2024-03-24

etc

• Ask HN: Is it so bad to have a cheap domestic workforce under different laws? | Hacker News

  So this leads me to think: why don't we make everything in the USA? Why can't we carve out special economic zones where we have similar working conditions and laws to the places we already buy our products from? The benefit is having full control and security over the entire supply chain. US citizens wouldn't work in these roles. I always looked down on countries with these labor underclasses, but then you realize we already have these labor underclasses, they are just: out of sight, out of mind. So what if the real difference? Right now I see China with a monopoly on a huge part of the supply chain for almost everything, and as they get wealthier, simply expanding up the chain and ending up controlling the entire supply chain. While the rest of the developed world has abandoned their local manufacturing sector and expertise.

• Lion sneaks up on safari

Horseshit

• Live 12-inch eel removed from Vietnamese man's abdomen after it slid up his anus

• GM stops sharing driver data with brokers amid backlash

• Interoception: The mysterious inner sense driving your emotions

  While we're largely familiar with the five outward-facing or "exteroceptive" senses – sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch – interoception is our ability to perceive and interpret signals coming from within our own bodies. And it not only helps to keep our bodies in "homeostasis", or balanced working order (by invisibly regulating blood pressure and glucose levels or more overtly encouraging us to eat or drink, for example) but could also be having a profound impact on our thinking, emotions and mental health. It may even be behind our very sense of self.

  A watertight definition of interoception remains a topic of debate, but the emphasis is on internal signals. "We can gauge whether we're breathless by the sound of our breath," says Murphy. "But that's an exteroceptive, rather than an interoceptive route to perceiving that."

• Over 440k Starbucks holiday mugs recalled for burn and cut hazards

Electric / Self Driving cars

• The Honda CR-V e:FCEV is a plug-in fuel-cell hybrid nobody asked for

• Waffle House makes unusual and expensive change leaving many customers without easy access to the restaurant | The US Sun

  The Waffle House in Lakeland, Tennessee, which is located about 23 miles from Memphis, will now be home to four new electric vehicle charging stations.

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The Lunduke Journal has been banned from YouTube

• Instagram limits political content by default

Musk

• Fewer people are using Elon Musk's X as the platform struggles to attract users

• First Tesla Cybertruck Teardown Shows Botched Door Hinge Install

• 'We're throwing a funeral for Twitter'

• Elon Musk Pushes a Vile, Toxic Hate Video–and Exposes His Own Scam (Archive)

  But even if you accept this bogus distinction, the video Musk is actively endorsing—his pinned tweet said, “This is actually happening!”—absolutely does allege a vast conspiracy. It describes an “open borders plan to entrench single party rule,” in which congressional Democrats and the White House deliberately allow in “millions” and “keep them in the country at all costs,” all for the purpose of ensuring “their loyalty to the political party that imported them.”

  The conspiracy also involves localities that use “sanctuary” policies to draw migrants to blue states, inflating those census numbers. And it implicates untold numbers of elections officials who deliberately overlook voter fraud, presumably to allow “illegals” to vote.

  Musk can deny embracing “great replacement theory” all he wants. But it’s a scam. In addition to pushing it himself, he’s used X to create a far right information safe-space where an extraordinary outpouring of “great replacement” and “white genocide” propaganda is absolutely flourishing. The evidence for this is right at the top of his X feed. Last we checked, it had 134,000 retweets and counting.

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• The last time a Trump company went public it didn't go well for investors

• Trump refers to AG Letitia James as having an "ugly mouth" and "low IQ" in Truth Social rant

• Like a Phish concert but with more grievance, this is what it's like at a Trump rally

• Trump is on the verge of a windfall of billions of dollars. Here are 3 things to know

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Why Is The Same Misleading Language About Youth Gender Medicine Copied And Pasted Into Dozens Of CNN.com Articles?

  the article contains a sentence that is, in context, rather wild: John writes that “Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender — the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which one wants to be known.” But of course, whether youth gender medicine is medically necessary and evidence-based is exactly the thing being debated, and anyone who has been following this debate closely knows that every national health system that has examined this question closely, including the NHS, has come to the same conclusion: the evidence is paltry.

  effectively the same words have appeared in about three dozen CNN articles since May of 2022, which was already years after the present wave of European nations rethinking these treatments had begun. When I asked CNN about this, I heard back from someone there who explained on background that it’s standard for outlets to provide reporters with guidance about accurate and appropriate language.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• New Indiana law requires professors to promote 'intellectual diversity' to keep tenure

  A new Indiana law allows universities to revoke a professor's tenure if they don't promote so-called "intellectual diversity" in the classroom. Supporters of the measure say it will make universities more accepting of conservative students and academics. But many professors worry the law could put their careers in jeopardy for what they say, or don't say, in the classroom. "I'd say it ends tenure in the state of Indiana as we know it," said Ben Robinson, associate professor of Germanic Studies at Indiana University.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Samsung users ask, "Why does the S-Pen smell so bad?"

• Reddit faces new reality after cashing in on its IPO

• DVD Format/Logo Licensing Program will be terminated at the end of 2024

  Currently we are preparing the scheme that enables any manufacturer to manufacture DVD Products without "License" on and after January 1, 2025. Details of the scheme will be announced in due course.

• A Return to Blu-ray as Streaming Value Evaporates

• US Feds Ordered Google to expose YT viewers

• Millions of Americans may soon lose home internet access if lawmakers don't act

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• CUDA is Still a Giant Moat for NVIDIA - by James Wang

• The Intel 8088 processor's instruction prefetch circuitry: a look inside

  Prefetching had another major but little-known effect on the 8086 architecture: the designers were considering making the 8086 a two-chip microprocessor. Prefetching, however, required a one-chip design because the number of control signals required to synchronize prefetching across two chips exceeded the package pins available. This became a compelling argument for the one-chip design that was used for the 8086.

  Arbitrary memory reads and writes are performed directly on memory, bypassing the prefetch queue. The 8086/8088 do not provide consistency; if you modify an instruction byte in memory and the byte is in the queue, the processor will execute the old byte. (This type of self-modifying code can be used to determine the queue length, distinguishing the 8086 from the 8088 in software.)

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Stability AI CEO resigns to 'pursue decentralized AI'

• Understanding artificial intelligence ethics and safety

• AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI's Future and Save Our Own

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA Is Recruiting a New Class of Astronauts (Archive)

  Ms. Jordan is on a media tour to spread the word that “the right stuff” for being an astronaut in 2024 is not the same as what it was in the 1960s, when astronauts were all white men, almost all from the military. To become a NASA astronaut today, you have to be a U.S. citizen and you must pass the astronaut physical exam. NASA does set a fairly high bar for education — a master’s degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, followed by at least three years of related professional experience. Beyond that, the agency tries to keep an open mind. (There is no age limit, for example, or a requirement for 20/20 vision.)

• Astronomers Demand Radio Silence at Moon's Far Side; Resistance May Be Futile

Crypto con games

• 6k Bitcoin mining machines in the US will be idled due to the halving

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Economic impact of a shortage of plumbers should concern everyone.

• The Stock Market is not the Economy

• Nvidia on cusp of overtaking Apple as second-most-valuable company

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Opinion | FDR Had a Devastating Way of Discrediting Isolationists. Biden Could Learn from It. - POLITICO

  n the first draft of the speech, the names — Barton, Fish and Martin — were listed in alphabetical order. But during one of their late-night writing sessions, FDR and his speechwriters, Robert Sherwood and Samuel Rosenman, hit on a more rhythmic option: Martin, Barton and Fish. Roosevelt immediately seized on the new rhyming litany. As one aide later recalled, “The president repeated the sequence several times and indicated by swinging his finger how effective it would be with audiences.” In Madison Square Garden, Roosevelt clearly relished the moment. He ran through the list of Republicans senators who had voted against the bill that lifted the arms embargo to victims of Nazi aggression. Then he paused and smiled. Who else had voted against the bill? he asked. “Now wait,” the president said, “a perfectly beautiful rhythm — Congressmen Martin, Barton and Fish.”

  • The fondness of the left for rhetorical flourish over substantive principle is not new.

• U.S. Senate averts partial government shutdown with late-night legislative package

  • US Congress Averts Government Shutdown, Passing $1.2 Trillion Bill

• Biden Signs $1.2 Trillion Funding Bill, Averting Shutdown

• US congressman Mike Gallagher, leading select committee on China and behind TikTok bill, announces early departure

  • As More Members Leave, House G.O.P. Will Be Able to Spare Just 1 Vote

• US is easing vehicle emissions rules, timeline for all-electric vehicle adoption

  The new Environmental Protection Agency rules released Wednesday aim to cut tailpipe emissions by 49% between model years 2027 and 2032. The EPA set a target for EVs to make up at least 35% of new vehicle sales by 2032. The standards are less ambitious than proposed rules released last year, which targeted a 56% reduction in emissions by 2032 and called for EVs to represent 67% of new vehicles by that year.

• NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected | CNN Business

  McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role. In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.” An NBC spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her attacks on the news media and NBC. In her role as RNC chief, McDaniel also fanned the flames of election denialism after the 2020 presidential contest.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Squatters seize Beverly Hills mansion near LeBron James’ new home, neighbor ‘thanks liberals’.

• Migrants seen tearing down barrier at border

  • "Biden Censorship Regime" Blocks Media Access At Border Over Embarrassing Invasion Video That Shocked Nation | ZeroHedge

• Grandmother Awarded Nearly $4M over Faulty 'Find My Phone' Ping Based Swat Raid

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The al Qaeda plot to kill Bill Clinton that history nearly forgot

World

• Indian court halts operations of government-run social media fact checker

• India throws another opposition leader in jail as elections loom

  WITH LESS than a month to go before India’s general election, when Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is widely expected to retain power, the opposition coalition is a shambles. This is only partly its own doing. India’s law-enforcement agencies have played a not insignificant role. On March 21st the Enforcement Directorate (ED), a federal agency tasked with investigating large-scale economic offences, arrested Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, a leading figure in the main opposition alliance and a thorn in the side of the prime minister. The arrest had been widely expected. The ED has “summoned” Mr Kejriwal for questioning nine times since October, which he gleefully and publicly ignored. Yet the news, when it broke late on March 21st, was still a shock. It is the first time in India’s history that a sitting chief minister has been arrested.

• Spanish High Court banned Telegram

• EU seeks cash payment limit, tougher money laundering rules

• How credible is the Milei plan?

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Islamic State group claims responsibility for Moscow terror attack

  • ISIS claims responsibility for Moscow concert venue attack that killed least 60

• Suspects arrested after Moscow concert hall attack leaves at least 115 dead

• Eleven people arrested after deadly attack at concert hall in Russia

• US had warned Russia ISIS was determined to attack

• Death toll from Moscow concert hall attack rises to 133 as Putin addresses the nation

• Swathes Of Ukraine Go Dark After Russia Pummels Electrical Power Facilities In Huge Retaliation

• Russia's Cozy Bear caught phishing German politicos with phony dinner invites

• Russian-affiliated APT29 targeting German political parties – Mandiant

• Automated Terminal Attack Capability Making Its Way into Ukraine's FPV Drones

• Never-before-seen data wiper may have been used by Russia against Ukraine

• Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries are about reduction of feed stocks for explosives

China

• Netflix's'3 Body Problem' divides opinion and sparks nationalist anger in China

Health / Medicine

• Longest sustained rise in people too sick to work since 1990s, says thinktank

• Fertility rates expected to fall worldwide, pushing population down.

• Colonoscopy prep: Liquid-only diets unnecessary

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Beyond Emissions: how Food Prices worsen Climate Change

• Superhot Rock Geothermal May 'Unlock Vast Amounts of Clean Energy'

• Anthropocene unit of geological time is rejected

• America's Climate Boomtowns Are Waiting: Rising Temps and Migration (Archive)

  As climate change brings disasters and increasingly unlivable conditions to growing swaths of the United States, it also has the potential to remake America’s economic landscape: Extreme heat, drought, and fires in the South and West could present an opportunity for much of the North. Tens of millions of Americans may move in response to these changes, fleeing coasts and the countryside for larger cities and more temperate climates. In turn, the extent to which our planet’s crisis can present an economic opportunity, or even reimagining, will largely depend on where people wind up, and the ways in which they are welcomed or scorned.

  Gibbons, who now works at the climate consulting firm Farallon Strategies, sees Michigan’s future in the Californians unsettled by wildfire. Those people are going to move somewhere. And so they should be persuaded to come to Michigan, she says, before they move to places like Phoenix or Austin. The Great Lakes region should market itself as a climate refuge, she thinks, and then build an economy that makes use of its attributes: the value of its water, its land, its relative survivability. In her vision, small northern cities, invigorated by growing populations, somehow manage to blossom into bigger, greener, cleaner ones.