Golden sneakers . Nonfungible tokens . Jingoistic Bibles .
Much ado has been made about the baubles and bibelot a cash-strapped Donald Trump keeps peddling to MAGA-heads. But one can wear a Trump shoe, auction a Trumpy digital asset and ponder Matthew 19:24 and 1 Timothy 6:10 while reading the Lee Greenwood version of the Good Book. The downside for Trump? All cost money to produce.
ALSO READ: 8 ways Donald Trump doesn't become president Which is perhaps why Trump is increasingly offering prospective 2024 presidential campaign donors trinkets and honorifics with effectively no discernible value at all — in exchange for a cash contribution. Raw Story has assembled a running list, as drawn from Trump's various fundraising emails and text messages during the past many months, as he seeks to defeat Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris and win back the White House: Gold card Upside: The "NEVER SURRENDER 2024 GOLD LIMITED EDITION" card sure is shiny. It's also made of "METAL.
" Downside: You may be a fool if you believe that metal is really gold. You'll also get more mileage from any credit, debit, ATM or senior discount card found in your wallet. Source: Donald Trump campaign Platinum card The "TRUMP 2024 BALLOT DEFENDER PLATINUM LEVEL METAL LIMITED EDITION" is advertised to a "TOP SUPPORTER" who has earned Trump's "PLATINUM RATING.
" That Trump's campaign sent it to anyone subscribed to his email list, including journalists, should provide adequate evidence about its exclusiveness. Source: Donald Trump campaign Black card Just like the gold card and the platinum card. Except it's black.
The Trump campaign did not respond to Raw Story's several requests for comment. Among the questions Raw Story asked Trump's team: What are the differences among these cards other than the color? Do donors receive a physical card in the mail upon making a donation or just a digital image they can print out at home? How long does it take for someone to receive a card if physical cards are offered? Is there a minimum amount one must donate to receive a card? Do the cards entitle the bearer to any benefits or perks, and if so, what? Source: Donald Trump campaign Life member A "2024 Trump Life Membership" might seem like a pretty sweet deal. After all, this membership is being offered to you by a man who owns hotels and golf courses and luxury resorts.
Unfortunately, the "life membership" comes with a 100 percent guarantee that if you enter Mar-a-Lago using this as your lone credential, your visit will be brief. Source: Donald Trump campaign Diamond Club member If diamonds are forever, why not just get a Trump life membership and save yourself some confusion? Source: Donald Trump campaign Day One member This will signify your membership to what Trump is calling the "Trump National Committee" — a joint fundraising arrangement between Trump's presidential campaign committee and the Republican National. The only tangible benefit? A lighter wallet.
Source: Donald Trump campaign Trump Advisory Board member Excited to support a self-styled "day one" dictator but aren't ready for a full-time gig? Buy your way onto the "2024 Trump Advisory Board" and become a "trusted" adviser to the man who wants to become our nation's 47th president. But rest assured that if you do, the person who Trump is pictured talking to on the phone will not be you. Source: Donald Trump campaign Vice Presidential Advisory Board member All the pomp and lack of circumstance of the Trump Advisory Board membership — but with J.
D. Vance's photo instead of Trump's. Source: Donald Trump campaign President's Trust member A cool $35 will snag you this gig.
No details whatsoever on what rights or responsibilities this will entail. Source: Donald Trump campaign Campaign Cabinet member Most of the members of Trump's presidential Cabinet aren't too jazzed about the former president again seeking the White House. Enter the "OFFICIAL TRUMP CAMPAIGN CABINET.
" This new Cabinet "will be made up of my most ELITE, PATRIOTIC , and TRUSTED supporters that are up for the ULTIMATE challenge – providing my team and I with valuable insight and advice as we make some of the most important decisions leading up to the 2024 Presidential Election and BEYOND," Trump writes. What's the catch? Just donate "ANY AMOUNT IMMEDIATELY," and you, too, can start channeling your inner Wilbur Ross and begin taking lots of naps . (Trump might even say you're as " dumb as a rock .
") Source: Donald Trump campaign 47 Club member Oh, you think you're special because you're in the Official Trump Campaign Cabinet? Turns out that folks in the "Official Trump 47 Club" also get invited to be among the "select few Patriots" who Trump will "rely on and will provide me with the insight and support to RECLAIM America." Source: Donald Trump campaign 100 Club member Same as the 47 Club, but with a bigger number. Source: Donald Trump campaign Gold Club member For those who really love element No.
79 but need more than a card. Source: Donald Trump campaign Platinum member For those who really love element No. 78 but need more than a card.
Source: Donald Trump campaign Sustaining member This membership requires a little extra. "To be certain that we have a consistent stream of funds every single month, I'm asking you to become a Sustaining Member of our 2024 presidential campaign by making a monthly contribution of any amount ..
. even $1 or $5," Trump writes. The membership does not appear to come with a public television-esque tote bag or John Tesh CD.
(Sad!) So what, exactly, does this particular membership, or any Trump these memberships, entitle one who is granted a membership? Do different memberships come with different benefits, if they come with any benefit at all? The Trump campaign did not respond to Raw Story's several requests for comment. Source: Donald Trump campaign Trump Donor Wall For years now, Trump's campaign has been promising a "select" group of supporters that they would have their name etched on a "wall" in Trump's office. Perhaps forgetting that they've run this promotion before, or perhaps hoping that supporters themselves have forgotten this fact, Trump is again promising to "build a beautiful wall at my office dedicated to a select group of donors who stepped up at this critical time.
" Like another wall — say, one on the southern border — it'd be reasonable to question why the Trump Donor Wall hasn't already been built. One thing is for certain: Mexico can't pay for the Trump Donor Wall, because foreign campaign contributions are illegal, per federal election law. Source: Donald Trump campaign 45 ambassador If Trump seems to be putting the "meh" in memberships, he's got something way cooler — ambassadorships! Get ready to channel your inner Benjamin Franklin , Anthony Wayne Jerome Phillips-Spencer or Spock when you "secure your status as an Official 45 Ambassador before it's too late.
" No, you will not have access to a State Department jet or even " Trump Force One ." Source: Donald Trump campaign Golden Trump Status So, you've already got a Trump gold card. And you're also a Trump Gold Club member.
But like Trump himself, you really, really love gold. What's a MAGA gold digger to do? Achieve Golden Trump Status, of course. "Golden Trump Patriots like you WILL BE THE REASON we take back our Country from the WORST, and most CORRUPT, President in HISTORY," Trump explains in offering this opportunity.
Golden Trump Status may be achieved for the low, low pyrite-esque price of $20.24, according to a Trump campaign email. Source: Donald Trump campaign America First Lifetime Achievement Award for Patriotism Americans of a certain age may remember those grifty letters your parents would receive via U.
S. mail informing them that their little Johnny or Katie had been named to the Who's Who of Upper Midwestern Left-Handed 7th Graders. Just send a check for $99 plus shipping and handling and the publisher would send back a book where your name — misspelled, of course — would appear in four-point font on page 743, printed on paper half a micron thick.
The America First Lifetime Achievement Award for Patriotism appears to work similarly. Even though the invitation states that Donald Trump Jr., the former president's own son, has nominated you for this "MAGA Movement Honor," there's a catch.
"$35 — DONATE THIS AMOUNT TO ACCEPT" a black button with white letters informs you when you click to accept the award. Source: Donald Trump campaign Signed poster One day, you're watching a football game in your wood-paneled basement rec room, and you decide the vintage, autographed posters of Bernie Kosar and Cheryl Tiegs look a bit ..
. dated. Time for an upgrade.
Lucky for you, a modest campaign donation will snag you a "signed poster from Donald J. Trump, the best President of all time!" Unlucky for you, Trump's signature is simulated. Curiously, the poster also shouts the words "NEVER SURRENDER!" across Trump's black-and-white mugshot from when Trump quite literally surrendered himself to law enforcement in Fulton County, Ga.
, on charges related to his alleged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Source: Donald Trump campaign Mystery gift Free rounds at a Trump golf course? A guest pass to Mar-a-Lago? A virtual high-five from Vivek Ramaswamy? There's no telling what Trump's "mystery gift" to you will be — unless you donate at least $20.24.
Source: Donald Trump campaign This article first appeared on April 11, 2024, and has been updated to reflect new Trump campaign offerings and developments in the 2024 presidential campaign. Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte on Tuesday attended Sen. J.
D. Vance's (R-OH) speech in Philadelphia and came away decidedly underwhelmed. In her latest article , Marcotte described the vibe at the Vance speech as being like "a medium-sized wedding, albeit a pathetic one where no one cares for the couple.
" She noted that while there were women in attendance, the majority of people who came to see Vance speak appeared to be aggrieved men. "There was one kind of diversity in this small but weirdly intense crowd," she wrote. "Every type of white man that gets a hasty 'swipe left' on his dating profile was in attendance: 'Roided out dudes with bad tribal tattoos.
Older men radiating 'bitter divorce' energy. Men with enormous beards that have never known the touch of a trimmer. Skinny fascists wearing expensive suits, despite the oppressive heat.
Glowering loners staring at the two women under 40 like cats watching birds out a window." ALSO READ: 'Sick of hate politics': Republican dynasty defeated in race for Missouri governor Marcotte believes that the lightly attended Vance campaign is symbolic of where the Trump campaign stands right now as a whole, as she writes that it "often has the dwindling energy of a concert for a D-list band well past its prime." In contrast, writes Marcotte, Vice President Kamala Harris's rally with newly minted vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov.
Tim Walz, was full of energy. "The people who flooded the Temple stadium looked like any cross-section of America on any given night," writes Marcotte of the Harris event that drew an estimated 12,000 people. "There was old, young and all in-between.
There were tattooed hipsters and soccer moms. There were people of every race, dressed in every which way. It could have been a crowd of people chosen at random from the streets of Philadelphia, or any city in America, really.
They were brought together by the chant quickly becoming the Harris campaign slogan: 'Not going back.'" An insect bites off another insect’s leg. Is this predatory behavior, aggression, defense, competition or something else? In the case of carpenter ants, it’s for the good of the amputee and to the benefit of the colony.
A July 2024 University of Lausanne study found carpenter ants ( Camponotus floridanus ) carry out lifesaving amputations on their colony siblings. It is the first known example of a non-human animal amputating limbs to prevent or stop the spread of infection. The study showed the bites were not random and resulted in a survival rate of over 90%.
The three ants in the experiment that did not have their legs amputated died. So what makes ants such advanced surgeons in the animal kingdom? Insects aren’t the only animals to treat illness and disease. Scientists have observed self medication in a range of species including bears, elephants, moths, starlings and dolphins .
Chimpanzees search for and eat specific plants to treat diseases and have recently been reported using insects to treat not only their own wounds but those of others . However, carpenter ants may have a particular need to become surgeons. Apart from initiating digestion, most ants’ salivary secretions have antimicrobial properties, which helps to control bacterial infection when they lick wounds.
This is common to many groups of animals, including primates. A 2023 study of the sub-Saharan ant Megaponera analis found they licked wounds, including those of other ants, with saliva mixed with antimicrobial compounds from their thoracic metapleural glands. This is a structure unique to ants in their thorax .
The saliva reduced infection of injured nest mates by 90%. Most ants have a special gland in their thorax. VectorMine/Shutterstock Unfortunately, almost all ants in the genus Camponotus , which carpenter ants belong to, don’t have these glands .
So carpenter ants may have evolved their surgical skills as a workaround. We don’t yet know whether this behaviour is unique to Camponotus floridanus , or is more common in the genus, though. Many species have innate skills.
For example, wood ants show an innate attraction to large and conspicuous objects, which can help naive ants navigate before they have learned the route home. Carpenter ants naturally burrow and have a strong bite. Stimulus such as partly completed tunnel, or a disturbance in the nest may stimulate biting behavior.
The recent study also found the ants alter the treatment depending on where the injury is. In an experiment where the femur was damaged, the ants amputated near the body, removing the whole leg. The upper part of the leg contains a muscle mass, providing more tissue for microbial infection, so a high amputation means the patient is more likely to survive.
Ants treated damaged tibiae (a lower leg segment), which have a low post amputation survival rate, by licking. This removes debris and helps to clean up the wound to prevent infection. In the case of a femoral wound, the location of damage and possibly the shape of the target could be a stimulus for carpenter ants to bite in the right place.
Something about the shape of the upper leg may trigger their compulsion to bite there. Social skills Scientists have long known that seemingly intelligent actions by both social and solitary insects are based on a combination of innate and learned behavior. Animals tend to gain new skills by trial and error learning, or copying others, especially those in their cohort.
Social insects are well known to collaborate to achieve tasks such as nest construction and defence. They do this by duplicating what others around them are doing, so in essence copying each other. Injured ants release an alarm pheromone.
These are compounds that raise alertness and initiate defensive behaviour. Alarm pheromones are common in social insects as these also encourage assembly, which is why wasps gather round you if you swat one. Carpenter ants’ evolution as a social insect has probably encouraged them to learn skills to protect ants in their colony.
And for species like Camponotus ants that live in colonies , the spread of disease, including parasites, must be prevented or controlled. Research has shown that animals who live in tight groups, including humans, are more susceptible to outbreaks of disease than those with a more solitary existence. There are other examples of ants taking collective action for medical reasons.
For instance, the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus inject infected pupae (the insect stage between larvae and adult) with antimicrobial poison to stop fungus from spreading to the rest of the colony. Although a carpenter ant colony may have up to 4,000 ants, most are non-fertile female workers. As they forage and fight with other colonies, they get injured and an injured ant can quickly succumb to bacterial or fungal infection.
If untreated, this infection could spread into the colony. The Swiss researchers noted that more than 10% of Camponotus ants that forage in the wild bear signs of injury so they are still important as workers. Like other social insects, ants are well known for their high level of cooperation in the pursuit of goals such as nest building and foraging.
This has led scientists to believe they have collective intelligence, which is the ability of a group to achieve smarter outcomes by collaborating. In fact, robotics researchers at Harvard University are refining their algorithms by studying how ants work together when they build tunnels to escape confinement. Carpenter ants’ high level of collaboration in solving problems like this may have helped them develop advanced solutions to problems like the spread of disease.
Their ability to perform what may be lifesaving surgery takes cooperation (at least between patient and surgeons) to another level. Christopher Terrell Nield , Principal Lecturer, Bioscience, Nottingham Trent University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .
Elon Musk’s recent announcement on Twitter that “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year” suggests that robots that have physical human-like characteristics and provide “genuinely useful” function might be with us soon. However, despite decades of trying, useful humanoid robots have remained a fiction that never seems to quite catch up with reality. Are we finally on the crux of a breakthrough? It’s relevant to question whether we really need humanoid robots at all.
Tesla’s Optimus robot is just one of several emerging humanoid robots, joining the likes of Boston Dyanmic’s Atlas , Figure AI’s Figure 01 , Sanctuary AI’s Phoenix and many others. They usually take the form of a bipedal platform that is variously capable of walking and sometimes, jumping, along with other athletic feats. On top of this platform a pair of robot arms and hands may be mounted that are capable of manipulating objects with varying degrees of dexterity and tactility.
Behind the eyes lies artificial intelligence tailored to planning navigation, recognising objects and carrying out tasks with these objects. The most commonly envisaged uses for such robots are in factories , carrying out repetitious, dirty, dull and dangerous tasks, and working alongside humans, collaboratively, carrying a ladder together for example. They are also proposed for work in service industry roles , perhaps replacing the current generation of more utilitarian “meet and greet” and “tour guide” service robots.
They could possibly be used in social care, where there have been attempts to lift and move humans, like the Riken Robear (admittedly this was more bear than humanoid ), and to deliver personal care and therapy. There is also a more established and growing market in humanoid sex robots. Interestingly, while many people recognise the moral and ethical issues related to these, the use of humanoid robots in other areas seems to attract less controversy.
It is, however, proving challenging to deliver humanoid robots in practice. Why should this be so? There are numerous engineering challenges, such as achieving flexible bipedal locomotion on different terrain. It took humans about four million years to achieve this, so where we are now with humanoid robots is pretty impressive.
But humans learn to combine a complex set of sensing capabilities to achieve this feat. Similarly, achieving the dexterous manipulation of objects, which come in all shapes, sizes, weights, levels of fragility, is proving stubborn with robots. There has been significant progress, though, such as the dexterous hands from UK company Shadow Robot .
Compared to the human body that is covered in a soft and flexible skin thatcontinuously senses and adapts to the world, robots’ tactile capabilities are limited to only a few points of contact such as finger tips. Moving beyond automating specific tasks on factory assembly lines to improvising general tasks in a dynamic world demands greater progress in artificial intelligence as well as sensing and mechanical capabilities. Finally, if you are going to make a robot look human, then there is an expectation that it would also need to communicate with us like a human, perhaps even respond emotionally .
However, this is where things can get really tricky, because if our brains, which have evolved to recognise non-verbal elements of communication, don’t perceiveall the micro-expressions that are interpreted at a subconscious level, the humanoid robot can come across as positively creepy. These are just a few of the major research challenges that are already taxing communities of researchers in robotics and human-robot interaction across the globe. There’s also the additional constraint of deploying humanoid robots in our ever-changing noisy real world, with rain, dust and heat.
These are very different conditions to the ones they’re tested in. So shouldn’t we focus on building systems that are more robust and won’t succumb to the same pitfalls that humans do? Recreating ourselves This brings us to the question of why Musk and many others are focused on humanoid robots. Must our robotic companions look like us? One argument is that we have gradually adapted our world to suit the human body.
For example, our buildings and cities are largely constructed to accommodate our physical form. So an obvious choice is for robots to assume this form as well. It must be said, though, that our built environments and tools often assume a certain level of strength, dexterity and sensory ability which disadvantages a vast number of people, including those who are disabled.
So would the rise of stronger metal machines among us, further perpetuate this divide? Perhaps we should see robots as being part of the world that we need to create which better accommodates the diversity of human bodies. We could put more effort into integrating robotics technologies into our buildings, furniture, tools and vehicles, making them smarter and more adaptable, so that they become more accessible for everyone. It is striking how the current generation of limited robot forms fails to reflect the diversity of human bodies.
Perhaps our apparent obsession with humanoid robots has other, deeper roots. The god-like desire to create versions of ourselves is a fantasy played out time and time again in dystopian science fiction, from which the tech industry’s readily appropriates ideas. Or perhaps, humanoid robots are a “Moon shot”, a vision that we can all understand but is incredibly difficult to achieve.
In short, we may not be entirely sure why we want to go there, but impressive engineering innovations are likely to emerge from just trying. Steve Benford , Professor of Collaborative Computing, University of Nottingham and Praminda Caleb-Solly , Professor of Embodied Intelligence, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .
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