2024-03-15
Horseshit
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Wait . . . what did Palantir’s CEO just say about short sellers?
I love burning the short sellers. Almost nothing makes a human happier than taking the lines of cocaine away from these short sellers, who are going short on a truly great American company — not just ours — they just love pulling down great American companies so that they can pay for their coke.
And the best thing that can happen to them is, we will provide — we will lead their coke dealers — to their homes, after they can’t pay their bills… Go ahead, do your thing, we’ll do our thing.
Now, there are some easy crank-sounding jokes to be made about that quote and Palantir’s business selling software to intelligence agencies.
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UK air traffic control chaos made worse by remote working, review finds
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I Always Knew I Was Different. I Just Didn't Know I Was a Sociopath | Hacker News
- Equity, Inclusion and Understanding for the Neuro Divergent. ... not those kind tho.
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Global communications are under attack — optical satellite networks can bolster them.
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(Nov 2023) Humanity Just Witnessed Its First Space Battle
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) shot down an Iranian-manufactured ballistic missile using its Arrow 2 anti-missile system, Haaretz reported. The incident happened on Tuesday, October 31, with Yemeni forces possibly targeting Eilat, an Israeli city on the coast of the Red Sea. The Telegraph claims the missile was intercepted and destroyed above the Kármán line, which at 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level is widely recognized as the boundary of space.
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LA Dodgers extends $0 contract for 6th time so player can keep health insurance
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Oodles of noodles: how a global favourite became an economic red flag
the rising demand for instant noodles can look a lot like a societal and economic red flag — a signal, especially in developed countries, that something has broken or is at least under severe strain. They are an index of the primacy of need over greed in straitened times. On one hand, if you can suspend judgment on the health risks associated with high-salt, ultra-processed foods, as most instant noodles are, there is something to celebrate in the relentless en-noodlement of the global diet. Particularly so for two Japanese companies, Toyo Suisan and Nissin Foods (whose founder invented the product), which have significant positions in a global market that analysts estimate to be worth north of $54bn.
Where the red flags start waving, though, is among consumers in richer countries where — in a term chillingly used by Japan’s instant noodle makers — households have been pulled into a global cycle of “food product down-trading”. By the end of 2022, both the US and UK consumption of instant noodles had risen 14 per cent over five years. Japan, having entered an era of inflation after decades of deflation, now eats more of them than it did in 2018, even though its population is smaller.
Boeing
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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Steven Mnuchin Says He Is Putting Together a Group to Buy TikTok
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Ban TikTok? Maybe. Force them to reveal basic data? Definitely
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If the US bans TikTok, China will be getting a taste of its own medicine
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The TikTok Problem Is Not What You Think
While I support the bill, and find most of these objections lacking in credibility, there is some legitimacy to the skepticism, which I’ll get into. But what I want to offer is some basic framing, which is that this legislation has to be understood not as a substitute to a broader movement for reform of social media and privacy, but as part of it. And there are two basic points here. The first is while it’s true that Congress hasn’t passed a ‘comprehensive Federal privacy law,’ it’s also true the Biden administration is orchestrating a remarkable revolution in privacy protections by resurrecting old legal tools. There are reasons you haven’t heard of this revolution that have to do with the incentives of privacy scholars, but the litigation here is fierce and deeply bitter. The second is those who say ‘we can’t even regulate social media and now you want to divest TikTok’s ownership!’ have it 180 degrees backwards. Being able to address Chinese ownership of one video sharing platform is part of the movement to reform all platforms.
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HR7521 - TikTok Ban Assurances and Those Who Remember Patriot Act Assurances - The Last Refuge
the legislative language cites Foreign Adversary Controlled Application (FACA), which applies to content providers, apps, websites, social media and hosting platforms. This is where things get sketchy, because “under the direction of” is language that is included in the legislation, and the determinations of “at the direction of” are made by the Attorney General. If the content, platform, website, or social media app generates content that is considered a national security threat, and providing information therein that is deemed to be under the control of a “foreign adversary,” it is the content within, not necessarily the platform ownership itself, that transfers compliance inquiry to the U.S government (DOJ Attorney General) for definitions.
The DOJ through this act, essentially becomes the overarching determination of terms of service (TOS) that can supersede the TOS of the platform or website. Want to fight the definition or determination… prepare to spend big money fighting a battle exclusively in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, as that’s the only place you can appeal the determination of the govt.
Musk
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Elon Musk cancels Don Lemon's show on X after a 'tense' interview
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New Robot Is So Far Ahead of Elon Musk's Optimus That It's Almost Embarrassing
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Tesla Gets Tagged With Once-Unthinkable Call: Sales Will Fall.
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Tesla Didn't Pay Any Federal Income Taxes for 5 Years, Got $1M Tax Refund
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X Removes Graphic Video Elon Musk Shared over Rules Violation
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
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The ‘Emergency Powers’ Risk of a Second Trump Presidency | WIRED
Should Trump decide to go full authoritarian, he could utilize what are called “emergency powers” to shut down the internet in certain areas, censor the internet, freeze people’s bank accounts, restrict transportation, and more. Utilizing laws like the National Emergencies Act, the Communications Act of 1934, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), he would be able to wield power in ways this country has never seen. Furthermore, America’s vast surveillance state, which has regularly been abused, could theoretically be abused even further to surveil his perceived political enemies.
Chris Edelson, an assistant professor of government at the American University, tells WIRED that he worries what Trump might do regardless of what is lawfully allowed. “Trump is a bully at heart. He might try to ignore a court ruling,” Edelson says. “He’ll do whatever he thinks he can get away with, including ignoring a judicial decision.”
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Trump launched CIA covert influence operation against China
Two years into office, President Donald Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the highly classified operation. Three former officials told Reuters that the CIA created a small team of operatives who used bogus internet identities to spread negative narratives about Xi Jinping’s government while leaking disparaging intelligence to overseas news outlets. The effort, which began in 2019, has not been previously reported.
Although the U.S. officials declined to provide specific details of these operations, they said the disparaging narratives were based in fact despite being secretly released by intelligence operatives under false cover. The efforts within China were intended to foment paranoia among top leaders there
A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said news of the CIA initiative shows the U.S. government uses the “public opinion space and media platforms as weapons to spread false information and manipulate international public opinion.” The CIA operation came in response to years of aggressive covert efforts by China aimed at increasing its global influence, the sources said.
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CIA Deployed Bomb Technicians To Capitol Area On Jan. 6, New Records Show | ZeroHedge
The Central Intelligence Agency deployed two bomb technicians to assist with a pipe bomb found at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6 and there were “several CIA dog teams on standby,” according to records obtained by Judicial Watch.
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
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Covid-19 Leaves Its Mark on the Brain. Significant Drops in IQ Scores Are Noted
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Covid Still Makes Everybody a Little Bit Crazy
guess I should say that I’m part of the very slim portion of the population that believes that the world’s establishment governments and the United States specifically did a pretty good job managing an unprecedented pandemic. On one side, increasingly emboldened, are the hordes of right-leaning people who insist that Covid was a minor illness, that the vaccines were poisons ginned up by Bill Gates and Big Pharma to defraud the public, and that various restrictions on movement and behavior were simply a tool of leftist control. They think every death that occurs, anywhere, ever, is proof of the danger of the vaccines. On the other, increasingly obstinate, are the Covid dead-enders, the left-leaning types who have not been in a public place since March of 2020, who continue to douse their houses with anti-bacterial soap, who believe that the next big outbreak is mere days and way and who (and I am not exaggerating) think that we should today, in 2024, have lockdown policies in place as aggressive as those under China’s Zero Covid policy. (If you think I exaggerate, take five minutes to look around in the online spaces of the Covid ultra-hawks and see for yourself.)
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Covid: This Month 4 Years Ago Trump and Kushner Put Together a Deadly, Evil Plan
March 13th this week through April 7th next month commemorate the anniversary of what could only be called an intentional, racially-based mass murder of American citizens, planned and executed by Donald Trump and Jared Kushner for purely political purposes, and virtually ignored by the American mainstream media.
April 7, 2020, just three weeks later, was the day everything changed in America. And hardly anybody remembers it. That was the day that Jared Kushner decided that letting Black and Hispanic Americans in Blue states die of Covid — yes, intentionally using the force of law and social pressure to push Black and brown people into death’s jaws — could become what his team called “an effective political strategy” to blame Democratic governors for Covid and help Republicans win the 2020 election. It was also the day Donald Trump signed off on Kushner’s evil plan.
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Young men and women are drifting apart (Archive)
in 2020 young men were only slightly more likely to describe themselves as liberal than conservative, with a gap of just two percentage points. Young women, however, were much more likely to lean to the left than the right, with a gap of a massive 27 percentage points.
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The Antisemitism Industry doesn't speak for Jews. It speaks for western elites
this small group instrumentalised the Holocaust for their own benefit: to gain money and influence by embedding themselves in an industry they had created. They became untouchables, beyond criticism because they were associated with an industry that they had made as sacred as the Holocaust itself. A follow-up book called the Antisemitism Industry, an investigation into much the same group of people, is now overdue. These ghouls don't care about antisemitism – in fact, they rub shoulders with the West's most prominent antisemites, from Donald Trump to Viktor Orban.
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Behind the OnlyFans porn boom: allegations of rape, abuse, betrayal
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Reddit CEO tells users 'we know your dark secrets' strikes fear into web surfers
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The FCC quadrupled the download speed required to market internet as 'broadband'
ISPs now have to offer 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up to slap the coveted label on their services.
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Pornhub disables website in Texas over objection to age verification law
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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Sacrifices and entrails for Pi day! Die shots and transistor-level debugging on Raspberry Pi 5 | Jeff Geerling
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Boomers Are Expected to Pass $90T in Assets onto Millennials
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Refund fraud schemes on TikTok, Telegram cost Amazon, other retailers billions
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Robinhood jumps after robust growth in assets under custody in February
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McDonald's prices are up, so lower-income consumers are eating at home
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Natural Gas Producers Are Slashing Spending as Prices Stumble
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Wholesale inflation rose 0.6% in February, much more than expected.
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The artisans who are still making clothes in American factories
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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The Republican National Committee sues Michigan over the state's voter rolls
“At least 53 Michigan counties have more active registered voters than they have adult citizens who are over the age of 18. That number of voters is impossibly high,” the lawsuit said. “An additional 23 counties have active-voter registration rates that exceed 90 percent of adult citizens over the age of 18. That figure far eclipses the national and statewide voter registration rate in recent elections.”
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A Maui community tries a novel approach to keep homes in local hands
Several months after Mikey Burke's house burned down in Lahaina, her husband got a text message out of the blue. It was an offer to buy their property with no inspections. "He's gotten a couple of those," Burke says. "Fighting against speculators and large developers coming in is nothing new for us, but we've never had it where it's been this important to our very being as this community."
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Biden pledges billions to rebuild cities 'torn apart' by highways decades ago
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Biden to announce Intel chips grant in Arizona next week, sources say
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
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South Africa Internet Hit by Multiple Subsea Cable Breaks
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, Vodacom says: “Certain customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues due to multiple undersea cable failures affecting SA’s network providers, including us. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
In a new update, Microsoft says: “We have determined that multiple fibre cables on the West Coast of Africa — WACS, MainOne, SAT3, ACE — have been impacted which reduced total capacity supporting our regions in South Africa.
“In addition to these cable impacts, the ongoing cable cuts in the Red Sea — EIG, Seacom, AAE-1 — are also impacting capacity on the East Coast of Africa. This combination of incidents has impacted all Africa capacity – including other cloud providers and public internet as well.” On Friday last week, the company said it is waiting for permits to start repairing its broken submarine cable in the Red Sea.
Israel
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
Health / Medicine
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We Used to Eat a Lot More Without Becoming Obese
Even those in “light” labor roles consumed 3.2k calories daily. Examples of such jobs included toothbrush filler, rotary machine operator, and polisher. While these tasks may not be as physically undemanding as sitting at a computer, they are not much more demanding. Notably, the average height and weight of these men were 170 cm and 66 kg, respectively. For men of this stature to eat 3,200 calories daily without becoming obese, (in an era where unlike today “workouts” were not a thing) seems almost inconceivable. For comparison, modern calorie calculators suggest a daily intake of 2,300 calories for a moderately active 25-year-old male with similar physical measurements.
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Neurological conditions now leading cause of ill-health worldwide, finds study
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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We're breathing new life into French forests through green corridors
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The 'drinking bird' makes a comeback and could power gadgets with clean energy
Scientists in Hong Kong and China have used the famous toy, also known as the “Dippy Bird,” to develop an engine capable of using the power of water evaporation to generate electricity, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Device.
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It’s Hearty, It’s Meaty, It’s Mold
“What we’re trying to do is to look at what is the fungus making and try to kind of unlock and enhance it. And I think that’s an important angle that we don’t need to introduce genes from wildly different species. We’re investigating how we can stitch things together and unlock what’s already there.”