Rectification of names, again

For a second time, the Hong Kong government gives the drug ‘space oil’ a new name. It seems like barely three weeks ago that they did this. Because it was. They declared then that the short-acting sedative would henceforth be called ‘zombie oil’ in order to vividly describe its effects on users and scare young people away from using it. But perhaps this inadvertently gave the substance a more hip and groovy branding. So they’re renaming it again…

Security minister Chris Tang on Thursday said authorities have officially renamed the “space oil drug” as etomidate, after more than 550 arrests were made over the drug in the first half of the year.

Speaking to reporters after attending a Fight Crime Committee meeting, Tang said the number of arrests was a nine-fold increase year-on-year, and the name change would be more effective in deterring people from taking the drug.

“Some of the drug traffickers make use of the name to promote a sort of fantasy and some of the positive feelings after taking the drug, and I think this is absolutely wrong,” he said.

“Etomidate only brings you harm…We have to properly name it as etomidate so as to eradicate the positive naming and positive side of the drug,” Tang added.

No doubt the new nomenclature will catch on.

I suddenly thought I had some of this stuff in the freezer, but on closer inspection I find it’s this.

(Not a big fan of zombie movies, but I would recommend the French TV series Les Revenants, clearly inspired by David Lynch.)

The annual Pink Dot gathering is cancelled after the usual venue at West Kowloon Cultural Hub-Zone becomes unavailable. (A pre-emptive measure to ward off a possible outbreak of ‘soft resistance’?)

There was a time when Hong Kong lawmakers wouldn’t usually all agree on anything. Not so today. They release this joint statement…

All LegCo Members stress that the Basic Law of the HKSAR of the People’s Republic of China (Basic Law) clearly stipulates that LegCo of the HKSAR shall be the legislature of the region. Fugitives endangering national security who fled overseas have been challenging the bottom line of “One Country, Two Systems” and the HKSAR’s national security. They blatantly organised the so-called “election” for the “Hong Kong Parliament”, seriously violating the Basic Law and the HKNSL, and undermining the Constitution and constitutional order of the HKSAR as established by the Basic Law. The unlawful election is nothing but a farce. Their aim was to disrupt the hard-earned stability and peace in Hong Kong, and attempted to commit the offence of subversion of state power, seriously endangering national security.

Safeguarding national security is in line with international practice. LegCo Members firmly reject and castigate the biased, groundless, smearing and double-standard remarks by some politicians in western countries against the HKSAR Government’s lawful pursuit of individuals who endangered national security.

You want more? Oh, OK then…

The HKSAR Government’s decisive and swift law enforcement actions are not only righteous, but also reasonable, legal and constitutional. The actions are also widely supported by various sectors of the community. All LegCo Members fully support the Hong Kong Police Force in their lawful efforts to apprehend national security offenders who fled overseas. They also resolutely support the statement issued by the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People’s Government in the HKSAR, and firmly support sanctions against the fugitives in order to safeguard national security and the stability of Hong Kong.

Michael Kovrig – held in Beijing for three years – discusses whether it is safe for foreigners to visit China…

For alert foreigners who visit or live in China, this summer has been particularly stressful. A Beijing court sentenced a Japanese Astellas Pharma executive to prison for espionage. Wells Fargo & Co. suspended staff travel after one of its Chinese-American managing directors visited and discovered she couldn’t leave. News broke that state security had detained and interrogated a visiting U.S. Commerce Department employee during a personal trip and subjected him to an exit ban. And BlackRock Inc. warned employees not to use any corporate phones or computers in China.

Sadly, these are only the most recent examples in a growing inventory of incidents in which foreigners fall victim to China’s draconian security apparatus and increasingly weaponized political-legal system.

Some weekend reading: American Prospect on the vast amount of venture capital pouring into AI…

Between VCs, Big Tech, and power utilities, the bill for generative AI comes out to close to $2 trillion in spending over the next five years alone. Adding all this up, some are starting to question the economic fundamentals of generative AI. Jim Covello, head of global equity research at Goldman Sachs, doubts the technology can recoup what’s been invested as, unlike the internet, it fails to solve complex business problems at a lower cost than what’s available today. Plus, he argues, the most expensive inputs for generative AI, GPUs and energy, are unlikely to decline meaningfully for the tech industry over time, given how far demand outstrips supply for both. While AI-fueled coding could definitely boost productivity, it’s hard to see how it could become a multitrillion-dollar industry.

…as AI expert Gary Marcus pointed out, DeepSeek’s R1 model spells serious trouble for OpenAI and the cloud giants. The only way OpenAI could hope to recoup the billions it was spending on GPUs to train bigger and bigger models was to maintain a large enough technical lead over other AI companies to justify charging up to $200 for paid subscriptions to its models. That lead just vaporized and was given to the entire industry for free. In response, Altman has already twice cut the prices of his subscriptions in an effort to stay competitive. But without millions of paid subscriptions, it’s difficult to see the pathway to profitability for a company that loses $2 for every $1 it brings in and expects costs to continue to grow approximately tenfold in five years. OpenAI has set $100 billion as its break-even point, which would require it to increase its revenue by a factor of 25 in just five years, an incredible feat of scale that its current business model does not justify.

(An amusing example of an attempt to train AI – Grok, to be specific – to produce gibberish.)