2022-08-28

Cool

• Throwing Knife Launcher Is a Terrifying Feat of Engineering

etc

• NASA’s asteroid-deflecting test mission is just 1 month away from impact.

• Someone won the $1.34B Mega Millions prize. But they haven't claimed it

• The Missing Chinese Machine Revolution - by Erik Engheim

  Preparing these paddies is labour intensive. It must be perfectly level; otherwise, some rice plants will get too little or too much water. Farmers must make sure the subsoil is impermeable by adding clay, for instance. One needs a complex system of canals and ditches to channel water to the paddy and maintain water levels. While the rice is growing, there is a lot of work with weeding. One could say that rice growing is a skill oriented cultivation method, while wheat growing is more about more land and machinery. The complexity of growing rice that I elaborated on simple does not apply to wheat growing.

  • HN comments

• On Tea and the Art of Doing Nothing - by Thomas J Bevan

  It is a rare person who can do nothing- purely and without guilt- especially in our current culture of busywork. Even meditation- which is ostensibly the practise of doing nothing- is now timebound and purpose-driven, is reduced to another metric to be tallied, another endeavour to be gamed and hacked for the purpose of improvement and getting a leg up on the supposed competition. The situation would be funny were it not so sad. It would be a deliciously ironic ruse were the app subscribing meditators not so deadly serious in their can’t-see-the-wood-for-the-trees pursuit of being enlightened, or centred, or at one with themselves or whatever it is that the airport self-help books are touting as the benefits of meditation in this year’s rebranding of it.

• Two Air France pilots were suspended after coming to blows in the cockpit

Horseshit

• Why the Old Elite Spend So Much Time at Work

• 18Ft python slithers into bedroom window

• Braves Mascot Blooper Crushes Little Kids During NFL Halftime – OutKick

celebrity gossip

• Suicide: Naomi Judd autopsy report confirms details of her death : NPR

• Ozzy Osbourne moving back to UK as he's 'fed up' with US mass shootings

• Globe investigation: The Ford family’s history with drug dealing

Obit

• Mentor Of Jeffrey Epstein Found Dead In Connecticut Apartment | ZeroHedge

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The MKUltra Evolutions

• Using large language models to generate trolling at scale

• Facebook allows graphic images of Russian airstrikes but censors Israeli attacks

Musk

• the judge in the Twitter / Musk trial has ordered Twitter to hand over the data it's been hiding on the real bot numbers.

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Intelligence Officials Will Assess Security Risks From Mar-a-Lago Documents

• Trump’s Truth Social Is in Trouble

• "Someone Wanted To Get Me Killed": Rep. Greene Responds To Being 'Swatted' 2 Nights In A Row

• Two swatting attempts on Marjorie Taylor Greene used bog-standard tech

  It seems unusual that a far-right group would attack a far-right official like Greene, but Dyer said police are still investigating.

• Another Trump Media Narrative Explodes Before Our Eyes – PJ Media

  So all the Post‘s sources — who it nebulously described as “‘people familiar with the investigation” and “experts in classified information” and “former senior intelligence officials” and “a person familiar with the investigation” who said there were nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago — were “the FBI” and the “government.”

Pestilence / Pox / COVID / VaxCult

• Long Covid, Cognitive Impairment, and the Stalled Decline in Disability Rates | Hacker News

• Pfizer Vaccine Whistleblower Responds To Motion To Dismiss False Claims Suit | ZeroHedge

• Hydroxychloroquine in Australia: a cautionary tale for journalists

• Could tiny blood clots cause long Covid’s puzzling symptoms?

• White House effort to stave off fall COVID surge with new boosters faces uphill battle.

• Did a Random Person on Twitter Name the Latest COVID Variant ‘Centaurus’?

Culture War / Tribal / Re segregation

• The Alarming Ideological Capture of Our Scientific Institutions

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• (Feb 2022) Who needs High School English when you can have Social Justice instead? | Monster Hunter Nation

  None of this enables kids to write better. On the contrary, it creates mushy, indoctrinated, check box writing. Where rather than communicate ideas effectively and evocatively, they walk on eggshells, too afraid of violating some leftist shibboleth to actually come out and say what they mean. We see this in the real world every day, where any ideas which go against the prevailing cultural narrative are met with performative outrage.

• “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

  • HN comments

• The Fall of ‘Nature’

• On the wisdom of the historians - by Noah Smith

  I am not claiming that these analogies are misplaced or that these predictions and recommendations are wrong. I am merely recognizing that historical analogies, when used as these historians do to make either predictions and/or recommendations for the present, are social-science theories.

  And theories ought to be subject to empirical tests. To go back to Deveraux’s theory of would-be tyrants, what are we to make of Richard Nixon stepping down and leaving politics? Or the historical list of dictators who gave up power? Or other would-be leaders who had dictatorial aspirations but who gave them up and went into other lines of work? Before we conclude that “would-be tyrants keep trying until they succeed”, we should rigorously and systematically check the historical record to see if we could identify, ex ante, a set of characteristics that allowed us to predict who would keep trying to seize power and who would give up.

Media / ShowBiz / Advertising

• How the slow death of broadcast TV hurts TV writers

• The Penguin Random House trial | Hacker News

TechSuck

• Debian Begins a General Resolution to Decide What to Do with Non-Free Firmware

  • HN comments

• GitHub - ainfosec/FISSURE: The RF and reverse engineering framework for everyone

• Open Source and Accidental Innovation

• André Staltz - Time Till Open Source Alternative

  • HN comments

Crypto con games

• “dot ETH” pseudo-domains about to go offline because domain owner is in prison

  • GoDaddy Statement on Eth.link Domain Registration

    GoDaddy is sharing the following update in acknowledgment of interest among certain parties in the domain eth.link. The registration for this domain expired on July 26, 2022. The domain is currently progressing through the standard expiry lifecycle and is expected to be returned to the registry on Sept. 5, 2022, absent a renewal by the current registrant.

  • Someone already extended it a year? HN comments

  • Web3 Domain Name Service Could Lose Web Address-Owner Who Can Renew Is in Prison

• The long-awaited upgrade to Ethereum

• Tether Says Audit Is Still Months Away as Crypto Market Falters

• Mark Cuban, Mavericks in hot water over Voyager ‘Ponzi scheme’

• After choosing to keep the crypto, divorcee wants a do-over

• CEO of Ragnarok admits to treasury mismanagement

Economicon / Business / Finance

• What managers should know about 'quiet quitting'

• The Rental Housing Crisis Is a Supply Problem That Needs Supply Solutions

• Ford Electric Mustang Price Going Up After Biden, Dems Handed Out EV Tax Credit

• Mickey Mantle baseball card sells for record $12.6 million

Shortages

• There’s a Carbon Dioxide Shortage, and Food and Drink Makers Are Scrambling

• Lamborghinis sold out till 2024

• Wave Of European Ammonia Plant Closures To Exacerbate Food Crisis | ZeroHedge

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• California's daring housing policy to combat high home prices, increase supply

• Biden Administration Plans for Legal Psychedelic Therapies Within Two Years

• Biden can’t decide whether or not we’re still in a pandemic.

Student Loans

• Biden’s student loan ‘fix’ will likely make the problem worse

• Standing and Student Loan Cancellation

• Yikes! Yellen and Jill Biden advised him not to cancel student loan debt, but Joe listened to someone else – HotAir

Hunter

• FBI responds to Mark Zuckerberg claims in Joe Rogan show

  “The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference — nothing specific about Hunter Biden," the statement said.

  • FBI Responds To Zuckerberg Claim It Helped Suppress Hunter Biden Laptop Story | ZeroHedge

• 8 In 10 Americans Think Hunter Biden Laptop Cover-Up Changed Election Outcome; Poll Finds | ZeroHedge

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Ancient Egyptian artifact seized by federal agents in Tennessee

  • US agents in Memphis seize shipped ancient Egyptian artifact

  U.S. Customs and Border Protection says they intercepted the Egyptian canopic jar lid of the funeral deity named Imsety on Aug. 17. The jars were used to hold the internal organs of mummies.

• New Yorkers with pot convictions will now be the first to get to sell it

  • HN comments

• Kia and Hyundai vehicles across America are being stolen in seconds

• The Investigation That Secured a Guilty Plea for 84 Wildfire Deaths

• "Get A Warrant" - ATF Agents Attempt To Confiscate Solvent Trap Components | ZeroHedge

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Dutch commandos wounded in shooting outside Indiana hotel

World

• Serbia's Leader Says EuroPride Won't Happen Due to Threats

• Cloud wars: Mideast rivalries rise along a new front

• Australian drug tests show 40% of 'official cocaine' had no cocaine

• Two Chinese local banks enter bankruptcy procedures

• Point of no return: crunch time as China tries to fend off property crash

• France Prepares $100 a Month Electric-Car Leasing Plan

• Germans are looking to firewood for energy as natural gas prices soar

• "This Is Beyond Imagination": Polish Homeowners Line Up For Days To Buy Coal Ahead Of Winter

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Ukraine: The $10bn steel plant at the heart of Russia’s economic warfare

• How Ukraine uses resistance warfare developed by the US to fight against Russia

• 'Slower burn.' Russia dodges economic collapse but the decline has started

• EU set to suspend visa travel agreement with Russia

Health / Medicine

• Can you delay ageing by refusing to act your age?

• In Praise of Sweat

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Officials urge residents to evacuate after Oregon wildfire triples in size

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

• Drones and rockets bring rainfall to China during record-breaking heatwave

• Octopuses Don’t Have Backbones – Or Rights

• California wants to end sales of new gas cars by 2035. Here are 4 key roadblocks

  • The California Attempt to Ban Gas-Powered Vehicles Is Flawed, Likely Illegal

• Northern California ranchers defy state orders to cut water usage

• Starlink Could Be an Ecological Disaster

  • HN comments

• US Government diet guidelines ignore the climate crisis

• Pakistan declares floods a ‘climate catastrophe’ as death toll tops 1000

• Why suppressing wildfires may be making the Western fire crisis worse

• The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor