2024-02-07

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• 70 NYCHA employees arrested in federal corruption investigation in New York City

• Why do we refrigerate eggs and milk while other countries don't?

• Former Royal Air Forces pilot takes to the skies in a Spitfire at 102 years old

Horseshit

• It's time to admit that genes are not the blueprint for life

  • Scientists Reveal a New Way Our DNA Can Make Novel Genes from Scratch

• White House: Please Don't Be Dumb and Drive While Wearing the Apple Vision Pro

  • US Secretary of Transportation: Don't Use the Apple Vision Pro While Driving

• Apple’s Vision Pro buyers upset to discover that VR porn doesn’t work: ‘$3,500 chastity belt.’

• Why the FAA Still Can't Fix Boeing

• Garry Tan: Over the Target

  At the story’s hysterical zenith, the Board leaked evidence of looming violence, including letters mailed to “targets” with Garry Tan’s smiling face on the envelope. The implication, lapped up dutifully by the Red Guard press, was Garry’s supporters — for the most part young, nerdy startup founders — made terroristic threats against three sitting politicians. This is an obvious false flag, almost certainly the handiwork of a DSA activist, and whichever political aide is responsible belongs in jail forever. But setting aside our natural feeling of disgust, the desperation of this final bit of theater is at least illuminating. The machine has come for Garry with every gun in its possession. Why? Because the establishment believes he’s winning, and in choosing Garry for their target they’ve inadvertently betrayed their greatest point of vulnerability. In a sense, they’re telling the “tech elites” exactly how to win.

• China allegedly dispatches ‘world first’ in-orbit AI commercial hypersatellite: The hypersatellite is allegedly an integrated sensing network satellite that contains a sixth-generation ‘brain system.’

• Super Bowl 2024: Lowest available ticket for Chiefs-49ers currently over $5k

  • Super Bowl Will Feature 'Doink' Cameras

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Most Americans Wary of Self-Driving Cars as Trust in Tesla Wanes: Study

• Hertz halts plan to buy 65,000 electric cars amid EV slump.

celebrity gossip

• Taylor Swift threatens legal action against student who tracks her jet

• 4chan daily challenge sparked deluge of explicit AI Taylor Swift images

• Gina Carano Sues Disney With Elon Musk's Help

Obit

• Toby Keith, country singer-songwriter, dies at 62 after stomach cancer

• Former Chilean President Sebastian Pinera Killed in Helicopter Crash

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The far right is scaring away Washington's private hacker army

  Some of the country’s top cybersecurity experts who’ve been helping protect critical networks say they’re quietly retreating from a highly touted government partnership, citing frustrations with its management and pressure from conservative critics.

  While many of their complaints stem from how the program is organized, the discontent also represents another indirect impact of Donald Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims, now threatening to hamper largely apolitical cybersecurity work: CISA’s efforts to combat disinformation ahead of the 2020 election has made it a favorite target of conservatives, who accuse it of trying to censor their views online.

  Even though the JCDC plays no role in online content moderation, the amped-up scrutiny of CISA has increasingly ensnared the agency’s external partners, making JCDC participants fearful they could be caught in the crosshairs.

  • HN comments

  • "Washington's private hacker army" is a big frog to swallow. Noble Public Servants or Digital Party Thugs? Can there be a difference?

• Amazon 'censored' Covid vaccine books after 'feeling pressure' from White House

• NCLA Asks Supreme Court to Uphold Injunction Against Government Social Media Censorship.

• Meta Board Member Says ‘Not Enough’ Election Censorship

  San Martín’s suggestions for Meta include “adding labels to posts that are related to elections, directing people to reliable information, prohibiting paid advertisement when it calls into question the legitimacy of elections, and implementing WhatsApp forward limits.” Her advice to coordinate with election officials seems to be a direct encouragement toward tech-government censorship collusion.

Musk

• Elon Musk’s drug use led billionaire pal Larry Ellison to invite Tesla CEO to his Hawaii home to dry out.

• SpaceX Accused of Sexual Harassment as Fight with Ex-Employees Intensifies

• Tesla is controversially starting to advertise on Elon Musk's X

  Many suspected that this would be a way for Musk to transfer more money from Tesla to Twitter. As we previously reported, Tesla has already started to pay for over a dozen premium accounts on Twitter.

• Elon Musk's Twitter Ultimatum Brought Employees to Their Breaking Point

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Trump can’t claim presidential immunity against 2020 election charges: Appeals Court

  • Trump has no immunity from prosecution in Jan. 6 trial, appeals court rules

• Trump’s fraud trial rattled by witness’s possible perjury deal

• If This Email Is Any Proof, the Verdict in Trump’s Fraud Trial Is Gonna Hurt

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• One Arm or Two? How You Get Vaccinated May Make a Difference

• "Zombie" Covid particles may be responsible for lethal disease

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• HBO-Max Adds Trigger Warning to Blazing Saddles

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Bluesky social network drops invite-only sign ups

  • Bluesky signups are now open to the public | Hacker News

• OnePlus tells why it won't match Samsung and Google's 7-year phone update policy

• "Wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement

  being able to say, "wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.

• TikTok Is Destroying Itself from the Inside Out

• Phone isn't listening to you: The tech myth has spread far and wide

• 3M smart toothbrushes were just used in a DDoS attack

  • Three million infected toothbrushes have just invaded Switzerland.

• Warner, Fox, Disney to Launch Streaming Sports Joint Venture

• YouTube TV Hits 8M Subscribers

• Marvel Crew Member Dies After Accident on Set of ‘Wonder Man’ Series

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• We might want to regularly keep track of how important each server is | Hacker News

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI Is the Real Wolf

• Meta says you better disclose your AI fakes or it might just pull them

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Aliens Haven't Visited the Earth

• Humanity’s most distant space probe jeopardized by computer glitch | Ars Technica

  The computer glitch cropped up on November 14, and it affected Voyager 1's ability to send back telemetry data, such as measurements from the spacecraft's science instruments or basic engineering information about how the probe was doing. "It would be the biggest miracle if we get it back. We certainly haven't given up," said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview with Ars. "There are other other things we can try. But this is, by far, the most serious since I’ve been project manager."

  In November, the data packages transmitted by Voyager 1 manifested a repeating pattern of ones and zeros as if it were stuck, according to NASA. Dodd said engineers at JPL have spent the better part of three months trying to diagnose the cause of the problem. She said the engineering team is "99.9 percent sure" the problem originated in the FDS, which appears to be having trouble "frame syncing" data.

  The only signal Voyager 1's Earthbound engineers have received since November is a carrier tone, which basically tells the team the spacecraft is still alive. There's no indication of any other major problems. Changes in the carrier signal's modulation indicate Voyager 1 is receiving commands uplinked from Earth.

Crypto con games

• Chicago-area man charged in $400M FTX crypto hack released on bond

• Self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor denies forging documents to support claim

Economicon / Business / Finance

• WeWork's Co-Founder Is Trying to Buy the Company

  • Adam Neumann Is Trying to Buy Back WeWork

  • Adam Neumann seeks to buy WeWork out of bankruptcy

  • Adam Neumann got kicked out of WeWork – now he wants to buy it

  • Adam Neumann Wants WeWork Back

  • WeWork founder Adam Neumann trying to buy back company

  • Adam Neumann seeks to buy WeWork back 5 years after being ousted as CEO

• Toyota Cashes in on Booming Hybrid Sales

• DocuSign to Cut About 6% of Jobs

  • DocuSign to lay off 6% of workforce, or about 440 jobs

• Snap Misses Q4 Forecasts, Stock Plunges Sharply

  • Snap lays off over 500 workers 'to promote in-person collaboration'

• Tech layoffs are way down from last year. Why does it feel so grim?

• New York Community Bancorp Cut To 'Junk' By Moody's: 33% Of Deposits Uninsured

  • NYCB's Credit Grade Is Cut to Junk by Moody's

• Why people think the US economy is doing worse than it is: A research roundup

• McDonald’s CEO promises ‘affordability’ amid backlash over $18 Big Mac combos, $6 hash browns

• Credit card delinquencies surged in 2023

• Next up, "water is wet" How poverty is measured impacts who gets classified as impoverished

• If shadow banking looks like a duck

• High interest rates are causing more car loan delinquencies, Fed researchers say

• Younger Americans are falling behind on credit card and car payments, New York Fed says

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• FCC Takes Aim at AI Deepfake Robocalls After Sloppy Fake Biden Hoax

• There's a Tax Season Villain, and It's Not the IRS

• In stunning defeat, House Republicans fail to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas over border.

  • House Fails To Impeach Mayorkas After Four Republicans Join Democrats

• Anti-abortion group's studies retracted before Supreme Court mifepristone case

• A Tale of Two Congressional Hearings (and several AI poems)

  Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed that it seemed like we were having (at least) two different hearings at once. Although there were several tangents, the discussion on the Republican side was mostly about the topic at hand. On the Democratic side, unfortunately, it was overwhelmingly about how Trump has promised to use the government to target his enemies if he wins a second term. It’s not a trivial concern, but the hearing was an opportunity to discuss the serious threats posed by the use of AI censorship tools in the hands of a president of either party, so I wish there had been more interest in the question at hand on the Democratic side of the committee.

  I tried to express this point to the Democrats — who are the people on my side of the political fence, mind you. In fact, I felt compelled to respond to a New York Rep. Goldman (a Democrat) during his remarks (which included him saying that “this committee…may go down as one of the most useless and worthless subcommittees ever created by Congress”) by saying, “Respectfully, Congressman, you don’t seem to be taking it seriously at all.”

• After RedState’s Reporting Rocked RNC Winter Meeting, Ronna McDaniel Is Stepping Down

  • Ronna McDaniel, R.N.C. Chairwoman, Plans to Step Down - The New York Times

  Ronna McDaniel, has told former President Donald J. Trump she is planning to step down shortly after the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24, according to two people familiar with the plans. Mr. Trump is then likely to promote the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Michael Whatley, as her replacement, according to several people familiar with the discussions. Under the arcana of the committee’s rules, however, Mr. Trump cannot simply install someone, and a new election must take place.

  • Ronna Out: RNC Chairwoman Plans To Step Down After Presiding Over 'Party Of Losers'

  • Ronna McDaniel offers Trump her resignation as RNC head

• DOJ’s Biden classified documents report coming soon, no criminal charges - The Washington Post

  The long-awaited decision by special counsel Robert K. Hur will probably roil the presidential contest as Republicans seek to paint Biden as a criminal — and as Donald Trump, the president’s likely GOP rival for the White House, faces trial for allegedly keeping boxes of classified papers at his Florida home and obstructing officials’ attempts to retrieve them. While the facts of the Biden case appear to have major differences from the Trump case, Hur’s conclusions are likely to face intense scrutiny from Republicans in Congress.

  • Axios was not as sanguine Sunday: Biden’s team bracing for special counsel’s report on classified docs.

  • Biden has defended storing documents from his vice presidency in his garage, saying: "By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, so it's not like they're sitting out on the street."
  • Any photos of those storage practices could cause a political storm similar to what happened after the release of photos of Trump storing documents at Mar-a-Lago, including in a bathroom.
  • Trump, who resisted the U.S. government's efforts to retrieve the documents, faces 40 criminal counts in the case including obstruction of justice and willful retention of national defense information.

• What’s really going on at the border, explained

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to popular food brands

• Mother of Michigan school shooter convicted of manslaughter

• Tennessee man who was working with militias planned to act as a sniper and attack border

  Faye had been on the FBI's radar for a year, and late last year, he told an undercover FBI agent that he was coordinating with militia groups from Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee and planning to travel to the border, the document says. He said he planned to meet up with a person who could make explosives to take to the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the court document.

  • Alleged aspiring militia "sniper" with plans to attack agents at border

  Paul Faye, of Cunningham, was arrested in Tennessee on Monday by the FBI after a nearly yearlong investigation and charged with selling an unregistered firearm suppressor (silencer). He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted on the charge,

  • The FBI has arrested a self-touted militia sniper

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Why do Navy admirals want a small navy?

• Drone that killed U.S. troops in Jordan likely went undetected

World

• A Record Two Million Foreign Workers Are Changing the Face of Japan

• Election Office Blasts in Pakistan Kill at Least 22 a Day Before Vote

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• Houthis may sabotage western internet cables in Red Sea, Yemen telecoms warn

Israel

• Hamas Sets Out Three-Step Truce Plan Demanding an End to War in Gaza

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Zelenskiy orders creation of separate military force for drones

• Tucker Carlson: Why I'm Interviewing Vladimir Putin

• Kremlin: We Reject All Western Media but Tucker Carlson Is Different

• Russia targets major Ukrainian cities with drone, missile attacks

Health / Medicine

• I used Fentanyl and I'm just fine

  My use of fentanyl wasn’t safe because it was legal. It wasn’t safe because of the person administering it. It was safe because the dose and context maximized benefit while minimizing risks. We need to stop thinking about drugs in moral terms and let people tailor their use from a rational cost/benefit perspective.

• Is Lip Balm Addiction Real?

• Are body temperature and depression linked? New study says, yes.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The gold hydrogen rush: Does Earth contain near-limitless clean fuel?

• Six Big Ways Climate Change Could Impact the United States by 2100

• Commission presents recommendation for 2040 emissions reduction target

• Oceans May Have Already Seen 1.7°C of Warming

• You Can't Buy Lab-Grown Meat Even If You Wanted To

• US counties often ban wind or solar power plants

• Cooking with Gas - 99% Invisible

  there is a long and well-documented history that explains our current moment. The natural gas industry has spent the past hundred years selling Americans on the gas stove and trying to convince us that it’s superior to the electric alternative. That it’s classier, more functional, and that it just cooks our food better.

  Alongside that full-bore advertising campaign, the gas industry has waged another, quieter battle, mostly beyond the view of the public. They’ve worked for decades to obscure and dispute what scientists increasingly know is true: gas stoves are bad for our health.

• The Perverse Policies That Fuel Wildfires

• New Zealand to ban PFAS 'forever chemicals' in cosmetics from 2026

• The EU proposes slashing pollution 90% by 2040

• Pristine Canadian river has legal personhood, new approach to conserving nature