Author: VD

Losing the Technological Lead

The US government is badly mishandling the way AI is developed and utilized, and has already just about ensured that China will soon secure leadership in the AI arena:

Chinese models have held above 30% of the platform’s enterprise token volume every week since February 8, peaking at 46% in June. US-origin models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have collectively fallen to 35.7%. DeepSeek commands 17.6% of routed tokens as the platform’s single largest vendor, and Alibaba’s Qwen follows at 13.9%.

Lindy, an AI automation company, migrated all of its traffic from Claude to DeepSeek and projects millions in savings. Coinbase runs 1,200 AI agents on Chinese models and halved its AI spending. Uber burned through its annual AI budget in four months as AI coding tool usage surged beyond the company’s ability to tie it to shipped products. Harpreet Arora, Vercel’s head of agentic infrastructure, told CNBC that enterprise teams now route tasks to the cheapest model that clears the quality bar, and Chinese models consistently win that trade.

The June 12 suspension of Anthropic’s Fable 5 under export controls pulled one of the most capable US models offline for 18 days. Chinese AI usage by US firms surged during the blackout, as enterprises discovered that cheaper alternatives cleared their quality bars. OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 spent its first 13 days in a government-coordinated preview limited to roughly 20 vetted organizations before launching publicly on July 9. During both windows, Chinese open-weight models faced no comparable restrictions on global distribution. Access to Fable 5 returned on July 1. The CNBC data, published six days later, showed that Chinese model share had not retreated since the shift began in February.

One of the things that is absolutely maddening about the way Western governments operate is that they regard taxation and regulation as being their primary priorities, thereby forcing productive and innovative people and organizations to waste a tremendous amount of time on unproductive activities as well as degrading the capabilities of their products in order to comply with government concerns.

The suspension of Fable – which I quite literally cannot even use due to my Athos skill settings – is a perfect example of the costs this imposes on US businesses. The problem isn’t just that the new advanced model wasn’t available for a limited period of time, it is that everyone now recognizes that reliable future access to it and newer models can no longer be assured.

Which, of course, is why we will be crowdfunding our Castalia AI project very soon. The team is established, we’re already on version 4.5 of the build document, and a lot of people have contacted me or posted on SG to confirm they will be strongly supporting this project.

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TRANSLATION: Zaragoza

Castalia House’s epic quest to translate the entirety of the historic Spanish Episodios Nacionales into the English language continues with the publication of the sixth book, Zaragoza, about the French siege of the Spanish city during the Peninsular War.

The sixth volume of the Episodios Nacionales — the great historical novel cycle of Spain — Zaragoza takes Gabriel Araceli into the most terrible siege in modern European history: the second French assault on the Aragonese capital, where sixty thousand civilians and soldiers held the ruins of their city against Napoleon’s marshals through two months of bombardment, starvation, plague, and hand-to-hand fighting in the cellars.

Gabriel arrives in Zaragoza half-starved and in rags, having escaped a French prisoner column in the company of Don Roque. They sleep among beggars in the shattered monastery of Santa Engracia and are taken in by Don José de Montoria, a proud Aragonese labrador of iron convictions and volcanic patriotism, who has given both his sons to the defence. The elder is already dead. The younger, Agustín, is a theology student whom the siege has transformed into a soldier and who is carrying on a desperate love affair with Mariquilla Candiola, the beautiful daughter of the most hated man in the city: el tío Candiola, a miser of Dickensian proportions whose house stands at the very edge of the French advance.

As the French tighten the noose, the novel compresses with the siege itself, from the open streets to the barricaded quarters, from the quarters to single houses defended room by room, from the houses to the tunnels where Spanish and French sappers dig toward each other in the dark. The city burns. The plague spreads. The dead lie unburied in the streets. Women carry ammunition under fire and friars take up muskets. And through it all, Gabriel watches the collision between Agustín’s love and his father’s honour, between the miser’s gold and the patriot’s sacrifice, between the claims of private tenderness and the needs of a city that will not surrender.

The book has already been delivered to the paid subscribers supporting Castalia’s translation efforts. You can read an excerpt from Zaragoza at Castalia Library.

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The Next False Flag

It seems unlikely that Sen. Graham’s death was natural, although the timeline of his movements tends to suggest Russian involvement rather than Iranian responsibility, the latter’s Lego video notwithstanding. But I can’t imagine that makes other anti-Iranian figures who now find themselves targeted any better.

We’re already heading for a much more dangerous world now that 5GW is here and drones can be used by just about anyone and any organization pretty much anywhere. But if Iran has actually decided to go ahead and adopt the “rise up and kill” tactics against their enemies that Israelis have been using for decades, we’re going to see a lot of US public figures being affected as a result of their relentlessly bloodthirsty calls for invading Iran, killing Iranian leaders, and establishing an empire in the Middle East.

My suspicion is that there is one last card that the neocons will attempt to play. The short fat Trump is old and of demonstrably limited utility now. He has proven absolutely unable to unite Americans behind his ill-fated war on Iran. So, it’s not hard to see why Trump was recently speaking so darkly about his own future prospects, although I think those who are counting on Americans rising up in fury against Iran for one reason or another are again reading the international tea leaves incorrectly.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME! Orders have already been given, and the U.S. Military is ready, willing, and able, for a one year period of time, subject to extension, to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran – PRAISE BE TO ALLAH! President DONALD J. TRUMP

However, Americans do not want to fight Iran under any circumstances that don’t involve Iran physically invading Florida, Texas, or the Midwest. They just want the US to permit Iran to manage the Strait of Hormuz in a way that permits the oil to flow, even if it is taxed by Iran. But just because there are no serious prospects for the effectiveness of a false flag, or even a potential green flag, doesn’t mean that a sufficiently desperate Clown World won’t roll the dice with one.

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Ladybug Died in Kiev

Larry Johnson runs the timeline:

So Lindsey Graham arrives in Kyiv by 11 am Friday morning. He meets with Zelensky and tours a drone factory. Then we are asked to believe that he returns to Washington, DC after spending less than 24 hours on the ground. Again, I call bullshit!!

The earliest train back to Warsaw departs Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi at 07:40–08:00 on the 11th and arrives Przemyśl Główny in the afternoon (~17:00–18:00). That is at least nine hours. That would make it roughly 1100 hours in Washington, DC. Let’s assume he has an hour to get to the airport and the plane takes off at 1900 hours local from Poland. The flight going west takes 10 hours… This means the earliest the plane could have landed at Dulles is midnight on the 11th. That is 3 ½ hours after Graham reportedly died at home.

In other words, Sen. Graham probably died in a Russian missile strike. And the fact that the US government wants to hide that suggests that the USA is not actually willing to fight a direct war with Russia. And it may indicate why Trump rushed home from Europe babbling about assassination attempts.

If Russia has finally decided to start fighting back against its self-declared enemies, we may seeing the demise of some British and European leaders sooner rather than later.

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WWIII is Over

Russia and China, and their allies, already have an industrial advantage that cannot be overcome, as Andrei Martynov observes that Russia alone can produce nearly 6 million drones per year.

The Russian military-industrial complex (MIC) has the ability to produce more than 15 thousand FPV drones per day. This was announced on June 3 by the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov. “Domestic enterprises can already ensure the supply of over 15 thousand pieces per day of FPV drones alone, and in 2023 such a number was produced per month,” he said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper.

For arithmetically challenged (forget about combat models used for planning of operations against NATO’s aerial terrorism) this means: 365 x 15,000 = 5,475,000 drones per year. Combined West’s economies will choke trying to match this. But then again, one must be situationally aware–a novelty thing for Pentagon, CIA and so called “analysts” such as Mearsheimer. And so he continues with platitudes.

Now to the crux of the matter–Russia MAY strike Europe, and among targets could be some of those UAVs-producing facilities, but if it happens, it is going to be NOT the main consideration, and NATO’s UAVs could be used MERELY as casus belli. Already now Russia blunted and mitigated all this “wall of drones”–yet another pathetic moniker for NATO’s military impotence–if Russia will be striking Europe she will come in hard and main targets will be the remnants of NATO’s industrial plant, thus solving a strategic task of a complete demilitarization of Europe.

This doesn’t mean that foreign regimes like the Kiev regime won’t force the people of the occupied nations to fight wars against their national self-interests. But it does mean they’re not going to win any of them, including the war on Iran.

All the GDP statistics and revisionist histories and rhetoric mean nothing. The only thing that counts in 5GW is industrial capacity, and that was eliminated in both the USA and Europe after 1970. And this, no doubt, is why formerly globalist-friendly Russian oligarchs like Andrey Melnichenko are returning to Russia and supporting its national objective of liberation from Clown World and complete national sovereignty.

The choice before the world is not between love for Russia and hatred of it, between punishment and forgiveness, between moral clarity and political cynicism. It is between two kinds of future: one in which major powers again learn to respect each other’s sovereignty, and one in which each attempts to reduce the others to objects of management. The second path has already brought us here. The most important thing is that we step back from the abyss. Only then can we ask how we reached it and how to arrange the world differently. That work belongs to the next generation. Our role is to ensure they have something to work with.

“Melnichenko’s words are clear: the war is the West’s fault, and Russia is being restructured as a self-sufficient society of supreme sovereignty where even the previously-alienated liberal class of exiles and pariahs has returned with newfound patriotism in its veins. A nation where oligarchs and big businesses are increasingly working for the benefit of the state and its people, rather than the crooked Western system which deceived and betrayed them.” – Simplicius

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Exuent the Ladybug

The political world was shocked early Sunday morning by the sudden and completely unexpected passing of longtime South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. He was 71 years old. According to an official statement released by his office, the senior Republican Senator passed away on Saturday evening, July 11, after a brief, rapid battle with an undisclosed illness. Emergency personnel responded to a call for “cardiac arrest” at Graham’s Capitol Hill home on Saturday night, according to police scanner audio obtained by NBC News.

The vaxx, Iran, or natural causes? Regardless, one of the worst fake conservatives is no longer on the political scene. He will not be missed. But it will be interesting to see what effect the absence of one of the leading warmongers in the Senate will have.

UPDATE: Graham had recently returned from Ukraine, per The Washington Post. He visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, July 10, in Kyiv.

So the obvious question is, was the senator alive or was he already dead when he returned?

UPDATE: There is reason to believe that Sen. Mitch McConnell is dead as well.

It could just be a coincidence, but things do appear to be accelerating.

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England 2, Norway 1

I think England deserved to win the game. They were the better team. And I don’t think the disallowed goal on the corner was a problem, nor do I think there was an issue on the build-up to the England goal where the ball may or may not have touched a TV drone wire or whatever. That being said:

Harry Kane and Jed Spence should have both received yellow cards for simulation. And it was definitely not a penalty; Spence stuck his leg out to draw contact, then threw himself down. Now, to be clear, I have despised Harry Kane for years and consider him to be a blight on the beautiful game. About 75 percent of his game involves falling down and appealing for a free kick or penalty; you can see him literally lifting up his legs and diving every time he imagines he was touched. Sometimes he even points his toes. He’s the anti-Haaland and the biggest cheat in international football since Pippo Inzaghi was going down like he was shot in the back of the head against Turkey. So I thought it was hilarious that Norway scored its first goal in part because Kane was too busy diving instead of putting pressure on the guy who stole the ball and preventing him from sending the cross that turned into an inadvertent shot and goal.

Norway should have gotten a penalty on a later corner kick, the one that bounced around, hit the crossbar, and nearly went in. After it hit the crossbar, a Norwegian player went up to head it in and took a forearm shiv to the back of the neck from the defender behind him that knocked him down. That wasn’t just a foul and a penalty, it was an obvious yellow card. Any statistical analysis will show that about 99 percent of the fouls called on corners are called on the attacking team, which is totally absurd. And yet, the same VAR review that correctly disallowed Norway’s goal for Haaland’s push did nothing when a defender threw a Muy Thai elbow strike.

Jude Bellingham was great. It’s amazing that despite all the skill, talent, and money, the guy scores because he follows his teammate’s shots just like every schoolboy player is taught, unlike every other player on both teams.

Norway’s right wing needs a shock collar. He repeatedly refused to pass the ball to Haaland in scoring opportunities. There’s no excuse for that when Haaland is literally the team’s entire offense. If he makes those three passes in the first half, Norway very likely would have won the game.

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The Push to Ban AI

There was a discussion yesterday on SG about the RIAA’s new campaign to require the labeling of music in which the recordings are provided by AI, but not when the lyrics or composition are provided by AI. This is why I am against the labeling, because I believe that as with the registration of guns, it is a first step toward attempting to ban, or in this case, deplatform it. More about that at AI Central, as well as a new mix of ONCE THERE WAS SORROW in which I discovered that country rock with a double-lick drum works surprisingly well.

And in passing, I think it’s worth addressing the posturing of those who insist they are very special members of the 3 percent who can reliably distinguish between AI music and organic music, which I suspect has a lot more to do with the fact that since they avoid listening to it, they have no idea how much it has changed over the last 18 months, or realize that one cannot judge the technology by a single application of it; as much as Suno’s voices have improved, it has never been the AI system with the best vocals as its popularity stems from its compositional capabilities, not the vocals.

Soundwaves are soundwaves. They’re not magic infused with bits of the human soul. The “too perfect” problem has been solved before, multiple times, by audio engineers. It will be solved again. It is safe to assume that within 36 months, and probably within 18, even audio engineers will no longer be able to distinguish between human and AI vocals.

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Top 10 Epic Fantasies

The initial response to the Castalia AI crowdfund campaign has been, in a word, excellent. The full team has been assembled; two members of the community who have already been working on related projects have both agreed to share what they’ve learned, all of which is fortuitously in line with our initial development document. Interestingly enough, one thing that we had calculated, and one of the team member is able to confirm, is that too much training is potentially as problematic as too little. So one factor that will be very important is deciding which of the training works to overweight, or in our terminology, to assign the gold standard.

We’ve chosen Epic Fantasy as our test genre for four reasons:

  • It is a relatively small genre.
  • It is a high-profile genre that everyone knows to some degree
  • It is a genre in which one of the team members is one of the few qualified experts
  • It is a genre in which AI assistance would be particularly valuable due to the length and complexity of the works

So what I’d be interested in hearing is your suggestions on what the top ten epic fantasy books would be. Not series, books. Remember, the focus here is on writing style, not worldbuilding, not plotting, and not characters per se. So the limits are one author, one book. You cannot list The Lord of the Rings as one of the ten and you cannot suggest both A Game of Thrones and A Storm of Swords by GRR Martin as two of the ten.

With that in mind, please provide your list of top 10 epic fantasy novels.

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Europe’s Fake Democracy

It’s more than a bit ironic that both the USA and the European Union justify their wars on Russia and Iran as defenses of “democracy” when both organizations are observably anti-democratic in nature. All of their institutions are quite literally designed to prevent the will of the people from being enacted.

If anybody cares, what actually happened is that an extension of the European Union’s mass surveillance regulation known as Chat Control 1.0 failed to make it out of the European Parliament twice in March. Unable to summon a clear parliamentary majority, advocates (mostly in the centre-Right European People’s Party (EPP)) turned to the European Council, which adopted the failed Chat Control 1.0 renewal on July 2nd. The Council’s position hardens automatically into law unless the European Parliament can summon an absolute majority to stop it. To forestall any such majority from forming, the EPP on Tuesday moved with member state backing for urgent procedure, angling to force their scheme through in the last days before the summer holiday, after many MEPs had already left. The parliament narrowly approved the urgent procedure, and in consequence there were not enough votes to stop Chat Control 1.0 when it came for a vote today. Hours ago, a majority of 314 MEPs voted to stop Chat Control against the wishes of the Council, while a minority of 276 voted to let it happen. Because 314 is less than the absolute majority of 361, Chat Control 1.0 passed even though most MEPs present didn’t want it to.

It was a sleazy vote, not least because it’s far from clear this procedural manoeuvre was even appropriate in this case. Also, electronic surveillance is bad, but if we are honest with ourselves this battle was already lost.

Neither the EU Council nor the US Supreme Court are elected to their positions, so neither the EU nor the US government can even be considered representative democracies, much less genuine ones.

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