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It's just another Putin's ruse to get someone from the West to "negotiate" for him, just as Ukraine is reasserting and starting to set the terms of combat:

Zelensky: Ukraine will hold back "long-range sanctions," strikes on Russian military targets if Moscow continues to avoid launching mass attacks: "Going forward, we will respond in kind."

As part of new joint "Brave Germany" initiative, Ukraine and Germany agreed to deepen defence cooperation, plan joint drone production.

Zelensky's fear now is that US (Trump and his gang) will again push for a deal giving Russia 'a lot' of what Putin wants and nothing to Ukraine.

In related news: Russia paid Norks nearly $14B for weapons, munitions and soldiers.
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Ukraine already rejected Shroeder as negotiator because he has business ties to Russia.
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Wind, solar, and storage free us from fossil-fueled wars and price spikes. Renewable energy = energy independence.

We don't have a problem with "energy independence" - the US is net exporter of oil, gas and coal.

The real problems with renewable energy are "large footprint | low density" and costs, because the "energy" is a global market.

Because the worldwide demand for energy grows along with all the "records" of growing supply of energy from renewables, 80+% of the world's energy is still generated by oil, coal, NG (32%, 27%, 24%) with hydro (6%) and nuclear (5%).

What we do need is energy diversification - but that's exactly opposite of mandating "energy uniformity" of electricity and the renewables, again in the name of "fighting" climate change. Mandates only give you dependence on one source of energy and you lose both diversification and cost competition.

With non-portable electricity, the demand centers should be matched with the close-by types of resource center areas, but that's not what some states' or federal government's "one size fits all" mandates deliver.

The real myth is the panacea of trying to "save the planet" with renewables and "EVs everywhere" which crowded out more efficient long-term energy generation.

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#7 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-05-09 12:01 AM
If solar power has resulted in a [transitory] period of negative power cost, why does Pres Trump seem to be so against solar power?

Because he is the same kind of dumbass who lives in the past and as incapable of processing or remembering new information as the people who think that if solar (or wind) power generation resulted in a short [transitory] period of [theoretical and 'unsold'] "negative" power cost due to "surge," it means that solar power is cheap and is the "solution" to energy needs everywhere, because it's also "clean and renewable" and is also the answer to AGW / climate change.

First, just adding a new installation, however small it is, will create a new "record" of that type of energy. So the headline "records" of generation some place are meaningless.

It's like "stable genius" telling people that "beautiful tariffs" will generate Trillions of dollars and would replace income tax.

Or banning gas appliances, mandating "electrification" of transportation / cars without building electric capacity to handle new demand, then finding out that renewables will take huge land "footprint", be more TCO-expensive and still won't provide anywhere near enough power to accomplish it. Then restarting old nuclear plant that was supposed to be scrapped to prevent brownouts. Look at California, Germany, UK... which went all-in on renewables.

Or California deciding to build a "train from nowhere to nowhere" because Japan, China, Europe have efficient high-speed light-rail systems.

"Why can't we do that?" should be replaced by "Why do we need that?"... and "because climate change" is not the answer - e.g., world's renewable energy capacity increased substantially in the last 25 years... but climate change has gone unabated.

In the EU they reclassified NG as a "green" energy, to meet their self-imposed "green" goals. Recently they lowered barriers to methane.

BTW, USA is already producing 11% of world electricity from renewables; China is #1 at 32%, Brazil - 7%, Canada and India - 4.5%.

We've been through this here a couple of years ago, when someone kept posting about "record power generation" from "renewables" in CA. Not surprisingly, it also caused much higher usage of natgas for a backup, since wind and solar are INTERMITTENT and batteries which are toxic, degrade within relatively short amount of time and take humongous amount of space, require much higher maintenance and (at least, in the US) are not even close to TCO-competitive as e.g., NG alone - IOW, these intermittent solutions have a huge "FOOTPRINT" and very low ENERGY DENSITY.

Many US solar and wind companies went out of business long before most state and federal incentives expired because promised cost savings didn't materialize.

Just because few small countries like Costa Rica and Nepal are 90%-100% reliant on renewables for electricity (not a lot of "heavy manufacturing" and datacenters in those countries) no "one size fits all" energy solutions exist.

CA is #1 in solar (but buys wind power from as far as WY), TX is #1 in wind and #2 in solar.

So why is CA electricity so much higher when most of it is from renewables?

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#10 | Posted by oneironaut at 2026-05-03 12:28 PM
Typical some one does all the work, and woman takes credit for it.

What possessed you to comment on something you obviously know nothing about?

Between the horse owners, stables, jockeys and trainers, the trainers are the ones who spend the most time with the horses getting them ready for races and advising owners which horses to buy and why, the range of how much to pay, instructing jockeys (who might be chosen for a specific race by lottery or availability) before the race, and are given most of the credit or most of the blame depending on expectations / handicap, or if anything happens to the horse between the races.

Names of winning horses are most often associated with their trainer, not with their owners or jockeys who won specific race because there are plenty of journeyman jockeys who come and go, but world class winning trainers are very few and they're very much in high demand.

Owners want well known trainers to help them find and buy horses, and then train them for a couple of years of their short racing careers, if any.

Trainers like Bob Baffert, Bill Mott, Todd Pletcher, Brad Cox, Chad Brown etc. are legendary because of the winning horses they trained; most people would be hard pressed to name owners of Triple Crown event winning horses of just few years ago.

Nobody gives a damn about the owners when making bets - outside of horses' records and their pedigrees, it's mostly trainers and to a much smaller degree, the jockeys that get some weight in betting. **

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#16 | Posted by BillJohnson at 2026-05-03 11:11 AM
... if hot foods were allowed, fast food would be more heavily used.

As would be many other things the "governmtent" (RFKjr or whoever is in charge at any given 4-yr interval) deems "appropriate."

So?

#17 | Posted by BillJohnson at 2026-05-03 11:13 AM
Did you ever get a government cheese?
They were great!

1. No... and 2. Don't pretend you didn't get the point.
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#6 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2026-05-03 11:35 AM
At least your word count on this last post was not excessive.

No one needs to count your words, because Putin's agitprop doesn't count. G'night, comrade!
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Woman Wins Kentucky Derby as Trainer for First Time

She was very humble in the in the pre-race interview.

Congrats to brothers Jose and Irad Ortiz - great 1-2 race and surge from the tail of the pack.

Interesting fact: 3 horses were scratched and replaced on Wednesday through Friday - Fulleffort, Right to Party and Silent Tactic, which was then replaced by Great White (sired by Violence)... which was scratched just before getting into a starting stall.
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#13 | Posted by BillJohnson at 2026-05-03 09:08 AM
Should a Big Mac qualify?

Why not? Or does new MAHA dictat prohibit all government/RFKjr-deemed "unhealthy" foods to be bought with food subsidies?

BTW, I've seen numerous "EBT accepted" signs on some fast food and restaurant chains, like Jack-in-the-Box, Burger King, Denny's, etc.

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A historic drop in representation by Black members of Congress may be on the way after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision Wednesday to further weaken the Voting Rights Act.

Or it could backfire, and instead of being gerrymandered into one district to give them one seat, they may affect two or more... if a suitable sensible economically literate candidate of whatever skin color is on the ballot, instead of polarizing far-far idiots (BOTH SIDES!)

There are also other "communities" of color - Hispanic, Asians, etc. - that could improve their representation.

The problem for Dems is that recent "progressive" agenda items pushed many "normies" and POC away, and just shouting that "we're the party protecting minorities" no longer works - they're full-fledged "Americans," many are better off than most Whites, and moved on past the "protection" or "community" and need more than lip service from Democrats who've been busy with picking winners through DEI, special "rights" of LGBTQQ++ and trans, and the incredible shrinking labor unions (both in number and influence of their bosses) who still represent a lot of Dems financing and organizing.

Minorities, many of whom are very religious, no longer feel they're represented or advanced by Dems economically, philosophically or culturally. They feel they've been used by "elitist" Dems to empower a narrow agenda - favoring union bosses (not rank-and-file) and gender-divergent.

If the 2024 elections exit polls didn't clearly show it, I don't know what does.

"Big tent" means party's priorities and solutions should reflect and conform to real needs of majority of the party, not the whims of current "elites" requiring conformity of all its constituents - that means actually listening to them, and adapting to changed demographic, not the same small group of "organizers" stuck in the past "civil rights" and "oppression" battles.

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"Sound and fury signifying nothing" - a very loud spectacle of minor diplo spat between two friendly "victims of aggression" countries, that was fanned by the usual KGB/FSB Russian disinformation and propaganda ops.

Ukrainian FM spokesman H. Tykhyi stressed that "Ukraine is not targeting Israel and provided proof and data" that this shipment was illegal. Consequently, the importer pulled the order and Panama-flagged Panormitis was turned away from Haifa Bay port. According to this data, since 2022 Russia has looted and profited from more than 1.7 million tons of agricultural products worth over 387M euros.

Ship was part of the Russian "shadow fleet" that helps prop up the Kremlin's war economy by concealing or spoofing their location data, and often engage in ship-to-ship transfers of their cargo while at sea to obscure its origin.

Now that Ukraine and Israel "kissed and made up" over manufactured public "much ado about nothing," Ukraine can turn world's attention to re-flagged "shadow fleet" ships with Ukrainian grain that have been headed for and unloaded in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Turkiye... usually with little to no outcry.

Ukraine's FM Andrii Sybiha welcomed the result: "This is a clear signal to all other vessels, captains, operators, insurers, and governments: do not buy stolen Ukrainian grain. Do not become part of this crime."

|------- The Russian bot network "Matryoshka" has circulated videos falsely claiming that an Orthodox rabbi "cursed" President Volodymyr Zelensky due to the dispute, or that Ukraine may bar Israelis from the Uman pilgrimage.

The falsehoods tried to exploit recent diplomatic spat between Ukraine and Israel over cargoes of looted grain from Russia-occupied Ukrainian territories arriving at Israeli ports.

The group said it had detected nine videos published on X and BlueSky on April 29, the same day Israeli and Ukrainian FMs traded accusations.

The clips falsely use logos of established media outlets such as RFI, Euronews, and AFP, combined with unrelated footage and overlaid text - a technique commonly employed by Matryoshka.
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As Trump's son-in-law returns to Pakistan for more talks with Iran, major news outlets are largely ignoring an egregious conflict of interest.

One reason why Iranians have told Trump before that they are not going to "negotiate" with non-/quasi-government entities like Witkoff and Kushner - they have no bribes to give them.

So Trump ostensibly decided to send Vance to Islamabad again, then reconsidered, likely given Vance dismal record of fiascos with Orban's election in Hungary and previous meeting with Iranians in Pakistan - the excuse given for change of plans was that he was concerned about Vance's "security"... apparently not realizing that this would look like he was not concerned about security of his son-in-law and partner in crypto crimes, since sons of Steve Witkoff are the co-founders and Zack is CEO of crumbling WLFI crypto empire and its rapidly declining coin price.

Trump family receives 75% of net proceeds when World Liberty Financial sells $WLFI coins, and gets a cut of USD1 stablecoin profits. At the end of 2025, the Trumps had made $1B in proceeds, and holding what was at the time $3B worth in unsold coins.

USD1 is one of the stablecoins integrated into TRON blockchain, which is owned by Justin Sun, a crypto billionaire who bought 3 billion of $WLF coins $45M just before 2024 elections, giving it a boost when World Liberty Financial was just starting and nobody wanted their coins, and in early 2025 he bought or was awarded another 1 billion coins worth at the time $30M, making him a WLFI advisor and largest token owner in what he then described as "excellent project." Sun also heavily invested in tanking $TRUMP memecoin.

It paid off last March when the SEC settled the lawsuit against him for fraud, selling the unregistered "crypto securities" and other "investment instruments" and money laundering for only $10M with no admission of wrongdoing, and several investigations into some of his companies were closed with no criminal or civil charges brought.

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The company behind President Donald Trump's social media network is changing leaders amid mounting financial losses...

Don't feel bad for ol' Devin Nunes. He made $6.3M in salary and bonuses and awarded restricted stock that at the time was worth $41M as CEO just in 2024 for being CEO of non-media "crypto treasury" company which cost investors over $1.1B in cash and more than $6B in "enterprise value" and which since merged with a money-losing "nuclear fusion" company and now looking to spin off Truth Social, as if any of these are viable companies, just like multiple other scammy crypto companies the Trump family is involved with.

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The Incredible Shrinking MAGA

"MAGA" is not a "coalition" it's a slogan that means whatever Trump wants it to mean on any given day - he said it himself: "I am MAGA" -

Trump said that "those who oppose his policies in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement are not MAGA. ... I AM MAGA!"

Yes, all in CAPS!

So it's always been a "coalition," a "movement" of ONE (as cults of personality tend to be), there's only so much room to shrink.
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#21 | Posted by Corky at 2026-04-22 10:03 AM
Although social democracies aren't 'socialists' per say.

No, they are not 'socialists' per se.

That's why it's so disappointing that some "influencers" promoting dubiously "happy" countries as "socialist" (supposedly because they have those cherry picked, selected attributes that make them such) are constantly inverting the meaning into "democratic socialists / democratic socialism" - which, if one understands what socialism actually is, and if one ever asked or talked to people who have lived under a socialist system, would know is a contradiction in terms.

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#21 | Posted by Corky at 2026-04-22 10:03 AM
Although social democracies aren't 'socialists' per say.

No, they are not 'socialists' per se.

That's why it's so disappointing that some "influencers" promoting dubiously "happy" countries as "socialist" (supposedly because they have those cherry picked, selected attributes that make them such) are constantly inverting the meaning into "democratic socialists / democratic socialism" - which, if one understands what socialism actually is, and if one ever asked or talked to people who have lived under a socialist system, would know is a contradiction in terms.

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#6 | Posted by sentinel at 2026-04-20 10:09 AM
Not sure why "investigates" is in scare quotes. I don't doubt Netanyahu and his cabinet are pissed about this...

Because transgression of one soldier can be spun as the "policy" of "genocide" / "IDF" / "Israel" / "Nuttyahoo" etc., while ignoring actual policies of Fatah / PLO of having a fund to pay families for Palestinians "martyrs."

Here is the rest of the statement, and the history of Israel's investigations and prosecutions of crimes committed by IDF personnel:

|------- ... Later in the day, an official statement was released, confirming the photo was not AI.

... "Appropriate measures will be taken against those involved in accordance with the findings. Furthermore, the IDF is working to assist the community in restoring the statue to its place. The IDF is operating to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure established by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and has no intention of harming civilian infrastructure, including religious buildings or religious symbols."
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It's much more fun (and profit, for a small group of trolls and "influencers") to flare up on usual channels and hype any incidents of some Israelis "behaving badly" and conflate and accompany them with long-debunked mythical attributes of "colonizers" / "occupiers" / "apartheid" / "genocide" etc. (documented going back to KGB in the 1950s) **, than seeing and reporting attacks against Israelis, or the aftermath of decades of Soviet Union / Russia, various Arab countries (some of which have since made peace with Israel after a number of military defeats), Intifadas and multiple "Palestinian" terrorist groups sponsored by Iran, etc.

---

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#22 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-04-13 12:11 PM
The article specifically mentions Abridge AI, which looks like more than just a speech-to-text converter

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#14 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-04-13 02:20 PM
Trump Says Iran Reached Out on Deal as US Blocks Hormuz

If a sentence starts with "Trump says..." you can safely ignore the rest of it.

Your sanity will thank you.
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#17 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-04-13 12:42 AM
Why'd you construct this entire persona just to try to argue with me, anyway?

1. What "construct" and "persona" are you talking about? You sound incoherent, like Trump.

2. Last thing on my mind is to "argue" with you... or one of your "rabbit holes" / "weaves" on a matter that is irrelevant to discussion about Nuance software or company, or AI.

#19 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-04-13 12:42 AM
Hoping you got the memo.

Pretty sure, I got the memo - let me guess, tequila again?

Go to sleep and have a good night (Please and Thank You).
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#10 | Posted by oneironaut at 2026-04-12 10:38 PM
Nuance was in Apple's Siri.

Yes, and Nuance software was licensed and embedded in many other phones and software packages. The company, Nuance Communications, was bought by Microsoft in 2022 for almost $20B, after some parts were spun off.

Nuance exposed patient data... 50,000 or so.

About 45,000 in 2018, it was due to a 3rd-party cloud data storage cyber breach. Nuance reported it to FBI contacted all patients, only 900 were possibly affected : "The DoJ found that the information was not used or sold for any purpose and that all the data had been recovered."

.

It could, as it AI can correct the "text processed" in the S2T, using a the model.

Using "AI" model to "correct the text processed" is horribly expensive overkill, as it's been successfully done by software well known as a "spell-checker" for decades.

.

AI methods are doing "signal processing" for instance the back tap in iOS and Android, could/would be done via old fashioned signal processing, today its done by modeling the data and other metadata about the context.

Again, very expensive processing overkill unless you absolutely, positively need extremely fast processing of huge amount of precise RT data... and the reason why it's being replaced by much faster much cheaper algorithmic discrete components.

.

So its a little more than a buzzword.

Real-world AI applications exist, obviously. What most companies advertise and most people started to refer to as "AI" today is just a buzzword for what people previously called "computers" / "technology" / "software" / "algorithm" etc. depending on their level of sophistication and the target audience they addressed.
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#4 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-04-12 01:26 PM
I worked at a company later purchased by Nuance (which I believe was in turn purchased by Apple) that used speech to text software to transcribe medical records. We didn't call it AI back then, but this is the same function.

Most popular STT program was developed by Dragon Systems, which was bought by infamous Lernout & Hauspie, which was then bought out of bankruptcy by Visioneer/Nuance (a name rebrand by ScanSoft after acquiring Nuance) part of which was later acquired by Microsoft.
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#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-04-11 11:06 PM
~will you allow AI to record your conversations with the PCP so that the PCP does not have to spend time typing in your responses?~

It's a basic speech-to-text, which is now on almost every phone or most devices with microphone. It's been available for quite a while and used to produce transcripts in medical and other industries to save time and/or labor, and has nothing to do with AI. Almost everything that was done by "computer" just a few years ago is now done by "AI" - it's a new buzzword.

Now that I read this article, i have to wonder, how will my medical information be sold?

Same way it was "sold" before. Some of your records will be processed by computer software, with or without the help of "AI", for billing, insurance and, if needed, provide assistance in diagnosis, course of action, etc.

Will it make me more or less able to buy life insurance? How will my health insurance rates rise?

Depends on what you told your doctor.

And if I tell my PCP that I am a trans, will Pres Trump come after me?

Depends. If Trump sees you and likes your new looks, he'll scream "Surrender!", will "grab you by the p***y" and will try to "TAKE your 'oil'!"
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#4 | Posted by Zed at 2026-04-09 12:38 PM
Everyone knows that Trump is mentally impaired. Netanyahu isn't the only one exploiting that.

Apparently not "everyone" knows that, or they are just using it to further promote the "ZioNazis" / "Nuttyahoo" line, that is now joining "Blue MAGA" with "woke Right" factions.

Reality is that Trump has never in his life did anything that he didn't think would benefit Trump (hence, "transactional") and, in fact, Netanyahoo was undermined several times by Trump's narcissistic desire to take credit for any "success" in the Middle East, e.g., in June 2025 when Trump stopped a devastating Israeli attack on Iranian IRGC and likely real long-planned "regime change" in Iran.