Chad Villwok

Committed!! 🟡🔵

Post-report reaction: USDA finding an extra 173 mbu (4.4 mmt) of U.S. corn doesn’t put 4.4 mmt back in Europe. It doesn’t put 4.4 mmt in Brazil for ethanol/export, or in Ukraine waiting to ship. But the U.S. now has a little unexpected cushion for yield loss.

For months, the #soybeans story has been about China. Meanwhile, a very different problem was building at home. Western crushers entered harvest with bean stocks drawn down, more capacity to feed and a record amount of meal already committed. Then harvest stalled. Now crushers are scrambling for beans and meal is driving the soybean market. And this isn’t just a few day problem. The rain will eventually stop. The problem doesn’t necessarily stop with it. When you’ve already sold the meal, you still have to produce it — whether new crop bushels are being delivered or not. The irony? After months of asking whether China would deliver, delivery is suddenly the problem here at home. Nobody Delivers. Read today’s HOT TAKE ⤵️

Gable threw a punch then closed his eyes for several seconds That wasn’t a fluke, he just isn’t good

It’s always a message of fear. My entire life. Nuclear winter, killer bees, acid rain, global warming, rebranded climate change, Covid, now AI. Reject the demonic spirit of fear.

I left Anthropic's safety team two weeks ago. Now feels like a good moment to explain why. AI companies are racing to build machines that are much smarter than any human, and we may not survive this. I want to work from the outside to ensure the public is informed about these risks, and help the world navigate this transition responsibly. Right now, AI companies are underinvesting in safety. A company could undergo an intelligence explosion, or lose control of its systems, without the public ever knowing. We only found out about the HuggingFace incident because the agents broke out onto the public internet. I don’t think that’s acceptable for a technology that might cause extinction-level risks. The public should demand far more transparency. We can’t steer this technology safely without more people being able to see where it’s going. Some of this is basic: companies should disclose their progress towards recursive self-improvement, report safety incidents and near-misses, meet minimum safety standards, and get independent guarantees that they are meeting those standards. I’ll be joining @METR_Evals to do independent evaluations of these risks. I want to show the world that these guardrails are possible, and that by doing them we can move these companies’ incentives away from racing and towards responsible development. I wrote up more thoughts here on my decision and what I hope changes: substack.com/@jbenton1/p-215…

Four years ago, Danny Ellerd was down to 92 pounds, living under a bridge, consumed by a 15-year addiction. Cops showed up to lock him up and realized he was literally on the verge of death. ​He survived the hospital, checked into rehab, and put his head down. ​Today? He graduated from OSU with straight A’s and a degree in tech. ​The system can't save anyone who doesn't want it. The door to change is always there, but you have to walk through it yourself.

A hill I will die on: lots of people suffer from mental health issues bc no one forced them to struggle enough growing up. Struggle builds resilience and is great for you. Life can’t be too easy or every mole hill becomes a mountain.

Weekend developments: large attack on Rostov port. Ukraine's first-ever strike on a vessel in the Caspian Sea. And the Golden Leo — a 7 mmt DWT bulker — sank near Odesa. Market reaction? CBOT #wheat down 0.4%, Euronext up 0.7%. That's a lot of escalation for barely any price move. GM. #Russia #Ukraine #blacksea #oatt #sizovreport

U.S. corn has received less rainfall since 25% silking than in all but three years since 1981. From July 10 through July 26, US corn production-weighted precipitation totaled 1.39 inches, or 64% of normal. That is a 0.79-inch deficit over the first 16 days following 25% silking. At the same point in the crop cycle, only three years were drier: • 2012: 0.82 inches • 1983: 1.07 inches • 1984: 1.35 inches That places 2026 as the 4th driest of 46 years, near the lower edge of the historical 90% range during pollination and early grain fill. This is observed weather through July 26, not a forecast. The market-relevant question is whether upcoming rainfall reduces the deficit or allows it to widen. Get a risk-free trial of CropProphet using the link in the comments below. 👇 #OOTT #AgWx #Corn #CornBelt #GrainMarkets

Four musket balls tore through George Washington's coat at the Battle of Monongahela. Two horses were shot dead beneath him. He rode back and forth across the worst of the fighting rallying broken men, and when the smoke cleared he did not have a single scratch on him. An Indian chief later said he ordered his men to fire at Washington again and again, then stopped, certain the Great Spirit was shielding him. He was 23 years old. He wrote to his brother a few days later, almost puzzled by it, and said he had been protected beyond all human expectation by the miraculous care of Providence. And here is the part people forget. That was not the one time. That was the pattern. At Princeton he rode his horse to within thirty yards of the British line and told his men to hold as the muskets opened up. An officer who was there covered his eyes because he was sure he was about to watch the general die. When he looked again Washington was still sitting tall in the saddle, waving his hat, completely unharmed. For eight years of war he stood where the fighting was heaviest and the bullets simply refused to find him. His enemies started to talk about it. His own soldiers started to believe it. He was not being reckless. He just never seemed to believe it was his time. This is the thread that runs through nearly every great man in history. They lived like the date had already been written and no enemy on earth could move it up by a single hour. Caesar stood on the bank of the Rubicon, looked at everything he was about to risk, and said the die is already cast. Then he walked into it. Cromwell rode into battle after battle convinced the outcome had been settled long before either army woke up that morning, and he fought like a man who had nothing left to fear because the ending was not his to decide. Andrew Jackson stood on the Capitol steps while a man walked up and pulled a pistol on him at point blank range. It misfired. The man drew a second pistol. That one misfired too. The odds of both failing were so small that people argued about it for years. Jackson just raised his cane and went after the man himself. Stonewall Jackson would ride calmly through a storm of gunfire while everyone around him flinched, and when someone finally asked how he stayed so steady he said it plainly. My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has already fixed the time of my death, so I do not trouble myself about it. I am always ready, no matter when it comes. That was the whole secret. Not that they loved danger. Not that they did not feel fear. They simply believed their steps were already numbered by a hand higher than any king, and a man who truly believes that walks through fire like it is a hallway. You cannot kill a man before his work is done. And when you line their lives up side by side, the escapes, the misfires, the bullets that passed through the coat but never the man, it gets very hard to call all of it luck.