Greta is Returning

I am for letting her land in Gaza so she can enjoy the company of her Hamas friends. Retarded, she is. Ben Gvir offers them a long stay in the familiar Ketziot jail, like ordinary, garden-variety terrorists. The Red Cross will visit them daily.  

 

Afrodita de Milo

European female perfection. 

She may have been a bit wide and heavy on the bottom side. 

Form meets function.

 

Lou Ruvo Brain Health Center, Las Vegas

The building, designed by Frank Gehry, is known for its two distinct parts: an orthogonal medical clinic and an undulating stainless steel building that houses a large, open atrium.

It radiates meaning. Form meets function. 

Osmotic Power for the Rich

On one side, there is concentrated seawater created by extracting fresh water; on the other, treated water from a sewage treatment facility. The membrane allows water to pass but blocks impurities. As water naturally moves toward the saltier side, pressure builds and is used to spin a turbine, which then drives a generator. The energy generated is minimal, and most of it is used to power the pumps. The photo shows the world's first plant near Oslo. 

Of course, this plant is not economically viable; it is a mechanical toy for people with excess resources, time, and energy. How good that life is so easy! 

Dreaming

 
Woke up at 0600 AM. Then started the dreaming phase. I was in a city similar to old Buenos Aires, and wanted to walk from Rivadavia to Ramon Falcon, my street. I had to go through private houses and passages between houses. Interesting. 

Start selling Nvidia?

 Claude says WAIT. 

1. Historical precedent is clear - No company has sustained P/S ratios above 40x for extended periods, regardless of how revolutionary their technology was
2. The gap is extreme - Palantir at 69x sales isn't just slightly above historical peaks; it's in uncharted territory that suggests pure speculation rather than fundamental analysis
3. Even quality doesn't justify everything - While Nvidia and Palantir do have competitive moats, valuations this extreme assume near-perfect execution and market dominance for years to come

The key insight is that even if AI proves as transformative as the internet (which it likely will), that doesn't mean current stock prices are justified. The internet revolutionized everything, but most internet stocks from 1999-2000 were still terrible investments at those prices.

Bottom line: The Motley Fool's argument is mathematically sound and historically grounded. These valuations price in not just success, but perfect, uninterrupted dominance - something the market rarely delivers, even for the best companies.

Asked  Claude when to sell:

Bottom Line: Nvidia is a hold rather than an immediate sell, despite some short-term technical concerns. Wait for the Aug 28 earnings results before making major selling decisions.

What if...?

 TSEM - 9% up today. Only yesterday I was considering it. Cowards never win.

Tasmania

By 1804, the British colonial government & their convicts started to slaughter and murder the Tasmanians in cold blood because they didn’t consider the Aborigines to be full humans.

From X.

Not really. The main issue was that they stole the sheep.

118 Aborigines were killed by British settlers between 1803 and 1834. Seventy-two of these killings took place during the warfare of 1824-31, in which Aborigines themselves slew 187 whites, including women and children.

The last Tasmanian died around 1854.

BTW, Australian Aborigines were latecomers. The continent was peopled by Philippine pygmies, and they replaced them. That is the sapiens way.

Europe exists

 

The President of the United States faces the leaders of Europe. We live in a tri-polar system: America, the EU, and China. The EU project is developing flesh and bones. It is no longer the 1951 Coal and Steel Community founded by Schumann.

Seeing the fruits of the seed I planted fifty years ago

 Pancho Cue produces cheese. 

One of my projects has matured (after half a century). 

Optimism in Israel

More Mutual Funds CEO and CIO Yotav Costica agrees that the market optimism stems from expectations that are broader than a deal with Hamas. He says, “The last few months have been very positive for the Israeli capital market, which has managed to deliver significant excess returns relative to the world, both in the stock market and the bonds market. This was due to the military success in Lebanon and the subsequent ceasefire, the fall of [Syrian president Bashir al-]Assad and the election of [Donald] Trump. We estimate that the positive trend will continue due to the emerging [Hamas] deal, which could provide a tailwind for the Israeli stock market, which may continue to outperform Europe and the US. In addition, it can be assumed that the shekel, which has been one of the strongest currencies in the world in recent months, will continue to strengthen, especially if we see the Abraham Accords expanding.”

Lying Models

This is not me, I copied it from a chat. Models do these things

 

AI speaks fluent Halandzsa

 

Rather than showing the capability for generalized logical inference, these chain-of-thought models are “a sophisticated form of structured pattern matching” that “degrades significantly” when pushed even slightly outside of its training distribution, the researchers write. Further, the ability of these models to generate “fluent nonsense” creates “a false aura of dependability” that does not stand up to a careful audit.

As such, the researchers warn heavily against “equating [chain-of-thought]-style output with human thinking” especially in “high-stakes domains like medicine, finance, or legal analysis.” Current tests and benchmarks should prioritize tasks that fall outside of any training set to probe for these kinds of errors, while future models will need to move beyond “surface-level pattern recognition to exhibit deeper inferential competence,” they write. __ Fluent Nonsense

Halandzsa is a secret language invented by Karinthy Frigyes in Budapest in the 1920s. Two people are chatting when a third, uninvited fellow comes near to take part in the conversation. The original participants continue as before, but introduce invented words and sentences, making the third person wonder what they are talking about and in what language. After a while, he gives up and leaves. They were speaking "Halandzsa". AI learned the art and speaks it fluently. 

The Islamic Brotherhood of Gaza

 ZAHAL's General Staff meeting. For some reason, one of the emblems on the wall has been obscured. The main item: War in Gaza. The Mission: Destroy HAMAS, the Islamic Brotherhood. I feel that the world will vilify us as in the Middle Ages, when we were accused of having killed God.   

Investing in Rare Earths Mining

 I am exploring the possibilities. The sector is overinvested, but the American Defense Department has ensured a high price (double the Chinese) and will buy every gram. A good site to start. 

Spending on Computers

MICROSOFT 1Q CAPEX SEEN AT MORE THAN $30 BILLION.

I am planning to upgrade my computer (CAPEX 700 dollars)

I have never seen such a ferocious competition as the AI product.

Investing Advice

Artificial intelligence (AI) investing is still one of the best growth stories in the market. The amount of money flowing into this space is incredible, and with the results that many companies have announced recently, it's clear that this success will be ongoing for some time.

The Economist explores my long-time conclusion: the relationship between risk and return simply is not there.

Instead of pricing assets by their variance, investors price them according to two fears: fear of loss (FOL) and fear of missing out (FOMO). Whereas risk is measured by variance, FOL refers only to its downside (or “semivariance”). An asset inspires FOMO if it has the chance of wild, unexpected gains that those shunning it might miss. This is measured by the “skewness”, or asymmetry, of its return distribution.

BuSab Instructions

 

Incredible, during WWII, there was a real Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab). See two pages of their manual of sabotage. The “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” published in 1944 by the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor to the CIA) to train citizen-saboteurs in Nazi-occupied Europe.

They did not return from Auschwitz

Klein Gyula (60) was my grandfather. The Klein and Kertesz were all relatives deported in August 1944.  

Miracle in Samaria

 Exactly 20 years after it was uprooted and several months after the government approved its resettlement, the uprooted families of the Samaria village of Sa-Nur and young couples have formed a core resettlement group and are organizing to reestablish the community.

Jewish mtDNA

 

The Ashkenazi group shows a foundational effect, with very few (maybe four) Western European females founding the community. The Sepharadi communities also have foundational females. The small Belmonte and Caucasus communities all have one or two "mothers", but also the Iranian and Iraqi Jewries show four or five local women responsible for half of their population. Moroccan and other North African communities have no founder effects, and interestingly, they have no Sub-Saharan introgression that is common in the host populations. The Ethiopian group is 100% African, with no connection to other Jewish communities. 

How is it that after a few hundred years of foundation, most of the female mtDNA lines disappear, and only a few survive? Do the missing ones die off, assimilate, or never come into existence? Apparently, selection acts most strongly on the females. 

CLAUDE the AI says that the reduced number of female founders in isolated communities is because of genetic drift, by pure chance. After ten or so generations, the number of surviving lineages is reduced by half.

Nitazenes

 Nitazenes are synthetic opioids considered 10 times more potent than fentanyl, and some variants can be 800 times more potent than morphine and 40 times more potent than even fentanyl. It is starting to appear in the illegal drug market. It is terrible, causing accidental deaths.