2024-01-23

etc

• When America First Dropped Acid | The New Yorker

  • HN comments

• Powerful earthquake hits China-Kyrgyzstan border

  • China landslide death toll rises to 20; earthquake strikes Xinjiang Province

  • Death Toll from Landslide in Southwestern China at 20

Horseshit

• Ford's new 48-inch digital dashboard is a lot of Android for one car

• Helium is essential but nonrenewable and difficult to recycle

  • HN comments

• (Jun 2023) The Dawn of Cultural Schizophrenia - jdemeta

  Modern, cultural schizophrenia is as wide as the ocean and as deep as a puddle. The problem being that if one has access to millions upon millions of stories, one also doesn’t have the time to research or meditate on those stories in any deep manner. Everyone ends up with a veil-thin sporadic knowledge of many stories and their relations, without ever attending to their depths. Leading masses of conversations to become little more than titbits of information and data flung in solely as signifiers of knowledge and meaning, yet never actually adhereing to any form of practice or purpose.

  • HN comments

• Shocking Poll Exposes How Much the Elite Hate Us | ZeroHedge

  polled members of America’s 1 per cent – defined as people who have a postgraduate degree and an annual income of more than $150,000. 77 per cent of elitists who were asked, “To fight climate change, would you favor or oppose the strict rationing of gas, meat and electricity?” said they would favor such a policy. In addition, 69 per cent of elitists want an immediate ban on gas stoves, while 81 per cent want gas powered vehicles outlawed. 67 per cent of elitists also believe that teachers should decide what children are taught compared to 26 per cent who think parents should decide. When canvassed on how much freedom the United States should bestow on its citizens, 47 per cent said people had too much freedom compared to 21 per cent who said there was too much control.

• Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

  • HN comments

• NYC-bound flight canceled when passenger notices missing bolts on plane wing

  • HN comments

• The Hugo Awards Are Facing yet Another Controversy

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Electric Aircraft May Have More Potential Than We Thought - Bloomberg

  Batteries are doing such a great job replacing petroleum in car engines that it’s natural to think they might do the same in the skies. Efforts to make a working airplane prototype, however, perennially come up short.

celebrity gossip

• MrBeast reveals he made $250k from X video

  • MrBeast says he'll give 10 people $25,000 — the entirety of the $250,000 he just earned on X

Obit

• RIP Nick Higham – Thinking

• Martin Luther King Jr's youngest son Dexter Scott dies of cancer

• Norman Jewison, Director of ‘Moonstruck’ and ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ Dies at 97

• Shih Ming-teh, Defiant Activist for a Democratic Taiwan, Dies at 83

Musk

• Elon Musk visits Auschwitz after uproar over antisemitic messages on X

• Why Elon Musk Needs MrBeast

• Elon Musk tells audience he is 'Jewish by association' following Auschwitz tour

  • Elon Musk Calls Himself ‘Aspirationally Jewish’

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Trump testimony in E. Jean Carroll damages trial delayed until after N.H. primary

• Could Georgia's Fani Willis be removed from prosecuting Donald Trump?

• Judge Unseals Divorce Records Of Trump Prosecutor In Georgia

• MSNBC's Rachel Maddow predicts country doomed if Trump wins again: 'That's the end of politics'

  • Rachel Maddow Exposes The ‘Special Sauce’ Of Donald Trump’s Strongman Pitch

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Ancient zombie viruses in melting permafrost could cause new pandemic

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• A century after Lenin's death, he seems to be an afterthought in modern Russia

• Business Insider: Very Dangerous to 'Indoctrinate' Young Americans That They Can Lawfully Possess a Firearm - The Truth About Guns

• Democratic Socialists face seven-figure 'crisis' amid Palestinian support that may force dreaded layoffs of staff

  The Democratic Socialists of America — which has led protests against Israel over the Jewish state’s retaliatory response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack — is deep in a seven-figure hole and desperately in need of a way to stanch the red ink, members acknowledge. “We will cut $500,000 from staff-related expenses. We will first ask for volunteers from both director-level and bargaining unit staff to have their position cut and receive severance,” according to a proposal advanced by members of DSA’s National Political Committee affiliated with its Marxist Bread and Roses caucus.

• Sex differences in work preferences among gifted men and women | Hacker News

• Pro-Palestinian protesters shut down Sundance film festival's main street

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Top Harvard Cancer researchers accused of scientific fraud; 37 studies affected

  • Top Cancer Center Seeks to Retract or Correct Dozens of Studies

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Warner Bros. Wants Tumblr to Identify Beetlejuice 2 'Leaker'

• Apple sold an estimated 180K Vision Pro units during the first pre-order weekend | Hacker News

• Palworld tops 5M sales after shifting 86,000 copies per hour over the weekend

• Google and AT&T invest in Starlink rival for satellite-to-smartphone service

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• WiFi 7 is officially here, but routers are pricey. Do you need it yet

  • HN comments

• Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6 | Hacker News

• Thawte Consulting

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Professor warns against STEM studies amid AI's rise

  A Nobel Prize-winning labor market economist has cautioned young people against piling into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, saying “empathetic” and creative skills might thrive in a world dominated by artificial intelligence (AI). Christopher Pissarides, professor of economics at the London School of Economics, said that workers in certain information technology (IT) jobs risk sowing their “own seeds of self-destruction” by advancing AI that would eventually take the same jobs.

• What will humans do after AI achieves cognitive superiority?

  For most of us, whether we have a role in shaping the future depends on how AI prioritization is determined. If advanced AI is controlled by non-democratic means, whether through misaligned AI, AI-empowered dictatorship, or corporate oligarchy where decisions are made by a few powerful entities, then the average person may have little to no influence over AI's direction and have limited opportunities to make contributions that they find meaningful.

  However, if we are successful in establishing democratic AI governance, the landscape shifts dramatically. AI becomes a tool for societal advancement and enrichment, democratically guided by the collective will. Opening the opportunity for all of humanity to participate in one of the most interesting and meaningful things imaginable: guiding the decision-making process surrounding AI prioritization.

• Sam Altman Says ChatGPT Can't Be Your Girlfriend

• Two-thirds of Americans say AI could do their job

• Mark Zuckerberg Shifts Focus to AI, Investing Billions in High-End Chips.

• State and local meddling threatens to undermine the AI revolution

• New theory suggests LLMs can understand text

  • HN comments

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Japan hopes sunlight can save stricken Slim Moon lander

• What I Learned as the U.S. Government's UFO Hunter

• Pentagon UFO Investigator Is Pissed Because Congress Believes in Conspiracies

Crypto con games

• SEC X Account Hacker Hijacked Staffer Phone Number, Agency Says

  • SEC blames 'SIM swap' attack for compromising X account ahead of ETF approval

  • SEC Idiots Deliberately Turned Off Multi-Factor Authentication Ahead Of Most Humiliating Hack In Agency's History | ZeroHedge

• Bitcoin falls to $40000, lowest level since Bitcoin ETF launch

• Investors lose millions as crypto schemes operate unchecked in Australia

• Grayscale Led the Fight for Bitcoin ETFs. Now Its Fund Is Bleeding Billions.

  • FTX selling $1 billion of Grayscale's bitcoin ETF has spurred major outflows from the fund since SEC approval

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Meta's stock has recovered its post-pandemic losses

• The absurdity of the return-to-office movement

• Riot Games laying off 11%

  • Tencent's Riot Games to Lay Off 530 People, About 11% of Staff

• Google lays off "dozens" from X Labs, wants projects to seek outside funding

• TikTok cuts jobs as tech layoffs continue to mount

• 'No cash accepted' signs are bad news for unbanked Americans

  • HN comments

• Why Employees No Longer Feel Loyalty Towards Their Bosses, Employers

• Macy's rejects Arkhouse's $5.8B bid, citing financing concerns

• Online auto dealer Vroom announces shutdown

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Did These 'Tech Bros' Break the Law Backing Biden's Rival?

  • Phillips seeks to lower expectations in New Hampshire

• Robocall with artificial Joe Biden voice tells Democrats not to vote

  • Fake Joe Biden robocall tells New Hampshire Democrats not to vote on Tuesday

• FTC bans TurboTax from advertising 'free' services, calls deceptive advertising

  • HN comments

• Kamala Harris Says Trump Is ‘Proud That Women Are Silently Suffering’

  • Abortion on Ballot in 2024, Biden Says; Harris on Swing Through Key States

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Supreme Court allows Biden administration to cut Texas border wire.

  • Supreme Court allows federal agents to cut razor wire Texas ...

• Judge orders the release of men framed by the FBI: “The FBI invented the conspiracy; identified the targets; manufactured the ordnance.” | Not the Bee

• CISA's Easterly the target of 'harrowing' swatting incident

• Jury to Decide if Mother of Michigan School Shooter Is Guilty, Too

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• U.S. Navy identifies SEALs lost at sea during seizure of Houthi-bound weapons

  • U.S. Identifies the Two Navy SEALs Lost in Raid Off Somalia Coast

World

• Canada's population is booming – access to family doctors hasn't kept pace

• Cameroon starts world-first malaria mass vaccine rollout

• British man appears in court over bomb joke sent in private message

  • HN comments

• German far-right leader hails Brexit as ‘model for Germany’

• Germany considers recruiting foreigners to army in face of Russian menace

• German court cuts funding to hardline far-right party

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• What it takes to reroute the biggest cargo ships on a 4K mile detour

• US and UK carry out new attacks against Yemen’s Houthis

  • U.S., Britain strike multiple Houthi targets in Yemen

Israel

• The Israeli Quotes That the Press Got Wrong - The Atlantic

  the misleadingly truncated version of Gallant’s quote has not just been circulated on NPR and the BBC. The New York Times has made the same elision twice, and it appeared in The Guardian, in a piece by Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch. It was also quoted in The Washington Post, where a writer ironically claimed that Gallant had said “the quiet part out loud,” while quietly omitting whom Gallant was actually talking about. Most consequentially, this mistaken rendering of Gallant’s words was publicly invoked last week by South Africa’s legal team in the International Court of Justice as evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent; it served as one of their only citations sourced to someone in Israel’s war cabinet. The line was then reiterated on the floor of Congress by Representative Rashida Tlaib.

• Israel Offers Substantial 2-Month Gaza Ceasefire For Release Of All Hostages | ZeroHedge

• Denial of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel is spreading - The Washington Post

  The Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack is among the most well-documented in history. A crush of evidence from smartphone cameras and GoPros captured Hamas’s breach of the border — a strike Israel says left about 1,200 dead, the most deadly onslaught in the country’s history. But Oct. 7 denial is spreading. A small but growing group denies the basic facts of the attacks, pushing a spectrum of falsehoods and misleading narratives that minimize the violence or dispute its origins. Some argue the ambush was staged by the Israeli military to justify an invasion of Gaza. Others say that some 240 hostages Hamas took into Gaza were actually kidnapped by Israel. Some contend the United States is behind the plot.

• Over 20 Israeli troops killed in attack in Gaza

  • Hamas inflicted a huge loss on Israel, killing 21 soldiers with a single devastating RPG shot

  • Netanyahu laments "disaster" as 24 IDF soldiers killed in a day in Gaza

  • Israeli Military Suffers Its Deadliest Day in Gaza as Grenade Blast Kills 21

• Israeli military ‘encircles’ Khan Younis after 24 soldiers killed in Gaza

• Dozens of deaths reported in Khan Younis as Israel deepens its ground offensive 'to the west'

• A War in All but Name Simmers at Israel-Lebanon Border

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Putin declares 1867 sale of Alaska 'illegal'

  • Did Putin Declare the 1867 Sale of Alaska to the US 'Illegal' in January 2024? | Snopes.com

• 6 killed, 69 injured as Russian missiles rain down on Kharkiv, Kyiv and Pavlohrad

• Ukraine is running out of ammo for its US-supplied Howitzers as it tries to fend off massive Russian attacks

• Decree Could Give Ukrainian Citizenship to Foreign Fighters, Nation's Diaspora

• The Pentagon has no more money for Ukraine

Health / Medicine

• CDC encourages doctors to consider blood testing for "forever chemicals"

• Too much serendipity | Hacker News

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Billions of cicadas will emerge in the US this year in a rare double-brood event

  • Billions of Cicadas as two broods emerge together, last event was in 1803

  • The Cicadapocalypse Is the Next Thing to End the World.

• Alberta farmers face growing risk of soil erosion events as drought persists

• To curb plastic pollution, industry and academia must unite

• Rare Earth Metals May Be Lurking in Your Junk Drawer

• Sunnyvale and Mountain View argue in court the Clean Water Act should not apply

• Lonely giraffe embarks on 40-hour road trip in search of warmer weather and love