activescott's Notes

A person is 30 trillion cells, each with 500 megabytes of DNA. Supernanotechnology life machine. And in total, it's an alcoholic going for a bottle, or a girl going to study. A typical situation when something simpler is made from supermaterial at the next level. But the material itself can't produce this simple thing. You can't get an alcoholic without 30 trillion cells.

If we talk specifically about the example, there are 100 billion neurons in the brain. If each neuron has 10 thousand inputs, at each input there is a synaptic slit with a changing transmission coefficient of 1 byte, then you can calculate the weights. There will be 1 quadrillion of them. There are no such models now, but it seems that everything is going to this. There are models with several trillion parameters. Another thing, they are superior to any person. A person has an incredible redundancy in the brain. Side-loading is based on the idea that a person is a program that works on top of some "hardware". It consists of information that we can discover. There are no hidden scales important for the model.

There were studies of the volume of human conscious memory. This is about 1-2 gigabytes, which a person can turn to for reading and writing. This includes knowledge of languages, childhood memories, professional knowledge. It's very little. If we could pump out these 2 gigabytes, we could create a very accurate personality model.

Day one actions of his presidency included restoring U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement, revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and halting funding for the Mexico–United States border wall.[3] On his second day, he issued a series of executive orders to reduce the impact of COVID-19, including invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, and set an early goal of achieving one hundred million COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States in his first 100 days.[4] The first major legislation signed into law by Biden was the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that temporarily established expanded unemployment insurance and sent $1,400 stimulus checks to most Americans in response to continued economic pressure from COVID-19.[5] He signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a ten-year plan brokered by Biden alongside Democrats and Republicans in Congress to invest in American roads, bridges, public transit, ports and broadband access.[6]

Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court—the first Black woman to serve on the court. In response to the debt-ceiling crisis of 2023, he negotiated and signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which restrains federal spending for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, implements minor changes to SNAP and TANF, includes energy permitting reform, claws back some IRS funding and unspent money for COVID-19, and suspended the debt ceiling to January 1, 2025.

The foreign policy goal of the Biden administration was to restore the U.S. to a "position of trusted leadership" among global democracies in order to address the challenges posed by Russia and China. Biden signed AUKUS, an international security alliance together with Australia and the United Kingdom. He supported the expansion of NATO with the additions of Finland and Sweden. Biden approved a raid which led to the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, the leader of the Islamic State, and approved a drone strike which killed Ayman Al Zawahiri, leader of Al-Qaeda. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, declaring an end to nation-building efforts and shifting U.S. foreign policy toward strategic competition with China and, to a lesser extent, Russia.

He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and providing Ukraine with over $100 billion in combined military, economic, and humanitarian aid.[19][20] During the Gaza war, Biden condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism, and announced American military support for Israel; he also sent humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and brokered a four-day temporary pause and hostage exchange in 2023 followed by a three-phase ceasefire in January 2025.

multi-pane terminal:

tmux is a terminal multiplexer. It lets you switch easily between several programs in one terminal, detach them (they keep running in the background) and reattach them to a different terminal.

• Ctrl + B + >: Open pane actions menu

Navigation:

• Ctrl + B + %: Split the current pane with a vertical line to create a horizontal layout
• Ctrl + B + ": Split the current with a horizontal line to create a vertical layout
• Ctrl + B + ➡️: Switch to pane to the direction (works with ⬅️➡️⬇️⬆️)
• Ctrl + B + z: Zoom the current pane (make it maximized or minimized)

Sessions: tmux starts a session that lives in the background like screen does. So if ssh deteaches, the session lives on until reboot or until it's killed.

• tmux new -s mysession: Allows naming a session -otherwise a random session name is generated.
• tmux ls: List sessions.
• tmux attach -t mysession: Reattach to session.
• tmux kill-session -t mysession: Clean up when done.
• Ctrl-B D: Manually detach from a running session.

Command Mode:

• Ctrl + B + :: Enter command mode.

Commands:

• :resize-pane -D|-U|-L|-R <number>: -D (down), -U (up), -L (left), or -R (right). <number> is the number of "cells" i.e. character grid rows/columns.
  • NOTE: To resize a pane in tmux, press Ctrl+b followed by Ctrl and the arrow keys to adjust the size by one cell.

Temporal is like a distributed state-saving workflow execution engine. Weirdly useful primitive.

E-bikes are bicycles that are assisted by an electric motor. Some e-bikes only provide electric assistance when the rider is pedaling while others can propel the e-bike using electric power alone. Either way, a legal e-bike will always have pedals and a maximum speed of 20mph (when using electric power) or 28mph (with the rider pedaling). The power output from an e-bike motor will never exceed 750 watts.

Electric motorcycles are electrically powered cycles that often do not have operable pedals (but may have foot pegs/ brackets/supports). If the cycle does not have operational pedals capable of propelling it, or exceeds 750 watts, or is capable of going over 28 mph with motor assistance, it is classified as a motorcycle and specific laws apply.

Despite the ceasefire, there are still recurring deadly strikes. Israeli tank shelling on Thursday killed four Palestinians east of Gaza City, according to Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of the Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were taken. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

residents say fuel and firewood are in short supply. Prices are exorbitant and searching for firewood is dangerous. Two 13-year-old boys were shot and killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday as they tried to collect firewood, hospital officials said.

News organizations rely largely on Palestinian journalists and residents in Gaza to show what is happening on the ground because Israel has barred international journalists from entering to cover the war, aside from rare guided tours.

More than 470 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since the ceasefire began in October, according to Gaza’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.

Claude’s constitution is the foundational document that both expresses and shapes who Claude is. It contains detailed explanations of the values we would like Claude to embody and the reasons why. In it, we explain what we think it means for Claude to be helpful while remaining broadly safe, ethical, and compliant with our guidelines. The constitution gives Claude information about its situation and offers advice for how to deal with difficult situations and tradeoffs, like balancing honesty with compassion and the protection of sensitive information. Although it might sound surprising, the constitution is written primarily for Claude. It is intended to give Claude the knowledge and understanding it needs to act well in the world.

Claude itself also uses the constitution to construct many kinds of synthetic training data, including data that helps it learn and understand the constitution, conversations where the constitution might be relevant, responses that are in line with its values, and rankings of possible responses. All of these can be used to train future versions of Claude to become the kind of entity the constitution describes. This practical function has shaped how we’ve written the constitution: it needs to work both as a statement of abstract ideals and a useful artifact for training.

While Washington frames this as a roadmap for “reconstruction and prosperity”, the exclusion of Palestinians from the top decision-making body suggests they will have little say in deciding the future governance structure.

According to the White House statement, the “Founding Executive Council” sits at the apex of the pyramid. This body holds the purse strings and sets the strategic vision. It is chaired by President Trump, who retains veto power.

Advertisement The lineup of Executive Board members is:

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio: Rubio is one of the most pro-Israel officials in the Trump administration. He has said that those who criticise Israel will not be granted US visas. He has also criticised the move by several Western countries to recognise Palestinian statehood as a “reckless decision” that “only serves Hamas propaganda”. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff: Witkoff is a New York-based real estate developer and investor close to Trump. He was tasked with ceasefire talks in Gaza. Witkoff was accused of reneging on Gaza talks after he accused Hamas of blocking a deal last July. Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim accused him of “serving the Israeli position”. Jared Kushner: Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. is also a staunch supporter of Israel who previously suggested that Palestinians are incapable of self-governance. He has described Gaza as having “very valuable waterfront property”. Kushner was also the driving force of the so-called Abraham Accords, a series of deals that formalised ties between several Arab countries and Israel. Billionaire businessman Marc Rowan: Rowan is a co-founder of Apollo Global Management, which is one of the world’s largest investment firms. He has run philanthropic activities in Israel and has funded pro-Israel advocacy groups in the United States, according to media reports. He has also supported the Israeli-American Council, which works to strengthen Israeli and American Jewish communities.

Aryeh Lightstone: A key figure in the Abraham Accords and the controversial aid organisation the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF), which faced severe accusations regarding aid mismanagement and coordination failures that led to the killing of hundreds of Palestinians seeking food.

In September 2024, Mr. Witkoff co-founded the cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial (WLF) alongside his two sons, President Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Barron Trump.1 On November 12, 2024, President Trump announced that Mr. Witkoff would serve as his Special Envoy to the Middle East.

growing ties between WLF and the very countries Mr. Witkoff negotiates with as Special Envoy is particularly alarming. In May 2025, Witkoff’s son, Zach Witkoff, and Eric Trump jointly announced that the U.A.E.-backed investment fund MGX had agreed to purchase $2 billion in WLF’s stablecoin.6 Two weeks later, the U.S. and U.A.E. announced an agreement to allow the U.A.E. to access advanced U.S.-exported chips for artificial intelligence.7 This deal was reportedly negotiated by Mr. Witkoff, despite his and his family’s financial relationship with the U.A.E. through WLF and national security concerns from senior advisors.8 The timing of these two deals raises serious questions about the impact Mr. Witkoff’s personal and family finances are playing in his official role as Special Envoy

Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Israel is forcing Doctors Without Borders & dozens of other humanitarian groups to end their work in Gaza. Countless innocent people rely on these services amid the ongoing crisis there. This is yet another cruel, inhumane step from the extremist Israeli government.”

The announcement specifically names the distribution of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza as a duty of the multinational force under Jeffers’ command. This raises renewed concern that the multinational force will militarize the distribution of aid like the Israeli military did under the GHF scheme.

The militarization of humanitarian aid violates the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence–just as Israel’s weaponization of food through the GHF did.

The naming of Jeffers as the commander of the multinational force should trigger Congressional oversight of the US military’s activities in Gaza, including the War Powers Resolution.

About 55% less fentanyl was seized by September 2025 than by September 2024.

Canadian company TransAlta’s coal-burning power plant in Centralia, Washington, shut down Dec. 19

The plant has not re-started since then, despite a Dec. 16 emergency order from U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to keep operating.

On Dec. 9, TransAlta announced it had reached a deal with Puget Sound Energy, Washington’s largest utility, to convert the Centralia plant and run it on natural gas for another 16 years

US job openings fell to 7.15 million in November, down from 7.45 million in the previous month, marking the lowest level since September 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary report released Wednesday.

declined across most industries, with the biggest pullback seen in leisure and hospitality, healthcare and social assistance, and transportation and warehousing. Only a few industries, including construction and retail, added jobs.

Hiring slowed as well, while layoffs declined to a six-month low, extending the “hire less, fire less” mode that has defined the US labor market for much of the past year

Even without adding in Trump’s own $5.5 billion net worth, Forbes estimates that his top advisors are worth $7.5 billion, more than doubling the $3.2 billion combined worth of Trump’s 2019 Cabinet. (By contrast, Biden’s Cabinet of regular Joes was barely worth $110 million combined in 2021.)

Nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires from 24 countries are calling on global leaders to increase taxes on the super-rich, amid growing concern that the wealthiest in society are buying political influence.

“A handful of global oligarchs with extreme wealth have bought up our democracies; taken over our governments; gagged the freedom of our media; placed a stranglehold on technology and innovation; deepened poverty and social exclusion; and accelerated the breakdown of our planet,” it reads. “What we treasure, rich and poor alike, is being eaten away by those intent on growing the gulf between their vast power and everyone else.

“The super-rich are being given complete free rein. It is beyond comprehension that the richest 1% now own three times more than the world’s total public wealth combined.