2023-12-08

etc

• What are farm animals thinking?

• Archaeologists unearth 'most shocking example of Roman slavery' at Pompeii

• Which Construction Tasks Have Gotten Cheaper?

Horseshit

• Noam Chomsky turns 95: paved the way for AI. Does it keep him up at night?

• What Is Krav Maga?

• Stop Demanding Dumb Answers To Hard Questions

  If you think the question “is calling for the genocide of a group against your policy” is an easy question with a one-word answer, you’re wrong. I understand you want the answer to be easy, but that’s not the same thing as it being easy.

  • Is calling for genocide against some groups OK, but not others? If its not "all or none" you're not arguing free speech, you're arguing which heathens are worse.

• McDonald's unveils CosMc's, its answer to Starbucks

• Dieselgate, but for trains – some heavyweight hardware hacking | Hacker News

• London trains see power cut as thousands stranded in dark for hours

• The Road to Hell Is Paved with Entitlement.

  When I was lecturing at the university, I encountered legions of students who were convinced that the college experience consisted of four or more years of minimal effort in required courses, collecting a diploma, and then entering the workforce with high compensation based solely on the acquisition of a degree that was often of dubious merit. The fact that one might be expected to actually know something or have developed a work ethic somewhere along the way wasn’t a consideration.

  It was the same with new hires at the university. The majority of new faculty and administrators expected their credentials to do all of the talking (and subsequently all of the work). I can assure you, from many years of bitter experience, that there are few things more insufferable than a newly minted PhD, especially in bullshit academic fields.

• 'Nudify' Apps That Use AI to 'Undress' Women in Photos Are Soaring in Popularity

• Homes need to be built for better internet

  • HN comments

• Electric Vehicles are better than gas-powered cars in winter–here's why

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• "If People Think Things Are Bad Now..." Tucker And Alex Jones Talk Deplatforming, Depopulation, & The NWO | ZeroHedge

• The manipulation of the American mind: Edward Bernays and the birth of PR

Musk

• Elon Musk Drove a 9,500-Percent Surge in Pizzagate Content

  • HN comments

• Tesla shares 48V architecture with other automakers

  • HN comments

• Elon Musk's messiah complex may bring him down

• Tesla loses legal action in Sweden as dispute with Nordic unions escalates

  • HN comments

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Trump embraces ‘dictator’ moniker by promising to enforce border laws and promote energy independence… and the left loses it

• Twenty FBI agents dressed in "tactical gear" just raided the home of a peaceful J6er because of his online “associations”… - Revolver News

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Covid Associated with Increase in Diagnoses of Schizophrenia, Psychotic Disorder

• The Domestication of SARS-CoV-2 into a Seasonal Infection by Viral Variants

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Biden/Buttigieg DEI Policies Endanger the Country. They Don’t Care. The FAA is seeking people suffering from “severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities” to be air traffic controllers.

• Woman arrested for pouring gasoline, trying to burn down Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth home.

  • glen @ IP: "Black woman dressed as Antifa tries to burn MLK birth home, is stopped by a white guy from Utah and two off-duty cops. But if she’d gotten away with it and those bystanders hadn’t been there, the press would be telling us it was yet another example of white-supremacist domestic terrorism."

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• One in five young Americans think the Holocaust is a myth

• 'I Am Sorry': Harvard President Addresses Backlash over Congressional Testimony

Entertainment / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Three Decades of HTML | Hacker News

• Google calls Drive data loss "fixed," locks forum threads saying otherwise

  • HN comments

• In 2024, the Tension Between Macroculture and Microculture Will Turn into War

  The macroculture is frozen. It has forgotten how to maneuver. It definitely has forgotten how to learn.

  This hostility and ignorance of entrenched institutions is the single biggest difference between the new alt culture and the old counterculture. In the 1950s and 1960s, entrenched elites took the counterculture very seriously. They learned from it. They treated it with respect. The microcultures of today get none of that. My general sense is that Hollywood and New York wish all these alternative voices would disappear. This really is a war. I’m not exaggerating.

• The FTC has filed a lawsuit to prevent Microsoft from buying Activision.

  • Pixy @ ace: "The only problem is Microsoft has already bought Activision. The only other problem is that the FTC is making the same argument that was already thrown out by a district court back in July."

• Ask HN: Meta's Threads is dead, isn't it?

• Spying Through Push Notifications

• X.com is Twitter, but what are a-z.com?

  • HN comments

• Online recipe website could be on hook for $300k in online-tracking lawsuit

  As part of a settlement agreement, which has to be approved by the judge in the case, America's Test Kitchen agreed to reimburse Adams's lawyers for up to $300,000 in their expenses - and to pay Adams up to $2,500 for her time and trouble as lead plaintiff in the case.

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• HP misreads room, awkwardly brags about its "less hated" printers

• Making noisy SVGs — Daniel Immke

  • HN comments

• (2015) A Handmade Web

• New "HAT" standard, official M.2 Pi5 HAT announce Double standards - Raspberry Pi

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• GIGO Boffins devise 'universal backdoor' for image models to cause AI hallucinations

• Helen Toner shares her side

  • HN comments

• The Race to Dominate A.I

• Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI now in competition regulator's sights

• One of the two female OpenAI board members replaced claims intimidation

• Microsoft exec hints at new LLMs beyond OpenAI's

• Google weighs Gemini AI project to tell people their life story using phone data

• Civitai founder champions open source, downplays AI deepfake porn

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Long-Lost Space Tomato Found, Clearing the NASA Astronaut Accused of Eating It

• Iran sends biological capsule into space in step toward human launch.

Crypto con games

• How the Winklevii's Second Act Went Bad

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Jobless claims inch up to 220k, layoffs still low

• Innovation-Killing Noncompete Agreements Are Finally Dying

• Payroll employment increases by 199K in Nov; unemployment rate down to 3.7%

  • Goldilocks: Jobs Rise 199K, Beating Estimates As Striking Workers Return; Unemployment Rate Drops

• Luxury Stores Are Bursting with Unsold Stuff

• The wealth of the 25 richest families in the world soared 43% in the last year

• CBS: Americans need an extra $11,400 today just to afford the basics.

• DoorDash, delivery apps remove tipping prompt at checkout in NYC

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Some Democrats join Republicans in voting to strike down Biden’s EV mandate.

  • White House threatens to veto anti-EV bill just passed by US House

• "$24 Million From Foreign Nationals": House GOP Formalizes Biden Impeachment Inquiry, Releases Resolution Ahead Of Planned Vote

• Senate blocks Ukraine aid after Biden says Republicans ‘playing chicken’ with border demands.

• Hunter Biden Indicted On Multiple Felony Tax Charges Including 'Office Expense' Deductions For 'Over-The-Hill Strippers' | ZeroHedge

• US Government asserts power to seize drug patents

• Biden Invests $3 billion in California’s High Speed Rail.

  • President Biden Announces Billions to Deliver World-Class High-Speed Rail

• Chinese garlic is a national security risk, says US senator

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Hyundai and Kia Owners Getting Free AirTags to Stop Kia Boys

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US Army to Launch High-Altitude Spy Balloon Program in 2025

• US Army employee indicted for stealing $100M from military youth program

World

• (2020) Iran: If You're Going to Bomb a Place, You Should Know Its People First

• We investigated France's mass profiling machine

  • HN comments

• Atomic Power Is in Again – and China Has the Edge

• Missing Chinese Foreign Minister Died by Suicide or Torture.

Israel

• The pro-Israel information war

• Paul Graham's Twitter account targeted by IDF

  • HN comments

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russian spies targeting UK MPs and media with 'cyber interference'

• Russian influence operations adapt for long haul and exploit war fatigue

• Russia tricks US actors into appearing in propaganda videos

Health / Medicine

• How to tell if food is ultra-processed Archive

  To make ultra-processed products, companies usually break down whole foods and chemically modify them to create ingredients you don’t find in nature, like high-fructose corn syrup and soy protein isolate, derived from soybeans. These foods also often include ingredients that enhance a food’s flavor, color or texture, such as the emulsifier soy lecithin. If a food has one or more of these ingredients, they are generally considered ultra-processed, according to a widely used classification system created by scientists in Brazil.

  • HN comments

• Beyond "Abolish the FDA"

• Chronic fatigue syndrome is more common than some past studies suggest, CDC says

• Some Android phones can automatically send medical data during 911 calls

• (2021) Repositioning of Antiparasitic Drugs for Tumor Treatment

• Critics say a fumbled rollout of the brand-new RSV shot for babies has pediatricians worried and frustrated.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• 'Barking deer' in Japan causing havoc for human population

• I decarbonized my home for $3k

• 'Unprecedented mass coral bleaching' expected in 2024, says expert

• Fungi join the list of organisms that can control when ice forms

• Italian volcano Campi Flegrei has been worryingly active recently

• COP28: Reasons for Optimism on Climate

• "to protect the Spotted Owl"... guess shutting down logging in those areas in the 90s didn't quite cut it? Feds Enlist Hunters to Kill Half a Million Invasive Owls in the PNW

  USFWS is calling for a 500,000 bird cull—and they need hunters to help. The cull will take place over the next 30 years with the end goal of eliminating half a million barred owls from places like northern California, Oregon, and Washington state.

• Whale carcass washed up at Tramore pier in Waterford currently unmoveable