2023-12-28

etc

• (July 2020) Bread, How Did They Make It?

• China’s Nuclear-Powered Containership: A Fluke Or The Future Of Shipping? | Hackaday

• The Right to Repair movement won its biggest victories in 2023

• Trapped in truck, Indiana man is rescued after 6 days surviving on rainwater

• First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

  • HN comments

Horseshit

• Daihatsu Toyota safety scandal: any details?

  • Automaker halts Japan production/admits tampering with safety tests for 30 years

• Stop Saying “Junior” And “Senior”

• Star Wars sues Chilean car wash company Star Wash

• The EV Graveyard Reckoning, Hardly Anyone Wants to Buy a Used One – MishTalk

• She spent her inheritance on TikTok Livestreamers

• Exemplary bullshit "reporting" Scientists discover the first new antibiotics in over 60 years using AI

  • HN comment

    it is by no means the first in 60 years.

• Teen's death in Wisconsin sawmill highlights "21st century problem" across U.S.

• Billionaire-Built Cities Would Be Better Than Nothing

• Self-Driving Vehicles Are Finding a Home in Industrial Operations

• ‘Ecosexual’ woman embarks on ‘erotic’ relationship with oak tree

• Taser maker Axon has a moving backstory. It's mostly a myth

• The Nine Breakthroughs of the Year

• Quairading shire erects signs telling travellers to ignore Google Maps

celebrity gossip

• (Sep 2023) Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates. Behind Every Self-Made Millionaire is a Father with Money | by Mohamed Aboelez | Medium

• Steve Ballmer is set to make $1B a year for doing nothing

Obit

• 'Godfather' of avocado toast Bill Granger dies, aged 54

• Comedian Tommy Smothers, one-half of the Smothers Brothers, dies at 86

  • Comedian Tom Smothers has died

  • HN comments

• Glock Founder Gaston Glock Has Died: 1929-2023

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Of Course: Far-Left 'Disinformation' Operatives Tied To EU Investigation Of X, Receive White House Christmas Card | ZeroHedge

• Substack Turns on Its 'Nazis Welcome' Sign

Musk

• Chinese Carmaker Overtakes Tesla as Most Popular EV Maker

• Tesla engineer 'pinned' by robot at Giga Texas factory, leaving trail of blood

  • Tesla Robot Reportedly 'Attacked' Employee in Texas Factory

• Tesla issues statement on the negative Reuters article

  Misleading headline: "Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective.” Reality (buried in the article): Tesla paid for most of the 120,000 vehicle repairs under warranty.

• Elon Musk Is the New Republic's 2023 Scoundrel of the Year

• Elon Musk will see you in court: The top Twitter and X Corp. lawsuits of 2023 | Ars Technica

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Denver Police Investigating 'Hoax' Threat To Colorado Justices After Trump Ruling; FBI 'Aware' | ZeroHedge

• Trump Stays On Michigan Ballot After State Supreme Court Ruling | ZeroHedge

  The Judge also ruled that the case shouldn't be decided in the courts - a decision which was upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals, which wrote "At the moment, the only event about to occur is the presidential primary election. But as explained, whether Trump is disqualified is irrelevant to his placement on that particular ballot." According to the Michigan Supreme Court, the anti-Trump challengers "have identified no analogous provision in the Michigan Election Law that requires someone seeking the office of President of the United States to attest to their legal qualification to hold the office."

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Pro-Hamas graffiti smeared at Lincoln Memorial blamed on police cuts.

• Holocaust Museum Weighs in As Anti-Israel Group Furiously Backtracks on Museum Storming Event – RedState

• The New York Times, Which Demanded the Resignation of an Editor for Publishing an Op-Ed by Senator Tom Cotton, Publishes an Op-Ed By the Hamas-Appointed Mayor of Gaza City

• Agonistic approaches to sexuality: A critical analysis of the conservative mind

• Anxious and online, Chinese youth embrace spirituality apps

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Scholars asked Harvard President Claudine Gay for her data. She said no.

• My thoughts on the Harvard mess

  The first step toward reform and improvement would be for a significant portion of the board to realize — if only to itself — that it is not very good at precisely the matters its members are supposed to be good at. And then make plans to step down, and to have the remainder of the board set up better institutions to govern board membership in the future.

• Dissolve the Universities? – Helen Dale

  much of the worst drivel was developed by female and minority authors who, sadly, have been praised far above and beyond their actual talent by people who should know better in often mortifying cases of head-patting and humouring. Like Samuel Johnson, they think “a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Unlike Johnson, they exalt all attempts—including risible ones—to the skies. This, in case it isn’t obvious, does not help women or minorities.

• Claudine Gay accused of botching study that landed her major tenure at Stanford

Entertainment / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Japan Preparing EU-Style Law to Force Apple to Allow App Sideloading

• Amazon Prime Video to Have Ads in UK from February

• The Late-Night Email to Tim Cook That Set the Apple Watch Saga in Motion Archive

  Lawyers for Masimo say that Lamego lacked prior knowledge about how to develop the blood-oxygen feature (his previous studies were about neural interfaces rather than health sensors). He learned how to build the technology at Kiani’s companies and delivered it to Apple, they say.

  Lamego then resigned from Apple in July 2014, just months after joining. Masimo argues that he left after Apple got what it needed. The reality, according to longtime Apple executive Steve Hotelling, is that Lamego didn’t fit in at the company. He clashed with managers, demanded multimillion-dollar budgets and wanted the ability to hire his own engineers without approval, Hotelling said in a deposition that was part of a court fight between the companies. After weeks of discussions, Lamego left Apple. The first Apple Watch was announced three months later, in September 2014. It didn’t have the blood-oxygen sensor and instead relied on more basic technologies, such as a pulse reader.

  • Apple appeals trade commission ban of Apple Watch 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2

  • Apple Watch Sales Ban Is Put on Hold by US Appeals Court

  • Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 returning to select Apple Stores

• 4-year campaign backdoored iPhones using possibly the most advanced exploit

  • HN comments

  • Operation Triangulation: What You Get When Attack iPhones of Researchers

  • HN comments

• Disney CEO Bob Iger says company's movies have been too focused on messaging

• Ars Technica’s best video games of 2023 | Ars Technica

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Software Freedom for a New Year :: Ben Hays — Information Security Student

  (Give up Google Mail and) Replace your non-free BIOS with a freedom-respecting one like Libreboot or Coreboot

• Indie Repair Shops Had to Hire Hackers to Tackle Pointless, Train-Crippling DRM

• What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it

  "I've written papers about it, and I've tried to put together a prototype license," Perens explains in an interview with The Register. "Obviously, I need help from a lawyer. And then the next step is to go for grant money."

  Post-Open, as he describes it, is a bit more involved than Open Source. It would define the corporate relationship with developers to ensure companies paid a fair amount for the benefits they receive. It would remain free for individuals and non-profit, and would entail just one license.

  • HN comments

• Ow 4 billion if statements

  • HN comments

• PyPI new user registration temporarily suspended

  The volume of malicious users and malicious projects being created on the index in the past week has outpaced our ability to respond to it in a timely fashion, especially with multiple PyPI administrators on leave.

• You should use a hair dryer when bending your 12VHPWR cables for your new RTX 4090, says power supply manufacturer Seasonic.

  • You should absolutely not use a hair dryer when bending your 12VHPWR cables for your new RTX 4090, and we never suggested you should, says power supply manufacturer Seasonic.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• New York Times Sues Microsoft and OpenAI, Alleging Copyright Infringement

  • New York Times sues Microsoft and OpenAI over copyright infringement

  • The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement

  • HN comments

  • New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft for using articles to train AI

  • The New York Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft for Copyright Infringement

  • New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft for allegedly infringing copyrighted work

  • 'A business model based on mass copyright infringement'

  • New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft over use of its stories to train chatbots

  • NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances

    • HN comments

• 2024: The year AI gets real

• Big Tech is spending more than VC firms on AI startups

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• SpaceX’s most reused Falcon 9 booster falls victim to the ocean

  SpaceX’s most experienced rocket booster, which had flown 19 times and made history by launching the first crewed mission from the US in nearly a decade, has met a watery end. The Falcon 9 booster, numbered 1058, completed its last mission on Saturday, delivering 23 Starlink satellites into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It then landed on a droneship in the Atlantic Ocean, as it had done many times before. However, on its way back to shore, the booster faced rough seas and strong winds that caused it to tip over and break apart. A large piece of the rocket was seen floating in the water later.

  • "it flew 18 more missions than every expendable rocket that’s ever flown"

  • Veteran SpaceX Booster Lost Due To Rough Seas

  • SpaceX announcement the company had lost B1058

  During transport back to Port early this morning, the booster tipped over on the droneship due to high winds and waves. Newer Falcon boosters have upgraded landing legs with the capability to self-level and mitigate this type of issue

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Banks shed 60,000 jobs in one of worst years for cuts since financial crisis

  • Banks Terminate 60,000 Workers In One Of The Bleakest Years For The Industry Since 2008 | ZeroHedge

  "There is no stability, no investment, no growth in most banks — and there are likely to be more job cuts," said Lee Thacker, owner of financial services headhunting firm Silvermine Partners. FT noted that corporate disclosure data and its independent reporting did not include smaller regional bank cuts, indicating total job loss could be much higher.

• Think your credit card rate is high? Some in Brazil pay 455 percent

• Pizza Hut to lay off California workers after minimum wage increase

  • Pizza Hut franchisees lay off more than 1,200 delivery drivers in California as restaurants brace for $20 fast-food wages

• Seattle-based Zulily says it will go into liquidation, surprising customers

• What Happens to All the Stuff You Don't Want

• Powerful Realtors Group Loses Its Grip on the Industry

• A Private Equity-Associated Lender Helped Precipitate Nursing-Home Implosion

• Google announces 30,000 layoffs from ad sales division post new AI innovation

  • Google plans ad sales restructuring as automation booms - The Information | Reuters

  Google plans to reorganize a big part of its 30,000-person ad sales unit, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing a person with knowledge of the situation. Sean Downey, who oversees ad sales to big customers in the Americas, said at a department-wide meeting last week that Google plans to restructure its ad sales teams without specifying whether the move would include layoffs, according to the report.

• Dow Jones Reaches New All-Time High as Economy Soars - MeidasTouch Network

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• GOP Legislators In 3 States Seek To Keep Biden Off 2024 Ballot | ZeroHedge

• 2024’s Deficit Is Already on Track to Be the Worst Since Covid.

• Obama shaped CIA to boost his political agenda, hired leftist activists, former agent says | Just The News

• Boston Mayor Michelle Wu swatted on Christmas Day after hosting 'Electeds of Color' holiday party

• Biden boasting about the economy makes him appear ‘out of touch’ with mainstream America.

  • CNN analyst suggests Biden could 'lose' re-election if he doesn’t stop talking about ‘Bidenomics’

• Nationalize Greyhound

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?

• Police 'shouldn't have let' man free who stabbed teen girls at Grand Central Terminal

  Hutcherson pleaded guilty to third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to conditional discharge on Dec. 12 by Judge Matthew V. Grieco, according to court records. On Monday morning, Hutcherson allegedly became unhinged after workers at the Tartinery restaurant in the Midtown transit hub refused to serve him, shouting “I want all the white people dead” before suddenly lunging at the teens, tourist visiting from South America, cops and police sources said.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Chinese Spy Agency Rising to Challenge the CIA

• We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power

• Tell HN: GPS Interference over Baltic and Poland

  • NOTAM

    ANOMALIES IN GNSS SIGNAL MAY BE EXPECTED IN AREA NORTH OF LINE DEFINED BY POINTS: 1. 5131N01448E 2. 5117N02338E.

World

• India: Power Projection Is Sometimes Necessary

• China's chipmaking tool purchases increase 1,050% in November: Report

• "Another Masterclass In Can-Kicking": Europe Reaches Farcical "Debt-Reduction Deal" Which Does Nothing To Reduce Debt | ZeroHedge

• Analysis: China's spy agency now watches for doomsayers - Nikkei Asia

  How strange," a Chinese source in the economic field said, "that China's economic policies for next year, ones that have just been adopted, were first explained by the Ministry of State Security." The recent post hinting at a possible crackdown suggests that even those who explain the situation of China's waning economy using objective facts and figures could come under pressure. In the worst-case scenario, they risk being detained if they say too much.

• Myanmar-based gangs force trafficking victims to scam Americans online

• ‘We have a lot of cracks’: Swedes seek to save Vasa warship – again

• Turkey Lifts Minimum Wage by 49% for 2024 as Inflation Soars

• Eiffel Tower closes as staff strikes, union says landmark "headed for disaster"

• Political crisis brewing in France after minister resigns over immigration bill

• Xi vows to resolutely stop anyone from 'making Taiwan secede from China' | Taiwan News | 2023-12-27 11:00:00

Israel

• Hamas, Islamic Jihad reject Egypt's proposal to give up power in Gaza in return for ceasefire - report | The Times of Israel

• Israel Will Make You 'Miss Hitler,' NATO Ally Warns

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), likened Israel's war against Hamas to the Holocaust on Wednesday and said that Israel will make you "miss Hitler."

• Netanyahu slams Turkish President Erdogan for Kurdish ‘genocide’ after Hitler comparison.

• Israel says its air campaign in Gaza is precise while targeting Hamas - Washington Times

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia threatens to take US military bases in NATO territory as chilling warning issued.

Health / Medicine

• The World Is Going Blind. Taiwan Offers a Warning, and a Cure

• Virtual reality treatments for kids with amblyopia, or lazy eye

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Climate crisis costing $16M an hour in extreme weather damage, study estimates

• Energy Sector Not Ready for Rapid Rise of Renewables, Analysts Say

• Yes, the Climate Crisis Is Now 'Gobsmacking.' But So Is Some Progress

• Amazon drought: 'We've never seen anything like this'

• Netherlands warns children not to swallow sea foam over PFAS concerns

• How Humans have changed the Earth's surface in 2023

• UK students launch Barclays 'career boycott' over bank's climate policies

• Strong Wind Generation Turns European Power Prices Negative

• WHO head Tedros declares war on meat and traditional farming to fight ‘climate change’

• NYT Pushes “Groundwater Crisis” to Attack America’s Poultry and Dairy Industries