2023-04-19

etc

• Giant SpaceX Spiral Appears Amid the Aurora Lights in Alaska's Night Sky | Hacker News

Horseshit

• (Dec 2022) Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media

• AI chatbot 'hallucinations' perpetuate political falsehoods

• If Western Civilization Dies, Put It Down as a Suicide

Musk

• What Was Twitter, Anyway?

• Elon Musk’s Twitter Payment Plan Puts NYC Subway Alerts at Risk

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Fox News and Dominion reach $787.5 million settlement in defamation lawsuit

Pestilence / Pox / COVID / VaxCult

• FDA Authorizes Changes to Simplify Use of Bivalent mRNA Covid-19 Vaccines

Media / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Netflix ends DVD rentals as it faces new era - BBC News

  • FAQ - DVD Netflix

  On April 18th, we announced that after 25 years of shipping DVDs, this will be our Final Season, and we'll ship our last disc on September 29th, 2023.

  • Netflix will end its DVD service after 25 years | Hacker News

• A Letter to Epic Fantasy Readers: I know Rothfuss and Martin hurt you, but it’s time to get over it and move on. | Monster Hunter Nation

• Meta is about to start its next round of layoffs

TechSuck

• Switch modder Bowser released from prison, likely owes Nintendo for rest of life

• Why Video Editors Are Switching to DaVinci Resolve in Droves

Crypto con games

• Intel unceremoniously dumps its year-old Blockscale chips for Bitcoin mining

  Today, Intel quietly discontinued the Blockscale 1000 chips, and the company told Tom’s Hardware that it has no immediate plans to introduce any upgrades or replacements.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• More US consumers are falling behind on payments

Shortages

• Global rice shortage is set to be the biggest in 20 years

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Software firms across US facing tax bills that threaten survival

  • HN comments

• The Great Divorce? 2.6 Million Fled Counties That Voted For Biden – Issues & Insights

  Census data show a net internal migration of almost 2.6 million (2,584,459 to be exact) from blue counties to red since Biden was elected. More than 61% of the counties that voted for Biden in 2020 lost population, while 65% of Trump-supporting counties gained population.

• California's 'Dream For All' Home Down Payment Program Ran Out Of Money In 12 Days

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Chicago’s mayor-elect warns against ‘demonizing’ rampaging teens after unrest.

• FBI arrests guardsman who applied for job on RentAHitman.com

World

• Taiwan suspects Chinese ships cut islands’ internet cables

• Germany switches off its last nuclear plants

• Why China’s Shrinking Population Is a Problem for Everyone

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Volcanic microbe eats CO2 ‘astonishingly quickly’, say scientists