Free Republic

A two-hour conversation with an artificial intelligence (AI) model is all it takes to make an accurate replica of someone's personality, researchers have discovered. In a new study published Nov. 15 to the preprint database arXiv, researchers from Google and Stanford University created "simulation agents" — essentially, AI replicas — of 1,052 individuals based on two-hour interviews with each participant. These interviews were used to train a generative AI model designed to mimic human behavior. ... To create the simulation agents, the researchers conducted in-depth interviews that covered participants' life stories, values and opinions on societal issues. This enabled the...

Art Spiegelman, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, has announced that he will be collaborating with Joe Sacco, creator of the documentary-comic Palestine, in a new project about Gaza. Spiegelman made the remarks during the premiere of a documentary about his life, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, in New York. He said that the new graphic novel will likely be difficult to find a publisher for in the US, given the ongoing wave of censorship on Palestine in western art, but added: “I'll finish this thing or die trying”. Spiegelman is an American cartoonist, co-editor of the...

It’s the scandal that refuses to die. Despite the best efforts of our spineless elites – who’d rather talk about anything on Earth other than grooming gangs – it keeps creeping back. For all the left’s cheap, libellous cries about how racist it is to talk about these gangs, people keep talking about them. In the face of official indifference to the suffering of thousands of poor and working-class girls at the hands of these groomers and abusers, people have demanded a reckoning. There is a public thirst for truth, and no amount of top-down slander and censure can crush...

Axolotls, or Ambystoma mexicanum, are the new superstars of the amphibian world. These salamanders are native to a single lake in Mexico City, Lake Xochimilco, and are famous for their smiling appearance and incredible ability to regrow lost body parts. California has fairly strict rules to protect local ecosystems and prevent non-native species from causing havoc. “If released into the wild, axolotls have the potential to easily outcompete already struggling native salamander species, such as the California tiger salamander and the Eastern tiger salamander,” Axolotl Central points out. For those who can legally keep them as pets, they’re considered to...

General Motors' decision to leave Detroit's iconic Renaissance Center (RenCen) has sparked debate about the building's future and the city's ongoing revival. Originally envisioned in the 1970s as a symbol of Detroit's rebirth, the RenCen became GM's headquarters in 1996 after a $500 million renovation. However, shifting workplace trends and declining office demand led GM to announce its move to the Hudson's Detroit development—a $1.4 billion mixed-use project in downtown. The relocation raises questions about the RenCen's fate, as GM and Bedrock Detroit propose a $1.6 billion redevelopment plan. The controversial proposal includes partial demolition, residential conversions, and public funding...

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In 1978, the Carter administration made a deal with General Omar Torrijos, the uniformed socialist strongman who had seized power in Panama, to abandon America’s crown jewel. The Panama Canal had been built with over a decade of labor and half a billion of early twentieth century dollars by American engineers and visionaries who succeeded where the British and the French had failed, in the process they created a new country, Panama, and new trade routes. Jimmy Carter had run for office promising to oppose a surrender of the canal. As with most of his policies, he turned out to...

President-elect Donald J. Trump will be sentenced on January 10, but there will be no jail time, not that was ever a concern. The laws and statutes got so contorted that even CNN’s Elie Honig, the network's chief legal analyst and former assistant US attorney, couldn’t defend it, aptly calling it a total disaster of a case. In essence, Trump only got convicted because Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team perverted the rule of law.

From the Quebec Daily News, Dec. 31, (Government organ.) The most intense excitement prevailed in the city last evening, when intelligence reached town that the draft, which was to have taken place yesterday throughout the Province, according to the Act 27th Vic., caps 23 and 23, had been resisted in several of the counties in this district, and that the officers appointed to enforce it had been driven away at Chateau Richer, and their lives threatened. Deputy-Adjt. Gen. DESALABERRY, acting under directions from the Executive Council, immediately ordered out four companies of the best and most effective of the Volunteer...

Kyiv has finally turned off Russia’s gas supply to Europe, ending a source of income that helped pay for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The decades-old deal, which allowed the transit of natural gas produced by Russian energy giant Gazprom through Ukraine, ended at midnight on December 31, shutting down Russia’s last major gas corridor to Europe. Europe’s dependence on Russian energy had already drastically reduced since the invasion in February 2022, so the gesture is mostly symbolic. But it doesn’t make the decision less important or mean there are no consequences for the remaining Gazprom customers in Europe.

Saturday 4 January 2025Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: C(I).Readings for the feriaReadings for the memorialThese are the readings for the feriaFirst reading1 John 3:7-10No-one sins who has been begotten by GodMy children, do not let anyone lead you astray:to live a holy lifeis to be holy just as he is holy;to lead a sinful life is to belong to the devil,since the devil was a sinner from the beginning.It was to undo all that the devil has donethat the Son of God appeared.No one who...

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that “billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk” are people who “love cheap foreign labor and say, let’s open the doors and bring everybody in.” And he thinks Democrats will be able to exploit that division within President-Elect Donald Trump’s coalition between people like him and those in the “nativist” base who disagree with Musk. Raskin stated, “I do think that we’re going to be able to exploit these growing contradictions within the MAGA coalition, especially since Donald Trump cares less and less. So, you’ve got the inflamed, nativist, anti-immigration...

President Biden has bestowed the Presidential Citizens Medal on former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo) for "her selfless actions on behalf of our democracy. She was one of only two Republicans allowed to serve on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. She actively campaigned for the election of Vice-President Kamala Harris to be our nation's next president. The country is better because of her dedication and sacrifice." "This is all very nice," Cheney responded, "but what I really need is the kind of full and unconditional pardon your son Hunter got. In...

The ISIS-inspired attack in New Orleans underscores how extremism online and political divisions at home have created “a perfect storm” for radicalization in America, experts say, with law enforcement struggling to track an increasingly fractured threat. Finding and accessing extremist communities online has never been easier, the threat has never been higher, and the ideology of those carrying out attacks has never been more splintered, according to the experts.

President Biden will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, billionaire Democratic megadonor George Soros and several others at a White House ceremony on Saturday. The White House said Clinton, Soros and the 17 other recipients of the prestigious award are “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.” “President Biden believes great leaders keep the faith, give everyone a fair shot, and put decency above all else,” the White House said...

An alliance of grassroots environmental groups could lose $60 million in federal funding after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) was named one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “grantmakers” more than a year ago, putting it in charge of distributing subgrants for locally led environmental projects. But out of 11 of the EPA’s grantmakers, the CJA is the only one that has yet to receive any funding. The group has faced a barrage of attacks for publicly opposing the Israel-Hamas war, and some EPA staffers say the group has been singled out as a result....

The fiscal year 2024 data are in, and they show that the Biden administration has overseen a record $926 billion in improper and unknown federal payments since 2021. That is 38 percent more than the Trump administration’s $673 billion total over four years, and it’s only 4 percent less than the Obama administration’s $962 billion total over eight years. Moreover, all of these figures are underestimates as they only account for about 68 programs out of the more than 2,000 that the federal government operates. The Biden administration’s $926 billion total translates to more than $7,000 for every household in...

A host of new laws went into effect in California Wednesday, including a statewide minimum wage boost to $16.50 an hour. While that’s the new floor for hourly pay, many Bay Area cities have set their own mandatory wage rates that are above the state minimum — and workers in some of those cities will see their own bump in pay come Jan. 1. This means that a raise could now be just a town away. According to the Bay Area Labor Center, some 25 local cities raised their minimum wages this year. Interestingly, a number of those cities sit...

Matthew Livelsberger is a patsy, the question is for who and what purpose? Let's break down why I think this is true by going through everything that we know so far, a thread: There is still a lot we do not know about Matthew Livelsberger, the alleged Vegas bomber, but here is what we do know and there is a lot that does not add up: He recently made the E8 list for MSG in 2023 in an 18Z slot, which means he was a Special Forces soldier and if he pinned, would have still been on Active Duty. This...

What do you do when the police, the politicians, and the press conspire to cover up atrocities? A challenge of describing Britain’s grooming gang scandal for an international audience is convincing the reader that it really happened and is not simply the product of a morbid fantasy. This is not just because the crimes at its heart—those crimes being the rape and torture of young girls—are so appalling. They are, of course, but appalling crimes happen everywhere, becoming no less evil for their pervasiveness. Nor is it not just because the crimes took place on such a vast scale. In...