2023-12-05

etc

• No genuinely 'safe' alternatives to engineered stone bench tops, study finds

  • HN comments

• Retrotechtacular: The Story Of Turpentine | Hackaday

• Second Wild Grass Identified as Maize Ancestor

• Retrotechtacular: The Gunsmith Of Williamsburg | Hackaday

  a fascinating 1969 film following Wallace Gusler, the gunsmith at the museum town of Williamsburg, Virginia, as he makes an 18th-century muzzle-loading flintlock rifle from raw materials.

Horseshit

• Carmakers Plan to Make Basic Features Subscription, Despite Widespread Backlash

• Regretful Accelerationism – Stratechery by Ben Thompson

• Elections Won’t Fix What Ails the West | naked capitalism

  American Liberals invested tremendous energy into politically hobbling and then ousting Donald Trump, the man who unambiguously won an election in what they (Liberals) regularly proclaim to be a free and fair electoral system. Where was the principle that Trump was the duly elected President of the United States to be found? Half the country voted for the guy. What of their ‘right’ to be represented by the person they voted for? While my take is that Trump is at least 10% as evil as Joe Biden, I’ve never voted for either of them. And I have no intention of doing so in the future. The problem is the system, not the candidates.

• Millennials Learned to Dread Motherhood

• Proposed "au" unit for CSS provides for styling on an astronomical scale

• Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonade Linked to Second Death in Lawsuit

• That Lingering ‘Meh’ Feeling Has a Name.

celebrity gossip

• Show HN: PG Number – I scraped 100k pages to find proximity to Paul Graham

  • HN

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Microsoft Inked Deals With Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Outlets, Documents Show

• This is Your Brain on News - by Bryan Caplan - Bet On It

  the rational way to consume news is to constantly ask yourself questions like: “In a well-functioning society of 8 billion people, how much bad stuff would be reported anyway?” I never sympathized with BLM, but when I learned that the total number of unarmed blacks fatally shot by U.S. police in 2019 was 14, even I was astounded by BLM innumeracy. Hundreds of kids drown in U.S. swimming pools every year, but there will never be riots about that. Nor should there be.

Musk

• Elon Musk's X platform fueled far-right riots in Ireland, experts say

• Danish union to take action against Tesla in solidarity with Swedes

  • Denmark to block its ports against Tesla shipments to Sweden

• Tesla sues Sweden after postal workers allegedly block license plate deliveries

• (Sep 2023) The anti-Tesla phenomenon is seriously disturbing

• Elon Musk thinks he's Iron Man when he's actually Michael Scott meets Kendall Roy

  Gotta be honest: Musk now feels like the worst advertisement ever for Ketamine. Thought that stuff was supposed to heal you, not turn you into a heel. Every time he opens his mouth lately, his status as a biz wizard becomes increasingly suspicious.

• Tesla Cybertruck’s Race Against A Porsche 911 Was Apparently An 1/8-Mile Run

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• The Danger Ahead

• Douglas Mackey’s Meme-Related Prison Sentence Halted By Federal Court.

• “Aiding and abetting”: Mike Johnson calls to blur Jan. 6 video to protect rioters from DOJ

• Study pinpoints Trump's role in surge of negativity in U.S. political discourse

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• FDA Shuts Down Enquiries About DNA Contamination in Covid Vaccines

• Powerful financial giants could play vital role in preventing the next pandemic, say researchers.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Being a Woman in Magic May Be the Hardest Trick of All

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• To Shrink Learning Gap, This District Offers Classes Separated by Race

• The pandemic's toll on schooling emerges in terrible exam results

• Cursive Is Coming Back, Now That Kids Can't Read Grandma's Letters

• Spain wants to change how it evaluates scientists

• Harvard, MIT and Penn Presidents Testify Before Congress About Campus Antisemitism.

Entertainment / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Switch off weird smart TV settings | Hacker News

• Meta set to discontinue cross-messaging between Instagram and Facebook

• How Jessica Lessin's The Information has survived a decade of media tumult

• Spotify Is Screwed

• AT&T Collaborates with Ericsson to Accelerate Open RAN in the U.S.

  • AT&T finally achieves its dream: "We can charge our customers for their entry in the billing database now, with no need to actually run a network"

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Dogbolt Decompiler Explorer | Hacker News

• Llamafile is the new best way to run a LLM on your own computer

• Rest in Peace, Optane | Hacker News

• Polish trains lock up when serviced in third-party workshops

  • HN comments

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI will enable mass spying

  • HN comments

• Ask HN: Why is it taken for granted that LLM models will keep improving? | Hacker News

• Make no mistake – AI is owned by Big Tech

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• India now credibly has the third most advanced deep-space program in the world.

• SpaceX will do a propellant transfer demo on their next Starship test

Crypto con games

• Bitcoin hits highest level in 18 months as investors gear up for ETF approval

Economicon / Business / Finance

• US Examined Hindenburg Allegations Before Giving Loan to Adani

• Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety? | Hacker News

• Price of gold surges to all-time high on the back of falling US dollar.

• Spending on infrastructure has fallen in real terms in America

• October job openings fall to 8.7 million; lowest since 2021

  • Labor Market Implodes: Job Openings Crater, Prior Data Revised Sharply Lower

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• House Oversight Committee Followed The Money Right to Joe Biden’s Bank Accounts.

• L.A. Airbnb operators would need police permit under proposed law

• Supreme Court hears a case that experts say could wreak havoc on the tax code

• Congress spent billions on EV chargers. But not one has been built

• Johnson fundraising email raises concerns over number of LGBTQ youths

• Liz Cheney, focused on stopping Trump, hasn't ruled out 3rd-party presidential run

• Republican Rep. McHenry Announces Retirement

• Tuberville to drop hold on all military nominations except for four-star officers

  • Sen. Tommy Tuberville says he's ending blockade of most military nominees

  • Tuberville finally caves and lifts hold on the vast majority of military promotions

• House likely to vote next week to formalize its Biden impeachment inquiry

  • White House says impeachment inquiry 'illegitimate,' headed down a 'path of failure'

• IRS whistleblowers testify in Hunter Biden probe

• Comer’s Logic on Biden Loan Is So Holey You Could Drive a Truck Through It

  • Rep. James Comer Dishes Absurd Theory Over Hunter’s Truck Repayments

• New Hampshire Republicans Introduce 15-Day Abortion Ban

• Vice President Harris casts record-breaking vote in Senate

• Fewer young Americans plan to vote in 2024, Harvard youth poll finds

• Nikki Haley Touts an Embellished Account of Her UN “Triumphs”

  • Strong but 'feminine': how Nikki Haley navigates gender as only woman in the GOP race

  • Nikki Haley’s Path From Trump Critic to Defender and Back

• States Warn AP About Helping Hamas.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• YouTuber who intentionally crashed plane is sentenced to 6 months in prison

• Arlington VA explosion today: House explosion happens amid search warrant attempt in 800 block of N Burlington Street, police say - ABC13 Houston

  • Watch the Moment a MASSIVE Explosion Rocks a D.C. Area Neighborhood.

  • Massive Explosion Destroys Home Of Crazed Man In Arlington, Virginia Neighborhood

  • We're Learning More About the Owner of the House That Exploded Near D.C.—and It's Disturbing – PJ Media

  • "So early indications that this was a religious ceremony gone wrong were false. From the sacred, to the propane."

  • Huge Blast Razes Home Outside Washington After Hourslong Standoff

• Police Departments Nationwide Are Struggling to Solve Crimes

• Students and teachers knew how to react to a mass shooting, police didn't

• Is Shoplifting Really Surging? - The New York Times

  But the increase in shoplifting appears to be limited to a few cities, rather than being truly national. In most of the country, retail theft has been lower this year than it was a few years ago, according to police data. There are some exceptions, particularly New York City, where shoplifting has spiked. But outside New York, shoplifting incidents in major cities have fallen 7 percent since 2019, before the Covid pandemic.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Trench warfare tips: What US troops need to know from Ukraine

• October 7 Has Not Changed the Middle East

• Houthi attacks on vessels in Red Sea sound alarm for global trade

  • More than 24 hours have passed since the Yemeni Houthis attacked 4 ships and still no one dares to touch them

World

• Boris Johnson considered 'raid' on vaccine plant in the Netherlands

• The Free-Market Fundamentalism of Argentina's Javier Milei

• Spanish cinema chain fined for banning customers who bring their own snacks

• Nigerian president calls for investigation after army drone strike accident kills 85

• Putin to visit Saudi Arabia, UAE with Israel-Hamas war on agenda

• Indonesia volcano death toll rises to 22 after 9 more bodies found

Israel

• Rep. Jayapal Vies for Title of the Worst Member of The Squad – HotAir

• Hamas scuttled truce to avoid releasing Israeli rape victims, State Department suggests.

  • State Dept: Hamas refuses to release women hostages to prevent sharing horrors of captivity

• Aharon Haliva has got to go. Now. - CarolineGlick.com

• Israel Readying Risky Plan To Flood Miles Of Gaza's 'Terror Tunnels' With Sea Water

• Someone bet against the Israeli stock market in the days before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

• Watch: Debunking Israel’s “mass rape” propaganda

• Congress Reviews Plan to Facilitate Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians From Gaza

• Hubris, Not Conspiracy, Kept Israel From Anticipating Hamas Terrorist Attack.

• Israeli army surrounds Khan Younis as southern Gaza attacks intensify

• Israel Gets Into Spat With WHO Over Medical Supplies in Gaza

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• The Violent Homecoming of Russian Convicts Freed to Fight in Ukraine

Health / Medicine

• Taking low-dose aspirin associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

• Hackers stole ancestry data of 6.9M users, 23andMe finally confirmed

  • Genetic testing firm 23andMe admits hackers accessed DNA data of 7m users

• High hopes: The quest to turn cannabis into a potent medicine

• Health offices warn of shortage of syphilis drug as cases rise.

• Wasabi linked to "substantial" boost in memory, Japanese study finds

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Improved air quality could enhance natural carbon sequestration by plants

• Revenge of the feudalists: COP28 confirms that environmentalism is an ugly revolt against modernity.

• Climatism Has Gone From Virtue-Signaling To Vice-Signaling

• Oil firms are out in force at the climate talks. How to decode their language

  • Yes, don't listen to what people actually say, listen instead to what we tell you they really meant. It's for your own good. You're not capable of avoiding the seductive lies these deceivers spew. They might infect you with Doubt.

• Texas goes green: How oil country became the renewable energy leader

• Swathes of Siberia freeze in temperatures below -58 Celsius

• Renewable Energy Could Be a Casualty in the War on Inflation Archive

  • Hmm. That would be why the "Inflation Reduction Act" spends so much money?

  This guidebook provides an overview of the clean energy, climate mitigation and resilience, agriculture, and conservation-related investment programs in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act,

• What it takes to save the axolotl

• Draft COP28 Text Includes Fossil Fuel Phase Out