2021-04-30

Cool

• A new way to buy crypto on Coinbase using PayPal | by Coinbase | Apr, 2021 | The Coinbase Blog

• Gran Turismo Is Now an Official Olympic Sport | The Drive

  Starting May 13, all of Gran Turismo Sport's online player base will be able to enter the Olympic event through a 10-day Global Online Qualification phase, consisting of a string of Time Trial Challenges. The top 16 performers from around the globe will be chosen to move on to the World Finals to be held on Olympic Day, June 23, when they will compete for points in a trio of races. Like all racing championships, whichever driver winds up with the most points at the end will be crowned the winner.

• Internal Combustion Engine

Worthy

• A guide to building a blockchain & cryptocurrency from scratch in Ruby | Antoine Fink

  • Documents Melon Coin very well. Best "WTF is a blockchain?" I have yet seen.

• Internal Combustion Engine

etc

• Huge rocket looks set for uncontrolled reentry following Chinese space station launch - SpaceNews

• Does nuclear secrecy make us more secure? New book offers counterargument

• Plain of Jars, one of the most mysterious archaeological sites, reveals its age

• New study has scientists re-evaluating relative brain size and mammalian intelligence

  "Brain-to-body size is of course not independent of the evolution of intelligence," emphasizes Smaers. "But it may actually be more indicative of more general adaptions to large scale environmental pressures that go beyond intelligence."

Horseshit

• Kentucky Derby overshadowed by calls for Sheikh Mohammed's horse to be banned

• John Doe 29: Image From FBI Child Exploitation Case Geolocated to Turkey - bellingcat

  • With these folks, the horseshit they're selling today isn't relevant, what it shows about the motives of their masters is.

celebrity gossip

• 5 Facing Charges Over Shooting Of Lady Gaga's Dog Walker And Theft Of French Bulldogs

• Ghislaine Maxwell: lawyers release photo showing bruised face

Obit

• Author of 'Red Sparrow' thrillers, Jason Matthews, dies at 69

Culture War / Re segregation / Identdoctrination

• Laughter in the Gulag - American Mindset

• The Antidemocratic Turn | Freedom House

  Transfers of antidemocratic norms have also taken place on issues such as the rights of LGBT+ people and abortion. In these cases, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has led the way, deploying hateful rhetoric and mobilizing its base around the fight against what it calls “LGBT and gender ideology.” In the wake of PiS’s successes, including the 2020 reelection of President Andrzej Duda after a homophobic campaign, Hungary’s government similarly elevated attacks on the LGBT+ community to the top of its political agenda, ending the legal recognition of transgender people and amending the constitution to ban adoption by same-sex couples.

• He Wants to Save Classics from Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?

• Nolte: Ban on Menthol Cigs Is the Racist Criminalization of Black Behavior

• In France, Chauvin Conviction Has Not Brought Comfort

• DOJ to seek indictment of Chauvin and three other ex-Minneapolis police officers

• Professor Berates Student for Calling Police ‘Heroes’

• Past Jeopardy contestants want show to address alleged 'white power' symbol

  A growing list of more than 450 former Jeopardy contestants are calling for action after a recent winner allegedly flashed a hand gesture that has become associated with white supremacist hate groups, and, in another instance, responded to a clue with a term that is considered a slur.

• They Call It a ‘Women’s Disease.’ She Wants to Redefine It

  • Hate speech: Having a uterus makes one female.

• Suspect in Fatal Hit-and-Run of Cop Gave Anti-Police Rant Hours Before - Washington Free Beacon

• School District Tells Principals To Create Fake Curriculum To Send Parents After Complaints Of Indoctrination | The Daily Wire

• BREAKING: Biden Official Confirms Plans to Ban Fried Chicken and Grape Drink – RedState

  (Editor’s Note: Clearly, this piece was penned using the sarcasm font. Just pointing that out for those who don’t regularly partake in satire.)

Media / Many Ministries of Truths / Censorship

• DisneyMustPay: Authors form task force to fight for missing payments

• Verizon Explores Sale of Media Assets, Including Parts of Yahoo and AOL

TechSuck

• European Union says Apple’s App Store breaches competition rules

• YouTube TV removed from Roku channel store amid Google contract dispute

  • An update to our YouTube TV members on Roku

• AWS on track to be bigger than IBM by Christmas

• New Motherboard for Chia Mining Includes 32 SATA Ports - ExtremeTech

• Intel seeks $10 bln in subsidies for European chip plant

• Amazon is spending big to take on UPS and FedEx

• “We Are Devastated”: Instacart Is Deactivating Workers and They Don't Know Why

• Instagram Realizes It Had a Clubhouse in Its Heart All Along

• A university got itself banned from the Linux kernel

• “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

Economicon

• Is Dogecoin The Perfect Currency For The United States Of America In 2021? | ZeroHedge

  • Dogecoin Is a Joke, but It’s No Laughing Matter

• Feds arrest founder of bitcoin ‘mixer’ they say laundered $335 million over ten years

• The strange case of the ‘$100m deli’ and the universities that own a slice

• Palladium tops $3k for first time amid undersupply

• Affluent Americans Rush to Retire in New ‘Life-Is-Short’ Mindset

• Stimulus Checks Boost US Consumer Spending in March

• Fed Likely to Keep Rates Near Zero as Recovery Picks Up

Poilitcks

• The sheer recklessness of Giuliani’s effort to damage Biden comes into focus

  • Rudy Giuliani Taps Alan Dershowitz for Legal Advice Following Federal Raid

• Antifa fears, UV lights: What the group running Arizona GOP's election audit tried to keep secret

Security / Militaria / Crime / Police

• FBI seizes phone from lawyer who helped Rudy Giuliani hunt for Biden dirt in Ukraine

• US, NATO Troops Leaving Afghanistan as Fighting Escalates

  • Lies told to sustain the mission in Afghanistan

• Mysterious health attacks like those seen in Cuba have come to DC

World

• Dozens killed in stampede at religious gathering in Israel

  • Israel crush: Witnesses tell of people 'thrown up in the air' - BBC News

• A day to pack up our lives and get out: journalist Bill Birtles on fleeing China

Health / Medicine / COVID

• White House to restrict travel from India - Axios

  Worth noting: The policy won't apply to American citizens, permanent residents or other people with exemptions, CNN writes.

• Is Russia’s Covid vaccine anything more than a political weapon?

• Health officials plan major research on Covid-19 long-haulers

• Relief and worry for immune-suppressed people | Science

• Associations between BMI and Covid-19 severity in 6.9M people in England

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Court: Germany must share climate burden between young, old

• How to Kill a Zombie Fire - Atlas Obscura

  In the lab, Rein and his colleagues experimented with a novel anti-zombie weapon: water mixed with a nontoxic, readily available fire-extinguishing surfactant, also known as a wetting agent or suppressant. “It’s a little bit actually like soap—it just reduces the surface tension of the water and allows the water to penetrate better into a porous medium,” says Rein. “Peat is a porous medium.”

• The math isn’t adding up on forests and CO2 reductions

• Geoengineering: 'Plan B' for the Planet