2021-03-12

Cool

• Humble tokamak physicist owns generations of cosmological wankers | Locklin on science

  But if he’s right, he’s basically written the most dramatic single paper own of the physics and astronomy community, like ever. Assuming this paper is correct, it is a literal extinction event for thousands of wankers; a fiery asteroid across the sky, with a bunch of cud-chewing cosmological dinosaurs staring at it in dumb disbelief.

  Professor Ludwig related all this gravitic stuff to some equations from magnetohydrodynamics, ran the numbers, and realized the weird dark matter forces are probably a consequence of the geometry of spacetime. Theoretically any ambitious grad student of the last 50 years could have thought of it. I never studied magnetohydrodynamics myself, or GR, but if I were sitting around thinking about why Galaxies look weird or dork matter, and I know there was such a thing as gravitomagnetic effects, I might be …. slightly curious about what plasma physicists have come up with.

  • Factoring in gravitomagnetism could do away with dark matter: ScienceDaily

  • Maybe there never was dark matter

• Scientists may have solved ancient mystery of Antikythera mechanism

  • Scientists unlock mysteries of oldest 'computer'

  • A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

Worthy

• Why is matter stable? | Opinion | Chemistry World

  it somehow doesn’t seem right that we lack a full explanation for why the stuff all around us, and indeed within us, has such stability. If it should turn out that the answer lies with an extremely subtle concatenation of factors that we struggle to reduce to qualitative terms, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that we’re missing something – or perhaps, that our theories aren’t couched in the terms that best point to a lucid understanding of experience. You expect the brain to be complicated, sure – but a grain of sand, or a lone atom, not so much.

• (2019) On the death of my family’s dairy farm - Abe Voelker

• The Sovietization of the American Press - TK News by Matt Taibbi

• The totalitarians of the attention economy

  just how perverted is the idea that there are tech executives measuring the total sum our human minutes, plotting how they might convert video-game time into podcast-listening time, how they might counter an interest in social media, such that they can rack up more streams. It's straight out of a dystopian novel.

  This is the CEO of the world's premiere streaming service, musing with investors about how he might capture more service minutes if he can steal your sleep. That's just a mind-blowing corporate directive to hear said out loud. And it suddenly makes features like Netflix's rapid start of a new episode look downright predatory.

etc

• Wurst luck: half-eaten sausage helps German police solve cold case

• Ancient massacre site yields its victims’ DNA | Ars Technica

  “Why such a number of almost identical episodes/events occurred in continental Europe at that time is still not clear,” Novak told Ars. Some archaeologists have suggested that the population of Europe increased dramatically during the late Neolithic and early Copper Age, when agriculture would have made food more abundant and predictable—but around that time, shifts in the ancient climate brought drought, famine, and fighting for resources.

• Remembering America’s Golden Age of Hot Sodas

• Letters to the Editor: Daylight saving time needs to be stopped

• The Link Between Bioelectricity and Consciousness

• Spanish police sink drug smugglers’ submarine plans

• (2018) Memory transfer between snails challenges view of how brain remembers

  This view challenges the widely held notion that memories are stored by enhancing synaptic connections between neurons. Rather, Glanzman sees synaptic changes that occur during memory formation as flowing from the information that the RNA is carrying.

• CA Crews Handle Tricky Fire at Tesla Factory | Firehouse

  Firefighters arriving on scene around 4:27 p.m. were initially told not to use water to extinguish the flames. The fire was confined to a vehicle stamping machine that contained molten aluminum, Knowles said. The machinery was located in a building under construction at the 45500 Fremont Boulevard plant.

• The Demise and Potential Revival of the American Chestnut | Sierra Club

• Hertz finally able to exonerate man of murder due to 'advances in data search'

• (Mar 9) Supreme Court Removes Barrier to Protecting First Amendment

  • Supreme Court: the new decision about evangelical preachers on campus - Vox

Horseshit

• The Dangerous Rise of the Supersized Pickup Truck

• The Pentagon Is Ready to Give Soldiers Jetpacks

• The 'faux commuters' taking fake trips to work during the pandemic

• Classic math conundrum solved: Danish computer scientist has developed a superb algorithm for finding the shortest route – University of Copenhagen

  "We have developed an algorithm, for which we now have mathematical proof, that it is better than every other algorithm up to now—and the closest thing to optimal that will ever be, even if we look 1000 years into the future," says Associate Professor Wulff-Nilsen. The results were presented at the prestigious FOCS 2020 conference.

• Scientists want to send 6.7M sperm samples to the moon

  Scientists have suggested that humans could buy into a "modern global insurance policy" by building an "ark" filled with 6.7 million sperm samples — on the moon.

• The Atlantic is dropping a huge load today:

  • California's Environment Quality Act (CEQA) Is an Abomination That Hurts Housing

  • Only Your Boss Can Cure Your Burnout

  • Renting is Terrible. Owning is Worse

• Can Cyrus Vance, Jr., Nail Trump? | The New Yorker

  The hard drive—which includes potentially revealing notes showing how Trump and his accountants arrived at their tax numbers—is believed to be locked in a high-security annex in lower Manhattan. A spokesman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to confirm the drive’s whereabouts, but people familiar with the office presume that it has been secured in a radio-frequency-isolation chamber in the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, on Centre Street. The chamber is protected by a double set of metal doors—the kind used in bank vaults—and its walls are lined with what looks like glimmering copper foil, to block remote attempts to tamper with digital evidence. It’s a modern equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Media / Ministry of Truthy

• TRIGGERED: Sacha Baron Cohen falls for obvious satire on Instagram, calls for its censorship | The Post Millennial

  The painting Cohen took issue with shows Microsoft founder Bill Gates holding a syringe full of COVID vaccine, saying "time to install your update." This taps into a conspiracy theory that posits that Gates, who is a proponent of the vaccines, is using them to install microchips in people.

  Cohen, who has made a career out of satirical films and documentaries, took issue with the painting, seemingly concerned that social media users would think the painting was asserting fact.

• Amazon Pulls All Books That Treat LGBTQ+ Identities as Mental Illnesses

  In a response seen by The Wall Street Journal, Amazon exec Brian Huseman wrote: “We have chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness.” The senators haven’t commented on the response, but whined in their initial letter that book’s removal was a message “to conservative Americans that their views are not welcome on its platforms.”

• You Can't Censor Away Extremism (or Any Other Problem) - Freddie deBoer

  He was a progressive living in 21st century America and he assumed that those he chose to censor were those he could. This confidence is shared by many left-leaning people today, and it is typical of contemporary liberalism in its combination of arrogance and folly.

• Did You Notice Newsweek's Evolution of their Fact-Check on Ted Cruz's Claim About COVID Relief Checks? by Rebecca Downs

• Rebekah Jones on Arrest and Truth Behind Florida's Covid-19 Data

• De Jure and De Facto Censorship: Why We Need to Be Concerned About Both - Areo

• Far-right supporters move to open source to evade censorship

  Beyond Gab’s ambiguous place in the fediverse, the Guardian found dozens of servers using peer-to-peer, open source tools, which were either exclusively or disproportionately devoted either to far-right politics, or to conspiracy theories that mainstream social media services have previously cracked down on, including coronavirus denialism, “incel” culture and neo-Nazism. With the far right under pressure from mainstream social media companies and internet hosts, this may be just the beginning.

• The "Silk Road" dude Ross Ulbricht – Decentralize Social Media

Identity Politics / Race Baiting

• [Press Secretary Smites Host That Dissed Diversity in U.S. Military

  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE > Defense Department News](https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2534159/press-secretary-smites-host-that-dissed-diversity-in-us-military/)

  The United States military is the greatest the world has ever seen because of its diversity, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said during a news briefing this morning. Kirby addressed this because a cable show host used his show to denigrate the contributions of women in the military and to say the Chinese military is catching up to the U.S. military because it does not allow women to serve in the percentage the United States does.

• Private Schools Are Indefensible - The Atlantic

  In a just society, there wouldn’t be a need for these expensive schools, or for private wealth to subsidize something as fundamental as an education. We wouldn’t give rich kids and a tiny number of lottery winners an outstanding education while so many poor kids attend failing schools. In a just society, an education wouldn’t be a luxury item.

• Slack will soon respect your chosen skin tone color for emoji reactions

• Minneapolis Agrees To Record Settlement In George Floyd Wrongful Death Lawsuit | ZeroHedge

• The Mouse House Has Become A Cathedral Of Smiling Hate.

• Asian Americans Emerging as a Strong Voice Against Critical Race Theory.

• The Media and The Mayhem: The Chauvin Trial Coverage Follows A Dangerous Pattern – JONATHAN TURLEY

• Today’s blacklisted Americans: Alabama University suspends 3 professors for 2014 Halloween costumes

• Facebook told Black employee they were looking for a “culture fit”

• The gender gap in economics is huge – it’s even worse than tech

• How Big Tech Is Importing India’s Caste Legacy to Silicon Valley

TechSuck

• How to Spot Deepfakes? Look at Light Reflection in the Eyes

• Slick Tom Cruise Deepfakes Signal That Near Flawless Forgeries May Be Here

• Fitbit is doomed: Here's why everything Google buys turns to garbage

• Tim Berners-Lee says too many young people are excluded from web

• Netflix considers crackdown on password sharing

  • Netflix May Soon Crack Down on Password Sharing

• Qualcomm struggles to meet chip demand as shortage spreads to phones

Economicon

• Building A New Home? Soaring Lumber Prices Adds $24,000 To New Construction Build | ZeroHedge

• Crypto Investor MetaKovan Announced as Buyer of $69.3M Beeple NFT

• Tencent Faces Broad China Clampdown on Fintech, Deals

• Fertilizer Prices Rocket Higher As Farmers Become 'Bullish' On Upcoming Growing Season

• Ant Group CEO to Resign for Personal Reasons

• U.S. Debt Rout Ignites Hunt for New Havens That Ends in China

• Great Ideas Revisited: Use Cash-Out Refis To Buy Stocks And Remodel | ZeroHedge

  U.S. homeowners cashed out $152.7 billion in home equity last year, a 42% increase from 2019 and the most since 2007, according to mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac. It was a blockbuster year for mortgage originations in general as well: Lenders churned out more mortgages than ever in 2020, fueled by about $2.8 trillion in refis, according to mortgage-data firm Black Knight Inc.

Poilitcks

• Biden Embarks On 'Victory Lap' To Brag About $1.9 Trillion Stimulus... That Didn't Include $2,000 Payments He Promised | ZeroHedge

• In First Major Speech, Biden Lectures Americans About What They "Can and Cannot Do" by Katie Pavlich

• 7 takeaways from Joe Biden's prime-time Covid-19 speech - CNNPolitics

• Biden Announces End Of Pandemic In July - Victory Girls Blog

• Kyle Bass Calls For Law & Order After Portland Rioters Smash Windows, Set Fires Near Courthouse | ZeroHedge

World

• Myanmar coup: The shadowy business empire funding the Tatmadaw

• Myanmar's satellite held by Japan on space station due to spying concern

• Chinese regulators consider levying $975m fine against Alibaba

• Anger after Indonesia offers Elon Musk Papuan island for SpaceX launchpad

• Taiwan Drought Threatens Single Board Computer Production

• “Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford this morning refused to rule out instituting a curfew for all men in areas where there is a problem with sexual harassment.”

Health / Medicine / COVID

• Ebola may have lurked in someone for 5-6 years before sparking new outbreak

• Covid pandemic: Biden eyes 4 July as ‘Independence Day’ from virus

• Never-before-seen virus may be behind mystery outbreak in China (Jan 9, 2020)

• The pandemic that won't end

• The moments we realized the pandemic would change everything

• Pfizer Covid vaccine blocks 94% of asymptomatic infections in Israeli study

• Nasal administration of mitochondria reverses chemotherapy-induced cognitive deficits - Padirac Innovations' blog

• Russia Warns of H5N8 Bird Flu Transmission

• The EMA Covid-19 data leak, and what it tells us about mRNA instability

Climate / Green Propaganda

• How Much Energy Does It Take to Grow a Tomato? - IEEE Spectrum

  Perhaps the best way to convey the energy cost of a 1:60 tomato is to express it in equivalent terms, as tablespoons (each equal to 14.8 milliliters) of diesel fuel to be poured over a sliced tomato instead of the classic oil-and-vinegar dressing. For a 125-gram tomato it would come to 10 tablespoons. For a family-size salad, requiring a kilogram of those regularly sized greenhouse tomatoes (cluster of eight, still attached to a strong green vine), you’d incur an energy production cost equivalent to 80 tablespoons, or 5 cups of diesel fuel. This is a perfect illustration of how our food production and distribution depend heavily on substantial fuel and electricity inputs!

• Modern Alchemists Turn Airborne CO2 into Diamonds

  Each carat removes 20 tons of greenhouse gas from the sky, entrepreneurs say

• Restoring biodiversity to its natural place

• A solar powered hydrogen and synthesised ammonia fuelled farm in Iowa

• The U.S. Government Is Begging You to Destroy Moss Balls - Atlas Obscura

• Bitcoin's Climate Change Impact Is Under Scrutiny

• still no "Godzilla' cracks France grossly underestimated radioactive fallout from atom bomb tests, study