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Wherein Democratic senator Barbara Washington from Kansas City, Missouri threatens to sue me if I don't stop recording her at a public hearing here in Jefferson City, MO. This is what your public "servants" think of transparency in government.
4LibertyShop retweeted
Ashley’s insincerity is quite visible in this clip.
The way she nervously giggles, deflects, speaks in references like “Bella ciao” — someone who earnestly reflected and changed their mind doesn’t behave this way. The grift continues.
Ashley St. Clair declares that she’s joined the DSA, laughs, & sings, “Bella ciao, bella ciao.”
That song (an anthem for alleged anti-fascist activists) was engraved by Tyler Robinson (along with “Hey, fascist. Catch”) on the bullet casings in Charlie Kirk’s killing.
With her political awareness, there’s no way St. Clair doesn’t know this.
Her choice to sing this particular little ditty is probably purposeful- designed for maximum pain to her former party.
Just another morally bankrupt grifter.
4LibertyShop retweeted
My life has gotten better almost every year?
if your life is getting worse each year that is probably not a government problem
4LibertyShop retweeted
Libertarians: why don't we ever get what we want?
Also libertarians: as 10% of the population we demand we get everything we want or we will burn it all down
4LibertyShop retweeted
“Culture matters” is obviously the short version of a much longer explanation.
I didn't stop being a libertarian because I suddenly discovered that culture exists. I believed culture mattered when I was a libertarian too. In fact, I spent years trying to change culture because I believed ideas mattered and that culture was fairly malleable.
When I called myself a libertarian, I favored something closer to an Ellis Island-style approach to immigration. I stopped calling myself a libertarian years ago, and I've held more restrictive views on immigration for roughly the same amount of time.
What changed was my belief about how easily cultural differences disappear through assimilation. I've become much less convinced that you can bring large numbers of people from very different cultural environments into a country and simply assume their values and norms will adapt to ours. Experiencing lower-trust societies firsthand reinforced that view.
Bryan is an outspoken advocate of open borders. In 2014, he wrote, “I say America should open its borders to them all."
That makes his criticism especially interesting to me. In his book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, he draws heavily on behavioral genetics to argue that parents overestimate their ability to shape how their children turn out. Genetics and heritability matter, and people aren't infinitely malleable through their environment. So I would think he'd understand the broader point I'm making.
That's much closer to what I mean when I say “culture matters.”
"Imagine someone tells you, 'I stopped being a libertarian because I realized the sky is blue.' Your reaction shouldn’t be, 'Wow, libertarians are a bunch of fools.' Your reaction should be, 'The speaker is a fool.'" betonit.ai/p/i-stopped-being…
4LibertyShop retweeted
Voter Fraud in LA? Spencer Pratt's Voter Vibe Shift xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1RJjppoaR…
4LibertyShop retweeted
Charlie Munger approved of a Costco membership fee in part because he figured that the kinds of people that steal from stores are unlikely to pay a membership fee to earn the privilege
4LibertyShop retweeted
Boomer libertarians are completely cooked as a class.
They spent their entire life indoctrinated into progressive lies. There's no rescuing them.
The future is the libertarian youth. They were online early enough to escape the propaganda and learn human differences are real.
4LibertyShop retweeted
Vivek wanted to fire 75% of federal bureaucrats. He wanted to abolish or gut the FDA, IRS, DOE and more. He wanted to end foreign aid and interventions.
I disagreed with Vivek's Christmas post from last year, but for libertarians he remains one of the better politicians.
4LibertyShop retweeted
I think the most likely Democrat ticket in 2028 is Newsom/AOC.
Newsom plays Fortnite, talks Kamala Harris, Snoop Dogg and how Dems ‘lost’ young men ow.ly/GsVM106nv7A
4LibertyShop retweeted
Scott Adams: Why Did People Think They Could Cheer Charlie Kirk's Murder Without Consequences? realclearpolitics.com/video/…
4LibertyShop retweeted
Apple, Google and Meta are trying to perfect a science fiction gadget: The universal translator | Kif Leswing, CNBC
Key Points
- Apple, Google and Meta are capitalizing on advancements in AI to bring new translation features to their latest hardware devices.
- For Apple, Live Translation is a key selling point for the AirPods Pro 3, which the company unveiled on Tuesday. The new $250 earbuds go on sale next week.
- Translation is emerging as a key battleground in the technology industry as artificial intelligence gets good enough to translate languages as quickly as people speak.
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For decades, shows like “Star Trek” and novels like “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” have showcased fictional universal translators, capable of seamlessly converting any language into English and vice versa.
Now, those gadgets once limited to works of science fiction are inching close to reality.
During its iPhone unveiling event on Tuesday, Apple included a video of many travelers’ dream scenario. It showed an English-speaking tourist buying flowers in an unnamed Spanish-speaking country. The florist addressed the tourist in Spanish, but what the tourist heard was in clear, coherent English.
“Today all the red carnations are 50% off,” the tourist heard in English in her headphones, at essentially the same time that the clerk was speaking.
The video was marketing material for Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 3, but the feature is one of many of its kind coming from tech companies that also include Google parent Alphabet and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
Technological advancements spurred by the arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 have ushered in an era of generative artificial intelligence. Almost three years later, those advancements are resulting in real-time language translators.
For Apple, Live Translation is a key selling point for the AirPods Pro 3, which the company unveiled on Tuesday. The new $250 earbuds go on sale next week, and with Live Translation, users will be able to immediately hear French, German, Portuguese and Spanish translated to English. Live Translation will also arrive as an update to AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 on Monday.
And when two people are speaking to each other wearing AirPods, the conversation can be translated both ways simultaneously inside each user’s headphones. In Apple’s video demo, it looked like two people talking to each other in different languages.
Analysts are excited that the feature could mark a step forward for Apple’s AI strategy. The translation feature needs to be paired with a new-enough iPhone to run Apple Intelligence, Apple’s AI software suite.
“If we can actually use the AirPods for live translations, that’s a feature that would actually get people to upgrade,” DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria told CNBC on Wednesday.
Translation is emerging as a key battleground in the technology industry as AI gets good enough to translate languages as quickly as people speak.
But Apple is not alone.
A crowded market
In the past year, Google and Meta have also released hardware products featuring real-time translation capabilities.
Google’s Pixel 10 phone has a capability that can translate what a speaker is saying to the listener’s language during phone calls. That feature, called Voice Translate is designed to also preserve the speaker’s voice inflections. Voice Translate will start showing up on people’s phones through a software update on Monday.
In Google’s live demo in August, Voice Translate was able to translate a sentence from entertainer Jimmy Fallon into Spanish, and it actually sounded like the comedian. Apple’s feature does not try to imitate the user’s voice.
Meanwhile, Meta in May announced that its Ray-Ban Meta glasses would be able to translate what a person is saying in another language using the device’s speakers, and the other party in the conversations would be able to see translated responses transcribed on the user’s phone.
Meta will hold its own product keynote on Wednesday, where the company is expected to announce the next generation of its smart glasses, which will feature a small display in one of the lenses, CNBC reported in August. It’s unclear if Meta will announce more translation features.
And OpenAI in June showcased an intelligent voice assistant mode for ChatGPT that has fluid translation built in as one of many features. ChatGPT is integrated with Apple’s Siri, but not in voice mode. OpenAI is planning to release new hardware products with Apple’s former design guru Jony Ive in the coming years.
The rise of live translation could also reshape entire industries. Translators and interpreters are the No. 1 type of job threatened by AI, and 98% of translators’ work activities overlap with what AI can do, a Microsoft Research study published in August found.
Purpose-built translators
In the past several years, a number of purpose-built translation gadgets have entered the market, taking advantage of global high-speed cellular service and improving online translation services to produce puck-like devices or headphones with translation built-in for a couple hundred dollars.
“What I love about what Apple is doing is it really just illuminates the fact that how pressing of an issue this is,” said Joe Miller, U.S. general manager of Japan-based Pocketalk, which makes a $249 translation device that goes between two people conversing in different languages and translates their conversation in audio and text.
Given that Apple shipped about 18 million sets of wireless headphones in the first quarter alone, according to Canalys, the company’s entry into the market will expose a wider subset of customers to improvements translation tech has made in recent years.
Despite Apple’s entry into the market, makers of purpose-built devices say their focus on accuracy and knowledge of linguistics will provide better translations than what’s available for free with a new phone.
“We actually hired linguists,” said Aleksander Alski, head of U.S. and Canada for Poland-based Vasco Electronics, which released translation headphones called E1 in January, and is planning a forthcoming model that can imitate the user’s voice, like Google’s feature. “We combined the AI with with human input, and thanks to that, we were able to secure much higher accuracy throughout all the languages we offer.”
There’s also home-field advantage. Vasco Electronics’ largest market is Europe, and Apple’s Live Translation isn’t available for EU users, Apple said on its website.
Some of the products being introduced by tech companies are less than universal, and are limited to a small number of languages for now. Apple’s feature is only available in five languages, versus Pocketalk’s 95.
Pocketalk’s Miller believes that the potential of the technology goes far beyond a tourist ordering a glass of wine in France. He says that it’s most powerful when its used in workplaces like schools and hospitals, which require privacy and security features that go beyond what Apple and Google provide.
“This isn’t about luxury tourism and travel,” Miller said. “This is about the intersection of language and friction, when a discussion needs to be had.”
Read more:
cnbc.com/2025/09/12/apple-go…
4LibertyShop retweeted
It’s absurd that one man sets interest rates for a “free” country.
End the Fed.
