I read it as not being about funding, it's about what to work on first. If you focus on an application sure that enhances revenue projections, but you might fall behind someone else who sprints ahead with research. They have the money to do both as you say, it's a question of prioritization.

But let's talk about the elephant in the room here, that's not talked about in the article: Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg went all in on metaverse to mediocre results, and now jumped on the LLM/AI bandwagon after people had already gotten going. So he spent ungodly amounts of money to just bring people in without any real way to align them with a vision or core focus or strategy; he just threw shares and money around like it was candy to recruit apparent top talent and just threw them all in a bucket to make it work. That's real Gavin Belson style leadership there. The fact that he hasn't' taken the time to organize the teams and leadership around a vision makes it look like he, and by extension Meta, is flailing.

And what is Meta doing in AI? I know OpenAI/ChatGPT, I know Microsoft/Copilot, I know Anthropic/Claude, Devon, etc. What is Meta's offering? It seems they are light years behind, totally disorganized, and no clear idea of what their angle will be.

All of what you say is true, but the short term is the point I think. I think they need to keep their stock price up given how much they're spending on AI that has no clear path to profitability and is tricky to measure if it's all worth it. If their profits look like garbage because of these investments, it could bring their stock price down quite a bit, creating a cycle that's difficult to escape from.

I think you're missing the point. This isn't about inflated revenue projections. It's about inflated profits.

Each of these companies is spending tremendous amounts on building servers and data centers right now. the cost of that CapEx is depreciated by it's useful service life, which can vary quite a bit depending on what it is. Servers are typically 3 years or so, whereas real estate can be up to 28 or 30 years. It's a non-cash expense, but they get to claim that as an expense and amortize it out for many years, which while a non-cash expense it does allow them to reduce their profits and thus tax basis.

The problem is it reduces profits, which makes the companies seem like they're spending too much money. As a calculated value, it's open to manipulation to make the company look better. It doesn't really matter what number of years you use for a given piece of equipment, as long as it's consistent and it makes sense. Changing your amortization schedule from what it was historically sends a signal that the company is artificially adjusting it's numbers to make things look better.

Using the numbers above, if Meta had the same pre-tax profit of $60B now but was using the 3 year depreciation schedule they used in 2020 vs the current 5.5 year, then instead of depreciation being $13B it'd be $23.8B, meanding they'd lose nearly almost $11B in recorded profits, just from a calculation. So in essence this boosts their stock price by making them look more profitable than they are.

During COVID, a company called Catalent was a key player in the manufacturing of vaccines. They were a public company and hteir stock price went through the roof, despite the fact that historically their sales and stock price grew around 5-8% a year; during COVID it surged 50%. Management of course thought they were brilliant, and also their capacity got drained, so they jacked up prices on everyone else while rapidly expanding.

When COVID subsided, their stock crashed 70%, as not only did they lose the COVID bump but they burned a lot of their customers too; they were saddled with debt and overcapacity, etc. They were bought by Novo Nordisk for a song.

There are better ways to manage market surges like this; I get the appeal of driving up prices but the AI buildout will crash once they hit the peak power production. Best to not screw over your other customers, especially when you're on the same team and under the same corporate parent.

I don't know, I question this.

While the Chinese have been able to reverse engineer and play catch up much faster than Western nations on many technologies (partially because they are less hamstrung by regulation and generally get more support from their governments), there are certain areas where the Chinese have not been able to play catch up. A big one is materials science; it's really hard to go faster on something particularly when a given alloy's specialness comes from fabrication techniques and recipes than reverse engineering a specific system.

The most obvious example of this is aircraft engines. The Chinese power their fighters mainly with the WS-10, a domestically produced engine that has real problems with heat management, thermal expansion, and fuel consumption. Most of these problems came from the metallurgy that goes into the turbine blades. The WS-15 is supposed to fix that, but it's years behind their initial stated goal of deployment and is now starting to be installed, but it's not clear if they solved the issues yet.

I think the same goes with reusable rockets; metallurgy is going to play a huge role in managing heat, friction, and vibration to ensure that the booster can land safely and be certified for reuse, and in this area they are not doing so well.

They will get to the moon, and they will have a reusable rocket, and all that good stuff, but their aerospace industry is still leagues behind Western equivalents.

This isn't my field so I kind of mean this sarcastically and kind of not, but I feel like cyber security audits must be a good business to be in. Get hired to find the vulnerabilities, list out the most basic things and write up a report with recommendations to fix it, then get hired 2 years later to do the same thing and find the exact same stuff. (I'm referencing the fact that the Louvre had an audit in 2014 and then another in late 2015 that found the most basic logic security flaws, which obviously in 2025 weren't fixed per the article). This seems like a lot of repeat business for the same stuff since no one can be bothered to follow up on the security recommendations.

You're entirely correct; Teddy Roosevelt, as awesome of a President as he was, really had a "creative" interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine.

But i would disagree with the premise that getting involved around the world by the US violates the Monroe Doctrine. Far from it, the Monroe Doctrine's specific intent was to keep the problems of Europe (and in today's terms Asia's problems too) out of the Western Hemisphere. The US' geopolitical strategy since the end of WW2 has always been to pit regional powers against each other so that no one regional power could ever grow enough to be a rival to the US Global Hegemony, and many of the US' involvement in things around the world, outside of direct involvement, can be viewed in that lens. Support for Saudi Arabia and Israel, each weaker than Iran, effectively counterbalance Iran who has a natural position to lead the Middle East. Those in turn were replacements for Iraq in the 80's, which we opposed when we had a puppet regime installed in Iran to counterbalance any rising Arab nation, but once we lost Iran we immediately switched to Iraq. The US rebuilding and supporting Japan's economic growth makes it a very natural buffer state to check China and Russia's growth in the Western Pacific. Then through soft power, finance, and the like, we tied most nations to a US-organized rules-based global order, and with the US' giant consumer economy it became far more profitable for countries to sell to the US then to try and challenge the US.

This is why we've often supported dictators over democratically elected governments, or gotten involved in other people's dirty laundry. It's all about ensuring that every country has a choice: challenge the US or do business with the US; those who do business with the US prosper, and those who might challenge the US will find a competitor in their back yard who is supported by the US. All of this means we have not seen an invasion or military action on any nation in the Western Hemisphere from a European or Asian nation since, not counting Pearl Harbor, 1861 and the Second French Invasion of Mexico. I'm not counting the Falkland Islands either, as technically that was Argentina attacking a British territory and happened with the US's consent.

So say what you will about American adventurism, and most of it is valid. But it has kept the Western Hemisphere relatively peaceful compared to the Eastern Hemisphere.

If Trump runs for a third term he'll shoot himself in the foot. Not all of the States will comply to put him on the ballot, which will make it long odds. There is talk that he could be VP with someone else running for President; that's exactly what Putin did with Medvedev, so this might happen. But outside of FDR, every President who sought a third term (there were 6 total, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and LBJ since LBJ served less than 2 years of Kennedy's term) were soundly defeated; historically this doesn't go well for Presidents.

But to your other point, I don't know if this action in the Gulf of Mexico will work the same way. The media coverage of these destroyed boats is a mixed bag; even the Trump supporters I know (and I know many) are confused by this. If this is going to be a war in our local hemisphere, they're not doing a good job of spinning the political narrative very well.

Also, this could backfire on him too. US interventions in Latin America generally do not go over well politically. Bay of Pigs was a huge black eye for Kennedy; he's only remembered fondly now because of the Cuban Missile Crisis and, frankly, because he was assassinated on live TV. Iran-Contra was hugely damaging of Reagan's image. Nixon's support of Pinochet in Chile of a military coup was also quite damaging. Biden's mishandling of the border was huge in getting Trump elected. While Bush 1 got a ratings boost with the invasion of Panama, and Panamanian people wanted Noriega out by most polls at the time, the result was a mess and didn't do anything to support Bush politically.

Latin American "adventures" are a mixed bag for US Presidents; the narrative has to be tightly controlled and i just don't see them doing that.

As much as I don't like what the administration is doing in the Gulf, there is a bigger picture to all of it, and weirdly enough it's related to a 200 year old policy, the Monroe Doctrine, particularly it's later addition the Theodore Roosevelt Corollary which was Teddy R's justification that the US should leverage the Monroe Doctrine to justify acting as world police in the affairs of Latin America (all of which is highly against agreed-to treaties such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which admittedly the US is not a signatory and has not ratified.

The US has benefitted from keeping the Western Hemisphere relatively quiet. Yes there are issues, and the occasional big flare up like the Cuban Missile Crisis, but compared to Asia and Europe the entire Western Hemisphere is a very peaceful place.

However we have been of course sanctioning Venezuela over it's former President for life Hugo Chavez and his follower/crony Nicholas Maduro, and Venezuela has suffered greatly from this. Maduro is not nearly as capable as Chavez and he faces credible political threats, so he is drumming up nationalism to stave off political defeat. All of which was exacerbated by the discovery of oil fields in Guyana territorial waters. Now Maduro is threatening to invade Guyana and take over the land that gives those off-shore rights to Guyana, which will A) stave off a political defeat and B) give Venezuela more oil fields to attempt to negotiate some sort of accommodation with the US, particularly because Guyana is friendly to the US and is already developing it with US firms.

So while all of this is ostensibly about drug interdiction, it's really US saber rattling to make Venezuela think twice about invading their neighbor.

Politics. The whole rare earth embargo thing is China using this as a way to pressure other organizations and countries to do various things. Using their own native built word processor without a way to convert is simply driving home the political point China is making even further.

It's not about not using MS. It's about specifically using the Chinese produced system and making everyone else they're working with use the Chinese produced system.

What do you mean it hasn't proven to be useful? My DnD games are so much easier to prepare now thanks to AI!

It's a risk to respond to a troll like yourself, but I'll take the bait and do it anyways.

If you go around proclaiming your Napoleon, dress like him, and expect people to address you as if you were him, no one would tell you to stop your antics. People would look at you funny, they may not want to associate with you, they may not hire you for a job. But as long as your antics are your own situation and are not harming anyone or yourself, there is nothing anyone can do legally to you, and there is nothing a doctor can do to you without your consent following standard ethical practices. In fact, the Code of Medical Ethics that all doctors must uphold or lose their medical license requires them to prioritize the well being and interests of the patients under their care and provide informed consent, while minimizing harm to their patients. If you wanted to alter your face to look like Napoleon, a plastic surgeon is required to inform you of any medical risks but barring that, you're entitled to do so. If you want to change your name legally to Napoleon Bonaparte, you are legally entitled to do that. If you want to dress like him, you are fully entitled to do that via the First Amendment. And there are reenactment groups that will fully accept you dressing that way.

So the problem with your analogy is that your example you tried to use to prove the perceived ridiculousness of a man wanting to be identified by others as a woman in fact disproves what you're trying to do because it's entirely legal to do so, as long as it does not put yourself at physical risk or put others in some sort of risk. You may face social pressure for your antics, but you will not face medical or legal consequences against your will for those antics at all. Which, quite frankly, sounds like what transgender people face every day.

I'm taking a risk in replying to you, but you're completely wrong in every count.

if you take blood from a transgender women and sequence it's DNA, you'll find a y chromosome.

If you take a blood test from a transgender woman, you'll find typical male blood biomarkers. Usually transgender women will have altered biomarkers because many factors in blood are driven by hormones, but that is a result of hormone therapy for transgender women, an outside influence rather than a biological one. Other markers not driven by hormones, such as, cardiovascular health markers, are similar or worse compared to men. In general though, barring hormone therapy, blood is a biologically driven thing and male bodies are vastly different than female bodies.

And you used an example of prostate cancer. Generally transgender women have a lower incidence of prostate cancer than men, but that's also due to hormone therapy; a choice but not a biological fact. The problem with this point though is that transgender women have an infinitely higher incidence of prostate cancer than women because women do not have a prostate and transgender women do. Further the incidence of women's health conditions such as menopause are unheard of in transgender women unless it's a side effect of hormone therapy. But hormone therapy is something you choose to do to yourself, it's not how your body was built from the beginning, so it isn't the same.

Look, I'm not going to go as far as some of the awful people here who posted things like transgender people are mentally deranged. Everyone has their personal journey to go on with their own trials and tribulations. I can't imagine the emotional and physical toll that transgender people go through because I am not one, but i respect it nonetheless. But gender identity is a mental journey; it's how you see yourself, and while it's important, biology will not respect that. To use an extreme example, if a transgender woman gets prostate cancer, but refuses treatment because they don't identify as a man and therefore couldn't get prostate cancer, the cancer won't care; it'll eat her body alive and kill her painfully. It does no one, particularly the transgender person, to ignore that certain aspects of nature will not cooperate with your identity, and to ignore that is just burying your head in the sand.

Some people are born with deformities, and they have to adapt. I was a strong athlete in High School, until I had a very rare uncommon issue with one of my organs requiring 4 surgeries in 10 months which destroyed my athletic ability and completely removed my chosen career path (which required a high level of physical ability); it was something I was born with and I had to acknowledge it a part of my journey and adapt my life. Transgender people are born with a kind of deformity; a body that doesn't line up with their identity. That's difficult and it's a journey, but acknowledgement is the only answer to move forward; ignoring facts that cannot be changed is a poor life choice.

I'd downvote you even more if I could.

The problem with your argument, which disproves your handle, is that you're confusing two totally different things, Identity and Biology.

If you, as you say, have XY chromosomes, five o'clock shadow, and the cock you were born with hanging down and see a woman looking back at you, then two very different things are true. One, your identity and psychology are tied up in identifying with what you think is a woman, which is fine. However, barring any surgeries, you also are capable of impregnating a woman to create a new human, you will on average grow larger muscles than the average woman, you will never breastfeed an infant with your body, and you will never get pregnant as you will not grow a uterus. That is biology.

The inherent problem with the transgender arguments today is it seeks to change society to have people see them as they see themselves, which is ok, but also in many ways confuses the physical reality of biology, which any average person willing to listen to the argument finds absurd. If you see yourself as a different gender, and are willing to get surgeries and hormone treatments and dress and present yourself a certain way, that's your choice and more power to you. But let's not ignore the physical reality of biology either; you're far better off acknowledging the scientific facts and making your argument grounded in reality.

Case in point, the entire point of this article is about the biological fact that double chromosomes, which has nothing to do with how you identify, appears to correlate with longer lifespan. That scientific fact has no bearing on what you feel you are, and while you may choose to be woman while having a Y chromosome, you will never have a double X chromosome and are then biologically subject to the greater mutation risk described in this scientific survey.

You will win more adherents to your argument if you acknowledge immutable facts.

You clearly do not understand Chinese culture. THey had the opposite problem: women did not have control over their bodies because under the old one-child policy, women were forced to abort their babies or suffer fines that would bankrupt their entire family. Since Chinese culture tends to favor boys, women would abort girl babies so they could have a boy. The one child policy led to an estimated 336 million abortions over the 40 years when it was an active policy.

It's one thing to be sardonic about US culture, but don't think for one second that China is pro-choice.