N-95 masks are protective, and to a certain (most likely lesser degree), KN-95 masks are also protective.

Bookmarked and will come back to this. One thing that may be if interest to add is for AMD cards with 20gb of ram. I’d suppose that it would be Qwen 2.5 34B with maybe less strict quant or something.

Also, it may be interesting to look at the AllenAI molmo related models. I’m kind of planning to do this myself but haven’t had time as yet.

Thanks for that summary! Definitely an incredible achievement. 66ft could fit inside a lab, instead of inside a huge property. Hopefully democratizes particle accelerator research a tiny bit.

Sure just like Hawaiian people could go back to the upper 48. You know just abandon their home, their livelihoods, their communities. No big deal surely to just give an aggressor nation whatever they want at the cost of all your worldly possessions.

Edit:

From before the paywalled section:

‘’’ “Suddenly, there is all this talk about underground shelters, about fleeing, and this makes this crisis feel more real. But if we leave, can we come back? Or will Yonaguni be wiped out?” asks Mr Otake, wondering if he will be able to hand down the business to his 14-year-old son. ‘’’

Later it mentions there are 1.4 million people in the potential war theatre zone. And yes the plan is to move them back to the mainland if they can, but that’s a monumental task to move that many people across disparate, disconnected islands, to say nothing of the potential impact of trying to integrate 1.4 million people into local communities.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-023-01346-3

Nature article.

It should be punishable by fine for science journalists to write about a science paper without citing the paper — I couldn’t find it linked anywhere in the article but do have some content blockers so perhaps it was just hidden by those. At any rate, interesting findings.

If taxes are robbery then using public infrastructure like roads without paying taxes is also theft.

Taxes exist because public goods are actually good, and benefit everyone. The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts. Your taxes pay for roads and public transit which are used to get people to work to create wealth for a community. It turns out the thing that makes humans great is community and banding together. Taxes are a formal way of doing that.

Now, we need equitable taxes, but that would involve taxing the rich proportionally. This is economically sound because wealth doesn’t trickle down and the mega wealthy are, well, mega wealthy because they hoard wealth. That money would be better spent creating better roads, better public transit, better education, or in short, a better community. The prospect of a better community only upsets those who are not members of the community, because their insane wealth puts them in a different class, and those who think defending that class will somehow get them privilege. The only privilege we need is a better community.

Certainly a possibility, but I almost think US quietly supporting Ukraine will make it easier, since it won’t be in the far right zeitgeist as much. Ukraine needs financial and military support. Passing bills individually for Ukraine is getting harder. Tacking another line item on to a “Support Israel” bill that provides military and financial assistance to Ukraine may be easier than new bills aimed at just supporting Ukraine would be.

Edit: to be clear, I’m hoping Ukraine gets more support from this, as my personal view is strongly in support of Ukraine. I don’t know that this will pan out that way, but I see a potential angle for it if democrats have the savvy to do it.

I think Russia probably encouraged this, but I think it’s another miscalculation. America is set up at this point to fight proxy wars. Now all that happens is Israel weapons gets added as a line item alongside Ukraine on a defense budget bill that’s now easier to pass. So they may have been involved or just encouraged, but I think it’s gonna backfire.

I think if they were involved it will backfire on them. The reality is it is now going to be a lot easier, and the military-industrial complex is extremely eager, to put aid for Israel as a joint package in aid with Ukraine. Net result may be that aid is enhanced for both nations.

Edit: that said they do want Iranian drones. I could see them supporting it from that perspective and also happy to run their misinformation campaigns for them to dry and drive a wedge.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whataboutism

Or the Oxford definition:

what·a·bout·ism /ˌ(h)wədəˈboudizəm/ nounBRITISH the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue.

Edit: downvoting the actual definition from two external, highly authoritative sources that support my previous comments is certainly an interesting choice

Ignoring the ad hominem in your post, I never said Hamas was Palestine. I said that things done to Palestine are grotesque. I said this action by Hamas was grotesque, and replying to the original commenter that it was “almost as bad” as heinous acts done by the recipient of this evil act does not justify this evil act.

And the Holocaust has literally nothing to do with this discussion, as you mention. Better to make your point would be to actually discuss whataboutism as a definition and provide discussion for why making a counter accusational justification doesn’t qualify as whataboutism (note: the definition of whataboutism is literally responding to an accusation with a counter accusation in an attempt to side step the issue, which I believe is exactly what happened here, eg “this evil act (the accusation) is actually not that bad because of the other evil acts of Israel (counter accusation)”).

So my argument still stands to the tenets by definition, I never equated Hamas to Palestine (and in fact made the same point that acts done to them were also horrible), and never defended Israel or Hamas. I just don’t believe that killing civilians, or committing war crimes or attempting terror campaigns, is justifiable (by either side).

Saying “this is almost as bad” establishes a comparison, and in the context establishes justification for this event because of the comparator. So your response to the barbarism here is a tacit justification by comparison, or taken in another view, a counter accusation. Which is definitive whataboutism: responding to an accusation with a counter accusation.

What Israel does is as you described. But can we please not use whataboutism to try and justify barbaric behavior? This is grotesque. Things done to Palestine are grotesque. Let’s just call evil things evil and not try and say “hey cause someone else did an evil this evil is okay.”