2024-01-16

etc

• Planes make contact on the ground at O'Hare

  • Ground collision of two Boeing planes in Chicago sparks FAA investigation

• (2021) Reflections on my past addiction to productivity cult

  Just like any cult, productivity techniques can be assuring and comforting, but 99% of the time it isn’t the cure for whatever problem you’re having. We, as programmers that know premature optimization is evil, should also be aware of the toxicity of premature self-improving. They both offer little benefits, but foster a false sense of achievement.

  • I have been reflecting on the term "Idolatry" when i see things like this, of late. We make Idols of our goals; and cease to think about the realities. "I'm being productive!" thrashing in the mud, because the goal became the service to the Idol instead of the original aim of draining the swamp. Th Golden Calf or the image of the Prophet isn't the issue; it is how people use these things as crutches instead of thinking about their goals for themselves. the great Evil that people spend so much time preaching against is itself a symbol for individual human laziness.

• Police identify victims killed in hot air balloon crash in Arizona; NTSB releases new details

Horseshit

• Davos 2024 – climate, chaos and war

• Are Joint Bank Accounts the Secret to a Happy Marriage? (Archive)

  The researchers conducted a two-year experiment with about 230 newlywed or engaged couples. At the end of the two-year period, couples with merged accounts felt like their relationships were better compared with couples with separate accounts. The relationship-quality and satisfaction score for couples with joint accounts increased by about 6% over the survey’s two-year period. Scores from the group assigned separate accounts and the group where couples were left to their own devices both declined over the same period—by about 8% and 13%, respectively.

  The researchers then took things a step further and ran a separate survey of 507 people who had been married for 15 years on average. couples who had merged finances scored about 29% higher on the communal-norm adherence questions than couples with separate accounts. Couples with merged accounts also scored about 43% higher on the financial-alignment questions.

  • If you can share a bank account, you probably get along pretty well. If you don't get along, "money issues" is probably one of the first places that will show up.

• How Much of the World Is It Possible to Model?

• "New and Improved: 10% less 'front falls off'" Boeing to increase quality inspections of 737 MAX production

• CA judges rule Gilead can be sued for taking too long to develop an HIV drug

• When young people seem to make threats on social media, do they mean it?

• Hertz, Tesla and the Perils of CEO Groupthink

• Britain has seen an alarming rise in poetry sales

• Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters? | Hacker News

celebrity gossip

• Christina Applegate Received A Standing Ovation At The 2024 Emmys

• Jennifer Coolidge Thanks ‘All the Evil Gays’ for Her Second Emmy

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Book Stores Refuse to Host an Event for My Book

  Three different authors and one person in the publishing industry disclosed to me that it’s highly likely that my book is too polarizing or controversial for bookstores to be willing to host an event for me. Another suggested it’s because of my connection with Jordan Peterson, whose unflinching advice was instrumental in my determination to get a PhD in psychology.

  If you grow up poor and aren’t willing to pledge fealty to the right causes, these places don’t want you. If you grew up poor, remake your fortunes, and then speak truthfully about the factors that fuel success (hard work, determination, sacrifice) rather than the factors elites speak about (luck, systemic forces, privilege), then these places don’t want you.

• WEF to plan response to whatever big pandemic is next

  While it's good news that staying ahead of Disease X may be doable, "The less good news is that it will take a lot of international cooperation and resources," Kelland earlier warned. That might be difficult, but it's happened before - even amid a tense international climate like the one we have now.

Musk

• X receives money transmitter license in Utah

• Elon Musk is uncomfortable with the amount of control Elon Musk has over Tesla

  • Elon Musk Seeks Greater Control Over Tesla Ahead of AI Advancements

  • Elon Musk wants more control of Tesla, seeks 25% voting power

• Busted: Elon Musk admits new Optimus video isn't what it seems

• John Deere, Meet Elon Musk: SpaceX Satellites to Link Farm Giant's Equipment

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• New York’s Civil Lawsuit Against Trump Is Unconstitutional: Trump has a constitutional right to do business in New York.

• We choked on this one yesterday, too: NBC News Admits 'Deep State' Exists... To Save Us From Trump's Return | ZeroHedge

  • NBC "News:" Some Fear That Trump Would Weaponize the Government Against His Enemies, So They're Planning to Weaponize the Government Against Possible Trump Officials

• random comment:

  In my mind it is inconceivable that Trump with all his atrocities stands an actual chance of becoming president once again. Is this telling me that in a capitalistic world one constantly can get away with murder and bounce back as if ever anything happened?

• Georgia DA Fani Willis addresses claim that she hired her married lover to prosecute Trump: “You cannot expect black women to be perfect and save the world”.

  • Fani Willis: Georgia prosecutor blames criticisms on race

• With Donald Trump's Iowa landslide, evangelicals reveal who they really are

• Trump loses attorney Joe Tacopina as porn star hush money trial looms

  • Trump loses attorney Joe Tacopina as porn star hush money trial looms

  • Joseph Tacopina, Key Trump Lawyer, Withdraws as Manhattan Criminal Trial Nears

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Trusting the science might work if there were actual science involved

  One group of scholars even retracted their own paper, not because it was scientifically flawed, but because it was being cited by conservatives in ways the authors didn’t approve of.

• House of Horrors: An exclusive in-depth exposé of the illegal California biolab.

  This crazy story got even crazier when the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there was no sign the lab was illegally in possession of the materials or had select agents or toxins that could be used as bioweapons. “CDC has taken no further action in this matter,” the agency said in an email to The Associated Press, referring further questions to county and state officials. (Apparently the CDC deems it completely legal for illegal labs operating without building permits, licenses or laboratory certification to dump toxic biohazard waste into regular waste bins and to experiment on highly infectious bacteria and viruses that can be transformed bioweapons. Who knew?)

  The Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party published its investigative report on this most peculiar affair on Nov 15, 2023. According to this report, not only did the lab have specimens of infectious agents, but there were bags labeled "MDMA," “cocaine,” “methamphetamine,” and “THC,” a finding conspicuously missing from mainstream news reporting.

  When it came time for local officials to start dismantling the Reedley lab, they set about to review every freezer for evidence of potential pathogens that they needed to destroy. While doing so, local officials and contractors reported that they found a freezer labeled “Ebola” with silver sealed bags inside. They wrote to the CDC “when you are going through and looking for select agents, do the containers need to be labeled individually with what is in it to count as one? We are doing the abatement here in Reedley and a fridge [freezer] had a label on it and one of the words in English was Ebola,” while noting that the containers within were not expressly labeled “Ebola.” The CDC official responded by stating, “Yes, we would typically look for the vial to be labeled as Ebola” and noted that they did not recall seeing the Ebola label. He did not cite any CDC policy when making this pronouncement. You’d think the country’s foremost public health agency would’ve leapt to action at the mere possibility of Ebola virus being handled at an illegal unlicensed lab instead of coming up with the harebrained notion that unlabeled bags were unworthy of their consideration.

• Nutritional acquired immunodeficiency (N-AIDS) is the leading driver of the tuberculosis pandemic

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• The Right’s Foolish Drive to Cancel MLK | Compact Mag

• Bari Weiss Shames MeToo Celebrities for Silence on Hamas.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The importance of "bumblers" and "pointers" in science (2023)

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• The Incredible Shrinking Podcast Industry

• Gaming voice actors blindsided by 'garbage' union AI deal

• Modder Fixes Fatal Flaw in Cult Classic Japanese Street Racing Game 20 Years Later

• Verizon to keep charging controversial fee despite $100M settlement

• Apple to Remove Blood Oxygen Sensor from Watch to Avoid U.S. Ban, Rival Says

  • Apple to Remove Blood-Oxygen Tool to Avoid Ban, Masimo Says

• ESPN returns 37 Emmys after using fake names to nab trophies - Los Angeles Times

• 'Succession' dominates drama Emmys, 'The Bear' claims comedy, Brunson makes history

• Black Celebs Dominated At The 75th Annual Emmy Awards And On The Red Carpet

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Raspberry Pi is manufacturing 70K Raspberry Pi 5s per week

  • HN comments

• Git Branches as a Social Construct

  • HN comments

  Git is not merely a social construct, it is a veritable smorgasbord of of patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist structures. Branches are instruments of colonial exploration and exploitation, which facilitate the integration new code territories into repository empires. Merges symbolize the enforcement of a hierarchical order, patriarchally assimilating code into dominant “master” norms. Commits, as quantifiable units of productivity, enable the capitalist class to separate the worker from the means of production.

• Oregon winter storm delays Linux 6.8 merge window • The Register

• The splat operator, or *args and **kwargs in Python

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI to impact 60% of advanced economy jobs, says IMF's chief

• Once an AI model exhibits ‘deceptive behavior’ it can be hard to correct, researchers at OpenAI competitor Anthropic found.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Japan startup eyes fusion laser to shoot down space junk from ground

Crypto con games

• Bitcoin is a special-interest group: people's wealth depends on mass adoption

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Top economists predict global growth will weaken this year

• Tesla, Volvo Car pause output as Red Sea shipping crisis deepens.

• 'It hasn't delivered': the failure of self-checkout technology

• Tech sector is pouring billions of dollars into AI. It keeps laying off humans

• It Won’t Be a Recession—It Will Just Feel Like One - WSJ

• Americans can no longer afford their cars

  • HN comments

• Why buying a car is more expensive than ever in the U.S.

• Uber shutting down alcohol delivery service Drizly

• "It's All Over": Powell's WSJ Mouthpiece And JPMorgan Confirm Imminent End Of QT | ZeroHedge

• The VC Funding Party Is Over

• Proposed Kroger, Albertsons merger will take more time to close as scrutiny continues

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Secret Documents Reveal Biden's Border Crisis Was An Intentional Policy

• How Democrats could give Haley a boost in Iowa caucuses

  Some Iowa Democrats and independents are planning to crash the state's Republican caucuses Monday night and become "Republicans for a day" to vote for Nikki Haley — but mostly, against former President Trump. "crossover" voting is a low-key tradition in Iowa's caucuses — and it's one of the big unknowns heading into Monday, along with how the dangerously cold weather will affect things.

• The Democrat-to-English Dictionary — updated for 2024 - American Thinker

  • Jew: Nazi.
  • Knowledge: state-approved information, often given an imprimatur by “science.”
  • Law: a system of rules which regulate the actions of anyone opposed to Democrats. Does not apply to Democrats.
  • Republican: evildoer.
  • Sanctuary City: a place where callous Republicans send undocumented immigrants for no valid reason.

  • Contrast with: A Handy Guide for Translating Republican-Speak into Plain English

    The economy crashed in 2020 (due to Covid) in a way that hadn’t been seen since Republican President Herbert Hoover oversaw Black Tuesday, 1929, which kicked off the start of the Republican Great Depression. Covid initially cost our economy an estimated $14 trillion, throwing 3 million Americans out of work. Donald Trump was the first president since Hoover to see significant job losses during his presidency. Unemployment hit 15% (Hoover’s was 23.6%).

    the main thing that prevented America from sliding into a second Republican Great Depression was Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s success in shepherding through Congress legislation that softened the impact of Trump’s 15% unemployment; without it, the nation would almost certainly have slid into a long-lasting depression.

    That was apparently what many in the GOP wanted: in May 2020, for example, when Pelosi shepherded through the House a nearly-$3 trillion coronavirus relief bill, only 44 Republicans voted for it, while 130 voted against it. Although it saved America, Republicans like Haley and DeSantis are still complaining about it.

• Supreme Court to Hear Case That Could Limit Power of Federal Government - The New York Times

• Biden’s challenge: Convince voters this isn’t the economy they think it is.

  • The economy is improving under Biden. But many voters aren’t giving him credit. - The Washington Post

• Humorous messages banned from highway signs

• Iowa Caucus 2024: Vivek Ramaswamy Ends Presidential Campaign - Bloomberg

• After Lackluster Showing, Nikki Haley Orders Bombing Of Iowa | Babylon Bee

• Biden administration, Texas at odds over park near border

• U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin released from hospital

• Mike Johnson seeks to avoid McCarthy's fate as he navigates shutdown and immigration

• Biden and Democrats raise $97M to close out 2023 after December fundraising blitz

Iowa

• Three scenarios for Iowa: Is there an upset in the cards? - Washington Examiner

• Establishment Rallying to Trump? Live Results From Iowa. – HotAir

• Trump trounces everyone in Iowa - The Spectator World

• Why Was a Winner Projected in Iowa With <1% Votes Counted?

• Trump easily wins in Iowa as Republican contest kicks off 2024 presidential race

• Trump sweeps Iowa caucuses: Key highlights and what’s next?

• Iowa caucus entrance polls for 2024: What are the biggest issues?

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• White House is SWATTED:  Prank caller calls 911 to say residence was on fire and someone was trapped inside | Daily Mail Online

  • White House targeted in ‘swatting’ attack while Joe Biden is away

• Families in disbelief after hundreds of bodies found behind Mississippi jail

• (2016) The 'Startling' Link Between Low Interest Rates and Low Crime

  • HN comments

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Two US Navy Seals missing off Somalia in mission to intercept Iranian weapons

  • Ships, Aircraft Search for Missing Navy Seals After Mission to Seize Iranian weapons

World

• 25% of US/Canada trade depends on a single privately owned bridge

  • Ambassador Bridge - Wikipedia

  The bridge is one of the few privately owned US–Canada crossings; it was owned by Grosse Pointe billionaire Manuel Moroun, until his death in July 2020

  In 2010 and 2011, the Wayne County Circuit Court found the Detroit International Bridge Company in contempt for failing to directly connect bridge access roads to I-75 and I-96, and making other required improvements... At one point, Matty Moroun and his chief deputy at the Detroit International Bridge Co, Dan Stamper, were jailed for non-compliance with orders to complete the on-ramps. One possible motive for the delays was Moroun's desire to route traffic past his lucrative duty-free store and fuel pumps,

• Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?

  • North Korea No Longer Seeks Reconciliation with South, Kim Says

• Thousands Of Tractors Blocks Berlin Traffic Over Plan To End Diesel Subsidy

• Turkey strikes Kurdish militants in Iraq, Syria

• Britain to ban Islamic political group as terrorist organization

  • Britain to designate Hizb ut-Tahrir as a ‘terrorist’ group

  • UK Moves to Ban the Islamist Group Hizb ut-Tahrir

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• French Navy Plows Through Million Dollar Missiles To Defeat Cheap Houthi Drones

• American Fighter Downs Houthi Missile Heading Toward USS Laboon

• Iran Launches Ballistic Missiles Against Foreign 'Espionage Centers' In Iraq's Erbil | ZeroHedge

• Houthi Militants Attack US Container Ship With Ballistic Missiles Days After Biden Attack On Yemen | ZeroHedge

  • Houthis Strike U.S. Cargo Ship in First Successful Attack on American-Owned Vessel | National Review

  • Houthis claim responsibility for missile strike on U.S. cargo ship off Yemen

• Houthis Turn Their Sights on U.S. Ships, Vow to Keep Attacking Red Sea Targets - WSJ

• U.S. says it found Iran missile parts bound for the Houthis after SEALs went overboard

• Column: Biden is late but right to strike against Yemen's Houthis

• Houthis Attack More Ships in Red Sea After U.S.-Led Strikes in Yemen

• New Country Joins Escalating Mideast Conflict with its First Missile Strikes

• US condemns Iran for 'reckless' attacks on Iraq

• Iran says IRGC attacked alleged Israeli spy headquarters in Iraq

• State Media: Iran's Guards Attack 'Espionage Centers' in Iraq's Irbil

Israel

• Here’s Egypt’s Border Fence Against Gaza

• Israel Influence System to Counter Antisemitism, Hamas Atrocity Denial

• Hamas uses Israeli hostage to reveal two others are dead in latest sick propaganda ‘guessing game’ video.

• 1 dead, several wounded in 'multiple car-ramming attack' in central Israel

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Ukraine shoots down two Russian spy aircraft in south-east

• Germany preparing for Russia to start World War 3, leaked war plans reveal.

China

• Apple offers rare iPhone discount in China as demand fears rise

• Nauru severs diplomatic ties with Taiwan

Health / Medicine

• Drugs of the future will be easier and faster to make, thanks to mRNA

• The messy rise of weight-loss drugs: Patients and doctors to 2024

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Rethinking Monarchs: Does the Beloved Butterfly Need Our Help?

• Lightning Flashes Help Predict Storms

• Even Climate Scientists Weren't Ready for 2023, and That's a Worry

• Evidence of human influence on Northern Hemisphere snow loss

• Australia faces controversy: feral horse culling from 22,500 to 3,000 by 2027

• Gigantic solar farms might change weather elsewhere

• Wind energy is generally not reliable in the PNW during cold waves

• The Source of Europe's Mild Climate