2023-11-13

etc

• I-10 closure in California prompts state of emergency

• A flight expert's hot take on holiday travel: 'Don't do it'

Horseshit

• Humanoid robots are here, but they're a little awkward. Do we need them?

• The Diamond World Takes Radical Steps to Stop a Pricing Plunge

• Why the Electric RAM 1500 Ramcharger Has a Pentastar V6 as Range Extender

• Nonexistent Google Map Trail Prompts Hikers' Rescues in Canada

• Blurring the lines between corporations and governments

  The global stage is controlled by power. That power comes from technology. The technology comes from the private sector but with the assistance of financial institutions in the form of investments and credit. It is in the government's best interest to maintain a healthy financial system to empower technological progress—a loop of interdependence between investors, entrepreneurs, and government.

• The Super-Scary Theory of the 21st Century (repost)

  The common thread in all these stories is that digital technologies that create order in autocracies are simultaneously creating chaos in democracies. Of course, it’s still far too early to tell if this pattern will persist — the effects of the printing press in 1980 were very different from its effects in 1580. But I’m very uneasy about the direction in which things are trending. A world where only totalitarian governments can lever technology to their advantage is not one I would enjoy living in.

• (2022) I saw an ad for this today Cheetos Releases 'Duster' to Grind Up Snacks for Culinary Uses

celebrity gossip

• Soccer star Megan Rapinoe says her injury in championship game proves there is no God

Musk

• Tesla will sue you for $50,000 if you try to resell your Cybertruck in the first year.

  • Tesla Cybertruck Owners Will Face Absurd Resell Penalties

• A Whistleblower Creates Headaches for Tesla

• EU Official Hopes X Will Face "Peer Pressure" to Hire More Censors

• Elon Musk started a price war that Tesla can’t win.

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• ‘Travesty in darkness’: Trump backs drive to televise his D.C. election subversion trial.

• Trump plans to launch a tuition-free, online-only bachelor's degree

• Jan. 6 "Qanon Shaman" Is Running for Congress

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Gen AI for the Genome: LLM Predicts Characteristics of Covid Variants

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• North American Birds Will No Longer Be Named for Racists – Or Anybody Else

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Fake news detection now a required subject in California schools

• Department Of Education Imposes Largest Fine In History On America’s Largest Christian College; Was It Targeted By Biden Administration?

  An FSA investigation found GCU lied to more than 7,500 former and current students about the cost of its doctoral programs over several years. GCU falsely advertised a lower cost than what 98% of students ended up paying to complete certain doctoral programs.

• Regents Exams May Become Optional for High School Graduation in New York

Entertainment / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Popular porn sites now display unproven health warnings thanks to Texas law

• The evolution of expert communities - lcamtuf’s thing

• Google pulls Fitbit from almost 30 markets

• That's the End of Activision Blizzard's $120M Overwatch League

• Streaming Sector Determined to Become Just as Shitty as 1990s Cable

• Connections with James Burke is back

• Munich court tells Netflix to stop using H.265 video coding to stream UHD | Hacker News

• Alexa just cost Amazon another $46.7M

• Amazon cuts jobs in games unit, part of broader restructuring

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• SRAM In AI: The Future Of Memory

• Developers are being targeted by malware on the Python package index.

• Setting the Record Straight on the SEC and Sunburst

• (2015) Lies, Damn Lies, and Wikipedia | OS/2 Museum

  Even now the 486SX article contains demonstrably incorrect claims such as this:

  The FPU upgrade device was shipped as the i487, which was a full blown i486DX chip with an extra pin. The i487 was installed in an upgrade socket and the extra pin was either a power or ground pin that indicated that the i487 was installed. That signal was used to disable the i486SX when the i487 was installed.

  Well, no—there is an extra pin, but it has no electrical function whatsoever. It merely prevents the chip from being installed incorrectly. And there is a pin (NC#) indicating that an upgrade processor is present designed to “shut off” the original CPU, but it is one of the standard 168 pins. The text conflates facts and turns them into a falsehood. The pins are publicly documented in Intel datasheets and it’s not so hard to find the actual information.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• The Godfather of A.I. Fears What He's Built

• Google fights scammers using Bard hype to spread malware

• OpenAI trying to lure Google AI employees with $10M pay packets

• White faces generated by AI are more convincing than photos

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• The sun is blinding us to potentially lethal asteroids

• SpaceX hopes for second Starship flight test next week.

Crypto con games

• Ex-FTX execs team up to build new crypto exchange 12 months after FTX collapse

Economicon / Business / Finance

• 36-hour shifts, 80-hour weeks: Workers are being burnt out by overtime

• The Clearest Sign yet That Commercial Real Estate Is in Trouble

• Netflix Loses Patent Dispute to Broadcom in Germany, Ordered to Stop Using HEVC

• BlackRock and housing: Setting the record straight

• A Near-Failed Treasury Auction

  these auctions are getting bigger and bigger, aren't they? I mean, we started the year issuing $18B at auction, and this grew to $20B by October and $24B just one month later. Second, we notice that Direct Bidders are taking less and less of each auction. This means that either hedge funds and institutions are growing wary of long-duration USTs or they are simply running out of cash to buy the stuff. Third, take a peek at how Indirect Bidders slide from 75% down to 60% in less than a year. Good God.

  That evaporation of demand has left a gaping hole in the auctions. And who is the last line of defense to fill that hole? The one left holding the bag? You got it. The Primary Dealers. They were taking less than 10% of the issue back in January. Now they're saddled with 25% of an issue that apparently nobody wants.

• Private Equity Faces a Reckoning

• Louisville Ford Workers Reject Labor Deal, Indicating Possible Continuation Of UAW Strikes

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Strip Clubs, Lewd Photos and a Boozy Hotel: The Toxic Atmosphere at the FDIC

• If Biden can't run a normal campaign, he should step aside

  Democrats would be taking a huge risk by replacing Biden — but they’re also taking a huge risk by nominating him. There’s no getting out of this.

  voters and the media are going to notice that and Biden will wear his 80+ years like an albatross around his neck. Granted, this is a hard ask: Biden has to both campaign and govern, whereas Trump just has to campaign (well, and attend to his several criminal trials). But it’s something every previous president running for a second term has managed to deal with.

• High Stakes and a Simple Choice | RealClearWire

• Secret Service agents protecting Biden's granddaughter open fire

  The agents, assigned to protect Naomi Biden, were out with her in the Georgetown neighborhood late Sunday night when they saw the three people breaking a window of the parked and unoccupied SUV, the official said. The official could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on Monday on the condition of anonymity. One of the agents opened fire, but no one was struck by the gunfire, the Secret Service said in a statement.

  • obviously skulking MAGA Reactionaries

• Newsom Assures Homeless They Can Resume Pooping On Sidewalks Once His Boss Leaves

• Newsom: "They're just cleaning up this place beacuse all those fancy leaders are coming into town. That's true because it's true."

• The Supreme Court is adopting a code of ethics for the first time

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• CVS in Washington DC replaces stock with PHOTOGRAPHS of items as it battles with out-of-control crime and moves to shut 900 stores

• MPD: About 40 suspects involved in gas station burglaries | localmemphis.com

• The NYPD Is Using Drones 3X More Than It Used To

• B.C. business owners detail rise in crime that's terrifying staff, customers

• Who is Jonathan Lewis? Las Vegas Teen Dies After School Attack

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• San Francisco: Clean For Xi, Not For Thee | ZeroHedge

• Chinese confrontations with Filipino ships

• Five US Service Members Dead After Military Aircraft Crash Over Mediterranean Sea (Updated) – RedState

World

• Cyber Attack Forces China's Biggest Bank to Trade via USB Stick

• Myanmar This Job Post Will Get You Kidnapped

• UK’s Rishi Sunak fires minister who said police too lenient with pro-Palestinian protesters; Suella Braverman had decried ‘pro-Palestinian mobs’ and ‘hate marchers.’

Israel

• The IDF's battle Intel center revealed to press

• India's Stand at UN Amid Gaza War Votes Against Israeli Settlements in Palestine

• Drastically Different Narratives Emerge Centered On Shifa Hospital's Mounting Deaths | ZeroHedge

• Gazans turn on Hamas as food shortage fuels disorder.

Health / Medicine

• Woman with double uterus pregnant in both in 'very rare' case

• 'A Monster': Super Meth and Other Drugs Push Crisis Beyond Opioids

• Can't Think, Can't Remember: More Americans Say They're in a Cognitive Fog

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• New satellite will detect and share CO2 data from individual facilities

• The world is awash in plastic. Oil producers want a say in how it's cleaned up

• Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on cleaning up 'clean' energy

• Pakistan's Lahore is the latest megacity to shut down due to pollution

• U.S. struck with record 25 separate billion-dollar disasters so far this year

• Exxon aims to become a top lithium producer for electric vehicles

• Plastic's life-cycle costs overwhelmingly fall on poor countries

• How to Fathom Climate Change's Unfathomable Numbers

• Gates-funded startup claims storage of carbon for 1000 years for $100/ton