2024-03-08

etc

• another gynandromorph: Bird Is Half Male, Half Female, and Stunning

  • (Dec 2023) Extremely rare bird captured on film | University of Otago

  John Murillo pointed out a wild Green Honeycreeper with distinct half green, or female, and half blue, male, plumage. “Many birdwatchers could go their whole lives and not see a bilateral gynandromorph in any species of bird.

• Tire falls off United plane after takeoff from SFO

Horseshit

• Europe Is Breaking Open the Empires of Big Tech

• Man who crashed snowmobile into helicopter sues govt. for $9.5M | AP News

  Jeff Smith was whizzing along on a snowmobile one evening a few years back when something dark appeared in front of him. He hit his brakes but he couldn’t avoid clipping the rear tail of a Black Hawk helicopter parked on the trail. The March 2019 crash almost cost Smith his life and is now the subject of a federal lawsuit by the Massachusetts lawyer. He is demanding $9.5 million in damages from the government, money he says is needed to cover his medical expenses and lost wages, as well as hold the military responsible for the crash.

• The world is in the midst of a city-building boom

  Ninety-one cities have been announced in the past decade, with 15 in the past year alone. In addition to its new capital in the north, Egypt is building five other cities, with plans for dozens more. India is considering eight urban hubs. Outside Baghdad, Iraq, workers have just broken ground on the first of five settlements.

  And it is not just emerging economies that are building. Investors in America have spent years secretly buying land for a new city in California. To the east, the deserts of Arizona and Nevada have lured Bill Gates and Marc Lore, two billionaires, each with plans for their own metropolis. Even Donald Trump, in his bid for re-election, has proposed ten “freedom cities”. In their early stages, many of these projects will attract derision. History suggests that plenty will fail. But the number and diversity of settlements under construction suggests some will triumph.

• Washing machine DRM defeat: Bob_cassette_rewinder | Hacker News

• There Are No Dangerous Thoughts, Thinking Itself Is Dangerous

  Only good people have a bad conscience. The reason for this is obvious: bad people do not repent of their evil deeds. What’s worse, bad people do not even think about their evil deeds. Because it is only by stopping to think that people detach themselves from their unconscious routines and judge their actions from the outside, so to speak, as spectators. Far from being a product of a “wicked heart,” most evil is a result of thoughtlessness. This is the conclusion that Hannah Arendt makes in her remarkable meditation on the nature of thought itself entitled “Thinking,”

• Why it's proving difficult to define the official dawn of the Anthropocene

  Differences of opinion are also present over whether the Anthropocene should be an "epoch", like the Holocene or the Palaeocene, or an "event", like a mass extinction. Geological events can be highly consequential on Earth, but they don't last millions of years. So the question is not just when the Anthropocene began, but also when it will end. If humanity gets its act together within the next few hundred years, then the alarming perturbations of the 20th and early 21st centuries might not seem so epochal after all.

• Eating refined carbs could reduce perceived facial attractiveness, study says.

Electric / Self Driving cars

• comment:

  EVs provide flexible demand, they are parked 22 hours+ a day, can charge whenever power is negative (which happens 100s of millions of times/year) or power is zero. Right now, there is excess production from renewables, which is wasted. EVs can absorb all that.

  • This is someone who read "in a theoretically perfect world with all these proposed technologies perfected and widely deployed" Utopian scifi and doesn't understand the world real people actually live in.

• Older Nissan Leafs Lose Their App, Are They The First Of Many? | Hackaday

• The Next Red-Blue State Divide: EV Taxes

• $45k != "for the masses" Rivian R2 revealed: a $45,000 electric off-roader for the masses

  • Rivian Pauses New Georgia Factory to Save Cash as It Unveils R2

  • Rivian pauses plan to build $5B Georgia factory

  • Rivian shares surge as company reveals new EV models

celebrity gossip

• 'Rust' Armorer Convicted of Manslaughter in Alec Baldwin Shooting

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• There Is A War On Free Speech, And They Won't Ever Be Satisfied Until It Is Completely Eradicated

  That is why what is happening in the state of Washington is so alarming. A new law would allow private individuals to collect up to $2,000 every time they report someone to the new “hate crimes and bias incidents hotline”…

• Microsoft's Bing Helps Maintain Beijing's Great Firewall

• Cloudflare protects global democracy during the 2024 voting season

  We asked participants what they wished more people understood about their efforts in election security and reliability, and one county's response stood out. To paraphrase, they said that election officials are also citizens and residents in their communities, and they strive to have safe, fair elections. We look forward to learning more about threats to these groups and how our products can help keep their internal data safe from attacks.

  On March 6, 2024, CISA reported there had been no credible digital threats to Super Tuesday, to the relief of many security experts. These comments came after Meta reported an outage that which caused Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram to be inaccessible to many users in the United States.

  In 2020, we partnered with Defending Digital Campaigns, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing cyber security resources and assistance to political campaigns and committees in the United States. Through our partnership, we have been able to provide more than $3 million in Cloudflare products. For this analysis, we identified 49 websites protected by Cloudflare for Campaigns that are located in the states that conducted an election during Super Tuesday. In total, we protect 97 campaign websites and 27 political party websites.

Musk

• OpenAI has clarified what the "open" in "OpenAI" means in the face of Elon Musk's lawsuit alleging that the company is not actually open.

• Musk to OpenAI: Change your name to ClosedAI and I will drop the lawsuit

• OpenAI publishes Elon Musk's emails. 'We're sad that it's come to this'

• Musk rejects Trump and Biden:I am not donating to either candidate for President

• X Partially Defeats Music Piracy Liability Claims in Nashville Federal Court

• Flipper Zero WiFi attack can unlock and steal Tesla cars

  • Want to Steal a Tesla? Try Using a Flipper Zero

• Russia's Starlink use sparks probe into SpaceX compliance with US sanctions

• No more ratios? Twitter removing likes and retweet from feed display

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Trump and MAGA Republicans are eating their own voters. That could spell disaster in the election | The Independent

  Trump shows no interest in diplomacy. Rather, he takes pleasure in the total dominance of his opponents. It has worked for him in the past. In 2016, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul bent the knee to Trump after he humiliated each of them in turn, mocking their height, their wife and their physical appearance respectively. On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who called Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the riot on January 6 — endorsed him and he will exit Senate leadership at the end of the year. Trump recently said, “We’re getting rid of the Romneys of the world.” In a similar vein, when Kari Lake ran for governor, she said McCain Republicans needed to “get the hell out” — a move which likely cost her the governorship. But the problem is that the voters who previously voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 and who voted for Haley in the primary are now leaving the Republican Party.

• Trump’s on the ballot, but the Supreme Court left key constitutional questions unanswered | CNN Politics

  Could Democratic lawmakers, for instance, disqualify Trump next January when the electoral votes are counted if he wins the November election? Could a state keep a president seeking a third term, in violation of the 22nd Amendment, off its ballot?

  If Trump wins the election, that theory goes, Democrats might attempt to disqualify him before electoral votes are counted in January 2025 during the same once-perfunctory process that pro-Trump rioters interrupted when they attacked the US Capitol in 2021. Political pressure to do so would likely swell if Trump is convicted in any of the four criminal cases pending against him – especially with the timeline of his federal election subversion trial increasingly bumping up against the November election.

  • "Democrats will throw a Jan6" in more words? "during the same once-perfunctory process"

• Trump says he’s going to do a ‘Play by Play’ of State of the Union.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• US ends free COVID test kit distribution — here’s the last day to place an order.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• (2019) Islamic Necrophilia: Or, “Every Hole Is a Goal”

  Sunni Islam’s four orthodox schools of jurisprudence (or madhahib al- fiqh)—namely, al-Hanafi, al-Hanbali, al-Maliki, and al-Shafi‘i—implicitly permit necrophilia. None of them actually addresses it on its own; rather, they give it a nod whenever it comes up in the context of other topics. Thus, in the section on adultery, the Maliki teaching is that “If a husband enters his dead wife—any which way, from front or behind—there is no penalty for him” (Sharh Mukhtasar al-Khalil fi al-fiqh al-Maliki). Similarly, Shafi‘i rulings on ablution point out that it is unnecessary to rewash the body of the dead—male or female adds the Hanbali madhhab—after penetrating it, though the penis of the penetrator does require washing.

• (2017) One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members to Give Up Their Robes

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• America’s elite universities are bloated, complacent and illiberal

  Can American universities, flabby with cash and blighted by groupthink, keep their competitive edge? The origins of the turmoil lie in extreme campus reactions to Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7th. They led to a blockbuster congressional hearing in December. In it politicians accused three presidents of stellar colleges of failing to stamp out anti-Jewish speech. The University of Pennsylvania’s then president, Elizabeth Magill, stepped down just days later. Claudine Gay, formerly Harvard’s president, resigned from her job in January amid twin furores over antisemitism on campus and plagiarism in her scholarship (which she contested).

  Plenty of faculty—both at Harvard and at other elite universities that have recently seen their reputations trashed—insist that hard-right Republicans and other rabble-rousers are fabricating controversies. Stirring up animosity towards pointy-headed elites can win them political advantage. But thoughtful insiders acknowledge that, for some years, elite universities, particularly those within the Ivy League, have grown dangerously detached from ordinary Americans, not to mention unmoored from their own academic and meritocratic values.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• EU regulators seek details of escalating Apple, Epic Games spat

  • Apple calls Epic 'verifiably untrustworthy' and blocks Fortnite and App store

• On DMA eve, Google whines, Apple sounds alarms, and TikTok wants out

• Nikon to acquire RED

  • HN comments

• 41 State AGs tell Meta to fix their customer support for hacking victims

  • Law enforcement doesn't want to be "customer service" reps for Meta any more

• Temu's Push into America Pays Off Big Time for Meta and Google

• Pornhub sues EU over online content rules

• HP Tries Desperately to Make 'Printer as a Subscription' a Thing

• Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul: Netflix Bets Big on Live Boxing

• Reddit rolling out AI bouncer to halt harrassment

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• NSA shares zero-trust guidance to limit adversaries on the network

• The Berkeley Software Distribution

• CISA Announces New Efforts to Help Secure Open Source Ecosystem

  “Securing the open source software supply chain is crucial for protecting global economic infrastructure,” said Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation. “CISA is working to improve open source security, focusing on both current issues and future application development. We’re proud to contribute to this vital work, helping CISA improve the global development ecosystem and supporting its vision for the future.” “OSI and the Open Policy Alliance commend CISA for engaging with the open source software community and appreciate the opportunity to participate in this week’s Open Source Security Summit. Including less represented, small open source non-profits into the discussion will facilitate workable, practical policies and practices, building upon the strength of the collaborative model of Open Source,” said Deb Bryant, US Policy Director, Open Source Initiative.

• (2013) Is IEEE floating-point math deterministic? Yes and no

  Is IEEE floating-point math deterministic? Will you always get the same results from the same inputs? The answer is an unequivocal “yes”. Unfortunately the answer is also an unequivocal “no”. I’m afraid you will need to clarify your question. I need to clarify that floating-point determinism is not about getting the ‘right’ answer, or even the best answer. Floating-point determinism is about getting the same answer on some range of machines and builds, so that every player agrees on the answer. If you want to get the best answer then you need to choose stable algorithms, but that will not guarantee perfect determinism.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• French MPs voice sovereignty, competition concerns of Microsoft-Mistral AI deal

• How the "Frontier" Became the Slogan of Uncontrolled AI

  we don’t have to treat the global AI gold rush as a zero-sum game. We can emphasize international cooperation instead of competition. We can align on shared values with international partners and create a global floor for responsible regulation of AI. And we can ensure that access to AI uplifts developing economies instead of further marginalizing them.

  • How Public AI Can Strengthen Democracy

• Meta is building a giant AI model to power its 'entire video ecosystem'

• The Terrifying A.I. Scam That Uses Your Loved One's Voice

• The AI industry is pushing a nuclear power revival – partly to fuel itself

• Morris II AI worm infects users via AI-enabled email clients

• Key OpenAI Executive Played a Pivotal Role in Sam Altman's Ouster

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Astronaut Candidate

  • Want to be a NASA astronaut? Applications are open

• SpaceX targeting March 14 for next launch of Starship

• Voyager 1 spacecraft is talking nonsense. Its friends on Earth are worried

• Applause for Lunar Failure Follows Decades of Space Program Cheerleading

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Target to launch its own version of Amazon Prime, starting at $49/year

• Large areas of the US are at risk of running short of electricity (Archive)

  Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

• After Big Oil's waves of consolidations, Big Solar could be next

• Intel to get $3.5B infusion from U.S. gov't to make chips for military: Report

• US salaries are falling. Employers say compensation is just 'resetting'

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Biden-Trump rematch needs to hinge on debating US's most pressing issues

  Unless Trump is foolish enough to drone on yet again about “stolen election” claims, and/or indulge in martyr rhetoric about his legal travails, that debate won’t move the dial. Plus, he can point to multiple Biden actions that threaten our constitutional order — from the student-loan giveaways (the prez even brags about how he kept it up despite a Supreme Court slapdown) to all the ways he’s ordered non-enforcement of US immigration law. Sadly, Biden will also use “the war on democracy” as an excuse not to debate Trump one-on-one — even though ducking seems pretty not-democratic.

• New push in Congress to ban TikTok or force Chinese divestiture gains steam

  • TikTok is urging users to call Congress about a looming ban

  • The TikTokers Are Revolting

  • TikTok users bombard Congressional offices over bill that could ban app

  • House committee votes 50-0 to force TikTok to divest from Chinese owner

  • Why the political clock is ticking for TikTok

• Pittsburgh city controller warns that city is headed into major financial crisis

• Joe Biden to propose big tax rises for billionaires and corporate America

  The Biden administration will target billionaires and corporate America with sweeping tax rises as part of a plan to cut the US’s record national debt and boost the president in the polls ahead of November’s election.The proposals, expected to be unveiled in Thursday’s State of the Union address and over the following week, include an increase in the minimum corporate tax from 15 per cent to 21 per cent, as well as a 25 per cent minimum tax for billionaires.

  The proposals, which are unlikely to pass Congress but are intended to distinguish Biden’s progressive agenda from that of his Republican rival Donald Trump, come as most voters remain unconvinced by the president’s performance on the economy.

• C Is For Collusion? Federally Funded Kids' Show Amplifies White House Talking Points

  • Frank Oz: Cookie Monster talking about "shrinkflation". Jim would NEVER have allowed this.

  • (2019) Obama did not sign a law allowing propaganda in the U.S. | AP News

  In 2013, Obama signed legislation that changed the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, also known as the Smith-Mundt Act. The amendment made it possible for some materials created by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the nation’s foreign broadcasting agency, to be disseminated in the U.S. A post circulating on Facebook with a photo of Obama falsely states he repealed a ban on government propaganda in the U.S. when he signed the National Defense Authorization Act in 2013. The amendment did not repeal the Smith-Mundt Act, but rather lifted some restrictions on the domestic dissemination of government-funded media.

  • So you see, it's not "propaganda"; which is Bad, but "Government funded Media", which is Good.

• Oregon lawmakers pass bill to recriminalize drug possession

• District Attorney Kim Ogg told someone had already voted in her name

• White House SNAFU Announcing Biden's SOTU Reveals What the TRUE State of the Union Is and LOL – Twitchy

• Live updates: President Biden's 2024 State of the Union address

  here’s a breakdown of the political fashion statements to expect tonight. Sea of white: When cameras pan across the chamber, viewers will catch a sea of white from Democratic women members unifying around reproductive rights. The Democratic Women’s Caucus has invited all members to wear white to display their “united commitment to defending reproductive freedom

• California Program to Expand Zero-Down, Interest-Free Home Loan to Undocumented

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• New York is mobilizing 750 National Guardsmen to do bag checks in the subway system and there’s nothing to see here so move along.

  Did you guys hear that crime is "down"? Yeah, it is. And that's why New York has deployed hundreds of National Guard troops to carry out bag checks in New York City's subway system. Because crime is "down."

  Governor Hochul is bringing in the National Guard and state troopers to do bag checks because it's just the right thing to do ... just in case an ultra-MAGA extremist plans to ride the subway. Those are the real perpetrators of violence.

  • New York will send National Guard to subways after a string of violent crimes

  • The New York Times Faces Claims of Hypocrisy Over Coverage of the Deployment of Troops – JONATHAN TURLEY

  now it is a Democratic leader who is not just calling for the use of troops but actually deploying them in New York City. It is part of an effort by many Democrats to change course on crime and immigration before the 2024 election after years of criminal law reforms and sanctuary city policies. What is clear from the Times coverage is that there is still no sense of compulsion at the newsroom to be consistent or even self-aware. Outrage remains entirely selective and political.

• A Google engineer ran a secret startup in China while stealing AI technology

• Valid U.S. visa didn't stop these Chinese graduate students from being deported

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Army will add 7,500 air defense jobs while cutting 24,000 active duty spots

• Espionage Probe Finds Communications Device on Chinese Cranes at U.S. Ports

World

• Sweden Officially Joins NATO

  • Sweden Is a NATO Member

• MI5 Interfered in the Miners' Strike

• Socialism, anti-fascism and anti-abortion on UK list of terrorism warning signs

Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean

• Red Sea Attacks Disrupt Global Trade

  In the past few months, global trade has been held back by disruptions at two critical shipping routes. Attacks on vessels in the Red Sea area reduced traffic through the Suez Canal, the shortest maritime route between Asia and Europe, through which about 15 percent of global maritime trade volume normally passes. Instead, several shipping companies diverted their ships around the Cape of Good Hope. This increased delivery times by 10 days or more on average, hurting companies with limited inventories. On the other side of the world, a severe drought at the Panama Canal has forced authorities to impose restrictions that have substantially reduced daily ship crossings since last October, slowing down maritime trade through another key chokepoint that usually accounts for about 5 percent of global maritime trade.

Israel

• How destroyed is Gaza?

• U.S. to Build Pier to Allow Aid Into Gaza by Sea

  • Biden to order US military to construct port in Gaza to increase aid flow - POLITICO

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia's next-generation rocket is a decade old and still flying dummy payloads

• 'Upgraded' T-72B3 destroyed the M1 Abrams with its first shot

China

• China’s excess savings are a danger

  According to the IMF, China generated 28 per cent of total global savings in 2023. This is only a little less than the 33 per cent share of the US and EU combined. That is quite extraordinary. It also has several implications. One is that if China were an open market economy, its capital markets would be the biggest in the world. Another is that how these savings are managed is likely to be the most important single determinant of global interest rates and the global balance of payments.

• China Came to Dominate the World in Solar Energy

• The End of Decency in Hong Kong - by Simon, Mark

  It was that common decency that gave us everything from wonderful education and hospital systems built on the generosity of civil society to low corruption and crime rates which allowed wealth to be accumulated without fear. Rule of law in Hong Kong was not built on fear of the judicial system but rather an acceptance that its proper implementation offered everyone in the city predictable and fair outcomes which allowed them to build their lives. Decency is key to Hong Kong’s uniqueness, and as such it is decency that has to be destroyed by the Chinese Communist Party, CCP.

Health / Medicine

• Single dose of LSD provides immediate and lasting relief from anxiety, study say

• Don't use these six cinnamon products, FDA warns after concerning lead tests

  Six different ground cinnamon products sold at retailers including Save A Lot, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar contain elevated levels of lead and should be recalled and thrown away immediately, the US Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday. The brands are La Fiesta, Marcum, MK, Swad, Supreme Tradition, and El Chilar, and the products are sold in plastic spice bottles or in bags at various retailers.

  • FDA Alert Concerning Certain Cinnamon Products Due to Presence of Elevated Levels of Lead | FDA

  the FDA is recommending recalls of ground cinnamon from six distributors whose products had elevated lead levels ranging from 2.03 to 3.4 parts per million (ppm). These levels are significantly lower than the levels of lead associated with the ongoing investigation into ground cinnamon and applesauce products, which were between 2,270 ppm to 5,110 ppm in the cinnamon.

  • "2.03 to 3.4 ppm" is rather different than "2,270 ppm to 5,110 ppm" innit?

  • FDA warns consumers to stop using 6 brands of cinnamon with high levels of lead

• EU sees 'troubling surge' in sexually transmitted diseases

• Radio waves can tune up bacteria to become life-saving medicines

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Considering intentional stratospheric dehydration for climate benefits

  • We have incorporated this into our geo-engineering plans: Why We Must Destroy The Moon

• Villainous Monologues: They May Be More Common than You Think

  And holy shit, how profoundly evil is it to think that The Problem is that too many humans exist.

  Excuse me, Mr. Silver, but where have you been? People who read the book when it was published have been telling everyone in earshot that this was Ehrlich’s belief – and that others shared this same certainty.

  So, how does this relate to writing? Well, if you consider people calling for the outright murder of millions or even billions of people to be villains, and they monologue about this in public – in speech or in writing – then are you certain it is unrealistic for your fictional villain to go on a monologue while the hero is “in his power”? It never stopped Ehrlich or his fellow travelers. It did not stop someone from putting their monologue in granite and setting it up in Georgia.

• Global warming amplifying cold spells?

• Microscopic plastics could raise risk of stroke and heart attack, study says

• UK's green power industry receives surprise £10B pledge

• Woolly mammoth de-extinction inches closer after elephant stem cell breakthrough

• Xcel Energy says its facilities have role in igniting largest Texas wildfire

• There's Plastic in My Plaque

• Opinion: I'm a climate scientist. If you knew what I know you'd be terrified too

• February Warmest on Record