Tootfinder

A starter pack of questions to help think about "discovery" and "knowledge":
1. When was X discovered?
2. Once it was discovered, who knew X?
3. 1000 years later, who knew/knows/will know X?
4. Is X true?
5. Which groups of people would say it's true vs. false?
When X is "a² b² = c² in a right triangle" we think there are nice clean answers to these questions. But when X is "COVID-19 transmits via small airborne aerosols and a mask is needed to reduce the risk of infection" things get more interesting, particularly the answer to question 1. Does something count as "discovered" if many/most people would say it's false?
People love to answer this question by appeal to "scientific consensus" but the scientific consensus on aerosol transmission is still shaky if you consider certain big institutions, and even if it's mostly settled now, there was definitely a period between "experts on transmission know it" and "there's a scientific consensus." So which counts as discovery? What if knowledge is held secret, like many military technologies? What about historical facts that become censored?

I take this to be a version of the "symbol grounding problem" raised by Rodney Brooks: that LLMs can't "ground" the language they produce and consume in the real world, having no experience of the latter. https://rodneybrooks.com/three-things-that-llms…

Can someone make sense for me of the fact that a few months ago we made a special deal to import Argentinian beef to ease prices, but now we’re making a special deal to export beef to China? With consumer beef prices at insane levels due to a hard supply constraint?
I get a sense that these people don’t understand their jobs.

Despite regulating broadcast media, FCC commissioners have accepted pricey tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala from CBS or its parent company, now Paramount.

Conflict of Interest:
Ethics experts say that by accepting the gifts,
FCC commissioners are compromising the agency’s impartiality
and should avoid acting on Paramount’s pending merger.
Mixing Business and Pleasure:
After voting for a Paramount merger, Commissioner Olivia Trusty took …

FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals
Accepting tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala compromised the commissioners’ impartiality, ethics experts told ProPublica. FCC Chair Brendan Carr has been gifted at least $63,000 worth of tickets by CBS or its parent company.

Worthwhile read - and I will note one issue it does not address - the impact of increased CO2 concentrations on the global ecosystem - everything from #OceanAcidification to #PlantMetabolism to #HumanHealth

Worthwhile read - and I will note one issue it does not address - the impact of increased CO2 concentrations on the global ecosystem - everything from #OceanAcidification to #PlantMetabolism to #HumanHealth

#Shitpost #Shitposting #ShamelesslyStolenFromSomewhereElseOnTheInternetHonestlyICantKeepTrackOfThisStuffAnymore

Anthropic updates Claude Design with design system imports, bidirectional integration with Claude Code, lower token consumption, and more export destinations (Michael Nuñez/VentureBeat)
https://venturebeat.c…

Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty
cast a decisive vote approving Paramount’s historic $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.
Now, the commissioner and a guest enjoyed the star-studded celebration thanks to tickets gifted to her by Paramount worth more than $12,000, according to ethics disclosure records obtained by ProPublica.
The other commissioner who approved the merger watched from a prized perch.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr and his wife sat in a privat…

FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals
Accepting tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala compromised the commissioners’ impartiality, ethics experts told ProPublica. FCC Chair Brendan Carr has been gifted at least $63,000 worth of tickets by CBS or its parent company.

Declare climate crisis a global public health emergency, experts tell WHO
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/16/who-should-declare-climate-crisis-global-public-health-emer…