2023-12-07

etc

• Vowels and Diphthongs in Sperm Whales

• Jumping spiders: An exceptional group for comparative cognition studies

• Researchers have discovered magnetic monopole quasi-particles | Hacker News

• He blew the whistle on Amazon. He's still paying the price | Hacker News

• Could We Boost Housing Construction by Permitting ADUs Under the HUD Code?

  ADUs, sometimes called “granny flats,” are small, secondary housing units built on the lots of existing single family homes – things like garage lofts, basement apartments, and small backyard cottages.

  • HN comment

Horseshit

• There's a better way to grind coffee, according to science

  According to the researchers, adding a spritz of water to the beans before grinding cuts static. It also happens to create a more consistent, stronger-tasting shot of espresso.

  • Scientists claim to have discovered secret to perfect espresso

• K-Cup creator John Sylvan regrets inventing Keurig coffee pod system

• 23andMe to Hacked Users: We Won't See You in Court

• World Press Photo excludes Photo of the Year from cover due to its ‘explicit’ content | Culture | EL PAÍS English

• Why 2023 was the year of the e-bike and not the self-driving car

• An Existential Problem in the Search for Alien Life

  • HN comments

• Tech Billionaires' Quest to Build a New City in California Goes Terribly

• California deer statue vandal revealed as amorous buck

• Ask HN: The sky was orange and purple for a few minutes today in Cardiff

• Driverless cars were the future but now the truth is out

celebrity gossip

• Serbs him right Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to receive Serbian passport

  • Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to receive Serbian passport, president says

• Noam Chomsky at 95: One of the Greatest Living Challengers of Unjust Power

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• UK bans airline adverts over 'misleading' environmental claims

• Sue the Bastards: Federalist, Daily Wire Take the State Department to Court

  a pair of conservative media outlets, The Federalist and The Daily Wire, have filed a bookend suit to match the Consortium News action. This time the defendant is the Global Engagement Center, the State Department organization ostensibly dedicated to countering “foreign state and non-state propaganda.” Much as Consortium News alleged the Pentagon funded Newsguard to censor its critics, the Federalist/Daily Wire action alleges the State Department sponsored Newsguard and the U.K.-based Global Disinformation Index as “censorship enterprises” targeting domestic speech, in direct violation of its charter.

  That this is necessary speaks to something inherently malodorous about these efforts, and is a reason we should all be looking forward to the discovery process in this case, and in the Consortium News proceedings. These suits are for all of us, and we all have an interest in how they turn out.

• How many people does it take to keep a conspiracy alive?

Musk

• Danish pension fund to sell its Tesla shares over union dispute

• Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

• Swedish court rules against Tesla in dispute with postal service over deliveries

• SpaceX's Tender Offer Values Startup at $175B or More

• Ex-Tesla employee casts doubt on car safety

• Tesla shares 48V architecture with other automakers to move the industry

• "Why No Advertiser Boycott?" Musk Nails Disney's Iger After Facebook Child Sexual Abuse Bombshell | ZeroHedge

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Far-right populism in alt-tech: A challenge for democracy?

  The dataset comprises of text-centric social media posts from the Telegram and Gab platforms during the 2022 federal election period. The findings reveal that, overall, far-right populist discourses in alt-tech communities predominantly support the processes of democracy and uphold most (though not all) of its values. Understanding these discourses is crucial for safeguarding liberal democracy in a context of rising illiberalism.

  far-right populist discourses overwhelmingly advocate for strengthening democracy and express support for most of the values that underpin democratic political culture. Although exploitation of democratic processes to achieve illiberal goals is certainly not unprecedented in history, pro-democracy discourses therefore do not necessarily mean that liberal democracy is entirely and unequivocally safe from FRP,

  given the support for democracy among communities which tend to seek to advance exclusionary political agendas (despite themselves lamenting their own exclusion), perhaps we ought to question whether the aspirational standards of liberal democracy are still sufficient to safeguard against illiberalism.

• Trump’s ‘vermin’ comment was vile, but Democrats should also stop dehumanizing opponents.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• New Zealand Whistleblower Claims Public Health Data Shows COVID Vaccines ‘Are Killing People’.

• mRNA vaccines may make unintended proteins, but there's no evidence of harm

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• The original feminist BDSM cult: was Aristasia therapy, magic or kink?

• Derek Chauvin Did Not Murder George Floyd - Glenn Loury

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Teachers are quitting in droves because they’re scared of student violence — and a lack of punishment.

• Anti-Semitism Hearing Highlights Ivy League Hypocrisy on Free Speech: ‘In what world is a call for violence against Jews protected speech, but a belief that sex is biological and binary isn’t?’

• Why Parents Can't Quit the Elite College Arms Race

Entertainment / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Police Can Spy on Your iOS and Android Push Notifications

• Building end-to-end security for Messenger

  • HN comments

  • Launching Default End-to-End Encryption on Messenger

• Christmas Tune Tops US Charts 65 Years After Release

  Brenda Lee‘s 65-year-old Christmas hit, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” has reached the top of the US charts. This is surprising considering Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” usually dominates. However, weariness with Carey’s status as the “Queen of Christmas” may have played a role. Both songs are popular this year, with Carey in second place.

• Twitch Shutting Down in South Korea in February 2024

• Lego Fortnite: Gaming giant launches Minecraft rival

• European Data Protection Board publishes urgent binding decision regarding Meta

• (Oct 2023) CIA and NSA Created Google – By Kit Klarenberg

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Rclone

• LogoFAIL: Secure Boot bypass with manipulated boot logos

  • HN comments

• Learn SVG with 25 examples – How to code images in HTML | Hacker News

• Fake chips, I got stung

  • HN comments

• Microsoft Hires New CISO in Major Security Shakeup

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI Is Becoming a Band-Aid over Bad, Broken Tech Industry Design Choices

• Are LLMs the end of computer programming (as we know it)?

• AI Has Achieved Escape Velocity

• OpenAI execs informed Board of Altman concerns before firing

• EU closer to landmark AI Act after marathon overnight talks

• Made of lies (and more lies) - Charlie's Diary

• Meta's new AI image generator was trained on 1.1B Instagram and FB photos

• Apple demonstrates its commitment to AI with new open source code release

• Purple Llama by Meta AI | Hacker News

• OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Physical Characterization of Moon Impactor WE0913A - IOPscience

  we present a trajectory and spectroscopic analysis using ground-based telescope observations to show conclusively that WE0913A is the Long March 3C rocket body (R/B) from the Chang'e 5-T1 mission.

• The International Space Station Reaches 25 Years in Orbit

• NOAA's older Earth-watching satellites get new 'extended life'

Crypto con games

• The Binance Crackdown Will Be an 'Unprecedented' Bonanza for Crypto Surveillance

• Montenegro Plans to Extradite Fallen Crypto Tycoon Do Kwon to U.S.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• The Pilots Delivering Your Amazon Packages Are Ready to Strike.

• AMD leaps after launching AI chip that could challenge Nvidia dominance

• Salesforce Signals the Golden Age of Cushy Tech Jobs Is Over

• Lithium Price Collapsed 77% in a Year, as Demand and Production Both Surged

• GameStop Shares Plunge 7% After Revealing Bizarre Plan To Allow CEO Ryan Cohen To Invest Company Cash In Equities | ZeroHedge

  it wasn't the company's perfunctory and boring earnings miss that drew the attention of Wall Street. Rather, it was the company announcement of a new policy that allows its Chief Executive Officer, Ryan Cohen, to "invest the company’s excess cash in equity securities", according to Bloomberg. In other words, GameStop is letting Cohen trade with shareholder cash.

• Amazon drops Venmo as payment option

• Amazon tests grocery subscription service for Prime members

• Temu is drawing 17% of shoppers from U.S. dollar stores, data shows

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Breaking: Biden's Terms of Requiring Ukraine Prosecutor to be Dismissed in 2016 Was Not Approved by Obama White House

• (2020) Name and address replaced with some 16 digit alphanumeric USPS 'Informed Address' Pilot

  businesses can send mail to potential customers without knowing physical mailing addresses, fully protecting consumers' privacy. Similarly, consumers can respond and engage with mailers without ever revealing their personal information.

• Las Vegas Rail Project Backed by Fortress Secures $3B in Federal Funding

• White House interns demand Middle East cease-fire in letter to Biden

  The letter, first shared with NBC News and addressed to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, is supported by more than 40 interns who work in the White House and other executive branch offices, according to the text. "We, the undersigned Fall 2023 White House and Executive Office of the President interns, will no longer remain silent on the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people," the interns wrote.

  • Fire the Insurrectionary Interns

  • White House Interns Demand Gaza Ceasefire or Something

    They “can’t remain silent,” but they don’t want you to know who they are. Because then they’d be forced to stand behind their words. They’d need to deal with the consequences of their actions. They want to be big shots, without any of the accountability.

• Who won the Republican debate? Nikki Haley 'above the boys'

  “Haley was head and shoulders above the boys,” said GOP consultant Bill O’Riley. “She came under withering attack from [Ron] DeSantis and [Vivek] Ramaswamy and proved herself unflappable.” “Haley was meticulously prepared and her answers were considered and substantive,” he added. “Her momentum should continue.”

  • Final GOP Debate Post-Mortem: Haley Hammered, DeSantis Dud, Christie Questioned, Ramaswamy Outs 'Real Enemy' | ZeroHedge

• White House warns it might break patents of high-priced drugs

• House CENSURES Jamaal Bowman for pulling the fire alarm during crucial votes | Daily Mail Online

• California's budget deficit balloons to $68B

• Armstrong Introduces Impeachment Inquiry Resolution | Representative Kelly Armstrong

  • so this is the thing that might get a vote to get the house to begin the process of investigating the possibility of actually filing articles of impeachment? Which they then, after some time, might vote on again to actually turn into a trial and all?

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• US retail lobbyists retract key claim on 'organized' retail crime

  • HN comments

• Woman who threw bowl of food at Chipotle worker sentenced to work 2 months in fast food job.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Rocket Launcher Disguised as Fuel Truck Seen Firing in Iraq

• US grounds entire fleet of Osprey aircraft after deadly crash off Japanese coast

  • US military grounds entire fleet of Osprey aircraft following a deadly crash off the coast of Japan.

• The U.S. Can Afford a Bigger Military. We Just Can’t Build It.

World

• The Qatargate Files

• Saudi Arabia may wage oil ‘market share war’ against the US, reversing output cuts and unleashing a flood of supply, energy expert says.

• Streisand effect: Reuters takes down exposé on Indian mercenary hackers

• 8.5M Chinese borrowers are now blacklisted for not paying their debts

• Britain Put One of the Best Health Care Systems on Life Support

• Moody's Faces Growing Backlash over Its Negative Outlook on China

• Graying and gung-ho: An elderly militia in South Korea is willing to fight

• Oil War in South America: Venezuela’s Maduro Threatens Guyana

Israel

• Making deeper sense of the Gaza war

  more disturbing are the fundamental beliefs that appear to characterize the people running the show and calling the shots in both the US and Israel. Ray McGovern, ex-CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, maintains that Biden is not in charge of foreign policy and is not making war decisions in his role as President of the United States. Instead, McGovern names Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, and Lloyd Austin as the people determining the course of the war.

• Israel Says It Has Killed Half of Hamas’s Battalion Commanders.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• UK accuses Russia of sustained hacking campaign

Health / Medicine

• America Is Having yet Another Drug Shortage. Here's Why It Keeps Happening

• Scientists studied twins' diets. Those who ate vegan saw fast results.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Don't Fall for Big Oil's Carbon Capture Deceptions

• US plastic bag recycling directory site taken down after 'abysmal failure'

• UN Climate Summit Includes Session On ‘Responsible Yachting’.

• Electricity from electric eels may transfer genetic material to nearby animals

• Nanoplastics Likely Worse Than Microplastics; We Know Almost Nothing About Them

• 2023 will be the warmest boreal autumn on record

• Wintry blast in Europe has brought record snow and bitter cold