Panda-monium - Trump Thread #170

[Spandauer]

Mid-terms looming, approval falling, prices rising, wars ongoing - Ping Ping and Fu Shuang must be wondering what heinous crime they committed to be banished chosen as envoys of friendship between China and USA. 🐼🐼

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5572772-it-costs-a-lot-of-money-to-be-this-cheap-trump-thread-169

Trump’s Final Term Ends in: - Countdown Timer

I've seen one suggestion these guys were hired for a job but when one realised how close they were to a military base he called in fearing they might all get shot? I must admit, I'm on tenterhooks waiting to hear what the real story is here - I suspect there'll be egg on Trump and del Rubio's faces for trying pretend this was a big terror op they were aware of.

Yup. I try to work on the simplest explanation to fit the known facts and outcome. And although it is early days and we do not know all the facts, it does seem odd that people high up, as in POTUS level, have stated their conclusion, done a nudge and a wink about the facts, and that the coppers are not coming out with facts but are partially copying nudge and wink... phew.. hang on... lost track. Let me climb out of that rabbit hole.

Aye, Reset processor. Put all known data into the noggin, and my conclusion, is that Trump is a fuckwit.

That is a fact.

And I also think that the potential irony here is that Trump. the known conspiracy nutter, is actually being helped to create a conspiracy, to try to hide the fact that he is conspiracy nutter fuckwit.

Right. Gonna have a can of beer now to lubricate the brain/ numb it, then I am going to design a parallel universe jump thingy, so we can all go to one without Trump. Put your name on the list if you want to come. but be warned, there will be an anti Trump test before departure. So you can't take Uncle Jimmy or Aunty Nellie.

Thanks for the new thread @Spandauer

Did anyone else see the video of him, full on asleep in the oval yesterday, five minutes after doing a Sleepy Joe rant?

I understand Repugnican congresspeople pretending it's not happening, but why oh why, is mainstream media not making a huge deal of this? It's yet another shoulder shrug from them.

I'll come @RedTagAlan - I can hold the spanners and bring emergency cheese. The dog volunteers as security and wants to know if he can wear a high-vis tabard?

On that, and his renaming of AI to SI, hat off to CNN. They put his chatbot to the test :-)

Trump launched a ‘damn good’ AI chatbot. It debunks many of his false claims | CNN Politics

And on his renaming of AI to SI. If he not aware there is already SI?

• SI (Système International d'Unités) . *So now, not only are the Americans still using FREEDOM UNITS while the rest of the world is using SI units, He is messing up what people think about when SI is mentioned.

Oh, and re his EO where he says the AI is now to be called SI... he said this about it beforehand. Go ahead Don. Tell us.

DONALD TRUMP 00:01:15-00:01:43 (28 SEC)

"Well, we're doing one thing; we're going to be signing a document today at about 5:00, renaming artificial intelligence -- because it's not artificial, we all agree on that.

Hang on Don. You just said AI is not artificial. And who are we. If it's not artificial, so what is it ?

"... we're going to be renaming it Super Intelligence, officially renaming it, and that'll come out at 5:00 today. "

Right ok. Can you explain your logic here ?

"Really amazing."

Ok. So does this super intelligence, that is not artificial, not need guard rails of some sort. You know, for internet security at the minimum, and national security?

"Well, there's a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation, and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that. But the self-regulation is very important. There's something else that was"

Cool, So self regulation, and the feds. But I would hardly describe the sycophants you put in charge of those fed organizations as even smart, never mind super intelligent. Can you expand. Let's start with the self regulation.

"They love our country, and they're going to work with local communities for the data centers in particular. "

OK... But these people are capitalists. So how do you make sure they self regulate ?

"..they're going to work to make the community happy, that might be supplying oil and gas, it might be supplying education, it may be helping teachers along financially, helping people along financially."

Ahh, Free stuff. Bribes you mean ?

"And they've all agreed that that's a very positive -- nobody really thought of it and it's a very positive thing. So, you're going to see data centers are going to be very popular because this is the group and they're the ones that want it. "

Nobody ever thought of bribes before? And you think bribes are ok ?

"Otherwise, they'll be forced to go overseas or other locations."

Thanks don. I think we understand now. Bye.

"Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you."

Transcript here.

Remarks: Donald Trump Holds a Meeting with Tech Executives on AI - September 29, 2026 — Trump Archive (trump-archive.com)

I am on holiday in Canada right now with a group of people who all happen to be sciency - two are American so I have learned a lot about what the scientific community is going through under Trump. It's bad, but there is a lot of very creative letter of the law stuff going into funding applications that is getting the real work done whilst still being compliant.

Josh Widdecombe did a gag about Pizza Hut becoming Pasta Hut for a promotion, noting that if you were going to change one of the two words to improve the tone of the name. then maybe "hut" was the wrong one.

Similarly, it's not really the word "artificial" that I have a problem with in "artificial intelligence".

Yeah. On that,I have done stuff with industrial temperature control. Not my main thing. A part thing. And it is really quite complex as you know. And that is where I first come across the concept of artificial intelligence. Fuzzy logic PID control. That was back in early 2000s

And we had a super senior guy who was into it in a big way. Spent years working on it, ( mainly directing external others to) and it never worked that well. Despite the hundreds of thousands ( breaking into a million) he spent on it. And when he moved on, I was left with it. To get it working. In a specific process I mean. A single application.

I done the sums on energy and heat etc, ripped out all the fuzzy logic, and put in hot air guns with fixed wattage outputs, and it worked... better.

After that I was given another of his fuzzy logic machines to "fix". I done all the proposals etc. His machine was scrapped, and I built new one, And the PLC code I wrote was just simple " if .. then" logic.

My point of this anecdotal story, is that I think too many people see AI as an alternative to knowing the basic principles. That anyone can be an engineer or a a statistician, or a travel agent, an expert MN post writer.... but no. You really do need to do some of the core work to be able to see what AI is getting wrong.

I reckon Trump should use AI. Ask it things like... " AI, if I spend $14 million on the reflecting pool, will I make a profit ?"

But he has no need to ask AI. His kickbacks are the reason he wants to spend other peoples money :-)

Anyone can write that code. IF I do X, will I make money ? IF yes THEN do it. IF no, THEN blame Biden.

Burnham has now said that there is "a strong indication that Iran played a part" in the alleged terror plot near RAF Fairford on Sunday.

Off I shuffle with tail between my legs.

No wait. What does AI SI say :-)

If you actually read that statement, what does it add to what we knew before ?

I mean the Iranian news agency reporting that "Bunging British Bobbies ballsed up and banged up some birdwatchers" would not make Burnhams statement any less accurate.

I still smell weasel words. Like when a policemen had to be hospitalised after an incident with some armed robbers turned out it was because he shot himself in the foot,

I suspect Trump really thinks the 'Super intelligence' move is super smart because, OK, people didn't like 'artificial intelligence' because that made people think it was 'artificial'. But everyone's gonna love Super Intelligence, because it's super.

NB, in an interview earlier, Mr Sharp & Healthy & Not Like Sleepy Joe seemed not to recall what SI stood for

TRUMP: 'It's not AI. That's the other thing. We changed the name officially today to SI'

I don't trust opening times on Google because I know what complete rubbish Google AI can randomly decide to update with. In my last week before retirement I had to go into the Google accounts for 443 branches and manually switch off AI updates because it had gone haywire and it also stopped us correcting them by instantly overwriting with stupid stuff. Now I look at opening times and do a quick reasonableness check. It's amazing how many people don't and we're surprised to discover a teeny bank branch wasn't open 24/7 or a city centre branch didn't open at 3am.

So that could imply that whilst there was a bunch of robbers stealing red diesel, there was also, at the same time, and within the area, another set of people, on instructions from Iran, plotting to blow up the air base? Each spooked the other and the bombers got away.

Eta Interesting.

If you listen to last weeks Strong Message Here, Armando Iannuci details how he got an AI engine (I think it was Gemini) that had hallucinated his placing the "Taskmaster" to explain exactly what steps it took to dream up the lie and then double down on it.

Basically it said that it was programmed to generate pleasing answers over accurate ones.

We are edging towards the "Battle of the AIs" where "Our AI" is perfect and infallible and "Their AI" is broken and lies. Thus reducing any use for AI at a stroke. Luckily we haven't spend too much money on it yet.

Fans of sectarian violence will be thrilled to know they will soon be able to add "Protestant AI" and "Catholic AI" to their reasons to be grouchy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0031vjy

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/09/30/christa-pike-execution-halted-tennessee-colleen-slemmer-6th-circuit/92009979007/

Well this is suitably horrifying. If you are going to be backwards enough to have the death penalty killing people quickly and painlessly ought to be a bare minimum requirement.

Horrific, such a cruel practice.

The guillotine was devised as a mercy ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/30/hegseth-military-personnel-cuts

Bizarre and deranged.

And all this is normal, of course. Gut the military not so much that you can't fight enemies (I mean team Trump have no time for loser dead soldiers) but more that they can't fight you.

Oh goody.

During his speech in Quantico, Virginia, the defense secretary announced several new initiatives, including a a new Pentagon project which will see Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey – a top Trump donor and ally – and Newt Gingrich, the former US House speaker, work with the department to study the “future of warfare”.

(my bold)

Love this from Brian Bilston today for National Poetry Day 😍

I wish!@Evenstar

I have a few hefty tomes that could be used for the others who deserve it. 📚

Cui bono ?

AI says Putin.