…beginning to wonder if there’s even a right side of the bed to get out of any more…but…silver linings & all…apparently that might be a superpower?

New research indicates that anger can help people overcome challenges or obstacles that might get in the way of their ambitions.

A study published this week in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that participants who completed a variety of challenging tasks in a state of anger performed better than participants who felt other emotions such as sadness, desire or amusement.

…it’s from the university of texas…so…take with an appropriate volume of salt…but…”a state of anger” is a little vague if you ask me…so…even if it wasn’t from the home of that batshit fifth circuit I’d be side-eyeing some of where a write up of that sort of conclusion looked to be going…still…there’s something to it…how did it go again?

“When people were angry and they persisted, they were more likely to succeed,” she said. “But in all the other emotional states, when they persisted, they were more likely to fail. So it seems to suggest that people were persistent more effectively when they were angry.”

…admittedly that would be in the context of “word puzzles”…but…in real-world terms maybe the ability to parse opaque shit when you’re pissed off is the silver-lining of our times?

Across all challenging situations, participants in the angry state were more likely to attain the desired goal.

…you know…all things in moderation

Not all forms of anger are useful for achieving goals, according to psychology experts.
[…]
“Anger can be motivating. But that doesn’t mean that we turn thinking off,” Lench said. “So when we feel angry, stopping and thinking about why we’re angry is probably an important step too.”
[…]
If taken too far, severe bouts of anger can degrade one’s ability to accomplish tasks, said Raymond Tafrate, a clinical psychologist and professor in the department of criminology and criminal justice at Central Connecticut State University.

“There’s kind of a middle ground. Some anger is helpful, but there is that other side that I think we need to talk about as well,” said Tafrate, who wasn’t involved in the new research. “Anger that’s sort of mild or on the moderate end of the spectrum is probably life-enhancing for many people.”
[…]
Communicating one’s anger right away in social situations could even encourage others to listen to your perspective and increase the chances of coming to a resolution, said Todd Kashdan, a psychology professor at George Mason University, who also wasn’t part of the new research.

“I call this the discomfort caveat, and it just lets the other person know that you don’t want to be judged for how you phrase things. You just want them to know that there’s a problem here, you recognize that you want to point it out, and you want to offer an alternative,” Kashdan said. “Then what happens is you’re bringing their defenses down.”

Even if your words come out biting or aggressive, Kashdan said, people may still be receptive to your concerns.

Feeling angry may help people achieve their goals, study finds [NYT]

…so…if it doesn’t give me a coronary first…maybe there’s hope for me yet?

I’m not even going to get started on the security implications of everything the Speaker of the House does on his devices being scanned by an app called “Covenant Eyes”

Mostly because my blood pressure is in a good place and I want to keep it there. https://t.co/6663N0B71v

— Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) November 6, 2023

…& I know there’s several votes that happen today…including one in ohio…that have the potential to make a lot of people angry…so…fingers crossed & all…but…in terms of threading that needle between the kind of angry that might be a catalyst…& the sort that blows up in your face…it’s a struggle

The health and environmental damage caused by food production costs the world $10tn (£8tn) a year, or 10% of global GDP, the UN said.
[…]
“In the last [few] years people have realised planetary boundaries have been put under pressure and, in many cases, crossed,” said David Laborde, director of the FAO agrifood economics division.

“While food is central to our life, it also has significant impact on the environment and health,” he said. “Assigning them a value is one way to quantify these different impacts.”

But he added: “We should not just enter this debate with a high-income lens. In the global north, the public discourse has long included discussion of ecosystems and unhealthy diets, but the cost of poverty and malnourishment is overlooked.”

The report said current food systems increased poverty in low-income countries. Many farmers in poorer countries did not fully benefit from the value of their produce, as they often sold on their crops to traders and manufacturers, who made the profit, it said. This left farmers unable to afford nutritious diets.

“In Uganda, for example, the hidden cost of agricultural system is 20% of GDP; 70% of that is linked to poverty,” said Laborde.
[…]
“Twenty years ago, hunger and malnutrition was still common in many of today’s middle-income countries,” Laborde said. “Today we know that if you did not have enough to eat when you were growing up, you become more prone to diet-related diseases as an adult.”

A 2020 British Medical Journal study found that experiencing severe malnutrition or famine as a child raised the risk in later life of cardiovascular disease, impaired glucose metabolism and metabolic syndrome (a cluster of medical conditions – such as obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar – that increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes).

Laborde called this combination of overnutrition (obesity) and undernutrition (stunting) “a double burden of malnutrition”, adding: “High-income countries do not have problems like these.

…kinda did a cartoon double-take around that part…but…that’s what outliers that skew the curve do to a mean, I suppose…by that standard I’m not sure the US or the UK get to clear the bar into “high-income countries” given that those are problems both those populations have singularly failed to avoid widespread incidence of

These non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have traditionally been considered a problem specific to the global north, while public health policies in the global south have concentrated on preventing infectious diseases, such as HIV. But today 74% of deaths worldwide are caused by NCDs and 77% of these happen in low- and middle-income countries.

Liz Arnanz, from NCD Alliance, a global organisation fighting these diseases, said: “Unhealthy products have industries behind them.

“Growing economies are seen as new markets for these industries; often they are attracted by lack of regulation or lack of capacity to enforce the regulation. At the moment we can, for example, see the alcohol industry targeting African countries very aggressively.”

But many middle-income countries are proactively responding to the growing threat of unhealthy foods and products. In Latin America, NCDs account for 70-85% of deaths, but the region had become a global leader on implementing preventative policies, Arnanz said.
[…]
Laborde said that reducing the health and environmental costs of food production did not have a universal solution.

“We can’t just increase the price of food and hope that the market will solve the problems,” he said. “For example, if we simply increase the price of steak to reflect some of the hidden costs associated with its production, it will not be the rich people who reduce their meat consumption.

“The solutions are more multifaceted; in some cases it’s education, in others, school feeding programmes. We can do a lot, but not if we oversimplify.”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/nov/06/global-health-disease-environmental-costs-food-industry-10tn-dollars-a-year-un-fao

…the solutions aren’t simple…but in some senses some of the problems seem like they are

October, November and December are usually a period of transition. By now, the dry season would normally have peaked, and rivers and aquifers would start to replenish. But the rains refuse to come. And with every day that passes, the sense of foreboding grows stronger.

The Xingu River, where we take our dogs each morning, is 4 metres below its peak and the small tributary, where I usually canoe, has shrunk to an ankle-deep stream. In the house, the kitchen and bathroom taps run dry for a few hours every two or three days. Wasps that usually buzz around the fruit bowl now congregate near the pipes, seeking drops of water ahead of nectar. Toads seek refuge in our dogs’ water bowls.

To a lesser degree, all of these things happen every dry season, but this is no normal year, as I confirmed with a couple of Brazil’s top scientists. Marcelo Seluchi, the head of modelling and operations at the Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alert Centre, told me this is already one of the worst droughts in the history of the Amazon, an area the size of Europe.
[…]
Many rivers in the region, including the mighty Rio Negro, he said, have fallen to levels not seen since measurements began more than a century ago. I saw that shocking sight myself a couple of weeks ago.

Temperatures in many areas have hit record highs and the drought is far from over. Seluchi said the latest forecasts suggest rains will not return to most parts of the Amazon until the end of this month.

At a recent crisis meeting organised by the National Water and Sanitation Agency and president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva’s chief of staff, experts warned of threats to hydroelectric dams and river transport of essential commodities, such as food, fuel and medicine. Meteorologists explained that this year’s Amazon drought is anomalously severe due to the El Niño effect, Atlantic Ocean heating and the climate crisis.

This explanation is accurate but narrow, missing many of the main causes of this problem and the most workable solutions. The most important of those, proved by recent studies, is that a healthy forest does not only generate its own rainfall, but also acts as a powerful regional cooler. If you clear the vegetation, as many farmers continue to do – albeit at a much slower rate than they did under the rule of the rightwing former president Jair Bolsonaro – then the region will become hotter and drier due to local effects and global climate disruption.

This is where my bovine neighbours come into the picture. The beef industry is the biggest driver of Amazon deforestation. Nothing else comes close. Land-grabbers use cows as occupying armies to strengthen their claims on stolen and cleared forest. This has become one of the world’s most heinous climate crimes. A mind-boggling new report by the Climate Observatory notes that Brazil’s beef industry now has a bigger carbon footprint than Japan. Dwell on that for a moment. This country has 220 million cows, 43% of which are in the Amazon. Their global heating emissions – from their burps and farts, but mostly through their owners’ connections to forest clearance and fires – are now greater than all the cars, factories, air conditioners, electric gadgets and other forms of carbon consumption of 125 million Japanese people living in one of the most industrialised economies on Earth. When slaughtered, the cattle make billions of dollars for global food conglomerates. Through cows, these companies intensify the climate crisis and, thus, probably help to make El Niños more likely.

…look…I’m not gonna lie…I’m partial to a good bit of beef…but…the good stuff isn’t the shit trying to collapse the lungs of the world…so I’m pretty sure I’ve ticked the anger box for this morning already…& I’m barely awake yet…so…deep breath…today might be rough…best to remember it could be worse?

…damn it…it’s not working…that just reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Even_the_Rain…sorry folks…it’s gonna get worse before it gets better

Carlos Nobre, one of Brazil’s most influential climatologists, confirmed to me that cattle farm deforestation is contributing – along with the primary causes of El Niño and Atlantic warming – to this year’s devastating dry season. The danger, he warned, is that such extreme climate events will, within two decades, push the Amazon to a critical point, after which the region will desiccate and be unable to maintain itself as a tropical rainforest. In the southern part of the south-eastern Amazon, he said, the forest is very close to that point of no return. The dry season there is four to five weeks longer than it was in 1979, tree mortality is rising and the forest emits more carbon than it absorbs.

On a more hopeful note, he says that deforestation slowed rapidly in most Amazonian countries this year. That alone will not be enough to prevent reaching that critical moment. Regional governments will also need help from wealthy nations – which are historically largely responsible for the climate crisis – to reduce fires and forest degradation, and to embark on large-scale reforestation programmes. At Cop28 in Dubai later this month, Nobre will help to launch one such project, named Arc of Restoration.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/06/aggressive-deforestation-has-led-to-one-of-the-amazons-worst-droughts

…&…the observer effect being in effect is a meaningful component of some high stakes shit in this day & age…so…blind eyes aren’t exactly what we need more of…but…you got to regulate the intake at some point…because the raw feed isn’t keeping anyone in that potentially productive window of usefully angry

For the first time in my adult life I cannot watch – or read – the news. Its presentation makes me profoundly upset. For over a week I have not read, heard or watched the news from Israel/Palestine. I am afraid doing this has made me feel better. I have asked around and many other people are doing the same.

I would normally consider it shocking to not know what is going on elsewhere in the world. We owe it to common humanity not to ignore inhumanity, wherever it occurs. We should listen and at least sympathise, even if to no concrete purpose. The obligation on journalists is more specific; it is to supply the requisite information, which can be unpleasant to collect and convey. I have visited war zones and found it harrowing. Unspeakable horrors are occurring somewhere on Earth all the time. The media may have space for only so much. When did you last hear about Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo – or even Ukraine? But the effort must be made, not dodged.

…or myanmar, for another of a seemingly inexhaustible list

Now we have the most intensive, 24/7 coverage of extreme violence that I can recall. The evening news coyly says scenes are “too awful to show” and then that “viewers may find some scenes distressing”, as if to draw us from whatever else we are doing. This is tabloid television, offering a ghoulish gloss on what news should be about, which is facts and their informed interpretation. Yet it is assumed that we cannot handle this, and instead are given endless vox pops with people on the ground. We need something to stir the emotions. In this respect, television is in a different league from radio and the print press.

Horror fuels a dangerous instinct, that of blame. Since every vox pop from Gaza must be preceded or followed by one from Israel, viewers are drawn into arguments fuelled by heat not light. There is no history or background. Tearful victims get more time than decision-makers or experts. And after the blame comes the overwhelming sense of impotence. What can we do? Should we shout, march, write, shut up? Mostly we feel sad and return to our lives, pretending nothing has changed. Or at least most of us do.

…it’s a spectrum…few of us have the luxury of foregoing the more relentless demands of the daily grind…or the coffee runs out pretty fast in my experience…& some things are called essentials for a reason

Psychologists tell us how to cope with bad news when it affects us personally. They advise us to analyse it, assess the risk, seek a way forward and take action. But that is when it is personal and we have some agency over events.

…like…not running out of coffee…which…when you throw in them rain forests…is a bigger ask than seems fair in a world without coffee…if you ask me, anyway

The evils of the outside world are in a different mental sphere. We can do nothing directly about them and must remain spectators of other people’s agony. During Covid addictions to “doomsurfing” and “doomscrolling” soared. People obsessively monitoried news of the disease by the hour. This led to sensations of fear, sadness and anger, and an increase in cases of depression and trauma. As with bad news generally, its appeal was said to be an evolutionary response to potential danger – humans crave a warning.

There must be a limit. It is one thing to be reminded occasionally of the suffering of others, and of our own impotence when it comes to changing the world around us. I cannot see that relentless real-time depictions of horror is instilling any virtue. We – and our children – are expected to witness screaming, bleeding, angry people, night after night. This cannot increase public understanding of what is happening, only add to anger, discord and mental distress. I want to watch the news; what is being shown is something different.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/07/we-cannot-turn-away-from-suffering-but-i-can-no-longer-watch-the-news-coverage-from-israel-and-gaza

…&…no disrespect to simon jenkins…who I think makes a pretty decent fist of a pretty decent point & is as far as as I know a pretty decent chap in general…but…I’m a little curious how he didn’t find time to at least note that a french lady kinda famously wrote a primer on that dilemma a while back

…so…nothing new under the sun & all…but…well.

‘When is it too early to teach your kids about genocide?’ Inside the Imperial War Museum’s harrowing new galleries [Guardian]

…I know I’ve had more than enough of some of this shit

As Donald Trump prepared to take the stand in the civil fraud trial that could destroy his business empire, the ex-president and his attorneys settled on a strategy built on spite and unbridled antagonism. According to two sources familiar with the matter and another person briefed on Team Trump’s legal strategies, Trump and his lawyers want to intentionally provoke the judge into a nuclear-level overreaction.

Trump just yelled at the judge for a several minute stretch. The judge has his brow furrowed, but otherwise didn't react.

— erica orden (@eorden) November 6, 2023

They certainly seem to be carrying out the plan on Monday. Trump dodged questions and ranted about this “haters” while on the witness stand, leading Judge Arthur Engoron to scold him repeatedly and push the former president’s attorneys to rein in their client. “I beseech you to control him if you can,” Engoron implored. “If you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.”

This is unbelievable.

Trump has been screaming insults at AG James in the front row—“The fraud is her!”—and completely lost it at Engoron.

“He called me a fraud, and he didn’t know anything about me!”

“You knew nothing about me…you believe this political hack back there!”

— Molly Crane-Newman (@molcranenewman) November 6, 2023

The ex-president’s legal advisers had long ago told Trump that his chances of winning at trial are close to zero — hence, their scorched-earth, “Fyre Festival”-style courtroom performances. According to the three sources, several Trump attorneys and other key allies have advised him that the more the New York judge supposedly “overreacts” — including perhaps remanding Trump — the better their case for an appeal will be.

“I call it the Chicago 7 disruption strategy,” Alan Dershowitz, the celebrity lawyer who defended then-President Trump during his first impeachment, tells Rolling Stone.

Trump and His Lawyers Dare N.Y. Judge to Throw Him in Jail [Rolling Stone]

…so…much as I’m weird enough that I’d probably be up for a ride along on a forensic accounting of the MAGA ecosystem of the sort that might be an appendix to a concordance to the myriad legal entanglements the tinpot tangerine tyrant throwing tantrums is desperately trying to subvert…on balance I think denying him the live streamed option is probably the wiser choice

The Justice Department formally urged a federal judge Friday to reject calls by news organizations and by former president Donald Trump’s defense to allow live television coverage of his federal trial in March on charges of illegally conspiring to subvert the results of the 2020 election, joining a potentially historic legal battle over public access to the federal courts.
[…]
Trump’s defense took no position on the media’s request to the court, but his attorney John Lauro repeatedly called for the election subversion case to be televised before and after Trump’s indictment, adding in a Fox News interview, “and I would hope the Department of Justice would join in that effort so that we take the curtain away and all Americans get to see what’s happening.”
[…]
Ordered by Chutkan to respond by Friday, prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith said that the court’s hands were tied, arguing that the media applicants’ proposal “is clearly foreclosed under Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure,” which prohibits “the broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom.”

Courts have long upheld the rule’s constitutionality, and the federal judiciary reaffirmed the policy in criminal cases as recently as September, assistant special counsels James I. Pearce and John M. Pellettieri wrote in an 18-page filing for the Justice Department, adding, “Whatever policy the Applicants believe supports their requested relief is not properly directed to the Court. … This Court should deny the Applications.”

Since the dawn of the television age, federal courts have prohibited cameras in the courtroom, wary of feeding what the Supreme Court called in a landmark 1966 decision a “carnival atmosphere” of publicity that could intimidate witnesses, sway jurors, prompt grandstanding by attorneys or judges or deprive criminal defendants of their due process rights. That fear was exacerbated nearly three decades ago by the nine-month televised criminal trial and acquittal of retired football star O.J. Simpson on state murder charges in California.

…in general it seems like if you ask yourself what that guy would do…or indeed want someone else to do so he could…pretty reliably doing the fucking opposite is hands down the way to go, after all…but…at the same time…we’re going to be drowning in that kind of things ‘ere too long as it is

“I have my skepticisms about whether these courtroom-camera efforts can prevail, but it is also unquestionably the case that the argument for cameras here is at its all-time strongest,” University of Utah law professor RonNell Andersen Jones wrote in an email, adding, “It is hard to imagine any case or any defendant in the whole history of our federal courts that is as central to the public interest as this one.”

Jones said traditional concerns about creating a “circus atmosphere” or causing problems for witnesses or defendants can be addressed by limiting access to one camera or releasing footage after court approval. “Audio streaming,” she said, “although it would rob the audience of the key visual cues and still give rise to misinformation-laden disputes about interpretation, would be another option that would at least give the general public more concrete information about what is happening.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty to an Aug. 1 indictment accusing him of a criminal conspiracy to remain in office, obstruct Congress’s lawful certification of Joe Biden’s victory and deprive Americans of their civil right to have their votes counted.
[…]
The case is one of four felony prosecutions launched this year against Trump. They include similar allegations by Georgia officials of trying to obstruct that state’s election results. He also has been federally indicted in Florida over his alleged retention and mishandling of classified documents and obstruction after leaving the White House, and is accused in New York state of business fraud and covering up a hush money payment made during the 2016 election campaign.

Trump’s federal cases both fall under the rule barring televised courtroom proceedings. New York state courts have a similar ban, although acting New York Supreme Court justice Juan M. Merchan permitted photographers to record still images before Trump’s arraignment in April, over Trump’s objections. By contrast, Trump’s Georgia court is expected to permit telecasting of his trial, and it streams all hearings on the court’s YouTube channel and permits a “pooled” news television camera in the courtroom.

Trump and media want a televised trial in D.C. The Justice Dept. doesn’t. [WaPo]

…& with come-on-aileen’s propensity for letting him have his head when it comes to dragging his procedural feet…it’s going to be that way for what will doubtless feel like forever…&…I guess…never underestimate the cheapskate’s addiction to trying to get people to give away for free the kind of campaign publicity money can’t buy?

Donald Trump portrayed himself as the victim of “election interference” and a “political witch hunt.” He talked about crime in the streets of New York. And he decried the “weaponization” of a judicial system that he alleges, without evidence, is unfairly targeting him.
[…]
But the former president wasn’t speaking at a campaign rally in Iowa or New Hampshire — his typical venue for airing grievances, baseless claims and other invective. Instead, he appeared Monday inside a courtroom here in the city where he has spent most of his adult life. New York Attorney General Letitia James was alleging that he and his company falsely inflated property values to gain lending advantages, and Trump was on the witness stand.

As he testified for several hours at 60 Centre St., Trump insulted James, calling her a “political hack.” He frequently sparred with the judge in the case, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, at one point saying, “He called me a fraud, and he didn’t know anything about me.”

Trump at times looked annoyed or bored, holding his hands in his lap as he faced questions from Kevin Wallace of the attorney general’s office about the Trump Organization’s past financial statements. Trump shook his head and sat back in his chair as his lawyers argued with Engoron. He called the process a “crazy trial.”

He flipped through documents from the state. Partway through the day, he took out a piece of paper, claiming it would exculpate him, and asked the judge if he could read it.
[…]
Monday’s testimony offered a glimpse of the extraordinary intersection of a presidential candidate’s political strategy and conduct in court. Facing 91 criminal charges across four indictments, Trump is expected to have to spend much of his next year dealing with cases, potentially finding himself in and out of courtrooms as he seeks a return to the presidency.

Now the clear polling leader in the Republican primary, Trump has leveraged his legal entanglements as a way to portray himself as a victim of an effort through the courts to stop him politically. He declared the trial “very unfair” on Monday and said: “I hope the public is watching.”

…he hopes they’re watching, sure

Trump doesn’t just want to win. He wants revenge. [WaPo]

…just like he hopes they aren’t paying attention

And when Trump criticized the merits of the case, Engoron, not hiding his exasperation with the former president’s meandering answers, addressed Trump’s lawyers: “Can you control your client? This is not a political rally.”

When asked about a 2021 financial statement, Trump replied that he was “so busy” in the White House. “My threshold was China, Russia and keeping our country safe,” he said.

Except that Trump had already left the White House by late January of that year, which Wallace quickly noted.

“You weren’t president in 2021, correct?” he asked.

Trump responded: “No, I wasn’t.”
[…]
Earlier in the day, the Trump campaign was fundraising off his appearance in court, claiming “this is how dictatorships are born” and posting on his social media website throughout the day.

As he was leaving the courthouse, Trump stuck a final note of defiance.

“It’s a case that should be immediately dismissed,” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/06/trump-court-fraud-trial-new-york/

…dunno about “dismissed”…but I increasingly know more than I want to about “out of hand”…so…with all due respect to the overabundance of arguably bigger deals we have the misfortune to choose from in the misfortune stakes

Why Does the Right Hate America? [NYT]

Trump May Not Need a Coup This Time [NYT]

Republicans Have Chosen Nihilism [NYT]

‘MAGA Mike Johnson’ and Our Broken Christian Politics [NYT]

…I have a confession to make…I am…depending how you look at it…either rationally or irrationally…monumentally pissed off about something

Grok, the company said, is modeled on “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” It is supposed to have “a bit of wit,” “a rebellious streak” and it should answer the “spicy questions” that other AI might dodge, according to a Saturday statement from xAI.

…I can’t even type the kind of ire this is inducing in me…which it always would when that asshole starts citing shit that he wants to ride the coattails of which past the part where you notice what he’s talking about is not a thing to which it reasonably pertains…to wit…the hitchhiker’s guide had wit…it wasn’t a witless fucking facade fed…of all the unfeasibly fallible fucking datasets on which to pre-train a discount chinese room…fucking Xitter…so…there’s that

Leading up to the release, Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, an example of Grok responding to a request for a step-by-step cocaine recipe.

“Oh sure!” Grok responded. “Just a moment while I pull up the recipe for homemade cocaine. You know, because I’m totally going to help you with that.”

…give me strength

Still, xAI hedged in its statement, as with any Large Language Model, or LLM, Grok “can still generate false or contradictory information.”

The prototype is in its early beta phase, only two months in training and is available to a select number of users to test out before the company releases it more widely. Users can sign up for a waitlist for a chance to use the bot. Eventually, Musk said on X, Grok will be a feature of X Premium+, which costs $16 per month.

The Tesla and Space X CEO appears to be positioning xAI as a challenger to companies like OpenAI, Inflection and Anthropic.

…so…there are literally any number of ways I could be legitimately pissed off about this kind of “solution” to not addressing the problems it’s causing

OpenAI offers to pay for ChatGPT customers’ copyright lawsuits [Guardian]

How countries around the world are trying to regulate AI [Quartz]

What OpenAI Really Wants [Wired]

Inside Elon Musk’s Struggle for the Future of AI [Time]

…but…I’d be lying if I said one of them wasn’t that they done went & burnt a decent fucking name for one of these transformers

Grok is a term coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1961 science fiction novel “Stranger in a Strange Land.” In the book, ‘grok’ is a Martian term with no direct Earthling translation. Critics have debated the word’s exact definition but have settled on some version of having very deep empathy or intuition with something. Merriam-Webster defines it simply as a transitive verb that means “to understand profoundly and intuitively.”

Elon Musk debuts ‘Grok,’ an AI bot to rival ChatGPT and others [NBC]

…damn it…I swear this is why we can’t have nice things