LLNL - The True Story -

  Does war with Venezuela change anything for the NNSA labs? Does China take Taiwan now?  Are we back to war with Iran? What about Cuba and Mexico?

I would like to bring this up as it is another claim whereby certain individuals show signs of harm that are not present in the overall population. We have previously discussed this in the context of organophosphate exposure. This particular claim seems to pertain to either radiation or chemical exposure, if true. https://www.8newsnow.com/news/national-news/ohio-mom-alleges-radiation-led-to-daughters-death-sues-revived-nuclear-plant/

  AI and job loss. I just was watching some business podcasts talking about the changing landscape as AI grows. Most of these podcasts are optimistic saying that profits will grow, more creativity, how if you have tech skills you will be even be more valuable. There is even talk about a nee golden age in science and tech and there will be more job opportunities as new kinds of science fields will emerge that could not exist without AI. That being said, these same podcasts said that most advancements will be in the private sector and that academic or government are not really going to be be able to take the same advantages. Basically AI will be able to replace what are called BS jobs. Companies want to get rid of these for profit reasons but government jobs and academic jobs have no real motivation to do this. I just was watching some business podcasts talking about the changing landscape as AI grows. Most of these podcasts are optimistic saying that profits will grow, more creativi...

 This is another interesting story if anyone is following the issues previously discussed on this blog regarding aviation safety. There are evidently claims that fumes from engine oil or hydraulic fluids can enter cabin air. This could sicken the pilot or first officer, cabin crew, and also passengers, there are signs of both acute toxicity and long lasting neurological sequelae capable of leading to death. https://nypost.com/2025/09/14/us-news/pilots-crew-breathing-fumes-suffer-brain-nerve-damage-report/ Besides the New York Post article from September there is also a cover story on the Wall Street Journal, today December 22nd which goes into additional details, but is behind an internet paywall.

Nuno Loureiro, professor and director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, dies at 47 https://news.mit.edu/2025/nuno-loureiro-professor-director-plasma-science-and-fusion-center-dies-1216?fbclid=IwdGRzaAO1WRFjbGNrA7VXg2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHjaLv_9gTTgK1SfImjkpdwtiItKADAJr5kdnTste0KC8sD6AhjHddUDCTrgc_aem_Q2QOj1PHgVwz_loIGUE2bw

Short article from The Huffington Post: Trump Media & Technology, the parent company of Truth Social, is set to merge with TAE Technologies, a fusion power company, in an all-stock deal worth more than $6 billion. The merger would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies in the world. Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman and the current CEO of Trump Media, will be the co-CEO of the new company, along with TAE Technologies head Michl Binderbauer. The companies aim to create the first “utility-scale fusion power plant” in 2026. “Fusion power will be the most dramatic energy breakthrough since the onset of commercial nuclear energy in the 1950s,” Nunes said.  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brown-university-shooting-rob-reiner-death_n_693fda79e4b0775c50782f40/liveblog_69441584e4b045d9788d3d1a?origin=home-latest-news-unit

  What approach is the NNSA taking, if any, to LLNS pension “spiking” in all forms, if and when it is found? Has LLNS been audited for evidence of this practice by any other Agency? Calpers criticized for passive approach to pension 'spiking' “…Part of that law was aimed at halting spiking, the practice where workers on the eve of retirement cash out, for example, years of unused vacation and sick pay to inflate their final year's salary…” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/calpers-criticized-failing-halt-pension-203823680.html

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-destroying-the-university-and-learning-itself AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself. Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education. The message was clear. Let ChatGPT redesign your class. Let ChatGPT tell you how to evaluate your students. Let ChatGPT tell students how to use ChatGPT. Let ChatGPT solve the problem of human education. It was like being handed a Mad Libs puzzle for automating your syllabus. Cowen has offered an even bleaker take on the modern university’s “value proposition.” “Higher education will persist as a dating service, a way of leaving the house, and a chance to party and go see some football games,” he wrote in “Everyone’s Using AI to Cheat at School. And That’s a Good Thing.” In this view, the university’s intellectual mission is already dead, replaced by credentialism, consumption, an...

  If anyone is still following the previously discussed topic of aviation safety this is an interesting video in that regard. It would seem to be a possibility that certain air traffic controllers have become radicalized and pose certain threats as a result. The video claims that by drawing attention to this, it is hoped it will be addressed in a timely manner. https://youtu.be/gS0z2GLiWkg?si=ifIwKdDedTWlC_5m

 There wasn't a post yet on this somehow, but Google's latest AI is reportedly quite a bit ahead of others in performance: https://www.thealgorithmicbridge.com/p/google-gemini-3-just-killed-every

I find AI slop on the internet a lot and in some submitted papers. This year I am seeing this slop for the first time the lab. It is mainly from lab managers. It is beyond obvious they are using is it. Suddenly you had managers who could barley write suddenly put out these long winded posts with fancy words that sound nothing like the manager in terms of how they to speak or write. You also see lots of weird complements that seem out of place in the writing and the topic is off or it seems like the comments on the subject matter are using weird terms. If you email some of them you get back a response in minutes that are rather long but seems to repeat what you said but adds nothing. Also if you talk to them in person about something said in the email they often do not recall, or seem confused, indicating they are not even reading the AI slop that was generated for them. On the technical side I have noticed. (1) People who I would say are rather poor scientists are now saying AI can wri...

  NYT hit piece on NNSA and Labs https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/science/brandon-williams-nuclear-weapons-nnsa.html (Apparently it is now a sign of incompetence and desperation to promote the idea of keeping nuclear secrets protected. Can somebody explain this to me?) U.S. Nuclear Arms Chief Warns Against Leaks of Secret Information The email sent to atom bomb officials by Brandon Williams highlights the managerial challenge faced by the former one-term congressman. Brandon M. Williams was just weeks into his job of supervising the nation’s arsenal of thousands of nuclear bombs and warheads when President Trump put him at the center of a storm over whether the United States should change its posture on nuclear weapons testing. Now, Mr. Williams, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, has ordered his subordinates to step up their vigilance against leaks of classified information, signaling a need to preserve the secrets that empower the world’s deadliest weapons. “...

  This is an interesting story regarding a proposal to raise radiation exposure limits in particular, for the general public in the United States, https://thebulletin.org/2025/11/trumps-new-radiation-exposure-limits-could-be-catastrophic-for-women-and-girls/

It is like a child playing with an unfamiliar toy. Now, does he understand he has a responsiblity to future generations to stick with renewables? Trump Energy department drops renewables, promotes fusion in office reshuffle   https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/21/trump-energy-department-drops-renewables-promotes-fusion-in-office-reshuffle/