptides to the White House, moving ahead with an effort to ease access to the unproven injectables favored by wellness influencers.
apnews.com/article/peptides-…
James Pitt retweeted
The embarrassing thing about Ed, and why he’s not worth listening to, is that the reported numbers are plausibly concerning for Ant/the industry, but Ed overshot so hard on the pessimism that he still ended up being wildly wrong
James Pitt retweeted
When coral bleaches during a heat wave and ejects its symbiotic algae, it usually means either a death sentence or a slow recovery over months or years. But scientists working separately at two labs an ocean apart have found a faster acting shortcut, one that has scientists hoping it could eventually help coral recover from bleaching and endure future heat waves.
The approach is deceptively simple. By touching a piece of bleached coral to a healthy piece, a kind of algal transfusion can occur. Symbionts flow through a bridge of tissue and then rapidly reproduce, repopulating the bleached piece in as little as 4 weeks.
Learn more: scim.ag/4s7hY5h
James Pitt retweeted
The Vampire system is probably the most cost effective existing solution against cruise missiles and high-speed jet drones. Here is why.
For those new to the system, it takes existing battle tested Hydra 70 mm rockets with seekers and off-the-shelf optics to make a capable SAM out to a few kilometers. It has optional integration with Link-16 for network coordination, electronic warfare systems for jamming+passive detection, and modern radars. The whole package can be mounted on any vehicle or physically deployed in a container.
The biggest advantage of these and similar systems is the off-the-shelf nature. The Hydra 70 rockets are an upgrade from a 1940s design with newer propellant that has been upgraded in 1972. It has a very proven track record with multiple producers of compatible rockets including the Canadian CRV7 and Turkish Cirit. Further, there are more than a half dozen seeker options by different developers. That is a very diverse supply chain by defense standards.
The cameras are also relatively common with multiple possible vendors. These could be stripped from other legacy military and commercial systems if necessary.
Latest costs are reported in the $20,000-$30,000 range per missile. This is a cost advantage over jet OWA drones.
Given that it can be put on the back of standard pickup trucks and small boats really lowers the threshold for force integration and costs. Defenses can be rapidly moves around populated areas for local point defense.
The small size of the rockets allows dozens of reloads to be carried in the truck. The ~25 pound weight also means a single person can reload the system. This is a major advantage over larger SAMs.
These systems can be stored for years in a compact form and deployed only when needed to defend cities.
A less mentioned advantage is it can be fired against ground and maritime targets. Same vehicle can provide defense against almost any mid-tier threat.
Its biggest drawback is lack of range. While Hydra missiles have a high peak velocity sufficient to stop cruise missiles, it has sufficient energy/g's over limited ranges ~1 km. Its range is longer versus lower speed Banderols and Geran-5s but jet drone interceptors can defend a wider area against those threats.
I expect more competitors soon, but the VAMPIRE and similar systems will likely be a very common battlefield and city defensive system. These are a "write the check" solution to jet drones.
Ukraine needs more and so will the West.
James Pitt retweeted
Somebody carried volcanic glass from the Yellowstone region to Ohio nearly 2,000 years ago.
At the Hopewell Mound Group, one obsidian point measured more than 17 inches long. Far beyond an ordinary hunting point.
Chemical analysis traces the material back west. The people, their route, and what passed between them are harder to recover.
We have the stone. Imagine having the account of that trip.
James Pitt retweeted
Imagine water climbing hundreds of meters up a mountainside.
That happened in Alaska🇺🇸 when a mountain collapsed into Tracy Arm, causing a tsunami of 481 meters
I wanted to bring some of that extraordinary scale into view with latest forge3d release
James Pitt retweeted
Replying to @xenocryptsite
Aeschylus wrote a scene in Libation Bearers where Electra recognizes her long-lost brother through a series of tells. Then Euripides, in Electra, has some guy propose those same three tells and Electra shoots them all down as dumb tropes, mocking the then-40yo prev version
James Pitt retweeted
Didn't see it and it's always possible to do something well that was done before but this is also why I'm not that interested in like "The Boys" or in the endless "do superheroes distract from structural problems" discourse. Like wow groundbreaking.
Replying to @Ejconer @xenocryptsite
This is I think part of why camp miasma didn’t really land, like oh boy slasher films and final girls have all this weird sexual stuff looped in yes we know Buffy and scream came out 30 years ago and are huge cultural touchstones.





































