It’s pretty sad to see Vox’s decline into gutter clickbait media. I guess it was inevitable once Klein and Yglesias left, and their mediocre minions took over.
Half of this article’s word count seems to be the writer snarking about how he doesn’t care about these games and doesn’t know much about them. I guess it’s good to show contempt for your audience…
Thanks for the information! It’s pretty distressing that the EU, in its zeal to do the right thing, seems to be protecting the big AI companies from FOSS competition.
Any word on the final legislation’s treatment of free and open source models? At the drafting stage, there were warnings that the requirements would basically shut out FOSS projects, thereby entrenching proprietary models from tech giants. Later on, there was talk about possibly adding carve-outs to protect FOSS, but I couldn’t find the details.
Italy has announced it will restore funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) months after it suspended aid to the agency over Israeli allegations linking UN staff to the deadly October 7 attack....
Italy’s far-right government has taken the honorable step of reinstating UNRWA funding, yet the UK and US are still sending thoughts and prayers (or maybe not even those).
For the US to invade Saudi Arabia, where Mecca and Medina are located, would have turned the entire Muslim world against it for generations. It would have been Afghanistan+Iraq times a hundred.
From the FT story about this, it appears the Israeli far right is going to respond with more repression:
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, on Wednesday wrote to Netanyahu, demanding “punitive steps” be against the Palestinian Authority in response to the European decisions and other Palestinian moves on the international stage, including seeking action against the Jewish state by the ICC.
Smotrich called for a series of measures including a major expansion of Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, the establishment of a new settlement for every country that recognises Palestinian statehood, and the freezing of Israeli tax transfers to the PA.
Well said. One thing I’d add is that it wasn’t only Putin going all in, but Xi’s own strategic impatience. China needed at least another generation to grow into its strengths as a world power, but Xi had, for various reasons, convinced himself that he, not his successors, would be the one to see it all through. By finishing the job Mao had started, Xi would be the one lauded by history as the one inheriting Mao’s mantle.
Xi likes to wax poetic about geostrategic “changes not seen in a century”. Ironically, his own ego and hamfistedness has given the West a once in a century opportunity to kneecap China and prevent it from consolidating into a true world power.
What’s interesting is that before the war, China and Ukraine had excellent relations, to the point where Russia was worried about Chinese influence in Ukraine. There’s some remnant of these ties, like how China has never recognised Russia’s annexations of Ukrainian territory.
But the thing is, China’s overwhelming interest at this point is for Russia not to lose. A Russian humiliation at the hands of the West – or worse still a Russian collapse leading to a reduced state that could be dominated by the West – would leave China geopolitically isolated, and give the US the freedom to squeeze China with no further distractions.
At the end of the day, Xi Jinping has blundered his way into a strategic cul-de-sac. The Russia-Ukraine war is a geopolitical disaster for China, and Xi’s dumb bromance with Putin was a key reason it happened. Strategically, he’s the worst Chinese leader in at least a century.
Always weird to me how France is so insistent on clinging to its colonial empire, two decades into the 21st century, despite the headaches that causes.
The US closing off its market was totally predictable and has been priced in. You’ll notice that no Chinese EV makers made any plans to export directly into the US, even as they were selling around the world.
The US market is significant, sure, but the US car industry could easily end up where its shipbuilding industry is: hanging around thanks to government protection, catering to the domestic market, but a bit of a joke by global standards.
There are rules concerning how to determine the country of origin, involving how much value is added at each step. Final assembly doesn’t make the cut if the amount of work is too trivial. (The rules can be gamed somewhat but I’m sure the Biden administration will be putting this under a microscope.)
What is more problematic for Biden is that Chinese EV companies are building whole factories and supply chains in Mexico, so the product will be unambiguously Mexican and allowed to enter the US under the USMCA. If the US government feels strongly enough about keeping Chinese firms out simply on the basis of being Chinese, they will probably resort to threatening Mexico to strongarm them into shutting down those factories. The US has a long history of running roughshod over Mexico, so this seems pretty likely to me.
Solar project to destroy thousands of Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert (ca.news.yahoo.com)
cross-posted from: lemmy.crimedad.work/post/91685...
Israel has offered a plan for 6 week Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, Biden says (www.usatoday.com)
While the US and EU are putting up barriers to Chinese cars, Australians are buying them at record levels (www.abc.net.au)
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/16322892...
Is TikTok breaking young voters’ brains? (www.vox.com)
Electric bikes are about to get more expensive, and the timing couldn’t be worse (www.theverge.com)
Spider-Inspired Microphone Detects Tiny Gusts of Sound (physics.aps.org)
'You have to shed the tears': Justice shares that she cries after some Supreme Court cases (www.usatoday.com)
Zenless Zone Zero gets a release date of July 4th, plus a trailer with lots of kicking (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
Does String Theory Actually Describe the World? AI May Be Able to Tell (www.wired.com)
Europe sets benchmark for rest of the world with landmark AI laws (www.reuters.com)
Italy to resume UNRWA funding as Gaza faces humanitarian crisis (www.aljazeera.com)
Italy has announced it will restore funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) months after it suspended aid to the agency over Israeli allegations linking UN staff to the deadly October 7 attack....
New 9/11 Evidence Points to Deep Saudi Complicity (www.theatlantic.com)
Two decades of U.S. policy appear to be rooted in a mistaken understanding of what happened that day. archive
Macron hits Putin for rejecting truce with Ukraine during Olympics (thehill.com)
Spain, Norway and Ireland will recognize a Palestinian state | CNN (edition.cnn.com)
This is quite big! Kudos to them.
Janet Yellen urges EU to raise tariffs on Chinese solar panels and wind turbines (www.theguardian.com)
Complains about overproduction of green technology, because it’s important we don’t have too much green technology…
Free-Market Advocate, Elon Musk, Asks for U.S. Government to Put Tariffs on Chinese EV Imports (medium.com)
Biden celebrates Black leadership while navigating Gaza crisis tensions at HBCU commencement (www.motherjones.com)
Zelensky wants China at Ukraine peace talks, cites ‘influence on Russia’ | CNN (www.cnn.com)
France imposes state of emergency in New Caledonia as unrest continues (www.npr.org)
Always weird to me how France is so insistent on clinging to its colonial empire, two decades into the 21st century, despite the headaches that causes.
China Isn’t Scared Of Biden’s Big Bad EV Tariffs (jalopnik.com)
Biden's new China tariff wall faces leakage via Mexico, Vietnam | Reuters (www.reuters.com)
Biden hikes tariffs on Chinese EVs, solar cells, steel, aluminum (apnews.com)
Climate change and inflation are both important, so we’re going to make it as expensive as possible to switch away from fossil fuels.