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1. Past the Mission (10 October 2001 - New York, NY) 2. Way Down (16 December 2011 - Oakland, CA) 3. Sweet Dreams (28 September 2001 - West Palm Beach, FL) 4. Secret Spell (1 August 2015 - Stockholm, SWE) 5. Mountain (19 November 2017 - Denver, CO) 6. Glory of the 80's (18 August 1999 - Fort Lauderdale, FL) 7. Heart of Gold (27 June 2007 - Graz, AUS) 8. Strange Little Girl (27 July 2003 - Eugene, OR) 9. The Place / Crucify (20 January 2003 - Rotterdam, NET) 10. Tear In Your Hand (8 June 1998 - Berlin, GER) 11. Goodbye Improv (28 September 2007 - Perth, AUS) 12. Ribbons Undone (5 May 2014 - Cork, IRE) 13. Ophelia (17 December 2011 - Los Angeles, CA) 14. Climb (1 October 2017 - Vienna, AUS) 15. Cooling (23 October 1996 - Miami, FL) 16. Almost Rosey (27 October 2017 - Chicago, IL) 17. Gold Dust (1 August 2009 - Washington, DC)
Kaitlin makes a bold financial call…peanut butter is officially cut from the budget. We get nostalgic about old-school church hymns and ruin a big SWE secret. Kaitlin opens up about her phobia of jelly. CHICK-FIL-A SAUCE. Kaitlin discovers Scott's hoarder closet, but Scott comes prepared with a defense. Emily needs a step stool to get into bed. Kaitlin tries (and fails) to understand tax write-offs. We rank our favorite haircuts and play a round of “What movie character would you be?” Somehow Kaitlin lands on…well, you'll see. Follow SWE on Insta → @so.what.else Follow Kaitlin on Insta → @kaitlingraceelliott SWE Website
Kaitlin makes a bold financial call…peanut butter is officially cut from the budget. We get nostalgic about old-school church hymns and ruin a big SWE secret. Kaitlin opens up about her phobia of jelly. CHICK-FIL-A SAUCE. Kaitlin discovers Scott's hoarder closet, but Scott comes prepared with a defense. Emily needs a step stool to get into bed. Kaitlin tries (and fails) to understand tax write-offs. We rank our favorite haircuts and play a round of “What movie character would you be?” Somehow Kaitlin lands on…well, you'll see. Follow SWE on Insta → @so.what.else Follow Kaitlin on Insta → @kaitlingraceelliott SWE Website
Hey everyone, Alex here
Hey folks, Alex here, welcome back to ThursdAI! And folks, after the last week was the calm before the storm, "The storm came, y'all" – that's an understatement. This wasn't just a storm; it was an AI hurricane, a category 5 of announcements that left us all reeling (in the best way possible!). From being on the ground at Google I/O to live-watching Anthropic drop Claude 4 during our show, it's been an absolute whirlwind.This week was so packed, it felt like AI Christmas, with tech giants and open-source heroes alike showering us with gifts. We saw OpenAI play their classic pre-and-post-Google I/O chess game, Microsoft make some serious open-source moves, Google unleash an avalanche of updates, and Anthropic crash the party with Claude 4 Opus and Sonnet live stream in the middle of ThursdAI!So buckle up, because we're about to try and unpack this glorious chaos. As always, we're here to help you collectively know, learn, and stay up to date, so you don't have to. Let's dive in! (TL;DR and links in the end) Open Source LLMs Kicking Things OffEven with the titans battling, the open-source community dropped some serious heat this week. It wasn't the main headline grabber, but the releases were significant!Gemma 3n: Tiny But Mighty MatryoshkaFirst up, Google's Gemma 3n. This isn't just another small model; it's a "Nano-plus" preview, a 4-billion parameter MatFormer (Matryoshka Transformer – how cool is that name?) model designed for mobile-first multimodal applications. The really slick part? It has a nested 2-billion parameter sub-model that can run entirely on phones or Chromebooks.Yam was particularly excited about this one, pointing out the innovative "model inside another model" design. The idea is you can use half the model, not depth-wise, but throughout the layers, for a smaller footprint without sacrificing too much. It accepts interleaved text, image, audio, and video, supports ASR and speech translation, and even ships with RAG and function-calling libraries for edge apps. With a 128K token window and responsible AI features baked in, Gemma 3n is looking like a powerful tool for on-device AI. Google claims it beats prior 4B mobile models on MMLU-Lite and MMMU-Mini. It's an early preview in Google AI Studio, but it definitely flies on mobile devices.Mistral & AllHands Unleash Devstral 24BThen we got a collaboration from Mistral and AllHands: Devstral, a 24-billion parameter, state-of-the-art open model focused on code. We've been waiting for Mistral to drop some open-source goodness, and this one didn't disappoint.Nisten was super hyped, noting it beats o3-Mini on SWE-bench verified – a tough benchmark! He called it "the first proper vibe coder that you can run on a 3090," which is a big deal for coders who want local power and privacy. This is a fantastic development for the open-source coding community.The Pre-I/O Tremors: OpenAI & Microsoft Set the StageAs we predicted, OpenAI couldn't resist dropping some news right before Google I/O.OpenAI's Codex Returns as an AgentOpenAI launched Codex – yes, that Codex, but reborn as an asynchronous coding agent. This isn't just a CLI tool anymore; it connects to GitHub, does pull requests, fixes bugs, and navigates your codebase. It's powered by a new coding model fine-tuned for large codebases and was SOTA on SWE Agent when it dropped. Funnily, the model is also called Codex, this time, Codex-1. And this gives us a perfect opportunity to talk about the emerging categories I'm seeing among Code Generator agents and tools:* IDE-based (Cursor, Windsurf): Live pair programming in your editor* Vibe coding (Lovable, Bolt, v0): "Build me a UI" style tools for non-coders* CLI tools (Claude Code, Codex-cli): Terminal-based assistants* Async agents (Claude Code, Jules, Codex, GitHub Copilot agent, Devin): Work on your repos while you sleep, open pull requests for you to review, asyncCodex (this new one) falls into category number 4, and with today's release, Cursor seems to also strive to get to category number 4 with background processing. Microsoft BUILD: Open Source Copilot and Copilot Agent ModeThen came Microsoft Build, their huge developer conference, with a flurry of announcements.The biggest one for me? GitHub Copilot's front-end code is now open source! The VS Code editor part was already open, but the Copilot integration itself wasn't. This is a massive move, likely a direct answer to the insane valuations of VS Code clones like Cursor. Now, you can theoretically clone GitHub Copilot with VS Code and swing for the fences.GitHub Copilot also launched as an asynchronous coding assistant, very similar in function to OpenAI's Codex, allowing it to be assigned tasks and create/update PRs. This puts Copilot right into category 4 of code assistants, and with the native Github Integration, they may actually have a leg up in this race!And if that wasn't enough, Microsoft is adding MCP (Model Context Protocol) support directly into the Windows OS. The implications of having the world's biggest operating system natively support this agentic protocol are huge.Google I/O: An "Ultra" Event Indeed!Then came Tuesday, and Google I/O. I was there in the thick of it, and folks, it was an absolute barrage. Google is shipping. The theme could have been "Ultra" for many reasons, as we'll see.First off, the scale: Google reported a 49x increase in AI usage since last year's I/O, jumping from 9 trillion tokens processed to a mind-boggling 480 trillion tokens. That's a testament to their generous free tiers and the explosion of AI adoption.Gemini 2.5 Pro & Flash: #1 and #2 LLMs on ArenaGemini 2.5 Flash got an update and is now #2 on the LMArena leaderboard (with Gemini 2.5 Pro still holding #1). Both Pro and Flash gained some serious new capabilities:* Deep Think mode: This enhanced reasoning mode is pushing Gemini's scores to new heights, hitting 84% on MMMU and topping LiveCodeBench. It's about giving the model more "time" to work through complex problems.* Native Audio I/O: We're talking real-time TTS in 24 languages with two voices, and affective dialogue capabilities. This is the advanced voice mode we've been waiting for, now built-in.* Project Mariner: Computer-use actions are being exposed via the Gemini API & Vertex AI for RPA partners. This started as a Chrome extension to control your browser and now seems to be a cloud-based API, allowing Gemini to use the web, not just browse it. This feels like Google teaching its AI to interact with the JavaScript-heavy web, much like they taught their crawlers years ago.* Thought Summaries: Okay, here's one update I'm not a fan of. They've switched from raw thinking traces to "thought summaries" in the API. We want the actual traces! That's how we learn and debug.* Thinking Budgets: Previously a Flash-only feature, token ceilings for controlling latency/cost now extend to Pro.* Flash Upgrade: 20-30% fewer tokens, better reasoning/multimodal scores, and GA in early June.Gemini Diffusion: Speed Demon for Code and MathThis one got Yam Peleg incredibly excited. Gemini Diffusion is a new approach, different from transformers, for super-speed editing of code and math tasks. We saw demos hitting 2000 tokens per second! While there might be limitations at longer contexts, its speed and infilling capabilities are seriously impressive for a research preview. This is the first diffusion model for text we've seen from the frontier labs, and it looks sick. Funny note, they had to slow down the demo video to actually show the diffusion process, because at 2000t/s - apps appear as though out of thin air!The "Ultra" Tier and Jules, Google's Coding AgentRemember the "Ultra event" jokes? Well, Google announced a Gemini Ultra tier for $250/month. This tops OpenAI's Pro plan and includes DeepThink access, a generous amount of VEO3 generation, YouTube Premium, and a whopping 30TB of storage. It feels geared towards creators and developers.And speaking of developers, Google launched Jules (jules.google)! This is their asynchronous coding assistant (Category 4!). Like Codex and GitHub Copilot Agent, it connects to your GitHub, opens PRs, fixes bugs, and more. The big differentiator? It's currently free, which might make it the default for many. Another powerful agent joins the fray!AI Mode in Search: GA and EnhancedAI Mode in Google Search, which we've discussed on the show before with Robby Stein, is now in General Availability in the US. This is Google's answer to Perplexity and chat-based search.But they didn't stop there:* Personalization: AI Mode can now connect to your Gmail and Docs (if you opt-in) for more personalized results.* Deep Search: While AI Mode is fast, Deep Search offers more comprehensive research capabilities, digging through hundreds of sources, similar to other "deep research" tools. This will eventually be integrated, allowing you to escalate an AI Mode query for a deeper dive.* Project Mariner Integration: AI Mode will be able to click into websites, check availability for tickets, etc., bridging the gap to an "agentic web."I've had a chat with Robby during I/O and you can listen to that interview at the end of the podcast.Veo3: The Undisputed Star of Google I/OFor me, and many others I spoke to, Veo3 was the highlight. This is Google's flagship video generation model, and it's on another level. (the video above, including sounds is completely one shot generated from VEO3, no processing or editing)* Realism and Physics: The visual quality and understanding of physics are astounding.* Natively Multimodal: This is huge. Veo3 generates native audio, including coherent speech, conversations, and sound effects, all synced perfectly. It can even generate text within videos.* Coherent Characters: Characters remain consistent across scenes and have situational awareness, who speaks when, where characters look.* Image Upload & Reference Ability: While image upload was closed for the demo, it has reference capabilities.* Flow: An editor for video creation using Veo3 and Imagen4 which also launched, allowing for stiching and continuous creation.I got access and created videos where Veo3 generated a comedian telling jokes (and the jokes were decent!), characters speaking with specific accents (Indian, Russian – and they nailed it!), and lip-syncing that was flawless. The situational awareness, the laugh tracks kicking in at the right moment... it's beyond just video generation. This feels like a world simulator. It blew through the uncanny valley for me. More on Veo3 later, because it deserves its own spotlight.Imagen4, Virtual Try-On, and XR Glasses* Imagen4: Google's image generation model also got an upgrade, with extra textual ability.* Virtual Try-On: In Google Shopping, you can now virtually try on clothes. I tried it; it's pretty cool and models different body types well.* XR AI Glasses from Google: Perhaps the coolest, but most futuristic, announcement. AI-powered glasses with an actual screen, memory, and Gemini built-in. You can talk to it, it remembers things for you, and interacts with your environment. This is agentic AI in a very tangible form.Big Company LLMs + APIs: The Beat Goes OnThe news didn't stop with Google.OpenAI (acqui)Hires Jony Ive, Launches "IO" for HardwareThe day after I/O, Sam Altman confirmed that Jony Ive, the legendary designer behind Apple's iconic products, is joining OpenAI. He and his company, LoveFrom, have jointly created a new company called "IO" (yes, IO, just like the conference) which is joining OpenAI in a stock deal reportedly worth $6.5 billion. They're working on a hardware device, unannounced for now, but expected next year. This is a massive statement of intent from OpenAI in the hardware space.Legendary iPhone analyst Ming-Chi Kuo shed some light on the possible device, it won't have a screen, as Jony wants to "wean people off screens"... funny right? They are targeting 2027 for mass production, which is really interesting as 2027 is when most big companies expect AGI to be here. "The current prototype is slightly larger than AI Pin, with a form factor comparable to iPod Shuffle, with one intended use cases is to wear it around your neck, with microphones and cameras for environmental detection" LMArena Raises $100M Seed from a16zThis one raised some eyebrows. LMArena, the go-to place for vibe-checking LLMs, raised a $100 million seed round from Andreessen Horowitz. That's a huge number for a seed, reminiscent of Stability AI's early funding. It also brings up questions about how a VC-backed startup maintains impartiality as a model evaluation platform. Interesting times ahead for leaderboards, how they intent to make 100x that amount to return to investors. Very curious.
What if networking could be as fun as game night?! In this special episode of Diverse, recorded live at WE24, hear game enthusiasts and industry leaders Nicole Woon, senior product manager at Microsoft, and Emily Carney, senior manager of site project management at Genezen, explore an unexpected source of networking wisdom: board games. Nicole and Emily share how games like Ticket to Ride and Apples to Apples offer surprising insights into making authentic connections. They break down networking myths and offer fresh perspectives on turning potentially awkward interactions into genuine connections. They also reflect on their love for the SWE community and the opportunities their SWE connections have opened. --- The Society of Women Engineers is a powerful, global force uniting 50,000 members of all genders spanning 85 countries. We are the world's largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology. To join and access all the exclusive benefits to elevate your professional journey, visit membership.swe.org.
SWe finally have some spare time, to do what we think is important.
The AI Breakdown: Daily Artificial Intelligence News and Discussions
A flood of major AI updates is right around the corner. New models from Anthropic, OpenAI's autonomous coding agent Codex, Windsurf's SWE-1 for end-to-end software engineering, and changes at Salesforce and Walmart all point to a massive shift.Get Ad Free AI Daily Brief: https://patreon.com/AIDailyBriefBrought to you by:KPMG – Go to https://kpmg.com/ai to learn more about how KPMG can help you drive value with our AI solutions.Blitzy.com - Go to https://blitzy.com/ to build enterprise software in days, not months Vertice Labs - Check out http://verticelabs.io/ - the AI-native digital consulting firm specializing in product development and AI agents for small to medium-sized businesses.The Agent Readiness Audit from Superintelligent - Go to https://besuper.ai/ to request your company's agent readiness score.The AI Daily Brief helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI. Subscribe to the podcast version of The AI Daily Brief wherever you listen: https://pod.link/1680633614Subscribe to the newsletter: https://aidailybrief.beehiiv.com/Join our Discord: https://bit.ly/aibreakdownInterested in sponsoring the show? nlw@breakdown.network
Helen Mills and Lisa Malmanger, co-leads of the SWE Military and Veterans Affinity Group, share personal stories on why building community is essential for military-connected engineers and their families in this episode of Diverse. Lisa shares the challenges she faced when adjusting to the civilian workforce after serving in the military, and Helen reflects on the importance of mental health and allyship. They also discuss how military experience translates into leadership and technical skills in STEM. Plus, learn how SWE's Military and Veterans Affinity Group is building community for military service members, veterans, family members, and allies in STEM. Learn more and get involved at affinitygroups.swe.org/military-veterans/ --- The Society of Women Engineers is a powerful, global force uniting 50,000 members of all genders spanning 85 countries. We are the world's largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology. To join and access all the exclusive benefits to elevate your professional journey, visit membership.swe.org.
Baby Norah has finally arrived! Matt and Emily recount all the wild, emotional, and chaotic details of Baby Norah's grand entrance into the world. Plus, Norah makes her podcast debut by contributing some of her own sound effects to the story. Welcome to the SWE chaos, baby girl. Follow SWE on Insta → @so.what.else Follow Kaitlin on Insta → @kaitlingraceelliott SWE Website
Baby Norah has finally arrived! Matt and Emily recount all the wild, emotional, and chaotic details of Baby Norah's grand entrance into the world. Plus, Norah makes her podcast debut by contributing some of her own sound effects to the story. Welcome to the SWE chaos, baby girl. Follow SWE on Insta → @so.what.else Follow Kaitlin on Insta → @kaitlingraceelliott SWE Website
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,As we seemingly grow closer to achieving artificial general intelligence — machines that are smarter than humans at basically everything — we might be incurring some serious geopolitical risks.In the paper Superintelligence Strategy, his joint project with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Alexandr Wang, Dan Hendrycks introduces the idea of Mutual Assured AI Malfunction: a system of deterrence where any state's attempt at total AI dominance is sabotaged by its peers. From the abstract: Just as nations once developed nuclear strategies to secure their survival, we now need a coherent superintelligence strategy to navigate a new period of transformative change. We introduce the concept of Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM): a deterrence regime resembling nuclear mutual assured destruction (MAD) where any state's aggressive bid for unilateral AI dominance is met with preventive sabotage by rivals. Given the relative ease of sabotaging a destabilizing AI project—through interventions ranging from covert cyberattacks to potential kinetic strikes on datacenters—MAIM already describes the strategic picture AI superpowers find themselves in. Alongside this, states can increase their competitiveness by bolstering their economies and militaries through AI, and they can engage in nonproliferation to rogue actors to keep weaponizable AI capabilities out of their hands. Taken together, the three-part framework of deterrence, nonproliferation, and competitiveness outlines a robust strategy to superintelligence in the years ahead.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I talk with Hendrycks about the potential threats posed by superintelligent AI in the hands of state and rogue adversaries, and what a strong deterrence strategy might look like.Hendrycks is the executive director of the Center for AI Safety. He is an advisor to Elon Musk's xAI and Scale AI, and is a prolific researcher and writer.In This Episode* Development of AI capabilities (1:34)* Strategically relevant capabilities (6:00)* Learning from the Cold War (16:12)* Race for strategic advantage (18:56)* Doomsday scenario (28:18)* Maximal progress, minimal risk (33:25)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Development of AI capabilities (1:34). . . mostly the systems aren't that impressive currently. People use them to some extent, but I'd more emphasize the trajectory that we're on rather than the current capabilities.Pethokoukis: How would you compare your view of AI . . . as a powerful technology with economic, national security, and broader societal implications . . . today versus November of 2022 when OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT?Hendrycks: I think that the main difference now is that we have the reasoning paradigm. Back in 2022, GPT couldn't think for an extended period of time before answering and try out multiple different ways of dissolving a problem. The main new capability is its ability to handle more complicated reasoning and science, technology, engineering, mathematics sorts of tasks. It's a lot better at coding, it's a lot better at graduate school mathematics, and physics, and virology.An implication of that for national security is that AIs have some virology capabilities that they didn't before, and virology is dual-use that can be used for civilian applications and weaponization applications. That's a new concerning capability that they have, but I think, overall, the AI systems are still fairly similar in their capabilities profile. They're better in lots of different ways, but not substantially.I think the next large shift is when they can be agents, when they can operate more autonomously, when they can book you flights reliably, make PowerPoints, play through long-form games for extended periods of time, and that seems like it's potentially on the horizon this year. It didn't seem like that two years ago. That's something that a lot of people are keeping an eye on and think could be arriving fairly soon. Overall, I think the capabilities profile is mostly the same except now it has some dual-use capabilities that they didn't have earlier, in particular virology capabilities.To what extent are your national security concerns based on the capabilities of the technology as it is today versus where you think it will be in five years? This is also a way of me asking about the extent that you view AGI as a useful framing device — so this is also a question about your timeline.I think that mostly the systems aren't that impressive currently. People use them to some extent, but I'd more emphasize the trajectory that we're on rather than the current capabilities. They still can't do very interesting cyber offense, for instance. The virology capabilities is very recent. We just, I think maybe a week ago, put out a study with SecureBio from MIT where we had Harvard, MIT virology postdocs doing wet lab skills, trying to work on viruses. So, “Here's a picture of my petri dish, I heated it to 37 degrees, what went wrong? Help me troubleshoot, help me guide me through this step by step.” We were seeing that it was getting around 95th percentile compared to those Harvard-MIT virology postdocs in their area of expertise. This is not a capability that the models had two years ago.That is a national security concern, but I think most of the national security concerns where it's strategically relevant, where it can be used for more targeted weapons, where it affects the basis of a nation's power, I think that's something that happens in the next, say, two to five years. I think that's what we mostly need to be thinking about. I'm not particularly trying to raise the alarm saying that the AI systems right now are extremely scary in all these different ways because they're not even agential. They can't book flights yet.Strategically relevant capabilities (6:00). . . when thinking about the future of AI . . . it's useful to think in terms of specific capabilities, strategically-relevant capabilities, as opposed to when is it truly intelligent . . .So that two-to-five-year timeline — and you can debate whether this is a good way of thinking about it — is that a trajectory or timeline to something that could be called “human-level AI” — you can define that any way you want — and what are the capabilities that make AI potentially dangerous and a strategic player when thinking about national security?I think having a monolithic term for AGI or for advanced AI systems is a little difficult, largely because there's been a consistently-moving goalpost. So right now people say, “AIs are dumb because they can't do this and that.” They can't play video games at the level of a teenager, they can't code for a day-long project, and things like that. Neither can my grandmother. That doesn't mean that she's not human-level intelligence, it's just a lot of people don't have some of these capabilities.I think when thinking about the future of AI, especially when thinking about national security, it's useful to think in terms of specific capabilities, strategically-relevant capabilities, as opposed to when is it truly intelligent or something like that. This is because the capabilities of AI systems are very jagged: they're good at some things and terrible at others. They can't fold clothes that reliably — most of the AI can't —and they're okay at driving in some cities but not others, but they can solve really difficult mathematics problems, they can write really long essays and provide pretty good legal analysis very rapidly, and they can also forecast geopolitical events better than most forecasters. It's a really weird capabilities profile.When I'm thinking about national security from a malicious-use standpoint, I'm thinking about weapon capabilities, I'm thinking about cyber-offensive capabilities, which they don't yet have, but that's an important one to track, and, outside of malicious use, I'm thinking about what's their ability to do AI research and how much of that can they automate? Because if they can automate AI research, then you could just run 100,000 of these artificial AGI researchers to build the next generations of AGI, and that could get very explosive extremely quickly. You're moving from human-speed research to machine-speed research. They're typing 100 times faster than people, they're running tons of experiments simultaneously. That could be quite explosive, and that's something that the founders of AI pointed at as a really relevant capability, like Alan Turing and others, where that's you could have a potential loss-of-control type of event is with this sort of runaway process of AI's building future generations of AIs quite rapidly.So that's another capability. What fraction of AI research can they automate? For weaponization, I think if it gets extremely smart, able to do research in lots of other sorts of fields, then that would raise concerns of its ability to be used to disrupt the balance of power. For instance, if it can do research well, perhaps it could come up with a breakthrough that makes oceans more transparent so we can find where nuclear submarines are or find the mobile launches extremely reliably, or a breakthrough in driving down the cost by some orders of magnitude of anti-ballistic missile systems, which would disrupt having a secure second-strike, and these would be very geopolitically salient. To do those things, though, that seems like a bundle of capabilities as opposed to a specific thing like cyber-offensive capabilities, but those are the things that I'm thinking about that can really disrupt the geopolitical landscape.If we put them in a bucket called, to use your phrase, “strategically-relevant capabilities,” are we on a trajectory of a data- and computing-power-driven trajectory to those capabilities? Or do there need to be one or two key innovations before those relevant capabilities are possible?It doesn't seem like it currently that we need some new big insights, in large part because the rate of improvement is pretty good. So if we look at their coding capabilities — there's a benchmark called SWE-bench verified (SWE is software engineering). Given a set of coding tasks — and this benchmark was weighed in some years ago — the models are poised to get something like 90 percent on this this summer. Right now they're in this 60 percent range. If we just extrapolate the trend line out some more months, then they'll be doing nine out of 10 of those software engineering tasks that were set some years ago. That doesn't mean that that's the entirety of software engineering. Still need coders. It's not 100 percent, obviously, but that suggests that the capability is still improving fairly rapidly in some of these domains. And likewise, with their ability to play that take games that take 20-plus hours, a few months ago they couldn't — Pokémon, for instance, is something that kids play and that takes 20 hours or so to beat. The models from a few months ago couldn't beat the game. Now, the current models can beat the game, but it takes them a few hundred hours. It would not surprise me if in a few months they'll get it down to around human-level on the order of tens of hours, and then from there they'll be able to play harder and harder sorts of games that take longer periods of time, and I think that this would be indicative of higher general capabilities.I think that there's a lot of steam in the current way that things are being done and I think that they've been trapped at the floor in their agent capabilities for a while, but I think we're starting to see the shift. I think that most people at the major AI companies would also think that agents are on the horizon and I don't think they were thinking that, myself included, a year ago. We were not seeing the signs that we're seeing now.So what we're talking about is AIs is having, to use your phrase, which I like, “strategically-relevant capabilities” on a timeline that is soon enough that we should be having the kinds of conversations and the kind of thinking that you put forward in Superintelligence [Strategy]. We should be thinking about that right now very seriously.Yeah, it's very difficult to wrap one's head around because, unlike other domains, AI is much more general and broad in its impacts. So if one's thinking about nuclear strategy, you obviously need to think about bombs going off, and survivability, and second strike. The failure modes are: one state strikes the other, and then there's also, in the civilian applications, fissile material leaking or there being a nuclear power plant meltdown. That's the scenario space, there's what states can do and then there's also some of these civilian application issues.Meanwhile, with AI, we've got much more than power plants melting down or bombs going off. We've got to think about how it transforms the economy, how it transforms people's private life, the sort of issues with them being sentient. We've got to think about it potentially disrupting mutual assured destruction. We've got to think about the AIs themselves being threats. We've got to think about regulations for autonomous AI agents and who's accountable. We've got to think about this open-weight, closed-weight issue. We've got, I think, a larger host of issues that touch on all the important spheres society. So it's not a very delimited problem and I think it's a very large pill to swallow, this possibility that it will be not just strategically relevant but strategically decisive this decade.Consequently, and thinking a little bit beforehand about it is, useful. Otherwise, if we just ignore it, I think we reality will slap us across the face and AI will hit us like a truck, and then we're going, “Wow, I wish we did something, had some more break-glass measures at a time right now, but the cupboard is bare in terms of strategic options because we didn't do some prudent things a while ago, or we didn't even bother thinking about what those are.”I keep thinking of the Situation Room in two years and they get news that China's doing some new big AI project, and it's fairly secretive, and then in the Situation Room they're thinking, “Okay, what do we know?” And the answer is nothing. We don't have really anybody on this. We're not collecting any information about this. We didn't have many concerted programs in the IC really tracking this, so we're flying blind. I really don't want to be in that situationLearning from the Cold War (16:12). . . mutual assured destruction is an ugly reality that took decision-makers a long time to internalize, but that's just what the game theory showed would make the most sense. As I'm sure you know, throughout the course of the Cold War, there was a considerable amount of time and money spent on thinking about these kinds of problems. I went to college just before the end of the Cold War and I took an undergraduate class on nuclear war theory. There was a lot of thinking. To what extent does that volume of research and analysis over the course of a half-century, to what extent is that helpful for what you're trying to accomplish here?I think it's very fortunate that, because of the Cold War, a lot of people started getting more of a sense of game theory and when it's rational to conflict versus negotiate, and offense can provide a good defense, some of these counterintuitive things. I think mutual assured destruction is an ugly reality that took decision-makers a long time to internalize, but that's just what the game theory showed would make the most sense. Hopefully we'll do a lot better with AI because strategic thinking can be a lot more precise and some of these things that are initially counterintuitive, if you reason through them, you go, actually no, this makes a lot of sense. We're trying to shape each other's intentions in this kind of complicated way. I think that makes us much better poised to address these geopolitical issues than last time.I think of the Soviets, for instance, when talking about anti-ballistic missile systems. At one point, I forget who said that offense is immoral, defense is moral. So pointing these nuclear weapons at each other, this is the immoral thing. We need missile-defense systems. That's the moral option. It's just like, no, this is just going to eat up all of our budget. We're going to keep building these defense systems and it's not going to make us safer, we're just going to be spending more and more.That was not intuitive. Offense does feel viscerally more mean, hostile, but that's what you want. That's what you want, to preserve for strategic stability. I think that a lot of the thinking is helpful with that, and I think the education for appreciating the strategic dynamics is more in the water, it's more diffused across the decision-makers now, and I think that that's great.Race for strategic advantage (18:56)There is also a risk that China builds [AGI] first, so I think what we want to do in the US is build up the capabilities to surgically prevent them . . .I was recently reviewing a scenario slash world-building exercise among technologists, economists, forecasting people, and they were looking at various scenarios assuming that we're able to, on a rather short timeline, develop what they termed AGI. And one of the scenarios was that the US gets there first . . . probably not by very long, but the US got there first. I don't know how far China was behind, but that gave us the capability to sort of dictate terms to China about what their foreign policy would be: You're going to leave Taiwan alone . . . So it gave us an amazing strategic advantage.I'm sure there are a lot of American policymakers who would read that scenario and say, “That's the dream,” that we are able to accelerate progress, that we are able to get there first, we can dictate foreign policy terms to China, game over, we win. If I've read Superintelligence correctly, that scenario would play out in a far more complicated way than what I've just described.I think so. I think any bid for being a, not just unipolar force, but having a near-strategic-monopoly on power and able to cause all other superpowers to capitulate in arbitrary ways, concerns the other superpower. There is also a risk that China builds it first, so I think what we want to do in the US is build up the capabilities to surgically prevent them, if they are near or eminently going to gain a decisive advantage that would become durable and sustained over us, we want the ability to prevent that.There's a variety of ways one can do things. There's the classic grayer ways like arson, and cutting wires in data centers, and things like that, or for power plants . . . There's cyber offense, and there's other sorts of kinetic sabotage, but we want it nice and surgical and having a good, credible threat so that we can deter that from happening and shaping their intentions.I think it will be difficult to limit their capabilities, their ability to build these powerful systems, but I think being able to shape their intentions is something that is more tractable. They will be building powerful AI systems, but if they are making an attempt at leapfrogging us in a way that we never catch up and lose our standing and they get AIs that could also potentially disrupt MAD, for instance, we want to be able to prevent that. That is an important strategic priority, is developing a credible deterrent and saying there are some AI scenarios that are totally unacceptable to us and we want to block them off through credible threats.They'll do the same to us, as well, and they can do it more easily to us. They know what's going on at all of our AI companies, and this will not change because we have a double digit percentage of the employees who are Chinese nationals, easily extortable, they have family back home, and the companies do not have good information security — that will probably not change because that will slow them down if they really try and lock them up and move everybody to North Dakota or wherever to work in the middle of nowhere and have everything air-gapped. We are an open book to them and I think they can make very credible threats for sabotage and preventing that type of outcome.If we are making a bid for dictating their foreign policy and all of this, if we're making a bid for a strategic monopoly on power, they will not sit idly by, they will not take kindly to that when they recognize the stakes. If the US were to do a $500 billion program to achieve this faster than them, that would not go unnoticed. There's not a way of hiding that.But we are trying to achieve it faster than them.I would distinguish between trying to develop just generally more capable AI technologies than some of these strategically relevant capabilities or some of these strategically relevant programs. Like if we get AI systems that are generally useful for healthcare and for . . . whatever your pet cause area, we can have that. That is different from applying the AI systems to rapidly build the next generation of AIs, and the next generation of that. Just imagine if you have, right now, OpenAI's got a few hundred AI researchers, imagine if you've got ones that are at that level that are artificial, AGI-type of researchers or are artificial researchers. You run 10,000, 100,000 thousand of them, they're operating around the clock at a hundred X speed, I think expecting a decade's worth of development compressed or telescoped into a year, that seems very plausible — not certain, but certainly double-digit percent chance.China or Russia for instance, would perceive that as, “This is really risky. They could get a huge leap from this because these rate of development will be so high that we could never catch up,” and they could use their new gains to clobber us. Or, if they don't control it, then we're also dead, or lose our power. So if the US controls it, China would reason that, “Our survival is threatened and how we do things is threatened,” and if they lose control of it, “Our survival is also threatened.” Either way, provided that this automated AI research and development loop produces some extremely powerful AI systems, China would be fearing for their survival.It's not just China: India, the global south, all the other countries, if they're more attuned to this situation, would be very concerned. Russia as well. Russia doesn't have the hope about competing, they don't have a $100 billion data centers, they're busy with Ukraine, and when they're finished with that, they may reassess it, but they're too many years behind. I think the best they can do is actually try and shape other states' intents rather than try to make a bid for outcompeting them.If we're thinking about deterrence and what you call Mutually Assured AI Malfunction [MAIM], there's a capability aspect that we want to make sure that we would have the capability to check that kind of dash for dominance. But there's also a communication aspect where both sides have to understand and trust what the other side is trying to do, which was a key part of classic Cold War deterrence. Is that happening?Information problems, yeah, if there's worse information then that can lead to conflict. I think China doesn't really need to worry about their access to information of what's going on. I think the US will need to develop more of its capabilities to have more reliable signals abroad. But I think there's different ways of getting information and producing misunderstandings, like the confidence-building measures, all these sorts of things. I think that the unilateral one is just espionage, and then the multilateral one is verification mechanisms and building some of that institutional or international infrastructure.I think the first step in all of this is the states need to at least take matters into their own hands by building up these unilateral options, the unilateral option to prevent adversaries from doing a dash for domination and also know what's going on with each other's projects. I think that's what the US should focus on right now. Later on, as the salience of AI increases, I think then just international discussions to increase more strategic stability around this would be more plausible to emerge. But if they're not trying to take basic things to defend themselves and protect their own security, then I don't think international stuff that makes that much sense. That's kind of out of order.Doomsday scenario (28:18)If our institutions wake up to this more and do some of the basic stuff . . . to prevent another state dominating the other, I think that will make this go quite a bit better. . .I have in my notes here that you think there's an 80 percent chance that an AI arms race would result in a catastrophe that would kill most of humanity. Do I have that right?I think it's not necessarily just the race. Let's think of people's probabilities for this. There's a wide spectrum of probability. Elon, who I work with at xAI, a company I advise, xAI is his company, Elon thinks it's generally on the order of 20 to 30 percent. Dario Amodei, the CEO of philanthropic, I think thinks it's around 20 percent, as well. Sam Altman around 10 percent. I think it's more likely than not that this doesn't go that well for people, but there's a lot of tractability and a lot of volatility here.If our institutions wake up to this more and do some of the basic stuff of knowing what's going on and sharpen your ability to have credible threats, credible, targeted threats to prevent another state dominating the other, I think that will make this go quite a bit better. . . I think if we went back in time in the 1940s and were saying, “Do we think that this whole nuclear thing is going to turn out well in 50 years?” I think we actually got a little lucky. I mean the Cuban Missile Crisis itself was . . .There were a lot of bad moments in the '60s. There were quite a few . . .I think it's more likely than not, but there's substantial tractability and it's important not to be fatalistic about it or just deny it's an issue, itself. I think it's like, do we think AI will go well? I don't know, it depends on what our policy is. Right now, we're in the very early days and I'm still not noticing many of our institutions that are rising to the occasion that I think is warranted, but this could easily change in a few months with some larger event.Not to be science fictional or anything, but you talk about a catastrophe, are you talking about: AI creates some sort of biological weapon? Back and forth cyber attacks destroy all the electrical infrastructure for China and the United States, so all of a sudden we're back into the 1800s? Are you talking about some sort of more “Terminator”-like scenario, rogue AI? When you think about the kind of catastrophe that could be that dangerous humanity, what do you think about?We have three risk sources: one are states, the other are rogue actors like terrorists and pariah states, and then there's the AI themselves. The AI themselves are not relevant right now, but I think could be quite capable of causing damage on their own in even a year or two. That's the space of threat actors; so yes, AI could in the future . . . I don't see anything that makes them logically not controllable. They're mostly controllable right now. Maybe it's one out of 100, one out of 1000 of the times you run these AI systems and deploy them in some sort of environments [that] they do try breaking free. That's a bit of a problem later on when they actually gain the capability to break free and when they are able to operate autonomously.There's been lots of studies on this and you can see this in OpenAI's reports whenever they release new models. It's like, “Oh, it's only a 0.1 percent chance of it trying to break free,” but if you run a million of these AI agents, that's a lot of them that are going to be trying to break free. They're just not very capable currently. So I think that the AIs themselves are risky, and if you're having humanity going up against AIs that aren't controlled by anybody, or AIs that broke free, that could get quite dangerous if you also have, as we're seeing now, China and others building more of these humanoid robots in the next few years. This could make them be concerning in that they could just by themselves create some sort of bioweapon. You don't need even human hands to do it, you can just instruct a robot to do it and disperse it. I think that's a pretty easy way to take out biological opposition, so to speak, in kind of an eccentric way.That's a concern. Rogue actors themselves doing this, them reasoning that, “Oh, this bioweapon gives us a secure second strike,” things like that would be a concern from rogue actors. Then, of course, states using this to make an attempt to crush the other state or develop a technology that disables an adversary's secure second strike. I think these are real problems.Maximal progress, minimal risk (33:25)I think what we want to shoot for is [a world] where people have enough resources and the ability to just live their lives in ways as they self-determine . . .Let me finish with this: I want continuing AI progress such that we can cure all the major chronic diseases, that we can get commercial nuclear fusion, that we can get faster rockets, all the kinds of optimistic stuff, accelerate economic growth to a pace that we've never seen. I want all of that.Can I get all of that and also avoid the kinds of scenarios you're worried about without turning the optimistic AI project into something that arrives at the end of the century, rather than arrives midcentury? I'm just worried about slowing down all that progress.I think we can. In the Superintelligence Strategy, we have three parts to that: We have the deterrence part, which I'm speaking about here, and we have making sure that the capabilities aren't falling into the hands of rogue actors — and I think this isn't that difficult, good export controls and add some just basic safeguards of we need to know who you are if we're going to be helping you manipulate viruses, things like that. That's easy to handle.Then on the competition aspect, there are many ways the US can make itself more competitive, like having more guaranteed supply chains for AI chips, so more manufacturing here or in allied states instead of all of it being in Taiwan. Currently, all the cutting-edge AI chips are made in Taiwan, so if there's a Taiwan invasion, the US loses in this AI race. They lose. This is double-digit probability. This is very foreseeable. So trying to robustify our manufacturing capabilities, quite essential; likewise for making robotics and drones.I think there's still many axes to compete in. I don't think it makes sense to try and compete in building a sort of superintelligence versus one of these potentially mutual assured destruction-disrupting AIs. I don't think you want to be building those, but I think you can have your AIs for healthcare, you can have your AIs doing all the complicated math you want, and whatever, all this coding, and driving your vehicles, and folding your laundry. You can have all of that. I think it's definitely feasible.What we did in the Cold War with the prospect of nuclear weapons, we obviously got through it, and we had deterrence through mutual assured destruction. We had non-proliferation of fissile materials to lesser states and rogue actors, and we had containment of the Soviet Union. I think the Superintelligence Strategy is somewhat similar: If you deter some of the most stabilizing AI projects, you make sure that some of these capabilities are not proliferating to random rogue actors, and you increase your competitiveness relative to China through things like incorporating AI into your military by, for instance, improving your ability to manufacture drones and improving your ability to reliably get your hands on AI chips even if there's a Taiwan conflict.I think that's the strategy and this doesn't make us uncompetitive. We are still focusing on competitiveness, but this does put barriers around some of the threats that different states could pose to us and that rogue actors using AI could pose to us while still shoring up economic security and positioning ourselves if AI becomes really relevant.I lied, I had one more short question: If we avoid the dire scenarios, what does the world look like in 2045?I would guess that it would be utterly transformed. I wouldn't expect people would be working then as much, hopefully. If you've controlled it well, there could be many ways of living, as there is now, and people would have resources to do so. It's not like there's one way of living — that seems bad because there's many different values to pursue. So letting people pursue their own values, so long as it doesn't destroy the system, and things like that, as we have today. It seems like an abstract version of the picture.People keep thinking, “Are we in zoos? Are AIs keeping us in zoos?” or something like that. It's like, no. Or like, “Are we just all in the Zuckerberg sort of virtual reality, AI friend thing?” It's like no, you can choose to do otherwise, as well. I think we want to preserve that ability.Good news: we won't have to fold laundry. Bad news: in zoos. There's many scenarios.I think what we want to shoot for is one where people have enough resources and the ability to just live their lives in ways as they self-determine, subject to not harming others in severe ways. But people tend to think there's same sort of forced dichotomy of it's going to be aWALL-EWALL-E world where everybody has to live the same way, or everybody's in zoos, or everybody's just pleasured-out and drugged-up or something. It's forced choices. Some people do that, some people choose to have drugs, and we don't hear much from them, and others choose to flourish, and pursue projects, and raise children and so on.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedMicro Reads▶ Economics* Is College Still Worth It? - Liberty Street Economics* Scalable versus Productive Technologies - Fed in Print▶ Business* AI's Threat to Google Just Got Real - WSJ* AI Has Upended the Search Game. Marketers Are Scrambling to Catch Up. - WSJ▶ Policy/Politics* U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Musk's Starlink, cables show - Wapo* US scraps Biden-era rule that aimed to limit exports of AI chips - FT* Singapore's Vision for AI Safety Bridges the US-China Divide - Wired* A ‘Trump Card Visa' Is Already Showing Up in Immigration Forms - Wired▶ AI/Digital* AI agents: from co-pilot to autopilot - FT* China's AI Strategy: Adoption Over AGI - AEI* How to build a better AI benchmark - MIT* Introducing OpenAI for Countries - OpenAI* Why humans are still much better than AI at forecasting the future - Vox* Outperformed by AI: Time to Replace Your Analyst? Find Out Which GenAI Model Does It Best - SSRN▶ Biotech/Health* Scientists Hail This Medical Breakthrough. A Political Storm Could Cripple It. - NYT* DARPA-Funded Research Develops Novel Technology to Combat Treatment-Resistant PTSD - The Debrief▶ Clean Energy/Climate* What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT? - Sustainability by Numbers* OpenAI and the FDA Are Holding Talks About Using AI In Drug Evaluation - Wired▶ Robotics/AVs* Jesse Levinson of Amazon Zoox: ‘The public has less patience for robotaxi mistakes' - FT▶ Space/Transportation* NASA scrambles to cut ISS activity due to budget issues - Ars* Statistically Speaking, We Should Have Heard from Aliens by Now - Universe Today▶ Substacks/Newsletters* Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class - Noahpinion* The Banality of Blind Men - Risk & Progress* Toys, Pencils, and Poverty at the Margins - The Dispatch* Don't Bet the Future on Winning an AI Arms Race - AI Prospects* Why Is the US Economy Surging Ahead of the UK? - Conversable EconomistFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. 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In celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Jayshree Seth, Ph.D., corporate scientist and chief science advocate at 3M, joins us to discuss the motivation behind her latest book, “The Heart of Science: Engineering Blueprint.” In conversation with SWE CEO and Executive Director Karen Horting, Jayshree shares how “The Heart of Science” trilogy provides a blueprint for a purposeful STEM journey at any career stage. Hear why we need to redefine the concept of mentorship, how an immigrant mindset can help everyone navigate new challenges, and what Jayshree plans to share at WE25 in New Orleans. All proceeds of “The Heart of Science” trilogy go to the Jayshree Seth Scholarship for Women of Color in STEM, administered by SWE. Find out more here: https://alltogether.swe.org/2024/10/heart-of-science-blueprint/ --- The Society of Women Engineers is a powerful, global force uniting 50,000 members of all genders spanning 85 countries. We are the world's largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology. To join and access all the exclusive benefits to elevate your professional journey, visit membership.swe.org.
This episode is brought to you by Horton. To see the photos and documents referenced in the episode, watch the video podcast here: https://youtu.be/UlAoX2duYqM In this special episode of Diverse, Troy Eller English, chief archivist at SWE, and Mary Mann, archives librarian at The Cooper Union, celebrate SWE's 75th anniversary by unpacking stories from the archives. They discuss the founding meeting of SWE in 1950 and reflect on how understanding the past can inform future practices in engineering and society. Hear the contributions of women engineers since that time, the creative ways the SWE archives have been used over the years, and a preview of SWE's upcoming Founder's Day event at The Cooper Union. Don't miss SWE's Founder's Day milestone anniversary event on Tuesday, May 6, at The Cooper Union! The event is free of charge and open to all: https://portal.swe.org/s/community-event?id=a4YPn00000FoALJMA3 --- The Society of Women Engineers is a powerful, global force uniting 50,000 members of all genders spanning 85 countries. We are the world's largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology. To join and access all the exclusive benefits to elevate your professional journey, visit membership.swe.org.
Plus UAE Uses AI To Make LawsLike this? Get AIDAILY, delivered to your inbox, 3x a week. Subscribe to our newsletter at https://aidaily.usWill AI Replace Software Engineers? It Depends on Who You AskAI is reshaping software development, but it's not replacing engineers—yet. Tools like OpenAI's A-SWE can generate code, but they lack the context and creativity humans bring. Experts suggest developers will shift from writing code to reviewing and guiding AI outputs. To stay relevant, engineers must adapt, embracing AI as a collaborator rather than a competitor.AI Is Reimagining Architecture—Here's How It's Changing the GameAI is transforming architecture by automating design tasks, optimizing planning, and enhancing productivity. Tools like Finch3D and Autodesk's AI systems generate floor plans and assist in design processes, allowing architects to focus on creativity and innovation. This shift enables more efficient workflows and opens new possibilities for sustainable and responsive architectural solutions.China's Embodied AI Revolution: Drones, Robot Dogs, and a Whole New VibeIn Shenzhen, AI is no longer just code—it's got a body. Drones drop off bubble tea, robot dogs carry groceries, and humanoid bots are racing humans in marathons. China's going all-in on “embodied AI” to tackle a shrinking workforce and flex its tech muscle. With open-source models like DeepSeek's R1 and major government backing, the future feels more sci-fi by the day.UAE Taps AI to Rewrite the Rulebook—LiterallyThe UAE is putting AI in the driver's seat of lawmaking. With its new Regulatory Intelligence Office, the country plans to use AI to draft, review, and amend laws—cutting legislative timelines by up to 70%. This system links court rulings, public services, and global legal standards, aiming for a smarter, faster, and more responsive legal framework.AI Slop Is Flooding the Internet—and It's Messing With RealityThe internet's being overrun by "AI slop"—a flood of low-effort, AI-generated content that's blurring the lines between real and fake. From bizarre celebrity images to politically charged memes, this stuff is everywhere, distorting our perception and fueling misinformation. It's not just annoying; it's reshaping how we see the world, and not in a good way.Instagram's New AI Move: Catching Teens Pretending to Be AdultsInstagram is rolling out AI that flags users who claim to be adults but act like teens. If the system suspects you're under 18, it'll switch your account to “Teen” mode—think private by default, limited DMs, and content filters. Parents get alerts, and teens can adjust settings if flagged incorrectly. It's all about keeping the platform safer for younger users.
KONU BAŞLIKLARI:1. OpenAI, yeni modelleri o3 ve o4-mini'yi duyurdu. Bu modeller, web araması, Python ile veri analizi, görsel okuma ve gerektiğinde görsel içerik oluşturma gibi gelişmiş yeteneklere sahip. Artık yüklenen görselleri sadece açıklamakla kalmıyor, sorulan sorularla birlikte yorumlayabiliyor.
In this episode, Kilian Lieret, Research Software Engineer, and Carlos Jimenez, Computer Science PhD Candidate at Princeton University, discuss SWE-bench and SWE-agent, two groundbreaking tools for evaluating and enhancing AI in software engineering.Highlights include:- SWE-bench: A benchmark for assessing AI models on real-world coding tasks.- Addressing data leakage concerns in GitHub-sourced benchmarks.- SWE-agent: An AI-driven system for navigating and solving coding challenges.- Overcoming agent limitations, such as getting stuck in loops.- The future of AI-powered code reviews and automation in software engineering.
You've heard this one before: the sexiest quality in the world is confidence. And that's true...but...it's not always easy to muster. Confidence is an inside job, but here's the good news. Once you generate it on your own terms, life - and sex - gets a whole lot easier. So on today's Ask Emily show, I'm joined by my dear friend and former co-host Menace from The Woody Show, as we talk confidence, jealousy, What happens when you adore your partner, but can't stop thinking about their high body count? Or want to have hot phone sex, but don't know where to start? We talk through both. How about when you feel too short to find a great partner, or don't know how to be dominant in bed? We help you think through both. Finally: discovering your partner's can of delay spray. Our listener wonders whether he's sleeping with someone else; we think it's time for open communication. For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/SWE. . Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
In this episode, I sat down with award-winning filmmaker Summer Shelton. to talk about the heart and grit behind independent filmmaking. From growing up on a rural sheep farm in North Carolina and experioening the outdoors. Eventually leading to producing films screened at Cannes and Sundance. Summer shared her incredible journey on how she took a leap during the pandemic. Debuting her film "You & I" a groundbreaking film. Where she handled the writing, editing, directing and producing. The film made on a micro-budget with a 10-person crew, tells a raw, intimate love story. About two people in middle age rediscovering each other over one weekend. It's a film about timing, vulnerability, and the spaces we carry within.We also got into the shifting landscape of film and television. How miniseries blur the lines between movies and TV. In away there the unsung heroes behind the scenes. From production designers to casting directors and the actors hired. Summer spoke candidly about the grind of indie filmmaking. The creative trade-offs, and the resilience required to keep creating. If you're curious about how art, intention, and tight budgets collide to create movie magic, this one's for you.Be sure to check more of Summer's films and projects with website and her socials provided below:https://www.summershelton.com/@s_d_sWe have a magical link below with all our socials and handle so you can find us on your favorite pod spot
OpenAI develops an AI agent, named A-SWE, designed to automate software engineering tasks. This AI will handle the entire workload of software engineers, including app creation, quality assurance, bug checking, and documentation. A-SWE is the third tool from OpenAI, following Operator and Deep Research. Other companies, like Cognition AI, also explore AI in software engineering, though some face challenges in performance. Experts express concerns about AI's potential to replace human engineers, with figures like Dario Amodei and Mark Zuckerberg highlighting the rapid advancements in AI's coding capabilities. Sam Altman notes that the necessary skills in tech are changing, placing emphasis on AI tool proficiency. OpenAI's recent funding rounds raise its valuation significantly.Learn more on this news visit us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Produced entirely using AI | Powered by Google Notebook LMIn this special edition of the AI Takeover Series—part of the Blockchain DXB main podcast—we dive deep into the Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2025, one of the most comprehensive and data-rich annual reports on global AI trends, curated by Stanford University's Human-Centered AI Institute.
We're back for another AITA episode! This time it's all about sexual mismatches. First: they've got a 12-year age difference, and she suspects his sex drive is dwindling. She doesn't want to cheat, but she also wants more sex…what now? Next, he wants sex for pleasure, she was raised to do it only for procreation. Is there any way to meet in the middle? A self-professed "pillow princess" writes in, is she the asshole for wanting to receive pleasure – but not give it? Finally, they're in a dead bedroom of 10 years. “She's repulsed by my touch” he writes, but is he really asserting himself to make healthy changes? You decide For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/SWE. . Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
Allison Grealis, founder and president of the Women in Manufacturing Association (WiM), sits down with SWE CEO and Executive Director Karen Horting to discuss the state of women in manufacturing. Allison reflects on her experience launching WiM and leading its growth to over 32,000 members today. She shares creative retention strategies and workforce training efforts that are shaping the future of manufacturing, along with unique offerings like the Women in Production program, which helps women advance into leadership roles. Plus, as SWE celebrates its 75th anniversary and WiM marks 15 years, hear about SWE and WiM's new partnership. For more, you can read Allison's interview in the spring 2025 issue of SWE Magazine.
There are lots of changes (as always) happening in social work so I thought I'd share my views on some of them in this chatty episode.If you want to skip my opinions and go straight to how you can have a mini rest this spring, realign your boundaries and look at some genuine self care, head to around 33 minutes.In this episode I'm sharing my thoughts on-SWE proposed increase-AI and social work -New Post Qualifying Standards and changes from the ASYE to the 'Social Work Induction Programme' Links to Consultations - Please take part!!Ends on 28th May - https://consult.education.gov.uk/social-work-workforce-ecf-years-1-2/children-s-social-work-post-qualifying-standards-a/AI and Social Work https://www.researchinpractice.org.uk/all/news-views/2025/march/understanding-the-emerging-use-of-ai-in-social-work-practice-and-social-work-education/BASW AI guidelineshttps://www.basw.co.uk/about-basw/campaigning-and-influencing/artificial-intelligence-ai-social-workLets connect!To book in a free 15 minute chat with me, to talk about training, development, courses or membership email vicki@socialworksorted.com Sign up to my free newsletter Join The Collective Ebook Guides Email: vicki@socialworksorted.comLinkedIn: Vicki Shevlin Instagram.com/@vickishevlin_Youtube.com/@socialworksortedFacebook.com/socialworksortedDisclaimer Thank you so much for listening. Please rate, review and share with one other person - it makes such a difference and I really appreciate your support.
Ever wondered: Am I the asshole for watching porn without my partner knowing? Am I the asshole for feeling a little misled about our sex life before we walked down the aisle? Or how about: Am I the asshole for just feeling plain bored with our sex life? You're not alone. Today, Producer Erica and I read your AITA questions and let you know if you're approaching asshole territory. In today's episode, you'll learn: How to be a supportive partner to someone with sexual trauma How to get clearer on your sexual desires About the experiences of sex workers Show Notes: Try OSEA Today! Get 10% off your first order sitewide with code SWE at OSEAMalibu.com Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
Sheila Wray Gregoire is back...for the third time (making SWE history)! A speaker, author, and podcast host, Sheila challenges outdated ideas and offers fresh, research-backed perspectives on what makes a marriage truly thrive. She's here to chat about her new book, The Marriage You Want: Moving Beyond Stereotypes for a Relationship Built on Scripture, New Data, and Emotional Health. We also tackle: Gender stereotypes—why they persist and how to break free Entitlement in marriage—what it looks like and how to shift the mindset The division of household labor—because it should be about sharing the load The mental load—who's really carrying it, and why it matters If you've ever questioned the pervasive myths about what makes a happy marriage, this episode is for you! The Marriage You Want Bare Marriage Sheila's Podcast Sheila on Episode 110 Sheila on Episode 55 Follow Sheila on IG → @sheilagregoire Follow SWE on IG → @so.what.else Follow Kaitlin on IG → @kaitlingraceelliott SWE Website
The Sex With Emily Hotline is open! On this episode, I'm joined by my Producer, Erica, as we talk about disappearing erections, prostate massages, and so much more. First, what do you do when your partner has health issues that cause them to lose their erections? I give one caller ideas for how to work around this issue and thoughts on what might be causing it in the first place. Next, why don't couples fantasize together more often? A couple calls in to share their sexual fantasies, and we give you inspo on how to do the same with your partner. When your partner wants a prostate massage, how do you pull it off? I tell you what to feel for, how to apply pressure and fun toys you can use. Finally, when your partner has never had an orgasm before, how can you help? And should you? In this episode, you'll learn: Why erectile challenges aren't just about the penis—and how you can spice things up while finding solutions How to co-create fantasies with your partner for hotter, more connected sex The secret to unlocking prostate pleasure (and why so many men are missing out) Show Notes: Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Head to MarleySpoon.com/offer/swe and use code SWE for up to 27 FREE meals! Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
Two of your most powerful sex accessories? Your hands. Hands set the tone of your sexual energy. For example, caressing their cheek while you make out versus pinning their hands down while you have sex. And while we talk a lot about what to do with our mouths or genitals on this show, today I'm focusing on a lost art: hand play. Specifically, how to finger, give a hand job, and use your hands with sexual intention. Today, my Producer, Erica, and I first share how to penetrate a vulva with your fingers. We give you tricks to stimulate the labia and clitoris, different forms of pressure and touch, and how to find the G-spot when you finger. Next, we give the penis some love with hand job techniques and upgrades like toy play and perineum stimulation. Finally, we discuss secondary erogenous zones and answer your hand play questions. In this episode, you'll learn: Why hand play—fingering and handjobs—is the underrated pleasure tool you need to master. How to turn up the heat with expert hand techniques for both vulvas and penises. The secret to making manual stimulation feel even better than penetrative sex. Show Notes: Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Try Nutrafol Today! Head to Nutrafol.com and use code "SWE" at checkout for $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
This episode is brought to you by Crown. This Women's History Month episode of Diverse features a compelling conversation with Lori McDowell, who transitioned from a 30-year career in chemical engineering to become a bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and life coach. In conversation with host Hang Loi, Lori candidly discusses how being fired became her catalyst for change, leading to her book, The Reinvention Mindset, and a thriving coaching practice. She shares practical insights about navigating financial uncertainty, finding supportive communities, and integrating both logical and creative thinking. As members of SWE's Late Career and Retiree Affinity Group, both women explore how experienced engineers can embrace new chapters with confidence. As a proud member of SWE's Late Career and Retiree Affinity Group, Lori offers valuable insights for women engineers considering their next chapter, emphasizing that it's never too late to reinvent yourself.
Dating as an adult is exhausting. While experience comes with age, actually applying that experience is easier said than done…even for professionals. With me today are two therapy professionals who also happen to be partners: John Kim and Vanessa Bennett. Their book “It's Not Me, It's You” offers an anecdotal road map of how to “relationship better,” from overcoming commitment issues, to fanning the sex flames, to breaking the blame cycle. John and Vanessa expertly dissect their own relationship to inspire us to create healthy bonds with the people we love. Listen to learn why “the one” is a myth, how to wean ourselves off codependency and how to replace obligatory sex with erotic collaboration. In this episode, you'll learn: Why “The One” is a myth and what actually makes relationships last How to turn obligatory sex into erotic collaboration The secret to avoiding resentment before it ruins your connection Show Notes: More John Kim: Instagram | Website | Book More Vanessa Bennett: Instagram | Website | Book How to Have the Best Sex of Your Life in 2025- Sign up for my FREE masterclass today! For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/SWE. Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
This episode and the WE24 Podcast Studio are proudly sponsored by Apple. In this episode of Diverse, FY25 SWE President Karen Roth joins Lindsay Epstein (Apple) and SWE collegiate member Alden Sherrel to discuss the significance of community, diversity in design, and emerging trends in health and clean energy technology. Lindsay and Alden reflect on their personal journeys, and share how strong community support empowered them to thrive and innovate. They share how opportunities like the Apple Engineering Camp and SWE offer invaluable mentorship through hands-on learning experiences. This episode offers lessons for both emerging and established engineers, emphasizing how good design and diverse perspectives can transform lives and shape our technological future.
When you're not turned on by your partner, should you open the relationship? What does it mean when they don't finish during sex? In today's Hotline Calls episode, I'm taking all your pressing sex questions. First, when you want to bring sex toys and lube into the bedroom, but your partner is firmly opposed…what now? I offer communication tips to help bring down defenses. Next, when you're loving sex with your partner but they never orgasm, is that a cause for concern? I talk about delayed ejaculation and why it happens. We also get into non-monogamy: when you're not turned on by your partner, should you open up the relationship? Or is a different, deeper conversation needed? Finally, when you're happily hooking up, how do you keep casual sex from turning into serious relationships? In this episode, you'll learn: Why performative sex is killing your pleasure—and how to stop. How to ditch “porn mode” and tap into real turn-ons. The secret to being fully present (and having better orgasms). Show Notes: To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/SWE and use code SWE for both the code AND PASSWORD. Description automatically generatedSex New Paperback Cover Now! Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
We all experience performance anxiety in bed from time to time. We get in our heads, we worry we're not hot / good / skilled enough, and sometimes we try to be people we're not during sex. That's why today's episode is about identifying different types of performance anxiety, so that we can show up more confident and relaxed for sex. First I talk through O-blockers: common reasons your orgasm and overall pleasure hit a limit. Next I bring up popular “personas” people adopt in bed, like the cool girl/guy who's down for whatever (even when you're actually not) and the super dominant, in-charge lover (even when you're actually more submissive). Finally, I give you strategies to increase your sexual confidence and take all of your sexual anxiety questions. In this episode, you'll learn: Why performative sex is killing your pleasure—and how to stop. How to ditch “porn mode” and tap into real turn-ons. The secret to being fully present (and having better orgasms). Show Notes: For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code SWE. Buy The Smart Sex New Paperback Cover Now! Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
If you've spent any amount of time listening to SWE, you've heard us talk about Scott and Kaitlin's nephew, Garrett DeClue–player in the Savanna Banana's baseball league and woodsman extraordinaire. Well, Garrett is here, and as they do, things spiral fast! Kaitlin celebrates her birthday with a very painful facial. Emily has a baby shower, and still hasn't changed her last name. We deep dive on skincare and how much self-care is too much self-care. Scott may or may not get his haircut at Walmart. Garrett introduces us to Mr. Pierce, a mysterious man who mows his lawn. And Emily is diabete free! Woo! Get 20% OFF Magic Mind one time purchase & 48% OFF with a subscription https://www.magicmind.com DISCOUNT CODE: WHATELSEPOD20 Follow SWE on Insta → @so.what.else Follow Kaitlin on Insta → @kaitlingraceelliott SWE Website
This episode is sponsored by GE Vernova. In this episode of the Diverse podcast, Reggie Miller, chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer for GE Vernova, joins host Inaas Darrat, SWE president-elect, to discuss the importance of allyship in advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in the workplace. Miller shares his personal journey and motivations for advocating for women in STEM, offering practical strategies, personal anecdotes, and invaluable advice for women navigating male-dominated fields. He also discusses GE Vernova's DEIB initiatives and emphasizes the role of allies in creating an inclusive environment. Don't miss this thought-provoking exploration of what it truly means to be a great ally in the workplace and beyond, including the importance of mutual respect, open communication, and shared goals in building a culture of support and empowerment.
There's no such thing as an “easy life” which is why it's SO important to develop the right tools to help you handle everyday chaos. Today, I'm talking with Tal Rabinowitz who's helping people around the world learn to find calm in their daily commotion with her company The DEN Meditation. She gives tips for beginners who've never tried calming their minds and shares how meditation can totally change your outlook on your relationship. We also talk about judgment, specifically how you can stop labeling everything as ‘bad' or ‘good' and simply let things be what they are. It's 2025—and time to meditate, masturbate, and manifest for a better year. In this episode, you'll learn: How meditation can transform your relationship—See your partner clearly and stop the blame game. Why chaos is personal—and powerful—Own it, don't let it own you. The magic of breath—Calm your mind, spark your pleasure. Show Notes: More Tal Rabinowitz & The DEN Meditation: Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Tal's Instagram Head to MarleySpoon.com/OFFER/SWE and use code SWE for up to 27 FREE meals! Buy The Smart Sex New Paperback Cover Now! Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
This episode of Diverse welcomes Camille Smith, a chemical engineer and founder of STEM So(ul)cial, to explore the challenges and opportunities for women and minorities in STEM. In conversation with host Inaas Darrat, SWE president-elect, Smith shares her journey of navigating her identity in the workplace and the barriers women of color often face in advancing their careers. She sheds light on the “hidden curriculums” that influence career growth, the critical role of community, and why documentation is essential for performance reviews and promotions. Smith also describes how STEM So(ul)cial, a hub for aspiring and established Black STEM professionals, is empowering Black STEM professionals through community-building and resource-sharing.
CAN vs SWE proved one thing last night: this tournament is going to be awesome. Here's what we learned so far.Sign up to become a Friend of the Show to access a Slack community, behind the scenes content, discounts on merch, and more: https://www.patreon.com/dropping_gloves Follow the Show:MerchPatreonFacebookInstagramTwitter / XYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Logan Ury, the author of How to Not Die Alone and director of Relationship Science at Hinge, joins me to share her best tips for all things dating. Logan provides practical tips for avoiding dating blindspots, the drawbacks of unrealistic expectations, and algorithms to live by for finding a satisfying relationship. We discuss how ‘dealbreakers' may be an excuse for avoiding connection, how attachment styles affect our dating outcomes, the paradox of choice in the dating world, and how to get out of the checklist mindset. She also breaks down the most common dating tendencies, shares strategies behind making the best decisions, explains why ‘the spark' may be B.S., and even offers how-to advice for creating a powerful dating profile. Even if you're not dating, you will learn techniques that will strengthen all your relationships. In this episode, you'll learn: Why the spark is total BS—and what actually makes a relationship last How your dating type (romanticizer, maximizer, or hesitator) is messing with your love life The secret to making better choices in dating—so you can finally find your person Show Notes: More Logan Ury: Instagram | Twitter | Website For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/SWE. To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/SWE and use code SWE for both the code AND PASSWORD. Buy Smart Sex New Paperback Cover Now! Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
It's SWE's birthday, and—shocker—we forgot…again. Emily takes a gestational diabetes test and promptly throws it up all over the parking lot. Matt and Emily are deeply immersed in Yellowstone, and everyone agrees Wicked was a hit. Kaitlin's life has been completely transformed by sleeping with earplugs. Emily consistently vetoes Scott's décor ideas. Kaitlin values Emily's opinion more than her husband's. Kaitlin and Scott can't stop chatting up strangers, while Matt and Emily are perfecting the art of avoiding human interaction. And Emily now wants to adopt a dog with no eyes. So yeah, just another totally normal episode. Get 20% OFF Magic Mind one time purchase & 48% OFF with a subscription https://www.magicmind.com DISCOUNT CODE: WHATELSEPOD20 Follow SWE on Insta → @so.what.else Follow Kaitlin on Insta → @kaitlingraceelliott SWE Website
This episode is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. In this episode of Diverse, Tricia Marks, director of security technology operations at the U.S. Department of State, shares her incredible journey as a trailblazing woman in engineering with host Larry Guthrie, SWE's director of content strategy. Marks reflects on her upbringing in Brooklyn, where her father's work sparked her interest in engineering, and takes us through her global career spanning over two decades, including assignments in Iraq, China, and Mongolia. She dives into the evolving challenges of security engineering, the transformative power of mentorship, and the importance of building supportive communities for women in STEM. Marks also shares how organizations like National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and SWE have helped in shaping her career and offers practical advice for aspiring engineers interested in exploring opportunities at the State Department.
Back at it again for another week, the lads celebrate what we feel is the logical choice for #57 — Mr. Steven Heinze! He plied his trade for the Bruins for 9 years, before finishing with stints in Columbus, Buffalo and LA. Legend has it that notorious hater of fun Harry Sinden refused to let Heinze wear #57 while with Boston, depriving us of an iconic no-brainer — remember kids, it's Heinze and there are no other kinds! Then we talk about the league wide shut down for the inaugural Four Nations Cup, which kicks off with Canada facing Sweden on February 12th. We talk initial line pairings for Canada and the US, and speculate who's going to carry the weight between the pipes for the mighty maple leaf! We wrap up with some Jet's talk — they're pretty good eh?! Then we talk Apuckalypse and a little Garage League action…
In this episode of Diverse, Ucheonye Maple, leadership expert, author, and founder of the Women Who Leap Community, explores the evolving landscape of leadership in high-stakes industries like aerospace and defense, emphasizing the crucial role of empathy, communication, and adaptability. Uche shares her insights on how leaders can foster diverse, innovative teams by understanding the end users of their products, embracing continuous learning, and overcoming biases. From navigating generational differences to building inclusive work environments, this conversation is packed with actionable takeaways for leaders at all levels. Plus, Ucheonye Maple is also the keynote speaker at SWE's WE Local Conference in San Jose, Calif. Visit welocal.swe.org for more details.
Louvere Walker-Hannon, application engineer senior team lead at MathWorks, joins us for this episode of Diverse to unpack the concept of weathering — the physical toll chronic stress takes on the human body, especially among women of color. In conversation with host Inaas Darrat, SWE president-elect, Walker-Hannon shares her inspiring journey in STEM, starting with a love for archaeology, and reflects on the challenges she's faced as a woman of color in engineering. Together, they explore the systemic barriers that contribute to health disparities and underrepresentation in STEM fields. Walker-Hannon also delves into the hidden toll of systemic challenges, exploring how adversity can shape resilience and inspire change. She unpacks the ripple effects of chronic stress on health, the power of community awareness, and the transformative potential of advocacy.
I've heard from a lot of my listeners that they struggle with talking dirty in the bedroom. Today I'm joined by porn star, author, exotic dancer, and dirty talk expert Joanna Angel to break down what to say, how to start if you've never tried it and how to crank your dirty talk up from dusty to undeniably filthy. In this episode, you'll learn: Dirty talk made easy with simple tips to start and spice it up without feeling awkward Sexting secrets to tease, turn on, and build anticipation like a pro Confidence in the bedroom by owning your desires and feeling empowered in and out of bed Show Notes: More Joanna Angel: Linktree | Instagram | Twitter | Book To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/SWE and use code SWE for both the code AND PASSWORD. Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
Last time we continued to speak about the Kumul Rebellion.. Ma Shaowu, appointed as Taoyin, executed rival Ma Fuxing and tightened anti-Soviet policies, responding to growing Soviet influence following Yang Zengxin's assassination in 1928. Kashgar became a refuge for conservative Turkic Muslims opposing Chinese authority, amidst a backdrop of rising tension with Tungan troops, perceived as oppressors. By 1931, as news of the Kumul Rebellion spread, resistance against the Han Chinese intensified, emboldening local insurgents to unite against their enemies. In May 1932, Jin sought vengeance against Tsetsen Puntsag Gegeen, the Torgut Mongol regent, hosting him under the guise of an investigation. At a banquet, Tsetsen was executed, igniting fury among the Turkic peoples. As the Kumul Rebellion grew, rebel leaders Ma Fuming and Ma Shihming united forces, launching assaults that devastated Chinese control. By March 1933, Ma Shaowu found his authority diminished, desperately appealing for British aid as rebellion spread, leaving Xinjiang in chaos. #134 Kumul Rebellion part 3: A Game of Thrones in Southern Xinjiang Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. So we last left off in mid March, where Ma Shaowu's control over southern Xinjiang had diminished to just a wedge of territory around Kashgar, Maral Bashi and Yarkland. Morale was so low, Ma Shaowu asked the British Indian government for military assistance as it seemed apparent no help would come from Urumqi. Ma Shaowu had received 3 telegrams from Jin via the USSR lines; the first confirmed his position as Commander in Chief; the second relayed Jin's brother's death and the third directed Jin Kashgar representatives to remit a large sum of money to his personal bank account in Tientsin. That last signal must have been a banger to read. Despite reinforcements sent to Yarkland under Colonel Chin, rampant inflation went unchecked and a sense of panic spread amongst the Chinese officials stationed in the region. In response the Chinese officials began withdrawing into Yarkland New City which was fortified with walls being hurriedly repaired and reinforced. Apparently heavy stones were placed all atop the walls to be thrown upon the rebels and 500 dummy figures were placed on the walls to “give the impression of a well-manned rampart”. When you start making dummy's for a wall defense, you know you are going to die. On March 21st, insurgent forces at Tokhta Langar advanced upon Yarkland. Colonel Chin's men made no attempt to resist the rebels and instead looted Guma and fell back using little known hill track by passing Karghalik and Posgam, killing large numbers of Uyghur civilians for good measure in the process. The rebels advanced straight to Yarkland unnopposed seizing Karghalik and Posgam in the process. Within both places a number of Hindu moneylenders of British Indian nationality were slaughtered. Back in Yarkland New City the provincial forces continued to bolster their defenses. By late March a group of 150 Chinese troops who had fled the rebels at Khotan arrived with a further 300 showing up to the oasis on April 2nd. During this period Muslim insurgents had massed up along the east bank of Yarkland River. They looked ill-armed and untrained as they forced the river during the first week of April. On the 11th of April Yarkland Old City fell to a mixed rebel force from Khotan, Karghalik and Posgam, seeing roughly 100 Chinese who were still outside the fortified New City massacred. In the afternoon, the bazaar connecting the Old and New Cities of Yarkand was set ablaze and completely destroyed. The shops belonging to Chinese moneylenders were ravaged, and their belongings were looted, leading to a siege of Yarkand New City. On the 12, rebel forces moved beyond Yarkand towards Kok Rabat, a key point on the route to Kashgar. At the same time, additional insurgent reinforcements from Khotan began to pour into the Yarkand Oasis. So by April, Ma Shaowu's position was simply done for, his only hope was to reach an agreement with the incoming force led by Ma Chanzeng. He opened up negotiations with Ma Chanzeng through the British Consul General at Kashgar, Fitzmaurice. However Ma Chanzeng could not speak for his Uyghur ally Temur, whom he was having issues with. To make matters worse, the Kirghiz levies began to mutiny on April 5th at Sughun Karaul, a Chinese fortified post roughly 65 miles northwest of Kashgar. This was followed by peasant uprisings amongst the Uyghurs at Artush and Fayzabad. Facing this Ma Shaowu ordered Brigadier Yang and the troops at Maral Bashi to fall back to Kashgar. Before departing Maral Bashi Yans troops burned and looted the town after which “They set out on their way to Kashgar with a large number of carts laden with refugees or loot or both; but this proved to be the last straw. The troops made slow progress, and in the meantime the whole countryside, incensed beyond endurance, rose against the Chinese. A bridge was broken at Kara Yulgun and, while the column was halted, it was set upon by a vast horde of rebels”. Karma is a bitch as they say. Brigadier Yang was wounded during the ambush and taken prisoner by rebels. Of his original force of around 1000, its estimated only 65 men limped back to Kashgar by the 27th of april. Meanwhile the main bulk of the Kirghiz mutineers advanced to Artush by April 15th from whence they menaced Kashgar as other Kirghiz groups attacked Kizil Oi and Ulugh Chat and demolish Chinese pots at Bulun Kul. With the dissolvement of Brigadier Yangs forces from Maral Bashi, Kashgar was completely vulnerable and isolated. Ma Shaowu, was probably very anxious to reach an agreement with Ma Chanzeng, but still took the precaution of preparing for a siege. As the Chinese were soiling themselves awaiting the rebel attacks, suddenly a divide emerged between the Tungan and Turkic factions. It appeared Ma Chanzeng had become concerned over reports of Uyghur insurgents rising up in Khotan, who owed him no loyalty. So he decided to reach an agreement with Ma Shaowu. Ma Shaowu agreed to allow Tungan power to be established at Kashgar, the military and economic key to southern Xinjiang. Ma Chanzeng dispatched a message via the British Consul general at Kashgar offering assurance that the sole objective of the Tungan forces in Xinjiang was to overthrow the tyrannical Jin Shujen and his reforms. Thus having seemingly distanced himself from the Turkic speaking Muslims of the south, whose apparent goal was to fully succeed from the Chinese Republic, Ma Chanzeng and Temur advanced to Kashgar. Back over in Kashgar Old City, Turkic speaking nationalists calling themselves the Young Kashgar Party or “YKP” had become suspicious of Ma Chanzeng's motives and believed perhaps there was collusion between Gansu Tungans and Ma Shaowu. The Uyghurs feared this would lead to Tungan domination of Kashgar and the replacement of Han Chinese tyrants for Tungan tyrants. 7 leading members of the YKP set out from Kashgar to persuade Ma Chanzeng that Ma Shaowu would betray him. They met at Fayzabad with Uthman Ali, the leader of the Kirghiz mutineers present. Upon hearing their plea, Ma Chanzeng asked Uthman Ali to lead the Kirghiz to attack Kashgar Old City. Early on May 2nd, Uthman Ali led a large Kirghiz force against the Old city and according to the eye witness account of the British Consul General “They took up positions opposite each of the four gates of the city and at the same time sent parties to call up the country people Uyghurs. These appeared from all sides in thousands, armed with clubs and sticks, and there was a great display of enthusiasm ... Firing continued until about two in the afternoon, when the Kirghiz either forced an entry or were admitted by the Tushik Gate'. Most of the non-Chinese garrison simply joined the rebels. At the yamen, Ma Shaowu and his personal bodyguard continued to hold out as the Kirghiz secured the Old City, but notably prevented the Uyghurs from looting and ordered them back to their villages. The reason for this unexpected restraint became clear the next day, when the Kirghiz were left in sole possession of the Old City, and who proceeded to sack it themselves. The British Consul General estimated 100 Chinese were killed and their looted property was carried off or auctioned on the street. During the afternoon around 300 Uyghurs led by Temur arrived at Kashgar and were admitted into the Old City without any question by the Kirghiz, followed by the Tungans with Ma Chanzeng. Both forces marched to the walls of Kashgar New City, roughly 2.5 miles distant and after negotiations with the Chinese defenders were allowed entrance. The British Consul General had this to say of the moment “It was probably better to surrender to the Tungans than to be slaughtered by the Kirghiz”. With the fall of Kashgar New City, Han Chinese power in southern Xinjiang, excluding the besieged garrison of Yarkland New City was effectively brought to an end. On May 7th, Ma Chanzeng realized the YKP had misled him and that Temur was under their influence and thus no longer a reliable ally. After the capture of Kashgar Old City, it seems the Kirghiz began negotiating with Temur over the spoils of their victory and made zero attempt to loot the Old City Yamen where Ma Shaowu was holding out. Ma Shaowu would make a invaluable ally against the Turkic nationalists who controlled Old city and much of southern Xinjiang. Thus Ma Chanzeng began secretly negotiating with Ma Shaowu. As a result the next day, Ma Chanzengs men put up notices announcing that the Taoyin and other officials of the former regime should retain their official posts. This obviously pissed off the Turkic Muslims who did now share the same loyalty to the Chinese Republic as the Tungans. The Kirghiz immediately manned the walls and closed the gates of the Old City, preparing to face the Tungans. At this point Ma Shaowu defused the situation temporarily by resigning as Taoyin and handed the officials seals over to Ma Chanzeng. Ma Chanzeng did not take the title of Taoyin, but certainly controlled the Old City Yamen and New City, keeping Ma Shaowu close and protected. It seems Ma Chanzengs strategy was to try and drive a wedge between Uthman Ali's Kirghiz and Temurs Uyghurs before a unified Turkic alliance could form, perhaps one that even incorporated Khotan forces. He was of course concerned with limiting the influence of the YKP who seemed to be as anti-Tungan as they were anti-Chinese. On the 10th he ordered the arrest of the most prominent YKP leader, Abd al-Rahim Bay Bachcha, who was released only after agreeing to supply the Tungan forces with 1000 uniforms at his own expense. Following this, Ma Chanzeng seized Temur who had just been proclaimed commander in chief of the combined Muslim armies at Kashgar. Temuar was invited to a meeting at the Old City Yamen on the 17th where he was placed under arrest. Had Ma Chanzeng managed to transfer his captive into the New City, he may have succeeded in his plans. But he did not have enough men to man both the Old and New Cities and when he tried to block the Uyghurs and Kirghiz from rescuing Temur they simply stormed the city walls. With the failure to secure Temur, Ma Chanzeng had basically revealed to the Turkic Muslims and confirmed the claims of the YKP that he intended to set up a Tungan regime in Kashgar. On May 18th the pissed of Kirghiz mounted a surprise attack on the Old City. They avoided the yamen where Ma Chanzeng and Ma Shaowu remained, as Tungan forces there were heavily armed with artillery and machine guns, but murdered any other Tungans they found in the Old City. Fighting went on throughout the day and night. As a result of the Kirghiz attack, Ma Chanzeng agreed to hand control over Kashgar to Temur and Uthman Ali. On the 19th a very inconclusive treaty was signed seeing Temur confirmed as the Commander in Chief and Uthman Ali promoted to General in command of Kirghiz forces. Ma Chanzeng was given no official position, but retained control of the TUngan troops and on the 22nd accompanied by all of them withdrew from the yamen to Kashgar New City. Meanwhile Ma Chanzengs Tungan chief of staff, Su Qinzhou and Yunus Beg, a Uyghur of Kumul were appointed joint Taoyin of Kashgar and Ma Shaowu was permitted to take up residence in a nearby country house under protection from both Temur and Chanzeng. The truce was followed awkward and uneasy peace with the Tungans controlling New City and the Turking speaking Muslims the Old City and Taoyins yamen. Fitzmaurice went on to state “that 'Ma Chanzeng, Temur and Uthman Ali all settled down to the congenial business of accumulating wealth and wives, whilst the YKP continued its intrigues against the Tungans, organized a 'parliament' of forty members, subsequently greatly expanded, and sent two delegates to Khoja Niyas Hajji, the leader of the Uighur rebels at Kumul”. By this point it seemed Temur had fallen completely under the influence of the YKP and began issuing passports styling himself as “Temur Shah”. These documents also employed the Islamic Hijri date and not the Chinese Republic date, thwarting Nanjing's authority. Over in the southern rim of the Tarim Basin, an are untroubled by the Tungan invasion and free from the Kirghiz movement, Khotan had emerged as a center of exclusive Uyghur control. Ismail Khan Khoja, the leader of the gold miner rebels of Karakash was soon eclipsed by the Uyghur nationalist committee for national revolution, known as the CNR, who was founded in Khotan in early 1932 by Muhammad Amin Bughra. Muhammad Amin Bughra was a scholar in his 30's and alongside his two younger brothers, Abdullah and Nur Ahmad, with some friends and fellow students began the movement. In early 1933 this group was joined by Abd al-Baqi Sabit Damullah, a teacher and former Qadi, that being an islamic judge from Kulja who had traveled extensively through the USSR, Turkey, Egypt and India. According to Muhammad Amin Bughra, “Sabit Damullah brought political information and experience to the Khotanlik Committee for National Revolution”. They were only 300 members who possessed nothing more than 50 antiquated rifles. Their political philosophy, like that of the YKP was uncompromising, they were nationalists who were extremely anti-communist, anti-christian, anti-tungan and anti-Han. The CNR favored the establishment of an Islamic theocracy in Xinjiang, with Muhammad AMin Bughra as its head of state. Muhammad Amin Bughra was working in Khotan as a mudarris, or teacher at Quranic college when an uprising began in February of 1933 in Karakash and Surghak. On the 20th of February the CNR leadership met and formed a provisional government with Muhammad Niyas Alam as president, Sabit Damullah as Prime Minister and Muhammad Amin Bughra as commander of the armed forces. Muhammad Amin Bughra also took the title “Amir al-islam” while his younger brothers took “Amir Abdullah khan” and “Amir Nur Ahmad Jan”. In most sources the rise of the CNR provisional government is referred to as the Government of the Khotan Amirs. Their new government was religiously intolerant, as a result when Khotan New City was captured on March 16th, the 266 or so Han Chinese there were forcibly converted to Islam. Following that, the Hindu moneylenders were murdered and the Swedish missionaries were exiled. Shari a law was implemented under the CNR with strict application of hadd criminal legislation. Between March and April the regime was reinforced by Janib Beg, a well known Basmachi leader who fled the USSR to reside in the Keriya Oasis under Ma Shaowu's control. Janib Beg made common cause with the Amirs and given his extensive military experience during the Basmachi struggle was placed in charge of a large body of Khotanlik rebel forces. After they secured the Khotan Oasis, the Amirs began expanding their influence east towards Lop Nor and west towards Kashgar. In response to a appeal from the Uyghurs of Charchan who were resisting their Tungan liberators, a force of 100 Khotanliks came to guard against the Kara Shahr Tungan who were occupying the Charkhlik Oasis. Meanwhile in the west, Khotanlik forces captured Guma, Karghalik, Posgam and Yarkland Old City by early April. During the fight for Yarkland New City, over 2000 Han Chinese and Tungans were besieged by their forces. On the 24th, Amir Badullah Khan arrived to Yarkland to personally oversee the siege of its New City. According to Fitzmaurice, the Khotanlik forces had organized a military band, were doning red uniforms in stark contrast to the Tungan troops of Ma Chanzeng who wore green. Amir Badullah was greeted with a large ceremony as Turking speaking officials who had previously served under the Han Chinese were dragged through the streets in chains. On the 27th Amir Abdullah ordered the Swedish missionaries in Yarkland to be arrested and brought to him. We are told “Abdullah kicked and beat them himself, announcing that by their teaching the missionaries had destroyed the religion of Islam, and that it was therefore his duty to kill them'. The poor Swe's were only saved from a firing squad by the intervention of some British officials, instead they were exiled. Afterwards Abdullah focused his attention upon the siege of Yarkland New City. He ordered the water supply cut and for tunnels to be made to breach the walls. On the 27th three delegates from Ma Shaowu came to Yarkland and attempted to negotiate with Abdullah. Abdullahs response was to shoot a prisoner in their presence in what he called “a method of bringing them to a proper state of mind”. Then Abdullah sent them into the besieged New City to inform its defenders that their lives and property would be spared if they simply agreed to convert to Islam and lay down their arms. The besieged Han Chinese led by Colonel Qin, hastily agreed to the terms and on May 12th prepared to surrender. Shortly before this date however, the first Tungan and Turkic speaking troops, fresh from their victory at Kashgar arrived. Believing victory was well within his grasp, Abdullah became openly hostile with the Tungans and made it clear the newcomers were not appreciated. Faced with Khotanlik hostility, the small but well armed Tungans who owed their allegiance to Ma Chanzeng, and through him to Ma Chongying, entered the New City and strengthened its Tungan elements against the Khotanliks. Abdullah was shocked by this revelation and his hostility also had the effect of hardening the Chinese Muslim troops. They even sortied on May 18th briefly attacking and capturing the Altin and Khanqah gates of Yarkland Old City, setting fire to the surrounding areas before pulling back to New City. The Uyghur troops of Aksu and Kashgar led by Hafiz, a subordinate of Temur seemed to be keeping a neutral stance until the 22nd when news of the Tungan-Turkic conflict at Kashgar reached them. Following this, the two Turkic speaking armies at Yarkland cooperated in the siege of the New City. Despite the cooperation, Hafiz and Abdullah remained bitter rivals. Facing the united Turkic attack and realizing there would be no relief efforts from Kashgar, the Chinese of Yarkland New City surrendered on the 26th taking the original terms Abdullah had given them back on the 12th. The surrender would be incomplete however as the Tungans insisted on retaining their weapons and being allowed to go to Kashgar. The victorious Uyghurs and Kirghiz took 540 rifles from the Chinese and divided the spoils. However the men under Hafiz notably took the best quality rifles out of the pickings. The defeated Chinese and defiant Tungans were divided into two groups roughly 1000 each and given permission to go to Kashgar. Neither party would reach its destination unmolested however. The first column, made up mostly of Tungan cavalry, was attacked and cut to pieces near Kizil. What became known as the Kizil Massacre was performed by a group of Kirghiz who owed their allegiance to Uthman Ali. Following the Kizil massacre, the Kirghiz irregulars entered Yangi Hissar where they killed all the Han Chinese and Tungans they could find. The second column was attacked and looted before they even got out of Yarkland, but did not undergo a massacre. When news came of the Kazil and Yangi Hissar massacrs to Kashgar, Su Qinzhou, the Tungan joint Taoyin departed the Old City Yamen to protest the killing of fellow Tungans and joined Ma Chanzeng in Kashgar New City. On May 31st, the Uyghurs of Aksu rose up and expelled the few Muslim Chinese that remained in their Oasis. The Taoyin that had been appointed by Ma Chanzeng and therefore was considered too pro-Tungan was removed from his post and replace by the leader of the Aksu insurgents, a Uyghur named Ismail Beg whose loyalty belongs to the anti-tungan Khotan Amirs. The fall of Yarkland New City, massacre at Kizil and Yangi Hissar had not just signaled the final collapse of Han Chinese authority in southern Xinjiang, but also the alienation of Chinese speaking Muslims from their Turkic speaking neighbors. By the summer of 1933, the political power struggle in the south was now between the Uyghur and Kirghiz factions led by Amir Muhammad Amin Bughra at Khotan and the Tungan forces of Ma Chanzeng at Kashgar New City. Excluding Ma Chanzeng's forces the struggle over southern Xinjiang was more or less fought between the rival Turkic speaking Muslim factions at Khotan and Kashgar. Following the fall of Yarkland New City on the 26th of May, Temurs representative Hafiz attempted to conciliate with the Khotan Amirs, who were not happy their side got the less impressive rifles when they distributed the loot. Hafiz strengthened his forces then estimated to be 400 Uyghurs from Aksu and Kashfar, by conscripting another 200 Dunlanis from Merket. Discovering this, the Amirs transferred command over their Yarkland forces to the youngest brother, Nur Ahmad Jan, while Abdullah set out for Kashgar at the head of 2000 Khotanliks. This action seems to be done to place pressure upon Temur. Meanwhile another force of 1000 Khotanliks under the Basmachi Janib Beg arrived at Kashgar on June 11th. Janib Beg's arrival with his poorly armed troops caused uproar amongst the local Turkic speaking leadership and Soviet Consulate General who feared the anti-Soviet Basmachi leader would swing the ongoing revolution to the right. Janib Beg immediately established his HQ at the garden of the Turkic nationals Abd Al-Rahim Bay Bachcha, raising the old spectre of an alliance forming between the Khotan AMirs and YKP, elements of whom were currently in favor of cooperating with the USSR. On July 4th, the Khotanlik presence was substantially increased by the arrival of Amir Abdullah, who brought over Prime Minister Sabit Dammulah and Shaykh al-Islam. Although Abdullahs forces were numerous, they were very ill-equipped. British reports indicate about 300 of them were armed with Russian rifles while another 300 had antiquated muzzle loaders and the rest bore Chumaq or heavy clubs. Nevertheless they posed a threat to both Uthman Ali and Temur, neither of whom sought to share the large stocks of food, money and arms they had looted in Kashgar New City. Temur made an elaborate show of welcoming Abdullah, installing him at the garden between the Old and New Cities pending more suitable arrangements. Meanwhile at Yarkland, negotiations between Hafiz and Nur Ahmad Jan continued. Hafiz on behalf of Temur claimed territories of the Yarkland River, including Yarkland Old and New City, while Nur Ahmad Jan on behalf of the Khotan Islamic Government countered with claiming Kashgar and Maral Bashi. After a couple of incidents between the two armies, Nur Ahmad Jan took action against a number of Yarkandlik Begs who had petitioned Hafiz to intervene on their behalf. All the offenders were executed with their severed heads and displayed in public to antagonize Hafiz. When news of this reached Temur at Kashgar he was royally pissed and decided to make a move against the Khotanlik forces at Kashgar. Temur sought the support of his Kirghiz ally Uthman Ali, stressing the threat the Amir's would make to his position and bought off numerous other Kirghiz leaders. By mid-July, Uthman and his Kirghiz cavalry prepared to return to the mountains above Kashgar lulling the Khotanlik's into a false sense of security. Then suddenly on the morning of July 13th, Temur sent a force of 750 men to arrest Janib Beg. Abdullah was informed of this and sent 100 of his men to help Janib Beg, but they arrived too late and found themselves likewise arrested. Following this minor success against Janib Beg, Temur and Thman Ali coordinated their efforts against Abdullah. They managed to corner and arrest him while disarming a large number of his troops. Realizing he was in imminent danger of getting arrested as well, al-islam Sabit Damullah fled for Artush, but was caught and quickly brought back to the Old City Yamen. During these actions casualties were quite light for both sides. On the night of July 13th, Abdullah and Sabit Damullah were placed under house arrest at the gardens, while Janib Beg was kept under close arrest. Now the new balance of power in southern Xinjiang had been held at a conference in Kashgar Old City on July 4th, attended by all the prominent Muslim leaders except Janib Beg and Ma Chanzeng. At the meeting it was agreed that the entire Yarkland Oasis should be transferred to Temurs control, while the Khotan Islamic government would be on the east bank of the Yarkland River. When news of this agreement reached Yarkland however, panic set in amongst the Khotanlik troops who had been ordred to withdraw from Yarkland New City by Hafiz. Hafiz moved quickly to exploit the situation, sending 200 men to hold the ferries across the Yarkland River to cut off the Khotanlik retreat. He arrested Nur Ahmad Jan and disarmed hundreds of his troops in the process. Nur Ahmad Jan was imprisond in Yarkland Old City, just as his brother Abdullah was in Kashgar. Shortly after this, in violation of the agreements made as Kashgar, Hafiz sent his forces across the Yarkland River into the territory of the Khotan government and captured the town of Karghalik on July 20th. The major reverses of the Khotan Amirs followed closely with the withdrawal of Ma Chanzeng's Tungan forces to Kashgar New City, leaving the victorious Uyghur leader Temur and Kirghiz leader Uthman Ali well placed to expand their political control over the whole of western Tarim Basin. Such a feat could have been possible, if both leaders were capable of cooperating against the besieged Tungans. Uthman Ali, now taking the name Amir Al-Muslimin “prince of the believers” and Ghazi “holy warrior” was keen to attack Ma Chanzeng, whom he had personal quarrels. Temur on the other hand was not keen on full scale war against his former ally. Thus Uthman Ali withdrew from Kashgar to the hills on July 18th. Shortly after his departure, on the 26th a party of Khoja Niyas Hajjis officers, accompanied by 30 Kumullik soldiers arrived at Kashgar and presented Temur with an official seal and letter recognising his position as Commander in Chief of Kashgar. Its alleged, Khoja Niyas Hajji's delegates pressured Temur to attack Ma Chanzeng's forces in Kashgar New City. But Temur still did not want to do so, but agreed to invite Uthman Ali back to Kashgar to possibly perform joint operations against the besieged New City. Uthman Ali came back, but by August 8th, he departed again as Temur proved too reluctant to act. It seems Temur may have seen the situation as an ideal one to eliminate his Kirghiz ally and emerge the sole Turkic speaking Muslim commander in Kashgar. In any case he secretly formed an agreement with Ma Chanzeng and sent a large part of his army to pursue and disarm Uthman Ali and his Kirghiz forces. How Temurs Uyghur irregular infantry would overtake disarming mounted Kirghiz troops is anyone's guess. On August 9th, Temur left Kashgar Old City by car to see how his men were faring. Shortly after a force of 500 Tungans rapidly overran the ill defended Old City. Temur had made a fatal mistake. He was intercepted by Ma Chanzengs men on his way back to the Old City, where he was arrested and shot without ceremony. His head was cut off and placed on a spike outside the Id-gat Mosque in Kashgar Old City. Its like game of thrones in Xinjiang isnt it? As a result of slaying Temur, the Uyghur forces were left leaderless. Both Janib Beg and Abdullah took advantage of the chaos and escaped prison, fleeing southeast towards Yarkland. Ma Shaowu likewise slipped away from his house arrest, fleeing to Ma Chanzeng. The Tungans made zero effort to garrison the Old City, but disarmed and plundered its arsenal. On August 13th, Uthman Ali returned to Kashgar and sent a message to Ma Chanzeng asking his Kirghiz forces be given a share of the weapons taken from Temurs men. Ma Chanzeng refused to comply, so the Kirghiz forces attacked Old city, capturing it easily by the 16th. During the battle Uthman Ali's younger bother Umar was killed alongside 150 Kirghiz when they failed to attack the walls of New City. After taking Old City, Uthman Ali assumed Temurs title as Commander in Chief of the Turkic speaking forces at Kashgar. But he did not enjoy the full support of the Uyghurs and his Kirghiz had no hunger to attack the walls of New City, eager to return to their lands in Tien Shan. Then two new and unexpected things happened. On the 26th of August, a Syrian Arab adventurer named Tawfiq Bay arrived at Kashgar. He was a charismatic character, claiming to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and had served for a time as an official under King Abd Al Aziz ibn-saud and a man who had formal military training and experience. Two days later the representatives of Khoja Niyas Hajji, arrived as a Kumullik delegation. They soon rallied the dispirited Turkic speaking forces in Kashgar Old City and urged them to renew their attack against Ma Chanzeng. Uthman Ali and his Kirghiz forces thus renewed their attack, aided by the Uyghurs who were rallied under Tawfiq Bay. Meanwhile on the southern front Hafiz had found out about Temurs death, thus he halted his advance against the Khotanlik forces and returned to Yarkland New City. At the same time Abdullah reappeared in Yarkland taking command of the undefended Old City. From this new base he rallied the disorganized Khotanlik forces still in Karghalik and began a siege of Yarkland New City, still held by Hafiz with a mixed force number 600 Uyghurs and Dulanis. Meanwhile both Tawfiq Bay and the representatives of Khoja Niyas Hajji at Kashgar sent messengers to the Amirs stressing the need for joint Turkic actions against the Tungans, and appealed for a cease-fire between Hafiz and Abdullah in Yarkland. On September 26, Yarkland New City opened its gates to the Khotanlik forces of Hafiz and allowed the Uyghurs of Aksu and Kashgar to leave the oasis disarmed, but unharmed. Following this Abdullah assumed control over Yarkland, while Nur Ahmad Jan advanced at the head of a large force to Yangi Hissar to take control over its fortified citadel. The Khotan Islamic government still led by Amir Muhammad Amin Bughra from Khotan was thus extended west to the fringes of Kashgar and upon invitation from Tawfiq Bay, the Khotanlik Prime Minister and Al-Islam Sabit Damullah, negotiated the formation of a unified Turkic speaking Muslim alliance in southern Xinjiang. The alliance was one of necessity as the Tungan forces of Ma Chanzeng were tossing back attacks by the combined forces of Taqfiq Bay and Uthman Ali with ease. On September 7th, the Tungans sortied from New City and devastated their enemy at the village of Sekes Tash, killing 200 Uyghurs and Kirghiz. Tawfiq Bay and Uthman Ali soon received reinforcements, including Hafiz and his 500 troops, 300 additional Uyghur recruits from Aksu under a officer named Idris and a rather mysterious force of 300 Andijani Uzbeks under the command of Satibaldi Jan, a 25 year old Uzbek from Soviet Uzbekistan. With this mixed and ill armed force they all tried to pressure Ma Chanzeng, but it was still to no avail. Attempts to mine the New City walls all ended in failure as did attempts to starve them out. Uthman Ali's Kirghiz and local Uyghurs began to run into conflicts, as the Kirghiz felt they were bearing the brunt of the fighting. Soon some Kirghiz had 3 Uyghurs executed in Old City for “filling cartridges with sand instead of power”. Other Uyghurs were hung publicly outside the Id-gah Mosque for selling food to the besieged Tungans. Support for the siege wavered and by late September morale was so low, the local authorities stopped issuing passports to stop a exodus from the Oasis. Then on the 26th, Tawfiq Bay was seriously injured and could no longer lead from the front. Uthman Ali then resigned from his post as commander in chief on October 2nd in shame, fleeing to the hills, followed closely by Satibaldi and other local leaders. A power vacuum in Kashgar opened up and was filled by Sabit Damullah, the Prime Minister of the Khotan Islamic Government. Thus in the end, with the exception of the Tungans held up in Kashgar New City, the Khotan Amirs now dominated southern Xinjiang. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. In what can only be described as a form of Game of Thrones in Southern Xinjiang, numerous groups fought together, then against each other, then together, until one was king of the hill. The Tungans still clung onto Kashgar New City, but with the Khotan Amirs at the reigns, could they take it all?
Jenny Mollen is the author of City of Likes, a fictional comedy about mommy influencer culture and the intensity of female friendships – especially when one of them is a narcissist. Are they obsessed with each other? Do they want to have sex with each other? And what do you do when someone's perfectly-curated facade finally cracks? Jenny and I met years ago, and I know you'll love her just as much as I do. Besides being a bestselling author, she's also an actor, a mom, and wife to actor Jason Biggs. In this episode, she talks about the personal experiences with social media that inspired her book, why she wants to see a sex therapist, and helps me answer your sex and relationship questions. For example, if you're in a relationship, is it ok to comment on someone else's Instagram telling them how attractive they are? Jenny and I give it to you straight. In this episode, you'll learn: How to navigate the tricky relationship dynamics of long-term partnerships and social media. Why laughter and authenticity are key to maintaining intimacy over the years. The surprising connections between personal vulnerability, desire, and self-discovery. Show Notes: More Jenny Mollen: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Website Jenny Mollen's Books For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/SWE. Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com
‘Tis the season to give and receive! In this episode, I'm unwrapping the 2024 Sex With Emily Holiday Gift Guide to help you bring more pleasure to your loved ones—and yourself—this year. From wellness essentials to stocking stuffers and, of course, must-have sex toys, there's something for everyone on your list (yes, even your grandparents!). I'll share my top picks, tips for introducing a partner to toys, and why the gift of pleasure is truly the gift that keeps on giving. In this episode, you'll learn: When and how to gift a sex toy. Tips for introducing toys into your relationship. Emily's favorite pleasure-filled gifts for the holidays. Show Notes: Sex With Emily Holiday Gift Guide: 2024 Edition Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you'll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website Let's get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let's text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. Episode Sponsored By: Try Popstar Volume + Taste Supplement! (Use code "EMILY" for 20% off (excl. 3-pack)) ILY Pebble Vibrator by Je Joue (Use Code "EMILY30" for 30% off your order) VIIA High Love Gummies + Vape Bundle (11/19-12/3: 25% Off Sitewide & Up to 50% Off Other Select Items & Bundles Sitewide (No Code)- After 12/3: Use code "EMILY" for 15% off) Morgasm CBD- Infused Lube & "O" Lube (11/19 - 12/2: Purchase any single tube or discounted bundle and receive a free lube with code "EMILYBF" Solaray Her Life Stages ( Use code "SEXWITHEMILY" for 15% off your order) Just Thrive Total Body Boost (11/23-12/3: Use code "SWE" for 25% off sitewide) Je Joue Hera Flex Rabbit Vibrator (Head to sexwithemily.com/hera and use code “EMILY30” at checkout for 30% off.) Try the LELO Enigma Double Sonic (Visit lelo.com and use code “EMILY20” at checkout for an additional 20% OFF any existing sales.) Bathmate Penis Pumps( 11/25-12/4: Up to 35% off all pumps (no code); After 12/4: Use code EMILY for 10% off your order) See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com