2021-12-09

Cool

• Generation of advanced Escher-like spiral tessellations | SpringerLink

  • Escher-like Spiral Tilings – Isohedral

  • Interactive demo

• Smiley Lore

  The exact date of the smiley’s birth can now be determined: 19 September, 1982.

• Molding Complex Optics In A Completely Fluid System

Worthy

• Bill Gates was right

• Groups Never Admit Failure

  • HN thread

etc

• Pen-side test for bovine respiratory disease may reduce antibiotic use

• Does Georgism Work? Is Land Really A Big Deal?

Horseshit

• 40 Years Ago Today, An Armed Man Stormed The Fed, Furious About Soaring Inflation And High Rates | ZeroHedge

• Where the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die

• Bros., Lecce: We Eat at The Worst Michelin Starred Restaurant, Ever

  Another course – a citrus foam – was served in a plaster cast of the chef’s mouth. Absent utensils, we were told to lick it out of the chef’s mouth in a scene that I’m pretty sure was stolen from an eastern European horror film. For reasons that could fill an entire volume of TimeLife Mysteries of the Unknown, THIS ITEM IS AVAILABLE FOR SALE AT THEIR GIFTSHOP. In case you want to have a restraining order filed against you this holiday season.

• Researchers train AI on ‘synthetic data’ to uncover Syrian war crimes

• Camels enhanced with Botox barred from Saudi beauty contest

  • Still no images of camels in swimsuits. Journalistic malpractice.

• Birds Aren’t Real, or Are They? Inside a Gen Z Conspiracy Theory

• Fall on walk from bed to desk is workplace accident German court rules

celebrity gossip

• The final, anguished years of a warrior-scholar who exposed torture by US troops

COVID / VaxCult

• Pfizer CEO says 4th vaccine doses may be needed sooner due to omicron

• Preliminary Studies suggest sharp-drop in vaccine-protection vs. Omicron

• 34,000 L.A. students have not complied with vaccine mandate, problems ahead

• 60k scientists call for an end to mass vaccination

• Factbox: Countries vaccinating children against Covid-19

• Car crash deaths have surged during Covid-19 pandemic

• New Zealand Prime Minister Admits "There's Not Going To Be An End Point To This Vaccination Program" | ZeroHedge

• The emergence, genomic diversity and global spread of SARS-CoV-2

• Vaccine neutralises Omicron with three shots

• BioNTech’s boss, Ugur Sahin, remains sanguine about Omicron

• Anime convention of 53K is first US case study for omicron spread, CDC says

• BioNTech vaccine jabs should be on thigh to reduce heart inflammation risks

• What’s Behind Global Vaccine Hesitancy

• How will the world decide when the pandemic is over?

• Nordic countries are restricting the use of Moderna’s Covid vaccine

• Omicron 4x More Infectious Than Delta, WHO Says Vaccines Should Not Mix | ZeroHedge

• Norwegian COVID Experts Says Omicron Could Provide “Best Scenario” of “Natural Immunity” – Summit News

• Where Are the Workers? Millions Are Sick with ‘Long Covid.’

  • Long Covid is destroying careers, leaving economic distress in its wake

• Fauci: Definition Of 'Fully Vaccinated' Will Be Changed | ZeroHedge

• The FDA has authorized AstraZeneca's monoclonal antibody treatment

• AstraZeneca Evusheld: Covid-19 antibody-combination – pre-exposure prophylaxis

• Unrepresentative big surveys significantly overestimated US vaccine uptake

Culture War / Re segregation / Faith Fights

• Advocates Push for Nationwide Movement for Land to Return to Blacks

• I think this is meme warfare, malignant horseshit... Does Institutional Rationality differ by size of institution?

• Empathy-based counter speech can reduce hate speech

  The collaborative research seminar is part of a more comprehensive project to develop algorithms that detect hate speech, and to test and refine further counterspeech strategies. To this end, the research team is collaborating with the Swiss women’s umbrella organisation alliance F, which has initiated the civil society project Stop Hate Speechcall_made. Through this collaboration the scientists are able to directly translate their research insights into practice, and to provide an empirical basis for alliance F to optimise the design and content of their counterspeech messages.

• Hundreds of Black Women in Georgia Will Get $850 per Month in Guaranteed Income

Media / ShowBiz / Censorship

• Effort to Save Local Journalism in US

• The Trump SPAC Pitch Is Weird

• Missed warning signs led to one of the worst concert tragedies

• WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

Twitter

• Project Guardian protects prominent Twitter users from abuse and harassment

• Twitter Un-Nukes Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Tracker Account Following Outrage

TechSuck

• Malware-laden packages increasingly found in repositories like NPM

• Google warns over 1M devices have been infected in ‘Russian hack’

  • But they stopped serving some of the attack vector ads.

• Upgraded to Windows 11 already? Disk running up to seven times slower? There's a fix on the way, at some point, probably.

• Old kit still has actual uses: Resurrected Opterons, Xeons, BGA CPUs Used for Gaming Desktops | Tom's Hardware

• Amazon's Server Outage Took Down a 'Decentralized' Crypto Exchange

• Pi Hosted social network node

• rust Language drama The Core Team Is Toxic - HackMD

Economicon / Business / Finance

• There are 11M open jobs as the quitting spree continues

• Kickstarter Will Move Its Crowdfunding Platform to Blockchain

• Evergrande, Kaisa cut by Fitch to default after missed pay deadlines

  • China’s Evergrande defaults on dollar debt

  • Evergrande has defaulted on its debt

  • China Evergrande Defaults on Its Debt, a Ratings Firm Says.

  • Evergrande Has Finally Defaulted: Here's What Happens Next | ZeroHedge

• Amazon fined 1.1B euro in Italy for abuse of market dominance

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• How Tech Is Helping Poor People Get Government Aid

• Senate backs Biden admin weapons sale to Saudi Arabia

• Lawmakers urge the head of Instagram to better protect children

• The government’s real problem with UFOs.

• “Free PACER” Bill Advances Through Senate Judiciary Unanimously | Fix the Court

• Jan. 6 committee gets Meadows texts, emails with 'wide range' of people while attack was underway

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Curiouser and Curiouser – Ricochet

  the “white supremacist demonstrators” were being escorted by DC Police, which means it had been coordinated with the city. If that was the case why wasn’t BLM/ANTIFA there to counter-protest. If DC City Hall knew this was going on, someone would have passed the word on. And yet, that didn’t happen. Stranger still, it appears that the group in question, called “Patriot Front” seemed to appear from nowhere, march down the steps, and disappear without holding a rally or making speeches.

  • Desperately Seeking White Supremacists | Power Line

• Judge Grants Project Veritas Request To Insert Special Master After FBI Raids | ZeroHedge

  Torres denied another request from petitioners. They had asked the judge to order the government to search for the source of leaked information given to the New York Times related to the raids and the materials seized. She declined, asserting they did not provide a legal basis for their request or allege that the government violated any rule, law, or policy.

• Chicago Mayor Blames Retailers for Not Doing Enough to Fight Organized Theft :: Grabien News

  "Some of the retailers downtown in Michigan Avenue, I will tell you, I'm disappointed that they are not doing more to take safety and make it a priority. For example, we still have retailers that won't institute plans like having security officers in their stores.

• FBI may shut down police use-of-force database due to lack of police involvement

• A father and son were arrested in connection with California's massive Caldor Fire

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Russia Delivers Protest Note To US Embassy Warning "Dangerous Consequences" For Border "Provocations" | ZeroHedge

• Biden Says Sending US Troops To Ukraine "Not On The Table" | ZeroHedge

• NATO, Ukraine autonomy pose diplomatic challenges for Biden | AP News

  Administration officials have suggested that the U.S. will press Ukraine to formally cede a measure of autonomy to eastern Ukrainian lands now controlled by Russia-backed separatists who rose up against Kyiv in 2014. An undefined “special status” for those areas was laid out in an ambiguous, European-brokered peace deal in 2015, but it has never taken hold.

• U.S. House Passes Bill to Punish China over Oppression of Uyghurs

World

• New Zealand to ban smoking for next generation in bid to outlaw habit by 2025

  • New Zealand to ban cigarettes for future generations

• Ending China’s 20-year WTO winning streak

• Surveillance covers Calais, but more migrants are dying at sea than ever before

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Constraints on estimating the CO2 fertilization effect emerge

• World population set to decline for the first time in centuries

• Car, gas industry knew about health risks of lead, sold it for 100 years anyway

• When Carbon Credits Drive People from Their Homes