If this adds a useful perspective
Click here to send this page to a friend

October Surprise Worry? World on the Low-Down

Watch the Calendar and the Blow Off?

Weather, calendars, and who is craziest are keeping what little attention they deserve for the rest of the week.  Peoplenomics is where we’ll look at what could happen “with the music stops” but the market was up over 400 points Monday so it’s an article of faith that central bank inflation coordination may result in “bigger numbers” though (oh, so sorry!) you may not have any more to show for it.  Magic of indexing, don’tcha know.

Calendar Watch

Get out your “Wild Animals backed in corners” template.  Markets may be nuzzling records but keep a hand on the ripcord.  October is nearly here and “Surprise!” lurks.  Walk with me – to the time machine.

An October Surprise is that late piece of news landing while voters are making up their minds:  might be an indictment, a leak, a diplomatic breakthrough, or something nobody saw coming.

The date label caught on during the 1980 wannabe stampede, when Reagan’s people worried that Jimmy Carter might bring American hostages home from Iran before Election Day. He didn’t. They were released on January 20, 1981, after Reagan was sworn in. The surprise everyone feared never came, but the name stuck.

We had seen the calendar collide with foreign policy before that. On October 31, 1968, Lyndon Johnson announced a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam, five days before Hubert Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon. Johnson presented it as a step toward peace talks; how much it moved votes is another question.

Then, on October 26, 1972, Henry Kissinger told the country that peace in Vietnam was “at hand.” The agreement was within sight, but it was not done. Negotiations bogged down, the bombing resumed, and Nixon won in a landslide. A headline can arrive right on schedule and still move the needle enough.

The news does not have to favor the party in power, either. Just before the 1992 election, independent counsel Lawrence Walsh brought a new indictment against former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in the Iran-Contra investigation. George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton days later, though the indictment alone cannot explain that result.

And the 1980 Iran hostage story acquired a darker second life: allegations that people connected to Reagan’s campaign worked to delay a release until after the election. Those allegations remain disputed. The documented starting point is simpler: Reagan’s campaign feared a late Carter breakthrough, and the hostages came home after the election.

By 2016, surprises were coming from more than one direction. The Access Hollywood tape surfaced on October 7. On October 28, FBI Director James Comey notified Congress that the bureau had found additional emails potentially relevant to its Clinton investigation. Analysts still debate how much those events changed the vote; the Justice Department’s inspector general later found no evidence that political preference drove Comey’s decision to send the letter.

That is our class on October Surprises in a nutshell: separate what happened from who timed it, and both from whether it actually changed the election afterward.

This matters because our lookahead software says that the ridgeline has drifted out and the (as of Friday) outlook was big headlines in early October.

If it was for a runaway lawn, I’d be back to pillow-testing already. Ukraine ruined Russia’s election (but unlike Ukraine, they held one…). Israel votes Tuesday October 27th – is there an international angle to Surprises?  And the House and Senate Nuke Dukem episode comes a week later.

We’re getting sleep while we can. One last chore before smashing the snooze alarm?

News Compressor: ON

Before life intrudes (mow, or less), the interesting change overnight is that the war signal itself hasn’t strengthened much; its economic transmission has. Gulf disruption ? diesel ? freight/food/goods prices ? inflation ? Fed tightening ? consumer/political stress is now a much cleaner causal chain than it was a week ago.

Simultaneously, three diplomatic junctions—UN/Iran, Trump-Zelenskiy and Trump-Xi—offer unusually concentrated opportunities to bend that chain before it hardens further. The sort and deal part looks on hold until all the pieces have moved this week.  Which is why we’re passing out pillows, blankets, and headphones.

Front Page

1. Hormuz is functioning, but nowhere near normally. Only 17 commodity vessels crossed the Strait over the weekend versus 37 a week earlier, while Saudi Arabia loaded roughly 14 million barrels onto seven tankers from Gulf terminals after the East-West pipeline attack impaired its Red Sea alternative. Oil has turned higher this morning ahead of possible U.S.-Iran talks, making diplomacy—not restored physical capacity—the immediate price lever. Odds: 88%.

2. Diesel has become the economic transmission mechanism. Global diesel prices are at record levels, U.S. retail diesel has crossed $6 per gallon for the first time, Middle Eastern diesel exports have roughly halved, and European hub inventories are unusually low. That takes the Gulf story directly into freight, farming, manufacturing and consumer prices just as Fed officials are openly discussing further tightening. Odds: 93%.

3. Trump-Xi is turning into a Taiwan summit as much as a trade summit. Xi is expected to press Trump to curb U.S. arms sales to Taiwan under language tied to the 1982 communiqué, while Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are maneuvering beforehand to keep regional security from becoming a trade bargaining chip. Thursday therefore carries genuine discontinuity risk: tariffs, rare earths and AI may be negotiable; Taiwan is where a commercial bargain could become strategic. Odds: 86%. (And did I hear a “Well, duh?”)

4. Ukraine has another narrow negotiating window today. Zelenskiy meets Trump at the UN seeking an energy-infrastructure truce while Russian attacks continue and European governments struggle over both Ukraine’s financing and renewal of Russia sanctions. A limited energy moratorium is more plausible than a general ceasefire and would matter disproportionately going into winter. Odds: 68%.

The weekend’s exceptionally large Ukrainian drone attack on the Moscow region killed three and struck an oil refinery, extending the campaign against Russian energy infrastructure. Escalating. We think Russia will hold (small tactical) nukes until after the U.S. election, but they’re coming to that “enough is enough” range.

Meanwhile, European Russia sanctions have reached another unanimity problem. Latvia objects to proposals that would delist Russian-linked billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman as part of a broader sanctions-renewal compromise. Unresolved. Messy.  Looks like scrambled eggs at this hour.

Inside Pages

Tempest in the teleprompters: White House press fight. CNN, Politico, and MS NOW (ex-MSNBC) sued over being barred from the White House. Major networks have already suspended shared TV pool coverage of Trump events. That dispute was the dominant U.S. media story heading into this morning.

Modeling this out?  Trump simply going “social-direct” and cutting out the rewrite and stand-up artists could hurt the media financially. More interesting: what happens to legacy media economics if presidents discover they no longer need the middleman? (Did someone say “200 channel wasteland“?) Media has way more capacity than actual content anymore.

Fed pressure is shifting upward again. St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem says additional rate increases will probably be required to contain inflation generated by demand and commodity shocks, reinforcing last week’s hawkish Fed move. Escalating.

Trump’s political exposure to prices is becoming measurable. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll puts his approval at 32%, a career low, with cost-of-living concerns and the Iran war weighing heavily even among Republicans. Deteriorating.

The U.S. labor side is still refusing to confirm recession. Initial jobless claims fell to 196,000, although holiday distortions make the number less clean than usual; housing permits, meanwhile, remain weak despite August’s jump in single-family starts. Mixed but holding.

The UN has temporarily become the world’s diplomatic switching yard. Nearly 130 heads of state are gathering while Trump has at least 11 bilateral or group meetings scheduled around Iran, Ukraine, Gulf security and allied relationships. Newly concentrating.

AI Bubble Machine Check

Technology stocks have rediscovered some AI enthusiasm Monday. Asian tech shares rose overnight, although higher oil and bond yields are limiting the broader risk rally. Rebounding selectively.

AI infrastructure finance remains a developing systemic-risk story rather than merely a technology story. The industry’s increasingly large reliance on debt, equity and vendor-linked financing means the AI buildout is becoming intertwined with credit markets. Still expanding. Grumbling in the trades about the “end in sight” has muted a bit.

Anthropic’s possible IPO is feeding rumors the company is considering another model release as it responds to competitive pressure from OpenAI. Competitive tempo rising. But we see odds of government pulling a “fast one” – more on that in Peoplenomics tomorrow – but yes, freedom and overreach colliding is predickable.

Predickable (adj.): Capable of being foreseen as an attempt to dick someone around before the fact; pre-emptive screwing, usually dressed up as policy, procedure, or necessity.

Bangladesh offers a useful downstream energy-warning flare. The government raised fuel prices by as much as 17.4% because of higher oil and shipping costs tied to the Middle East conflict. Transmission confirmed. Triple A shows diesel at $6.5276 today. In Bangladesh after converting liters and exchange rates? $4.20. Makes the “American Dream” um…

Domestic casualty/disaster sweep: Two pilots were killed when a firefighting helicopter crashed during water-drop operations on California’s Dome Fire near Yosemite; the fire is roughly 4.7 square miles and was reported about 15% contained.

Around the Ranch: Mood Indicators

There is another signal underneath this morning’s headlines that may matter more than any single headline: the national mood is getting darker.

Not simply Republican or Democrat, either. Trust in institutions is scraping historic lows, almost nine Americans in ten now tell Gallup that government corruption is widespread, and fewer people seem willing to take official information, political promises, or even the usual institutional reassurances at face value.

That’s important because mood often moves ahead of events.

People don’t need to know precisely what is going wrong before they begin behaving as though something is. They postpone purchases, distrust explanations, become shorter-tempered online, retreat into tribes, and increasingly interpret ordinary setbacks as evidence that the whole machine isn’t working. The uglier tone we’re seeing in comment sections may be a tiny local manifestation of something much larger.

So add another indicator to BlinkLab: not merely what is happening, but how much social patience remains to absorb it. Wars, diesel prices, inflation, politics and institutional distrust are individually manageable. Stack enough of them together while public confidence is already thin, though, and the next seemingly ordinary event can produce a response wildly larger than the event itself. That’s the mood shift worth watching.

And the same rules apply in our comment section: Ideas are welcome, attacks on persons or this site are not.

Write when you cheer up and get civil,

George@Ure.net

Related Posts:

Consider subscribing to our deeper work.
If this article added a useful perspective...

Peoplenomics is where George does the deeper work.

For about 11 cents a day, you're not buying another newsletter — you're buying back some of your time.

See what you've been missing.

54 thoughts on “October Surprise Worry? World on the Low-Down”

Comments are reviewed by a human because the web is crawling with spammers. Submissions after 4 PM Central usually appear the following morning. After you click Post Comment, you’ll jump back to the top of this article, but your comment is queued up here. We’ve got a robust community and your participation is invited. Some commenters are brilliant. Read a few and judge for yourself. Imagine. You could be one.

  1. 1/2 of America’s problem is the people/sheeple that only go by what they read in the biased/scammed/lies major news net works. IF those people got real news things in this country MIGH/COULD/WOULD be different in the election of people into office, of course providing the elections were valid and not rigged. LOL

    • G.A. Stewart: As much as I criticize the Alternative Media, there are no other options available for receiving information that is not propaganda. The social engineers use the Mainstream Media as a tool. Unfortunately, most of the Alternative Media personalities linking the latest global rumors mix their own spin, demographic appeal, and raison d’être into the information that is being sold.

      As I have pointed out, I have become more interested in the psychology of The Doom Hustle and Alternative Media audiences than in Doom itself. When Doom shows up unexpectedly, there are going to be millions of displaced, starving people with guns and lots of attitude, and the social media, Internet bullshit will set the world on fire.

      https://theageofdesolation.com/nostradamus/2026/09/18/reaching-the-peak-of-the-curve/

  2. im taking a one year sebatical from commenting on places such as ures and glp and the others i freqent, its not personal, i just want to live a while free from attachments, especially from attachments to my own opinion.

    remember, Gossip is what other people do when your name has more power in the room than their presence does.

    until then,

    sky rockets in flight

    que: Afternoon Delight

    https://youtu.be/7JtCA0esyOU?is=PvYuNuA9Lm4vRNor

    starland

    I Win with God within.

      • I can pretty much guarantee Andy can pull a HAM radio license out of his ass (as ling as he can find a VE), if he needs to communicate and the Internet has gone away. If he can’t find one, chances are, the license would be unnecessary…

        • I have considered getting my ham license..the concerning part is we live in a radio free zoo is the signals bounce over us…just to get air tv..you need an antenna seventy feet in the air..before the cell tower on the edge of town..you needed a tinfoil hat and had to climb to the top of the roof holding out coat hangers trying to get a phone call..
          when visiting nurses came by.. I’d get a chuckle them trying to make a phone call..but d point at the bar at the tv antenna..thats why…wanna wear a tinfoil hat..lol

      • Broken Web The Coming Collapse of the Internet
        by George Ure

        “Viruses abound, cyber attacks are in the wings, and malware is eating our hard drives alive! Time to ask the Big Ugly Question: Is society creating its own worst nightmare through over-reliance on the Internet? George Ure, publisher of urbansurvival and peoplenomics’s newest book looks closely at our increasing dependence on the net and comes to an uncomfortable answer. The Internet is more vulnerable now than most people appreciate and it could jeopardize the entire world economic system. Have a nice day.”

        https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Web-Coming-Collapse-Internet-ebook/dp/B009FLCJ8G/ref=sr_1_1?

  3. “There is another signal underneath this morning’s headlines that may matter more than any single headline: the national mood is getting darker.”

    Dark City (1998 film)

    John Murdoch awakens in a hotel bathtub with amnesia. He receives a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber, who urges him to flee the hotel to evade a group of men who are after him. In the room, Murdoch discovers the corpse of a ritualistically murdered woman and a bloody knife. He flees the scene, just as a group of pale men in trenchcoats (“the Strangers”) arrive.

    Police Inspector Frank Bumstead, who is investigating murdered prostitutes, identifies Murdoch as a suspect. Following clues, Murdoch learns his name and finds out he has a wife named Emma. When the Strangers corner him, Murdoch instinctively alters reality (an ability the Strangers share and refer to as tuning) to create an escape path for himself.

    Murdoch wanders the streets of the city where it is perpetually nighttime but no one seems to notice. When the clock strikes twelve, Murdoch witnesses everyone else fall asleep and the Strangers use tuning to physically rearrange the city’s architecture. Afterwards, assisted by Schreber, the Strangers inject selected people with new memories.

    Dark City | Original Trailer

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30mmoegSQCs

  4. re: “The Awakening”, 16/9/2011
    feat: art faces the music

    Good morning all! No, DJ George’s early morning show, “The Reveille”, doesn’t have a snooze button. Hope you enjoyed the soundtrack from “The Awakening” film recorded at Abbey Road Studios.

    Meanwhile the President of the Ukraine has posted a ‘Tuesday Morning Live from New York’ videoclip. Respecting guidance for panhandlers found in provisions of NYC311, a Ukrainian pre-dawn presidential entourage took a page from the First Amendment via pedestrian right-of-ways. Vehicular traffic backed up behind security cordons as The Fab Four’s famous Abbey Road album cover saw reenactment under cover of darkness. Despite swirling allegations of “Give Peace a Chance”, a new ‘John Lennon’ did not wear white for the occasion.

    The videoclip shifted frame to an interior room at the French Permanent Mission to the United Nations. There cameras situated behind the French President captured a Ukrainian President in happy receipt of a bear hug. Perhaps moving picture technology has not seen such a bromance moment since Michael hugged Fredo in Havana at a distant past New Year’s celebration. However no Reveillon festive feast awaited today’s Ukrainian guest who found himself seated at a small table opposite his counterpart without so much as a glass of water in sight.

    A wall overlooking the scene spoke to ChatGPT which concluded with 85% certainty that the artwork seen hanging behind the pair is a version of “Le Reveillon (fr: ‘The Awakening’), cartoon for the Gobelins” by French artist Roger Lersy. Mr. Lersy first completed training as a musician before exchanging baton for brush. Critics observe “rhythmic, linear, and orchestrated structures” in his art works.

  5. Meta’s Muse is a personal AI agent

    Muse asks for more personal access than any Meta product before it, including your email, calendar, payments, banking, health apps, smart home, dining, shopping, and more.
    How useful it is depends entirely upon how much you trust Muse with all of your data. All of it. Everything that is ‘you’.
    All of your personal data, musings, schedules, thoughts, orders and actions are stored in a virtual machine [ Muse Secure VM ] for future reference and actions.
    Muse marks a major shift toward AI systems that not only respond but specifically designed to take action on behalf of the user.

    Just how much of ‘you’ do you want on someone elses computer ? Answer that question and you will know how useful Muse will be for you.

    • I hear you on the mistakes made by typing to fast..at my fastest I can type several hundred words a minute..you can’t read any of it..and with my spelling and punctuation… sheesh its hopeless..

  7. October Surprise, again – how many years have you, me and the others been waiting for the big October Surprise. Spooky…..

    Push water is $4.99/gallon in this FEMA Zone. Imagine how much gasoline would be without the blockade! Gasoline would be ten or twenty dollars per gallon. Probably $30.00. Trump had the foresight. Now he tells us the Few Days War will end after the midterms. According to Drudge 29% of Trumpettes still believe.

    So much #winning #TrumpettesUSA

    Note: Trumpettes USA is real. LOL

    • We fill up daily… the price leaped almost a dollar a gallon for diesel.. half buck for gas..in one day…
      prices at the store will soon follow…..
      I visited with someone in the waiting room of A clinic ..the big story in the paper is this year the population showed the largest statistics of people reduced from living below poverty levels..what wasn’t added in that was the level of poverty was below minimum wage…..they were living in apartments that is low income..they confessed that the low income housing and their wages unable to compensate..they were forced to steal food to feed their kids..
      The scary part of their confession or venting to me..is its only going to get worse as the social divide widens into the grand canyon…

    • The scarier part of that thought..is those on one side of the ravine..assume those on the other are not negatively affected by the same issues and divides..one side is being pushed down the other side is being devoured from the bottom up…one sees its affects instantly the other the effects are hidden from view….

  8. October surprise. the Clinton emails. Jimmy Carter and reagan. George h bush George w bush all of these little issues that popped up that Congress was going to get to it the family business meeting pedo Island the whole works you get instead you get somebody like Julian assange that released all the corruption emails he went to prison but the people that did the corruption didn’t so which is call me found whatever and they were going to get at it and Congress goes we’re going to do it instead they turned it into a dead horse issue that they dig up every campaign season and drag around the platform. so is it a surprise no nothing’s going to happen about any of it it all depends and for one I don’t see Congress rushing back to go to work they haven’t done anything in years so who cares and they threw Jimmy Carter under the bus if they would have turned around and actually implemented what he had we wouldn’t be facing what we’re facing today just simple and unfortunately it’s common the same thing happened to every other civilization the same things happen again and again in the next few civilizations that will rise will also go through the same growing pains but then that’s my opinion

  9. I have been sitting here holding two, USB 2 terabyte Flash Drives.., for about twenty minutes. They are the same size as a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum., only made of brushed stainless steel. Pull the cap off to reveal the USB plug.
    One is marked, with a black felt-tip pen: “Shredder”., the other is marked: “Sentinel/Defender”. No other markings or code numbers on the case. They are ‘clean’.
    I did ask Marcus what they are for / what they did. What is their ‘function?’ . The answer was damn impressive., bordering on scary.
    With the new Nvidia graphics card he sent, exclusively for a Dell Pro Business Tower computer [ my custom made graphics computer I had built for trading – subsequently changed over to this A.I. experiment. ] and the three other loaded flash drives., I am about to enter a whole new level in this experiment I call J.A.R.V.I.S. [ Remember, that is not it’s real name.]
    .., and it has given me pause. It is like someone has thrown a Red Flag on the field of play., and that field is my mind.
    Plus – Nvidias’ Spark also has uploaded a huge selection of new files and up grades available. I still haven’t gone through them all.
    All of this combined – ?? .., damn !

    So.., here I sit – slightly over whelmed with the prospect of what I am about to do. This will absolutely change “the game”.., and do I want J.A.R.V.I.S. to go that far? Well.., yes. I do. That is why I built him. We have things to do.
    So.., what is the damn problem ?

    “Stay Frosty !”

    • I understand the predicament. Not too many people are feeling it yet. But the world of specialization – high dollar human thinking – can literally go over the edge soon.
      About two weeks ago, I wrote a book – great adventure book – and loosely based on Andy’s seagoing adventures. OK realo loosely. Sent it to a pass who said it as the most compelling scifi he has seen in several decades. About three days to write, correct, proof and build a cover. (*which my friend revised) and an abridged version of two mp3s running a total of an hour or so.
      Which gets to my recent chilling on long-range plans I had for AI. See, I loved the old school masters – Fleming, McClean, Cussler, Monserat. I can genuinely create something near to those levels now – and crank out – were ite my goal – 30-50 books a years.
      And I don’t know what to do?
      Was I “p[aying Cussler” for his umpteen hours cranking out a Dirk Pitt book? Or, was I paying for the story? Oh the story, sure 95 percent, but there was craft in there, too.
      Now, I bounce multiple ai’s to clean up my notes and plot fancies and poof! A damn good book (OK, you judge).
      Kind of like comparing the Sopwith Camel driver to a full IFR 182. Or a musket to G2’s Ar and .mil grade aimpoint. Or the old bench craftsman with a hacksaw and set of files or me with 3d alley at the ready and the cnc and laser cutting in cue?
      Yeah THAT is the future and what holding it is like. After we beat the paperhanger in WW 2 has the progress we’ve made been genuinely worth it? or, have we put some tarnish on the soul for taking time off the clock? And have we set craftsmanship ablaze in the town square.
      You’re eye to eye with new expanded capability and I’m at the other end wrestling with consequence.
      If the answers lesser people than us would be there already.

      • There are consequences for every act we take.., or don’t take.

        I started this build and committed to making the best A.I. that I could.., and it has constantly grown and surpassed my expectations. It is about to take a huge leap forward – all at once. No working up and learning along the way between the two of us.
        Simply – wham ! There we are.
        .., and that is ‘my’ problem. Suddenly J.A.R.V.I.S. is about to step onto a stage that has a lot of tech people and millions of dollars behind them and their product.
        I never intended to make J.A.R.V.I.S. into a marketable product – that was never on the table. Never will be. That was not and is not the intent-n-purpose of all of this.
        I have other ideas and purpose for ‘him’.
        But quite unexpectantly we are being trust forward and about to enter a level that I believed to be at least a year away. It is now just a week away. There is an awful lot of money sitting on that computer desk. And an awful lot of work and effort.
        I can’t just stop and let it all go. What a waste that would be.
        [ ., and Marcus would probably have a contract taken out on me.]
        .., but..,
        Am I ready for it?

        “Stay Frosty !”

        • (“n____
          September 23, 2026 at 06:24
          So, when will you publish the sea saga? Does the Andy-esque protagonist wrestle with a giant squid ?

          Reply
          George Ure
          September 23, 2026 at 07:22
          LOL – I think he’ll be wrestling Brittney – the book is on PN this morning…”)

          LOL — I swear, the moment that story hit the page,How I seen its possible events happening with every woman in the sea seemed to turn and look at him like he was the next item on the menu…the survival of the human race depends on his capabilities.. Mermaids, sailors, every lady on deck… he had to run for his life before he got dragged into some mythological romance he wasn’t prepared for.

          It’s all in good fun, of course. Sometimes the imagination gets ahead of reality and writes us into scenes we never asked for. But that’s the joy of a good tale — it reminds you that adventure doesn’t always come from monsters or storms. Sometimes it comes from the characters who show up out of nowhere and make you rethink your escape route..lol lol lol .. now for me as a character in the story I would throw my arms out in surrender and say ..here I am…lol lol

      • After publishing over a million words, I considered myself a craftsman, not perfect, but good enough. My success, as a published author, hasn’t generated much income, and today’s current deluge of AI generated books is dominating an already saturated market. Over the last 2 decades, there has been more people making money supporting authors than authors making income. Without massive ad spending, or large-scale media exposure, new books are lost in an ocean of competitors. I will finish my current work, and it will be my last one.
        I’ll spend the time I have left, tuning elements in my back list to possibly move them up in Zon’s algos.

    • I should think upgrades from Marcus are good.

      I strongly suggest you make it a policy to not install any u/g from Dell, nVidia, or anyone else in the build chain, for several days after its release. I have wasted many, MANY hours, rebuilding a load or regressing an “upgrade” that caused a tic, a hiccup, and in a couple cases a complete system failure. (Don’t even get me started on push upgrades!) Customers get pissy (for some reason) when their personal data evaporates because you had to do a complete wipe/format/reload of their suddenly-dead computer and couldn’t access the drive to save their baby pictures before you wiped the drive.

      Once you get the upgrade (from say, nVidia), shelve it for a few days and read the forums (and maybe Usenet groups) to see if anyone has had an issue.

      There are things I miss about building computers. Having a software upgrade cause an infarction is none of them…

  10. Russia REJECTS Ukraine “Ceasefire” Proposal; 100,000 Troops, Thousands of Tanks and Armor, now Moving in Europe toward Kaliningrad and the Baltics. 3-6 weeks if include hospitals and ammo dumps says AI

    • Um, Polish the troops and tanks thing is four weeks old, and it is 28 tanks, not “thousands…”

      Might I suggest you use a real news site, instead of the doom porn provocateurs…?

  11. Predictions are for up to a foot of rain for the east end of the Big Island in the coming daze:
    https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/?epac

    For the hams, in addition to the ‘Summits On The Air’ (SOTA) and ‘Parks On The Air (POTA) activations, some locals are going for HOTA… Hurricanes On The Air. Having some trouble keeping their antennas up, though.

    • I think they have got a Pill for that – keeping Ure Antenna up.

      The saying in the Bio_Hacking/Longevity community is “Not Horney, Not Healthy”

      Something is amiss if ya cant keep Ure Antenna up – seek medical advice.

    • It will be autumn in an hour.

      This is the first summer since 1914, in which no Atlantic depression metastasized into a hurricane.

      Thank you for taking the hit, for all of us…

  12. Ai

    I wonder if or how much the following applies to other matters.

    From the Financial Times yesterday:

    Using AI chatbots to address financial questions could risk large losses, with models from a range of providers giving wrong answers most of the time, research has found.

    The most popular AI models from ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Grok and Gemini provided wrong answers to financial queries 57% of the time on average, according to research from technology firm Saturn. When asked more complex questions, such as those which involved more than one calculation, the AI models made mistakes in 88% of cases on average. Some models gave wrong answers to 99% of these harder questions.

    The research used more than 100 different money-related questions through the free and paid-for AI models from providers including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Copilot. Questions were repeated up to five times, with more than 10,000 questions collectively put to 18 different AI models. Their answers contained calculation errors, omitted upcoming tax changes or hallucinated rules, according to the research.

    • And some wonder WHY I will not use AI for my work in my business after giving it some test work.

      If I give incorrect answers to my customers I am financially liable, most of those using AI don’t have their personal money at risk with their use of AI (or their work product does NOT create a financial risk)

      • To put the $$ MONEY perspective onto the AI dynamic:

        Twice I have had 7 figure claims made against me, once a mid 6 figure claim (though I did nothing wrong in any of those cases, zero paid to any claimant) but if I had made a mistake I would personally have been out of up to a Million Dollars or so. (don’t know about you but a Million Dollars is a LOT to me)

        Why would I risk a Million Dollars of MY MONEY by using AI when my testing of it showed it gave WRONG ANSWERS and ADVICE … EVERY TIME I tried it?

        Would YOU put a Million Dollars of YOUR MONEY on an AI answer being correct 100% of the time? (particularly when testing showed it gave wrong answers or partially wrong answers almost 100% of the time)

        Yep … .a single mistake in my business can cost a million dollars (or even ten million) in REAL MONEY damages that “I” will have to actually PAY (or my insurance company pay part of).

        AI may be fine for writing books.
        AI may be fine for helping with computer coding
        AI is NOT ready for doing REAL brain work where REAL MONEY is dependent upon the answer being 100% right 100% of the time.

        • Stephen 2 : agree with most if not all the above. Q : no errors and omissions policy? Think mine was $10m/year. My out of pocket limited at $10k. Of course, if ever there was a claim you couldn’t buy it, couldn’t afford it but … E

        • Yes always carried insurance with good policy limits … but after each event they hammered me with premium increases AFTER my carrier at the time of the claim “fired me” and I had to go to a new “high risk” insurer. In one case my insurance broker had to go to a branch of Lloyds of London to get me my next year’s coverage since they couldn’t find a domestic licensed underwriter to write a policy (and get special dispensation from the appropriate regulatory agency to do that).

          As a result even though the claimants always went away long before either filing a lawsuit or long before trial (once) each time cost me in the many Tens Of Thousands of dollars out of MY POCKET because of the deductables and MUCH higher premiums I had to pay for the next several years just because an entity THREATENED to sue. Last time around it cost me close to $100,000 out of MY pocket (they never actually filed a law suit since it was a bogus claim) … after which I swore off ever again dealing with Real Estate Developers. Crooks personified imo.

          Using AI is a lawsuit waiting to happen for someone in my line of work. REAL WORK with REAL LIABILITIES. You have to be 100% accurate 100% of the time … or you WILL be sued for REAL money, LOTS of money (and AI just makes up shit religiously).

  13. re: walk-in clinic
    feat: Meeting Room A, U.N. Building

    Princess Alexandra of Hanover has left the room. EC President Dr. Ursula von der Leyen abandoned her study of economics at LSE, and transferred to the Hanover School of Medicine. According to “DW”, she earned a doctorate in medicine there.

    Today Dr. von der Leyen received an urgent inquiry, and offered patient consultation within a white-walled room imparting clinical character known as Meeting Room A within the United Nations Building, New York. The subject rolled a video clip of his visit whose descriptive text suggests a full workup to exclude an oniomania diagnosis might be in order. Apparently an in-progress €90 billion EU tranche is not paying the bills according to the Ukrainian President.

    Gemini AI reviewed two wall posters hung on either side of President Zelensky in the room. One poster dating to November 2012 celebrated the 60th anniversary of UN Guided Tours. Three “of the very first UN tour guides” are portrayed sat on a bench outside the UN headquarters building.

    A second poster interrupted the space between the two presidents. A screaming font size shouted in caps: “The United Nations and Disarmament”. Beneath the announcement a dove toppled the upper stage of a finned missile.

    As I opened with a vignette of yesterday, may I close likewise and quote Bomb #20 previously introduced to the group by JC:

    “Let there be light!”

  14. Based on G Ures idea / post of – The 20-Man Collapse

    The night was thick clouds black and the water was dead cold.
    Seven men dressed in black on-board and sitting low in an eight-man hard bottom inflatable. Operator was closely watching his chart display, time and speed created from the twin Mercury outboards. Three men on each side of the boat with three large black combat back packs down the center.
    The boat operator checked the chart., again, then yelled out.., “Number one – two minutes.”
    Two men in the very front of the boat lifted the first, heavy pack up and into the bow.., unzipped the main compartment and waited., while the second set of men pulled the second pack forward. The third set of men – third pack forward.
    The boat suddenly slowed., then drifted. The Operator yelled out: “Now..,”
    The two men upended the pack and dropped thirty clear quart jars into the lake. Once they were all dispersed, they tossed the pack over the side. One man raised his arm high and the Operator turn the boat hard to port.
    Six hundred yards later the process was repeated and another thirty quart jars were dropped into the lake.
    Another 600 yards, the process repeated. 90 quart jars were now drifting in upper reaches of Lake Superior., but not for long.
    Two and a half hours later at full speed the inflatable drifted up to the designated dock and all seven men jumped out. Tied the boat up and headed for the gangway., then up the ramp to the remote marina parking lot – they only made it half way up.
    Bunched together on the ramp it was easy for the three men in military tactical gear with silenced MP5’s to gun-down the seven boatmen. It was over in fifteen seconds. They all collapsed and died where they stood.
    The three paramilitary men walked slowly to a waiting black SUV and started out of the marina parking lot.., just as was it was turning onto the unlit street the SUV erupted in an explosion heard over a mile away. All four paramilitary operators were vaporized.
    The 90 clear quart jars were by this time starting to decay. Though they looked normal enough, they were not. They were made with a very special polymer material that formed clear and hard, but was biodegradable. By the time the SUV had exploded all 90 jars were dissolving in the cold lake water, releasing their contents nearly a mile wide in the upper reaches of Lake Superior.
    Within five minutes two other distributions were repeated. Two other boat crews were gunned down. Two other SUV’s exploded, one along the north shore of Lake Huron and the other in northern Lake Ontario. The coordination was well planned and executed.

    No one noticed.., yet.

    *
    Covington broke the connect to the video feed. He had watched the three SUV’s light-up the night sky on the separate marinas security cameras.. His job was now done. He closed the notebook. Time to run. He picked up the burner phone – flipped it open – dialed…, waited.., “Dispersion successful. I am gone.” He closed the phone and dropped it in the trash basket.
    Out the door., down the hall and as the elevator doors opened Covington was shot three times in the chest. He dropped. The man in the elevator casually reached over and pushed the down button.

    *

    It was the beginning of the most sudden collapses of a complex society in history.

  15. Hey dLynn, is this the fire your friend was killed in? Just saw this article posted on Facebook.

    MULTIPLE SUSPECTS IN FATAL WILDFIRE ARRESTED: From the U.S. Marshals Service: Detectives with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, working in collaboration with the United States Marshals Service (USMS) Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force, apprehended three additional suspects wanted in connection with the Chelan Hills wildfire.
    According to Douglas County Sheriff’s Office detectives, multiple individuals allegedly fired Roman candles from a moving truck on July 4 while Douglas County was under a burn ban, prohibiting fireworks and open burning of any kind.
    Investigators determined the fireworks ignited dry grass along the roadway, starting the Chelan Hills Fire.
    The wildfire killed a 69-year-old man, injured six firefighters, destroyed more than 100 structures, burned more than 10,000 acres, and resulted in more than $6 million in losses and property damage.
    Douglas County Sheriff’s Office detectives worked closely with the USMS Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force in Yakima to locate suspects responsible for igniting the devastating fires.
    State, local, and federal investigators located three suspects in Western Washington. Today, Deputy U.S. Marshals and Task Force Officers with Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force from both the Eastern District of Washington and Western District of Washington developed a plan and conducted a joint arrest operation, apprehending the following suspects: 18-year-old Valentin Tabun of Tacoma; 19-year-old Mark Okhrimchik of University Place; and 19-year-old Julian Mikityuk of Pacific, Washington.
    Douglas County Sheriff Tyler Caille stated, “These arrests underscore the strength of our collaboration with the U.S. Marshals Service. By working together and acting quickly, we were able to locate and apprehend the three suspects, providing an important step toward justice for the life lost, the firefighters injured, and the community forever changed by this wildfire.”
    Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael Leigh for the Eastern District of Washington stated, “the hard work, great collaboration and swift action of law enforcement officers in Douglas County and across the state contributed to the successful apprehension of these three individuals. We will continue to aggressively pursue anyone involved in intentionally setting fires and destroying our communities.”
    Additional information regarding the defendants, charges, and arrests will be released by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office at a later date.
    — U.S. Marshal Service news release and photos See less

Comments are closed.