Upstart's 5th-gen RDU aims to undercut Nvidia's B200 on speed and cost

AI infrastructure company SambaNova has raised $350 million to advance its dataflow architecture, which it pitches as an alternative to GPU-based AI systems.…

QUOTE - Professor Laura Batstra heeft voor het pedagogenblog pedagogiek.nu een interessant artikel geschreven over definitiemacht: de macht (van onder andere wetenschappers) om van zaken een definitie vast te stellen, waarmee vervolgens het denken over en het handelen in relatie tot deze zaken wordt gestuurd. Aanleiding is een subsidie-call voor onderzoek naar arme mensen:

Een zeer machtige definitiemacht is die van de instanties die grote sommen overheidsgeld verdelen over onderzoekers en onderzoeksgroepen. Met de inhoud van hun calls bepalen zij in sterke mate welk gedachtegoed geld en dus aandacht krijgt. Zo heeft verstrekker ZonMW (Zorg Onderzoek Nederland / Medische Wetenschappen) meerdere keren flinke impulsen gegeven aan het medicaliserende idee dat psychische stoornissen al vanaf jonge leeftijd huizen in mensen en dat vroege herkenning en behandeling erger kan voorkomen. Er is geen bewijs voor deze aanname, maar met vele tonnen onderzoeksgeld is het stoornisdenken wel extra versterkt in onderzoek en samenleving.

En nu is er de call van een andere subsidie-gigant, de NWO (Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek): “Het brein achter gezinskeuzes: inzichten voor gezondheid en gelijke kansen”, welke ook weer maatschappelijke problemen individualiseert. NWO stelt  €7.250.000 beschikbaar voor wetenschappers om oorzaken en oplossingen voor stresserende omstandigheden te definiëren op het niveau van het individu, die moet namelijk leren om onder stress toch verstandige keuzes te maken: “Door beter te begrijpen hoe hersenprocessen besluitvorming sturen, kunnen we interventies ontwikkelen en systematisch testen die gezinnen helpen gezondere, veiligere en kansrijkere keuzes te maken, nu en in de toekomst.”

Ze heeft een punt. Je kunt geld maar één keer uitgeven, en in plaats van neurobiologisch onderzoek te doen naar hoe individuen hun hersenen (niet) om kunnen gaan met de toenemende complexiteit van de leefomgeving (inclusief economische onzekerheid), en hoe al die mensen vervolgens veerkrachtiger kunnen worden gemaakt – zou je ook kunnen onderzoeken hoe  die toenemende complexiteit en economische onzekerheid teruggedrongen kan worden.

Trump doesn’t deserve our attention. And we already know the state of the union – it sucks

I’m not going to watch the State of the Union address on Tuesday night. I urge you not to, either.

I hope Neilsen (or whoever makes such estimates these days) will find that far fewer Americans watched Donald Trump’s State of the Union than have watched any other State of the Union in recent memory. It will drive Trump crazy.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

In Milan, athletes showed that patriotism can be generous. In Los Angeles, that definition will be tested on the biggest, loudest stage sport can offer

The Milano Cortina Winter Games ended on Sunday night as the Olympics always do: in light, spectacle and speeches about unity. In Verona, the Olympic flag passed to the French Alps and the twin flames were extinguished. But unofficially, at least, a flame also flickered 6,000 miles west.

If these Games felt political, just wait until Los Angeles a little more than two years from now.

From contacts to denial by big font, the real battleground of getting older is admitting we can’t see any more

In the middle of my 20s, there was a fierce baldness debate, just among the men: if one went bald, did it make them all look old? And if so, did that create a moral onus upon the first bald man to take Regaine? It was so contested that considerations like: “are we absolutely sure Regaine works, and if it does, why is anybody bald?” became secondary, the way all the practical questions of Brexit melted away, once one person, one time, said the word “sovereignty”. I can’t remember how baldgate ended because, sooner or later, give or take 25 years, everyone was bald, except for the ones who most definitely were not.

Now in our 50s, the battleground is reading glasses: everyone has a subtly but importantly different version of the etiquette. One friend hates it when you never quite take them off, and just slide them to the top of your head, because she thinks it’s beyond physical laziness: the beginning of entropy, like eating with your hands, weeing in a sink. I love wearing my glasses on my head, because then I either know where they are, or forget where they are, and am wearing a pair on my face as well, win-win. But I hate it when people wear them round their neck on a chain, because I take it as shorthand for my adornment days are over. From now on, anything I hang off myself will be strictly utilitarian, and soon I will get a hammer and a big bunch of keys and a miniature spirit level, and I’ll be ready for absolutely anything except the high life.

A former Soviet military facility offers an unlikely respite – before its patients return, too quickly, to the frontline

• Ksenia Savoskina directed the Guardian documentary No Time to Heal, which follows the psychological rehabilitation of a Ukrainian soldier after three years in Russian captivity

Imagine a place hidden deep in a pine forest, with small lakes and ponies. Far from the noisy city. In the middle of it there is a modernist Soviet building with marble walls. Walls that have heard so many stories of suffering, loss and death.

This place was built in 1974 as a secret sanatorium for the ministers of Soviet Ukraine. Later it hosted soldiers returning from the 1979-89 Afghan-Soviet war. Then, from 2014, those coming back from the war in eastern Ukraine. And now, soldiers from every part of the Ukrainian front.

Ksenia Savoskina is a Ukrainian film-maker and the director of No Time to Heal

Exiled Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had fled to Italy translated Hebrew bible into their common language

In 1553, a community of exiled Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had found refuge and patronage in the northern Italian city of Ferrara did something that would have been unthinkable, and very possibly fatal, in their former homelands.

They printed their own Hebrew bible in Spanish.

Forget fear of public speaking. A lot of people now shy away completely from speaking to anyone in public. But if we learn to do this it’s enriching, for ourselves and society

It started with two incidents on the same day. In a fairly empty train carriage, a stranger in her 70s approached me: “Do you mind if I sit here? Or did you want to be alone with your thoughts?” I weighed it up for a split second, conscious that I was, in effect, agreeing to a conversation: “No, of course I don’t mind. Sit down.”

She turned out to be an agreeable, kind woman who had had a difficult day. I didn’t have to say much: “I’m sorry to hear that.” “That’s tough for you.” She occasionally asked me questions about myself, which I dodged politely. I could tell she was only asking so the conversation would not be so one-sided. Some moments are for listening, not sharing. I sensed, without needing to know explicitly, that she was probably returning to an empty house and wanted to process the day out loud. I didn’t feel uncomfortable, as I knew I could duck out at any moment by saying I needed to get back to my phone messages. But instead we talked – or, rather, I listened – for most of the 50-minute journey. I registered that it was an unusual occurrence, this connection, but thought little more of it. A small part of me was glad this kind of thing still happens.

DELFT (ANP) - Betalen of niet betalen, dat zijn de enige twee keuzes die telecomprovider Odido heeft na het dreigement van cybercriminele groep ShinyHunters om de gestolen data openbaar te maken. Dat zegt universitair hoofddocent Rolf van Wegberg van de TU Delft, die onderzoek doet naar hoe cybercriminelen hun geld verdienen.

ShinyHunters is verantwoordelijk voor de hack op Odido, meldde RTL Nieuws. Op het dark web wordt de telecomprovider onder druk gezet om losgeld te betalen. Odido wil nog niets zeggen over welke stappen het bedrijf neemt en of het overgaat tot betalen of niet.

Van Wegberg gaat ervan uit dat het publieke dreigement van ShinyHunters volgt op onderhandelingen tussen beide partijen. "Bij vergelijkbare incidenten wordt er eerst één-op-één onderhandeld, zonder publiek. Als dat niets oplevert, is de volgende stap dat er publieke druk uitgeoefend wordt."

Die stap heeft de cybercriminele groep nu gezet. Die eist een bedrag van meer dan 1 miljoen euro en de deadline voor betalen is donderdagochtend, meldde RTL Nieuws.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo: