2024-01-13

Horseshit

• US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

  • FAA Increasing Oversight of Boeing Production and Manufacturing

• Flying in America Has Never Been Safer (Archive)

  The biggest U.S. commercial airlines have now gone nearly 15 years without a fatal crash, which is something of a miracle itself, as there have been more than 100 million flights and 10 billion passengers since then.

• Epistemic Learned Helplessness | Hacker News

• The social housing secret: how Vienna became the most livable city

• The Meme King of Longevity Now Wants to Sell You Olive Oil - The New York Times

• A Plan to Do Something about Climate Change

  The first step is to build an application which allows us to treat organizational processes as code. This step probably requires a lot of clarification to most people. What do I mean by “policy as code”? I mean a system which allows institutional policies to be maintained as if they were a codebase. This brings version control, the ability to test and refactor, pull requests, etc. It allows collective decision-making to scale. If I think a policy should be changed, I submit a PR. If people believe I’ve submitted a good change, they approve it and it gets merged in and becomes policy which is automatically executed according to the triggers that have been decided upon.

  • let's GitHub the law, after all it has never gone wrong with software, and society is no different. see also:

    • Are we going to talk about how GitHub is an absolute boon for malware, or nah?

• Women buy more cars, so why are the designs so macho?

• You gotta just ignore annoying tweets Yes, people on the internet are irritating

• HAARP (of course): Conspiracy theorist: "Deep State" is controlling weather to affect primaries

• Single SF restaurant may be operating 70 different storefronts on DoorDash

celebrity gossip

• Apple announces Al Gore and James Bell are retiring from its board of directors

  • Al Gore is officially too old to be on Apple's board

• Margaret Mead wanted to save the world via LSD. The government had other ideas

• Anti-fans are scary: Drew Chadwick DeVault / ddevault / SirCmpwn | Kiwi Farms

Obit

• Annie Nightingale: Trailblazing BBC Radio 1 DJ Dies at 83

• Edward Jay Epstein, investigative journalist and skeptic, dies at 88

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Running your own site is painful. Hosting Nazis is worse

  I’ve spent much of my career telling organizations that they should publish in a space that they control, on their own domain name. My usual argument is that it shields you from major changes in company policy, or even from the platform you’re depending on from going out of business. If you’ve built a media business on a platform knowing that it’s been designed as a place for text-heavy media businesses, but one day it decides it’s going to be more profitable if it becomes a place for 3D immersive video, and your whole audience is locked into that platform, your media business is in trouble.

  • Agreed, at least that far. I wish I had the resources and editorial control to host whomever; Nazis, Neopagans, sinners, saints, and all the little fishes. The people with resources tend to find their limits quickly when it comes to editorial license, however.

• Substack Is What Happens When Everything Becomes Social Media - The Atlantic

  • There Are Major Factual Issues With Jonathan M. Katz’s ‘Atlantic’ Article, “Substack Has A Nazi Problem”

Musk

• ExTwitterers Fed Up with the Crypto Spam and AI Bots Elon Promised to Clean Up

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Wife Of Fulton County Trump Prosecutor Alleges He Took Money From Her Account, Left Her In ‘Dire Need’ | The Daily Caller

• Trump ordered to pay New York Times, three reporters nearly $400k in legal costs

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• These Are the New Vaccines You Should Get—And It’s Not Just Covid-19 - WSJ

  • Ahh, I miss the Good Ole Days of 3 years ago, when a "vaccine" was something that worked, for years, not the modern "annual or more often maybe it'll help more than it hurts," social obligation.

• Long Covid manifests with T cell dysregulation

• Why long Covid can cause exhaustion, or post-exertional malaise, after exercise

  • Quoted from the study on Jan 5th; horseshit self-fulfilling prophecy with n=46.

• Cancer Is Striking More Young People, and Doctors Are Alarmed and Baffled

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Netflix Film’s Removal Shows Power of India’s Hindu Right Wing - The New York Times

• FHP arrest man accused of using spray paint to cover up pro-Palestinian graffiti on I-95.

• (2021) Is everything in the world a little bit conscious?

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The Billionaires Spending a Fortune to Lure Scientists Away from Universities

• Bill Ackman Slams Harvard Endowment, Forms Think Tank to Probe Higher Education

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Bambu Lab To Allow Installing Open Firmware After Signing Waiver

• "Such signal, much wow": Starlink's first texts via "cellphone towers in space"

  • HN comments

• There has never been a better time to game on Linux

• Pluralistic: The Cult of Mac

  Apple's most valuable intangible asset isn't its patents or copyrights – it's an army of people who believe that using products from a $2.89 trillion multinational makes them members of an oppressed religious minority whose identity is coterminal with the interests of Apple's shareholders.

  • HN comments

• Friday Facts #393 - Putting things on top of other things | Factorio

• CDs are making a comeback thanks to Gen Z

  • Durable copies of data are a good thing. We should do more of that. I want petabyte optical disks. For $1 pear each or less. ... and a pony.

• 'Jobs will be next': TV ad slump prompts more fear among staff

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Are we going to talk about how GitHub is an absolute boon for malware, or nah?

• What Was ISDN?

  In 2025, British Telecom plans to shut off its ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) and PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) services entirely, in favor of modern technologies like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Which means now’s a good a time as any to write a retrospective on one of the most interesting technologies the phone company ever gave the masses, ISDN, and why relatively few people have actually used it.

  • "Fond" memories of bonding two "128k" connections, which was all we could get in 1998. With the right hardware, willing ISP, and some nasty hacking at the linux kernel's multilink PPP drivers, we used every bit of those channels.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Media experts cry foul over AI's free lunch of copyrighted content

• Daughter of George Carlin horrified someone cloned her dad with AI

  • The George Carlin AI Standup Is Worse Than You Can Imagine

• RIP Racing's First AI Influencer, Who Lived for 34 Dumb Days

• Why LLMs are not and probably will not lead to "AI" (an opion) | Hacker News

• ChatGPT has read most of the internet. That hasn't solved its diversity issues

• AI pillows and toothbrushes – is it all getting a bit silly?

  this pillow is different, we are told. This pillow contains AI. "With the AI, it can be trained to know what you sound like specifically when you snore," a representative insists.

  And the pillow is far from the only device to lay claim to the special power that, we are meant to believe, AI confers. At Samsung's exhibit, for example, an entire section was devoted to AI-capable household devices. I'm shown an AI vacuum cleaner - that looks very much like a normal vacuum cleaner - with one small difference. An "AI" function mode apparently allows the vacuum to assess types of surfaces. It can then apply different levels of suction accordingly.

  • See also my AI the Modern Oracle rant. Much of this is probably more "hype slip streaming". They did it with "VR/Metaverse", they did it with "High Def" .. whenever a buzzword flies high enough it attracts parasitic uses.

Crypto con games

• Bitcoin ETFs Are Here for Real

• BTC Below $42K, Coinbase Plunge as ETF Mania Becomes 'Sell the News' Rout

Economicon / Business / Finance

• American Finance Has Left Europe In the Dust. The Tables Aren’t Turning. - WSJ

• 'Tough on morale': Citigroup reveals plans for 20k job cuts by 2026

  • Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

    • HN comments

  • Citigroup plans 20,000 job cuts as it reports worst quarter in 15 years

  • Citi to Cut 20k Roles in Fraser's Bid to Boost Returns

• Is Economic Pessimism the Media’s Fault? - The Atlantic

• US tech innovation dreams soured by changed R&D tax laws

• Is the Fed Preparing to Taper Its Bond Redemptions?

• Why can't today's young adults leave the nest? Blame high housing costs

  • HN comments

• Car insurance cost rose 20% in December, biggest jump in decades.

• Oil climbs 1% as tankers avoid Red Sea after strikes on Houthis | Reuters

  • Gov't data: US Oil and Gas Production at All Time High

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• After decades of advocacy, suicide deterrent comes to Golden Gate Bridge

• The disappearing act of the Secretary of Defense, and why it matters

• IRS has already collected more than $500M in delinquent millionaire back taxes

  • HN comments

• Vegan NYC Mayor Under Fire After He Advocates Ditching Diabetes Medication.

• Jill Biden: Trump Supporters Are “Insurrectionists, Dangerous Extremists” - modernity

  it is a little scary... not just for me and for Joe, but just to see what happened. I mean, look at the insurrection that took place. I mean, it’s just so hard to believe that the United States of America witnessed an insurrection.

  • Most people who witnessed it are still not convinced it was an "insurrection," despite being told that it was, nonstop by the media from that day to this.

• Federal Scientists Recommend Easing Restrictions on Marijuana

• Watch: Biden Tells Voters ‘I Work for the Government in the Senate.’

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Are fingerprints unique? Not really, AI-based study says | CNN

• Nation's largest single-family home landlord to pay $3.7M in CA gouging case

• People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2016, attorney says

  • HN comments

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Biden ignoring Pentagon, defense spending at pre-World War II levels.

  “The fiscal year 2024 defense budget does raise spending as a share of GDP marginally, but to a level essentially tied for the lowest in the last 84 years with the ‘peace dividend’ during the Clinton administration. In fact, defense spending in 2024 will be a smaller share of GDP than it was before the Ukraine war began,” according to a new report from Princeton Policy Advisors

• After 20 years, it’s time for America to leave Iraq  | The Hill

World

• Oh Canada: Police Warn that Posting Images of Thieves May Violate Their Privacy Rights.

• South Korea to ban dog meat

• Guatemala's baby brokers: how children were stolen for adoption

• London mayor says Brexit has cost UK over $178B so far

• Taiwan Election 2024 – TPP's Ko vows to defeat KMT, DPP in final election push

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• Ships Advertise Chinese Links to Avoid Houthi Attack in Red Sea - Bloomberg

• Houthis Undeterred After US Coalition Pummels Over 60 Targets With Tomahawk Missiles, Airstrikes

  Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree released a videotaped address saying "The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for its criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished." Houthi sources have tallied over 70 strikes across five regions of Yemen, indicating that at least five people died in the attacks. The Pentagon indicated over 100 missiles of a variety of types were used.

  though intense, it was a relatively brief attack, likely lasting not more than 30 minutes, or definitely less than an hour. Videos of large fireballs lighting up the night sky flooded social media as key cities like Saana and the port city of Hodeidah were hit, where there also remain large population centers.

  But again, the key takeaway here is that after these brief fireworks which many officials have complained comes much too belatedly (though some US lawmakers have already highlighted there was no Congressional approval), the Houthis are likely soon to resume their attacks. Also likely is that there will eventually be more rounds of coalition strikes on Yemen as the crisis endures. Thursday night's attack is likely to actually result in further reduced commercial shipping traffic in Red Sea waters now visited by war

• Houthis mistakenly target tanker carrying Russian oil

• Biden calls Houthis terrorists, then declines to give them ‘irrelevant’ official designation.

Israel

• Peter Thiel's Palantir to provide tech for Israel's 'war-related missions'

• A Lesson on Human Suffering from a Kibbutz

Health / Medicine

• FDA approves importation of syphilis drug from France.

• Wasn't the Narrative that "average lifespan is going down?" Things are always more complicated. Number of Americans in their 100s expected to quadruple in the next 30 years

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Why Are "Hottest Year" Ever Headlines Spiking Right Before A Polar Vortex? | ZeroHedge

  • The warmest year on record globally

  • 2023 was the warmest year on record, by far

  • Where the world warmed the most in Earth's hottest year

  • "data massaging" is indeed a Mystery. 2023's record heat partly driven by 'mystery' process: NASA scientist

• The planet’s got 99 problems, but exponential growth isn’t one

  In the UK, CO₂ emissions per person have halved during my lifetime. Globally, CO₂ emissions per person peaked in 2012. Although the world still faces huge environmental challenges, there is nothing about these numbers that suggests exponential growth. Economic growth does continue — maybe not exponentially, but it’s exponential-ish. Fortunately, the planet simply does not care about numbers in the national income accounts. What matters for our environment are flows of energy, pollutants and other physical quantities.

• Rice farming in sub-Saharan Africa is producing rising amounts of methane

• Paradigm shift: Evolution is not as random as we thought

• Beaver ponds may exacerbate warming in Arctic, scientists say

• A vision for the alleviation of water scarcity in the US Southwest

  • HN comments

• Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

  • HN comments

• New evidence that polar bears survived 1,600 years of ice-free Holocene summers