A brief legacy of President Trump (First term)

With little doubt, President Trump was perhaps the most consequential U.S. president since President Reagan.

The following list of his accomplishments is still quite incomplete (will be amended as time goes on):

1. President Trump was a businessman and citizen when he came into office as the 45th President. He was never a career politician nor held any elected political office like so many presidents before him. This was a rare and great event in Western democracies. Compare to the demented and senile 46th president, who is a lifetime career politician.
2. His many unhinged, zealous and reckless political enemies would launch two or three phony impeachment proceedings against him. The elites and the establishment of the U.S. went after President Trump like there was no tomorrow. However, he survived these viscous attacks that would have taken down many other U.S. presidents before him! This huge animosity towards a sitting U.S. president is probably unprecedented in U.S. history, an absolute low point that continuous to threaten the U.S. political system going forward. One of the leading lunatics, who relentlessly perpetrated this impeachment nonsense, i.e. U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, is still in office!
3. He moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in Israel. Something that was long overdue! Thereby, he disregarded decades of phony establishment foreign policy surrounding the status etc. of so called Palestinians
4. He accomplished the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. For decades, peace agreements between Israel and Arab countries were stuck. The many positive effects of these Abraham Accords are becoming reality as time goes on
5. He turned the U.S. into a net/surplus producer and exporter of energy. He thus achieved something many establishment politicians and experts thought for many years was impossible.
6. He pushed for a rapid development of novel vaccinations to prevent SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 global pandemic. The establishment claimed it could not be done and ridiculed Trump, but within less than 12 months several effective and largely safe vaccinations were developed and successfully applied. As of today (8/7/2021), over 4.2 billion vaccine doses were administered worldwide! That Trump did not fire or retire the 80 year old clown and Wuhan Virology Institute funder Anthony Fauci (since 1984 director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor the president), the highest paid federal employee, was a huge mistake.
7. The U.S. economy was booming so was the household financial position thanks to e.g. corporate and individual tax cuts. He achieved historically low unemployment rate (50 year record low 3.5%) benefiting in particular minorities. On the negative side, he also presided over enormous federal budget deficits and a significant increase in federal government debt to which, of course, the U.S. Congress mightily contributed.
8. He consequently built the border wall at the southern border of the United States to stop the massive illegal immigration and illicit traffic across the border. He added more agents to the U.S. border patrol. He required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico etc.
9. He was perhaps the first U.S. president to seriously question the cozy relationship with China since President Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Thus, he was following in President Reagan's footsteps! The Google search engine produces largely useless and anti Trump entries using search term "Trump and China".
10. He insisted that the other NATO partner countries pay their share of defense spending, which most of these countries had neglected for decades. For way too long, the European nations did not contribute their share to promote and maintain world peace like the United States. This was known for decades, but it was Trump who finally and rightly made it a public political issue.
11. He was able to appoint three conservative leaning Supreme Court justices during his four-year term, which will hopefully correct some of the bad decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in the future.
12. He "appointed more than 200 judges to the federal bench, including nearly as many powerful federal appeals court judges in four years as Barack Obama appointed in eight ... Not surprisingly, the overall number of judges appointed by Trump in his single term (226) is well below the totals of recent two-term presidents, including Obama (320), George W. Bush (322) and Bill Clinton (367). But when it comes to the nation’s 13 federal appeals courts ... Trump appointed 54 federal appellate judges in four years, one short of the 55 Obama appointed in twice as much time. In the process, Trump “flipped” the balance of several appeals courts from a majority of Democratic appointees to a majority of Republican appointees. ...". (Source)
13. He donated his entire salary as president to charitable causes. The last president to do so was President Kennedy
14. Why President Trump lost his reelection is still under investigation in several states as of 8/8/2021. Quite possibly, election integrity was violated in unprecedented scope. Mark Zuckerberg alone funded the Biden campaign with about $400 million. Let this sink in for a moment, one individual billionaire and his wife contributed about 40% of Biden's total campaign donations of over $1 billion dollar, while Trump raised less than $800 million mostly from small donors.

Satellite images in China show growing nuclear stockpile

Recommendable! China is not part of a nuclear arms deal unlike Russia and the U.S. (e.g. SALT treaties)!

Prager University: Coolidge: The Best President You Don't Know

Very recommendable! Indeed, one of the best U.S. presidents since 1900 you never heard of or heard very little!

In Berlin kann jeder unterrichten: Immer mehr Quereinsteiger ohne reguläre Ausbildung ersetzen fehlende Lehrer

Wenn Schweizer Medien über die Bananenrepublik Deutschland unter SED Kanzlerin Merkel berichten!

Lehrermangel in Berlin: Nun gibt es immer mehr Quereinsteiger (behind paywall) Im neuen Schuljahr sind in Berlin fast die Hälfte der neu eingestellten Lehrer nicht voll ausgebildet. Dabei gilt: Je schlechter der Ruf der Schule, desto weniger qualifiziert die Lehrkräfte. Doch das ist nicht der einzige Teufelskreis.

3 Seas Initiative Gets Big Boost From Japan’s Strong Interest

Recommendable! The Three Seas Initiative is something to watch! Sounds promising!

"... Officially launched in 2016 to facilitate the development of energy and infrastructure ties among 12 nations, the Three Seas Initiative aims to strengthen trade and investment interaction among countries bordering the Adriatic, Baltic, and Black seas and to connect them for greater regional development. ..."

3 Seas Initiative Gets Big Boost From Japan’s Strong Interest

Improving industrial filtration with graphene oxide filters

Recommendable!

Reducing green house gases does not require government to impose that electric cars have to replace gasoline powered cars!

"... many industries continue to use energy-intensive thermal methods of separating out liquids. In some cases, that’s because it’s difficult to make a filtration system for chemical separation, which requires pores small enough to separate atoms. ...
This is valuable because separation processes account for about 22 percent of all in-plant energy use in the United States ...
The paper industry is particularly exciting because separation processes just in that industry account for more than 2 percent of U.S. energy consumption ...
Made of graphene oxide ..., the membrane can reduce the amount of energy used in industrial separations by 90 percent ...
Via Separations began piloting its technology this year at a U.S. paper company and expects to deploy a full commercial system there in the spring of 2022 ...
“The advantage of graphene oxide is that it’s very robust,” ... “It’s got carbon double bonds that hold together in a lot of environments, including at different pH levels and temperatures that are typically unfriendly to materials.” ...
Graphene oxide is significantly more durable, and ... can customize the pores in the material to suit each industry’s application. ... “modulating pore size while retaining robustness to operate in challenging environments.” ..."

Cleaning up industrial filtration | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT spinoff Via Separations aims for industrial decarbonization with its durable graphene oxide membranes.

Sky News Australia YouTube channel set free after possible 'mass-flagging campaign'

Good news! One of my favorite channels is back on YouTube! Exciting!

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo accuser speaks out: He was 'arrogant,' he didn't care, in front of my husband, kids

Update of 8/10/2021: I bet that Cuomo had to resign to prevent more serious charges against this governor would be pursued! Greg Kelly demonstrated now for a second time within a week that Andrew Cuomo was cancelled for some reason and the less than convincing sexual misconduct allegations were a ploy. Watch Greg Kelly: It was the culture that took down Cuomo. Or watch Tucker Carlson's take If you don't think this is a conspiracy then you don’t know New York, perhaps Cuomo had outlived his usefulness to the Dimocratic Party.

Update of 8/8/2021: This lastest, very short testimonial is probably insufficient as well. Cuomo accuser speaks publicly for the first time 

I am afraid this testimony is not good enough to accuse governor Cuomo of sexual misconduct etc. If this accuser has not suffered more than several kisses on her cheek and some hand holding in public with lots of witnesses around then this is a joke! The other witness incident presented yesterday was also not very convincing! That leaves us with 9 other witnesses.

DeSantis: If Biden Won't Restore Internet for Cuba, Florida Will Step Up

Ron DeSantis is a very strong candidate for the 2024 presidential elections!

Tucker Carlson: Hungarian prime minister hits back at Biden calling him a 'thug'

Very interesting, the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban is forecasting a migration wave from liberal Western countries to Hungary, Poland and other like minded central European countries.

Prager University: Thousands of Illegal Migrants Are Being Released into the U.S.

Very recommendable! There are 22 million illegal immigrants present in the United States. The demented and senile 46th President just admitted at least another 1 million illegal immigrants.

RMA: Rapid Motor Adaptation for Legged Robots

Recommendable! This seems to be a promising approach for quadruped  robots developed by researchers from University of California Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University!

"... RMA consists of two components: a base policy and an adaptation module. The combination of these components enables the robot to adapt to novel situations in fractions of a second. RMA is trained completely in simulation without using any domain knowledge like reference trajectories or predefined foot trajectory generators and is deployed on the A1 robot without any fine-tuning. We train RMA on a varied terrain generator using bioenergetics-inspired rewards and deploy it on a variety of difficult terrains including rocky, slippery, deformable surfaces in environments with grass, long vegetation, concrete, pebbles, stairs, sand, etc. RMA shows state-of-the-art performance across diverse real-world as well as simulation experiments. ..."

[2107.04034] RMA: Rapid Motor Adaptation for Legged Robots

Deep Learning for AI

Very recommendable overview article written by the three ACM Turing Award winners of 2018!

Deep Learning for AI | July 2021 | Communications of the ACM (open access)

MLP-Mixer: An all-MLP Architecture for Vision

This seems to be quite an important recent contribution to advancing computer vision! It maybe a game changer!

 E.g. Andrew Ng emphasizes this paper in his latest newsletter: "Why use a complex model when a simple one will do? New work shows that the simplest multilayer neural network, with a small twist, can perform some tasks as well as today’s most sophisticated architectures."!

Here is the abstract of this paper:

"Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are the go-to model for computer vision. Recently, attention-based networks, such as the Vision Transformer, have also become popular. In this paper we show that while convolutions and attention are both sufficient for good performance, neither of them are necessary. We present MLP-Mixer, an architecture based exclusively on multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs). MLP-Mixer contains two types of layers: one with MLPs applied independently to image patches (i.e. "mixing" the per-location features), and one with MLPs applied across patches (i.e. "mixing" spatial information). When trained on large datasets, or with modern regularization schemes, MLP-Mixer attains competitive scores on image classification benchmarks, with pre-training and inference cost comparable to state-of-the-art models. We hope that these results spark further research beyond the realms of well established CNNs and Transformers."

[2105.01601] MLP-Mixer: An all-MLP Architecture for Vision

Judge orders Biden administration to respond to lawsuit against CDC's new eviction ban by Friday

Good news! This unconstitutional extension of the eviction moratorium, which has lasted already way too long, must go!

This expropriation by government cannot be tolerated any longer! Why former President Trump has allowed this eviction moratorium in September of 2020 to go forward is strange to say the least!

"U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich gave the Department of Justice a 9 a.m. ET deadline on Friday to respond to an emergency legal challenge filed by the Alabama Association of Realtors late Wednesday, Reuters reports. ... the CDC's latest action is an extension of the same unlawful ban on evictions that has been in effect since September 2020. ..."

Judge orders Biden administration to respond to lawsuit against CDC's new eviction ban by Friday - TheBlaze A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered the Biden administration to respond to a lawsuit from a coalition of housing groups challenging a new eviction moratorium enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Google AlphaFold Goes Open-Source

Absolutely amazing what Google has done for advancing research on proteins! You may not like Big Tech, social media, their censorship, but what Google has accomplished in the field of proteomics is mind blowing!

"... The company published research that describes how to use AlphaFold to find the shapes of both general and human-specific proteins.

The model has analyzed the structure of roughly 98 percent of proteins found in the human body. It has analyzed hundreds of thousands more in 20 other organisms commonly used by researchers such as e.coli, fruit flies, and soybeans.

The company plans to release an additional 100 million protein structures by the end of 2021. Such data is published and maintained by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. ...
Until recently, scientists had to rely on time-consuming and expensive experiments to figure out protein shapes. Those methods have yielded about 180,000 protein structures. AlphaFold debuted in 2018, when it won an annual contest for predicting protein structures. A revised version of the model won again in 2020 with an average error comparable to the width of an atom. ..."

The Batch: Gunshot Detection Under Fire, AI At The Olympics, AlphaFold Goes Open-Source, Revenge Of The Perceptrons

U.S. to Set Electric-Vehicle Sales Goal of 50% by 2030

They call this voluntary goals! Laughable! E.g. speak softly, but carry a big stick [a phrase coined by the controversial President Theodore Roosevelt about his foreign policy, but it has been applied frequently domestically as well since then] comes to mind!

Communist central planning and socialism is coming again to America! One can only hope that the 2022 mid-term elections will put an decisive end to this! American voters wake up!

"Roughly half of all cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. by 2030 would be electric, hydrogen-fuel cell or plug-in hybrid vehicles under voluntary targets to be announced Thursday by the Biden administration and backed by auto makers contingent on government support.

General Motors Co. , Ford Motor Co. , and Chrysler maker Stellantis NV said their commitment hinges on federal funding for manufacturing and supply-chain research and development, purchase incentives and a national electric-vehicle charging network. ...
The new standard would be a fleetwide average of 52 miles per gallon by 2026, according to a senior administration official. The mark was originally set at 54.5 mpg by mid-decade under the Obama administration, but gradually revised downward and ultimately set at 40 mpg by former President Donald Trump. [Too bad, President Trump did not entirely scrap this socialism!!]"

U.S. to Set Electric-Vehicle Sales Goal of 50% by 2030 - WSJ General Motors, Ford and Stellantis executives with union leaders are expected to join President Biden in announcing voluntary target

How effective are government general mask mandates?

I bet, they are not very effective, but it is a feel good measure by government! Government paternalism at its worst!

Any mask that does not meet the requirements of medical/surgical masks is dubious! During the current global pandemic most people wore non medical masks. How often were these non-medical masks reused etc. etc.

The individual versus government! When facing an infectious, but not very dangerous disease (like SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19) it should be left to each citizens to decide whether to wear a mask or not. Every citizen then has the choice to protect herself or himself without government coercion. Those individuals more likely than not will opt for a medical mask. Those who are potentially vulnerable to the disease ought to be provided with the best possible medical masks.

What If Closing the Wage Gap Means Everyone Earns Less?

Partially recommendable! This researcher at the Harvard Business School is onto something!

In principle, general pay transparency is very much a dangerous double edged sword!  It is no panacea! According to a well known German proverb: With money the fun stops! (Bei Geld hört der Spaß auf!). With money things quickly get very serious, contentious, and ugly! It fuels envy!

Pay transparency clearly has strong negative economic effects:

1. Exceptional or high performing humans may not get what they are worth
2. It reduces competition in many ways
3. It introduces rigidities and kills dynamism into the economy
4. It reduces economic freedom
5. As with privacy, some people may not appreciate that the amount of their income is on public display

This HBS professor highlights:

"EQUITY IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS WHEN EVERYTHING IS OUT IN THE OPEN. ...
But, what about the original intent of pay transparency, making workplaces fairer and increasing workers’ bargaining power? Cullen notes that through transparency, pay equity is being achieved at the cost of high salaries for some—but perhaps it’s worth that tradeoff."

She must be very naive and myopic!

"It’s a sticky but common dilemma for managers: A valued employee finds out that a coworker earns more, gets upset, and demands a raise. If gender or race figure into the wage gap, tensions can escalate fast.

Companies, including Whole Foods, Starbucks, and the social media tool Buffer, have been touting their pay transparency policies as a means of ensuring fairness. But, as it turns out, pay transparency doesn’t necessarily increase workers’ wages, writes Harvard Business School professor Zoe Cullen in a new working paper. ...
Meanwhile, the legal landscape has shifted in recent years toward transparency. Laws and policies that protect workers’ ability to discuss their compensation with colleagues without fear of repercussions have gained popularity since 2004. ..."

"The public discourse around pay transparency has focused on the direct effect: how workers seek to rectify newly-disclosed pay inequities through renegotiations. The question of how wage-setting and hiring practices of the firm respond in equilibrium has received less attention. To study these outcomes, we build a model of bargaining under incomplete information and test our predictions in the context of the U.S. private sector. Our model predicts that transparency reduces the individual bargaining power of workers, leading to lower average wages. A key insight is that employers credibly refuse to pay high wages to any one worker to avoid costly renegotiations with others under transparency. ..."

What If Closing the Wage Gap Means Everyone Earns Less? - HBS Working Knowledge Companies are under pressure to share more data about employee salaries, but research by Zoe Cullen reveals how pay transparency doesn't always help workers.

Equilibrium Effects of Pay Transparency

Wachsender Staat: «Big Government» verbreitet sich in der Schweiz

Die ansonsten so besonnen, freiheitlichen, und konservativen Schweizer haben ein Problem wie viele andere westliche Demokratien!

"Der Bundesrat plant eine Offensive in den sozialen Netzwerken. Gleich 10 neue Stellen sollen dafür geschaffen werden. Dass der Bund an einem Ausbau der Kommunikation arbeitet, ist allerdings schon länger der Fall, wie sich den Staatsrechnungen entnehmen lässt: 2017 befassten sich Mitarbeiter, die 307 Vollzeitstellen abdeckten, mit Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, 2020 waren es schon 379. Mit anderen Worten: Auf hundert Stellen des Bundes gibt es mittlerweile einen Kommunikationsverantwortlichen. Und diese Mitarbeiter sind nicht billig: Der Personalaufwand pro Vollzeitstelle in diesem Bereich beträgt 168 000 Fr. ..."

Wachsender Staat: «Big Government» verbreitet sich in der Schweiz (behind paywall) Die Verwaltung dehnt sich aus. Die Personalausgaben des Bundes sind in den letzten zwanzig Jahren um die Hälfte gestiegen. Wie stoppt man diese Tendenz? Beim Bund könnte ein Finanzreferendum als Bremse wirken.

A Taliban victory in Afghanistan means insurgency in Pakistan by Michael Rubin

Recommendable!

"... Any Taliban victory will be calamitous for the region both because of the destabilizing refugee flow it would spark and because, as Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistan ambassador to the United States, points out, because it could embolden both Pakistan’s homegrown extremist and lead to a resurgent al Qaeda. ...
Without Pakistani support, the Taliban would be nothing. ... The vast majority of the precursors for Taliban explosives come from two factories inside Pakistan. Pakistan also supplies weapons, safe-haven, and logistical support. ...

Pakistani decision-makers have long lived in a bubble. Pakistani military and political elite go to the same schools, live in the same neighborhoods, and move about the same social circles. When in 1971, Pakistan lost East Pakistan (Bangladesh today) after locals rebelled against the ethnic chauvinism of the Punjabis who dominated West Pakistan, the Pakistani military and intelligence services decided to encourage more extreme versions of Islamism in order to get a new generation of Pakistanis to place religion above ethnic identity and prevent any new separatist movements. Radicals who the security forces might once have targeted found themselves with a free pass so long as they did not promote violence inside Pakistan. Pakistani authorities welcomed millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to build and staff religious seminaries to promote a much more extremist line. Pakistani authorities also used the Kashmir dispute as fuel for radicalization and, in recent decades, terrorist violence. ...

They were wrong. Fifteen years ago, Pakistani authorities sought to cut a deal with the Pakistani Taliban. It backfired tremendously as they moved to within 60 miles of the capital. ...

The simple fact is that every regime that seeks to cultivate domestic Islamists in order to leverage them to influence events abroad suffers blowback. It happened in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, and Turkey. Pakistan will not be immune. ..."

A Taliban victory in Afghanistan means insurgency in Pakistan | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

Measuring Progressivity in Canada’s Tax System

The Robin Hood system in Canada: Take it from the rich, to give it to the poor and to more and more highly compensated government employees!

Unfortunately, the Fraser Institute omitted to include how much money the bottom 20% receive from government in form of welfare payments etc.

"... high-income families already pay a disproportionately large share of all Canadian taxes. Indeed, the evidence shows that the top 20 percent of income-earning families pay nearly two-thirds (63.2 percent) of the country’s personal income taxes and more than half (54.7 percent) of total taxes. ...
In contrast, the bottom 20 percent of income-earning families are estimated to pay only 1.0 percent of all federal and provincial personal income taxes and 2.3 percent of total taxes in Canada.  ..."

Measuring Progressivity in Canada’s Tax System | Fraser Institute

Microsoft: Race and Technology: A Research Lecture Series

Incredible! Horrible! 

Primitive tribalism at Microsoft! Pure propaganda and demagoguery! Indoctrination!

Joseph Goebbels is smiling!

Look at the Speaker Lineup below. So many PhDs without a brain!

"Race and technology are closely intertwined, continuously influencing and reshaping one another. While algorithmic bias has received increased attention in recent years, it is only one of the many ways that technology and race intersect in computer science, public health, digital media, gaming, surveillance, and other domains. To build inclusive technologies that empower us all, we must understand how technologies and race construct one another and with what consequences."

Race and Technology: A Research Lecture Series - Microsoft Research

Speaker lineup

Date	Speaker
May 26, 2021	Dr. Sareeta Amrute, Data & Society Research Institute and University of Washington
June 30, 2021	Dr. Kim TallBear, University of Alberta
July 28, 2021	Dr. Charlton McIlwain, New York University
August 18, 2021	Dr. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University & Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab
September 22, 2021	Dr. Lisa Nakamura, University of Michigan
October 27, 2021	Dr. Simone Browne, University of Texas
November 2021	Dr. André Brock, Georgia Institute of Technology
December 2021	Dr. Sohini Ramachandran, Brown University
January 2022	Dr. C. Brandon Ogbunu, Yale University
February 2022	Dr. Kishonna L. Gray, University of Illinois – Chicago
March 2022	Merisa Heu-Weller, J.D., Microsoft Technology and Corporate Responsibility – Justice Reform Initiative
April 2022	Dr. Desmond Upton Patton, Columbia School of Social Work, Columbia University
May 2022	Dr. Denae Ford Robinson, Microsoft Research and University of Washington
June 2022	Dr. A. Nicki Washington, Duke University

Tom Fitton obtains shocking new emails about Ashli Babbitt's death

What Ms. Babbitt was ordered cremated within two days of her shooting?

We still do not know who shot Ms. Babbitt! And leading Dimocrats like the 80 year old, horrible Pelosi and Schumer are responsible for withholding pertinent information about her death!

Prohibition and The Fall of the Russian Empire

Very recommendable! Prohibition was a major factor causing the Russian Revolution! Russia was one of the first countries to impose prohibition!

From China, with Spies | Rob Schmitt Tonight

Very recommendable! Very concerning!

Massive intellectual property theft in the 300-600 billions of dollars. Significant funding of BLM and other divisive propaganda! Collecting enormous amounts of information including DNA of basically all U.S. citizens. Targeting prospective politicians to influence or coerce their future careers.

The FBI has about 2,000 open cases on Chinese espionage and influence operations! Every 10 hours, the FBI opens up a new investigation into such cases.

Mark Warner On CCP Threat: 'This Story Needs To Get Out To The American Public'b4

Mark Levin accuses 'dimwitted' Biden of doing more damage to US than enemies

Very recommendable! Mark Levin argues strongly to impeach the demented and senile 46th President for violating immigration laws and extending the eviction moratorium via CDC.

Ben Shapiro: When Does The COVID-19 Panic End?

Recommendable! Government and expert paternalism based on hysteria and scaremongering needs to end!

When Does COVID-19 Panic End?

ICML round-up, Open collaboration, CLIP art, Internet augmentation, New GLUE-style benchmarks

Very recommendable! In general, Sebastian Ruder's newsletter is highly recommendable!

ICML round-up, Open collaboration, CLIP art, Internet augmentation, New GLUE-style benchmarks | Revue

Generally capable agents emerge from open-ended play

Recommendable! Google (Deepmind) has made several great contributions to AI (reinforcement learning) over recent years. Google is pushing the envelope again!

"... We find the agent exhibits general, heuristic behaviours such as experimentation, behaviours that are widely applicable to many tasks rather than specialised to an individual task. This new approach marks an important step toward creating more general agents with the flexibility to adapt rapidly within constantly changing environments. ...
We then use population based training (PBT) to adjust the parameters of the dynamic task generation based on a fitness that aims to improve agents’ general capability. And finally we chain together multiple training runs so each generation of agents can bootstrap off the previous generation. ..."

"In this work we create agents that can perform well beyond a single, individual task, that exhibit much wider generalisation of behaviour to a massive, rich space of challenges. We define a universe of tasks within an environment domain and demonstrate the ability to train agents that are generally capable across this vast space and beyond. The environment is natively multi-agent, spanning the continuum of competitive, cooperative, and independent games, which are situated within procedurally generated physical 3D worlds. ...
We show that through constructing an open-ended learning process, which dynamically changes the training task distributions and training objectives such that the agent never stops learning, we achieve consistent learning of new behaviours. The resulting agent is able to score reward in every one of our humanly solvable evaluation levels, with behaviour generalising to many held-out points in the universe of tasks. ..."

Generally capable agents emerge from open-ended play | DeepMind

Open-Ended Learning Leads to Generally Capable Agents

also published as a preprint:

Open-Ended Learning Leads to Generally Capable Agents

Mythos Energiewende

Mein Title für diese DVD: Energiewende, der grösste politische Skandal und Schwindel seit 1945!

In der Bananenrepublik Deutschland unter der SED Kanzlerin Merkel grassiert der Klimawahn! Meine Abrechnung mit Merkel finden sie hier.

""Es gibt eine menschengemachte Katastrophe. Aber das ist nicht der Klimawandel, sondern die Energiewende. Marco Pino, Filmemacher in MythosEnergiewende

Die große Transformation ist bereits in vollem Gange, von Medien und Politik wird sie als alternativlos dargestellt und pausenlos beschönigt. Doch kann eine Energieversorgung ausschließlich aus sogenannten Erneuerbaren überhaupt funktionieren? Dazu betrachten wir die Grundlagen der Elektrotechnik und werfen einen genaueren Blick auf jene Stromerzeuger, die in Leitmedien gerne als veraltete Technologien bezeichnet werden. Wir analysieren die sogenannten Erneuerbaren sowie die einzige großtechnische Alternative, die Kernenergie. Wir zeigen, wie Leitmedien mit einseitiger Auslegung von Zahlen und Statistiken den falschen Eindruck vom Erfolg der Energiewende suggerieren. Wir tauchen ein ins Milieu der Energiewendebefürworter und ihrer radikalsten Gruppen, analysieren ihre Hintergründe und wahren Motive. Schlußendlich machen wir eine große Abrechnung mit dieser Energiewende. Eine Abrechnung, die zeigt, welche unfaßbaren Kosten und Einschränkungen mit der großen Transformation tatsächlich einhergehen werden. Kurzum: Nach der wissenschaftlichen Betrachtung des Klimawandels haben nun die Ingenieure das Wort. Und ihr Urteil ist vernichtend."

JF-Buchdienst | DVD, Mythos Energiewende | Aktuelle Bücher zu Politik, Wirtschaft, Wissen und Geschichte

Hier ist der YouTube trailer dazu (leider nicht empfehlenswert!):

Mythos Energiewende (Trailer - JF TV)

4th Police Officer Who Was at Jan. 6 Capitol Breach Dies by Suicide

This seems to be an unusual development! What is behind these suicides?

Apparently, this police officer was not part of the U.S. Capitol police. He was only present at the the January 6th protests. How many police officers do commit suicide during their careers?

"A fourth police officer who was present at the grounds of the Capitol building when it was breached on Jan. 6 has died by suicide, according to the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD).

Metropolitan Police Officer Kyle DeFreytag, 26, was found dead on July 10 from suicide, an MPD spokeswoman told The Epoch Times via email.

DeFreytag was assigned to the Fifth District and had been with the police department since November 2016. ..."

4th Police Officer Who Was at Jan. 6 Capitol Breach Dies by Suicide (behind paywall)

Roger Scruton – Linke Denker des 20. Jahrhunderts: Narren, Schwindler, Unruhestifter

Der Buchtitel gefällt mir!

"Der unlängst verstorbene Roger Scruton war einer der wohl wichtigsten konservativen Denker unserer Zeit. Er liefert in diesem Buch eine vernichtende Kritik der Idole des linken Denkens im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert und zeigt auf, wie es dazu kommen konnte, dass heute Linke die Geisteswissenschaften dominieren und nur allzu oft ihren Alleinvertretungsanspruch durchsetzen können. ..."

Scruton – Narren, Schwindler, Unruhestifter |

F.A.Z.-Ifo-Umfrage: Ökonomen gegen grüne Geldpolitik, aber für Klimawahn

Der Klimawahn in der Bananenrepublik Deutschland erfasst auch Ökonomen und die Europäische Zentralbank! Was für ein Unsinn!

Christine Largarde ist eine schreckliche Politikerin!

Was wissen Volkswirtschaftler über das Klima? Wenig oder gar nichts!

"Die Pläne für eine „grünere“ Ausrichtung der Europäischen Zentralbank (EZB) sind weit gediehen. Neun Punkte hat Christine Lagarde Anfang Juli vorgelegt, mit denen die EZB-Präsidentin der Politik beim Kampf gegen den Klimaschutz unter die Arme greifen will. Unter anderem sollen für Anleihekäufe künftig klimafreundliche Unternehmen bevorzugt werden. ...
Keineswegs lehnt eine Mehrheit der Panelteilnehmer das Streben nach schneller Treibhausgasneutralität in Europa ab. Im Gegenteil: Gefragt danach, wie die Reaktion der EU auf den Klimawandel zu bewerten sei, fordern 41 Prozent sogar noch größere Anstrengungen als bislang vorgesehen. 27 Prozent antworten auf diese Frage mit „angemessen“, 20 Prozent mit „es sollte weniger getan werden“ und 12 Prozent mit „weiß nicht“. Doch müssten alle unternommenen Anstrengungen effizient und zielgenau sein, heißt es vielfach im Kommentarfeld"

F.A.Z.-Ifo-Umfrage: Ökonomen gegen grüne Geldpolitik: Deutschlands Wirtschaftsprofessoren begrüßen laut neuestem Ökonomenpanel des Ifo-Instituts und der F.A.Z. Europas Streben nach Klimaneutralität. Sie fordern aber die Wahl der richtigen Mittel.

Oklahoma GOP chair likens coronavirus restrictions to the Holocaust

The ongoing persecution of the Covid-19 unvaccinated or the maskless persons is horrible and contemptible! 

SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 is not a very dangerous disease to justify these restrictions on liberty! The exaggerated hysteria and scaremongering surrounding this global pandemic is much worse!

"John Bennett on Friday posted on the party’s Facebook page a photo of a yellow star labeled “Unvaccinated.” He listing purported restrictions on the unvaccinated, including not being able to fly or “enter a pub, restaurant club or theater,” as well as limited access to work, services and healthcare.

“WAKE UP PEOPLE — is this sounding familiar?” the caption said. Below, in comments, were links to fundraising websites for the state GOP. ..."

Oklahoma GOP chair draws fire from party colleagues for likening coronavirus restrictions to the Holocaust - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Chinese Paramilitary Trained Cuban Security Forces Responsible for Suppressing Protesters

The tentacles of the Communist Party of China appear to be everywhere!

Chinese Paramilitary Trained Cuban Security Forces Responsible for Suppressing Protesters: (behind paywall) Cuban military and police forces responsible for clamping down on demonstrators have received “counter-terrorism” training from Chinese paramilitary, reports from Chinese state media show.

Building a new maritime surveillance network across the Indian Ocean

Recommendable!

"The Indian Ocean is an increasingly contested strategic environment. A growing Chinese naval presence raises the prospect that Beijing may seek to challenge US naval dominance, potentially sparking a competitive naval arms race in the region. ...

One of the biggest advantages of Australia and its Indian Ocean partners, and one of China’s biggest vulnerabilities, is in maritime domain awareness. The ability of even large vessels to effectively disappear in the vastness of the Indian Ocean puts maritime domain awareness at a premium. If you can find a naval adversary and they can’t find your ships, the odds are definitely in your favour.

The Chinese navy already has significant disadvantages in the Indian Ocean, operating with limited logistical support far from home ports that are accessible only by transiting the narrow straits through Southeast Asia, where they can be easily located and tracked. China also lacks a comprehensive maritime picture of even significant parts of the Indian Ocean (although it is working to plug that gap, including through the use of satellites and other new technologies).

Individually, Australia and partners such as the United States, India and France already have significant capabilities, including maritime patrol aircraft and uncrewed aerial vehicles, and facilities that, if combined in a collaborative network, would allow comprehensive maritime surveillance of much of the Indian Ocean. ..."

Building a new maritime surveillance network across the Indian Ocean | The Strategist

Texas Acts to Block Chinese-Owned Wind Power Facility Near Military Base

Very clever by the Communist Party of China!

"The Texas legislature took steps to stop a massive Chinese-owned industrial wind facility from being built near Laughlin Air Force base in southwest Texas.

The Blue Hills Wind development attracted attention because its developer, GH America Energy, is the U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese Guanghui Energy Company which is owned by Sun Guangxin, a Chinese billionaire who reportedly has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

As planned, the industrial wind facility will be sited on 140,000 acres of land approximately 70 miles from Laughlin Air Force Base, raising concerns the CCP will be able to spy on or interfere in U.S. flight training and operations. ..."

Texas Acts to Block Chinese-Owned Wind Power Facility Near Military Base

Smokey Robinson - Cruisin'

Enjoy! Closer and closer ... let the music take your mind ... you are going to fly away ... cruising is made for love ... cruise with me baby ... let's float ... if you want it you got it forever ... 

Smokey Robinson – Cruisin' [Official Lyric Video]

Prager University: Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Invented America

Very recommendable!

Tucker Carlson reveals why the New York Times 'mysteriously' deleted articles

Very recommendable! Great journalism by Tucker Carlson. So the New York Times and other major U.S. media outlets received money from the Communist Party of China to spread its propaganda! How wonderful! Then, the cover up of the possibility of a Wuhan Virology Institute lab leak!

The Standard Model: The Most Successful Scientific Theory Ever

Very recommendable! Excellent presentation!

Azerbaijan opens trade office in Tel Aviv in preparation for future opening of embassy

Good news! Influenced by the Abraham Accords?

"Azerbaijan has opened its first diplomatic office in Israel, three decades after the countries initiated diplomatic relations.

Azerbaijan’s trade office in Tel Aviv, opened on Thursday, is a stepping stone to the central Asian Muslim country opening an embassy in Israel ... The countries began their diplomatic relations in 1992, and Israel has an embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital.

Trade between the two countries is at least $200 million, according to the Post. ..."

Azerbaijan opens trade office in Tel Aviv in preparation for future opening of embassy - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Kurs auf China: Fregatte «Bayern» läuft in den Indopazifik aus

Good news!

"Das Schiff wird im Seegebiet zwischen dem Horn von Afrika und Australien an einer sogenannten «Freedom of Navigation»-Operation teilnehmen."

Kurs auf China: Fregatte «Bayern» läuft in den Indopazifik aus Erstmals seit fast zwanzig Jahren geht ein deutsches Kriegsschiff wieder auf grosse Fahrt in den Fernen Osten. Es soll dort für internationale Seewege, offene Märkte und den Freihandel Flagge zeigen. Adressat der Botschaft ist vor allem China.

Joe Biden Is Overseeing One of the Largest Cuts in Legal Immigration in History

Is this not ironic! The demented and senile 46th President, who opened the southern border to millions of illegal immigrants!

"Biden administration official announced last week that the government has processed green card applications at such a slow pace that it will come at least 100,000 slots short of using up the annual limit. Without drastic revisions in the glacial processing times, President Biden will have presided over one of the largest cuts to legal immigration in U.S. history — and almost no one is talking about it. ..."

Joe Biden Is Overseeing One of the Largest Cuts in Legal Immigration in History | Cato Institute Unless there is a change of heart soon, Biden will assume responsibility for denying thousands of immigrants the path to citizenship that Congress promised them.

Prager University: Who Celebrates Che Guevara?

Very recommendable!

The unfashionable artist who inspired Van Gogh

Very recommendable! Fascinating!

How aspirin was discovered

Very recommendable! Almost a miracle cure known to mankind since the ancient Egyptians!

Reagan: 'Freedom is Not Free' | Freedom Lives

Well done, well said!

Bombshell report about Wuhan lab released by House GOP lawmakers

Very recommendable! Incredible!

GOP lawmaker says Chinese Communist Party must have something on Biden, Dems

President Reagan's Remarks on the Air Traffic Controllers Strike 8/3/1981

Very recommendable!  Original President Reagan! The only president until then, who was a lifetime AFL/CIO labor union member! As labor union president, he was the first to call for a strike on behalf of that union (actors guild?)!

YouTube Suspends Sky News Australia For Coronavirus 'Misinformation'

Bad news! I liked to watch Sky News Australia! When Big Tech companies trample on the freedom of speech!

YouTube Suspends Sky News Australia For Coronavirus 'Misinformation' Silicon Valley tech giant Youtube has banned the centre-right Sky News Australia network from uploading video content after being issued a strike for supposedly spreading “misinformation” about the Chinese coronavirus.

China built the world’s largest facial recognition system. Now, it’s getting camera-shy

Civil rights are coming to Communist Party ruled China!

"China built the world's largest facial recognition system. Now, it's getting camera-shy. ...
He thought it was unreasonable for the park to use facial recognition for entry to the park, and sued the zoo for breach of contract and violation of consumer rights. The case is widely acknowledged to be the first lawsuit over facial recognition in China, and has sparked a large amount of media attention. He won the case last year but appealed with the intent to receive a broader ruling that set a precedent for similar cases, which a court ruled in favor of last week. This ruling limits the ability of private businesses to use facial recognition, which has been increasingly pervasive in China. Because of the ruling, as of Aug. 1 hotels, shopping malls, airports and other commercial venues must get consent from customers to use facial recognition. ..." (Source)

"Guo Bing, a law professor in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, liked the zoo enough to purchase an annual pass. But he didn’t like it nearly enough to let the zoo take a high-resolution scan of his face.

In what judges called the first case of its kind in China, Guo sued the zoo — and won. He argued there was no legal basis for the Hangzhou Safari Park to collect visitors’ biometric data, and that it had not taken precautions to protect the information. In April, a Chinese appeals court ruled in favor of Guo, ordering the zoo to refund him and delete his face scan and fingerprints. ..."

China built the world’s largest facial recognition system. Now, it’s getting camera-shy.

The potential threat of biological warfare on a global scale

If anything, the SARS-CoV-2 triggered global pandemic has clearly demonstrated what happens after a very infectious, but not very lethal virus has been released!

What if some maniac or terrorist group or nation state develops a more lethal virus? Don't fool yourself believing it takes an expensive, very sophisticated laboratory to develop such a virus. This may not be true. The question about the possibility biological warfare on a global scale has probably not been widely discussed anymore in the public since the 1950s or 1960s during the height of the Cold War.

Do not rest assured on the prevailing assumption that anyone who releases such a biological weapon will destroyed as well. For long time this has been the dominant view, I believe, in the assessment of ABC weapons (atomic, biological, and chemical).

It would be interesting to learn whether China had already developed an antidote to SARS-CoV-2 before it was released or accidentally escaped? When will we learn about it if ever? Did the Communist Party of China try to warn the world? Don't mess with us! Or did the CPC try to distract the rest of the world from something? Or both?

Going forward, it is of vital importance that more money is invested in research etc. to defeat viruses once and for all. We have made great progress regarding e.g. HIV/AIDS and now SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19, let's not get complacent! I am convinced that we already have the means to achieve that, let's bring it to bear!

Jewish groups slam Brazilian president's warm welcome to granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister

Nice example of when leftist Jewish sensitivities become obviously highly ridiculous! These extreme leftist Jews even apply Sippenhaft ("granddaughter of Hitler's finance minister") to this German politician! Very rich irony! Usually, Jewish political commentary is of higher quality than this!

I guess, everything, including Nazi Sippenhaft, is allowed if it serves to discredit the current, conservative Brazilian president! It can't get much lower!

"Brazil’s president effusively welcomed a far-right German lawmaker  [laughable and wrong] whose grandfather was a senior Nazi officer, causing an uproar among Jewish groups.

Jair Bolsonaro, who has been highly divisive among Brazilian Jewish voters despite his openly pro-Israel speech, met with Beatrix von Storch, the deputy leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and a member of the German parliament since 2017. ..."

Jewish groups slam Brazilian president's warm welcome to granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Memory-making involves extensive DNA breaking

Recommendable!

"The urgency to remember a dangerous experience requires the brain to make a series of potentially dangerous moves: Neurons and other brain cells snap open their DNA in numerous locations — more than previously realized, according to a new study — to provide quick access to genetic instructions for the mechanisms of memory storage. ...

The extent of these DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) in multiple key brain regions is surprising and concerning ..., because while the breaks are routinely repaired, that process may become more flawed and fragile with age. Tsai’s lab has shown that lingering DSBs are associated with neurodegeneration and cognitive decline and that repair mechanisms can falter. ...
The creation of a fear memory doubled the number of DSBs among neurons in the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, affecting more than 300 genes in each region. Among 206 affected genes common to both regions ..."

Memory-making involves extensive DNA breaking | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology To quickly express learning and memory genes, brain cells snap both strands of DNA in many more places and cell types than previously realized, a new study shows.

Activity-Induced DNA Breaks Govern the Expression of Neuronal Early-Response Genes (open access)

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Bloat in the Academy

Your high college/university tuition pays for your indoctrination and exposure to primitive tribalism!

"... Promoting DEI has become a primary function of higher education, with DEI staff making up an average 3.4 positions for every 100 tenured faculty. ...

This Backgrounder presents information on DEI personnel at 65 universities representing 16 percent of all students in four-year institutions in the United States.

After reviewing publicly accessible websites, these authors found that the average university they sampled listed more than 45 people as having formal responsibility for promoting DEI goals. DEI staff listed by universities totaled 4.2 times the number of staff who assist students with disabilities in receiving reasonable accommodations, as required by law. ...
Certain universities had strikingly large numbers of people officially labeled with DEI responsibilities. At the University of Michigan, for example, 163 people were identified as having formal responsibility for providing DEI programming and services. ..."

Diversity University: DEI Bloat in the Academy | The Heritage Foundation

Der Impfperialismus herrscht in der Bananenrepublik Deutschland

Ohne Kommentar! Die Schlagzeile spricht für sich selbst! Der deutsche Obrigkeitsstaat ist nach 1945 wieder zurückgekehrt! Eine traurige Entwicklung! 

Werden mehr Bürger dagegen protestieren? Hoffentlich! Mehr Querdenker braucht das Land!

Die ganze politische Klasse ist vergrünt, da braucht's keinen Wahlkampf

Die Schlagzeile trifft es ziemlich genau! Unter der SED Kanzlerin Merkel ist Deutschland zu einer ökosozialistischen und impfperalistischen Bananenrepublik verkommen!

Die deutsche Politik verfolgt wieder am deutsche Wesen soll die Welt genesen! Welche Dummheit und Voreingenommenheit! Deutschland brauch wieder einen Ludwig Erhard!

"... Ob Klima, ob Pandemie, alles wird unter apokalyptischen Klängen Wagnerischen Ausmaßes zur wohlfeilen Begründung, um endlich die eigene Herrschaft abzusichern und einen Staatsbonapartismus durchzusetzen, der die politische Klasse von der Verantwortung entkoppelt, die sie dem Bürger schuldet. ..."

Die ganze politische Klasse ist vergrünt, da braucht's keinen Wahlkampf Alternativlos ist es wahrlich, weil der Wettbewerb der Parteien von CDU, CSU, FDP bis hin zu den Linken sich lediglich um die Frage dreht, ob die Große Transformation, vulgo Ökosozialismus, schneller oder langsamer vollzogen wird.

Keine Lösch- und Korrekturtage mehr bei Facebook?

Good news!

"... In der Sache geht es um einen Fall, der mittlerweile zweifelsfrei für TE bestätigt wurde: Dass Migranten einen übergroßen Anteil an Corona-Erkrankten und Patienten in Intensivstationen stellen und deshalb, so eine Forderung auf TE, die Präventionsmaßnahmen hier intensiviert werden müssen.

Am 03.03.2021 berichtete TE:

„Lange dauerte es, bis die hochbrisante Nachricht aus einer Schaltkonferenz des RKI-Chefs mit Chefärzten an die Öffentlichkeit durchsickerte: Über 90 Prozent der Corona-Intensivpatienten sollen in einer Lungenklinik Migrationshintergrund haben, bundesweit weit über 50 Prozent.“

Correctiv hat diese Meldung aufgegriffen und versucht, mit einem „Warnhinweis“ auf der Facebook-Seite TE Leser zu manipulieren, und hat dabei TE in der Reichweite beschränkt. ..."

Keine Lösch- und Korrekturtage mehr bei Facebook? Facebook und Correctiv erleiden schwere Niederlagen von Gericht: Ihr bisheriges „Fact-Checking“ wird untersagt. Und zukünftig darf Facebook Nutzerkonten nicht mehr nach eigenem Gusto einfach löschen und sperren.

Yahoo Finance Annoyances

As of last week (7/30/2021), Yahoo Finance won't allow me to change the stock symbol anymore on my chart!

Unfortunately, among the free online charting tools, Yahoo Finance is one of the best! More competition would be appreciated by all stock traders!

Winston Churchill: In the Darkest Hour

Recommendable! Concise! Well done!

China's new Silk Road - the longest train route in the world

Recommendable! However, it has almost the appearance of a Chinese marketing & promotion video!

Most Recovered COVID-19 Patients Have Broad, Robust Immunity That Likely Provides Some Protection Against Variants

Good news!

I blogged on 7/29/2021 that the U.S. most likely reached herd immunity recently!

Here is the full abstract of the research paper:

"Ending the COVID-19 pandemic will require long-lived immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Here, we evaluate 254 COVID-19 patients longitudinally up to 8 months and find durable broad-based immune responses. SARS-CoV-2 spike binding and neutralizing antibodies exhibit a bi-phasic decay with an extended half-life of >200 days suggesting the generation of longer-lived plasma cells. SARS-CoV-2 infection also boosts antibody titers to SARS-CoV-1 and common betacoronaviruses. In addition, spike-specific IgG+ memory B cells persist, which bodes well for a rapid antibody response upon virus re-exposure or vaccination. Virus-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are polyfunctional and maintained with an estimated half-life of 200 days. Interestingly, CD4+ T cell responses equally target several SARS-CoV-2 proteins, whereas the CD8+ T cell responses preferentially target the nucleoprotein, highlighting the potential importance of including the nucleoprotein in future vaccines. Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients."

Most Recovered COVID-19 Patients Have Broad, Robust Immunity That Likely Provides Some Protection Against Variants: Study (behind paywall) Most people who have recovered from COVID-19, even with mild illness, retain a broad and durable immunity to the disease, including some degree of protection against its variants, according to an Emory University study published in the journal, Cell Reports Medicine.

Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells (open access)