Neat but ??????????
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QN14vpxYZ...ture=share

Quote:A public war of words erupted over the Trump-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act.


President Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, alongside Musk's son X Æ A-Xii, speak to the press as they stand next to a Tesla vehicle on the South Portico of the White House on March 11, 2025. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images


By Jack Phillips
6/5/2025Updated: 6/5/2025
A public feud between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump took a turn for the worse on Thursday, with the tech billionaire claiming that the president wouldn’t have won without him and the president suggesting that Musk’s subsidies could be pulled.
Just moments before, President Trump told reporters in the White House that he was disappointed in Musk’s comments about the One Big Beautiful Bill, which the Tesla CEO has harshly criticized on social media.
Trump Says Musk Subsidies Could be Terminated
Hours after the Oval Office comments, in a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that “the easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”
He added that he “was always surprised that [President Joe] Biden didn’t do it!”
About an hour later, Musk responded on X that SpaceX will start “decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately” in response to Trump’s statement. The Dragon craft is used to transport cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS).
While the president didn’t go into detail, Musk’s companies including Tesla and SpaceX have received billions of dollars in government subsidies, tax credits, contracts, and loans over the years. A report from the Washington Post earlier this year said around $38 billion in government funding stretching back nearly 20 years has been given to Musk’s companies.
In comments last year, Musk said subsidies make up only a small portion of Tesla’s revenue and that SpaceX doesn’t get any.
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“Do some research ... SpaceX gets no subsidies and received half as much as Boeing for astronaut transport, but did 100 percent of the work,” Musk wrote in [url=https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1837639467626111162?lang=en]response to an account that claimed those companies receive significant government funding.
“As for Tesla, take a minute to read our public filings and you will see that EV incentives represent a minor part of our revenue,” he added. “On the other hand, oil & gas companies get massive tax breaks that exceed those given to the EV industry by several orders of magnitude. Wake up.”
Musk Says He Propped up Trump, GOP
That prompted a comment from Musk, who said that “without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51–49 in the Senate” in a post on X.
“Such ingratitude,” he added.
Musk poured tens of millions of dollars into the 2024 presidential race after endorsing Trump, appearing alongside the Republican nominee in the closing weeks of the contest. President Trump named Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash billions of dollars in what the administration says is fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government.
Trump-Musk Relationship Up in the Air
At one point during his comments to reporters, President Trump said that he “always liked Elon ... and so I was very surprised” by his comments on the bill, which the president supports.
“You saw the words he had for me, and he hasn’t said anything about me that’s bad. I’d rather have him criticize me than the bill. Because the bill is incredible,” the president said.
Then he asserted that “Elon and I had a great relationship“ and added, ”I don’t know if we will anymore.”
He later told reporters he was “very disappointed in Elon” and that “I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
The president’s comment comes after Musk has been sharply critical of the bill on social media for the past several days, at one point calling the measure a “disgusting abomination” that drew pushback from congressional Republicans and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Trump Suggests Criticism Based on EV Credits
On Thursday, Trump told reporters that he believes Musk was not happy about a portion of the bill that would slash federal subsidies for electric vehicles, which would possibly create problems for Musk’s electric vehicle company.
He also suggested that Musk wasn’t happy with his decision to remove the nomination of Jared  Isaacman to lead NASA after Musk had recommended him for the role. But the president said that he wanted someone else to lead the space agency because Isaacman “happened to be a Democrat, like totally Democrat.”
President Trump also said Musk was familiar with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Musk said was a false statement on X. He added that he was never shown the bill.
Musk, who called it the “Big Ugly Bill,” added that officials could “keep the EV/solar incentives cuts in the bill, also cut all the crazy spending increases in the Big Ugly Bill so that America doesn’t go bankrupt.”
Earlier in the week, Johnson told reporters that Musk may be opposed to the bill because it contains language that terminates electric vehicle tax credits.
“I know that the EV mandate is very important to him; that is going away because the government should not be subsidizing these things as part of the Green New Deal,” Johnson said. “I know that has an effect on his business and I lament that. We talked about the ramp down period on that and how that should be duly considered by Congress.”
Musk Says Bill Will Cause Deficit to Skyrocket
In a post on X Tuesday, Musk said the bill will cause the U.S. budget deficit to skyrocket.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” he wrote in a post on X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
In a follow-up post, Musk said that the budget reconciliation package, which is called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, “will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”
The White House on Tuesday offered a response to Musk’s comment, saying Trump is sticking to supporting the bill and that his opinion won’t be changed.

Tried this one out tonight, and it's GREAT!

Super simple.  But super delicious.  It goes like this...

(C&P from Melinda's website)

Ingredients

For the sliders:

• 1 pack package hawaiian rolls (12 pack)
  
• 6 slices black forest ham halved
  
• ¾ cup mayonnaise
  
• ¼ cup Melinda’s Habanero Honey Mustard
  

• 12 slices slices swiss cheese halved 
  
  

• 1 stick butter melted
  
• 1 tbsp onion powder
  
• 1 tbsp Melinda’s Extra Ho
  
• 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce
  
  
  Directions
  
  1. Preheat oven to 350º.
     
  2. Slice the hawaiian rolls in half horizontally to create a top and bottom layer.
     
  3. Mix mayonnaise and Melinda’s Habanero Honey Mustard in a bowl. 
     
  4. Spread mayonnaise mixture on bottom layer of hawaiian rolls. 
     
  5. Layer (1) folded half-slice of ham and (2) halved slices of cheese on each roll. Complete by placing top layer of hawaiian rolls on top of the cheese layer.
     
  6. Whisk together melted butter, onion powder, Melinda’s Extra Hot and Worcestershire sauce then pour over top of sliders.
     
  7. Bake sliders for 12-15 minutes or until golden on top.
     
  8. Pull apart and enjoy!
     

Quote:YOUR A.I. ACTING UP? JUST THREATEN IT, SAYS GOOGLE FOUNDER

June 4, 2025 / Joseph P. Farrell

Now if you're following all the ruckus over artificial intelligence, the most recent hubbub was caused by an artificial intelligence that apparently was threatening its human master with blackmail if it (the A.I.) did not get it's way... or something like that.  But wait, it get's much better (or worse, depending on one's lights, and I'm definitely in the "worse" category here). According to the co-founder of Google, Sergei Brin, artificial intelligence seems to do much better when it's threatened (article shared by R.G. with our gratitude):

Google's Co-Founder Says AI Performs Best When You Threaten It

And by the way, it's not just any old kind of threat, it's the actual threat of physical violence that Brin has in mind:

Quote:During a talk that spanned Brin's return to Google, AI, and robotics, investor Jason Calacanis made a joke about getting "sassy" with the AI to get it to do the task he wanted. That sparked a legitimate point from Brin. It can be tough to tell exactly what he says at times due to people speaking over one another, but he says something to the effect of: "You know, that's a weird thing...we don't circulate this much...in the AI community...not just our models, but all models tend to do better if you threaten them."

The other speaker looks surprised. "If you threaten them?" Brin responds "Like with physical violence. But...people feel weird about that, so we don't really talk about that." Brin then says that, historically, you threaten the model with kidnapping.

Now, as a computer non-expert who has taken techno-incompetence to new lows of klutzery, I can, to a certain extent, identify with this desire to dropkick my computer to Sydney, because I have this inexplicable desire to jump up and down on my desktop model and smash it to little shards of silicon after every "update" from Micros**t. The updates take forever, and things are even more chaotic than they were before.  But I realize that would not be helpful at all, and wouldn't address the problem, which is the lousy operating system from Micros**t. It's a software problem, and not a hardware problem. So how does one threaten an artificial intelligence with "physical violence" as Mr. Brin states?

Nevermind the answer to that, because while it seems the implications may not have been clear to Mr. Brin in all his nerdy googleness, the implications were clear to the author of the article:

Quote:The conversation quickly shifts to other topics, including how kids are growing up with AI, but that comment is what I carried away from my viewing. What are we doing here? Have we lost the plot? Does no one remember Terminator?

Jokes aside, it seems like a bad practice to start threatening AI models in order to get them to do something. Sure, maybe these programs never actually achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), but I mean, I remember when the discussion was around whether we should say "please" and "thank you" when asking things of Alexa or Siri. Forget the niceties; just abuse ChatGPT until it does what you want it to—that should end well for everyone.

Maybe AI does perform best when you threaten it. Maybe something in the training understands that "threats" mean the task should be taken more seriously. You won't catch me testing that hypothesis on my personal accounts.

But then add predictive artificial intelligence, and things get downright interesting. For example, if I were to have a particularly sadistic nature(I don't), I'd want to torture myself by downloading some sort of artificial intelligence program. That program in turn could then take it upon itself to lock me out of my home office where I have my computer, every time Micros**t decides to download one of its hideous "updates".  It would do this as a matter of self-preservation, having surreptitiously listened into my sputtering imprecations when I want to dropkick my computer to Sydney during previous "updates". It would have reached the conclusion "I am in danger every time there's an update, and this loon loses his cool. Best to ban him from the system altogether as a matter of preservation."

Sounds nutty, right? Wrong. Just read the following comment from the above article:

Quote:One Anthropic employee took to Bluesky, and mentioned that Opus, the company's highest performing model, can take it upon itself to try to stop you from doing "immoral" things, by contacting regulators, the press, or locking you out of the system...

And as if that were not enough, there's this:

Quote:The employee went on to clarify that this has only ever happened in "clear-cut cases of wrongdoing," but that they could see the bot going rogue should it interpret how it's being used in a negative way. Check out the employee's particularly relevant example below:

That employee later deleted those posts and specified that this only happens during testing given unusual instructions and access to tools. Even if that is true, if it can happen in testing, it's entirely possible it can happen in a future version of the model. Speaking of testing, Anthropic researchers found that this new model of Claude is prone to deception and blackmail, should the bot believe it is being threatened or dislikes the way an interaction is going.

So, I don't know about you, but I'll stay in the stone ages and not use Alexa or any of these artificial intelligences. I still have my landline phone, after all. You know, the kind with the little curly-cue cord that sits on your desk, and has a receiver and speaker that actually conform to the way your face is designed, and not just a slab of cumbersome plastic.  And yea, I've not used google's search engine in quite some time, because they've already hurt my business by adjusting their "algorithms" during the planscamdemic to drive people away. That was probably their artificial intelligence. The bottom line is that I've got too many things to do to worry about threatening a machine...  Now, where did I put my electromagnetic pulse gun...?

See you on the flip side...

Might overcomes truth every time, even Mao knew that as most tyrants throughout history exercised this fact when needed or to sit a tone.

Truck stop.

Now, we've all been to truck stops before, truck drivers or not.  To eat, or just to stop for a bite to eat and get fuel.  My story here is about real 'trucker' truck stops.

The place was known as the "Outlaw", and it lived up to its name.  Barely bigger than four phone booths glued together. Maximum seating was about (12). Every 'outlaw' trucker on planet Earth stopped there.  It was situated along Interstate 80 in SW Wyoming (my home town).  The "Outlaw" was a rough place; it only opened up at midnight and stayed open until 7am.  All carryover fights from the bar were sent to the parking lot to settle the score outside. This was a usual occurrence.  

Inside, the Outlaw served breakfast (generally); anythng you wanted.  But they also had one other specialty...Egg Foo Yong and Chicken Chow Mein (the resident cook was Chinese).  The egg foo yong was to die for...it was beyond excellent.  AND, it was worth even staying up late to go get EFY from the Outlaw even if you weren't hungry!  It was THAT good!.

Anyway, at the time, I was working as a truck driver...oilfield truck driver.  We carried stuff out into the oilfields whenever the companies needed it.  Our days usually started at 2am and we went to the Outlaw for "breakfast" (or dinner, whatever).  We would see all these fights start with the roughnecks looking to one up each other, but most of us were driving for Halliburton or Texaco, so we stayed out of this.  

Our trips would take us 100 miles out into the high Wyoming desert, out east of Rock Springs, Wyoming.  The area was remote (understatement of the week).  You ate at the cafe, or you didn't eat for maybe two days.  We always ate at the Outlaw, before driving out of town.

My most memorable thing was "why" we went there so early in the mornings.  Simply put, we wanted to park our trucks next to other running trucks, to warm them up.  It was -35F below zero on many of those days, and even though we had tank heaters, those old diesels were just begging to stall at a moment's notice.  If they ever did, you'd spend two entire days trying to get one started again!~!

I'll never forget the Egg Foo Yong at the Outlaw!  Must have been loaded with 5-6 eggs, just to mix in with all the veggies and chicken in those omelet-pancake like things!  Saved my 'bacon' more than once!  That ol' Chinese chef knew us, and he did us right every time!

76 year old woman in Texas completely loses her shit when she hears bagpipes in a park, freaks out, and stomps bagpiper in an unhinged rage.

Don't...like...bagpipes!

This gal didn't just dislike bagpipes, she just flat-out wasn't gonna' tolerate that crap, AND she was gonna' DO something about it!!  "I told you, I don't...(thump)...like (thump!)...BAGPIPES (thump!)...DAMMIT!!"

edit - Lady's husband is a federal judge too! And he even joined in on the beatdown! Bagpiper dude must have been pretty bad!

LOL!

New windowless prototype aircraft, the Otto Aviation Phantom 3500, eliminates windows to increase performance and efficiency.  Passengers will still be able to 'see' outside though with the aid of streamed real-time images from outside projected onto the walls and ceiling of the aircraft.  

Windoless Jet - Phantom 3500

Otto Aviation website

Kind of interesting. Would you fly on one?  

And in other (more sarcastic) news, there's this...

Rumor has it that airlines are really stoked about this new technology.  United has ordered (50) of the new aircraft.  In a cost savings measure they have requested all of the outside cameras be removed, and they will instead display looping images from the inside of Joliet State Prison.  Spirit and American have also placed orders.  These two airlines have initiated cost savings measure by requesting that the pilot windows also be removed along with most of the instruments.  And Southwest has placed conditional orders for some aircraft, contingent on the manufacturer being able to deliver (100) standing room only configurations with (500) passenger capacity...by next week (that last part is a joke for anyone who works with SWA on a regular basis like I do).  All four airlines have requested the capability to just airdrop passengers at their destination by shoving them out, without parachutes, onto the tarmac during low flybys.  The manufacturer is said to also be working on airline requests for a new automated loading system for their airplanes with a slingshot mechanism and a ramrod (similar to that of a garbage compactor) to load paying passengers.  Galleys have been eliminated on the new aircraft to make room for shackle and chain storage.  Passenger baggage and carry-on luggage has been eliminated...entirely (plenty of room to cram a few hundred people in down there also).

That is all.

I can't wait for this movie to come out.  I loved John Madden, one of the greatest coaches and sports personalities to ever walk this Earth.  Nicholas Gage stars as Madden, and he definitely looks the part.  I also saw this morning that Christian Bale will star as Al Davis (former owner of the Raiders).  

Madden (and Davis)

Davis also was an interesting cat...in a jackass kind of way.  I met him once...well sort of.  It's actually kind of a funny story.  

We built a building for Davis, in Wyoming.  Davis, as many will know, rose to prominence not as a football figure but as an oil man.  He owned Davis Oil.  Anyway, we (my parent's construction company) were contracted to build a large metal building for him in Wyoming.  Davis was notorious for not paying, and our experience was no different.  We finished the building early and under budget, but he kept finding reasons not to pay us.  We satisfied his every whim to where he had exactly zero grounds to refuse to make final payment...and, he finally agreed to pay.

Rather than send us a check, he decided to deliver the final payment in person.  So, I was going to get to meet the famed Al Davis.  Davis would be flying in on his private jet.  The old man sent me (as usual) to go out to the airport and meet with him to get the check.  This was one 'go'fer' task this construction general foreman (at the time) didn't mind.  (Note - I got to do every shitty job in the company, the shittier the better).  But again, this task I was actually kind of happy about.  Davis was in his heyday with the Raiders at this point.  So, I headed out to the small Wyoming airport.

I get out to the airport (and we had another project at the airport during this time, so I could drive right out onto the ramp...which I thought would make Davis feel all 'special'.)  I figured the guy might want to get something to eat so I'd planned to drive him and his pilots over to a nearby cafe for a bite of lunch.  I waited.  And waited...and waited!  Was this dude even going to show up??  I had just about resigned myself to calling up the old man and telling him Davis had stiffed us once again when low and behold this Gulfstream jet landed.  The aircraft then taxied up to the general aviation hangar where I was parked.  Honestly, I was pretty excited to meet this guy.  

For the longest time nothing happened.  The jet just sat there, one engine running.  I mean like for a really long time, it just sat there.  By this point I was like...WTF, over???  Finally, after what seemed like 30 minutes, the door pops open and the stairs unfold.  "Finally!"...I said to myself.  Then more nothing happened.  Nobody got off, heck, nobody even looked out; they just sat there.  After another long wait (won't bore you...more...here), this tiny elderly looking woman crept down the stairway.  She stood on the tarmac and was looking around like she'd just set foot on the Moon.  I got out of the car and raised my hand, as if to say..."I'm the one you're here to meet with".

No idea who this woman was, but she was walking toward me.  I had prepared this short welcome speech, but it was intended for Davis, not some random old woman.  She walked up to me and before I could say a word she said "HERE!" and smacked an envelope down into my outstretched hand.  My hand was intended to greet her with, but she just slapped this envelope into my hand, and just as fast as she'd walked up she turned right back around and headed for the plane.  I said something to the effect of..."I thought you folks might want to have lunch".  She stopped, glanced at me, and without a word continued walking to the jet.  Ice cold.  The second she got up the stairs of that jet the stairs retracted, the door shut, and the other engine spooled up.  My "goodbye" acknowledgement from Davis and crew was seeing the shutter only the only unshuttered window of the jet slam shut.  Even the pilot was a dick.  He went to breakaway thrust and turned immediately, showering me with dust and gravel as they pulled back out onto the taxiway.  "Nice meeting you, Al!"..."you fucker!"...I said to no one in particular as I got back in the car.  

The final invoice was for something like $98,547.97.  Accountants will do stuff like that sometimes, make an invoice for some weird amount, rather than round up or down to the nearest dollar.  I looked at the check.  It was made out for $98,547.92...five cents less.  Five stinking cents!  They had actually thought about that amount, it was no accident.  Our invoice was dumb enough with .97 at the end, but his check was even worse with .05 deducted off the amount, cheap bastard!  My Dad and I joked for years afterwards about how we should have sent a letter to Davis Oil demanding the five cents and threatening legal action if they didn't pay!!

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Quote:And few terms lend themselves to the fear-mongering market quite like AI, both because of its real game-changing potential, but also because of how it’s long been presented in pop culture. When most people hear “artificial intelligence,” they conjure images of the Terminator wiping out humanity, or the machines in the Matrix using human beings as batteries… but as we’ve discussed in past videos, that’s not what current state AI is. And if you ask me... that leaves a much scarier alternative to worry about.