Althouse: Sunrise.

October 10, 2026

Sunrise.

33 comments:

Gospace said...: I didn't go out today. Someone else did and posted a Facebook pic of gas prices at one of the convenience stores near the thruway exit. Undiscounted price $4.09/gal. With the steady downward trend or the last month continuing, undiscounted price will soon be <$4.00 a gallon. At the BJ's we frequent $4.03, $0.15 less using our BJ's charge card.; 10/10/26, 7:29 PM
Achilles said...: We are in the middle of a cloud right now. This is like that BS Seattle misty fog rain. The storm should blow over fairly soon.; 10/10/26, 7:38 PM
Inga said...: Trump today said “I can say the stupidest things and you’d clap”.

He truly thinks you people are dumb and he depends on it.

“President Donald Trump made the remark during a campaign rally in Clarksville, Tennessee.

The Event and Context

• The Quote: While speaking to a cheering crowd, Trump remarked, “I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap”.
• The Audience Reaction: The crowd laughed, cheered, and clapped in response, with some attendees nodding or agreeing.”; 10/10/26, 8:01 PM
john mosby said...: Or it could just be a self-deprecating speaker and audience. Two things Dems don't have. CC, JSM; 10/10/26, 8:07 PM
narciso said...: https://dailysceptic.org/2026/10/09/britain-is-heading-towards-blackouts/; 10/10/26, 8:08 PM
narciso said...: This is where they want to take us; 10/10/26, 8:09 PM
Original Mike said...: I recommend narciso's article. It's good.; 10/10/26, 8:12 PM
narciso said...: If el sayed and other poll cats thats what will happen; 10/10/26, 8:16 PM
Humperdink said...: Welcome back Inga, haven’t seen your handiwork in a while. Getting over the flu?; 10/10/26, 8:19 PM
narciso said...: The big picture including the open ai panic

https://mindtheblindspot.substack.com/api/v1/post/pdf?postId=219623715; 10/10/26, 8:24 PM
narciso said...: They are off 20 billion from their revenue target; 10/10/26, 8:32 PM
narciso said...: Interesting
https://x.com/Fa21519230/status/2108182228685455689; 10/10/26, 8:41 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 [OpenAI] 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘣𝘺 $20 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯.

Now do costs.

Turns out solving open mathematical problems doesn’t necessarily make you rich.

If they’d asked the mathematicians, they might have told them.; 10/10/26, 9:26 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: Venture capital investment is now 80% or more AI related. Everything else has been crowded out. The entire VC industry is playing Russian Roulette for all the marbles here. If the bet works out they are kings. If it doesn't they are dead.

The US equity market is also a giant AI bet. The returns of half a dozen or so companies dominate the performance of the major indices -- and those companies in turn have ride-or-die all-or-nothing bets on the fortunes of just two players, Anthropic and Open AI, with the finance arm of Wall Street providing leverage for the whole thing to the tune of hundreds of billions.

The only large-scale exception to this galactic circle jerk is Apple, a nearly $5 trillion market cap company trading at 38 times earnings, a PE that would be high for a fast-growing midcap, let alone a mature giant. It's a "hiding from AI" valuation premium.

The broader point is, Silicon Valley and Wall Street are literally "all in" in the sense that either the hyper-optimistic scenario works out or they all get destroyed.

And the bet was an insane YOLO (you only live once) from the very beginning and the hyperscalers knew it. They just had no choice.

That is why Sundar Pichai (CEO of Alphabet) said early on that the risk of underinvesting was far higher than the risk of over-investing. He was right in the sense of the prisoner's dilemma.

In the aftermath of the ChatGPT moment the hyperscalers had a choice: Make a "bet the farm" wager on the new new thing -- or alternatively risk seeing hyperventilating investors abandon your shares while risking the possibility that the new new thing is real and some other competitor gets it right and eats your lunch.

Basically a combination of prisoner's dilemma existential risk (the possibility of a competitor becoming winner-take-all) and the frenzy of investor sentiment (invest in the new new thing or your share price collapses and so do the value of your stock options) meant all of Silicon Valley had rational incentive to bet everything with nothing left behind as if the bet were certain when it was always a shot in the dark.

The broader point here is that Open AI and Anthropic do not have viable business models. They never did and they never will.

A viable business model is not just about providing a product customers like, it is about the ability to sustain profits after costs in the face of intense competition. Open AI and Anthropic cannot do that. There is no sign they will ever be able to.

History will also look back on the AI business model itself as stupid to the point of being insane in terms of anyone wanting to bet big on it. The whole thing is just so, so dumb from a capital allocation perspective.

The reason it is dumb is because providing frontier-level AI compute, as a business model, is more like the airlines business than the software business.

Airlines are a terrible business: High fixed costs, no control over major variables like fuel, constant opex and capex spend, low margins because of brutal competition.

Substitute energy cost for fuel cost and data centers for planes and AI is just like airlines -- except maybe even worse.

Dario Amodei even more or less admitted this airlines comparison outright when he said he has to get his allocation to computational resources exactly right -- too little and angry customers quit because they can't get service, too much and the cost of the surplus compute bankrupts the company. In terms of the scale of required investment AI is actually a worse business than airlines, because the capex allocations tens of billions, hundreds, are so much bigger.

I mean for the love of god, what genius thought a business with a COGS (cost of goods sold - in this case tokens) that looks worse than the most terrible of industrial businesses should be compared to software, the most asset-light business of all time with zero marginal cost of production.

It's going to be the biggest Hindenburg the world has ever seen.; 10/10/26, 9:30 PM
Aggie said...: Costco is $3.66 right now, 5% less if you're using their Visa card and taking the cash back.; 10/10/26, 9:34 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: The U.S. national average gas price is $4.367 per gallon as tracked by AAA Fuel Prices.

PUMP PRICES REMAIN AT RECORD HIGHS FOR AUTUMN
October 08,2026
WASHINGTON, DC (October 8, 2026) – 𝘎𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺’𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘥𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 5 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘵𝘰 $4.36, 𝘱𝘶𝘮𝘱 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦 $4 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘖𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘳. 𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 $80 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘭 𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘥𝘦 𝘰𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦 $90 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘭.
https://gasprices.aaa.com/; 10/10/26, 9:41 PM
Dr Weevil said...: I already suggested this on a previous thread, but let me say it again:

Get you own blog, you son of a bitch! Whether counted in words or comments, you are taking up a grossly disproportionate share of this one, a share far out of line with the quality of your words - if they're even your words, since we know you've cut-and-pasted other people's words before.; 10/10/26, 9:47 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: You should consider changing your pseudonym to Dr. Pedantic.; 10/10/26, 9:55 PM
Dave Begley said...: Story from an unimpeachable Omaha source.

Back when Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were still friends, they were out to eat at one of Warren’s favorite places. They finish and head out to Warren’s car. But it won’t start.

So, Warren pops the hood and he and Bill are looking at the engine to see what’s wrong.

As if those two guys would know what to do!

But the man thing was to pop the hood and look anyway.; 10/10/26, 10:01 PM
DINKY DAU 45 said...: Another American dead as Nero Fiddles drawing up blueprints for what else he can put his name on and having lunch with his bud Vlad. Do something will ya! Two raging wars and this perp is in over his head,, Still whining about NOBLEL PRIZE REJECTION , what a petulant child. Remove him to the back room, the worst policies in history; 10/10/26, 10:04 PM
Dr Weevil said...: IEE makes another moronic comment. There's nothing pedantic about objecting to the quantity and quality of his comments.; 10/10/26, 10:06 PM
Gospace said...: As narciso would say:

Interesting
https://x.com/Kristof_Poland/status/2064309615651668179

Words mean things, as do thoughts and ideas expressed in the words and customs of the country that that speaks it. Some don't translate well into other languages. This is a Polish viewpoint. They have words we don't- that express thoughts that are foreign to Americans in general. I recall one very distinct difference between Chinese thoughts on government and ours that I learned years ago. We have had ONE continuous government since 1776. From the Chinese viewpoint, the every 4 year election of ours is a "controlled revolution". If the other party wins, it's a different government entirely... in a Chinese frame of reference.

It's easier for us to understand the Chinese view then it is for them to understand ours. They don't have a way to express a continuous government with different leaders, and indeed, different parties.; 10/10/26, 10:18 PM
Jim at said...: *He truly thinks you people are dumb and he depends on it.*

Dumb people don't understand the joke he was making. Smarter people do.

It's called having a sense of humor. No wonder it flew over your pointed head.; 10/10/26, 10:27 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: "Two raging wars and this perp is in over his head,"
And this from a guy who claims to be a combat vet. I understand that you're counting the Iranian Siege as an active theater, and like all libtards you're counting USA military deaths, no matter the location or reason, as Iranian War deaths, but where is the other hot war? Are you calling Russia-Ukraine an American War?; 10/10/26, 10:30 PM
Gospace said...: https://www.fox13news.com/news/jarvis-butts-dies-prison-weeks-after-sentencing-killing-naziyah-harris-sources-say

The death penalty exists, though not always by sentence of a court. Initial reports are suicide. I doubt officials will look too hard for any other explanation.

Personally, I think any prisoner sentenced to life in prison, or a term that exceeds a actuarial lifespan, ought be allowed access to a death cocktail guaranteed to give the prisoner a final high and painless death. If you're a Christian of any sort, suicide is an unforgiveable sin, and a ticket straight to Hell. An ideal punishment.

Someone sentenced to death- like Hasan- should be killed by the state. Within a year of sentencing. If anti-death penalty advocates cannot come up with mitigating circumstances or proof or innocence in a year's time- they don't exist.; 10/10/26, 10:41 PM
Jaq said...: So if Israel holds the election, Netanyahu loses and goes to jail for corruption, his only chance is to restart the war and either postpone the election or get a rally round the flag effect, or that’s what some people are saying, IDK, I guess we’ll see what happens.; 10/10/26, 10:47 PM
Dr Weevil said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/10/26, 10:53 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Barnacle Jaq: "if Israel holds the election". Hahaha! As if there's any chance of it being canceled by anything Netanyahu could do, or would ever want to do. From what I hear, his chances of reelection have improved a lot lately, because of the AirDubai hijacking, which only morons think was a false flag.; 10/10/26, 10:54 PM
Jim at said...: The very second Trump gets up in front of a large crowd (with Greek pillars, natch) and seriously declares by only his words he'll stop the rising of the seas - and school children chant his name in unison - I'll admit Trump voters are dumb, and he knows they're dumb.

But not until then.; 10/10/26, 11:53 PM
hanuman_prodigious_leaper said...: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5x2vnp4jrkdo; 10/11/26, 12:30 AM
hanuman_prodigious_leaper said...: Why are so many four-year-olds not potty-trained before school?; 10/11/26, 12:31 AM
wendybar said...: "Let me repeat this because it bears repeating: President Trump inherited a price level substantially higher than the one that existed when Joe Biden took office. That’s a stone-cold fact, not a talking point. Much as he would like to, POTUS can’t simply do his YMCA jig, wash away four years of accumulated inflation, and magically return us to 2020 prices."

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/10/democrats-don-t-own-affordability-republicans-just-gave-it-to-them/; 10/11/26, 2:41 AM
wendybar said...: "I know what they say. I used to say it too. They claim that democratic socialism isn’t the same kind of socialism that devastated my homeland — or Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, China, the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and so on. Venezuela wasn’t really ever socialist, so they say, and the reason Cuba is poor is because of US sanctions.

They’re wrong.

Venezuelans didn’t vote in 1998 to become Cuba, or even a socialist country — and we, too, dismissed warnings from Cubans who told us Chávez was not the moderate democrat (and capitalist) he presented himself to be."

https://nypost.com/2026/10/10/opinion/i-escaped-venezuelas-socialist-chaos-america-is-next/; 10/11/26, 3:15 AM