2024-01-17

Cool

• The mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pressure transducers

etc

• Mushrooms May Communicate with Electronic Signals

• Ask Hackaday: Why Are Self-Checkouts Failing? | Hackaday

  • The Self-Checkout Nightmare May Be Ending

• Enthusiasts struggle to keep model railway industry on track

  • HN comments

• Family Sizes to Dramatically Decline in The Near Future, Scientists Predict.

• German firm starts remote-driving car service in Las Vegas

• Planes collide at Japan airport in wintry weather

• The conspiracy theory about phones tracking us is true...

  Last week Roy Morgan proved that conspiracy theorists are actually right about something. The pollster shared mobile phone location data from where the so-called “freedom” (aka anti-vaccine mandate, pandemic law, any COVID-19 measure really) protesters had come from before their rally. It turns out these types might be paranoid but they’re not wrong about everything. Someone is tracking them. Not with a microchip in the vaccines, but with the smartphone in their pocket or purse.

  It reminded me of other “conspiracy theories” I’ve seen in these online communities. Like someone pointing out that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are are all owned by the same company, or the common trope of painting one of the world’s most generous philanthropists Bill Gates as a nefarious puppet master.

Horseshit

• In An Age of Soaring Inequality, Life Will Get Better and Better | RealClearMarkets

  • Of course if Bezos had not had unfair advantage (first mover, ignoring sales taxes), thousands of small biusiness might have bloomed where Amazon now dominates multiple markets.

• Energy from data centres could heat UK swimming pools after green investment

• Nations don't get rich by plundering other nations

• Tesla supercharging station packed in Chicago, cars dead due to frigid temps

  • Tesla owners in deep freeze discover the cold, hard truth about EVs

  • Chicago-area Tesla charging stations lined with dead cars in freezing cold

• Electric vehicles will need 'battery passports' to enter EU from 2027

  • HN comments

• US Cities Could Verge on Becoming Ghost Towns by 2100, Study Finds

• New $11B project could revolutionize US power grid

• The Economists Who Found the Richest People of All Time

• Federal Regulator Questions Carmakers About Unwanted Tracking via Their Apps

• Beyond Dumbledore and Gandalf: A history of the practice of magic

• Infowars and Goop sell the same exact pseudoscientific "wellness" products

  • HN comments

• 'Obtundity' signs bewilder York residents and visitors

• Puerto Rico is using residents' home batteries to back up its grid

  • HN comments

• 'It Starts Bombing You in the Head': The Mystery of the Super Strong 'Creepy' Weed

• New map shows where damaging earthquakes are most likely to occur in US 

• The Mating Psychology of Incels – The Journal of Sex Research

  • HN comments

• 2024 could bring 'a lot of ruin,' but nuclear threat could be a stabilizing force

  • At Davos Summit, Zelenskyy Tries to Keep Ukraine at Top of Global Agenda

• Poultry plant's "inaction" led to teenager's death, feds say

  • Mississippi chicken plant supplying Chick-fil-A, cited for teen's death after he was sucked into machine

  • OSHA: Mississippi slaughterhouse to blame for death of migrant teen who was sucked into machinery

celebrity gossip

• Ousted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal Is Back with an AI Startup

• ‘Stranger Things’ Star Breaks Silence on ‘Zionism Is Sexy’ Backlash

Musk

• Elon Musk Pressures Tesla's Board for Another Payday

  • Elon Musk demands another payday from Tesla

  • Elon Musk gives Tesla ultimatum: Another 12% of shares or no AI, robotics

• Ex-Twitter Employees Turn Musk's Auctioned Relics into Home Decor

• Elon Musk just escalated his war on workers

• John Deere tractors get connectivity boost with Starlink deal

• Elon Musk's recent all-hands meeting at SpaceX was full of interesting news

• Tesla's 'race to the bottom' might make its $141B loss worse

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Watch: Maddow Melts Down Over "Rise Of Fascism"; Joy Reid Says Trump Iowa Caucus Landslide Proves White Christians Are Racists | ZeroHedge

• CNN and MSNBC Censor Trump’s Victory Speech in Iowa.

• Trump’s Historic Iowa Win Causes MSNBC Host to Completely Implode

• Collusion!? Jan. 6 Committee Inserted Itself Into Fani Willis' Georgia Case Against Trump | ZeroHedge

• Just-released Jan. 6 videos show Capitol Police officer lied in Oath Keepers trial

• E. Jean Carroll to testify at damages trial with Trump expected to be in attendance

  • Trump Back in Court for Second Defamation Trial After Iowa Victory

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Covid-19's symptoms have changed with each new variant

• COVID-positive Californians now allowed to attend school, work

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• President Of Canadian LGBT Organization Arrested On Child Sex Abuse Charges

  • Former president of northern B.C. pride organization charged with committing child-sex crimes | CBC News

• Lets not mutilate kids genitals at all. Once they're adults they can decide what to cut off. Snip or Skip? The Complicated Debate Over Circumcision

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The M.B.A.s Who Can’t Find Jobs - WSJ

  • HN comments

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• The Baltimore Sun purchased by Sinclair’s David D. Smith

  • The Baltimore Sun bought by the executive chairman of Sinclair media

• The Internet Is Being Ruined by Bloated Junk

• Ubisoft Wants You to Be Comfortable Not Owning Your Games

• US Supreme Court Snubs Epic Games Legal Battle with Apple

  • Epic vs. Apple court battle ends, Supreme Court refuses to hear both appeals

  • Supreme Court rejects antitrust fight challenging Apple's app store

• Apple tops Samsung for first time in global smartphone shipments

  • Apple hits "all-time high" smartphone market share, takes #1 spot for 2023

• YouTube did not slow down adblock users. Adblock devs admit to problem

• Americans Received 55M Robocalls In 2023, A 9% Jump From 2022

• Why "Open Source" still misses the point

• The L.A. Public Library is getting into book publishing

• Google Search Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find

• Starlink Introduces 10Gbps Satellite Gateway

• Analysing the Twitter User Exodus to Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads

  • HN comments

• A man's pay-to-use toilet gag showed Google Maps can be used to track people

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• 86-DOS Revisited

• For a specific tyoe of "nothing", among C, C++, and Rust. Passing nothing is surprisingly difficult

• Estimating your memory bandwidth – Daniel Lemire's blog

  • HN comments

• Neat: Understanding x86_64 Paging

• AWS Accounts discontinues the use of security challenge questions

• The whole "Orthodoxy over all!" attitude enhances that: the rust project has a burnout problem

  • HN comments

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Tokenizer Choice for LLM Training: Negligible or Crucial?

• Democratic inputs to AI grant program: lessons learned and implementation plans

• Zeroing in on the origins of bias in large language models

• AI Replaced the Metaverse as Zuckerberg's Top Priority

• AI Sleeper Agents - Astral Codex Ten

• OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

  • HN comments

• There's a 5% chance of AI causing humans to go extinct, say scientists

• Congress Is Trying to Stop AI Nudes and Deepfake Scams as Celebrities Are Mad

• OpenAI CEO Altman says at Davos future AI depends on energy breakthrough

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Citing "crew safety," NASA delays upcoming Artemis missions by about a year

• NASA's troubled Mars sample-return mission has scientists seeing red

Crypto con games

• ETFs Make Bitcoin’s Problems Even Worse - WSJ

• A 27-Year-Old Codebreaker Busted the Myth of Bitcoin's Anonymity

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Engineering Simulation Software Maker Ansys Acquired for $35B

• Big Mac prices have outpaced inflation over the last couple decades

• The return-to-office wars are over

• Uber Is Closing Drizly, a Business It Bought for over $1B Three Years Ago

• Morgan Stanley Leaked Some Block Trades

• Cost of employer-sponsored health insurance is flattening worker wages

• Google lays off "hundreds" more as ad division switches to AI-powered sales

• Biotech companies slash East Bay jobs in jolt to industry

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Vivek Ramaswamy ends presidential bid following Iowa caucuses: Ramaswamy has thrown his support behind former President Trump.

  • Vivek Ramaswamy Wants Trump’s Rivals To Drop Out Of The 2024 GOP Primary

• Trump Gives Speech After Winning Iowa Caucus; Ramaswamy To End Campaign

  • Trump wins big at Iowa caucuses with voter turnout lower than 2016 amid frigid temperatures

• Congress announces tax deal to expand child tax credit and revive breaks for businesses

  Wyden has said he hopes to pass the deal by the beginning of tax filing season, which is Jan. 29. That's not assured as Congress is juggling other priorities, most notably averting a government shutdown at the end of this week and completing its funding process by March.

  • Congress is about to do something – listen to kids

  • What’s in the New Child Tax Credit Proposal?

  • Here's who would benefit from new deal to expand the Child Tax Credit

• Under the Radar — Lloyd Austin’s Secret Ambulance Request Revealed in 911 Call

  • Audio Of 911 Call Related To Lloyd Austin’s Secret Hospitalization Has Been Released

  • Lloyd Austin aide made 'subtle' ambulance plea in new audio

  • 'We're trying to remain a little subtle': Audio of 911 call for Lloyd Austin

• Asa Hutchinson Calls It Quits | National Review

• Nikki Haley Flounders In Iowa Despite Democrats’ Best Efforts To Meddle On Her Behalf

• McKinsey's revenue from prime US Government contracts falls to 9-year low

• No joke: Feds are banning humorous electronic messages on highways

• Bernie Sanders' bid to probe Israel's actions in Gaza rejected by Senate

• Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, oldest member of Senate, hospitalized with infection

• Supreme Court weighs conservative plea to weaken federal agencies

  • Case brought to Supreme Court by herring fishermen may gut federal rulemaking power

• The Supreme Court is running away from transgender rights cases

  • US supreme court won’t hear case over bathrooms for transgender students

• Biden to meet with congressional leaders on national security package

• Johnson to face Republican critics of short-term funding bill as Friday shutdown deadline looms

  • Senate clears first hurdle to thwart partial government shutdown

• Republicans pause effort to hold Hunter Biden in contempt

  • House GOP hits pause on Hunter Biden contempt vote

• Hunter Biden's gun pouch had cocaine residue on it, prosecutors say

  • Cocaine residue was found on Hunter Biden’s gun pouch in 2018 case

• Democrats ask Wisconsin’s high court to consider new congressional map

  • GOP power broker Vos threatens to take Wisconsin redistricting case to Supreme Court

• Biden administration asks Supreme Court to intervene in its dispute with Texas over border land

  • Three Migrants Drowned After Texas’s Attempt To Seize Control of the ...

  • Biden admin admits migrants drownings occurred before Border Patrol alerted Texas officials | Fox News

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• White House targeted by swatting call, latest in nationwide trend

• Plea deal reached on federal charges in Colorado LGBTQ club massacre

  • Club Q Shooter Pleads Not Guilty to Federal Hate Crimes and Gun Charges

• Roger Stone’s Alleged Assassination Remarks Prompt Capitol Police investigation

  • Capitol Police investigating Roger Stone comments about assasinating two House Dems

  • Police Don’t Appear to Think Roger Stone’s Assassination Threats Were Just a Joke

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• White House set to renew terrorist designation of Houthi rebels

  • U.S. to Return Houthis to Terrorism List

  • US to Relist Yemen's Houthis as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, AP Sources Say

  • U.S. to Place Houthis Back on Terror List as Strikes Continue: Reports

• Missing Seals Were On Secret Mission That Intercepted Iranian Missile Components Bound For Houthis

  • 2 Missing Navy SEALs Were Stopping Weapons Going to Yemen From Iran

• US Seizes Iranian-Made Missile Parts in Raid Near Somali Coast

World

• How a software glitch at the UK Post Office ruined lives

  • HN comments

  • All the software. No human error invovled, no one needed to review the software's output; no one was responsible for saying "this is wrong, we will do the right thing instead." Probably they should prosecute the programmers.

• Quebec man who blamed wildfires on government pleads guilty to setting 14 fires

• Canada names Chinese, Russian, Iranian research institutions threats to security

• A crisis of one's own: The politics of trauma in Europe's election year

• Scotland is becoming known for growing tea

• Fujitsu says it will pay compensation in UK Post Office scandal

  • HN comments

• Companies sign open letter saying Big Tech isn't respecting new EU rules

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• Shell Suspends Red Sea Shipments Amid Fears of More Houthi Attacks - WSJ

• Houthi attacks expose China's commercial stakes in Red Sea

• US Military says it seized Iranian weapons bound for Houthis

• Deadly Iranian Strikes in Iraq and Pakistan Inflame Regional Tensions

• Iran strikes 'militant bases' in Pakistan in latest Middle East flashpoint

• U.S. continues strikes against Houthis in Yemen

• Iran and the Houthis Don't Get Biden's Message

• U.S. launches third airstrike against Houthis in Yemen

• Yemen’s Houthis claim attack on ship in Red Sea as US confirms new strike

• Iran fires missiles into Pakistan as Israel-Hamas war tension spreads

Israel

• Israel Has Bought a Mass Online Influence System for Gaza War (Archive)

  • HN comments

• Is the World Serious About Solving the Israel-Palestine Conflict? We'd Better Hope So - Israel News - Haaretz.com

• Israel Unearths More of a Subterranean Fortress Under Gaza - The New York Times

• Iran Used Israelis to Photograph Homes of Security Officials, Influence Public

• How Israeli forces trapped and killed ravers at the Nova Festival (Archive)

  Israeli officials allege that Hamas carried out a pre-mediated and carefully executed massacre of 364 Israeli civilians at the Nova music festival near Gaza on 7 October as part of the Palestinian resistance's Al-Aqsa Flood operation. They claim that Hamas and other Palestinians had hours to murder Israeli partygoers before the army reached the scene. However, new details have emerged showing that Israel's Border Police was deployed at the Nova site before Hamas stumbled on the festival, causing the eruption of a major battle.

  While some ravers were indeed killed by the Palestinian resistance - whether by intent or in the chaos of battle - the evidence now suggests that the majority of civilian deaths were likely inflicted by Israeli forces themselves.

• Medicine for Hostages, Palestinian Civilians Due to Reach Gaza After Agreement

• Why the Global South Supports Pretoria’s ICJ Genocide Case

• Injured Al Jazeera Star Flees Gaza After Losing Third Child to War

China

• The chips are down in China as imports see largest ever drop

  Semiconductor imports by China reached a total value of $349.4 billion, according to customs data reported by Beijing. These figures are down by 15.4 percent and also down 10.8 percent in volume from those reported for 2022, when they were also down for the first time since 2004.

• China millennial, Gen Z workers are having to lower their economic expectations

• China's Pacific charm offensive pays off as Nauru drops Taipei for Beijing

• China's population falls for a 2nd straight year as births drop

  • China's population records second straight annual decline

  • China's population decline accelerated last year

  • All the "overpopulation" activists are surely celebrating these signs of their success? Wonder where they went...

  • China Population Extends Record Drop on Covid Deaths, Low Births

• China's Growth Slows to Three-Decade Low Excluding Pandemic

  • China's economic growth is set to slow in 2024

Health / Medicine

• At 93, he's as fit as a 40-year-old. His body offers lessons on aging

• Overuse of antifungal skin meds could be driving drug-resistant disease

• Is There Any Benefit to Multivitamins?

  • HN comments

• A promising snakebite treatment seemed ready for prime time. Then, it backfired

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• A "grave concern" – fight building against Biden's hydrogen hubs

• There's Even Plastic in Clouds

• YouTube making money off new breed of climate denial

  • Social media and content producers spread new forms of climate denial

  • A new kind of climate denial has taken over on YouTube

• Chimpanzees are dying from our colds – these scientists are trying to save them

• Economics propelling population shifts in spite of climate-driven risks

• Human 'behavioural crisis' at root of climate breakdown, say scientists

• Third of UK teenagers believe climate change exaggerated, report shows

• California plan to store CO2 in old oil fields nears approval

• US in deep freeze while much of the world is extra toasty

• New map shows where damaging earthquakes are most likely to occur in US

• World scientists' warning: The behavioural crisis driving ecological overshoot