2024-03-20
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GM, LexisNexis Sued for Sale of Driver Behavior Data to Insurers
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(2022) Abraham Wald and the airplane diagram with red bullet holes – here's the origin story - Cameron Moll
Wald's story was a terrific demonstration of solving (and defining) the right problem. I wasn't aware of anyone who had visualized this, so sometime around 2005 I hastily plotted fictitious red dots on a poorly-chosen commercial aircraft outline and began including this in slide decks and blog posts. This later become known as survivorship bias.
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Science will only end once we've licked all the objects in the universe
I ain’t a Realist. I certainly believe that Nature makes some mysteries easier to untangle than others—it’s easier to study Earth than it is to study Pluto—and some of those mysteries might be unsolvable entirely. But the main limit to scientific inquiry isn’t reality. It’s us. Lots of low-hanging scientific fruit went unpicked for centuries because nobody ever thought to pick it. Someone could have proven 1000 years earlier that heavier things don’t fall faster than lighter things, for example, or that maggots don’t spontaneously generate from rotting meat. I know I keep banging this drum, but: we only invented the randomized-controlled trial in 1948. Reality didn’t stop us from discovering these things. Our own imaginations did.
Horseshit
Electric / Self Driving cars
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Shell to unload 1k retail locations in pivot to EV charging
“We are upgrading our retail network, with expanded electric vehicle charging and convenience offers, in response to changing customer needs,” Shell said in its 2024 Energy Transition Strategy report. The company plans to “divest around 500 Shell-owned sites (including joint ventures) a year in 2024 and 2025." The closures will shrink the company's retail footprint by 2.1%. In 2023, the company operated 47,000 locations.
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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Stripe, Substack Demand Financial Details from Authors
Under the guise of “credit review”, Stripe is now rolling out a requirement that appears to target conservative or "anti-vax" Substack authors. Stripe is requiring that these authors provide all of their current and historic financial records associated with the bank account into which Stripe deposits Substack subscriber payments (after taking 10% off the top for Substack and 3% for Stripe). Stripe already has information concerning this bank account (including deposits from Stripe), as we have been doing business with Stripe via this account for over two years.
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The New York Times Again Worries That Free Speech Endangers Democracy
"In a world of unlimited online communications" where "anyone can reach huge numbers of people with unverified and false information," Times reporters Jim Rutenberg and Steven Lee Myers ask, "where is the line between protecting democracy and trampling on the right to free speech?" This is not the first time that Myers has described freedom of speech as a threat to democracy. Last year, he worried that "the First Amendment has become, for better or worse, a barrier to virtually any government efforts to stifle a problem that, in the case of a pandemic, threatens public health and, in the case of the integrity of elections, even democracy itself." The purported conflict between free speech and democracy is a bizarre and highly misleading way to frame the issues raised by Murthy.
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What became abundantly clear in the oral arguments Monday was that multiple justices, including Trump-appointed ones, found the factual record to be suspect and problematic. The crux of the case was effectively (1) the White House made a few public statements in which they were angry about how social media moderated, (2) the companies regularly met with government agencies about a variety of things (cybersecurity, COVID misinformation, election integrity), and (3) therefore we can assume that any content moderation that occurred on the platforms was at the government’s command. It was a weak argument, and multiple justices pointed out how tenuous the connection was between the government and the actions of the companies.
The media is slowly, but surely, putting the underlying story together of how a bunch of nonsense peddlers concocted a full blown conspiracy theory full of disinformation, all targeted at destroying the ability of disinformation researchers to counter disinformation by attacking them as censors. just before the Murthy hearing, the NY Times put out a big piece tying together some of the loose ends about all this, and detailing the nature of the campaign. The whole effort was, in short, a made up conspiracy theory by a group of operatives seeking to kneecap any research into disinformation or how to counter it, perhaps recognizing how such efforts would harm Donald Trump. As the article notes, much of it seems to have been orchestrated by Trump advisor Stephen Miller.
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
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Full List of Companies That Denied Trump Bond
Trump's legal team admitted that he had been unable to secure the backing for the bond after asking numerous entities. The filing explained that, for an amount as high as $464 million, real estate, Trump's key asset type, could not be put forward as collateral.
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'Exvangelical' on loving, leaving and reporting on the culture of Christianity
"There were all of these questions around their support for Donald Trump," McCammon says. "How would they deal with the cognitive dissonance, the apparent conflict between everything Trump seemed to stand for and what the movement said it stood for?" Those questions came to a head for McCammon on Jan. 6, 2021, when she saw people with crosses and "Jesus saves" signs participating in the insurrection on the Capitol. "That was the moment that I really wanted and needed to say something," she says.
(On another story about fossils) as part of reporting that story, I had to talk about the fact that this fossil was 20,000 years old. By this point, I'd accepted that that was the case, but it felt really weird to put it in a script. It felt like, what if my parents hear this, and there were moments like that, too, writing about viruses and talking about the millions of years of evolution that have shaped the way viruses replicate and change and mutate, just all these little things that are probably normal to most people that to me stuck out as, "Oh yeah, that's not something I'm supposed to believe in."
- Switching the "supposed to believe in" to a different script is not enlightenment. Caring what you're supposed to believe in can only take one further from Truth.
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Former President Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos, claiming his reputation was tarnished by the anchor saying multiple times on-air that Trump had been found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. The former president asked for an unspecified amount of damages in the lawsuit. Trump has previously filed multiple similar and unsuccessful defamation lawsuits against media outlets whose coverage he dislikes, including a $475 million case against CNN that was tossed by a federal judge in July.
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Pro-Trump attorney Stefanie Lambert arrested after hearing over leaking Dominion documents | AP News
“These actions should shock the conscience,” Dominion wrote in its motion seeking to disqualify Lambert. “They reflect a total disregard for this Court’s orders, to say nothing of the safety of Dominion employees.”
The leaked documents from Dominion Voting Systems reveal startling admissions by company officials, including the unlawful involvement of foreign nationals in the U.S. election infrastructure. Lambert’s arrest, under these circumstances, appears to be a calculated effort to intimidate and silence a prominent voice in the movement for election reform.
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Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro reports to prison on contempt of Congress conviction.
Near a Papa John’s, Navarro gave an extended speech airing his grievances against the government and his prosecution, painting himself as a victim of political persecution. Navarro, who was closely involved in Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating Jan. 6.
as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts noted, the federal appeals court ruled that Navarro couldn't just ignore Congress completely and was "still obligated to appear before Congress and answer questions seeking information outside the scope of the asserted privilege."
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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20 Years of Not Even Wrong | Not Even Wrong
The technical difficulties involved in reaching higher energy scales at this point makes it all too likely that I’m not going to see any significant new data about what the world looks like above the TeV scale during my lifetime. Without experiment to keep it honest, fundamental theory has seriously gone off the rails in a way which looks to me irreparable. With the Standard Model so extremely successful and no hints from experiment about how to improve it, it’s now been about 50 years that this has been a subject in which it is very difficult to make progress. I’ve always been an admitted elitist: in the face of a really hard problem, only a very talented person trained as well as possible and surrounded by the right intellectual environment is likely to be able to get somewhere.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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USB hubs, printers, Java, and more seemingly broken by macOS 14.4 update
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Google introduces new security requirements for bulk email senders
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The rise and fall of a Halifax man's illegal TV streaming empire
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Naked Capitalism threatened with demonetisation on flagrantly erroneous basis
- "make your own" was the cry when it was the other side's sides being "demonetized", "de-emphasized" and "de-platformed".
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A lot of people focus on the price and the weight, but I think that misses the real challenge - the price and the weight can and will come down, but then what? The conclusion of every review is, essentially, ‘it’s amazing, but what’s it for?’ This is not an easy question to answer. In a sense, I think this device might function as a test for that whole general computing thesis. With every previous xR device, you could always say ‘yes, but just imagine what it can be once the tech is better!’ Well, now we have something a lot closer to that ‘just imagine’ device. It’s a lot harder to hide behind plans for the future. This thing doesn’t even have any VR games - it’s naked before us, forced to survive as an actual computer. If we cannot make a compelling general purpose computing experience on a display system this good, then the whole field might have a problem.
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Steam Families opens up game libraries for sharing, with a few caveats
Steam Families is, on the surface, more permissive than Family Sharing. You can play a game from a family member's library even if they're already online and playing something else. Multiple members of a Steam Family can play the same game at the same time, although the total number of people playing must match the total number of purchased copies among household members. There are even more complications, particularly around DLC, in the Steam Families FAQ
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Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent
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Reddit, YouTube must face lawsuit over the radicalization of the Buffalo shooter
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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It Turns Out the ‘Deep State’ Is Actually Kind of Awesome - The New York Times
When we hear “deep state,” instead of recoiling, we should rally. We should think about the workers otherwise known as our public servants, the everyday superheroes who wake up ready to dedicate their careers and their lives to serving us. These are the Americans we employ. Even though their work is often invisible, it makes our lives better. But if Donald Trump is re-elected and enacts Schedule F, that could change. He would have the power to eviscerate the so-called deep state and replace our public servants with people who work for him, not us.
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Who are currently the most influential thinkers/intellectuals on the Left?
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC): A member of the U.S. House of Representatives, AOC has quickly become a prominent face of the progressive movement within the Democratic Party. Known for her active social media presence and bold policy proposals like the Green New Deal, she has garnered significant attention and influence, particularly among younger left-leaning Americans.
- Ibram X. Kendi: A historian and author, Kendi’s works, such as “How to Be an Antiracist” and “Stamped from the Beginning,” have become key texts in the current discourse on race and anti-racism in America.
- Bhaskar Sunkara: Founder and editor of Jacobin, a leading socialist magazine in the United States, Sunkara has played a significant role in popularizing democratic socialist ideas and policies, particularly among millennials and Gen Z.
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Young Americans Lose Hope -- and Turn Against Biden
young people have also endured an education system that focuses on indoctrination rather than teaching usable skills. Specifically, they were subjected to curricula and a pop culture that impart lessons of collective guilt and shame, rather than patriotism and pride. Nonetheless, young Americans were encouraged to take on mountains of personal debt to fund these toxic educational experiences. Upon leaving school, far too many of them discovered that they were prepared for little besides unhealthy self-loathing.
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Governments Across the U.S. Are Handing Residents Cash–No Strings Attached
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Supreme Court hears free speech case that united the NRA and the ACLU
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Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce immigration law
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that it will allow Texas to enforce for now a contentious new law that gives local police the power to arrest migrants. The conservative-majority court, with three liberal justices dissenting, rejected an emergency request by the Biden administration, which said states have no authority to legislate on immigration, an issue the federal government has sole authority over. That means the law can go into effect while litigation continues in lower courts. It could still be blocked at a later date.
"The court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos," liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson also objected to the decision.
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Supreme Court unanimously rules against government in No Fly List case
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Ketanji Brown Jackson Defenestrates the First Amendment ⋆ Brownstone Institute
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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The Crime Rings Stealing Everything from Purses to Power Tools | The New Yorker
Videos of these crimes tend to go viral, making flash robberies seem more common than they actually are. A CNBC International clip headlined “Watch an Apple store get robbed in 12 seconds” has been viewed thirty-two million times.
The highway patrol created the task force in 2019, after California lawmakers codified such thefts as a distinct offense. The law, authored by a Democrat, applies to two or more people working together to steal with the intent to sell, exchange, or return the illicit goods for value, or conspiring to knowingly receive, buy, or possess stolen merchandise. It is also illegal to steal on behalf of someone else, and to coördinate and finance such theft. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, tapped the C.H.P. for the first organized-retail-crime task force in part because the agency has statewide authority, and because criminal networks exploit the state’s jurisdictional mishmash of penalties. During the pandemic, Los Angeles County imposed a zero-bail policy for most nonviolent offenders, to mitigate mass incarceration. Certain defendants now receive a citation and a court date, and are let go. Voters had already elected to raise the monetary threshold for felony theft, from four hundred dollars to nine hundred and fifty. Critics—and even suspects—have asserted that the combined effect of these approaches invites crime.
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Cyberattacks are hitting water systems across US, Biden officials warn governors
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
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Council Orders London Fish & Chip Shop Owner To Remove British Flag Mural - modernity
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Brazil Police Recommend Criminal Charges Against Bolsonaro - The New York Times
Brazilian police accused Mr. Bolsonaro of ordering a top deputy to obtain falsified Covid-19 vaccination records for himself and his daughter, 13, in late 2022, just before the former president traveled to Florida to stay for three months following his election loss. Brazilian police said they were awaiting an answer from the U.S. Justice Department on whether Mr. Bolsonaro used a fake vaccination card to enter the United States, which could bring different criminal charges. At the time, most international visitors to the U.S. were required to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination to enter the country. Mr. Bolsonaro has said he did not receive the Covid-19 vaccine, but he has denied accusations that he was involved in any plan to falsify his vaccination records.
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Power outages, food shortages trigger social unrest in Cuba.
Israel
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Israeli settlers are expanding illegal outposts amid Gaza war
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Jerusalem official noted a recent reduction of American arms supplies to Israel, ABC news reports. The Israel Defense Force is running out of 155 mm artillery shells and 120 mm tank shells, as well as sensitive guidance equipment, the official said. Last week, seven Democrats, led by Senators Van Hollen, Merkley, and Sanders, alleged that Israel is violating section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. They urged Mr. Biden to limit offensive arms to the IDF.
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Gaza's Imminent Famine: 1.1M Face Catastrophic Food Insecurity
China
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ast month, in a sign of the widening crackdown on foreign social media sites, Lee too was summoned by police – not because of what he tweeted, but because of who he followed. In an early-morning phone call, an officer invited Lee to “have tea” – a euphemism for police questioning – to talk about the “sensitive accounts” he followed on X. “The police asked me if I followed the account ‘Teacher Li is not your teacher,’ but I honestly didn’t know,” Lee said in an interview. He logged into X under the watch of the officer, found the account and unfollowed it on the spot, he said.
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Hong Kong Passes Local Security Bill Cementing China’s Control - Bloomberg
Health / Medicine
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A study says intermittent fasting is making people drop dead. Oh, come on
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How we get high: our bodies are perfectly primed for consuming cannabis
CB1 receptors are spread throughout the body, but they're concentrated in the nervous system and the brain. CB2 receptors are mainly found in immune tissues in the spleen and thymus, but some studies have found them in brain neurons and other areas of the nervous system. A person's reaction to cannabis depends on their age, weight, metabolism and tolerance. And it also depends on the level of CBD in a product — CBD works against the psychiatric effects of THC, so a product with more CBD will provide less of a high than one with low CBD.
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Python farming as a flexible and efficient form of agricultural food security
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Chinese police are coming for the social media followers of a dissident
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Only seven countries meet WHO air quality standard, research finds
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Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023: WMO
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In New York City, heat pumps that fit in apartment windows could cut emissions
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U will Eat Ze Bugs: Tastes like chicken? Think again–edible ants have distinctive flavor profiles
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Effects of geoengineering must be urgently investigated, experts say
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The heat index – how hot it feels – is rising faster than temperature