2023-12-11

etc

• Pompeii archaeologists unearth disturbing bakery-prison

• An economic theory of the Manila to Mexico galleons and their shipwrecks

• Modeling the Impact of Geomagnetically Induced Currents on Railway Signaling

Horseshit

• Why So Many Pedestrians in the U.S. Are Dying at Night

• Building for Tomorrow

• Why America Still Doesn't Have Fast Trains

• Big Tech Funds the People Who Are Supposed to Hold It Accountable

• My Home Community Is Forcing Inspections. Can They Do That?

celebrity gossip

• Nvidia CEO aims to set up a base in Vietnam

Obit

• SF author David Drake has died

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Al Gore Warns: People Having Access To Non-Mainstream Information "Threatens Democracy" | ZeroHedge

• In the name of ‘fake news,’ NewsGuard extorts sites to follow the government narrative.

  • Biden State Department Paid NewsGuard to Smear Conservatives.

• Biden Admin Pays Anti-Israel Group That Spreads Lies About Gaza War To Fight 'Disinformation'

Musk

• Elon Musk's luck has finally run out

• Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reinstated on X after Musk poll

  • Elon Musk restores X account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones

• Alex Jones Joins Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Andrew Tate in Spaces Conversation

• Australian government continues to advertise on X after Musk's anti-Semitic post

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Trump Warns Of Business Exodus from New York Amid Fraud Case Fallout

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• CDC Warns of More Infectious Monkeypox Strain with Higher Fatality Rate.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Israel's onslaught drags U.S. Jewish life into the abyss

• Apple Is PETA's Company of the Year

• 'Why Hamas are worse than the Nazis': A thought-provoking essay by top historian ANDREW ROBERTS | Daily Mail Online

• Grantmaker betting a TV show for teen girls can help narrow the STEM gender gap

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• China overtakes US in contributions to Nature and Science journals

• Surge in number of 'productive' authors concerns scientists

• Anti-plagiarism policies 'harm Black and Latinx students,' professor argues

• Concerns about misconduct at Harvard's department of government and elsewhere

• Home-schoolers perform better on reading than on math exams

• The Ivy League Mask

Entertainment / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Why TikTok is dangerously good at making you spend money

• Looks to me like a panel that curves in the horizontal and vertical axes. Tcl intros dome-shaped monitors for simulator gaming

  TLC teased its 'X-Intelligence,' what it calls 'the world's first AI model in the display industry,' saying the monitor is made for natural language processing and knowledge reasoning capability surpassing GPT-4.

• Beeper Mini Is Back | Hacker News

• US lawyer who put Big Tobacco on trial takes aim at sports betting Archive

  • HN comments

• Google Fiber - 20 Gig + Wi-Fi 7 will be available to select customers

• Meta Starts Encrypting Messages on Facebook and Messenger App

• Disney World starts banning third-party tour guides

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• PC GEOS: the multitasking DOS-based GUI OS that evolved from a C64 desktop

• Static Site Generators: Not Just for Blogs

• The race between Intel, Samsung, and TSMC to ship the first 2 nm chip

• Fixing Classical Cats: How I Got Tricked by 28-Year-Old Defensive Programming

  • HN comments

• Laptop RAM Jedec Publishes New CAMM2 Memory Module Standard

  • HN comments

• The mysterious second parameter to the x86 ENTER instruction - The Old New Thing

  I wonder if anybody uses the Intel design for nested functions. I suspect it’s silicon on the CPU that is completely wasted.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• The Year A.I. Ate the Internet

• Mistral: Mixtral of Experts

  • HN comments

• Nvidia emerges as leading investor in AI companies

• OpenAI's Investors Don't Own It

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• China's reusable rocket race heats up with new hop test

• The last meteor shower of the year

• An Extremely Rare Occultation of Betelgeuse

Crypto con games

• Number Go Up

  One doesn’t get a favorable impression of crypto from Number Go Up but in fact one doesn’t learn much about crypto at all. Indeed, Faux’s book isn’t really about crypto it’s about the rise and collapse of a bubble and the consequent madness of crowds. It’s an old and familiar story.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Investor Group Launches $5.8B Buyout Bid for Macy's

• How good is the U.S. economy? It's beating pre-pandemic predictions

• Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

• Food banks struggle as more people face food insecurity.

• Govt wants price controls, the media obligingly begins smoothing the path: Corporate America Is Testing the Limits of Its Pricing Power

• Amazon scammers used hacks and bribes to make millions off fake returns

• Gen Z is bringing a whole new vibe to the workplace: anxiety

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Your grandfather’s ACLU is back…for one tweet at least

• VA Dem featured in streamed sex acts online says she’s the victim: ‘Entire life was rocked’.

• Biden Pressures The Allegedly Independent Fed To Stop Rate-Hikes

• Hillary will take on a ‘growing role’ in Biden’s reelection campaign after hosting $1m fundraiser at her Georgetown home.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Suspected Foreign Gangs Breaking Into American Homes, Multi-Antenna Device and Advanced Tactics Points to Chilling Reality

  What makes the group particularly dangerous is its practice of using jamming devices to incapacitate security systems and cellular phone communications in the target homes. In one surveillance video released by Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bruchard during a news conference Wednesday, a robbery gang is shown breaking into a home. One of the men, behind the man who broke into the door, is carrying a jamming device — studded with antennae to stifle alarm frequencies.

• Retail Lobby: "We Lied About Organized Theft"

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Army Is Looking for Hybrid Drivetrains for Its Strykers

• US Embassy in Baghdad Attacked With Mortars as Forces Targeted Across Region.

• State Department Bypasses Congress to Send Tank Ammunition to Israel.

• China's cyber army is invading critical U.S. services

  • HN comment

World

• The Chinese are using water cannons at sea, against the Philippines

• Argentine President Milei warns economic shock unavoidable in maiden speech

Israel

• Yemen's Houthis to Target All Ships Heading to Israel

• Civilians make up 61% of Gaza deaths from airstrikes, Israeli study finds

• Attacking Journalists as Terrorists

• Hamas conned Israel into complacency by passing intel on Islamic Jihad.

• Hamas Warns No Hostage Will Leave "Alive" If Demands Aren't Met

Health / Medicine

• Applesauce lead cases in kids surge amid questions on FDA oversight

• Vitamin D supplements didn't prevent kids' broken bones, study finds

• Obesity may be caused by ancestors' exposure to toxic chemicals

• Kids with cats have more than double the risk of developing schizophrenia

• CDC issues health alert for potentially deadly Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

• Is cannabis bad for teens? Here's what the data say

• The Jumping Up Test: Easier Diagnosis of Acute Appendicitis in Children

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Fossil fuels: Can humanity kick its addiction?

• Sea level data from 1913 to 2022 which shows a change of 0.84 feet in 100 years

• Why are there so many fossil fuel lobbyists at COP28?

• Wall Street Gets Ready to Cash in on $1T Climate Market

• Herds of Mysterious ‘Glacier Mice’ Baffle Scientists - Atlas Obscura

  Curiously, the mossy balls weren’t attached to the ground, and many were green on all sides, indicating they must slowly turn so that the entire exterior sees the sun at some point, theorized Eyþórsson. That fall, he wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of Glaciology. “I call these mossy balls Jökla-mýs, literally ‘glacier mice,’” he wrote, “and you will have noted, Sir, that rolling stones can gather moss.”

• After 40 Years, Illinois Lifts Moratorium on Building New Nuclear Plants.

• Tons of dead sardines, mackerel wash ashore in northern Japan

• Fossil fuel phase-out will 'not avert climate breakdown without protections

• 4 east African countries are going for nuclear power—why this is a bad idea.

  "...the risk of complete political and economic dependence on the nuclear build sponsor country".

  • comment:

    What a polite way of saying "the natives can't be relied upon to build or operate the technology safely"