The funnel webs are aggressive spiders. They will attack you if disturbed rather than running for cover. The webs are woven in holes, hence a funnel shaped web, to alert them to prey. So they also like to live under timber houses (which is where I met one) where there are plenty of cracks and crevices suitable for a web, without the effort of digging a burrow.

A dream come true
https://www.railpictures.net/photo/889447/

Posted today. He’s been tracking the Fed monetizing debt since Bernake. Interesting points.

Speaking of which. Apparently one of your web spiders can save lives.

The hero of this story is the Darling Downs funnel-web spider, from Australia—one of the world’s deadliest arachnids.

Scientists at the University of Queensland and Monash University found that a compound in its venom called Hi1a works by blocking tiny calcium channels in cells known as ASIC1a (acid-sensing ion channels).

When your heart or brain is suddenly starved of oxygen—like during cardiac arrest or stroke—these channels open and flood the cells with calcium. The overload triggers inflammation and cell death within minutes.

Hi1a acts like a microscopic “web” that shuts those gates, protecting heart tissue from the fatal calcium surge.

In rat and pig models, a single dose preserved oxygen-starved heart muscle and even restored electrical activity when blood flow returned—essentially giving damaged cells a second chance at life.

Researchers now call it one of the most promising heart-attack and stroke treatments ever found in nature, and they’re already preparing for human trials.

This is an exciting development, and we’ll be following it closely. But let’s be honest here – spider venom isn’t coming soon to a supplement bottle near you.

The intent here is to develop a drug – and probably a very expensive one.

There are currently several venom-derived drugs on the market today, some of them selling for thousands of dollars a dose.

But here’s the good news – we know the venom works by protecting your heart’s “calcium gates” and oxidative defenses. And there are two natural remedies that work in a similar way:

Magnesium: This essential mineral acts as a natural calcium-channel blocker, helping your heart muscle relax and recover after stress. Studies show that maintaining healthy magnesium levels can reduce the risk of arrhythmia and support blood-vessel flexibility. Aim for about 320–420 mg per day from diet or supplements.

Omega-3 fatty acids: Found in fish oil and flaxseed, omega-3s calm oxidative stress and inflammation—the same processes that Hi1a targets downstream. A daily dose of 1,000 mg EPA/DHA has been shown to help protect cardiac tissue and circulation.

These nutrients don’t resurrect dead cells, but they help prevent the damage in the first place—keeping your heart’s electrical system stable and your circulation strong.

So as researchers harness this strange venom’s power to save hearts (and make a buck), remember—nature’s own defenses are already at work.

To keeping your ticker from giving you a fright,

Rachel Mace
Managing Editorial Director, e-Alert
with contributions from the research team

P.S. The heart crisis doctors aren’t talking about.

I’m impressed with your knowledge of computers. Now I know the difference but I suppose it would be similar to talking Latin terminology to a lay person and as far as computers that what I am.  Actually wrote in Latin so long when I finally got around to computers I realized I was forgetting how to write in English. I remember hearing a English teacher saying medical people’s writing drives her crazy. Seems like a better word would be something like ineffectual or meaningless. I think I understood that part just not what it was referring to like a familiar name. Still not lol Just all a big library to moi.

I didn’t mean it to come across that way. The internet dross refers to the data. Specialised data in the SLMs, the dross, the unrefined data, in the LLMs. Taking Goldie’s comments into consideration, consider a reference library, with carefully set out sections. A series of SLMs. Now mix up all the sections, add in all the literature, journalism, twitter-facebook-instagram-tiktok opinions, advertising, emotions, religions, history, climate – everything, in a random fashion, and you have the LLMs, which require huge computing power to search all the data, eliminating dross to find the gem you are looking for. Which currently they don’t, and probably will never be able to. So serious users will use, and pay for, SLMs. Leaving everyone else sorting through the dross in the LLMs.

Peter St Onge, Ph.D.
@profstonge
·
7h
Europe keeps shooting itself in the foot.

France plans a wealth tax that would effectively tax 40%of gains.

On top of the 57% of GDP they already tax.

https://x.com/i/status/1983858925540676089

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Returns: Why Trump’s Nuclear Weapons Testing Directive To The Secretary of the Department of War Shifts Global Risk Perception Towards More Safety Hedges

This is not just another geopolitical headline—this is a fundamental shift in global risk perception

The world changed yesterday. In a move that shatters 32 years of nuclear testing moratorium, President Trump has directed the Pentagon to “immediately” resume full-scale nuclear weapons testing for the first time since 1992.

This is not just another geopolitical headline; this is a fundamental shift in global risk perception that historically drives massive capital flows into the only asset that has preserved wealth through every major conflict in human history: gold.

The implications of this directive extend far beyond military strategy. When the world’s largest nuclear power abandons three decades of restraint and prepares to detonate nuclear devices for the first time since the Cold War ended, it signals that geopolitical risk has reached levels that require the ultimate insurance policy.

That insurance policy is not found in fiat currencies, government bonds, or stock markets; it is found in the 5,000-year-old store of value that has survived every empire, every war, and every monetary crisis in recorded history.

The End of the Post-Cold War Era

Trump’s nuclear testing directive represents the definitive end of the post-Cold War era and the beginning of a new age of great power competition where mutually assured destruction once again becomes the ultimate arbiter of international relations.

The United States conducted ~1,032 nuclear tests between 1945 and 1992, mostly in Nevada and the Pacific, before Congress imposed a testing moratorium amid growing international pressure for arms control.

The 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) banned all explosive nuclear tests, creating a framework that the U.S. signed but never ratified, yet adhered to voluntarily for over three decades.

This voluntary restraint represented the triumph of diplomacy over military posturing, the belief that nuclear weapons could be maintained through computer simulations and non-explosive experiments rather than live detonations.

That era is now over. The directive to resume “immediate” preparation for nuclear testing suggests that tests could begin within months, likely starting with underground detonations of nuclear devices to verify designs, fix aging components, or develop new low-yield tactical weapons for hypersonic missiles.

The Pentagon will need to reactivate infrastructure that has been mothballed but maintained, representing a massive mobilization of resources toward preparation for nuclear conflict.

The psychological impact of this shift cannot be overstated. For an entire generation of investors, the threat of nuclear war has been theoretical rather than practical.

The resumption of nuclear testing makes that threat tangible and immediate, fundamentally altering risk perception in ways that will drive capital flows for years to come.

Metals and Miners

I didn’t bother listening to Powell expected interest rate cut. He laid it out pretty good what will happen next.  There gonna be printing again more inflation again and trying to use housing again they already screws up to save jobs. We’ll see what happens. New home building in places with land to compete with existing and at lower interest.  Inflation on the way. They never learn.

might be back in play.

Doing well against the dollar.

Shares getting traction again.

What’s not to like?

Hope you’re still spending some of that money.💰👍

Mali revokes over 90 mining exploration permits for non compliance

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/mali-revokes-over-90-mining-exploration-permits-2025-10-29/

Simon Dixon
@SimonDixonTwitt
·
Oct 29
Central banks are selling US debt.

Stablecoins are buying US debt.

What happens to the stablecoin yield from US debt at Tether?

It buys Bitcoin.

It also buys the White House ballroom—because stablecoin issuers have become the exit plan for US debt.

Stablecoins are the new tool in the debt-based Ponzi.

https://x.com/SimonDixonTwitt/status/1983490593964597725

Paolo Ardoino 🤖
@paoloardoino
·
Oct 29
With 135 billion of U.S Treasuries, Tether is now the 17th largest holder of U.S debt, passing also South Korea.
Soon Brazil!

https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/1983455972636111011

I’m kind of glad gold didn’t make it to it next target yet. The market might perceive it as a top when the market is at its current highs when the economy is struggling and appears in a tentative state of a possible sell off with only a few over bought stocks holding it up. It looks similar to a house of cards. If these few stocks go what’s to hold the rest of the market up? The only thing that seems to be keeping it up is Fomo.  Talking heads calling for higher highs. It isn’t gonna be housing.They totally screwed that up. Once the bubble or as Pento says bubbles burst and think housing already did once these few stocks go where is money gonna go. Probable to safe havens and defensive stocks.  They’ll have to take a real hard look at the economy now. All the companies becoming distressed.

I also think about the mid terms. What would be a better time for a melt down?  Way before the election with likely QE steps although I hope they think harder than that, or right before the election.

I was passing through northern Quebec about 20 years ago en-route to a remote canoe trip when I passed the Canadian Malartic Mine. I was at that time exclusively in PM investment and was intrigued by this mine. Checked it out when I got home a few weeks later and was impressed by the company potential and especially its management. After some initial small scale investiture I bought a quantity of warrants: they turned out to be a 23 bagger and constituted my single best investment during the previous PM bull.

I’m not that into the mechanics of computers but isn’t these search engines specifically made for that purpose, like a vast open library that I think Musk wanted for himself for profit but some good natured people actually left in the world that go unrecognized wouldn’t let him and covered the initial cost to make it non profit.

to yesterday’s rate cut, although gold has been fading off the highs of the overnight and struggling to retake $4K. Silver had been lagging but is up a steady 1%. Hard to say if either will hold. Plat and Pall are up over 1% as well.

Shares up modestly.

The dollar and rates are flat. Oil back below $60 at last check.

Kind of nice not worrying about echo data these days.

I’d like to think this is the beginning of the big snap back rally, but it looks awful tentative.

Why do you describe LLM AI users as ‘dross’?

Small Language Models will dominate the revenue earning AI applications. Specific databases for specific purposes, such as writing legal contracts, researching medical issues and other research topics. An LLM isn’t effective for these applications with trillions of data units to sort through rather than the SLM which has only the relevant 10bn to 15bn data bits, and runs on a desktop computer.

LLMs will only be for limited commercial applications, and the internet dross of people using it as a super google search engine, or as a companion. Which won’t pay. Massive mis-allocation of capital will crash the AI and chip stocks, and nuclear power companies.

A fault off the coast of North Calif all the way to Canada is showing activity. It may be slowly dying but will the activity have any ability to move the rocks or set off a quake? This zone can cause a long lasting powerful quake followed by a tsunami that can get as high depending on data 100 to 1000 ft high.

That would eliminate a lot of Democrat antifa.

Last time parts of the cost sunk down as rocks beneath that were moved up dropped back down then swallowed up by the ocean. That was in 1700. The indigenous people who survived back then still carry story’s about it. They had no tsunami warning and they couldn’t see it coming because it came at night. It was like a wall of water they couldn’t see the top suddenly appeared. Near term it’s still there but apparently it’s starting to break apart. Question is what new thing will appear.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251025084611.htm

I am looking for ways to buy from local suppliers, particularly food. Especially if they deliver. 🙂 I found through life extension they have virgin olive oil from California. Other states may grow them too but closer than Europe. It’s not only good for brain health and some forms of cancer but virgin olive oil not the others helps bones too amongst other things. But if it sits around it can go rancid and become cancerous just as well. I read that Amazon gets old supplies.  Same with peanut butter, a storage food for kids it can go rancid.  I want things like that with a harvest date not just use by date. They could be sitting on ships for months in all kinds of weather  and shelves just as long. Fortunately we have a lot of farmers markets around here too since weather allows longer growing seasons. For things we can’t store long term if the stores run empty.

Which they’re not mentioning while they talk about equities and tech tech tech AI AI AI which they’re also going to use AI to monitor workers. Might be some good in that but potential for abuse. Hey I know your busy delivering one order to that table  right now and taking another order right after but go get that other empty table ready right now.

I decided I can have multi bank accounts without having accounts which might protect you from the Trudeau’s of the world of one bank or having your eggs in one basket through CDs. Might be a good idea for Europe especially after what they did to Vietnam erasing bank accounts if they didn’t get their digital ID. For now till they get wind of it anyways.  Maybe Starmer might get that idea from Vietnam himself. Confiscate or delete accounts.