Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
It is wrong to threaten to do something which is intrinsically immoral, even if the threatened evil action never happens.
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Benjamin Smedberg
5.5K posts
Benjamin Smedberg
@nsIAnswers
VP of software development @xometry. Formerly @Mozilla. Follower of Christ. Devoted husband. Father of seven. Organist & choir director.
Rockville, MD, USA Beigetreten Nisan 2013
465 Folgt724 Follower
Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
WOW, today’s Section 232 Steel and Aluminum proclamation imposes 15% tariffs on full custom value of industrial robots (HTS 8428.70.00) starting April 6. This rises to 25% on Jan 1, 2028.
Before this, the tariff was assessed only on the steel content.
There’s more. 🧵
Divyansh Kaushik@dkaushik96
So about that robotics 232 investigation… tl;dr: ~65% of US robotics imports come from allies. China is roughly 4.2%. Tariffs here would raise costs on American manufacturers’ own inputs — while Unitree is shipping 5500+ humanoids a year (and still not banned from the U.S.).
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
Asking God, in a public prayer, to help a political leader make wise decisions, care for the poor, seek peace, foster harmony, and try to include all those who feel excluded? Yes. Comparing a political leader, in a public prayer, to the sinless Son of God during Holy Week? No.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar
Paula White compares Trump to Jesus during event with faith leaders: "You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It's a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us. Because of His resurrection, you rose up."
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@Chris_arnade I believe silk was at least as important if not more than spices, and definitely a source of lots of intrigue to try and reproduce elsewhere!
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So, thanks to everyone for the wonderfully informative and genuine feedback (except for that one guy — why is there always that one guy?). A few thoughts after reading them all:
1) I knew going in there was a big hurdle to cultivation in Europe (information, climate, soil, technology), but I would re-frame my question to: "was there as much effort in trying to grow spices in Europe as there seemingly was in alchemy?" That is, was there energy spent on it, even if they failed? And the answer seems to be: kind of?
2) Doing further reading, inspired by the comments, I do think the hurdle at an agricultural level was higher than I'd realized. Especially — and this is the key — in bulk. They might have succeeded in small batches, but they could never scale up in a way that made it a threat to the status quo (trading with mysterious regions via middlemen).
3) I'm still skeptical of the simpler story told in a lot of history books that "getting more spices was the reason for doing X," where X is primarily spending immense resources and lives trying to get to Indonesia and India via tiny, precarious ships. Spices were a major factor, just not necessarily the driving one.
4) I believe we tend to collapse past motivations into easily understood "rational" reasons, when in fact, they are more complex and emotional than that. In this case, the Age of Exploration was as much about human curiosity, without any economic reasons behind it, as anything else. The spice trade (and spreading the catholic faith), were certainly animating perks, but not the only reason.
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Possibly ignorant question: I’ve read extensively about the spice trade and its importance to ancient and medieval Europe, and its centrality to the Age of Exploitation and other things.
Given Europeans had these spices, that some were claimed to be as valuable as gold, and that both periods were sophisticated in farming and botany, why didn’t anyone figure out how to grow their own — even in small amounts in greenhouses, which they had in various forms?
Alchemy was supposedly a big deal. Was there an equivalent systematic attempt at spice cultivation? Why didn’t it motivate greater greenhouse innovation?
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
I'm no longer ready to give Israel the benefit of the doubt on religious liberty questions - I'm sad to say. There's been far too many examples in recent years of Israeli police or security agencies seemingly turning a blind eye when Christians face abuse or worse in their churches, communities and even in and around their own homes. Additionally Some Holy Land Christians complain of active harrassment from the local police. All very regrettable and it needs our attention.
x.com/28virgo/status…
Karen@28virgo
@montie No religion is allowed near the Church for security reasons . Thought you'd know this tbh ! There is a war going on ! @TomTugendhat
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
MAID isn't about letting people die with dignity, it's about saving the government money
Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸@Tablesalt13
🚨NEW - CANADIAN SENIOR OFFERED DEATH FOR MINOR BONE BREAK 84-year-old Miriam Lancaster was admitted to a Vancouver hospital with a broken sacrum (small back bone) Her doctor told her: "We can offer you MAID.’ she refused and recovered in a month, later climbed a volcano.
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
I know it's boring and repetitive to talk about how grossly evil Trump is, but the fact remains: Trump is grossly evil, in a way that's pretty much unprecedented in this country.
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
The biggest game of the first round is on Friday, when Long Island battles Arizona for iced tea supremacy
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
Muslim US military members serve and defend the Constitution so there are halal MREs.
The military also offers kosher and vegetarian options.
Kaylee Campbell@kaylee_ashlynn
Shoutout to Kelly for exposing this. U.S military members are receiving HALAL MRE’s. Islam is infiltrating our own military.
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
EXCLUSIVE: 'Firefly' fans are in for a treat.
Nathan Fillion has just revealed at Awesome Con that an animated 'Firefly' series is in development based on the beloved cult sci-fi franchise.
Full details here: deadline.com/2026/03/nathan…
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
This guy truly does not believe in the existence of human beings. Totally unrecognizable anthropology at work here.
Chief Nerd@TheChiefNerd
🚨 SAM ALTMAN: “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.”
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
Shyam on why the US needs to become reindustrialization maximalists:
"The biggest lie of globalization was that the US would do the innovation while China did the production.
The breakthrough behind the Attention Is All You Need paper came from Google trying to improve Translate by 3%. Innovation is a consequence of production.
WuXi went from being a cheap pair of hands for pipetting contract research to now 50% of all clinical trials are drugs that are created in China.
We ceded the innovation. It wasn't taken from us. We ceded it because we had a completely incorrect preset.
I don't think it's true that we're not great at building things in this country. Look at Elon and the progeny of Elon.
Apple has spent the equivalent on an inflation adjusted basis in the last five years of two and a half Marshall plans (~$350B+) building talent and capacity in China. How about we try to spend one Marshall plan here?"
Patrick OShaughnessy@patrick_oshag
My conversation with Shyam Sankar (@ssankar). Shyam has spent nearly 20 years as the most important person at Palantir that most people have never heard of. We spend a lot of time understanding his worldview, which helps explain why he has devoted his life to this work. At the center of it is a belief in the primacy of people -- all meaningful change comes from a small number of builders willing to be heretics first. You will find few people who think as deeply about the relationship between technology and national power. In many ways, he is becoming the modern version of the heretics he most admires. We discuss: - What Alex Karp taught him about identifying superpowers and unlocking talent - Heretics + the components of American greatness - The origins of the FDE model - Ontology and chips – where value will accrue in AI - Why dual-use companies are the future of American industry - China and what it would take for the US to reindustrialize - His journey from Nigeria to Orlando and what his dad taught him about gratitude Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:23 Defining Heretics in US Military History 8:36 Shyam’s Personal Disagreeableness 9:49 Formative Experiences & Worldview 12:52 What Makes America Exceptional 14:48 What Does Greatness Mean? 15:33 Alex Karp 16:46 How to Unlock Talent 19:21 Identifying Superpowers and Kryptonite 22:54 The Gamma Ray Moment 25:00 Palantir's Next 10 Years 27:03 Forward Deployed Engineering 33:40 Explaining What Palantir Is 37:50 Military vs. Commercial Customers 39:00 The State of the US Military Today 47:01 How to Re-Industrialize America 51:06 Perspective on China as an Adversary 56:17 How to Get More Heretics in Government 1:03:53 Managing Rapid Pivots & Momentum 1:08:48 Where Will AI Value Accrue? 1:13:33 Reasserting the Legitimacy of Institutions 1:15:54 To Do or To Be? 1:16:31 Reflecting on Fatherhood 1:17:34 Kindest Thing
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
‘Hey’ came before ‘hi,’ and ‘hi' came before ‘hello.’
‘Hi’ is most likely a variant of ‘hey.’
‘Hello’ is not related to either.
Goodbye.
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Today I learned that natural gas is the primary fed stock of nitrogen fertilizers and a large portion of world supply is from the Middle East.
Nazem Alkudsi@LongArcNews
One-third of globally traded fertilizer transits Hormuz. Kpler estimates 3–3.9 million tonnes monthly. There is no strategic reserve for nitrogen fertilizer. Oil has the SPR. Fertilizer has nothing.
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The video ad boards are really annoying in the @USWNT game are really annoying… makes it really difficult to see the ball and players near the touch line.
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Benjamin Smedberg retweetet
I think it bears repeating that BART installed tall gates to enter the subway and they're gaining $10m in revenue a year plus the need for maintenance is down by
*95.7%*
Passengers who were unwilling to pay a few bucks were causing 96% of the public cleanliness problems!
BART@SFBART
@maxdubler And there are other real benefits such as fewer corrective maintenance requests and time spent cleaning and fixing things.
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