Aaron Birks
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aojbirks.bsky.social
Aaron Birks
@aojbirks.bsky.social
53 followers 960 following 21 posts
Creative neurone cluster with delusions of sanity. Words, pictures and pixels wrangled for money.
Plays many instruments and occasionally wins.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Aaron Birks
edwinhayward.com
If you get fat after giving up your gym membership, the gym isn't punishing you.

Because you chose to quit, you don't get to use the gym equipment or take fitness classes.

It's the same with Brexit. The EU didn't punish us for leaving. We surrendered the benefits of membership.
August 3, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
downwithdan.bsky.social
holy shit lmao
July 19, 2025 at 3:21 AM
aojbirks.bsky.social
#BloomScrolling
Because life needs beauty and colour.
A picture of two vivid orange roses, their leaves rich and verdant, taken in a garden by some decking.
July 6, 2025 at 11:16 PM
aojbirks.bsky.social
A reminder that Mr Jarman saw the future before anyone else...
josie.zone 🏳️‍⚧️ Tár-Tár Binks @josie.zone · Jul 3
JUBILEE (Jarman, 1978)

"This is the generation who grew up and forgot to lead their lives... They were so busy watching my endless movie..."
July 3, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
shoaibmkhan.bsky.social
Amazing correction in the Telegraph.
June 19, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
oddletters.bsky.social
basically if you do not have an extremely resilient sense of self/theory of mind and a strong willingness to repeatedly impose behavioral rules on the agent, extended interaction with the free tier of chatgpt is designed to make you psychotic. its psycho-affectively akin to licking a car battery
June 15, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
pbump.com
The amount of space this particular strip occupies in my mind and has since I was a kid is hard to convey.
May 30, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
gemofamara.com
this is not an exaggeration
graph showing% of daily mail print articles mentioning immigration closely correlated with the % of brits saying immigration is one of the most important issues
May 12, 2025 at 9:40 AM
aojbirks.bsky.social
Pure Milligan...
thetimes.com The Times & Sunday Times @thetimes.com · May 10
The British military is sending Ukrainian forces “Ikea-style” flat-packed decoys that look like air defence systems and tanks to trick the Russians into hitting fake targets, it can be revealed
UK sends flat-packed decoys to Ukraine in bid to confuse Russian forces
www.thetimes.com
May 10, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
philipstephens.bsky.social
Still waiting for Farage-mesmerised BBC to devote more than passing sentence to fact that Greens have more councillors than Reform and that Ed Davey's Lib Dems have all bit wiped out the Tories in their traditional shire heartlands....
May 4, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
pizzalawyer420.bsky.social
My really out there theory is a lot of today's plastic surgery trends, particularly the popular face modifications, are the direct result of the average lens length of phone cameras being wider than the human eye's focal length, literally warping our perspective of our own faces 🫠🫠🫠
April 12, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
johnfugelsang.bsky.social
This isn't The Art of the Deal.
It's insider trading with a bad comb-over.

Step 1: Tank the Market, Scare the Non-Millionaires
Step 2: Let the Aristocrats Feast
Step 3: Flip, but say ‘Winning’
Step 4: Pretend None of This Ever Happened & Get Your Media Dregs To Do The Same

Rinse, Enrich, Repeat.
April 9, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
patrickstokes.com
So the reason Norfolk Island copped a dramatically higher tariff than the rest of Australia is two shipments of Timbaland boots from the Bahamas and some aquarium supplies from the UK that had their point of origin mislabeled or misrecorded.

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
April 4, 2025 at 3:53 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
explaintrade.com
We should stop using, "he has a point" when we actually mean, "somewhere in that incoherent ramble full of insane demands and wild allegations was something that could be a legitimate grievance if expressed completely differently by a mature and emotionally stable adult."
April 3, 2025 at 10:57 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
amyhoy.bsky.social
guess where they got their weird trade deficit math from?

i went to the pit for y'all and brought back the screenshots with alt text
chatgpt log: What would be an easy way to calculate the tariffs that should be imposed on other countries so that the US is on even-playing fields when it comes to trade deficit? Set minimum at 10%. Reasoned about trade tariffs and deficits for 10 seconds v A straightforward (if naïve) method is to set the tariff rate for each trading partner equal to the percentage share of the trade deficit relative to that country's total imports-always no less than 10%. In formula form: Tariff Rate (%) = max(10, (Trade Deficit ÷ Total Imports) * 100) For example, if the US runs a $20 billion deficit on $100 billion worth of imports from a country, the calculated rate is (20/100)×100 = 20%. If the deficit were only 5%, you'd still impose a 10% floor. This method ignores the intricate dynamics of international trade-such as elasticities, retaliatory measures, and supply chain nuances-but it provides a blunt, proportional rule to "level the playing field." One might implement it in Python like so: [code] Gemini answer: Okay, let's break down the idea of using tariffs to achieve an "even playing field" defined as eliminating the US trade deficit. While the goal of balancing trade is understandable, devising an "easy way" to calculate tariffs to achieve this is extremely complex, and most economists would argue it's not feasible or desirable for several reasons. However, let's outline a highly simplified conceptual approach based only on the numbers, ignoring the vast real-world complexities and consequences: Simplified (and Problematic) Calculation Idea: 1. Identify the Bilateral Deficit: Determine the trade deficit the US has with a specific country (Country X). Deficit_X = Value of Imports from X - Value of • Exports to X 2. Target Reduction: The goal is to reduce imports from Country X (or increase their cost to US buyers) by the amount of the deficit, so that the value effectively balances out. 3. Calculate Required Tariff (Ignoring Economics): • If you assume, very unrealistically, that a tariff directly reduces the value of imports by a corresponding percentage (which it doesn't - it increases the price), you could try: Required Reduction % = Deficit_X / Value of • Imports from X Claude: What would be an easy way to calculate the tariffs that should be imposed on other countries so that the US is on even-playing fields when it comes to trade deficit? Set minimum at 10%. To calculate tariffs that could theoretically level the playing field for trade deficits, I'd suggest a straightforward approach based on the trade imbalance percentage: 1. Calculate the bilateral trade deficit with each trading partner: Trade Deficit - US Imports from Country - US Exports to Country 2. Express this as a percentage of total bilateral trade: Deficit Percentage - (Trade Deficit / Total Bilateral Trade) × 100 3. Apply a tariff rate that corresponds to this percentage, with your minimum 10% floor: Tariff Rate = max(Deficit Percentage, 10%) This creates a proportional response where countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher tariffs. For example: • If Country A has a 25% trade surplus with the US (meaning the US has a 25% deficit), apply a 25% tariff • If Country B has a 5% trade surplus with the US, apply the minimum 10% tariff This method is relatively simple to calculate and directly ties tariff levels to trade imbalances. However, I should note that economists generally caution that trade deficits alone don't necessarily indicate unfair trade practices, and tariffs can have complex economic consequences including increased consumer prices and potential retaliation. Would you like me to elaborate on any part of this approach or discuss potential refinements to make it more sophisticated? Grok: the deficit. The deficit as a percentage of total trade is $295B/$582B = 50.69%. Using the formula Tariff% = 10% + (Deficit% × Scaling Factor), we choose a scaling factor of 50 for illustration: • Tariff = 10% + (50.69% × 50) = 10% + 25.345% = 35.345%, rounded to 35.3%. This means a 35.3% tariff on Chinese goods could be proposed to offset the imbalance, aiming to reduce imports and encourage domestic production or exports. Extending to Other Countries To provide a broader view, here's a table of top US trading partners with 2024 deficits, using data from The Motley Fool and similar calculations (assuming scaling factor of 50 for consistency): [data table headings] Country Deficit (USD Billion) Total Trade (USD Billion) Deficit % Calculate d Tariff % China -295 582 50.69% 35.3% Mexico -172 840 20.48% 20.2% Vietnam -123 (Data incomplet e, estimate) ~30% 25.0% Ireland -87 (Data incomplet e, estimate) ~25% 22.5% Germany -85 (Data incomplete estimate) ~20% 20.0%
April 3, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
hmmvryintrstng.bsky.social
james surowiecki has discovered where the completely fabricated trump tariff rate has come from for each country

"...for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us."
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us. So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.
April 2, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
theatlantic.com
Search the LibGen database here, and peer inside a pirated library of millions of books and research papers used by Meta and others:
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
March 20, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
billiejsweeney.bsky.social
Why? This comes to mind….

www.mediamatters.org/google/right...
March 19, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
marisakabas.bsky.social
After breaking into the US Institute of Peace (USIP) Monday, DOGE members immediately got to work taking down signs to erase the independent agency.

Photos taken yesterday shared directly with me:
March 19, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
cwebbonline.com
I had to compose myself before posting—because this breaks a part of my soul.

If you’re a contractor with a segregation policy, say it loud—so non-white dollars don’t fund your business. It won’t go how you think.

And if anyone uncovers businesses doing this, put them on blast.
#NAACP #BlackSky
March 19, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
ithayla.bsky.social
HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
March 12, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
eoinhiggins.bsky.social
Sent to USAID essential personnel this morning
March 11, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
fascinatorfun.bsky.social
Is Social Media addictive or does it have a different affect on our bodies?

“relative to the news reading condition, scrolling away on Instagram led to a marked slowing of participants’ heart rate while, at the same time, increasing their sweating response”.

theconversation.com/how-our-bodi...
How our bodies react when we use social media – and when we stop
New research shows withdrawal-like reactions when people are asked to stop using Instagram – but these may not reflect an addiction.
theconversation.com
March 5, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
samsteindc.bsky.social
NEWS: The USAID official put on leave for disseminating two memos about Rubio's failure to push through life-saving foreign aid was in the process of writing a THIRD memo when fired. We obtained it. It's far more alarming than the first two.

www.thebulwark.com/p/what-a-wee...
March 3, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Aaron Birks
alexpaknadel.bsky.social
Front page of every single UK newspaper today. Generative AI is theft.
February 25, 2025 at 8:33 AM