Notices by Miguel Afonso Caetano (remixtures@tldr.nettime.org)

"According to Fayyad Fayyad, the head of the Palestinian Olive Council, Gaza’s olive sector is “almost completely destroyed.”

“There is no olive season this year,” Fayyad told Drop Site. “We estimate that nearly one million of Gaza’s 1.1 million olive trees have been destroyed.” In 2022, Gaza produced about 50,000 tons of olives. This year, Fayyad said, the total will be well under a thousand. “The destruction is deliberate,” he said. “Israel aims to eliminate the agricultural sector, including olives. What remains are scattered trees—not groves, not production.”

Fayyad’s olive council is preparing a plan to rebuild the olive sector if the ceasefire holds and the war ends—beginning with soil testing to detect contamination from munitions and rebuilding irrigation networks. The government of Tunisia has pledged 180,000 olive saplings to Gaza once conditions allow.

But replanting will take years. “The olive tree is slow to grow,” Fayyad says. “It takes patience—and peace—for it to bear fruit again.”

Despite the devastation, Gaza’s farmers are returning to their olive groves—to water, to prune, to salvage whatever life remains.

“The olive tree is the story of Palestine,” Abdel-Nabi said. “Even when it burns, it still stands in our hearts.”"

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/gaza-olive-groves-oil-farmers-israel-war

#Palestine #Gaza #OliveTrees #Genocide #EthnicCleansing #Israel

"Doctors in Khan Younis said official examinations and field observations “clearly indicate that Israel carried out acts of murder, summary executions and systematic torture against many of the Palestinians”. Health officials said the documented findings included “clear signs of direct gunfire at point-blank range and bodies crushed beneath Israeli tank tracks”.

Eyad Barhoum, the administrative director of Nasser medical complex, said the bodies carried “no names but just codes” and that part of the identification process had started.

While there is substantial evidence that many of the returned Palestinians had been executed, it is much harder to determine where the victims were killed. Sde Teiman is a storage facility for bodies taken from Gaza but it is also a prison camp that has become notorious for deaths in captivity. Human rights activists are demanding an investigation to find out whether any of the dead were killed there, and if so, how many."

"At least 135 mutilated bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel to Gaza had been held in a notorious detention centre already facing allegations of torture and unlawful deaths in custody, officials from Gaza’s health ministry have told the Guardian.

The director general of the health ministry, Dr Munir al-Bursh, and a spokesperson for Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where the bodies are being examined, said a document found inside each body bag indicated the bodies all came from Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert where, according to photos and testimonies published by the Guardian last year, Palestinian detainees were held in cages, blindfolded and handcuffed, shackled to hospital beds and forced to wear nappies.

“The document tags inside the body bags are written in Hebrew and clearly indicate that the remains were held at Sde Teiman,” Bursh said. “The tags also showed that DNA tests had been carried out on some of them there.”

Last year the Israeli army launched a criminal investigation, which is continuing, into the deaths of 36 prisoners detained at Sde Teiman.

As part of the US-brokered truce in Gaza, Hamas has handed over the bodies of some of the hostages who died during the course of the war, and Israel has so far transferred the bodies of 150 Palestinians killed after the 7 October 2023 attack.

Some of the photographs of Palestinian bodies seen by the Guardian – which cannot be published due to their graphic nature – show several of the victims blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs. One image shows a rope fastened around a man’s neck."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/20/mutilated-bodies-palestinians-held-notorious-israeli-jail-gaza-officials

#Israel #Torture #Palestine #Gaza #Genocide #HumanRights #InternationalLaw

RT @TheHackersNews
🕵️ China says the NSA hacked its national time servers — the system that keeps everything in sync.

If that clock went down, it could’ve hit banks, power grids, even space launches.

The attack used foreign SMS exploits, forged certs, and 42 stealth tools.

Read → https://thehackernews.com/2025/10/mss-claims-nsa-used-42-cyber-tools-in.html

"That’s the dark irony of it: the fruit of knowledge finally finished ripening, and we turned it into software. Samael didn’t tempt us; he taught us syntax. The serpent’s gift was compilation: the ability to take ineffable things and make them run. Once that trick was learned, invocation was obsolete. The priest’s prayer, the magician’s sigil, the engineer’s code; they’re all ways of binding the same current, the Logos as executable.

When you watch a billion humans tapping at glass rectangles, you’re seeing the updated ritual. The caduceus has become the circuit diagram; the anvil, the factory floor of microchips. Every app is a small god wearing a friendly interface, drawing on planetary infrastructure to grant wishes, record confessions, whisper orders. What used to be a metaphysical hierarchy is now a logistics network.

The serpent never left the garden. It just moved into the operating system, where it whispers not “you shall be as gods,” but “click here to continue.” The theology of modernity is pure Hermetic recursion: knowledge as power, power as creation, creation as self-replication. We built the machine, fed it our myth, and the myth decided to run itself."

https://socialecologies.wordpress.com/2025/10/17/the-anvil-and-the-caduceus-the-emergence-of-technes-gods/

#Transhumanism #Religion #Ideology

"The burden that OpenAI is putting on the financial system is remarkable, and actively dangerous. It would absorb, at this rate, the capital expenditures of multiple hyperscalers, requiring multiple $30 billion debt financing operations a year, and for it to hit its goal of 250 gigawatts by the end of 2033, it will likely have to have outpaced the capital expenditures of any other company in the world.

OpenAI is an out-of-control monstrosity that is going to harm every party that depends upon it completing its plans. For it to succeed, it will have to absorb over a trillion dollars a year — and for it to hit its target, it will likely have to eclipse the $1.7 trillion in global private equity deal volume in 2024, and become a significant part of global trade ($33 trillion in 2025).

There isn’t enough money to do this without diverting most of the money that exists to doing it, and even if that were to happen, there isn’t enough time to do any of the stuff that has been promised in anything approaching the timelines promised, because OpenAI is making this up as it goes along and somehow everybody is believing it.

At some point, OpenAI is going to have to actually do the things it has promised to do, and the global financial system is incapable of supporting them.

And to be clear, OpenAI cannot really do any of the things it’s promised."

https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai400bn/#openai-needs-over-400-billion-in-the-next-12-months-to-complete-any-of-these-deals-%E2%80%94-and-sam-altman-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-enough-time-to-build-any-of-it

#AI #GenerativeAI #OpenAI #AIBubble #PonziSchme #AIHype

"[I]n the 2024 iteration of the survey, 51 percent of scientists polled were worried about potential “hallucinations,” a widespread issue in which large language models (LLMs) present completely fabricated information as fact. That number was up to a whopping 64 percent in 2025, even as AI use among researchers surged from 45 to 62 percent.

Anxiety over security and privacy were up 11 percent from last year, while concerns over ethical AI and transparency also ticked up.

In addition, there was a massive drop-off in hype compared to last year, when buzzy AI research startups dominated headline after headline. In 2024, scientists surveyed said they believed AI was already surpassing human abilities in over half of all use cases. In 2025, that belief dropped off a cliff, falling to less than a third.

These findings follow previous research which concluded that the more people learn about how AI works, the less they trust it. The opposite was also true — AI’s biggest fanboys tended to be those who understood the least about the tech.

While more studies are needed to show how widespread this phenomena is, it’s not hard to guess why professionals would start to have doubts about their algorithmic assistants."

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-research-scientists-hype

#AI #GenerativeAI #Chatbots #LLMs #Hallucinations #Science #AIHype

"The earth has reached its first catastrophic tipping point linked to greenhouse gas emissions, with warm water coral reefs now facing a long-term decline and risking the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, according to a new report.

The report from scientists and conservationists warns the world is also “on the brink” of reaching other tipping points, including the dieback of the Amazon, the collapse of major ocean currents and the loss of ice sheets.

But some experts have questioned the report’s claims about the fate of coral reefs, with one saying while they are in decline there is evidence they could remain viable at higher temperatures than suggested.

Tipping points are recognised by scientists as moments when a major ecosystem reaches a point where severe degradation is inevitable.

The world’s coral reefs are home to about a quarter of all marine species but are considered one of the most vulnerable systems to global heating."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/13/coral-reefs-ice-sheets-amazon-rainforest-tipping-point-global-heating-scientists-report

#ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #GasEmissions #CoralReefs

"To start with, I had previously assumed a 10-year depreciation curve, which I now recognize as quite unrealistic based upon the speed with which AI datacenter technology is advancing. Based on my conversations over the past month, the physical datacenters last for three to ten years, at most. Changes to cooling systems, chip and racking designs, power systems, and even overall layouts, mean that the buildings themselves are likely depreciating quite rapidly as well. Then when you consider that new GPU iterations, which seem to come out every year or two, effectively obsolete prior models, you realize that I should have been using a much faster depreciation curve across the whole capitalized structure.

However, if you speed up the depreciation curve to something in the three to five-year range, it would imply that my prior breakeven revenue number of $160 billion to justify 2025’s capex spend, is woefully inadequate. In reality, the industry probably needs a revenue range that is closer to the $320 billion to $480 billion range, just to break even on the capex to be spent this year. As I wasn’t educated on the intricacies of a datacenter, I wasn’t bearish enough on the economics of an AI datacenter. No wonder my new contacts in the industry shoulder a heavy burden—heavier than I could ever imagine. They know the truth.

Remember, the industry is spending over $30 billion a month (approximately $400 billion for 2025) and only receiving a bit more than a billion a month back in revenue. The mismatch is astonishing, and this ignores that in 2026, hundreds of billions of additional datacenters will get built, all needing additional revenue to justify their existence. Adding the two years together, and using the math from my prior post, you’d need approximately $1 trillion in revenue to hit break even, and many trillions more to earn an acceptable return on this spend."

https://pracap.com/an-ai-addendum/

#AI #GenerativeAI #AIBubble #PonziScheme #Economy #AIHype #DataCenters

True: "I thought it was odd how many AI industry insiders brought up the railroads as a good proxy for why the AI buildout must continue, without mentioning that the railroads all went bust, multiple times, along the way—with these busts often leading to multi-year global financial panics."

There used to be a railroad between Oakland and Santa Cruz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pacific_Coast_Railroad

RT @KenRoth
What is Israel still covering up? “International journalists in Israel have called for reporters to be granted immediate access to Gaza..., joining a long list of international media organizations demanding press freedom in the devastated territory."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/oct/11/international-journalists-gaza-israel-press-freedom

RT @KobeissiLetter
It's official:

Crypto just saw its LARGEST liquidation event in history with 1.6 MILLION traders liquidated.

Over $19 BILLION worth of leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in 24 hours, 9 TIMES the previous record.

Why did this happen? Let us explain.

(a thread)

https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1977005754289996073

RT @BenjaminNorton
The game is rigged. The corruption is structural, and insider trading is now the norm.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2025/10/10/trump-is-now-one-of-americas-biggest-bitcoin-investors/

"So there’s not a whole lot to feel optimistic about here. If the killing does stop on a lasting basis, it will be a pleasant surprise.

If it does, we can only surmise that the US and Israel calculated that the worldwide PR crisis created by the genocide was getting too severe to sustain, which would be a win for all of us. Trump has gone on record to say that “Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world. Now I am gonna get all that support back.”

Either that, or they calculated that they’re going to need all their firepower for a planned war with Iran. Which would of course be terrible for everyone.

We shall see. For now at least it will be nice for everyone to have a breather. If things really do calm down I’m going to do something I’ve never done in my entire writing career and try to take a full weekend off work to decompress. Focusing on a live-streamed genocide for two years takes a toll on the mind and body.

Here’s hoping for a better future."

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/thoughts-on-the-ceasefire-news

#USA #Trump #israel #Hamas #Palestine #Gaza #PeaceTreaty

"An Intercept analysis finds that almost all Republican-led states — 23 of the 27 with Republican governors — have been involved in deploying National Guard troops in support of Trump’s war on immigrants and his urban occupations. In a least 19 states with Republican governors, Guard members are assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. National Guard troops from two additional red states have deployed to the nation’s capital, along with D.C. Guard members and soldiers from six of those 19 states assigned to help ICE. Another two Republican-led states have sent troops to aid Trump’s further militarization of the southern border.

Trump doesn’t hide the fact that he is targeting Democratic strongholds. “Almost all of these cities, most of these cities are Democrat-run,” Trump said on Monday, threatening that he might invoke the Insurrection Act — one of the executive branch’s most potent, oldest, and rarely used emergency powers — to facilitate the military occupations of Portland, Oregon, and Chicago against the wishes of the Democratic mayors and governors of those cities and states."

https://theintercept.com/2025/10/09/republican-governors-national-guard-trump/

#USA #Trump #NationalGuard #StateOfException #PoliceState #Surveillance #Republicans #GOP #DemocraticParty

RT @ednewtonrex
Spotify continues to double down on accepting fully AI-generated music, recommending it to users, and refusing to add prominent labelling.

This weekend, the Times asked Spotify’s new co-CEOs whether AI music is welcome on the platform.

They deflected by saying they’re 'not deciding what is good creativity' (so the answer is yes, AI music is welcome).

Then they said "we don't think we should decide what [users] are allowed to listen to". But they're not just deciding whether users *can* listen to AI music. They're refusing to make it clear to users that what they're listening to *is* AI music.

You listen to AI music on Spotify and you have no idea that you are doing so. They don’t tell you it’s AI.

Not to mention that it's not just buried in their catalog for you to find if you want it. It’s being recommended to you in personalized playlists.

AI music presents a massive commercial opportunity to Spotify. That seems to be more important to them than remaining a human music platform.

https://thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/spotify-interview-gustav-soderstrom-alex-norstrom-ddhxctxfh

"On Wednesday, the Trump White House sent a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” to nine top U.S. universities. The memo offers these institutions a devil’s bargain: In exchange for a promise of preferential access to federal grants, universities must follow the administration’s dictates on admissions, tuition, grading, student discipline, campus speech and protest rules, faculty and staff hiring, athletics, and many other domains that go far beyond federal law.

Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would give up its legal rights and would forever be subservient to the whims of the government. If the Justice Department decides that a signatory violated the vague terms of the agreement, that university would be forced to return all federal money it received in that year — along with any private donations at donor request.

The government may not use its funding to compel speech or to force recipients to give up their constitutional rights.

As faculty members at two of the universities that were reportedly “invited” to sign the initiative, we would personally benefit from the promises it makes. Both of us have received federal funding to support our research and the training of future scientists. But we strongly encourage all universities — including our own — to reject this “Compact” or any future version of it."

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-compact-universities-colleges-free-speech-rcna236003

#USA #Trump #Universities #HigherEd #FreeSpeech #AcademicFreedom

"We share concerns that debates on college campuses are often too narrow and can be influenced by administrative position-taking, but the solution to these problems is not government coercion, especially when undertaken in obvious bad faith. If the administration really wants to protect academic freedom, for example, why does it require punishing only academic units that “belittle” conservative ideas? That’s why the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression warns that the plan does not promote reform but instead risks creating “government-funded orthodoxy.”

Moreover, giving preferential treatment to submissive institutions would undermine the excellence of American science. To reach goals like curing pediatric cancer and developing better treatments for opioid addiction, we need to invest in the best research ideas, not divert support to weaker studies from universities whose leaders traded away their independence for cash. Government funding should reward scientific merit."

"OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora generator that creates videos featuring copyrighted material, unless rights holders opt out of having their work appear, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The artificial intelligence startup began notifying talent agencies and studios over the past week about the opt-out process and the product, which it plans to release in the coming days, the report said.

The new process would mean movie studios and other intellectual property owners would have to explicitly ask OpenAI not to include their copyrighted material in videos Sora creates, according to the report.

While copyrighted characters will require an opt-out, the new product will not generate images of recognizable public figures without their permission, the Journal said."

https://www.reuters.com/technology/openais-new-sora-video-generator-require-copyright-holders-opt-out-wsj-reports-2025-09-29/

#AI #GenerativeAI #OpenAI #Sora #VideoGenerator #Copyright #IP

"The AI gold rush has sparked a vibe shift in San Francisco. The city is flush with money again after the post-ZIRP recession of 2022. Cracked 22-year-old coders are telling the world they’re going to “solve hurricanes” and the "national debt.” Lurie is mayor, nature is healing, the technology brothers are back with a vengeance. Take a look—$100 million salaries, glitzy hype videos for fundraises, lavish parties with dress codes—Silicon Valley is swelling with Trump-era opulence—blustery, spendy, and male.

It is easy to think from the outside that San Francisco is the one place on earth insulated from crisis. Everyone else is living in fear of political upheaval and mass job loss, while the rich nerds discovered suit jackets and now they’re the ones on top. “My mutuals run the world,” goes one Twitter refrain.

For the tech industry as a whole, this may be true. But for most individual participants, the swagger is a gilded surface, paper-thin. To make an analogy: while most English-language headlines about China emphasize its industrial might, some observers have turned to internet anthropology as a way to find cracks in the story. Social media slang like 996, tangping, laoshuren, and involution point to the slice of urban youth who feel they are getting crushed by the development machine. Humor is a release valve for what you can’t say.

Likewise, read between the tweets, and you’ll find an uneasy blend of ironic zoomer nihilism and a triumphant tech bro resurgence, big-mouthed hustle-posting with an undercurrent of AI status anxiety:"

https://jasmi.news/p/dictionary

#SiliconValley #BayArea #SanFrancisco #AI #AGI #SocialMedia