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Symbols, History, and the Complex Tapestry of National Identity in California In a recent event that has stirred both local and national discourse, a Mexican national in California took down the American flag at a public park and raised the Mexican flag in its place, asserting that California was "land stolen from Mexicans." This action has reignited discussions about historical land claims, national symbols, and the layered narratives of conquest and colonization in North America. Historical Context To fully understand this incident, one must delve into the history of California and the broader region. California was indeed part of Mexico...

I asked Grok to analyze and list potential excessive, concerning, or wasteful spending in the latest 1,547-page spending bill that is currently being fast-tracked. Here are the results 👇 🧵Pages 1-100 ......

The bot could even start showing up alongside your tweets with more info on what you’re posting With X facing fierce competition from rival platforms Bluesky and Threads, Elon Musk has decided to give away a feature that was previously locked behind a paywall. Now, everyone can use X’s edgy AI chatbot, known as Grok, to help with their writing, whip up images and fetch the latest news. What separates Grok from its peers is its “rebellious streak” and witty retorts, according to Mr Musk, who has previously slammed OpenAI and Google’s AI tools as being too “woke”. One thing’s...

World models take inspiration from the mental models of the world that humans develop naturally. Our brains take the abstract representations from our senses and form them into more concrete understanding of the world around us, producing what we called “models” long before AI adopted the phrase. The predictions our brains make based on these models influence how we perceive the world. ... While the concept has been around for decades, world models have gained popularity recently in part because of their promising applications in the field of generative video. ... While a generative model trained on years of video...

Elon Musk @elonmusk Try Grok for answering any question, creating any images & analyzing any images, even medical scans! It’s by far the best at answers requiring latest information, due to integration with 𝕏. You’ll be surprised at how much Grok can do & it only gets better from here! Quote xAI @xai · 3h Grok is now free for everyone Our AI assistant is faster, sharper, and includes all new-image generation. Available for free on 𝕏 today.

The Grok chatbot on the X social media platform has been updated following a letter sent to platform owner Elon Musk from five secretaries of state demanding he make changes over false election information. Democrat Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon announced the change Monday, after he had been informed of the change by the social media company last week. Simon, along with four other secretaries of state, sent a letter earlier this month to Musk claiming their combined "37 million constituents were recently impacted by false information" Grok provided about the election. The AI chatbot will direct users who...

Five secretaries of state plan to send an open letter to billionaire Elon Musk on Monday, urging him to “immediately implement changes” to X’s AI chatbot Grok, after it shared with millions of users false information suggesting that Kamala Harris was not eligible to appear on the 2024 presidential ballot. The letter, spearheaded by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and signed by his counterparts Al Schmidt of Pennsylvania, Steve Hobbs of Washington, Jocelyn Benson of Michigan and Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico, urges Musk to “immediately implement changes to X’s AI search assistant, Grok, to ensure voters have...

Guys, we're almost there! We're this close to finally replacing journalists with machines!Since no one in DC wants to let you know what Congress is voting on until after the vote, and since our corporate press is too lazy and complicit to worry about it, Elon Musk is stepping up to the plate.Grok, the AI on X, is being outfitted so that it can read, comprehend, and explain the 1,000-page bills that Congress seems to love because it allows them to hide a TON of pork.

  This is excerpted from the April 5, 1973 address “The Pragmatics of Patriotism” to the Naval Academy by Robert A. Heinlein, author and Academy graduate. Heinlein’s naval career was cut short by tuberculosis, which was the Navy’s loss but science-fiction readers’ gain. Some of what he says may seem old-fashioned, but there is nothing wrong with that. It is good to recall where we come from, and how much we owe to those who bought our freedom with their sweat and blood. Much has changed since 1973, but much hasn’t, including the anti-military feelings Heinlein describes. Note the...

Is Stranger in a Stranger Land by Robert Heinlein the Catcher in the Rye for the science-fiction set? Yes, I think you could say that about the 1962 Hugo winner in one important sense. When author J.D. Salinger died this past Wednesday, I must confess it was convenient for me (if not for him), because it got people talking about his most famous novel. The Catcher in the Rye occupies an interesting position in the literary landscape: It's inarguably a classic, and inarguably a popular classic at that — a book that a lot of people have not only heard...

Forget Evian or Vitaminwater. The latest beverage trend: 'Holy Water.'You need only go back to the first chapter of Genesis to see how elemental water is to the observance of faith: "And the Spirit of God," the Bible says, "moved upon the face of the waters." In the Torah, water is used to ordain priests and to purify the sons of Aaron before they enter the temple. In the New Testament, John baptizes Jesus with water from the Jordan River. Observant Muslims wash hands and feet before they pray, orthodox Jewish women take ritual baths once a month—and every Christian...

BERKELEY – A petite pink flower that hasn't been seen in 70 years has been rediscovered on the flanks of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County by a University of California, Berkeley, graduate student. The Mount Diablo buckwheat, Eriogonum truncatum, "has been a Holy Grail in the East Bay for several decades," according to UC Berkeley botanist Barbara Ertter, who confirmed the identification in the field on Friday. Last reported in 1936, the flower was presumed extinct, she said, because its habitat has been overrun by introduced grasses. It is one of only three plants, all of them rare,...