2022-08-24

Cool

• Design the next iPhone | Hacker News

etc

• Congress Admits UFOs Not ‘Man-Made,’ Says ‘Threats’ Increasing ‘Exponentially’

• Lessons in Mushroom Hunting and Fiber Dyeing - by Sara

• Effective Altruism as a Tower of Assumptions

• Effective Altruism Has a Novelty Problem

• The SLS rocket is the worst thing to happen to NASA–but maybe also the best?

• UK supermarket ends best before dates on 200 fresh products

• Poor parents buy food that meets financial, emotional, social needs

• How Resilient Is The Natural Gas Grid? | Hackaday

• Jeff Bezos’ job posting for Amazon from 1994 goes viral

Horseshit

• Towards a Digital Animism - by Noah Norman

• Boredom behind the wheel is a risk as cars get smarter

• Does turning the air conditioning off when you’re not home save energy?

• Gen X's Message to the Youth

• Failed AI startup lent founder $4.7M for ‘personal asset purchases’

• The technology that makes you sound more American and whiter

• Animals are victims of ‘human supremacy,’ growing student organization claims.

• Auto giants like BMW, GM and Toyota make drivers ‘subscribe’ for basic features

  • HN comments

• Things people blamed on bicycles | Hacker News

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Should CEOs be politically public? An authenticity tax is emerging

• davidthompson: Impermissible Notions

• People Are Demanding That Cloudflare Drop Kiwi Farms

  • HN comments

• Unheard Voice – Analyzing Removed Pro-US Social Media Accounts

• We’re About to Find Out What Happens When Privacy Is All but Gone

• Facebook,Twitter Take Down US Propaganda Operation Targeting Russia, China, Iran

  Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have taken down a series of accounts that appeared to be running a Russian-language, pro-U.S. influence operation, according to researchers from the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) and Graphika, a private research company. The campaign lasted for almost five years, according to the researchers.

  The tactics used closely mirror those that the Russian government deployed in the United States during the 2016 election; this time, however, the memes, petitions, fake news, AI-altered profile photos, propaganda, and hashtags deployed were pro-U.S., anti-Russia, and seemingly designed to undermine Russia, China, Iran, and other authoritarian countries, according to the study.

Abortion

• Yelp adds a warning label to anti-abortion center listings

Musk

• Twitter whistleblower won hacker acclaim for exposing software flaws

  • Whistleblower: Twitter is vulnerable to influence by Russia and China

  • Twitter Whistleblower Reveals Company Hid "Extreme, Egregious, Deficiencies"; Musk Subpoenas Dorsey & Ex-Security Chief

  • Mudge files whistleblower complaint against Twitter

• Twitter reshuffles 'health' team amid spam bot debate

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Google Search Data Suggests the Mar-a-Lago Raid Boosted Trump over Desantis

• The White House Claimed It Had No Prior Knowledge of the Raid on Donald Trump’s House. The White House, Once Again, Lied

• Litigation by Leak: Government Officials Leak New Details on the Mar-a-Lago Raid While Continuing to Oppose Disclosures in Court – JONATHAN TURLEY

  It is litigation by leak where the government prevents others (including the target) from seeing key representations made to the court while releasing selective facts to its own advantage. It shows utter contempt for the court and the public. The question is whether the court will take note of this series of leaks. Most judges do not like to be played so openly and publicly by government officials.

• Files copied from voting systems shared with Trump supporters, election deniers

• Just can’t QUIT him: David Frum’s sad thread claiming Trump-Russia hoax was TOTALLY not a hoax would make #BlueAnon proud – twitchy.com

• Two Years After Kenosha Riots, Why No August 23 Committee To Investigate The Big Lie That Stoked The Flames?

• Marjorie Taylor Green Swatted.

  • IP thread

Pestilence / Pox / COVID / VaxCult

• First brush with coronavirus could affect how a fall booster works

• China in Charge at U.S. Lab | FrontpageMag

• University of Waterloo will not mandate masks, vaccines in fall

• CDC Quietly Ends Differentiation on Covid Vaccination Status

• Experts warn that thousands did not get cancer screenings during Covid lockdown

• Trump gave Moderna all the patent-waivers it needed to make a vaccine

  • Which is now Bad because Bill Gates argued the UN out of similar waivers for the "global south," but its all Trump's fault; as usual.

• Heart disease after Covid: what the data say

• Trump White House exerted pressure on FDA Covid-19 emergency use authorizations

• YouTube Now Allows Users to Say Masks Didn’t Stop COVID Spread

• Man tests positive for monkeypox, Covid and HIV at the same time

• Watch: CNN Tells Viewers Monkeypox Is Not Sexually-Transmitted

Culture War / Tribal / Re segregation

• Google is setting caps on white and Asian students for a prestigious fellowship

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Why is college so expensive? The government handed them a blank check in 1993

• ‘Tracking’ students can be beneficial, study finds

Media / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Ask HN: Is it just me or Facebook is being bombarded by spam?

  • Facebook's timeline just shows random things for some users

  • Facebook glitch floods users’ feeds with celebrity posts

  • A Facebook bug spammed celebrity comments to everyone for hours

• Facebook's Four Problems

• Plex: Important notice of a potential data breach

• News addiction is linked to not only poor mental well-being but physical health

• Capitol Records drops ‘offensive’ AI rapper FN Meka after outcry

• What the Fuck Happened to Reddit? | The Blog of Dr. Josh C. Simmons

• Comedian George Lopez sues Pandora for $5.5M for “brazen” copyright infringement

TechSuck

• Permutation Generation Methods | Hacker News

• Common Tech Jobs Described as Cabals of Mesoamerican Wizards

  • HN comments

• Ask HN: DALL-E was trained on watermarked stock images?

• IFixit: Self Repair Program makes M1 MacBooks less repairable

• Bank of America Email: “Update Your iPhone”

• Chattanooga’s public ISP now offers citywide residential 25 gigabit service

Crypto con games

• The 30-Year-Old Spending $1B to Save Crypto

• Mastercard to enable crypto purchases for 90M merchants

• Mainnet Merge Announcement

  • HN comments

• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong reveals new details about pivot to subscriptions

• Banks and crypto lobby clash with lawmakers over Fed digital dollar

• Tether defies U.S. sanctions on service that hid stolen assets

• Tornado Cash Seen as Key Laundering Tool for NFT Scams Before US Sanctions

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year | Hacker News

• Ford's job cuts are just the beginning of another EV earthquake

• WTI Slides Despite US Crude Production Cut, Gasoline Demand Tumbles

• "Tsunami Of Shutoffs": 20 Million US Homes Are Behind On Power Bills | ZeroHedge

  Jean Su, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which tracks utility disconnections across the US, warned of a "tsunami of shutoff" as the highest inflation in forty years eats away wages and has financially devastated the working poor.

  • 20M US Homes Are Behind on Energy Bills

• Peloton to Start Selling Bikes, Apparel Through Amazon

Shortages

• Sulfuric acid shortage could stifle green tech and threaten food security

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Paul Pelosi benefits big with PPP forgiveness, company won’t repay millions.

• Biden to Announce Decision on Student Loan Debt, Affecting Millions of Borrowers

  • Biden Will 'Forgive' $300 Billion in Student Loan Debt in 'The Inflation Expansion Act,' – PJ Media

  The Wall Street Journal is dubbing the forgiveness of $10,000 in student loan debt for individuals making $125,000 a year or less “The Inflation Expansion Act” — a play on the name of the bill passed just last week that Democrats misnamed the “Inflation Reduction Act.” There is also going to be another extension of the moratorium on paying back the $1.6 trillion in student debt already owed.

  Biden is expected to make the much-anticipated announcement today. The executive order by Biden will cost about $300 billion this year, and $330 billion over 10 years, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model.

  • Biden cancels $10k in student loan debts

  • Biden canceling $10k in student loan debt for most, extending payment pause

  • Biden To Announce Student Loan Relief Which Will Mostly Benefit Top Earners | ZeroHedge

  Biden is expected to give a speech at 2:15 p.m.

  • Biden is canceling up to $10K in student loans, $20K for Pell Grant recipients

  • Biden announces student loan relief for borrowers making less than $125,000

  • 3 glaring problems with Biden’s $10k student debt cancelation plan - Based Politics

• Covid Conspiracy Theorist Rebekah Jones Wins Dem Nomination for Congress in Florida

• The Inflation Reduction Act Does Little to Reduce Climate Change

• California to Ban the Sale of New Gasoline Cars

  • HN comments

• Sacramento leaders ban homeless camps from sidewalks, American River Parkway

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Atlanta Officers in Fatal 2020 Shooting of Rayshard Brooks Will Not Be Charged

• Government Finally Releases Secretive Court Rulings Sought by EFF

• More Whistleblowers Reveal ‘out of Control’ FBI Including Fake Cases, Even False Affidavits.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Said in 2014: “We kill people based on metadata” – former NSA and CIA director

  • HN comments

World

• Bank Shot: Abe Assassin's Wild Success - SNA Japan

  According to the conventions of establishment thinking, assassins are supposed to be deranged madmen. They are not supposed to be correct. They are not supposed to be brilliant strategists able to predict that by killing a single, secretly compromised leader, a political “bank shot” could be performed which not only knocks out the leading accomplice, but also drops their true enemy (the Unification Church) into the side pocket.

• China's worst heatwave in 60 years is forcing factories to close

• More than 70% of pubs do not expect to survive winter as energy costs soar

• Korea Shatters Its Own Record for World’s Lowest Fertility Rate

• Threats of Blackouts Drive Japan to Embrace Nuclear Again

  • Japan signals return to nuclear power to stabilise energy supply

• India lifts ban on American Express

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• US Prepares $3BN More In Ukraine Defense Aid To "Fight For Years To Come"

• What is blowing up those Russian bases in Crimea?

• Six Months of Putin’s War Unravels Russia’s Superpower Image

• How the Space Industry Has Changed in the 6 Months Since Russia’s Invasion

• Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 23.

Health / Medicine

• Use of marijuana, hallucinogens soared to new high in 2021, NIH says.

  • Young adults using marijuana and hallucinogens at the highest rates on record

• Will general antiviral protocols always be science fiction?

• Increase of tear volume in dogs after reunion with owners mediated by oxytocin

• New York counties gear up to fight a polio outbreak among the unvaccinated

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Methane hunters: what explains the surge in the potent greenhouse gas?

• Europe's drought the worst in 500 years – report

• Americans underestimate popular climate policy support by nearly half

  • Climate Change Actions Are Far More Popular Than People in U.S. Realize

• Peddlers of environmental doom have shown their true totalitarian colours

• Hurricane season on the verge of rarely seen August without a named storm

• Visitors to the tallest tree face $5k fines

• Climate Law is a Game Changer: Legally defines greenhouse gases as pollution

• Heatwave in China is the most severe ever recorded in the world