2023-08-18

Cool

• Film-fanatic spent 6 years and £20k building Johnny 5 replica robot

etc

• The UFO reports piquing NASA's interest

Horseshit

• Child influencers in Illinois can now sue their parents

• Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot

• Our Economy Thrives on Bad Feelings

Musk

• Nearly half of environmental users went inactive post Musk's takeover of Twitter

  Today's report is titled "Elon Musk is killing 'Environmental Twitter'" but instead makes the case that environmental activists are mindless zealots who will brook no opposition, or indeed anything but the most slavish support. Which is true. -- Pixy @ ace.mu.nu

• SpaceX turns profit in first quarter of 2023

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: CHAOS at Project Veritas—almost ALL employees have been laid off: sources | The Post Millennial | thepostmillennial.com

• Trump Cancels Event Where He Said He Would Show Evidence Of Election Fraud In Georgia | The Daily Wire

  However, Trump’s lawyers pled with him to not hold the event because it could be used against him in his case. One of his former White House lawyers warned it could lead to an obstruction charge because it could be seen as trying to taint the jury pool.

• Threats, slurs and menace: Far-right websites target Fulton County grand jurors

• Washington’s ‘Whoo-Hoo’ Moment: Trump Indictment Coverage Borders on the Indecent – JONATHAN TURLEY

Pestilence / Pox / COVID / VaxCult

• More Young People Are Getting Cancer, And We Don’t Know Why.

• Moderna CEO made $400M last year–2,435x the median salary of employees

Culture War / Tribal / Re segregation

• Some Transgender Women May Be Barred from Women’s Chess Competitions

• Black Atlanta venture capital firm sued for racial discrimination

Media / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Netflix Is Responsible for 15% of Global Internet Traffic

• Fresh evidence of ChatGPT’s political bias: study | Hacker News

• Wildfire evacuees frustrated by Facebook news ban in Canada

• NWT wildfire evacuees say Facebook's news ban 'dangerous'

• The Untold Story of How Rupert Murdoch Ruined MySpace

TechSuck

• Western Digital sued over claims of data-trashing SanDisk, My Passport SSDs

• Private equity firm announces a purchase offer with the intent to delist SUSE | Hacker News

• GIL removal and the Faster CPython project | Hacker News

Crypto con games

• Worldcoin ignored initial order to stop iris scans in Kenya, records show

• A key feature of NFTs has broken

  OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace still fully enforcing royalty fees, said today that it plans to stop the mandatory collection of resale fees for artists. Starting March 2024, those fees will essentially be tips — an optional percentage of a sale price that sellers can choose to give the original artist. If the seller doesn’t want to hand over any money, that’ll be their choice.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• China Evergrande Group Files Chapter 15 Bankruptcy in New York

  • China’s Evergrande Files for Bankruptcy

  • HN comments

  • Evergrande files for US bankruptcy protection as China economic fears mount

• Intel Cuts Some R&D Positions in California to Reduce Costs

• WeWork moves ahead with 1-for-40 reverse stock split to maintain NYSE listing

• SoftBank buys Vision Fund's stake in Arm at valuation of $64B-sources

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Biden Goes Full Creeper With a Bunch of Children.

• Official Who Ignored Request for Water During Maui Inferno: 'Water Requires Conversations Around Equity' – RedState

  • Request was made to divert water to fight Maui fire | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

  • State Water Official Who Delayed Water Release Has Been Reassigned

• Then-VP Joe Biden used pseudonym in emails with Hunter regarding Ukraine dealings: Republicans accelerate Biden family corruption probe and demand National Archives records

• Vivek Ramaswamy Warns Tucker Carlson: This Country Is "On The Cusp Of Chaos... In A 1776 Moment" | ZeroHedge

• Republicans will not use these tools against they opponents; not because they're "above such tactics" but because it might be effective: The Democrats Are Using Criminal Law to Fight Their Political Battles. It’s Very, Very Dangerous.

  While Democrats may cheer Willis on in her effort to convict Trump and his hodgepodge of allies who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, their triumph may turn to regret when Republican prosecutors turn these tools on their own political campaigns.

• Judge formally dismisses tax charges against Hunter Biden - Yahoo

  U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika dismissed the charges at the request of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss who had asked the court to do so last week after the plea deal fell apart in court as both sides failed to agree on whether its terms stipulated that Hunter Biden would be immune from facing future related charges. The dismissal allows for Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, to be charged with the same or new offenses that could be tested in trial.

  • Judge formally dismisses tax charges against Hunter Biden.

  • from comments:

  The story only says that charges could be filed not that they will. Color me suspicious. -- Glen Reynolds

  Remember well that when an accusation is made, there are two parties on trial. The accuser and the accused. The accuser can be correct. Can be honestly mistaken. Or can be honestly confused.

  Otherwise they're perjuring themselves, holding the court in contempt, and harassing the accused. -- jquip

• Oops! They truthed themselves - Don Surber

  Austin’s refusal to rescind his policy puts our nation at risk. Those are his words, not mine. I do not believe for a minute that not adding a star to some general’s title puts the nation at risk, but in saying it does, Austin admitted he puts the nation’s defense second after for the sake of abortion politics.

  By today’s standards in media, James Carville is a Republican strategist because he is married to a woman who once worked on a Republican campaign.

• Maui’s Wildfire Disaster: Media Pushes ‘Climate Crisis’ Cause, People Are Pushing Back

  • Maui disaster was 100% caused by human failure – HotAir

• New York Launches Plan To Rezone Midtown Offices To Houses

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• American B-2s deploy to Iceland for first bomber task force mission in months

• Canada mulling 'game plan' if U.S. takes far-right shift: Joly | CTV News

World

• An underwater landslide knocked out two critical submarine cables serving Africa | Hacker News

• China’s Housing Slump Is Much Worse Than Official Data Shows

• Sánchez’s polyglot promise: Bringing Spain’s other languages to Brussels

• Canadian wildfire triggers race to evacuate entire city of Yellowknife

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• US approves F-16 fighter jets to be re-exported to Ukraine

• Russia recruited operatives online to target weapons crossing Poland

Health / Medicine

• (2022) Fluoride use was consequence of flawed nutritional guidelines, researcher says

• How dangerous is tranq, the new drug sweeping America?

• “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

  • HN comments

• America’s Obsession with Weight-Loss Drugs Is Affecting the Economy of Denmark

• Uncured bacon isn't any healthier in terms of nitrites and nitrates

• Binge drinking, marijuana and hallucinogen use reach all-time highs, NIH says.

• (2015) Nature and origin of “squirting” in female sexuality

• Colors, Eyesight, and Reality | Science | AAAS

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• People are starting a lot of fires in the Pacific Northwest

• Bears are climbing Half Dome in Yosemite National Park | YourCentralValley.com

• Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

• The richest Americans account for 40 percent of U.S. climate emissions

• California Braces As Hilary Upgraded To 'Major Hurricane'

• UK birth slump dubbed ‘good for planet’

• From an ecologist’s perspective, degrowth is inevitable