3 September 2024

Despite this article, we don't yet have Coordinated Lunar Time. It's still a standard under development. There is no publicly available clock that tells you what time it is on the moon yet. But scientists at the IAU think they have a system worked out.
Ashby and Patla worked on developing a system where anything can be calculated in reference to the center of mass of the Earth/Moon system. Or, as they put it in the paper, their mathematical system "enables us to compare clock rates on the Moon and cislunar Lagrange points with respect to clocks on Earth by using a metric appropriate for a locally freely falling frame such as the center of mass of the Earth–Moon system in the Sun's gravitational field."
The center of mass between the Earth and Moon is located between the surface of the earth, closer to the surface than the center, but still subsurface. Taking the Sun into account complicates things further. But the math is doable.
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Interesting point of view. It says that people avoid doing what their natural talent is, because it seems ordinary. So they pursue some other skillset to challenge themselves, and rarely rise above mediocrity. He calls this Rothbard's Law. People often have to do something that pays the bills, and don't occupy themselves with an activity just because it's a challenge. You have to earn money, and innate talent isn't always there. But it helps if you can find a job that allows you to use your innate talents and profit from it.

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+That sucks. Looks like one can't uninstall the recall "feature" of Windows 11 after all. If I were a Windows user, I'd switch. 

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Eric Schmidt gave an eye-opening talk at Stanford last week. Supposedly the video was taken down at his request but this guy had a copy and posted it back up.  Wow, what an eye-opener. Imagine being able to tell an advanced LLM to clone TikTok for you, at least the parts you're interested in. Or to clone a reasonably copy of Google for you. No need to code it yourself. We're not there yet, but this is going to be a huge vulnerability for software-only companies that will be hard to stop. Take a listen...
You may have an opinion about Eric Schmidt, but he's smart and has interacted with a lot of other smart people, which has shaped his thoughts, and his viewpoints are heard by powerful people, so it's worth hearing what he has to say.

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What causes gold nuggets to form? Turns out that it's been a bit of a mystery. Now, it's believed to be a result of piezoelectricity from quartz crystals.

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This graph has been making the rounds on financial sites:
It's from FDIC's quarterly banking report.  It sure doesn't look like the banking sector is in good shape. And I'm not sure how well the FDIC is going to be able to handle another SVB going under.  The FDIC ends the report saying:
In conclusion, the banking industry continued to show resilience in the first quarter, as net income rebounded, asset quality metrics remained generally favorable, and the industry’s liquidity was stable. 

However, ongoing economic and geopolitical uncertainty, continuing inflationary pressures, volatility in market interest rates, and emerging risks in some bank loan portfolios pose significant downside risks to the banking industry.  These issues, together with funding and margin pressures, will be matters of close supervisory attention by the FDIC in 2024.  

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