2024-01-10

Cool

• 24 Hours of Lemons

etc

• Why You Should Plan To Get Less Done - by David Epstein

Horseshit

• A vision for the alleviation of water scarcity in the US Southwest and the revitalization of the Salton Sea – Casey Handmer's blog

  California should unabashedly exploit its mature industrial sector and visionary environmentalism to quell the growing water scarcity catastrophe, mend fences with Mexico, build local industry, bolster agricultural production, restore the Salton Sea, build new shining cities along its shores, and flaunt its unequaled excellence by exporting alfalfa to all corners of the globe.

  • Unlike my geoengineering program, this one might be technically possible. The more possible and beneficial it might be, the less likely it is to happen; especially in California.

• Why some Canadians are feeling duped by their breakfast cereal

• How the EPA calculates how far an EV can go on a full charge

• Hackers can infect network-connected wrenches to install ransomware

• Boeing’s Max 9 Crisis Deepens - The New York Times

  • Workers at a Boeing Supplier Raised Issues About Defects

  • An iPhone survived a 16,000-foot fall from a plane

• SF robotaxi rides exponentially increased in the city – even after severe crash

• Smartphone manufacturers still want to make foldables a thing

• Colorado family cleaning up after 6th vehicle in 6 years crashes into property

• What You’ve Heard About Resilience Is Probably Wrong - Bloomberg

  Resilience has become big business. Airport bookstores bristle with paperbacks explaining “why some flourish while others fold” or promising to help you develop “unbeatable” levels of “mental toughness.” TED talks, podcasts and social media posts offer the three (or five) traits of resilient people, from optimism to grit to a growth mindset.

  • HN comments

• Jaws captures the greatness of movie-to-pinball adaptations

• Why is my LG Washing Machine using 3.6GB of data/day?

  • HN comments

• What Goes Up Must Come Down: The Reality of Celebratory Gunfire

• Honda debuts new global EV series, Honda Zero, coming in 2026

• Slow-and-Steady Waymo Is Winning the Self-Driving Race for Alphabet - Bloomberg

celebrity gossip

• Did Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais really sink to new depths?

• Mike Vrabel fired by the Tennessee Titans in major NFL twist

• Cause of Sinéad O'Connor's death ruled as natural causes

  • Sinéad O’Connor's cause of death revealed

• Don Lemon, Tulsi Gabbard, and Jim Rome Ink Deals With X

• Lauren Boebert’s Ex-Husband Arrested on Weapons and Assault Charges

  • Lauren Boebert's Ex Says He 'Overreacted' When He Called Police On Her

  • Lauren Boebert's ex-husband arrested after Colorado restaurant row

Epstein

• Virginia Giuffre Says Epstein Paid Her $15,000 to Have Sex With Prince Andrew

• Abcarian: With every release of court documents, the damage Jeffrey Epstein did confronts us anew

• Jeffrey Epstein: Fifth and final batch of documents released

Obit

• Amalija Knavs, Mother Of Melania Trump, Dead At 78

• Adan Canto, Star on ‘Designated Survivor’ and ‘X-Men,’ Dies at 42

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Meta will hide suicide and eating disorder content from teens

  • New protections to give teens more age-appropriate experience on Facebook's apps

• Substack Versus the Slippery Slope: The real reason to keep even Nazis on the platform.

  When faced with a movement this madly censorious, the best response is to say No to everything they ask for. Everything. Why? Because once you censor Nazis for them, they’ll just keep ratcheting up their demands until you — yes, you — live in fear of censorship, too.

  This isn’t just morbid thinking. I’ve long acknowledged that appeasement often works. Just not with the woke. The New York Times article casually lumps Richard Hanania, possibly the world’s greatest living essayist, in with the Nazis. Why? Because he anonymously wrote some bad stuff in his early twenties. Months prior to his cancellation, Hanania was already defending near-open borders, but that didn’t matter to his would-be career destroyers. The woke replace “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” with “If you were ever against us on anything, we’re against you forever.”

• Substack's Nazi Problem - by Bretigne - On the Banks

  As we later learned, government actors had been directing the censorship effort from the very beginning. What were the results of that censorship? Any information that went against the official narrative on Covid-19 was suppressed. Most egregiously, and with deadly consequences: Information on existing, effective, treatments, such as hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, IV vitamin C, and vitamin D were suppressed. Some – probably very large – number of people undoubtedly died because of this.

  How many lives might have been saved had there been free and open discussion of the risks of the vaccine? We will never know with certainty, but the number is obviously not zero, and very likely in the millions. What number is zero? The number of people who have died as a result of the offensive words of white nationalists on Substack.

Musk

• Elon Musk's X loses fight to disclose federal surveillance of users

• X Purges Prominent Journalists, Leftists with No Explanation

  • Elon Musk's X Suspends Prominent Journalists and Influencers

  • X Bans and Then Unbans Journalists and Podcasters in Latest Free Speech Massacre

• X's Grok chatbot has no reason to exist

• SpaceX releases 'cringeworthy' Elon Musk staff meeting video

• Elon Musk Discussed AI with Israeli Military as It Uses AI to Bomb Gaza

• Elon Musk vs. the Administrative State - WSJ

• "Twitter is a ghost town."

• Elon Musk explains decision to ban Hamas' X account: 'This was a tough call'

• Elon Musk doesn't understand Sweden's unions. If he did, he'd work with them

• Tesla's upgraded 2024 Model 3 is now available in the US

• Social media platform X to introduce peer-to-peer payments

  • Elon Musk's X to launch peer-to-peer payments this year

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Tucker Carlson’s Latest Bombshell About January 6 Might Make You Rethink Everything.

• Filing alleges ‘improper’ relationship between Georgia DA, top Trump prosecutor

  District Attorney Fani Willis improperly hired an alleged romantic partner to prosecute Donald Trump and financially benefited from their relationship, according to a court motion filed Monday which argued the criminal charges in the case were unconstitutional.

  • Fanigate Widens: Atlanta Trump Prosecutor's Alleged DA Lover Met With White House Counsel Before Indictment

• Ray Epps Dodges Prison Sentence - Gets Probation, Community Service For Telling J6ers To Go "Into The Capitol"

  Epps has been given 12 months probation, $500 in restitution, and 100 hours of community service.

  "Although Epps engaged in felonious conduct during the riot on January 6, his case includes a variety of distinctive and compelling mitigating factors, which led the government to exercise its prosecutorial discretion and offer Epps a pre-indictment misdemeanor plea resolution,

  • Woof – a Year Probation and They’re Still Saying Ray Epps Wasn’t a Fed?

  • Ray Epps, Jan. 6 Rioter Targeted by Conspiracy Theorists, Gets Probation

  • Capitol rioter falsely accused of being double agent sentenced to probation

  • Ray Epps: Target of Capitol riot conspiracies sentenced to probation

  • Ray Epps, a Jan. 6 defendant 'scapegoated' by far-right media, sentenced to probation

  • Ray Epps, Target of Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theorists, Sentenced to Probation - WSJ

    “Jan. 6 violence was not generated by the FBI. It was generated by people like me who supported President Trump and listened to his lies,” Epps told the judge during the hearing. Epps, who has said he fears for his safety because of threats from Trump supporters, didn’t attend the hearing in person, instead dialing in with teleconferencing software. Epps and his wife are “living in a trailer in hiding, in the woods,” his lawyer said during the hearing.

• Trump team argues assassination of rivals is covered by presidential immunity  | The Hill

• Federal judges appear skeptical of Trump's immunity claim

• Opinion: Trump's attempt to intimidate a federal appeals court could ensure his defeat

• Trump’s electoral and judicial calendars collide – but it does him little harm

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• A discovery in the muscles of long Covid patients may explain exercise troubles

• Musk Sold MAGA on HCQ – and Opened the Covid-19 Disinformation Floodgates

• Spain mandates face masks in hospitals after surge in respiratory illnesses

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Google DEI Leader Upset over Parents Teaching Children "Not to See Color

• "Massacred" vs. "Left to Die": Documenting Media Bias Against Palestinians

• Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt Mayor Wu’s State of the City address - Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

• Arrests over secret tunnel at New York synagogue

  • Several men arrested after dispute over secret tunnel in Brooklyn synagogue

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

• Claudine Gay Was Not Driven Out Because She Is Black

• Professor's Lawyers Argue: Private University Student Newspapers Are "Not Entitled to First Amendment Protection"

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Twitch, OBS and Nvidia to Release Multi-Encode Livestreaming

• Rumble Is Part of an 'Active and Ongoing' SEC Investigation | WIRED

• HP customers claim firmware update rendered third-party ink verboten

• FCC Continues to Punt on the Hard Questions Surrounding Media Ownership

• News could end up as Art: important to few elites, marginal to the rest

  • HN comments

• If There Are No Stupid Questions, Then How Do You Explain Quora?

• Why Gen Z is plugging in wired headphones and tuning out AirPods

• YouTube Bans True Crime Videos That Reanimate Dead Children with AI

  • Deepfaked Celebrity Ads Promoting Medicare Scams Run Rampant on YouTube

• Google Shapes Everything on the Web

• China Says It Cracked Apple AirDrop to Identify Message Sources

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Wireless priesthood begins blessing Wi-Fi 7 hardware

• Hobbes OS/2 Archive: As of April 15th, 2024 this site will no longer exist

  • HN comments

  • A friend of mine was once associated with that effort. It was deeply valued by hobbyists and professionals supporting the poor choices of previous management.

• Non-PC compatible x86 computers (2007) | Hacker News

• OpenWRT turns 20; wants to launch their "first upstream supported" design

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Mammography AI can cost patients extra. Is it worth it?

• Google faces multibillion-dollar US patent trial over AI technology

• OpenAI's 'foreign minister' behind Sam Altman's global influence

• Letter to California Attorney General on OpenAI's Nonprofit Status

• Judges in England and Wales given approval to use AI in writing legal opinions

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• 1st photo from crippled private Peregrine moon lander holds clue to anomaly.

• NASA to push back moon mission timelines amid spacecraft delays

  • NASA postpones landing astronauts on the moon until at least 2026

• What happened to the Peregrine lander and what does it mean for moon missions?

• US Moon mission has no chance of soft lunar landing

  Even before Tuesday's announcement from Astrobotic, it had become clear that a touch-down on the lunar surface - the first for the US in half a century - was all but impossible.

Crypto con games

• As the Only Viable Path for Wealth Creation, Bitcoin Price Will Hit $1M

• 3.26p The SECGov Twitter account was compromised

  The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.

  • 3.11p SEC approves Bitcoin ETFs

    • HN comments

  • They had a 1500 word story up for 10min: SEC approves Bitcoin ETFs for trading

    Correction: SEC says it did not yet approve Bitcoin ETF, X account was compromised

  • 3.42p SECGov X account compromised: we have not approved spot BTC ETFs

    • What will you do to fix this?

    You usually give penalties in the 100s of millions when other private investment firms make mistakes like this that manipulate the market...

  • SEC's X Account Hacked, Bitcoin Spot ETFs Not yet Approved

  • HN comments

    The price of BTC initially jumped 3% on the hacked tweet. That's $25bn+ of market cap.

  • Safety on X: "We can confirm that the account @SECGov was compromised"

  • SEC Says It Has Not yet Granted Approval of Bitcoin ETFs: Gensler blames hack

  • The SEC's Official X Account Was 'Compromised' to Post Fake Bitcoin News

  • SEC says it did not yet approve Bitcoin ETF, X account was compromised

• Bitcoin Price Plummets Due to Hacked SEC Tweet

  The Security and Exchange Commission’s X account was hacked on Tuesday afternoon, sending an untrue tweet that the Bitcoin ETF was approved. Chairman Gary Gensler quickly tweeted from his personal account that the tweet was false and the result of a hack. In the following 15 minutes, the price of Bitcoin shot up to almost $48,000 and then quickly fell to below $46,000.

• SEC's account compromise was 'not due to any breach of X's systems,' company says

• SEC Says Its X Account Was Hacked to Post Fake News of Bitcoin Fund Approval

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Startup Founders Fret over Getting Fired Like Sam Altman

  • HN comments

• (Nov 2023) Why Shrinkflation Works So Well

• Money pours into new fabs and facilities

  • HN comments

• Fed's Bowman and Bostic caution against rate cuts too soon

• Record Declines in Grain Prices May Ease Global Food Crisis

• Can Retirees Keep Splurging? Don’t Count on It - WSJ

• U.S. crude oil falls 4% as Saudi price cut heightens global demand worries.

• 56 million Americans have been in credit card debt for at least a year. ‘We are seeing pockets of trouble,’ expert says.

• The end of 0% interest rates: what it means for tech startups and the industry

• The True Role of the Central Bank - by Arnold Kling

• What's the Source of the Astounding 50% Boost in Corporate Profits?

• NFL offers buyouts to more than 200 employees

• HP Enterprise to acquire Juniper Networks for $14B

• There is no retirement when you do gig work

• Loss of cooking skills hurt ability to adapt to rising food prices, experts say

• Amazon's Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff

  • HN comments

• Carta shuts trading platform after data privacy breach allegations

• Mortgage demand jumps nearly 10% to start the year, even as interest rates tick up again

• Home prices are surging — and Detroit gained the most in November, beating Miami for the first time

• Everything to know about the Biden administration's new rule on gig workers

  • Biden Administration Rule Seeks to Make More Contractors Employees

  • Labor Department rule restores requirements to classify workers as independent contractors

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• SF streets were clean for APEC, here's what Tenderloin and SoMa look like now

• Biden administration issues rule that could curb 'gig' work, contracting

• Biden administration announces $1B for low-emission school buses

• Biden’s Campaign Doesn’t ‘Brief’ The Media, It Colludes With Them.

• FCC plans shutdown of Affordable Connectivity Program as GOP withholds funding

  • FCC's Affordable Connectivity Program dangles by a financial thread

• As Austin controversy widens, Republicans find a new weapon against Biden

• New Spin on a Revolving Door: Pentagon Officials Turned Venture Capitalists

• Hunter Biden knew most of his art buyers despite ‘ethics’ plan, dealer Georges Bergès says

• Fifth US Republican presidential debate: All you need to know

• The Memo: DeSantis and Haley shape up for first one-on-one clash

• House Republicans move forward to impeach homeland security head

  • Republicans add new threats to impeach Austin and Garland, along with Biden and Mayorkas

• Nikki Haley Is The Top Target In The Iowa Caucuses — But That Doesn't Mean She'll Win

• Biden's Challengers Had A Very Bad Week In New Hampshire

• Nikki Haley closes gap with Donald Trump in New Hampshire

• Ramaswamy insists he’s still in the game as he fails to qualify for last debate

• Mike Pence’s Brother Joins Republicans Retiring From Congress

  • Greg Pence, brother of Mike Pence, won't seek reelection to Indiana House seat

• Michelle Obama says she's 'terrified' of the potential 2024 election results and takes a subtle dig at Trump

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• How often do police officers fire their guns on duty and why? - Deseret News

  Salt Lake City police officers fired at least 135 bullets in the line of duty over 18 months in 2022 and the first six months of 2023, more than half during a single shootout with a man who had carjacked a vehicle at gunpoint.

  The Loyola Chicago study of the Dallas Police Department examined 149 officer-involved shootings from 2003 to 2017, finding “officers are not very accurate with their firearms in deadly force situations, which is consistent with prior research.” In 15 incidents, the total number of rounds fired could not be determined. But in the 134 cases where researchers could establish that figure, police hit their target just over a third of the time.

• Virginia police use DNA to tie dead fisherman to three 1980s murders

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Undercover Operations: Unveiling a Covert Sabotage Mission in Iran (Stuxnet)

• DARPA Moves Forward on X-65: Plane with no moving control surfaces

  • HN comments

• Why there's a storm brewing about global food aid from the U.S.

  Workers for Catholic Relief Services in Haiti got a stomach-turning surprise when they swung open the doors of some 20-foot-long shipping containers. Insects had infested thousands of bags of food. None of the sorghum or milled corn and soybeans, donated by the U.S. government, was fit for human consumption. The culprit seemed obvious. Because of ongoing chaos in Haiti, those containers had been sitting in the country's port for weeks, increasing the risk of spoilage.

  a nutrition and public health researcher at the Washington University in St. Louis, saw a deeper cause. Iannotti, who has worked in Haiti for decades, says the episode illustrates persistent problems with U.S. food aid. "It's this facade of doing good," she says, while also serving a less altruistic goal: Putting cash into the pockets of U.S. farmers by buying their grain and shipping it abroad.

• (Video) Biden tells heckler he's pushing Israel to leave Gaza

• US Military Veterans Are Increasingly Turning to Extremism: DoD Report

  • The Military’s Phantom ‘Extremists’ - WSJ

• US defence secretary Lloyd Austin kept cancer diagnosis from the White House

• Two US F-16 jets fly over Bosnia in show of support

World

• German vice-chancellor warns of extremism as far-right groups join farmers’ protest – as it happened.

• It's Not a Cigarette. It's Not a Vape. and It's Big in Japan

  Not quite a cigarette because it didn't ignite, not quite a vape because it used actual tobacco, supposedly less toxic than conventional cigarettes but satisfying enough to compete with them, it seemed that this heated tobacco might be the future of nicotine.

• Film, TV and video-game producers to get more generous UK tax relief

• The European Union's remarkable growth performance relative to the United States

• Eurozone unemployment dips to joint record low

• Gunmen storm Ecuador television studio live on air

  • Ten killed, gangs unleash terror as Ecuador declares state of emergency

  • Ecuador President Declares Country under ‘Internal Armed Conflict’

• US says Bangladesh elections were not free and fair.

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• Houthis Launch Fresh Red Sea Barrage as Blinken Tries to Contain Gaza War

• US and UK repel major Houthi attack in Red Sea | First Thing

• Iran Warns Against US 'Adventurism' After Parking Cruise Missile-Armed Warship In Red Sea

• US, UK forces shoot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Houthis

• CENTCOM: Houthi rebels launch 'complex attack' on Red Sea ships

Israel

• Did Israel Just Declare Victory Over Hamas? « Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

• The Tunnels of Gaza

• Gaza Photojournalists Shared Call to Infiltrate Israel on Oct. 7

• 'When the Israel-Hamas War Broke Out, Apple TV Asked to Stop Writing the Script' - Television - Haaretz.com

• South Africa’s genocide case against Israel: How will the ICJ decide?

• Blinken to Discuss Palestinian Authority Reforms in Abbas Talks

China

• A Missile, a Rocket or a Satellite? Chinese Flyover Sows Confusion in Taiwan

  • Taiwan apologizes for missile alert, blames mistranslation of "satellite"

• China tells U.S. it will ‘never compromise’ on Taiwan as the island’s election draws near

• In talks with US, China says it will ‘never compromise’ on Taiwan

• US, China Conclude Military Talks in Washington

Health / Medicine

• The silent decline of childhood vaccination in Latin America

• Insurance denials for popular new weight loss drugs leave patients risky choicesInsurance denials for popular new weight loss drugs leave patients risky choices

• Dentists are bad: scams, with incomes propped up by irrational regulation

  while I, of course, condemn anti-dentitism in all its forms, dentistry’s bad regulatory state turns out to be just one part of a broader web of unsavory business practices in the oral health industry.

• The Red Cross — the biggest U.S. blood supplier — said in a release Sunday that the number of U.S. blood donors has hit a 20-year all-time low.

• I think it’s OK to want your children to be healthy even if the world falls apart – Ben Podgursky

  Preventing a disease by selecting an embryo with lower genetic predisposition to disease, or which is free of a monogenic disorder, means that if you succeed, your child doesn’t have the disease. Successfully treating a disease via therapeutics means your child is free of disease as long as the medical system and pharmaceutical industry is functioning at high efficiency.

• Identical twins study shows protective effect of vegan over omnivorous diet

• More Than Half of the World Will Be Obese by 2035, Report Says

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Taxing Water Is the Only Way to Limit Use and Reduce Depletion

• Protein Feed from Coal and Yeast

• Earth shattered global heat record in '23 and it's flirting with warming limit

  • 2023 is the hottest year on record, global temperatures close to the 1.5°C limit

  • Earth shattered global heat record in '23 and it's flirting with warming limit

  • 2023 Hottest Recorded Year as Earth Nears Key Limit

  • 2023 Hottest Recorded Year as Earth Nears Key Limit

• American Policy Won't Get Us to Mass EV Adoption. Chinese Cars Will

• Total solar eclipses will some day be impossible. Here's why

• India plans to double its coal production, but it ignores climate threat

• Chemists Warn Bottled Water 100 Times Worse for Plastic Than Thought

• What is the most humane way to kill a cane toad?

• Tasmanian devil die-off is shifting another predator's genetics

• The climate costs of war and militaries can no longer be ignored

• Modern Hurricanes Have a Surprise Ingredient

• Deadly storms across the US deliver tornadoes, snow and flooding