2024-04-26

etc

• Americans 'just work harder' than Europeans, says wealth chief

• New deep-water channel allows ships to pass Key bridge wreckage in Baltimore

• 450k Ford Mavericks, Bronco Sports Recalled for Shutting Off While Driving

Horseshit

• A Scientist Says He Has the Evidence That We Live in a Simulation

• Why Your Vet Bill Is So High

• The Showdown over Who Gets to Build the Next DeLorean

• Even Mario's Kart Is Being Recalled For Unintended Acceleration

Boeing

• Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Updating California's grid for EVs may cost up to $20B

• Hertz Reports $392M Loss as It Unwinds Tesla Fleet Burden

• Ford just reported a loss on every electric vehicle it sold

• NIO and Lotus announce plans for unified battery standards, charging, and swaps

• Ups, FedEx transition to electric vans slowed by battery shortages, low supply

celebrity gossip

• Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction overturned by New York appeals court

  • Harvey Weinstein's conviction is overturned by top New York court

• F1 Racing Newey to leave Red Bull over Horner allegations

Musk

• Dustin Moskovitz says Tesla is the next Enron

• Tesla faces an identity crisis: carmaker or tech firm?

• Elon Musk wants to turn Tesla's fleet into AWS for AI – would it work?

• "My last post": Edward Perez, ex-director for civic integrity at Twitter

  TL;DR: After watching and tweeting dramatically less for the past two years, I’ve decided that (for me) even passive participation on this platform amounts to complicity in Elon Musk’s project of promoting anti-democratic values. I will not have any part in that.

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Trump to receive bonus worth $1.2B for Trump Media stock performance

• Trump Allies Draw Up Plans to Blunt Fed's Independence

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Girls' continued reduced interest in STEM a 'serious wake-up call'

• Microsoft apologises over race-swap gaffe

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Pro-Palestinian Protests Spread at US Universities

• Tom Cotton Brings Hysteria About Campus Anti-Semitism to Its Absurd Conclusion

  The hysteria regarding anti-Semitism and college campuses reached its naturally absurd conclusion on Tuesday when a sitting U.S. senator compared contemporary U.S. universities to the Nazi regime. “Joe Biden has a duty to protect these Jewish students from what is a nascent pogrom on these campuses,” Sen. Tom Cotton declared on Fox News. “These are scenes like you’ve seen out of the 1930s in Germany.”

  Thanks to Fox and a handful of FOMO-minded publications like The New York Times, pro-Palestinian demonstrations have come under intense and oftentimes bad-faith scrutiny as Israel’s war in Gaza has entered its seventh month. That war has become increasingly indefensible as “October 7th,” much like, “September 11th,” can only buy an avenger so much leeway as it responds to an unspeakable horror.

• They Entered College in Isolation and Leave Among Protests: The Class of '24

• Snipers on the Roof of Ohio Union at Ohio State

• USDA announces new school meal standards that call for less sugar, salt in students’ food.

• The Norwegian ban on smart phones in middle schools

• Tennessee lawmakers pass bill allowing teachers, school staff to be armed

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• The man who destroyed Google.

  These emails — which I encourage you to look up — tell a dramatic story about how Google’s finance and advertising teams, led by Raghavan with the blessing of CEO Sundar Pichai, actively worked to make Google worse to make the company more money. This is what I mean when I talk about the Rot Economy — the illogical, product-destroying mindset that turns the products you love into torturous, frustrating quasi-tools that require you to fight the company’s intentions to get the service you want.

  Do you want to know what Prabhakar Raghavan’s old job was? What Prabhakar Raghavan, the new head of Google Search, the guy that has run Google Search into the ground, the guy who is currently destroying search, did before his job at Google? He was the head of search for Yahoo from 2005 through 2012 — a tumultuous period that cemented its terminal decline, and effectively saw the company bow out of the search market altogether. His responsibilities? Research and development for Yahoo's search and ads products.

• Nintendo Forcing Garry's Mod To Delete 20 Years Of Content

  In an update to Garry’s Mod’s Steam page, the developers stated, “Some of you may have noticed that certain Nintendo related workshop items have recently been taken down. This is not a mistake, the takedowns came from Nintendo.” Nintendo-themed add-ons seem to have begun getting taken down a few months ago, though Facepunch didn’t publicly divulge that the company had issued the takedowns until earlier today. The process has been “ongoing” since then, and the developers are still working to remove all of it, which is an understandably Herculean task.

  • Garry's Mod is removing 20 years' worth of Nintendo-related items from Steam

  • Garry's Mod Deleting 20 Years of Content After Nintendo Sends Takedown Notices

  • Garry's Mod faces deluge of Nintendo-related DMCA takedown notices

  • Garry's Mod working on removing all 20 years of Nintendo related content

  This is Nintendo's content and what they allow and don't allow is up to them. They don't want you playing with that stuff in Garry's Mod - that's their decision, we have to respect that and take down as much as we can. This is an ongoing process, as we have 20 years of uploads to go through. If you want to help us by deleting your Nintendo related uploads and never uploading them again, that would help us a lot.

• How TikTok’s Chinese owners took firmer control ahead of US ban

  • Who Could Buy TikTok?

  • TikTok reward-to-watch feature suspended after EU threats to block it

  • ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail

  • TikTok's CEO is feeling the pressure and users are freaking out

• The Internet Archive's last-ditch effort to save itself

  What is curious, is that this final brief fails -- almost completely -- to reasonably address the core issues of the lawsuit. What's more, the public statements that followed, by The Internet Archive, appeared to be crafted to drum up public sympathy by misrepresenting the core of the case itself. Which suggests that The Internet Archive is very much aware that they are likely to lose this appeal. After a careful reading of the existing public documents relating to this case... it truly is difficult to come to any other conclusion.

• Net neutrality is about to make a comeback

  • FCC votes to restore net neutrality rules

  • FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality in a Blow to Internet Service Providers

  • FCC restores net neutrality rules that ban blocking and throttling in 3-2 vote

  • Net neutrality rules restored by US agency, reversing Trump

  • FCC Votes to Restore Net Neutrality Rules

  • HN comments

  • Big telecom used fake and dead people to fight net neutrality, New York AG says

  • FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality

• Google Relents on Threat to Demonetize Naked Capitalism

• The Onion Sold by G/O Media

  • Jeff Lawson Bought the Onion

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

  • HN comments

• Open Sourcing DOS 4 - Scott Hanselman's Blog

  If you'd like to run this software yourself and explore, we have successfully run it directly on an original IBM PC XT, a newer Pentium, and within the open source PCem and 86box emulators.

  • HN comments

  • DOS 4.0 Source Code Released Under MIT License

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Desperately Trying To Fathom The Coffeepocalypse Argument

  So my literal, non-rhetorical question, is “how can anyone be stupid enough to think this makes sense?” I’m not (just) trying to insult the people who say this; I consider their existence a genuine philosophical mystery.

• Apple Reportedly Developing Its Own Custom Silicon for AI Servers

• Ex-athletic director arrested for framing principal with AI-generated voice

• AI Can Tell Your Political Affiliation Just by Looking at Your Face

• Cops cuff man for allegedly framing colleague with AI-generated hate speech clip

  • Athletic director arrested for using AI audio toframe principal with racist rant

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Streaming and texting on the Moon: Nokia and NASA are taking 4G into space

  • Yesterday's technology, tomorrow! By the time they get there, they'll hafta get the FCC to take the bandwidth allocation away from Elon's settlers.

• The Myth Of Propellantless Space Propulsion Refuses To Die

Crypto con games

• Stripe re-enters crypto with stablecoin payments

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Clinical lab operator Labcorp to buy bankrupt genetic test maker Invitae

• Stores Closing Include Family Dollar, Express, and Macy's in 2024

• U.S. Economy Grew at 1.6% Rate in First Quarter

  • Dow drops on inflation and growth concerns, Meta slides

  • US economy grew slower than expected at the start of 2024

  • US economic growth slows but inflation grows

• America's Economy Is No. 1. That Means Trouble

• Oracle's Jump to Nashville Surprises Austin

• Alphabet shares jump 12% on earnings beat, first-ever dividend

  • Alphabet hails 'once-in-a-generation' AI opportunity as revenue rises

• China's Temu Takes over 17% of US Market Share

• About 25% of Americans age 50 and older expect to never retire, AARP study finds

• Standard Chartered Says Peak Oil Demand Is Not Imminent

• SF office sells for a 90% discount from 2016 price

• US White-Collar Job Growth Stalls, Even in Pandemic Boomtowns

• NFT circles back around to the real world: Sotheby issues world's first art backed bond (Archive)

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Secret Service officer protecting Kamala Harris came to blows with other agents at Joint Base Andrews.

  A Secret Service agent tasked with protecting Vice President Kamala Harris brawled with several other agents on Monday morning, the agency confirmed. The altercation took place around 9 a.m. near Joint Base Andrews on the outskirts of Washington DC, prior to Harris’ arrival on the scene. The agent in question, whose identity has not been revealed, was immediately “removed from their assignment,” the Secret Service told The Post. “A US Secret Service special agent supporting the Vice President’s departure from Joint Base Andrews began displaying behavior their colleagues found distressing,” Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the US Secret Service, said to The Post.

  • Secret Service agent assigned to Kamala Harris detail involved in fight with other agents - Washington Examiner

  • Secret Service officer who fought colleagues while assigned to Kamala Harris once sued Dallas for $1M claiming gender bias

  Michelle Herczeg was removed from her duties on Wednesday after displaying erratic behavior and assaulting a superior officer while awaiting Harris’ departure from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Monday. In December 2016, Herczeg — then a senior corporal with the Dallas Police Department — filed her claim against the city, alleging that she “was targeted for being a female officer and treated less favorably,” according to a contemporary report by the Dallas Morning News. Sources confirmed Herczeg’s identity and her role in the earlier lawsuit to The Post on Thursday.

  • Secret Service Scuffle Prompts DEI, Vetting Scrutiny | RealClearPolitics

  Herczeg showed up at the terminal and began acting erratically, grabbing another senior agent’s personal phone and deleting applications on it, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The other agent, a shift leader, was able to recover his phone and then acted as if nothing had happened.

  But Herczeg’s bizarre behavior didn’t stop. She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,” a source told RealClearPolitics.

  Herczeg also screamed at the special agent in charge (SAIC), rattling off the names of female officers on the vice president’s detail and claiming they would show up and help her and allow her to continue working. At that point, other agents on the scene believed Herczeg was suffering from a mental lapse, and the superior officer, SAIC, approached her to tell her she was relieved from the assignment. “That’s when she snapped entirely,” one source recounted.

• Kim Kardashian coming to White House for VP Harris roundtable discussion

• US Senators call on postal board to abandon Postmaster General's USPS reforms

• The Petty Feud Between the NYT and the White House

  The seemingly minor incident over sourcing might not have escalated or triggered such emotional responses on both sides if not for tensions between the White House and the Times that had been bubbling beneath the surface for at least the last five years. Biden’s closest aides had come to see the Times as arrogant, intent on setting its own rules and unwilling to give Biden his due. Inside the paper’s D.C. bureau, the punitive response seemed to typify a press operation that was overly sensitive and determined to control coverage of the president.

  According to interviews with two dozen people on both sides who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject, the relationship between the Democratic president and the country’s newspaper of record — for years the epitome of a liberal press in the eyes of conservatives — remains remarkably tense, beset by misunderstandings, grudges and a general lack of trust. Complaints that were long kept private are even spilling into public view, with campaign aides in Wilmington going further than their colleagues in the White House and routinely blasting the paper’s coverage in emails, posts on social media and memos.

• Lawmakers Ask IRS To Probe Chinese Funding to Anti-Israel Protests

• A US TikTok Ban Could Harm Small Businesses

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Deepfakes in the courtroom: US judicial panel debates new AI evidence rules

• The Media Say Crime Is Going Down. Don’t Believe It

• Florida inmates charged for prison cells long after incarceration

• 'The bane of retail.' Many big chains now lock up all kinds of merchandise

• Judge Acquits Backpage Co-Founder Michael Lacey on Most Counts

  A federal judge has acquitted Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey of dozens of counts, including a majority of those on which federal prosecutors planned to retry Lacey later this year. U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa also acquitted former Backpage executives Jed Brunst and Scott Spear on multiple counts of which they were convicted by a jury last fall.

  In November, a jury found Lacey guilty of just one the 86 counts against him and not guilty of one count as well. The jury was hung on the other 84 counts, including all charges that Lacey actively facilitated prostitution or participated in a conspiracy to facilitate prostitution via the online classifieds site he founded with his longtime newspaper partner James Larkin. (Larkin took his own life last summer a few days before the trial was scheduled to begin.)

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• China-Russia-Iran Axis Is Bad News for Trump and GOP Isolationists - Bloomberg

  Will Trump himself heed the hawks’ advice? If he chooses to stick with isolationism, I suspect it may hurt his chances of reelection. But if he discards that delusion, there could suddenly be a 1980 vibe to his year — and not only because Trump has rediscovered Ronald Reagan’s lethal question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Despite having pursued a policy of technological containment of China that has been in many ways tougher and more effective than Trump’s, Biden looks weak right now. Not only has he been lousy at deterring America’s foes. He can’t even get a close US ally — Israel — to do as he asks.

• War on Guns: Biden Commerce Dept. Will Make Small Arms Export Pause Permanent - Shooting News Weekly

  The “pause” began on October 27, 2023, when the Commerce Department announced a “temporary pause” on the issuance of new licenses involving firearms, related components and ammunition for “nongovernmental end users” in certain countries. The pause by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) was to last “approximately 90 days” and allow the department to “assess current firearm export control review policies to determine whether any changes are warranted to advance U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.”

  In February, well past the 90-day pause window, Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) sent a letter to the Commerce Department. In it, they expressed a concern that while there was little evidence the pause on new export licenses improved U.S. national security, there was extensive evidence it harmed small and medium-sized American businesses.

World

• Saudi Arabia is scaling back The Line megacity

• Shutting down, but not shutting up: Germany's nuclear debate rages on

• How India's Economy Has Fared Under Modi

• Portugal Overthrew its Fascist Regime 50 Years Ago Today to Become a Democracy

  • The song that ended Europe's longest running fascist regime

• Defense companies are luring Germany's struggling autoworkers

• Guatemala Prosecutors Raid Save The Children Over Alleged Abuse | Barron's

  The operation was the result of "a transnational investigation of great significance, since it concerns actions that could be related to violations and abuses against Guatemalan children," state prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche said in a video published on social media. Guatemalan authorities had sought assistance from prosecutors in the US state of Texas, he said, adding that the operation involved an "inspection, search and seizure of evidence."

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• Today Microsoft Banned My Country Iran from Minecraft

Israel

• Exclusive: U.S. Pier Attacked During Construction Work Off Gaza Coast - I24NEWS

  • US-Led Gaza Pier Project Comes Under Mortar Fire As UN Officials Tour Site

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• U.S. Air Package to Ukraine on Its Way, ATACMS Missiles Already Provided

China

• A More Comprehensive Plan to Push Back Against China's Fishing Practices

• Apple Drops to Fourth Place Smartphone Seller in China

Health / Medicine

• US fertility rate dropped to lowest in a century as births dipped in 2023

  • U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low

• Asian American women are getting lung cancer despite never smoking

• Contra Hanson On Medical Effectiveness - by Scott Alexander

  His argument: there have been three big experimental studies of what happens when people get free (or cut-price) health care: RAND, Oregon, and Karnataka. All three (according to him) find that people use more medicine, but don’t get any healthier. Therefore, medicine doesn’t work. If it looks like medicine works, it’s a combination of anecdotal reasoning, biased studies, and giving medicine credit for the positive effects of other good things (better nutrition, sanitation, etc).

  I’ve spent fifteen years not responding to this argument, because I worry it would be harsh and annoying to use my platform to beat up on one contrarian who nobody else listens to. But I recently learned Bryan Caplan also takes this seriously. Beating up on two contrarians who nobody else listens to is a great use of a platform!

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• EPA rules would force coal-fired power plants to capture emissions or shut down

• Is civil disobedience a moral obligation in a time of climate crisis? Essays

• Searing heat shuts schools for 33M children

• As the climate changes, cities scramble to find trees that will survive

• Climate change is slowing Earth’s rotation

• Ice Age climate analysis reduces worst-case warming expected from rising CO₂

• EPA administrator Michael Regan on undoing the toxic legacy of US power plants

• Biden administration sets national goal to cut freight emissions to zero