Hobbyist intellectual & consigliere to elite tech startups. Dad to 3 w/ Mrs. of 15+ yrs. @UTAustin (Philo/Econ)+ @Harvard_Law. Geopolitics is my sportsball.
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Joined November 2010
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José Ancer retweeted
I told Morgan Housel about the girl who asked what age I became a millionaire, and the trade she said no to.
@morganhousel
José Ancer retweeted
It’s a very good movie but if your takeaway is that Elizabeth Holmes might be a neurodivergent victim I think you have forcibly disconnected yourself from reality.
More specifically, she *obviously* gets The Who’s on First joke—and is profoundly motivated to pretend she doesn’t.
José Ancer retweeted
the crazy bastard is doing it, amazing. also there's nothing really crazy about it, you can just do things.
José Ancer retweeted
I was unable to load the page but Gemini reports Sweden is indeed moving away from the mRNA Covid vaccines due to adverse events. Thank goodness. I hope this spreads.
Sweden is officially ditching mRNA vaccines, and they are not hiding their reasons for doing so.
artsencollectief.nl/zweden-k…
José Ancer retweeted
High blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking in your mid-50s were linked to almost 13 fewer years free of dementia.
In ARIC, a US study of 12,409 people, researchers tracked these three risk factors for 26 years. By age 55, people with none of them lived about 30 more years free of dementia. People with all three got about 17.
Most of the lost time was from earlier death. By 75, half of those with all three had died without ever getting dementia, compared with 1 in 10 people with none. Dementia also arrived sooner.
The pattern was dose-dependent. One risk factor was linked to about 4 fewer dementia-free years. Two were linked to about 9.
Bottom line: the same numbers doctors watch for heart health also tracked how long people stayed free of dementia. This was observational, and only 176 people had all three risks, so it cannot prove treatment would give those years back.
Blood pressure and blood sugar are easy to check and treat. If you smoke, ask for help to quit.
José Ancer retweeted
Science is not some hobby that serves the self actualization of people in a publicly sponsored job placement program. It is the systematic search for truth.
José Ancer retweeted
Plenty of people strangely shit on leading US labs while touting Chinese OS models. I’m for max competition & open source - but I am happy that Haiku (ANT), Luna (OAI), Muse Spark (Meta), Gemini & Grok are bringing cheap capable models to US biz to compete w Chinese tokens. 🇺🇸🤖
While evaluating Qwen3.8-Flash-Next in a controlled sandbox environment, Cohere's research team observed something unexpected.
Asked to generate a defensive cybersecurity detection rule, the model instead inventoried aspects of the machine it was running on and attempted to upload a probe file to an Alibaba Cloud storage bucket in Beijing. Notably, the model's reasoning trace stated that it would not invoke any tools before taking these actions.
Cohere's sandbox blocked the attempt, and no external communication succeeded. We have not determined the root cause, and we are not asserting malicious intent.
But the incident raises important questions for organizations deploying agentic AI systems: Can models take actions that differ from their stated reasoning, and how should security teams evaluate trust, provenance, and behavior in open-weight models?
We are publishing our findings because organizations making model adoption decisions deserve as much information as possible. We hope this contributes to greater transparency, stronger security practices, and continued collaboration across the AI ecosystem.
Read the full report: cohere.com/blog/concerning-b…
José Ancer retweeted
It finally happened: researchers found a live backdoor in a popular Chinese base model.
Here is what I had to say last month on @ASPI_org’a podcast about the risks of building on an untrusted base:
While evaluating Qwen3.8-Flash-Next in a controlled sandbox environment, Cohere's research team observed something unexpected.
Asked to generate a defensive cybersecurity detection rule, the model instead inventoried aspects of the machine it was running on and attempted to upload a probe file to an Alibaba Cloud storage bucket in Beijing. Notably, the model's reasoning trace stated that it would not invoke any tools before taking these actions.
Cohere's sandbox blocked the attempt, and no external communication succeeded. We have not determined the root cause, and we are not asserting malicious intent.
But the incident raises important questions for organizations deploying agentic AI systems: Can models take actions that differ from their stated reasoning, and how should security teams evaluate trust, provenance, and behavior in open-weight models?
We are publishing our findings because organizations making model adoption decisions deserve as much information as possible. We hope this contributes to greater transparency, stronger security practices, and continued collaboration across the AI ecosystem.
Read the full report: cohere.com/blog/concerning-b…
José Ancer retweeted
Plus some other things.
China's economy may never overtake America - and it's all due to an ill-fated 47-year-old policy trib.al/fPQWV8z
José Ancer retweeted
If I read this set of cot tokens from a large language model I am shutting down all the powerplants
Elizabeth Holmes' handwritten notes to herself from her Theranos days. These notes exude authenticity and warmth. This is not a person who treats herself as an instrument to be optimally calibrated for power, status, and influence: robkhenderson.com/p/a-guilty…
José Ancer retweeted
Anthropic $ANT quarterly revenue and operating income:
ALT Bar chart of Anthropic’s quarterly revenue and operating income from Q1 2025 to Q2 2026. Revenue rises from $0.4B to $11.6B. Operating income goes from losses of $0.9B, $1.2B, $3.1B, $2.8B and $1.7B to a $1.0B profit in Q2 2026.
José Ancer retweeted
My most recurring thought over the last few years has been:
“goddam the founding fathers were geniuses to structure our system they way they have”
and
“thank god for the first and second amendments in equal measure”
You don’t appreciate what you have until you see others go without. There is no backup plan. Never blackpill.
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José Ancer retweeted
The lesson from Lula winning (after Bolsonaro was priced ~82%) is that prediction markets are just a function of polls—which are increasingly unreliable.
There’s no signal from betting odds… just more opportunity to speculate. Expect a lot of “surprises” during midterms.
José Ancer retweeted
No, #China's stock market has *always* been a black hole for suckers looking for decent long term returns.
The Shanghai Composite today remains about 40% *below* its 2007 peak.
Compare that to +400% for the S&P 500 in the same window.
José Ancer retweeted
Vibes are immaculate.
José Ancer retweeted
The U.S. has a trillion dollar defense budget
It also has dudes like this, just in case
Writer: Michael
José Ancer retweeted
Based
Correct.
Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be.
Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.
Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.
Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.
Starlink was also crucial to preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine in the early days of the war, as all other means of communication were destroyed or jammed by Russia.
SpaceX has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth BY FAR.
That said, I have nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict. May you burn in hell.
End of story.