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No Food for Thought

Food is something you should provide to your brain long before coming to this blog. You will find no food recipes here, only raw, serious, non-fake news for mature minds.

Salt Typhoon: The free movement of knowledge between autocracies

admin Friday February 14, 2025

China's intelligence activity has long been one of the greatest threats to democracy. Salt Typhoon is a spectacular example of the proportions this has reached.

The USA's decision to stop investigating even before the leak is patched would have been unthinkable a decade ago. But as the USA confirms its transition to autocracy, its decision makes some sense. After all, as China is exporting its governance to the USA, it's only fair that in exchange, the USA exports the secrets and wealth it no longer deserves.

Fentanyl and Czars being imported to North America

admin Thursday February 13, 2025

Canada has been importing much of its news from the USA for many months, but since November and particularly January, it has been an uncontrolled dump. The last ¾-hour newscast I watched (yesterday) still hadn't progressed to any other topic after 12 minutes. Tarifs, annexation, trade and wars dominate the news, with the USA now so worried about fentanyl supply that Canada is now importing czars to appease it.

The USA's new focus might be reassuring, but mostly surprising to see, now that it is leaving the WHO, has Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as its Health and Human Services Secretary and that its new President is pardoning druglords.

But perhaps this is all more coherent than it looks; indeed, by avoiding imports of recreational drugs, the USA will encourage local production, ensuring USA leaders don't stay dependant on… foreign drugs. Given the outlook for the next 4 years, it is visibly high time for North America to ramp up its local production of opioids―not just for its new leadersresurrected czars, but also for the population suffering them.

Let's drink a good shot of vodka to our recovered liberty and independence, all thanks to Russia and our new owners!

Update

This post, intended to be sarcastic, was unknowingly published just a few hours after the CBC published its news report Trump complains about Canada — but new data shows spike in U.S. drugs and guns coming north. I guess this should be funny.

2025-02-17 Update

The pardoned druglord's release has already contributed to the glorious $ROSS memecoin. As long as the planet is not entirely burned, there's money to be burned!

La domination du Québec en énergies renouvelables : une situation à renouveler

admin Thursday February 13, 2025

Depuis la Révolution tranquille, les Québécois sont fiers. De plusieurs choses, mais en particulier de leur électricité. Nous, Grands Bâtisseurs, avons bâti un parc hydroélectrique, qui, en date de 2021, fournit plus de 99 % de la puissance d'Hydro-Québec, de 37 GW. Une panacée qui nous permet de donner l'électricité aux particuliers, et même aux entreprises étrangères établies sur notre territoire!

Malheureusement, les Québécois n'ont pas encore appris à se méfier des lauriers. Notre incapacité à contrôler la demande et à poursuivre sur notre lancée s'apprête à faire disparaître nos surplus. Mais comment nous comparons-nous aux autres? Même en se comparant à un pays en développement, mal. La Chine, qui n'a que 7 fois le territoire québécois, a une capacité hydroélectrique plus d'un ordre de magnitude supérieure.1

Mais il ne s'agit là que du début. Le retard québécois ne fait que s'accélérer, alors que la Chine a installé 80 GW de capacité éolienne en 2024 seulement. Sans compter 277 GW de capacité solaire!2

Allez, Québec, on n'abandonne pas! On se relève et on repart!

The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates, by Frans de Waal

admin Thursday February 6, 2025

I find the bonobo, apes and humanism most interesting so I was attracted to read The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates, by primatologist Frans de Waal. I highlighted lots of interesting passages (probably 50), and I am keeping the book to re-read them eventually. A book about altruism seemed like a natural topic to review for KNP.

Most of these passages are surprising anecdotes about apes. De Waal is quite knowledgeable, and doesn't disappoint on that front. On the other hand, the book's course is not so clear, bringing to a conclusion surprisingly focused on strong atheism (antireligiosity).

This being my first book from de Waal, I enjoyed the quantity of anecdotes which I assume he gathered from his prior observations and books, but there are also irritants. A few of these anecdotes are repeated, and there is more focus than I would have liked on "neo-atheists" and the art of a single painter (Hieronymus Bosch, treated like a demigod). He spends the first tens of pages presenting scientific history, showing off his contributions, but the trust he builds in his judgment takes a hit in subsection Prozac in the Water (chapter Ten Commandments too Many), when he also attacks utilitarianism in a childish way. If de Waal lost a debate to Peter Singer, knocking down a straw man a decade later, in the same book where he decries the orgueil of "the typical scientist", seems like a misunderstanding of "revenge is a dish best served cold". It may reinforce his credible decrial of academics having "petty jealousies", but weakens his otherwise reliable and mostly interesting book.

I rate it 7 out of 10, but I wish I could publish a version annotating the strong (and rare weak) parts. Such a version would be much shorter, but could otherwise easily get 9/10, brilliantly showing how relative Homo sapiens's exceptionality is, and showing that cooperation stands a chance.

The Weight of the English language

admin Thursday January 23, 2025

Yesterday, looking for a dictionary at Laval university, I stumbled upon the biggest book I have seen in my life: a 1941 English dictionary by Funk & Wagnalls. I could not resist taking that monster in my hands:
Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary

I would advise those who consider English as an easy language to have a look at page 2763. Even at a time of grave global conflict, the Advisory Committee for disputed pronunciations required no less than 25 knowledgeable Allies to settle a large number of these non-life-threatening disputes.

I'm afraid we're compelled to pronounce English a heavy tool.

Merci, Sandra Demontigny🙏

admin Wednesday January 22, 2025

Sandra Demontigny n'est pas la plus chanceuse. Son père est mort de la maladie d'Alzheimer à 53 ans. Son propre destin n'est pas nécessairement mieux, puisqu'un Alzheimer précoce lui a elle aussi été diagnostiqué alors qu'elle avait à peine 39 ans. Mais, grâce à elle et au gouvernement québécois, il sera moins tragique que ce qu'il aurait pu être, grâce à des changements de la législation et réglementation québécoise permettant de formuler une demande anticipée d’aide à mourir.

Comme l'article de l'Actualité la nommant parmi ses personnalités de l'année 2024 le souligne, le Canada a encore beaucoup à faire sur ce dossier, ce qui prendra encore bien des années. Mais Mme Demontigny pourra partir l'esprit en paix, en laissant derrière elle son livre L'urgence de vivre. Le bond de géant qu'elle vient de permettre au Québec de faire garantit qu'elle restera dans notre mémoire collective, ainsi que parmi les héros Kune ni povos 2024.👏

Mme Demontigny, vous ne tomberez pas dans l'oubli!💙

RIP, vorlon

admin Wednesday January 22, 2025

The Debian project is big enough that I've become accustomed to reading emails titled "The Debian Project mourns the loss of foo". But it was still a shock to read that "The Debian Project mourns the loss of Steve Langasek (vorlon)". My last interaction with him must have been way more than a decade ago, but he was one of those colleagues you can't forget. Our job was not easy at the time, but it would certainly have been much harder without the privilege to work with vorlon. I remember how "disappointed" I felt when he left the release team.

I can't remember any specific interaction with him anymore at this point, so I won't add to everything that's already been written, but for sure, I know of very few developers at vorlon's level.

Congratulations and thank you for what you did and how you did it, Steve🙏

Artificial intelligence to bait scammers

admin Sunday December 29, 2024

Last year, KNP decried artificial intelligence's sad contribution to scamming. While this certainly hasn't improved, it's good to see AI is also contributing to scam baiting, thanks to Daisy, the "AI granny".

While it's funny and satisfying to enjoy this small revenge, it's also sad to see that once again, scam baiting is based on vigilantism. Once again, the public is failing to control technological development, lagging far behind private initiatives.

Inflation in Canada: François-Philippe Champagne and the PLC's grocery stunt

admin Wednesday December 4, 2024

Last year, grocery prices were inflating at a ridiculous speed in Canada, just as support for the LPC was crashing. Nothing which François-Philippe Champagne, our dear Minister of Interventionnovation, Science and Industry, couldn't tackle.

Of course, the PLC wouldn't do anything against inflation nor add competition, but it found a way simpler formula: single out a few companies and extort promises to stabilize prices from them. It astutely picked the 5 companies consumers see the most on their grocery bills. Champagne's crusade against the Bad Grocers managed to make grocery chains surrender, promising price freezes and―wow―discounts!
After a month of watching this nonsense grab Canadian headlines, the second part of At Issue's 2023-10-07 episode (at 9:50) thankfully let me blow off quite some steam.

But Champagne was way luckier: in addition to a return of inflation to normal, on that same October 7th, Hamas attacked Israel, triggering a war which quickly replaced his crusade in the headlines. Has his stunt achieved anything more than setting the agenda as the LPC wished? Did grocers actually hike their prices to pay for moving executives to Ottawa, "collaborating" and preparing their coping strategy? Only the LPC can say, since the grocers' commitments were kept secret… in the interest of competition.🙄

Perhaps thanks to a conflict in the Middle East, Champagne dropped his crusade with the grocers, preferring a more constructive approach: trying to attract new grocers in Canada… by calling them.😂 What a surprise to see that effort fail, right after the very same guy threatened existing grocers! Short-term stunts don't work great in the long term, Mr Champagne.

It's highly frustrating to see the government waste so much of its time and of the private sector's time. It's just as sad to see our collective attention wasted, diverted from actual issues. If only the government could stay focused on its mission, perhaps it would manage to achieve guaranteeing what we do expect from groceries: selling what they promise. Let's demand grocers to be reliable and give them means to ensure availability. Let us not encourage them to defraud consumers more, cause greater environmental damage and/or decrease product quality (which―of course―are effects of price caps, as we've known for centuries).