2022-05-18

etc

• Got Milk: Bronze Age Population Soared Thanks to Livestock

• SF's still sinking Millennium Tower means it may be forever tilting

• Giant Tonga Volcanic Eruption Was as Powerful as Krakatau in 1883, Scientists Reveal.

• Interstellar object CNEOS burned up in the Earth's atmosphere on Jan 8, 2014

  This object gained the interest of the scientific community as it has been posited it could have interstellar origin due to the detected event’s high velocity within the atmosphere. Further analysis carried out under U.S. Space Command’s purview confirmed the object’s high velocity impact, but the short duration of collected data, less than five seconds, makes it difficult to definitively determine if the object’s origin was indeed interstellar.

• Van Gogh's 'The Starry Night' reimagined by Lego in 2,316 bricks

UFO

• (Jan 2019) What U.S. Submariners Say About Detection of Unidentified Submerged Objects

• Congress dives into UFOs, but no signs of extraterrestrials

• Out-of-this-world revelations in short supply at US Congress briefing on UFOs

• UFO hearing features historic testimony from Pentagon officials

Horseshit

• World Will Divide in Two Blocs, Democracy vs. Autocracy, Ex-NATO Chief Says

• The rise of fake engine noise

• TikTokers Are Accused of Starting Forest Fires for Views

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Just How Incredibly Fucked Up Is Texas’ Social Media Content Moderation Law? | Techdirt

• Biden admin ‘pauses’ controversial Disinformation Governance Board: report

Musk / Twitter

• Twitter's account of deal shows Musk signing without asking for more info

• Twitter Board Says It Plans to ‘Enforce’ Musk Merger Agreement

• The Musk-Twitter Endgame

• Twitter executive calling Elon Musk mentally handicapped

• Elon Musk Does Not Care About Spam Bots

• Elon Musk calls out Twitter employee caught in video mocking his Asperger's

• Elon vs. the Twitter Bots

• Elon Musk: WeChat-alike app needs to exist, built out of Twitter or from scratch

• Musk wars with Twitter over his buyout deal

Abortion

• The Court is ignoring science

COVID / VaxCult

• China diverts anti-poverty funds to Covid testing

• The new Covid equilibrium

  Death rates are not up, but more of the unvaccinated will die off with time and the rest of us will face this steady risk and planning annoyance for — how long?

• The pandemic’s true health cost: how much of our lives has Covid stolen?

Culture War / Tribal / Re segregation

• Confessions of a Social-Justice Meme Maker

• New tax filings reveal how BLM founder Patrisse Cullors spent the foundation's funds | Daily Mail Online

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• With plunging enrollment, a ‘seismic hit’ to public schools

  • HN comments

• Pennsylvania teacher busted for sexual relationship with student after husband alerts principal.

Media / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Netflix Lays Off Estimated 150 Staffers in New Round of Layoffs

• Disney Plus with ads will keep the breaks down to four minutes per hour

• NBCUniversal new ad formats tap into metaverse, sequential storytelling

TechSuck

• Kindle, ePub, and Amazon’s love of reinventing wheels | Hacker News

• How Intel is using software acquisitions to save the sinking ship

  During that response, Pat bemoaned that Intel had developed so many technologies which are foundational to cloud computing but were never properly monetized.

Crypto con games

• Four NFTs stolen from actor Seth Green

• U.S. court rejects Tether’s bid to conceal reserve records from the public

• Tether Has Not Reported Its Supply For 3 Days Now

• All Those Celebrities Pushing Crypto Are Not So Vocal Now

• Tether redemptions fuel fears about stablecoin's backing

• What the Terra crash means for the future of crypto

• U.S. court rejects Tether’s bid to conceal reserve records from the public

  • HN comments

• What Happened with Crypto?

• How Gen Z is hooked on cryptocurrency and NFTs

• Terraform's Legal Team Quits Amid Terra Stablecoin Fallout

• State of Crypto Report

• Crypto Meltdown Exposes Hollowness of Its Libertarian Promise Archive link

• After the crash, crypto boosters are still HODLin

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Bernanke says the Fed’s slow response to inflation ‘was a mistake’

• Powell: Fed will not hesitate to keep raising rates until inflation comes down

• GrubHub offered $15 off orders from 11am to 2pm in NYC without notifying workers

• Historic! Gas Prices Are Over $4 a Gallon in All 50 States for the First Time Ever.

• The tech sector teardown is more catharsis than crisis Alternate link

• Target profit halves as rising costs hit margins

  • Target posts a drop in profit. Stock plunges

• UK inflation jumps to 40-year high of 9% as food and energy prices spiral

• Target shares sink 25% after company says high costs, inventory woes hit profits

• The Decade of Cheap Rides Is Over

Shortages

• The Baby Formula Shortage Has Birthed a Shady Online Marketplace

• The Baby Formula Crisis Shows The Risks Of Corporate Concentration

• The baby formula shortage, explained

• Facebook is censoring a vintage recipe for homemade baby formula

• India isn’t the only one banning food exports.These countries are doing the same

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Tennessee: The America We Need - Tennessee Conservative

Hunter

• Over 120,000 Hunter Biden Emails Uploaded To Searchable Database

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Just How Fucked Up Is Texas’ Social Media Content Moderation Law?

• U.S. Accuses Steve Wynn of Lobbying Trump on Behalf of China

  • US Sues Casino Mogul Wynn Over Relationship with China

• Spygate Conspirators Start Selling Their Hoax To A Washington DC Jury, But The Facts Don’t Fit

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US and Southeast Asia: A Dysfunctional Romance

• The Physics and Hype of Hypersonic Weapons

• The Navy’s Big Carrier Groups Are Sitting Ducks

• Biden will ease sanctions on Venezuela for commitment to dialogue with Guaidó

• Researchers Think They've Found the Cause of Gulf War Illness

• NATO Doesn't Need More Freeriders

  Every US administration for the last two decades has tried and failed to get the majority of NATO members to meaningfully increase investment in their own defense.

• When Your Smart ID Card Reader Comes with Malware | Hacker News

• Trump and Biden Let Afghanistan Collapse

• U.S. and Japan Embrace the Open Internet

World

• Flight data suggests China Eastern plane deliberately crashed: WSJ report

  • Flight data shows China Eastern jet deliberately crashed: Report

  • China Eastern Black Box Points to Intentional Nosedive

  • Chinese plane crash that killed 132 caused by intentional act: US officials

• Kabul brokers peace talks between Pakistani Taliban and Islamabad

• Ferdinand Marcos Jr urged to stop pretending he has an Oxford degree

• Erdoğan blocks NATO accession talks with Sweden and Finland

  • Turkey Blocks NATO Accession Talks With Sweden & Finland - Issues List Of Demands | ZeroHedge

• EU plans ‘massive’ increase in green energy to help end reliance on Russia

Health / Medicine

• Scientists see signs of traumatic brain injury in headbutting muskox

• A SIDS Study Became a Media Train Wreck

• US road deaths increased by more than 10% in 2021

• Obesity's relationship with type 2 diabetes is weird

• Link: Troof On Nootropics - by Scott Alexander

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Climate Change Has Made Deadly Heat Waves Normal

• Assessing the climate change exposure of foreign direct investment

• Western Architecture Is Making India's Heatwaves Worse

• Exxon is rated top ten best in world for ESG, while Tesla didn’t make the list

• The Air Conditioning Paradox

Ukraine War

• US Blocks Russian Debt Payments

• Blinken Announces US Embassy Reopening In Ukraine's Capital

etc

• Putin on Sweden and Finland: Never mind.

• Russia needs cars, so it's rebooting this Soviet-era brand

• Did a Berlin Dentist Swindle Moscow Out of Millions?

• Putin involved in war ‘at level of colonel or brigadier’, say western sources

• Google's Russian subsidiary files for bankruptcy

• Google says its Russian bank account has been seized

• Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks Not Happening in 'Any Form' As Stances Harden

• The whole world is against us in Ukraine: Russian military analyst on state TV