2024-01-19
etc
-
Five Fertility Fails - by Robin Hanson - Overcoming Bias
most recent discussions of how to promote fertility discuss how we might promote housing, inequality, schooling, day-care, etc., but few consider directly paying parents big amounts to have kids.
-
'Waddle like a penguin': NHS shows how to walk safely in icy conditions
-
What Happened to the US Machine Tool Industry?
Being able to manufacture machine tools is often considered an important capability for an industrialized country. Not only does this provide ready access to the latest manufacturing technology, but it ensures production of munitions and other military equipment won’t be bottlenecked by a lack of machine tools. This isn’t a hypothetical concern: American production of artillery shells for Ukraine has been held back by a lack of machine tools. The military has thus historically paid close attention to the machine tool industry and the availability of machinists.
For most of the 20th century, the US was unrivaled in its machine tool technology, and as late as the early 1980s it was the largest machine tool producer in the world.. But almost overnight, the industry collapsed: annual machine tool shipments declined by more than 50% in 2 years, hundreds of machine tool companies went out of business, and the US slipped from the largest producer in the world to the 4th or 5th (depending on the year), roughly where it remains today.
Constant pressure to hit quarterly performance targets meant that machine quality often suffered. In some cases, machines would be shipped out the door unfinished so the delivery could be booked, and assembly would be completed by service technicians at the customer’s location. In his history of the American machine tool industry, Albert Albrecht states that “the actions of these larger corporations and conglomerates, under the leadership of financial MBA’s, perhaps more than any other factor, contributed to the restructuring and decline of the US machine tool industry at the end of the 20th century.”
-
(Jun 2023) Assistant Dictator Book Club: America Against America
Horseshit
-
GovDocs to the Rescue: Debunking an Immigration Myth
Most Americans are familiar with the idea that immigrants to the United States during the Ellis Island years (1892–1954) had their surnames altered by the processing officials, either deliberately or through ignorance of the correct spelling. A search of the internet on the phrase “name was changed at Ellis Island” yields more than 300,000 hits; variations on the phrase yield even more.
They are wrong. No one’s family name was changed, altered, shortened, butchered, or “written down wrong” at Ellis Island or any American port. That idea is an urban legend. Many names did get changed as immigrants settled into their new American lives, but those changes were made several years after arrival and were done by choice of someone in the family. The belief persists, however, that the changes were done at the entry point and that the immigrants were unwilling participants in the modifications. Sophisticated family history researchers have long rolled their collective eyes at the “Ellis Island name change” idea.
-
Common sense is not actually very common
They started by noting that the standard concept of common sense has a somewhat circular definition: common sense is a set of claims that sensible people agree with, and sensible people are those who possess common sense.To get around such philosophical tangles, the researchers turned to Mechanical Turk, a website run by Amazon, a big tech firm, that allows people to post odd jobs. They recruited 2,046 human participants and asked them to rate 50 statements from a corpus of 4,407 claims that might plausibly be seen as commonsensical.
As common sense might have predicted, the researchers found that plainly worded claims concerning facts about the real world were the most likely to be rated as demonstrating common sense (“triangles have three sides”, for example, which is true by definition, or “avoid close contact with people who are ill”). The more abstract the claims, the less likely participants were to agree that they were common sense (“all human beings are created equal”; “perception is the only source of knowledge”).
-
Technology is stealing your time in ways you may not realise
The growth in digital tasks is happening, in part, because technology appears to be changing our perception of what free time is for. For many people, it is no longer enough to simply eat dinner, watch TV or maybe do an exercise class. Instead, in an attempt to avoid wasting time, these activities are performed while also browsing the web in search of the ingredients for a more perfect life and trying to develop a sense of achievement. On the face of it some of these tasks may seem like examples of tech saving us time. In theory, online banking should mean I have more time because I no longer need to go to the bank in my lunch break. However, our research suggests that this is not the case. Technology is contributing to a denser form of life.
-
'Civilizations rise and fall' a community prepping for the downfall of America
Obit
-
an iconic element of the early Internet. Network Time Protocol, the Fuzzball routers of the early NSFNET, INARG taskforce lead, COMSAT Labs and University of Delaware and so much more.
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
-
Only Shadowy NGOs associated with Ivy League universities and the US State Dept should be doing these things: 'Control the narrative': how an Alabama utility wields influence financing news
-
Journalism as Activism - by Bee
People aren’t dumb and media is ever more brazen about what they think they can get away with. So obviously trust in media continues to plummet. I just hope these organizations eventually pull back and have a hard look into what's causing the distrust.
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
-
Research finds Covid variant with 100% mortality in ACE2-transgenic mice
-
US scientists proposed making viruses with features of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan
drafts and notes uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act reveal fresh details about the intended research. Specifically, the scientists sought to insert furin cleavage sites at the S1/S2 junction of the spike protein; to assemble sysetic viruses in six segments; to identify coronaviruses up to 25 percent different from SARS; and to select for receptor binding domains adept at infecting human receptors. The genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, matches the viruses described in the research proposal.
-
First SARS-CoV-2 genome was deposited in GenBank earlier than previously known
The Republican-led Commerce committee, which is investigating the pandemic’s origins, said in a press release that the sequence submission “calls into question how early the [Chinese Communist Party] knew about the virus and how long they withheld this information from the world.” But the Chinese media organization Caixin reported in February 2020 that several Chinese companies had sequenced the virus in late December 2019, before the Chinese government publicized the discovery of a novel coronavirus. And a staffer at the Chinese sequencing company Vision Medicals blogged about its December sequencing results in late January 2020. “The only new piece of information is that the sequence was submitted to GenBank, a U.S.-based database,” says Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at CNRS, the French national research agency.
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
-
plenty of reasons to improve these things: Fingertip oxygen sensors can fail on dark skin – now a physician is suing
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
-
A disturbing cyberattack sent some UC Irvine students to the hospital because of traumatizing images sent by hackers. "There were some things on there that I just could really not unsee," student Alina Kim said. "Very graphic, violent." Kim is one of nearly 3,000 current and former UC Irvine students who witnessed the gore against their will. "I heard about a lot of people vomiting, a lot of people crying," Kim said.
(Their Discord servers) on Tuesday, were bombarded with graphic images. The hackers infiltrated 30 channels and demanded a $1,000 ransom.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
-
Meta documents show 100k children sexually harassed daily on its platforms
-
Telecom Monopolies Funding Covert, Sleazy Local Attacks on Community Broadband
-
Escaping surveillance capitalism, at scale
self-hosting doesn’t scale well because it requires time and knowledge. There’s a workaround: using software that can be self-hosted, but buying it as a service. A real life example would be the Google Drive ethical alternative Nextcloud: several providers like Ionos offer hosted Nextcloud instances. This makes solutions like these accessible (and safe!) to a broader public.
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
-
Boomers won’t part with their homes, and that’s a problem for young families.
-
Google layoffs continue as tech company eliminates hundreds of jobs in ad sales team
-
A drought has forced authorities to further slash traffic in Panama Canal
-
Boeing’s stock tumbles after report warns investigation will open ‘a whole new can of worms.’
-
You Switched the Lights On. Traders Made Billions of Dollars
-
Robinhood settles Massachusetts 'gamification' case for $7.5M
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
-
DoJ: Hunter's Laptop Is Real, Spectacular, and So Was the Cocaine on His Holster – HotAir
We have already heard that the FBI had some of the data that emerged in late October 2020 when the NY Post revealed the contents of Hunter’s laptop. They also got the laptop itself later and found it was “largely duplicative” of their own evidence. The “duplicative” material was getting published in real time by the Post. And yet the DoJ remained silent on all of this while Biden and intel officials claimed it was nothing more than a Russian intelligence plant routed through the Donald Trump campaign.
-
It’s the groceries, stupid: Why the pundits are puzzled by Biden’s putrid polls.
-
Ownership of almost all small businesses has always been private. If their stock isn’t publicly traded, most companies haven’t needed to disclose the identify of owners anywhere. That’s over for most U.S. companies.
The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) went into effect January 1, requiring most businesses to identify their beneficial owners (someone who owns at least 25% of the company or who has “substantial control” over it) to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). And there’s certainly a high risk of political abuse. Just yesterday, news came of evidence that the FinCEN is flagging for attention transactions that include words like “MAGA” or Trump.
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
-
“Courtesy cards,” are cards given out by the NYC police union (and presumably elsewhere) to friends and family who use them to get easy treatment if they are pulled over by a cop. I was stunned when I first wrote about these cards in 2018. I thought this was common only in tinpot dictatorships and flailing states. The cards even come in levels, gold, silver and bronze!
-
Journalist Uncovers "Shadowy Network" Of NGOs Facilitating US Border Invasion | ZeroHedge
-
Study: Field Drug Tests Generate Nearly 30k Bogus Arrests a Year
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
-
DoD 'completely rewrites' classification policy for secret space programs
-
The Costs of War at Sea - CDR Salamander
War at sea in unforgiving. Don’t just look at the personnel numbers. 500 U.S. naval vessels sunk. I have news for you, we have no way in 2024 to replace even a fraction of those numbers in under four years. We will have to fight with what we have, and try to force victory in the face of attrition without relief.
World
Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean
-
The Anti-Ship Missile Arsenal Houthis Are Firing into the Red Sea
-
Iran-Backed Houthis: 'We Are Now In Direct Conflict With US & UK' | ZeroHedge
Maritime monitoring source Tanker Trackers has observed that vessels have increasingly opted for an interesting security measure: "There are now close to 50 vessels worldwide which broadcast AIS messages stating that they have nothing to do with Israel (some; even USA), including one which won't even pass through the Red Sea area at all as it is heading to Malaysia from the Atlantic Ocean."
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
Health / Medicine
-
Extreme exhaustion and burnout: How it happens and what to do about it
-
Generic drugs in the US are too cheap to be sustainable, experts say
-
Amid a national shortage, the US Adderall black market is booming
-
Americans Are Sick for More of Their Lives - WSJ
Americans are living longer, but spending less time in good health. The estimated average proportion of life spent in good health declined to 83.6% in 2021, down from 85.8% in 1990. ... life expectancy from birth increased from 75.6 years in 1990 to 77.1 years in 2021. Healthy life expectancy, a measure of how many years we can expect to enjoy good health, fell from 64.8 to 64.4 in the same period.
Doctors and researchers have a term for the number of years we live in good health: healthspan. Their definitions vary, but an easy way to think about it is the number of years we feel good.
Other high-income countries have had increases in both lifespan and healthspan over the past three decades. The percentage of years that people in other high-income countries spend in good health has shrunk slightly, as it has in the U.S., but not to the same degree.
- "from 1990 to 2021" the metric "fell from 64.8 to 64.4". In other words, "Booga! Booga! Be scared of sickness!"
-
Worldwide, we are living longer and the male-female longevity gap is shrinking, study finds.