2021-11-14

Cool

• GitHub - niedzielski/git-diff-img: Difference Git versioned images graphically.

• The Epoch of Planet Formation, Times Twenty - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

etc

• I come to wish that the opinion of someone other that Avi Loeb could be referenced int he news. Not Saying It Was Aliens, but ‘Oumuamua Probably Wasn’t a Nitrogen Iceberg

  The “nitrogen iceberg” theory stated that ‘Oumuamua was likely debris from a Pluto-like planet in another solar system. In their latest study, titled “The Mass Budget Necessary to Explain ‘Oumuamua as a Nitrogen Iceberg,” Amir Siraj and Prof. Avi Loeb (who proposed the ET solar sail hypothesis) offered an official counter-argument to this theory. According to their new paper, there is an extreme shortage of exo-Plutos in the galaxy to explain the detection of a nitrogen iceberg.

• 'Covid pets' find themselves on Tinder

• Wild Bidding Wars Erupt at Used-Tractor Auctions Across the U.S.

Horseshit

• The US is making its biggest investment in broadband internet ever

• Was the 1947 Roswell Incident a cipher mystery? - Cipher Mysteries

• ‘Ghost Guns’: Firearm Kits Bought Online Fuel Epidemic of Violence

celebrity gossip

• Bezos predicts only limited number of people will get to remain on Earth

COVID / VaxCult

• CDC: No Record of Naturally Immune Transmitting COVID-19.

  • (Nov 12) CDC Admits Crushing Rights of Naturally Immune Without Proof They Transmit the Virus - by Aaron Siri - Injecting Freedom

  My firm, on behalf of ICAN, asked the CDC for precisely this proof (see below). ICAN wanted to see proof of any instance in which someone who previously had COVID-19 became reinfected with and transmitted the virus to someone else. The CDC’s incredible response is that it does not have a single document reflecting that this has ever occurred. Not one.

• Worldwide vaccine failure - by Alex Berenson - Unreported Truths

• The "animal" vaccine apparently doesn't work; either:

  • Rare snow leopards die of Covid-19 complications at US zoo

  • Tiger Tests Positive For COVID-19 at Brookfield Zoo – NBC Chicago

• VAERS COVID vaccine data show surge in reports - Nexus Newsfeed

• Texas Covid-19 Cases and Deaths by Vaccination Status

• Covid-19 vaccine benefits exaggerated, say experts

• Covid cases are surging in Europe. America is in denial about what lies ahead

• Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

• Among the Unvaccinated: Meaning, Death, and Owning the Elites

  Everyone was without a college degree. Or in my lingo, in the Back Row. Everyone was proud of being unvaccinated, and almost everyone told me without me asking. The demographics of the unvaccinated I have met is very similar to the demographics of the rest of the Back Row. It is mostly white, but minorities are over-represented, relative to the general population of the US. To the degree they are political, it is mostly non-voters, and like non-voters, while they may have a strong allegiance to a “side,” they don’t think much of the process. “Everyone is equally corrupt, but at least Trump is honest about it.”

  I am, however, not necessarily the best person to push back. If they talk to me long enough, they notice, even six months later, I still have some lingering symptoms of Bell’s Palsy, which I got following my vaccination. I still have to put drops in my right eye every now and then, still have to drink oddly out of only one side of my mouth. I can’t honestly say there isn’t some minor risk, even though I do add and emphasize, “I would have still gotten vaccinated again. Having my risk of death cut down by 10 times is like, huge man. Worth a few eye drops now and then.”

• Oklahoma National Guard 'Goes Rogue' After New Commander Rejects Vaccine Mandate; Pentagon To Respond 'Appropriately' | ZeroHedge

• Vaccine Passports Are Now Valid for One Year Only

• EU does not know effectiveness of lockdowns, tracing and vaccination strategies

  • Moritz Körner, member of the European Parliament, asked on September 15th

• The Mask Distraction ⋆ Brownstone Institute

  If instead of the obsession with masks, which, as we have seen, are mostly ineffective in the real world and lead to a false sense of security, there were campaigns to improve ventilation in closed spaces, how many Covid-19 transmission events could have been prevented and how many lives would have been saved? Unfortunately, most authorities chose instead the path of mask mandates, despite the lack of trustworthy evidence. In general, masking of the general public has been a deadly distraction.

• Austria brings back Covid-19 lockdown, this time for the unvaccinated

• Canada authorizes Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine as a booster shot

Culture War / Re segregation / Identdoctrination

• Who’s sovereign now? - by Simon Carne - Irregular Thoughts

Edumacationalizing

• Astronomer Withdraws Academic Career Research After Diversity Criticism

  Pieter van Dokkum, Sol Goldman Family Professor of Astronomy at Yale University, used one of Kormendy’s older theories about the relationship between galaxy size and surface brightness to dunk on both him and the new paper on Twitter: “The Kormendy (1977) relation fell into disuse as it was realized that the correlation is largely driven by biases. In other news, to everyone who applied for our open faculty position at Yale: rest assured that we will not blindly apply citation statistics to rank candidates.”

  • Astronomer apologizes, withdraws preprint slated for PNAS about impact in the field after criticism – Retraction Watch

  The book required 5 years of intense, essentially full-time work. I believe in it. But for now, all advice to me has been that it is dangerous and unwarranted even to defend the work. I therefore am unable to comment further on events. I am sorry — more than words can say.

  With the PNAS paper withdrawn, with the book on hold and no longer available, and with my sincere apology posted, I now plan to disengage from astronomy for at least 3-4 months. I need to do this for reasons of health. I do not know whether any good can be salvaged from the situation in the longer run.

Media / Many Ministries of Truths / Censorship

• How CBT Harmed Me: The Interview That the New York Times Erased – Disability Visibility Project

• Apple’s ad privacy change impact shows the power it wields over other industries

• DICE to rename Battlefield 2042 skin that "unintentionally" references Russo-Ukrainian War • Eurogamer.net

• The internet needs better rules, not stricter referees - by Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie - Substack

Facebook

• Why Facebook won’t let you control your news feed

• Facebook Employees Are Now More Willing to Leave, Tech Recruiters Say

TechSuck

• Ultrasound tech to detect motion comes to fourth-gen Echos and Echo Dot devices

• Pluralistic: 14 Nov 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

• U.S. states file updated antitrust complaint against Google

Economicon

• As America Falls Apart, Profits Soar

• Covid cases are surging in Europe. America is in denial about what lies ahead

• US VCs are investing billions in Chinese Semiconductor companies

• China Wants to Own Shipping's Digital Operating System

• Inflation Is Up, But the Inflation Truthers Are Still Wrong - by Noah Smith - Noahpinion

  we find ourselves in a period of actual high-ish inflation. But even though inflation is real this time, the cottage industry of websites telling people that it’s even higher than you’ve been told is still going strong. Our old friend Shadowstats is back in the news, assuring us that inflation is actually 15% instead of 6%. So I asked John Aziz to come back and reprise his role as the slayer of inflation disinformation.

Gubmint / Poilitcks

• Developers pause St. Paul projects after rent control Vote

Law / Crime / Police

• Hoax Email Blast Abused Poor Coding in FBI Website

  “Basically, when you requested the confirmation code it was generated client-side, then sent to you via a POST Request,” Pompompurin said. “This post request includes the parameters for the email subject and body content.”

  • Hackers sent spam emails from FBI accounts, agency confirms

• Rittenhouse trial judge still baffled by pinch-to-zoom

• US bank robber identified after decades-long hunt

  Ted Conrad was working as a teller at the Society National Bank in Cleveland, Ohio when he robbed his employer in July 1969. The case remained cold for decades before investigators, alerted by the appearance of Randele's obituary in a newspaper, were able to match papers he had filed during the 1960s with documents "Randele" had completed more recently.

  • Fugitive who pulled off Cleveland bank heists identified 52 years later

• Inside federal prisons, employees are committing the crimes

World

• UK must be ready for war with Russia, says armed forces chief

Health / Medicine

• Medicare premium jumps by $21.60, half due to cost of new Alzheimer’s drug

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The ‘inactivists’, tangling up the climate crisis in culture wars

• Holding back tears, the COP26 president says he is “deeply sorry”

• Nations reach climate deal at COP26 after compromise on coal

• Colorado 'solar garden' is literally a farm under solar panels

• U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

• Outcomes of the Glasgow Climate Change Conference

• Ask HN: Could FAANG companies just solve climate change?

• In defense of combustion engines, Toyota CEO says ‘the enemy is carbon’