2024-01-15

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• (video) Volcanic fissure opens up at the edge of Grindavík, Iceland (live feed)

  • Volcanic Fissure Opens in Icelandic Town of Grindavík

  • New volcanic eruption right next to Grimdavik, lava on the streets

  • Volcano Erupts in Iceland After Series of Earthquakes

  • Preemptive Lava Barriers Proposed in Grindavík Town Hall (2022)

  • Video: Iceland Volcano Erupts in Same Area as December Event

  • Volcano erupts in Iceland, sending lava into fishing town

  • Volcano erupts in Iceland, forcing residents of town to evacuate

• Tired Of Comparing Your Political Enemies To Hitler? Here Are Some Other Evil Despots Worth Mentioning – Part I | The Daily Wire

• Why are cars designed to be capable of going much faster than the speed limit?

  • HN comments

Horseshit

• ‘This Has Been Going on for Years.’ Inside Boeing’s Manufacturing Mess.

  engineer, John Hart-Smith, warned colleagues of the risks of the subcontracting strategy, especially if Boeing outsourced too much work and didn’t provide sufficient on-site quality and technical support to its suppliers. “The performance of the prime manufacturer can never exceed the capabilities of the least proficient of the suppliers,” Hart-Smith wrote. “These costs do not vanish merely because the work itself is out-of-sight.”

• Cars suck, man | Petar Gyurov

  • HN comments

• The young people sifting through the internet’s worst horrors

  • HN comments

• 99% of Americans live near a Mexican restaurant

• Almost a third of Gen Z live with parents or family

• Electric buses withdrawn in south London after fire

• The Age of Extremes - by Stephanie Losi - Risk Musings

  It feels like everything is getting bigger. On September 11, 2001, about 3000 people died in the US. At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, about 3000 people died in the US per day. And while 9/11 horrified and energized people (so much that we massively overreacted), at this point we seem to have settled on a collective shrug in response to Covid’s continued drag on our health and economy. Buildings are still not adequately ventilated. Vaccines are no longer effective enough (though I have hope on this front). Medicines available in other countries are held up in the approval process.

• Hit Men Are Easy to Find in the Movies. Real Life Is Another Story

• What a legendary economist got wrong—and right—about our "economic problem"

  First, given that there are still big economic issues to be solved—in particular inequality—why have these lost their political appeal, and is there a way to get them back to the top of the agenda? It’s also likely (but I’m not well acquainted with the data) that many of the daily stressors listed in the APA survey, such as gun violence and other crime, are exacerbated by that inequality. If all political issues are tied together in this way, can we really speak of separate “problems” or is there just one overarching issue of the “degree of thriving” in a society? And finally, how do people think about their own stressors? It seems to me that living a stressful life in a rich society is a strange and unjust fate that should fill us with righteous anger,

• After Years of Delays, Amtrak Moves Toward Faster Trains in the Northeast

• The world could get its first trillionaire within 10 years, Oxfam says

  • Five richest men doubled fortunes after 2020, Oxfam says as Davos opens

  • So far it's a grand decade for billionaires, new report. As for the masses...

  • Geopolitics, AI to slow global economy, grow inequality: Davos survey

• Do venture capitalists want forever war?

• I Bought the Hottest High-Tech E-Bike. Then Its Maker Went Bankrupt

Obit

• Joyce Randolph, Last Surviving Star of ‘The Honeymooners,’ Dies at 99

• 'All My Children,' 'Grown Ups' actor Alec Musser dead at 50

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• In the 'big tent' of free speech, can you be too open-minded?

  some arguments are cleverly deceptive, and engaging with them open-mindedly can actually undermine knowledge. Imagine a hard-to-follow mathematical proof, its flaw difficult to spot, that indicates 2 + 2 = 5. Interestingly, Fantl sees his stance as consistent with intellectual humility: No one is an expert on everything, and we’re all unlikely to spot fallacies in complex deceptive arguments outside our expertise.

  There’s another worrisome cost to engaging with deceptive counterarguments: Some of them harm people. To engage open-mindedly with Holocaust denial, for example – to treat it as an option on the table – is to fail to express appropriate solidarity with Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime. More than giving offense, engaging those views could make someone complicit in ongoing oppression, possibly by undermining education about genocide and ethnic cleansing.

  Does this mean that I recommend seeking out Holocaust deniers for dialogue? No. Some views really are beyond the pale, and regular engagement has diminishing returns. There are only so many hours in the day. But that stance should be adopted sparingly, especially when experts in the relevant community are conflicted.

  • "Holocaust Deniers" is often used to preclude education about the Holocaust: It wasn't just Jews, but that's not compatible with Today's Narrative. The open minded approach the rest of the article advocates implies "within our tent." The walls of the Big Tent, once erected, shrink rapidly. People inside often fail to notice it happening.

• An FAQ from the future — how we struggled and defeated deepfakes

  And so was born the voluntary FACStamp on May 1, 2026. For consumers, FACStamped content displays a small “FAC” icon in one corner of your screen or includes an audio FAC notice. The signal can be turned off by the user, or it can be set to appear for only five or 10 seconds at the start of a media stream. FACStamps are entirely voluntary. But every member of the FAC Alliance pledged that their internet, broadcast and physical reports would publish only FACStamped media in their news sections.

  The newest phones, tablets, cameras, recorders and desktop computers all include software that automatically inserts the FACStamp code into every piece of visual or audio content as it's captured, before any AI modification can be applied. This proves that the image, sound or video was not generated by AI.

  A bipartisan group of senators and House members plans to introduce the Right to Reality Act when the next Congress opens in January 2029. It will mandate the use of FACStamps in multiple sectors, including local government, shopping sites and investment and real estate offerings. Counterfeiting a FACStamp would become a criminal offense. Polling indicates widespread public support for the act, and the FAC Alliance has already begun a branding campaign.

Musk

• The drugs and chaos of Elon Musk's fragile empire

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Fears grow that Trump will use the military in ‘dictatorial ways’ if he returns to the White House

  Part of the aim is to identify like-minded organizations and create a coalition to challenge Trump from day one, those taking part in the discussions said. Some participants are combing through policy papers being crafted for a future conservative administration. They’re also watching the interviews that Trump allies are giving to the press for clues to how a Trump sequel would look. Other participants include Democracy Forward, an organization that took the Trump administration to court more than 100 times during his administration, and Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarian group.

  Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill worry that Trump might invoke the act to involve the armed forces in the face of domestic protests or if the midterm elections don’t go his way. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is crafting a bill that would clarify the act and give Congress and the courts some say in its use. Its chances of passage are slim given that Republicans control the House and are largely loyal to Trump.

  Judge Florence Pan asked one of Trump’s lawyers whether a president could, for example, sell military secrets or order the elite SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival with impunity under the legal argument.

  “The military is hundreds of thousands of people strong, and ultimately Trump will find people to follow his legal orders no matter what,” said a former senior official who served in the Trump administration, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely. “The Insurrection Act is a legal order, and if he orders it there will be military officers, especially younger men and women, who will follow that legal order,” the former official added.

  Sending troops into American streets is often a bad idea, military experts say, pointing to the sort of tragedy that unfolded at Kent State University in 1970 when National Guardsmen shot and killed four students protesting the Vietnam War. In his appearance before the congressional Jan. 6 committee, Milley said that there was “significant pressure on Secretary Esper to deploy forces” to deal with the 2020 racial justice protests.

  • too much to swallow. Who was it quartered troops on Congress for 2 weeks plus on Jan6? If Trump "is gonna do $BAD", then why didn't he do it on Jan 6 / Jan 7, when he was in office and the Democrats were making it absolutely clear that they intended to hang him for anything they could imagine? Waiting 4 years, until re-election, seems a curious step in a "planned coup" when he was much better positioned to do all that previously, and left that position willingly.

• Georgia DA Fani Willis claims 'improper' relationship accusations are based on race

  • Fani Willis Defends Hiring On Trump Case Amid Accusations

  • Georgia DA Fani Willis Blames Racism for Trumpworld’s Misconduct Claims

• "I love my country too much to vote for Donald Trump," Sen. Joe Manchin says

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• "It Just Sort Of Appeared" - Fauci Comes Clean Over 'Science-less' Six-Foot-Distancing Rule | ZeroHedge

• CDC reports dips in flu, Covid-19, and RSV

• The Propaganda That is Selective Science ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Western Brands Boycott Calls Intensify After US Jets Bomb Yemen | ZeroHedge

  One X user pointed out, "None of these brands have anything to with Yemen and the US didn't invade Yemen, also why is their idea of a boycott just targeting snacks."

• Power companies paid US Southern civil right leaders as loyal industry advocates

  millions of dollars flowed from utilities to Black leaders and their groups since at least 2009

  The multibillion-dollar power companies use Black support to divert attention from the environmental harms that spew from their fossil fuel plants, the investigation found, harms which disproportionately fall on Black communities.

  Some civil rights and faith leaders “will sell you out because they’ll sell anything – they’ll sell seawater,” said the Rev Michael Malcom, executive director of the environmental justice organization Alabama Interfaith Power & Light, in Birmingham.

  David Pellow, director of the Global Environmental Justice Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara, says the payments represent “the cold, hard, brutal” facts that power companies “need to maintain [public] was support for what they’re doing”. A “really effective way” of controlling the narrative in favor of utilities, Pellow said, has been “buying off people in communities who have a vested interest in fighting those companies”.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• What counts as plagiarism varies by field

• Credit quants reeling after dodgy data found in seminal research

• Following Review, Business Insider Stands by Reports on Wife of Ex-Harvard President's Critic

  • Axel Springer Stands By Business Insider Reporting on Bill Ackman's Wife

  • Business Insider Stands By Neri Oxman Stories After Weeklong Review

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• How Google Perfected the Web

• MetaFilter drops FeedBurner, "functionally an abandoned service"

• Reddit must share IP addresses of piracy-discussing users, film studios say

• ESPN used fake names to secure Emmys for 'College GameDay' stars

• 'Mean Girls' Takes 1st Place at Box Office

  • 'Mean Girls' is the Queen Bee of the box office, opens to $28 million

  • 'Mean Girls' makes theaters run pink once again as it sings its way to $28 million

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• What Was ISDN? | Hacker News

• OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions | Hacker News

• Ask HN: Does Cloudflare block HN comments if you have code blocks in a reply? | Hacker News

  It just doesn't like the bytes nc next to an IPv4 address

  • but twiddling a few characters is a valid work around

• Raspberry Pi 5 shortages shouldn't last long

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Dreamworks: AI Will Take 90% of Artist Jobs on Animation in Just Three Years

• AI can spot suicidal tendencies among young people

• ChatGPT's FarmVille Moment

• AI will affect 40% of jobs and probably worsen inequality, says IMF head

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Peregrine lunar lander on Earth reentry trajectory

  “Our analysis efforts have been challenging due to the propellant leak, which have been adding uncertainty to predictions of the vehicle’s trajectory,” the company said in a statement. “Our latest assessment now shows the spacecraft is on a path towards Earth, where it will likely burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.”

• In 2024, The Sun will be its most active in two decades - The Washington Post

• U.F.O.s Remain a Mystery to Lawmakers After Classified Briefing - The New York Times

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Panama Canal drought forces Maersk to start using land bridge for Oceania cargo

  • HN comments

  • Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

• The Effects of Interest Rates on Commodity Prices

• After big tech layoffs, Silicon Valley may have lost its monopoly on workers

• Google's billions make job cuts 'needless' – union

  • Google's latest layoffs are just the beginning

• Five richest men double their money as poorest get poorer

• The Businesses That Rescued America From Inflation, Recession, Lost Jobs - WSJ

  “We’d always been plane-restrained or gate-restrained. Coming out of the pandemic, for the first time we were people-restrained,” said Greg Muccio, head of talent acquisition at Southwest Airlines

  U.S. crude oil output hit a monthly record in September. For the first 10 months of 2023, it averaged 12.9 million barrels a day. That was about half a million more than the Energy Information Administration had projected for 2023, back in January 2022.

  Camden expanded into single-family rentals. Last fall, it started leasing 189 houses in Houston. Camden’s projects were part of a record 439,000 units completed last year, according to RealPage. McConnico estimates another 600,000 to 650,000 will be completed this year. Not surprisingly, rents on new leases have stopped rising. At Camden, new lease rates were down 3.3% in the fourth quarter through late October compared with the fourth quarter of 2022, Campo said. At new projects, there are offers of a month’s free rent.

  Analog Devices, which makes roughly 75,000 types of chips for industrial, automotive and electronics products across a hybrid network of in-house and outsourced factories. One quick way was to expand production at a fabrication plant in Camas, Washington, from five to seven days a week. Given the tight labor market, Jain said, “we thought it would be quite hard.” But employees welcomed the option of working 12-hour days three or four days a week, he said, instead of the usual five-day workweek. The company boosted capacity at fabrication plants in Beaverton, Ore., and Limerick, Ireland, by installing additional chip-making tools. Some tool makers who were themselves short of chips agreed with Analog to give priority to each other’s orders. “

  For automakers, chip shortages are largely over. As a result, inventories are rising, and prices in December were lower than a year earlier.

  The economy isn’t out of the woods. Inflation, while much lower than a year ago, is still higher than in 2019, and wages are still growing faster than is compatible with the Fed’s 2% inflation target. Whether inflation falls further—and recession avoided—will be mostly a question of demand. Supply has done its part.

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Lowriders May Cruise Again in California

  Back in the '80s, cruising was banned in California. On top of that, certain modifications were banned and height requirements were put in place. The lowrider community was squarely targeted and cruising went banned until Jan. 1 of this year, when the so-called “Cruising Is Not a Crime” bill (Assembly Bill 436) went into effect. Lowriders are joyfully finding their way back to local streets again.

• SECDEF Austin Must Go; But How Did He Get Here?

  Yhe Mideast was burning. Attacks on U.S. soldiers were continuing. Iran is getting closer and closer to a nuclear bomb. Houthi terrorists are actually shooting Iranian-supplied missiles at U.S. warships. North Korea is rattling its sabers. China is on the move, and everyone is worried about a war against Taiwan. If there is a war against a nuclear-armed China, it will be like nothing the world has ever seen.

  With all that and more going on, the fact that Biden did not that Austin was missing shows that the President did not even attempt to talk with his Secretary of Defense during this critical period. Rational people certainly can conclude that this failure is more evidence of the President’s apparent dementia — that he cannot be trusted even to talk to his principal military advisor in the middle of world-wide crises that threaten to involve us in a major war.

• Biden facing pressure to rein in LNG exports.

• Lloyd Austin Remains Hospitalized - And Should Absolutely Be Fired For Hiding Condition | ZeroHedge

• The Jones Act's Role in Encouraging Puerto Rico's Use of Russian Energy

• Independent Party ID Tied for High; Democratic ID at New Low

  Political independents continue to constitute the largest political bloc in the U.S., with an average of 43% of U.S. adults identifying this way in 2023, tying the record high from 2014. Independent identification has been 40% or higher each year since 2011, except for the 2016 (39%) and 2020 (39%) presidential election years. Equal 27% shares of U.S. adults identify as Republicans and Democrats, with the Democratic figure marking a new low for that party in Gallup’s trend.

• Asa Hutchinson on staying in the race and the Republican party: ‘We’re in trouble’

• MTG pushes Great Replacement rhetoric, and threatens Speaker Mike Johnson with ouster, on Fox News

  • Granderson: What have we done to deserve Marjorie Taylor Greene?

• Larry Hogan Backs Nikki Haley for G.O.P. Presidential Nomination

• Biden and Democratic Party groups raised $97 million in final quarter of 2023

• Bill Ackman Gives $1 Million to Long-Shot 2024 Democrat Dean Phillips

• Climate groups urge Speaker Johnson to fight back on Biden’s ‘Green New Deal agenda’

• House Republicans to issue new subpoenas for Hunter Biden in coming weeks

• The GOP’s Big Chill in Iowa

  • Iowa caucuses 2024: Donald Trump maintains huge lead over rivals as voters prepare to select Republican candidate

  • Here are the 2024 Iowa Republican Caucus results

  • US presidential race begins with the Iowa caucuses

  • Majority of Iowa caucusgoers say Trump conviction wouldn’t affect their support

  • Trump Promises Voters Vengeance In His Final Pitch Before Iowa Caucus

  • Iowa caucuses: Republican rivals make last-ditch bids to cut Trump's lead

  • Marco Rubio Endorses Trump, Pats Own Back Before Iowa Caucuses

  • Trump Has Made Claims About Caucus Fraud. What if He Underperforms?

  • Nikki Haley’s Iowa Voters Aren’t All GOP Diehards

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Texas barred Border Patrol agents from trying to rescue migrants who drowned

  • Deaths in Rio Grande Intensify Tensions Between Texas, Biden Administration

  • Migrant Mom and 2 Kids Drown While Texas Blocks Feds From Intervening: CBP

  • "Abbott’s inhumanity has no limit": Dems blame Texas governor for migrant children drowning

  • Abbott says claims Texas allowed migrants to drown in Rio Grande are false

• Iowa high school principal who shielded students during shooting dies

  • Iowa principal who saved pupils from school shooting dies

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US Has Grown Weak on Immigration, Technology, Education, Rule of Law - Bloomberg

  The harsh reality is that the US is no longer very good at “getting B to do something that B would not otherwise do.” Who now thinks of Afghanistan, hastily abandoned to the Taliban in 2021? Ukraine, still struggling against the Russian invader, is slipping from public consciousness amid dwindling financial support from Washington.

World

• Denmark's Frederik X to become king after Queen Margrethe's abdication

  • Frederik Is Crowned King of Denmark With a Very Public Kiss

• Amsterdam teens forced to use apps to transfer cash in digital muggings

• Brexit became prime suspect in the death of the stock market

• German insolvencies set to rise as Covid aid ends and economy stagnates

• Nikkei hits 34-year peak

• Britain's 45 remaining cooling towers are architectural gems. Let's save them

• Guatemala's Arevalo Takes Office, Vows to Fight Corruption

  • New Guatemala president says country has dodged "authoritarian setback"

• Ecuador Regains Control of Prisons After Hostages Freed

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• Houthi missile fired at US warship shot down as Red Sea tensions rise | First Thing

  • U.S. shoots down Houthi missile fired at American warship in the Red Sea

  • US says it shot down Houthi missile in first attack since strikes on Yemen

Israel

• Israel's AI-Aided Bomb Targeting Creates Massacre 'Factory' in Gaza

• ‘Shame’: Palestine UN mission decries Blinken’s post ignoring Gaza killings

• Israel-Hamas War Reaches 100-Day Mark

China

• Decoding Chinese mainland's response to Taiwan election results

• Philippines hits back at China, says joint patrols with US not 'provocative'

• China's military and government acquire Nvidia chips despite US ban

Health / Medicine

• Over-capacity ERs are dangerous choke points. But hospital challenges go deeper

• US to hospitals: Meet security standards or no federal money

• Unlocking the truth about diabetes: 'The science has been pretty awful'

• American Red Cross limiting blood distributions amid emergency plea for donation

• Psychedelics Gave Terminal Patients Relief from Their Intense Anxiety

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Is 'Green Capitalism' Total BS?

• Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

• Storms should be named after fossil fuel companies

• California Has Dealt a Blow to Renewable Energy, Some Businesses Say

• Japan's thirst for biomass is having a harmful impact on Canada's forests

• No turning back: The largest dam removal in U.S. history begins

  • The largest US dam-removal effort to date has begun.

• Winter Storm Blankets South and May End Snow Drought in Northeast