search on Nostr: nostr:nevent1qqsqp2lsnlz6nt8vht4kvktd48tz4qrte8j6lagt3mm0sgstyq3tp3cevm2st ...
quoting nevent1q…m2st
NVIDIA's Eos supercomputer just broke its own AI training benchmark record
https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-11/824d6160-7da1-11ee-aebf-0bbe0425da2a
Depending on the hardware you're using, training a large language model of any significant size can take weeks, months, even years to complete. That's no way to do business — nobody has the electricity and time to be waiting that long. On Wednesday, NVIDIA unveiled the newest iteration of its Eos supercomputer, one powered by more than 10,000 H100 Tensor Core GPUs and capable of training a 175 billion-parameter GPT-3 model on 1 billion tokens in under four minutes. That's three times faster than the previous benchmark on the MLPerf AI industry standard, which NVIDIA set just six months ago.
Eos represents an enormous amount of compute. It leverages 10,752 GPUs strung together using NVIDIA's Infiniband networking (moving a petabyte of data a second) and 860 terabytes of high bandwidth memory (36PB/sec aggregate bandwidth and 1.1PB sec interconnected) to deliver 40 exaflops of AI processing power. The entire cloud architecture is comprised of 1344 nodes — individual servers that companies can rent access to for around $37,000 a month to expand their AI capabilities without building out their own infrastructure.
In all, NVIDIA set six records in nine benchmark tests: the 3.9 minute notch for GPT-3, a 2.5 minute mark to to train a Stable Diffusion model using 1,024 Hopper GPUs, a minute even to train DLRM, 55.2 seconds for RetinaNet, 46 seconds for 3D U-Net and the BERT-Large model required just 7.2 seconds to train.
NVIDIA was quick to note that the 175 billion parameter version of GPT-3 used in the benchmarking is not the full-sized iteration of the model (neither was the Stable Diffusion model). The larger GPT-3 offers around 3.7 trillion parameters and is just flat out too big and unwieldy for use as a benchmarking test. For example, it'd take 18 months to train it on the older A100 system with 512 GPUs — though, Eos needs just eight days.
So instead, NVIDIA and MLCommons, which administers the MLPerf standard, leverage a more compact version that uses 1 billion tokens (the smallest denominator unit of data that generative AI systems understand). This test uses a GPT-3 version with the same number of potential switches to flip (s the full-size (those 175 billion parameters), just a much more manageable data set to use in it (a billion tokens vs 3.7 trillion).
The impressive improvement in performance, granted, came from the fact that this recent round of tests employed 10,752 H100 GPUs compared to the 3,584 Hopper GPUs the company used in June's benchmarking trials. However NVIDIA explains that despite tripling the number of GPUs, it managed to maintain 2.8x scaling in performance — an 93 percent efficiency rate — through the generous use of software optimization.
"Scaling is a wonderful thing," Salvator said."But with scaling, you're talking about more infrastructure, which can also mean things like more cost. An efficiently scaled increase means users are "making the best use of your of your infrastructure so that you can basically just get your work done as fast [as possible] and get the most value out of the investment that your organization has made."
The chipmaker was not alone in its development efforts. Microsoft's Azure team submitted a similar 10,752 H100 GPU system for this round of benchmarking, and achieved results within two percent of NVIDIA's.
"[The Azure team have] been able to achieve a performance that's on par with the Eos supercomputer," Dave Salvator Director of Accelerated Computing Products at NVIDIA, told reporters during a Tuesday prebrief. What's more "they are using Infiniband, but this is a commercially available instance. This isn't some pristine laboratory system that will never have actual customers seeing the benefit of it. This is the actual instance that Azure makes available to its customers."
NVIDIA plans to apply these expanded compute abilities to a variety of tasks, including the company's ongoing work in foundational model development, AI-assisted GPU design, neural rendering, multimodal generative AI and autonomous driving systems.
"Any good benchmark looking to maintain its market relevance has to continually update the workloads it's going to throw at the hardware to best reflect the market it's looking to serve," Salvator said, noting that MLCommons has recently added an additional benchmark for testing model performance on Stable Diffusion tasks. "This is another exciting area of generative AI where we're seeing all sorts of things being created" — from programming code to discovering protein chains.
These benchmarks are important because, as Salvator points out, the current state of generative AI marketing can a bit of a "Wild West." The lack of stringent oversight and regulation means, "we sometimes see with certain AI performance claims where you're not quite sure about all the parameters that went into generating those particular claims." MLPerf provides the professional assurance that the benchmark numbers companies generate using its tests "were reviewed, vetted, in some cases even challenged or questioned by other members of the consortium," Salvator said. "It's that sort of peer reviewing process that really brings credibility to these results."
NVIDIA has been steadily focusing on its AI capabilities and applications in recent months. "We are at the iPhone moment for AI," CEO Jensen Huang said during his GTC keynote in March. At that time the company announced its DGX cloud system which portions out slivers of the supercomputer's processing power — specifically by either eight H100 or A100 chips running 60GB of VRAM (640 of memory in total). The company expanded its supercomputing portfolio with the release of DGX GH200 at Computex in May.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nvidias-eos-supercomputer-just-broke-its-own-ai-training-benchmark-record-170042546.html?src=rss
https://www.engadget.com/nvidias-eos-supercomputer-just-broke-its-own-ai-training-benchmark-record-170042546.html?src=rss
quoting nevent1q…98e8Post Nostrasia Update
1. There was a problem with Replace Background job chain where the background image wouldn't respect the resolution of the frontend image. That is now fixed!
2. 4x4 picture collage job chain is live 😁
3. NIP90 was merged! The nip defines a newer set of kinds to be used with job requests and results. We have switched over to the newer kinds but retained the older kinds for the stats page to track historical stats
4. We added buttons to allow quick download and sharing (to nostr) of generated images from tasktiger.io
5. Go to plausible.io/tasktiger.io to check out our website stats! The stats is rather flattering as it includes bots visits (try to filter out Virginia US)
https://bolt.fun/story/tasktiger-bye-nostrasia-hello-legends-of-lightning--1327
quoting nevent1q…udqrhttps://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2023-November/022152.html
Interesting comment by Peter Todd when discussing the possible use of nostr as a new protocol for the bitcoin-dev mailing list. His comments are not particular to that usage though:
"
Strong NACK on nostr. It's a badly designed, centralized, protocol that needs a
significant redesign to be usable. While off topic for this mailing list, some
of its many issues include:
* Reliance on single-key, cryptography that often results in people having
their keys compromised. This is a serious problem in the context of
bitcoin-dev, where faked messages published could easily have market-moving
results.
* Inability to mirror relays: since nostr deliberately ignores the lessons of
blockchains, there is no way to be sure that you have a complete set of
messages from a given person, for a given topic, etc.
* Highly centralized design: since mirroring relays isn't reliable, in reality
nostr operates in a highly centralized fashion, dependent on a tiny number of
relays that can't be easily replaced if taken down.
"
He was replying to this proposal by Ademan (npub19je…pt7r) (I believe).
fiatjaf (npub180c…h6w6) jb55 (npub1xts…kk5s) PABLOF7z (npub1l2v…ajft) cameri (npub1qqq…n47m) ODELL (npub1qny…95gx)
quoting nevent1q…a8q3I remembered OLPC and how much effort and money was put into popularizing Smalltalk in Africa. Well? Did it work? Where are those geniuses of African Smalltalk code? 🤣
You can't just take some crap, sell it in Africa and get results. Africans are not handicapped, they need the same things the rest of the world needs. Infrastructure and education.
quoting nevent1q…dwt5Amazon Earned More Than $1 Billion Through Secret Price-Raising Algorithm: FTC
Amazon Earned More Than $1 Billion Through Secret Price-Raising Algorithm: FTC
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/amazon-earned-over-1-billion-through-secret-price-raising-algorithm-ftc-5522978?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge&src_src=partner&src_cmp=ZeroHedge
(emphasis ours),
Amazon created a secret algorithm that helped the e-commerce giant generate an extra $1 billion dollars, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged in a new court filing on Nov. 2.
In September, the FTC and 17 states https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power
an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, but many details were withheld until Nov. 2, when a version of the lawsuit with fewer redactions was made public in the U.S. District Court in Seattle.
According to the new, less redacted complaint, Amazon allegedly deployed a secret algorithm, internally known as "Project Nessie," that raised the prices of items on its online store and, in turn, across the market accordingly.
Knowing that many websites set their prices to match Amazon's, the company allegedly developed Nessie to increase prices on products that other retailers would follow.
After outside retailers began matching or increasing their own prices, Amazon would continue to sell the product at an inflated price, the FTC alleged, which resulted in $1 billion in excess profit.
The FTC accused Amazon of turning on and off Project Nessie to avoid scrutiny.
"Aware of the public fallout it risks, Amazon has turned Project Nessie off during periods of heightened outside scrutiny and then back on when it thinks that no one is watching," it stated in the https://www.pacermonitor.com/view/SRGOLSI/Federal_Trade_Commission_et_al_v_Amazoncom_Inc__wawdce-23-01495__0114.0.pdf?mcid=tGE3TEOA
.
"Project Nessie generated enormous profits for Amazon even though its higher prices caused Amazon's unit sales to decrease. In 2015, for example, Project Nessie's higher prices reduced Amazon's gross sales revenue while increasing Amazon's profits on those reduced sales by an extra $363 million. In 2018, Amazon estimated that Project Nessie increased Amazon's yearly profits by $334 million."
The FTC called the algorithm an "unfair method of competition" because it manipulates other online stores into raising prices, allowing Amazon to do the same.
"The sole purpose of Project Nessie was to further hike consumer prices by manipulating other online stores into raising their prices," the FTC alleged.
The Epoch Times reached out to Amazon for comment but received none by press time.
Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle told https://www.reuters.com/legal/new-details-ftc-antitrust-lawsuit-against-amazon-made-public-2023-11-02/
that the FTC "grossly mischaracterizes" the pricing tool and that the company stopped using it several years ago.
"Nessie was used to try to stop our price matching from resulting in unusual outcomes where prices became so low that they were unsustainable," Mr. Doyle said.
According to the regulator, Amazon claims that it has currently paused the project, but the company can turn it on at any time, as last year, fearing inflation could hurt Amazon's profitability, Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, allegedly asked to turn on the company's "old friend Nessie, perhaps with some new targeting logic" to boost profits for Amazon's retail unit.
The FTC complaint also accused Amazon of seeking to hide information about operations from antitrust enforcers by using the Signal messaging app's disappearing message feature and stated that the company destroyed communications from June 2019 to early 2022.
'Anti-Discounting Tactics' and Pushing Junk Ads
The agency accused Amazon of using a variety of "anti-discounting tactics to prevent rivals from growing by offering lower prices" and of using "coercive tactics," particularly with its order fulfillment service, to prevent competitors from achieving the necessary scale to compete effectively.
"When Amazon detects elsewhere online a product that is cheaper than a seller's offer for the same product on Amazon, Amazon punishes that seller. It does so to prevent rivals from gaining business by offering shoppers or sellers lower prices," the complaint reads.
The FTC also alleged that under then-CEO Jeff Bezos's direction, the company flooded its online store with "pay-to-play advertisements" and "irrelevant junk ads" despite knowing that these junk ads were "defects."
The FTC alleged that Amazon executives know that the practice creates "harm to consumers" by displaying less relevant search results.
"Mr. Bezos instructed his executives to 'accept more defects' because Amazon can extract billions of dollars through increased advertising despite worsening its services for customers," the complaint reads.
Targeting Sellers
Amazon also required sellers under the company's Prime feature to use its logistics and delivery services even though many would prefer to use a cheaper service or one that would also service customers from other platforms where they sell, according to the FTC.
The FTC alleged that an unnamed Amazon executive who headed global fulfillment realized that letting sellers be on Prime without using Fulfillment by Amazon was "fundamentally weakening (Amazon's) competitive advantage" by encouraging sellers "to run their own warehouses."
Reuters contributed to this article.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 - 07:20
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/amazon-earned-more-1-billion-through-secret-price-raising-algorithm-ftc
quoting nevent1q…pfsfYoung, Bold, & Angry: The Youth-Led Revival Of The Palestinian Cause
Young, Bold, & Angry: The Youth-Led Revival Of The Palestinian Cause
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/young-bold-and-angry-the-youth-led-revival-of-the-palestinian-cause
Global youth are smashing Israeli propaganda constructs to champion justice and humanity as they throw their support behind the armed struggle for Palestinian national liberation.
For years, there's been a prevailing notion that the Palestinian cause is losing its grip on the younger generations. This perception stems from the belief that, as globalization tightens its hold, the youth in West Asia, particularly in occupied Palestine, might become more disconnected from their historical roots and national affiliations.
With the spread of liberal ideas, many speculated that economic opportunities, technological advancements, and global exposure would shift their focus away from the Palestinian cause. Some even anticipated that the younger generation would turn against armed resistance to the Zionist occupation, owing to the small tide of https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/winners-losers/616364/
.
But recent events, especially the US-backed Israeli genocidal war against Gaza, have shown a different story. Three weeks of nonstop atrocities have https://thewire.in/world/israel-resurrect-palestinian-cause-indiscriminately-targeting
, ensuring that at least three generations stand united against the west's 'rules-based order' and in support of any resistance against the occupation state.
Youth in West Asia
Prior to the Hamas-led https://new.thecradle.co/articles/the-geopolitics-of-al-aqsa-flood
military operation on 7 October, many believed that young Arabs were leaning more toward normalizing relations with Israel, prioritizing economic prosperity over solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians.
However, the stark contrast between https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200824-only-arab-states-aligned-with-iran-will-oppose-zionism/
, which struggle with sanctions and insecurity, and those Arab countries that have normalized relations and enjoy a better quality of life has made the youth question the old assumptions about resistance.
The role played by Arab youth after the events of 7 October has reinforced the need to confront Israel. Tel Aviv's behaviors, rife with criminality, aggression, https://new.thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-on-7th-october
, have embarrassed its Arab partners, and now challenge the narrative that sought to separate Hamas from the rest of the Palestinian population.
According to Pew Research Center's generational divisions based on age, today's younger generations can be categorized into two groups, and current children can be classified into a single category:
After the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood, the west attempted to frame the narrative around the specific event - leaving out historical context - sought to characterize Hamas as ISIS, and emphasized Israel's “right to self-defense” against "terrorism." Ironically, it has been Israel's brutal actions that countered these efforts, leading to the deaths of https://www.swissinfo.ch/ara/reuters/%D9%88%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D8%AD%D8%A9--%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B9-%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B7%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%8A%D9%8A%D9%86-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9-%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%89-8525-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B0-7-%D8%A3%D9%83%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%B1/48939480
, including 3,542 children and over 2,000 women.
This devastating toll was enough to label Israel as the real perpetrator of terrorism, and the images of innocent martyrs, especially children, became a powerful symbol in the defense of Palestinian rights.
Agents of change
What's truly remarkable is that the leaders of the new narratives are the youth of https://www.reuters.com/world/fearful-grieving-gen-z-americans-clash-over-israel-conflict-2023-10-18/
, Y, and Alpha. Leveraging social media, and speaking directly to their peer groups, they conveyed the grievances of the Palestinian people to the world. Many had limited knowledge of Palestine, but their unfiltered sense of justice fueled their collective anger against Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Social media has also given rise to a new form of journalism, known as https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/mapping-digital-media-citizen-journalism-and-internet
flooded the X platform and provided real-time coverage of events on the ground.
On social media, the younger generation is playing a crucial role in raising awareness about the Palestinian cause, galvanizing people across the globe to mirror their outrage. Today, in many countries, populations are taking to the streets in protest, boycotting companies supporting Israel, and expressing their solidarity across a wide variety of social media platforms.
Videos advocating for Palestinian rights appear in dozens of languages, reaching millions. Weeks after the aggression, https://www.axios.com/2023/10/26/generational-divide-on-the-israel-hamas-war
like #فلسطين and #إسرائيل had billions of views on TikTok, leading the US to pressure Meta to ban influential accounts supporting the Palestinian cause.
Crucially, the scenes of Israeli brutality on social media have led to widespread, unprecedented criticism of the US, a key partner in Tel Aviv's war plans, oddly, from https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-tear-in-the-tent-the-us-jews-who-are-protesting-israel-following-hamas-massacres/
. Thousands of critical Jewish voices have emerged, condemning Washington's policies. Instead of fading, the Palestinian cause is regaining momentum worldwide, defying the intentions of both Washington and Tel Aviv.
Influence on western youth
According to a recent poll published by the https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12628875/young-students-millennials-Israel-Hamas-protest.html
, only 40 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 have a negative view of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas. Despite Israel's efforts to label Hamas as ISIS, more than half of young respondents do not share this view. The same poll indicates that 32 percent have a negative view of Israel instead, while only 24 percent have a positive outlook. Significantly, among young people, those with a negative view of Israel outnumber those with a positive view.
An https://www.axios.com/2023/10/26/generational-divide-on-the-israel-hamas-war
shows that 48 percent of US college students surveyed do not blame Hamas for the events of 7 October.
A https://www.axios.com/2023/10/26/generational-divide-on-the-israel-hamas-war
shows that 51 percent of voters under the age of 35 do not support sending weapons and military equipment to Israel in response to the Hamas operation, compared to 77 percent for those aged 50 or older.
Additionally, Harvard University's https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/HHP_Oct23_KeyResults.pdf
conducted a survey on the war in Palestine among respondents aged 18 to 24, with the following key findings:
47 percent believe that Hamas targeted the occupation army during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and not civilians.
41 percent believe that Hamas fighters are military operatives and not terrorists.
48 percent side with Hamas and not with Israel. (This rises to 91 percent for those aged 55-64)
Although 62 percent believe that Hamas' actions are criminal, 52 percent believe that Hamas ' killing of 1,200 Israeli civilians can be justified because of the injustice inflicted on Palestinians.
46 percent believe that law firms should not refuse to hire law students who supported Hamas and attacks on Israeli civilians.
48 percent oppose the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel.
54 percent believe that Iran has nothing to do with the Hamas attack on 7 October.
59 percent believe that it was wrong for Israel to cut off electricity, water, and food to the Gaza Strip in order to retrieve its prisoners.
Only 30 percent believe that the US should support Israel in the war on Gaza.
45 percent believe that Israel bombed the Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip.
Only 24 percent believe that the US media reports events in Gaza in a fair manner.
60 percent believe that the US should not intervene militarily if Iran strikes Israel.
Commenting on these figures, https://www.axios.com/2023/10/26/generational-divide-on-the-israel-hamas-war
, CEO of Stagwell and president of the Harris-Ball Foundation, says that "the war between Israel and Hamas is not an issue divided along party lines, but on the basis of age."
Rachel Janvaza, an expert on the political culture of the younger generation, suggests that "seniors are deeply traumatized by the generational divide, but this tension has been brewing on social media and in universities for a while – both of which play a very powerful role in how young people see the world." Others disparage this development - Brad Polombo, in an article for https://www.newsweek.com/insane-number-gen-zers-support-hamass-slaughter-innocent-israelis-opinion-1837422
, opines: "Gen Z is not okay."
Recent events highlight the resilience of Palestinian youth in preserving their identity and defending their rights. They have leveraged innovative ways to keep the Palestinian narrative relevant globally, with youth solidarity in West Asia bringing Palestinian grievances to a worldwide audience via various social media platforms, in all languages.
The impact of these events on the younger generation will likely continue to shape their views and influence future decisions, and today has the potential to affect international opinion and shift foreign policy.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Mon, 11/06/2023 - 23:40
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/young-bold-angry-youth-led-revival-palestinian-cause
quoting nevent1q…a6ad"The Big Fail" - Anti-Lockdown Goes Mainstream
"The Big Fail" - Anti-Lockdown Goes Mainstream
https://brownstone.org/articles/anti-lockdown-goes-mainstream/
It’s a shift worth marking.
New York Magazine is featuring an article called “https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/covid-lockdowns-big-fail-joe-nocera-bethany-mclean-book-excerpt.html
, which I have not read but intend to.
The ascent of the book and thesis is hugely important, if only to further blunt the impact of Michael Lewis’s https://www.amazon.com/Premonition-Pandemic-Story-Michael-Lewis/dp/1324035536/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Michael+Lewis+The+Premonition&qid=1698851951&s=books&sr=1-1
, which came out in 2021 with the purpose of valorizing the absolute worst of the lockdowners.
The worry at the time was that Lewis’s book, like https://archive.org/details/bigshortbymichae0000inst
, would become a major movie that would codify lockdowns as the right way to deal with infectious disease. That does not seem to be happening, and the cleverly titled book by Nocera and McLean seems to assure that this will never happen. Thank goodness. This is progress. Be grateful when we see it. It is also a tremendous credit to all those who have been pushing the Nocera/McLean thesis since the spring of 2020.
Lockdowns were always an impossible means of pandemic management. We knew that from a century ago. It was not even controversial. The orthodoxy in public health survived even up to a few weeks before the lockdowns began.
Out of nowhere, settled wisdom was completely upended. Suddenly, as if straight from Orwell, lockdowns became “common sense mitigation measures.”
Meanwhile this country and most other countries around the world were being utterly tortured by a crazed bureaucracy determined to master the microbial kingdom by bullying people and wrecking their businesses, schools, churches, and lives.
If nothing else, this era proves for this generation the astonishing capacity of the human mind to undertake utterly insane policy experiments on a grand scale without the slightest evidence that they could ever succeed, even while they trample on all established norms of rights and liberties.
This is a revelation, at least to me. We’ve never seen anything like it in our lives.
Speaking personally, this reality utterly shattered a worldview that I didn’t know I held: namely, I genuinely believed humanity was on a path, even an inevitable one, toward greater knowledge, learning, and the embrace of freedom. After March 2020, I and everyone discovered otherwise. That was both intellectually and psychologically traumatic for me and for millions of others.
We are still figuring out how and why all this happened. In order to do that, we at least need a consensus that this was a terrible mistake. Even three and a half years later, we haven’t even had that. To be sure, it is very difficult to find defenders of lockdowns. They have mostly evaporated into the hedges. Even those who pulled the trigger and defended them at the time are all denying that they had anything to do with them. My favorite: we never had a real lockdown.
Regardless, the mere appearance of the Nocera/McLean article takes us quite a distance to where we need to be at least for now. Yes, it is 42 months late, but we take progress wherever we can find it.
Just some quotes from the article:
“One of the great mysteries of the pandemic is why so many countries followed China’s example. In the U.S. and the U.K. especially, lockdowns went from being regarded as something that only an authoritarian government would attempt to an example of “following the science.” But there was never any science behind lockdowns — not a single study had ever been undertaken to measure their efficacy in stopping a pandemic. When you got right down to it, lockdowns were little more than a giant experiment.”
“Unfortunately, there is no shortage of policy failures of which to take stock. We do an accounting of many of them in our new book, The Big Fail. But one that looms as large as any, and remains in need of a full reckoning in the public conversation, is the decision to embrace lockdowns. While it is reasonable to think of that policy (in all its many forms, across different sectors of society and the 50 states) as an on-the-fly experiment, doing so demands that we come to a conclusion about the results. For all kinds of reasons, including the country’s deep political divisions, the complexity of the problem, and COVID’s dire human toll, that has been slow to happen. But it’s time to be clear about the fact that lockdowns for any purpose other than keeping hospitals from being overrun in the short term were a mistake that should not be repeated. While this is not a definitive accounting of how the damage from lockdowns outweighed the benefits, it is at least an attempt to nudge that conversation forward as the U.S. hopefully begins to recenter public-health best practices on something closer to the vision put forward by [Donald] Henderson.”
You will notice the hedge here: “for any purpose other than keeping hospitals from being overrun.” Another way to put it: lockdowns are fine for rationing healthcare. There is reason to emphatically disagree. Hospitals wildly exaggerated how overrun they were. There were two hospitals in New York boroughs that had high traffic, but this was due to exigencies of ambulance contracts. The rest were largely empty as they were around the country. This was due to lockdowns that restricted medical services to Covid only even in places where there was no community spread, plus public fear of leaving the home.
(I had a conversation last week with the head of a company that sells ventilators and diagnostic equipment to hospitals in New York. He said that in the early months of lockdown, he had never seen hospitals so empty. This was confirmation to me of what we already knew.)
This whole subject needs some serious unpacking. To my knowledge, we still don’t know where the edicts came from to lock down hospitals all over the country. That is a research project all its own. In other words, carving out an exception for “overrun” hospitals is deeply dangerous: it only incentivizes the lockdowners next time to game the reporting in a way that is favorable to more lockdowns. This is precisely what happened in the UK, where the main and even only justification for lockdowns was the rationing of healthcare services.
So this proviso is actually dangerous in every way.
Now we must deal with another piece of this article that is far from correct. I quote:
“As the United States gains more and more distance from the COVID pandemic, the perspective on what worked, and what did not, becomes not only more clear, but more stark. Operation Warp Speed stands out as a remarkable policy success. And once the vaccines became available, most states did a good job of quickly getting them to the most vulnerable, especially elderly nursing-home residents.”
The perspective is what we might be called the exogenous theory of the jab. The idea is that the lockdowns and masking and the whole apparatus of disease control exists in a separate system of ideological confusion, whereas the vaccine came from the outside to intervene but otherwise was not part of the planning apparatus.
I certainly once shared this view. About the vaccine in 2020, rumored to come along at any point, I care next to nothing about it. I assumed it would be useless because my reading on the topic showed that a coronavirus is in the class of pathogens against which one cannot vaccinate.
That aside, there is a real danger associated with attempting to vaccinate your way out of pandemic. You can create the conditions that drive mutations even more, and introduce the prospect of what’s called original antigenic sin. What I had not anticipated was that the shot would be actually deeply dangerous, much less that it would be mandated.
The more research we do, the less plausible this theory of exogenous intervention is. From the very outset, the vaccine was planned and a huge part of the entire pandemic control agenda. And consider this question. Would it have been possible to drive the emergency use authorization, indemnify the results from any liabilities, retain patents, elicit tax funds for development, plus push innumerable institutions to mandate the shots in absence of the national emergency, the frenzy, the demoralization, and the population-wide panic? I’ve asked many people this question, and the answer is always: no way.
There is no world in which Warp Speed would have taken hold absent the lockdowns. They are all part of the same system and policy. So, yes, it is strange for our authors to isolate the vaccine as good in the context of everything else which they label bad. Emergencies elicit bad actors and bad actions. They are all of a piece.
At this point, most of us have become jaded about media and messaging from mainstream sources. So an easy tag to put on this important article in New York Magazine is: limited hangout. Let’s admit failure where possible, concede mistakes and disasters along the way, even while sneaking in an approving and passing remark about the thing which in the end is the most important part of the whole epoch, namely the vaccine itself. That way, the rubes will be satisfied that there is some accountability going on, even while the biggest and deepest caper of them all gets away without a scratch.
There is no need here to chronicle the innumerable and now widely known failure of the shot. In any case, among those who still want to claim it to be a great success, their messaging is not long for this world. The evidence is too overwhelming, and felt in every part of society the world over.
What we have with this book and article is an important step. It is just one step. Lockdowns utterly shattered the protocols of public health, settled law, and freedom itself all over the world. They wrecked myriad institutions, wrought an incredible economic and cultural crisis, demoralized the whole population, and built up a leviathan of command and control that is not only not backing down but growing ever more. Far more will be required to utterly and completely repudiate the methods and madness of our epoch.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Mon, 11/06/2023 - 17:00
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/anti-lockdown-goes-mainstream
quoting nevent1q…fyvyBerkshire Cash Pile Hits All-Time High $157 Billion, As Buffett Sells A Record $38BN In Stock In Past Year
Berkshire Cash Pile Hits All-Time High $157 Billion, As Buffett Sells A Record $38BN In Stock In Past Year
Over the years, Warren Buffett has been opportunistic and "fluid" with his ideals and political opinions - he describes himself as a "https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshire-buffett-politics/warren-buffett-says-im-a-democrat-and-would-have-no-trouble-voting-for-bloomberg-idUSKCN20I1QI
) of $162 billion as soon as this quarter.
“Cash deployment is definitely slowing,” said Jim Shanahan, an analyst with Edward Jones. “Ultimately Berkshire’s going to start feeling some pressure to put cash to work."
Perhaps... but not yet; in fact in the third quarter, Berkshire was a net seller of stock for the fourth quarter, liquidating another $5.3 billion in shares and bringing the total sales over the past 12 months to a record $38.3 billion.
Despite ramping up Berkshire’s acquisition machine in recent years, the company has still struggled to find many of the big-ticket deals that galvanized Buffett’s renown, leaving him with more cash than he and his investing deputies could quickly deploy. After hanging back during the pandemic, he’s since snapped up shares in Occidental Petroleum (despite owning 26% of the company, Buffett has said he has no plans to acquire the company outright) and struck a $11.6 billion deal to buy Alleghany. Buffett has also leaned heavily on share repurchases amid the dearth of appealing alternatives, saying the measures benefit shareholders.
Separately, the conglomerate also reported operating earnings of $10.76 billion, a jump on the prior year, as it benefited from the impact of elevated interest rates on the cash pile and gains at its insurance businesses. However, including investment and derivatives losses, Berkshire posted a loss for the quarter of almost $12.8 billion, well above last year's $2.8 billion loss, which largely came from a decline in its big Apple stake. Shares of the iPhone maker fell 11.7% during the quarter but have rebounded over 3% since.
Strength in Berkshire's insurance unit, plus the inclusion of Pilot Flying J earnings which Berkshire did not include in results last year, helped drive profitability. Berkshire said its insurance businesses posted a profit of $2.42 billion versus a loss in the prior-year period, when the insurance industry was being pummeled by catastrophes.
Geico, the crown jewel of Berkshire’s insurance empire and Buffett’s “favorite child,” reported another profitable quarter as it curtailed advertising expenses by 54% year-to-date; total underwriting earnings at the unit were $1.1 billion. The auto insurer is in the middle of a turnaround after losing market share to competitor Progressive. The improvement follows efforts by the division to overhaul underwriting after struggling with higher costs for replacing or repairing damaged vehicles. The effort cost it market share — raising the question if it will seek to reclaim that ground.
Berkshire's railroad, BNSF, however, saw a 15% decline in earnings as the railroad division grappled with lower volumes and higher costs.
Berkshire posted stronger operating earnings despite Buffett cautioning at its annual meeting in Omaha in May that earnings at the majority of its operating units could fall this year as an “incredible period” for the US economy draws to the end. Still, the Fed's rapid rate hikes helped the firm reap huge returns on the cash it stockpiles mostly in short-dated US Treasuries.
That said, those higher rates also created headaches for some of Berkshire’s industrial businesses: the conglomerate’s building products businesses saw revenue slip 11% due to the run-up in mortgage rates.
“The effects of significant increases in home mortgage interest rates in the US over the past year has slowed demand for our home building businesses and our other building products businesses,” Berkshire said in a report detailing results. “We continue to anticipate certain of our businesses will experience weakening demand and declines in revenues and earnings into 2024.”
The jump in profits has been rewarded by the market, which pushed Berkshire's Class B shares to a record high in September as investors sought out its diversified range of businesses as a hedge against deteriorating economic conditions. And while the shares pared some of those gains, the stock is still up almost 14% for the full year, in line with the S&P500.
A part of that boost to BRK's stock came from the company itself: the firm spent $1.1 billion on buybacks in Q3, bringing the total for the first nine months of the year to about $7 billion. The conglomerate trimmed its overall equities portfolio in the quarter, making almost $15.7 billion on sales net of purchases.
As usual, Berkshire Hathaway asked investors to look past the quarterly fluctuations in Berkshire’s equity portfolio.
“The amount of investment gains/losses in any given quarter is usually meaningless and delivers figures for net earnings (losses) per share that can be extremely misleading to investors who have little or no knowledge of accounting rules,” the company said in a statement.
Berkshire also acknowledged the negative economic impact from the pandemic, as well as geopolitical risks and inflation pressures.
“To varying degrees, our operating businesses have been impacted by government and private sector actions to mitigate the adverse economic effects of the COVID-19 virus and its variants as well as by the development of geopolitical conflicts, supply chain disruptions and government actions to slow inflation,” Berkshire said. “The economic effects from these events over longer terms cannot be reasonably estimated at this time.”
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 11/04/2023 - 21:00
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/berkshire-cash-pile-hits-record-high-157-billion-buffett-sells-record-38bn-stock-past-year
quoting nevent1q…0z27Yup. We're gonna win. Too bad like 80% of the world took that shit. I think we're just now starting to see the results. Gonna be a crazy few years ahead as peoples bodies start breaking down, but hopefully the guillotines will come out before then.
quoting nevent1q…49utI have made so many risky notes that I was dead to rights like “Welp this is the one they’re going to hang me for, for sure.”
But nope. Never. Always unexpected hilarious results. ❤️🫂❤️
You guys really let me down in the unchecked aggression category and I guess the department of #censorship is broke or sunk around here? (Because it’s a ship, get it?)
n e way
I’m sure nobody cares that my puns are intended BUT FOR YOUR PUNY INFORMATION: They are. Now go have yourself a nice day 👋🏻 OR ELSE 🔪 😬 note1lvr…3yur
quoting nevent1q…zvlj#MAGARepublicans beliving they can limit
& manipulate election results in States under their control
made an arrogant, fatal mistake
they made lie 'official
Not only they always lied outright
but when fact-cheked
declared that lying was their 'right'
(freedom of speech)
Furthermore
#MAGA News Media
admitted they had lied to listeners
When there are elections
MAGARep.s words or promise
are absolutely irrelevant
no one is so stupid to believe
a single word from a MAGARepub.
who lied constantly.
quoting nevent1q…xesf> Also, there will always be actors with access to more computing power than others, no matter how CPU based your mining is.
That's not a point against CPU-based algorithms. The point is not to make everyone equal in hashing power, it is to distribute the hashing power across more, smaller-scale miners and lower the barrier to entry as much as possible.
> Mining is an economic business which benefits from economies of scale.
Monero (and crypto in general) has an incentive to work against economies of scale in mining, as it just results in more centralization and consolidates market share (hashing power) into the hands of a few entities. This is a rule for every industry, not just mining. CPUs do not lend themselves to the same kind of industrial-scale mining that ASICs do, and that's a design choice.
quoting nevent1q…4pmnnpub134l6tvt6mlj435yvm5uqpt8yguf6tznsxhfgkm2fpt66fqu6m9mqwgtx60 (npub134l…tx60) guaranteed results.
Excellent.
No need for more 💰 then.
quoting nevent1q…33lt"Dick Cheney In 3-Inch Heels": Vivek Takes No Prisoners During GOP Debate, Savages Haley, DeSantis And NBC Moderators
"Dick Cheney In 3-Inch Heels": Vivek Takes No Prisoners During GOP Debate, Savages Haley, DeSantis And NBC Moderators
In what some have called "the greatest opening statement ever," GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy 'unleashed hell' at the start of the 3rd primary debate tonight.
Zero shits were given and no punches were pulled as the tech mogul began his opening statement by inviting Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to resign on stage in the aftermath of the disastrous Tuesday night election results.
"There's something deeper going on in the Republican Party here and I am upset about what happened last night," he said.
"We've become a party of losers," he continued, adding:
"...there is a cancer in the Republican establishment... Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017 we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022, no red wave, that never came."
And then the haymaker...
"We got trounced last night in 2023 and I think that we have to have accountability in our party," he went on.
"For that matter, Ronna if you want to come up on stage tonight. You want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign... I will turn over my time to you."
Vivek Ramaswamy: "We've become a party of losers."https://twitter.com/hashtag/debatten?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
— The Watcher 🌎 (@TheWatcherDaily) https://twitter.com/TheWatcherDaily/status/1722427928942621107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Vivek then switched focus to the fact that the debate is being moderated by NBC, saying that the GOP debates should be moderated by Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk:
"We'd have 10x the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about!"
Vivek Ramaswamy says the GOP debates should be moderated by Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk:
"We'd have 10x the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about!"https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
— curiousnewton (@curiousnewton) https://twitter.com/curiousnewton/status/1722427730220687800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Then specifically at the NBC hosts and their years-long bias:
“Do you think the Democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic Debate? They wouldn’t do it...
Kristen I’m going to use this time to ask you if the Trump collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years, was that real or was that Hillary Clinton, made up disinformation? Answer the question— Go..”
Her response...
Ramaswamy was not done...
"...we need accountability because this media rigged the 2016 election; they rigged the 2020 election with the Hunter Biden laptop story; and they're going to rig this election unless we have accountability..."
VIVEK: “Do you think the Democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic Debate? They wouldn’t do it — Kristen I’m going to use this time to ask you if the Trump collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years, was that real or was that Hillary Clinton,… https://t.co/r1Irniwbjx
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1722427585542472010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Next Mr. Ramaswamy pivoted to the neocons, slamming the warmongerers and aiming a particularly sharp arrow at Nikki Haley (and DeSantis):
"Do you want a leader from a different generation who's going to put this country first, or do you want Dick Cheney in 3-inch heels."
Vivek " Haley and DeSantis Dick Cheney in 3-inch heels" 🤭https://twitter.com/hashtag/GOPDebate?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
— primalkey (@primalkey) https://twitter.com/primalkey/status/1722428330153038097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Watch the full , uninterrupted, opening statement below...
Daaaaammmmmmnnnnn!!!!!!
Vivek took a wrecking ball to these clowns!https://t.co/fkelt7xtGI
— Cody T (@The_Cody_T) https://twitter.com/The_Cody_T/status/1722427612339876301?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Did Vivek just out-Trump Trump?
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Wed, 11/08/2023 - 21:00
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dick-cheney-3-inch-heels-vivek-takes-no-prisoners-during-gop-debate-savages-haley
quoting nevent1q…tshm**Disney+ adds subscribers amid cost-cutting campaign**
**SAN FRANCISCO**: Disney's streaming service has attracted nearly seven million new subscribers, the company said Wednesday, reversing a period of decline that had raised doubts about its rivalry with industry leader Netflix.
Disney has been under significant pressure ever since CEO Bob Iger left the company only to be brought out of semi-retirement a year ago after his replacement no longer had the confidence of executives and the company board.
Upon his return, Iger embarked on a cost-cutting campaign that saw major cuts to the lavish spending to get Disney+ off the ground.
Those efforts saw Disney's streaming losses contract to $387 million in the most recent quarter, down from $1.47 billion a year earlier.
Disney Plus clients rose to 112.6 million at the end of September from 105.7 million at the end of June.
“Our results this quarter reflect the significant progress we’ve made over the past year,“ Iger said, pointing to the success of Disney+’s recently added ad-supported tier.
“While we still have work to do, these efforts have allowed us to move beyond this period of fixing and begin building our businesses again,“ Iger said.
The solid quarter may bring back confidence in Iger who had begun to face criticism for his once celebrated decisions such as paying massively in 2019 to buy 21st Century Fox from Rupert Murdoch.
**\- Cutting costs -**
In the past year, the Disney share price has slumped around multi-year lows.
Activist investor Nelson Peltz has turned the heat on Iger asking him to cut costs.
In the results released Wednesday, Disney said the company was pushing to cut costs by $7.5 billion, an increase from a previous pledge of $5.5 billion.
In all, the entertainment giant posted sales of $21.24 billion for the period, up slightly on the previous year, according to its earnings release on Wednesday.
Disney last month said it will become the sole owner of Hulu, which it already markets in subscriptions that include its own Disney+ service and the ESPN+ sports content streaming platform.
Hulu is Disney's arm for adult-focused programs such as The Handmaid's Tale, while family content falls under Disney+, launched four years ago.
Both services, like their competitors, were hit by a historic writers' and actors' strike this summer.
Hollywood script-writers signed a deal with the studios and are back on the job, but the actors are still not back on set, resulting in a huge backlog of Hollywood productions.
“I can only say that I’m optimistic that we’ll figure that out relatively soon,“ Iger told CNBC after the earnings release.
In addition to content and subscriber numbers, Disney is trying to improve its profitability.
The Burbank, California-based group posted net earnings of $264 million.
Disney rival Netflix last month said subscriber numbers grew nearly 11 percent to 247 million as it cracked down on password sharing and refined an ad-supported tier.
The leading streaming service increased prices on some of its plans, perhaps creating an opportunity for competitors such as Disney. _-AFP_
https://thesun.my/world/disney-adds-subscribers-amid-cost-cutting-campaign-CF11729579
quoting nevent1q…9ysn**Minnesota Supreme Court rejects bid to keep Trump off primary ballot**
**WASHINGTON**: The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an attempt to keep Donald Trump off of the 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot in the northern US state.
At the same time, the state's highest court said it would be open to hearing an eventual challenge to Trump's eligibility to appear on the November 2024 presidential election ballot.
Legal efforts to bar the former president from next year's White House race are underway in several states on the grounds that he violated his oath of office by engaging in an insurrection -- the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.
The argument, which has legal scholars sharply divided, rests on an amendment to the Constitution ratified after the 1861-65 Civil War.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from holding public office if they engage in “insurrection or rebellion” after once having pledged to support and defend the Constitution.
Ratified in 1868, the amendment was aimed at preventing supporters of the slave-holding Confederacy from being elected to Congress or from holding federal positions.
Citing the 14th Amendment, a group of voters in Minnesota petitioned the state supreme court to keep Trump off the ballot for the Republican presidential primary to be held in March and the presidential election to be held in November.
The court flatly rejected the bid to keep Trump off the primary ballot.
“There is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot... a candidate who is ineligible to hold office,“ Chief Justice Natalie Hudson said in a four-page order.
The court said it could consider the general election claim at a later date if Trump indeed ends up winning the Republican presidential nomination and another petition is filed.
A Colorado court is currently hearing a similar lawsuit seeking to bar Trump from the election on 14th Amendment grounds.
Whatever the outcome, the case is likely to end up before the US Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.
The 77-year-old Trump is to go on trial in Washington in March on federal charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the November 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
He faces similar charges in a separate case in the southern state of Georgia.
Trump was impeached for a second time by the House of Representatives after the attack on the Capitol -- he was charged with inciting an insurrection -- but was acquitted by the Senate.
Trump has hit back at the efforts to remove him from the presidential ballot, saying they have “no legal basis.”
“Like Election Interference, it is just another ‘trick’ being used by the Radical Left Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, to again steal an Election,“ he said in a post on his Truth Social platform. - _AFP_
https://thesun.my/world/minnesota-supreme-court-rejects-bid-to-keep-trump-off-primary-ballot-HF11729529
quoting nevent1q…nejgput the magickal results of no-nut-november in one hand, and the results of AO Spare in another and see which fills up faster.
and then wash that hand, blaeargh
quoting nevent1q…0mt6Results for the second half of the group's Semi-Final matches.
#HTagTorney
Going to call the polls an hour early to make things easier for myself. Polls were mostly one sided, with no real hard calls.
Monster girl vrs Elf is going to be a knife fight though.
quoting nevent1q…99jtPhantasm (npub1er2…arq5) I'm cynical about a lot of this but battery recycling is real and also the new lithiums don't need to be recycled to be repurposed. They can still last decades as storage after they've been retired from their original purpose due to capacity loss being greater that permitted for their original application
Agreed about a lot of new stuff being rather terrible environmentally. Like these giant turbine blades? Yikes.
Also go search for that. The results are amazing. Countless articles try to greenwash it. "Wind Turbine Blades Don’t Have To End Up In Landfills"
https://blog.ucsusa.org/james-gignac/wind-turbine-blades-recycling/
They admit that they do indeed end up in the landfill because there is no way to recycle them. Just begging us to believe that the new fiberglass recycling research is gonna work out.
"While about 90% of turbines are easily recyclable, their blades are not." pwease :3: ignore the last ten percent :3:
Sick of this nonsense.
quoting nevent1q…cmhv
The Overwatch League appears to be over
https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-11/ebcb2b40-7e78-11ee-b6f9-4257ae8e93c3
The Overwatch League (OWL) appears to be no more after six seasons. A Blizzard spokesperson told Engadget that "We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction." That's not to say the publisher is pulling out of Overwatch esports altogether. "We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program," the statement read. "We are excited to share details with you all in the near future."
In July, Activision Blizzard laid off around 50 esports staff and revealed that, after the 2023 season, OWL team owners would hold a vote to determine whether they'd continue with the league. Activision Blizzard said that if teams opted out, it would pay each of them a termination fee of $6 million. Blizzard has not said whether the vote has taken place and, if so, what the results were.
However, earlier on Wednesday, the owner of OWL team Toronto Defiant confirmed it was leaving the league. OverActive Media said it had ended its team participation agreement, and that it would receive a $6 million termination payment from Activision Blizzard. The company plans to stay involved in Overwatch esports.
"As we transition into the next phase of Overwatch esports, we look forward to the opportunities that lie ahead," Adam Adamou, cofounder and CEO of OverActive Media, said in a statement. "We are eager to share more about our vision for Toronto Defiant and our plans to return to Overwatch esports. We expect more information to come on this front soon.”
OAM has confirmed its exit from the @overwatchleague. The Company is set for its next chapter with a strengthened financial position and continued commitment to esports. We expect more information to come re: our vision for @TorontoDefiant and our plans to return to Overwatch…
— OverActive (@overactivegg) November 8, 2023
The Defiant are the second team to leave OWL. The Chengdu Hunters did not participate in the 2023 season after Overwatch 2 and other Blizzard games were shut down in China. The team confirmed partway through the year that it was departing from OWL.
Several other teams have been releasing players and others have suspended operations entirely amid OWL's uncertain future. All of the Florida Mayhem's players and staff went into free agency just 19 days after winning the 2023 OWL championship. On October 2, the day after the Grand Finals, Blizzard said it was "focusing on building our vision of a revitalized esports program."
pic.twitter.com/PoV2NaI5fg
— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) October 2, 2023
The writing has been on the wall for OWL for some time as the original vision of a global home-and-away league format never panned out. The first two seasons of OWL matches were held almost exclusively in a studio in California. Weeks after Blizzard started on its grand plan to run matches in each team's city every week, it was forced to shift to an online-only format due to COVID-19 lockdowns. That prevented teams from pulling in much-sought-after live event revenue.
Viewership struggles, sponsors dropping out and the sexual harassment and discrimination scandal at Activision Blizzard may have played a factor in OWL's demise as well. Although OWL broadcasts and matches were polished and entertaining, there were just too many factors playing against it.
The future of the professional Overwatch scene is unclear, but reports suggest that a return to a more open format could be next. According to esports reporter Jacob Wolf, Activision Blizzard has been in talks with Saudi Arabian state-owned ESL FACEIT Group for the latter to run the 2024 pro Overwatch season. In the meantime, a Blizzard-backed Overwatch 2 tournament that features regional prize pools of $50,000 and veteran OWL players is getting underway this weekend.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-overwatch-league-appears-to-be-over-210054506.html?src=rss
https://www.engadget.com/the-overwatch-league-appears-to-be-over-210054506.html?src=rss