2021-07-21

Cool

60 Years of Homebuilding - by Brian Potter - Construction Physics

In some ways, the last 10 years have been somewhat unusual, as homebuilding has continuously trended upward - a reprieve from the normal boom-and-bust cycle that’s more typical of home construction.
- or you could call it an unprecedented decade long dent in the data; where we're finally reaching what was previously the lowest low point in the graph...
Average square footage of homes has increased from 1600 in 1973 to 2400 today. Interestingly, this means we’re building almost the exact amount of square footage today that we did 50 years ago.

Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over his rare Twitter handle

WKRN News 2 (via GamingBible) reported new information on the April 2020 incident involving Mark Herring of Bethpage, Tennessee. A swatting incident—the act of calling 911 to report a fake crime so armed responders storm an address—was organized on Discord in an attempt to intimidate Herring into handing over his valuable @tennessee Twitter handle.
- Serial Swatter Who Caused Death Gets Five Years in Prison – Krebs on Security
GM leaves owner owing $12K after Bolt EV battery fire last year

The car has an eight-year battery warranty and was fully insured. The main problem? No gap insurance. He owed $32,964 on the car, and the insurance appraised the vehicle at just over $21,000. Because of all of the steep discounts that GM was offering on the Bolt, his 18-month-old car was worth about half what he paid for it.
A key product of ubiquitous surveillance is people who are comfortable with it
The CDC Should Be More Like Wikipedia

Nancy Pelosi’s stock options made incredible returns

So far, Pelosi's family has done very well trading over the last year. Her one year returns for her stocks is 45.59%, and her option returns are 66.7%. This is pretty incredible, for an average return of her stocks and options is 56.15%. The S&P, with its raucous best performing year, is only up 36% from last June.

Pentagon Reportedly Tracking "Extremist" Web Searches Including "The Truth About Black Lives Matter" | ZeroHedge
Top US Catholic church official resigns amid link to brokered cellphone data - CNET

A top official with the US Catholic church resigned after cellphone data obtained through a broker appeared to show he was a frequent user of the gay dating app Grindr, reigniting privacy concerns about who has access to consumers' digital data.

Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres
The BBC’s interviewer found himself on a sticky wicket with Google’s CEO

As the show closed with the two sharing a friendly elbow-bump, one could almost hear the Google PR team saying: “Well, that went well, didn’t it?” while back in Shepherd’s Bush (or wherever the BBC now hangs out) it would have been trebles all round. Job well done; now for the next “global figure”. But back at his humble ranch this licence fee payer was wondering: when are we ever going to get some “proper scrutiny” of the companies that now dominate our networked world?
Tumblr Introduces Paid Subscription Tool to Woo Younger Bloggers
Biden Is Trying to Impose Online Censorship by Proxy
How a Twitter thread sparked a lawsuit against Nieman Lab’s founder - Columbia Journalism Review

Thanks to his administrative access on Disqus, Nieman Lab’s commenting platform, Benton determined that the account was linked to Francesca Viola, a longtime assistant professor of broadcast journalism and media law at Temple University. He also managed to find truthseeker’s more noxious comments from other sites.

She also engaged in unfounded election theories: “The reason Trump won is because more people voted for him than your girl. And save your breath on the tired refrain that Hillary won the popular vote because of some illegal votes cast in California. Yawn.”

U.S. producer prices post biggest annual gain in more than 10-1/2 years
The Dish ‘fix’ for the T-Mobile-Sprint merger seems more shortsighted than ever - The Verge

“If T-Mobile is able to shirk this regulatory obligation with impunity, what’s to prevent future consent orders from being ignored?” Hal Singer, an economist who testified against the merger approval tells The Verge.

Street Justice: Man Found Dead On Staten Island With "I Touch Little Girls" Scrawled Across His Chest | ZeroHedge
DEA agent charged with carrying badge and gun at Capitol riot
Accused murderer set free after St. Louis County prosecutors fail to show up, but found time for McCloskeys
Man Arrested in Connection with Alleged Role in Twitter Hack

Joseph O’Connor, 22, a citizen of the United Kingdom was arrested today in Estepona, Spain, by Spanish National Police pursuant to a U.S. request for his arrest on multiple charges in connection with the July 2020 hack of Twitter that resulted in the compromise of over 130 Twitter accounts, including those belonging to politicians, celebrities and companies.