Five Trillion Dollars

I accurately identified the Tomb of Tal Rasha, but Stuff still Happened.

So what's up?

In Search of Anything at All

In the United States of America, we're watching as our federal government has chosen to withhold emergency funding which could help provide nutritional assistance to its citizens. While the government is shut down—as federal and military employees miss their paychecks—what meager food support this country offers will all but vanish based on how your local state officials are handling it.

Citizens are waiting in lines at food banks with hopes that this will all end soon. Those food banks are facing a wave of demand they could never have been ready for, and now we're seeing first hand just how ill equipped we are to solve a hunger crisis.

While we watch our nation's government spend hundreds of billions on a barely-capable masked private military drummed up to tackle brown people for Newsmax clips, much of the focus on resistance and action is on directly countering ICE officers or protesting at facilities or in marches. And yes, do that! But for a lot of folks, that may not be in the cards. Especially when it gets to be a more… lively protest.

For folks who are feeling powerless and want to do something, anything to make an impact, let's talk about those food banks.

You're Gonna Tell Me To Volunteer, Aren't You?

Yep. But I'm gonna do it in an interesting way, at least.

Right now, we're seeing a spike in volunteering rates. While they've not gone back to pre-pandemic levels, the trend is quite positive, with 28.3% of the population (16+ in age) saying they volunteered in some capacity between 2022 and 2023.

Of course, these numbers are still hurting from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and volunteer administrators are signaling fear over the average age of volunteers rising, meaning they may soon be losing some of their most dedicated people.

Here's a quote from Hannah Chatalbash, a director in a Maine pantry program:

We consider this, like, impending cliff of these current volunteers, who've been very dedicated for the last decade, aging out. We label that as a risk factor for our organization, absolutely
—Hannah Chatalbash

Volunteering Won't Fix It

I'm doing a great job at convincing you so far, I'm sure of it.

Volunteering won't fix it. Donating won't fix it. Philanthropy won't fix it. What we need (in addition to competent leadership and likely a complete constitutional overhaul, but I digress) is comprehensive policy around food access and stability, instead of this fucked up notion that poor people deserve to starve.

These are our countrymen, and just as you deserve food, shelter, and community, so too do they.

A huge surge in donations and volunteering will not fix this exact moment. Food banks are not equipped to be a primary nutritional support system. They're meant as a backstop. Even if they had full capacity, they're not a replacement for SNAP, nor should they be.

BUT.

Volunteering remains direct action. Volunteering makes a measurable difference. While protesting and organizing remains critically important, making sure our neighbors aren't literally starving remains important as well.

Volunteer work at a food bank is accessible, local, and almost always in demand. The tasks vary from seeking out deals on food items at bulk shops to organizing grocery bags for pickup to checking labels and organizing stored goods by expiration.

If you want to get out there and do something while meeting like minded people who are working out of their own good will to make a real impact on the lives of other people, well there you go. You may also be interested to know that the driving demographics behind the uptick in volunteering is largely driven by Millennials and especially marginalized groups.

Did that work? If so, here's a link to a website that helps you find nearby food banks. Look up what's near you and check their website for their volunteering information. Usually, it's literally just a matter of showing up with nothing but your beautiful smile.

But if that's not doing it for you, may I introduce you instead to Volunteering's alt punk sister: Mutual Aid?

Mutual Aid is Just Being Good But With A Cool Name

Mutual Aid can be many things, but at its core, it basically just means, "helping each other out with an understanding that our collective aid to each other is one of our greatest strengths."

But also like, it doesn't have to be that deep.

Getting involved in Mutual Aid may look similar to volunteering, or it may be more like a simple donation or routine community organization meeting.

In practical terms, most "Mutual Aid Networks" are organizations of people (official or otherwise) who focus on identifying the top human needs within the network's focus area and mobilizes to address those needs.

For example, a local network may do routine food drives, where folks donate extra food which network organizers literally just put in the hands of people who need it. It's about as direct as it gets.

Alternatively, Mutual Aid may look like taking on some work to help out a neighbor. Just being out there and available as someone who is able to take action within their community is a huge step towards pushing back on that sense of hopelessness.

Okay, but How?

Lot of people just say "do mutual aid" but I get it—if you don't know what you don't know, how are you supposed to even start starting? Well, allow me to help you stop stopping.

This map is a great resource for finding mutual aid networks around the US. Consider it a first place to look. Search up your area and see what comes up! Usually, groups will have donation links at least, and beyond that, they'll have information on how to further get involved.

Mutual aid networks will usually have well seasoned activists somewhere in the network. Those folks are who can help direct the energy as best as possible, but they need support to be able to direct that energy! So check out what's around you and consider reaching out.

Ultimately, we're here because our government has failed us, repeatedly, for basically my entire life so far. Food and financial insecurity has spiked over the past 30 years. We should not be wondering how to secure food and housing while working a full time job.

And I know: most people don't have the time to volunteer or get involved. I know. I get it. And also: if you can find that time, or if you can spread the word to those who can, do so.

Anyway, what else is up?

Nvidia Hits $5T

The definitely-not-a-bubble poster child company NVidia recently became the worlds first $5 Trillion valued company, mere months after becoming the first $4 Trillion company.

This is because they are not in a bubble and everything is fine (lie).

As many other outlets have framed it, this puts Nvidia's valuation above the GDP of every nation in the world except the US and China. That's mostly just a side note stat though, those numbers don't really mean much when compared. Apples to oranges. Or really more like apples to pterodactyls.

At this point, Nvidia has reached "national security interest" status, especially with the current US administration so heavily interested in AI. You've maybe heard of all the cross-investing going on between all these tech companies, and perhaps have seen the charts. But let's take a quick look at that because there's just hundreds of billions of dollars circularly flying around Silicon Valley in the name of "national security and advancement."

According to Forbes…

• The Trump Admin partnered with OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle to make a company to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into AI
• Oracle announced a purchase of $40 Billion of Nvidia chips
• SEC filings show that OpenAI was one of several large contracts with Oracle, valued at $30 Billion
• Google announced a $25 Billion AI data center project
• Nvidia and AMD agreed to pay the US government a cut of sales to be allowed to resume sales to China
• The Trump Admin takes a 10% stake in Intel on behalf of the US government
• OpenAI and Oracle sign a $300 Billion contract for computing power over 5 years
• Nvidia buys cloud services from CoreWeave for $6.3 Billion
• Nvidia announces a $100 Billion investment into OpenAI
• OpenAI and AMD reach an agreement for OpenAI to take a 10% stake of AMD, causing AMD stock to spike
• OpenAI partners with Broadcom to start making chips
• Oracle said they'd be deploying a ton of new AMD chips for an undisclosed agreement
• Oracle cut a $20 Billion deal with Meta to provide computing capacity
• Google announced they'd supply chips to Anthropic to the tune of 10s-of-billions
• The US Dept of Energy partnered with AMD valued at $1 Billion

It's a healthy mix of normal business investments, likely laundering, state corporate ownership at the hands of a Republican government, and essentially a giant tech industry slush fund whose sole purpose is to fuel the wild religious psychosis among tech bros who think their AI products are akin to god.

Once upon a time, Nvidia's main deal was convincing gaming nerds that we should purchase a chip that will render polygons slightly faster. Now its… whatever the fuck this is:

Naturally Occurring Tech Layoffs

Speaking of not-a-bubble, let's take a look at some of the larger layoffs from the tech industry we've seen recently!

Who wants some tabular data?

There's not a ton of analysis to be had here aside from being a small snapshot of the cuts happening everywhere. Combine these with federal layoffs and the workforce is having a pretty rough go of it, one could say.

Neat Ship. Almost.

Recently, a cargo ship pulled in to the port of Baltimore on the east coast of the United States. This is not particularly interesting, because it happens all the time. Sike, lol; it's actually slightly interesting. Gotcha, nerd. Anyway, let's talk about a growing fleet of wind-powered shipping vessels taking us back to OLDEN TIMES.

Alright, so there's been movement recently in trying to crack the code of handling modern shipping capacity using renewable power such as wind for sailing. We want to cut down on all the burning of dinosaur juice or whatever, so that's pretty good.

As materials like carbon fiber become more widely available and as design continues improving, the prospect of creating giant cargo ships sailing with just wind becomes… well, still pretty challenging, but slightly more viable.

Enter the Neoline Origin, a mostly-sails freighter ship which pulled in to Baltimore, as I had mentioned. This was her first time at port in Baltimore, where she arrived a bit delayed due to damage to the sails sustained at sea.

This isn't the only ship of its kind out there right now, but it's one of a very small cohort. Just about 70 wind-powered-in-some-way freight ships are out there, but in reality, it's more of an assistive sail than a primary source of power for most ships. Of course, wind power also doesn't fix waste and damage to natural ecosystems done by freight, but, look, I wanted to write about the pretty looking sails on the cool ship, okay?

Anyway if you want to, you can also book a trip on the Neoline Origin. Their website lists options for passengers to sail aboard. Who's up for some slight mutiny?

Suddenly, Nigeria

To celebrate Halloween, the president of my country (with people living in it—real people, with like, jobs) posted a rant on his social media platform about how the United States is considering "going in 'guns-a-blazin'" into Nigeria to stop what the GOP has been trying to paint as an active, state sponsored genocide of Christians.

Pete Hegseth, who would like for us to call him the "Secretary of War" now, said that the Pentagon is on it.

Let's start with a few quick notes:

• The United States is not a Christian nation nor some kind of global Christian defense network
• There is not a genocide of Christians in Nigeria
• There are multiple, ongoing, major humanitarian problems in Nigeria, mostly due to extremists militias and land/resource disputes, though even still, the majority of the dead in these cases are Muslim

This is one of those things that I barely knew was simmering under the louder topics, but conservative officials have been pushing a conspiracy for months now that there's a targeted genocide on Christian in Nigeria.

Cursory knowledge of basic reality (and a very simple search) would show that Christians are about 48% of the population of Nigeria, with about 50% Muslim and 2% other religions.

The Muslim population lives more to the north, while the south is more primarily Christian. The north is where the militias primarily operate. So here's Nigerian leadership being told they have to stop the systemic killing of Christians, despite that not really being the case. At the same time, they welcome support in fighting the militias—which is what the GOP is trying to say is part of the source of the "genocide,"—but those militias aren't really doing that, but are still a problem, but mostly for the Muslim population…????

idk, sounds like the woke Trump administration wants to fund foreign wars to defend Muslims.

Here's the Weather

More Stuff

• Elon Musk launched "Grokpedia" which is just an AI slop remix of wikipedia articles but with right wing talking points
• Microsoft Teams will soon begin tracking when you are or aren't connected to your corporate wifi
• A man in the UK was jailed after looking up information about a court case he was a juror for while the trial was ongoing
• The US Navy lost a helicopter and fighter jet which crashed in the South China Sea while "conducting routine operations"