2024-03-25
Worthy
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Why Social Trust Is Cratering: The Difference Between Elites and Commoners
Consider efficacy claims and side-effect labeling on pharmaceuticals. If you actually study the Phase III trial data (I have), you find that the medications were not actually tested in conjunction with other commonly consumed medications. The potential interactions are completely unknown. You also discover the statistical legerdemain that goes into claiming efficacy that may be just barely above random results. Since we have very little knowledge or control of all the medications deemed "safe" by untrustworthy agencies, all these medications are intrinsically untrustworthy until proven otherwise by multiple independent sources over a decade.
etc
Horseshit
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Playground bullies do prosper – and go on to earn more in middle age
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Gen Z Is Toxic for Companies, Employers Believe
That's the latest from a new Freedom Economy Index report conducted by PublicSquare and RedBalloon this month. In the survey, 68 percent of small business owners said Gen Zers were the "least reliable" of all their employees. And 71 percent said these younger workers were the most likely to have a workplace mental health issue. One of the surveyed employers spoke of Gen Z's "absolute delusion, complete lack of common sense, and zero critical reasoning or basic analytical skills." Another employer noted the generation's tendency for "expecting promotions for simply showing up every day." The toxicity could even lead to company lawsuits, as 57 percent said Gen Z run the most risk of creating a workplace lawsuit.
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America's first biometric 'smart gun' is finally here. Will it work?
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Generation Anxiety: smartphones have created a Gen Z mental health crisis
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Whatever You Do, Don’t Do the Silent Treatment - The Atlantic
Like all kinds of abuse, silent rejection can impair a victim’s overall competence. In one experiment that asked participants to imagine that they would end up alone in life, this form of silent rejection lowered their ability to think clearly and complete complex tasks. What this suggests is that the silent treatment may be effective in satisfying the inflictor’s aggression, but it is an intensely cruel and disproportionate way to deal with conflict. Not very surprisingly, then, we find that people high in Machiavellianism—a willingness to hurt and manipulate others for their own gain, even a trivial one—may employ this technique with partners and friends.
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New cars are now 'the worst' products when it comes to protecting consumer data
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Lack of Focus Doesn’t Equal Lack of Intelligence — It’s Actually Proof of an Intricate Brain.
Musk
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It's Not Safe to Click Links on X | Lifehacker
I think the kindest thing you can say about X (the social network formerly known as Twitter) in 2024 is that it's impressive the site is actually still up and running. Sure, spam bots take over popular threads, hate speech is on the rise (X is suing the company tracking it, by the way), and advertising is way down, but despite it all, twitter.com still manages to load. As noted by security researcher Will Dormann, some posts on X purport to lead to a legitimate website, but actually redirect somewhere else. In Dormann's example, an advertisement posted by a verified X user claims to lead to forbes.com. When Dormann clicks the link, however, it takes him to a different link to open a Telegram channel that is, "helping individuals earn maximum profit in the crypto market," he said. In short, the "Forbes" link leads to crypto spam.
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
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“These properties are partnerships, they have leveraged debt. All of that has to be unraveled,” Turley told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. “So these aren’t just this, you know, one to one Trump versus James type of equation. So in order to seize that property, she’s going to be pulled into court, there’s going to be challenges. It’s not going to happen overnight. Everyone is celebrating this idea that she’s going to padlock Trump Tower. It’s not likely to happen, and it’s certainly not likely to remain very long.”
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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If you watched certain YouTube videos, investigators demanded your data
The videos were sent by undercover police to a suspected cryptocurrency launderer under the username "elonmuskwhm." In conversations with the bitcoin trader, investigators sent links to public YouTube tutorials on mapping via drones and augmented reality software, Forbes details. The videos were watched more than 30,000 times, presumably by thousands of users unrelated to the case. YouTube's parent company Google was ordered by federal investigators to quietly hand over all such viewer data for the period of Jan. 1 to Jan. 8, 2023, but Forbes couldn't confirm if Google had complied.
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You did. The new Windows update made me think I'd installed malware
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Every Super Mario Maker Level Has Been Cleared Before Wii U's Online Shutdown
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Facebook Is Filled with AI-Generated Garbage–and Older Adults Are Being Tricked
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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Zero-day exploit by Geohot to crash AMD GPUs on firmware level
That's what we need to make the 7900XTX a performant and reliable ML accelerator. No need to touch signing, no need to open source PSP or SMU. If 0 relevant docs or code by Monday, we are done, dumping 72 7900XTX on eBay. Not going to help those who don't want to help themselves. If using AMD is harder than taping out our own chip, we'll skip AMD and tape out a chip.
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
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Crypto's broken moral compass — polynya
In December 2022, I posted a tweet about wanting to see a cultural shift. Things have only gotten worse since then. Even the people who were willing to speak up back then have said nothing about this latest wave of insanity. At this point, this evil in crypto is banal and normalized. This has become the identity of crypto - sure, some useful stuff, but mostly just infested with scams and absolute degeneracy.
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Thiel, Bezos and Zuckerberg join parade of insiders selling tech stocks
Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are leading a parade of corporate insiders who have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of their companies’ shares this quarter, in a signal that recent stock market exuberance could be peaking. As markets hit record highs, the ratio of corporate insider selling to insider buying is at the highest level since the first quarter of 2021, according to Verity LLC, which tracks insider trading disclosures.
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Retailers Turn to 'Extreme Bargains' to Lure Shoppers as Spending Underwhelms (Archive)
retailers’ trouble is spreading across the Atlantic amid weaker consumer spending. Shops have been pushed to the breaking point after inflation has boosted their expenses and weighed on consumer spending, and even heavy discounting isn’t enough to save them. Their difficulty comes after bumps that have included pandemic closures and supply chain snarls. “Even the strongest and highest profile brands up and down the country are struggling,” said Julie Palmer, a partner at consulting firm Begbies Traynor Group Plc, referring to the UK. She cited a “difficult macroeconomic environment, reduced discretionary consumer spending, higher interest rates and renewed supply chain challenges.”
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State Farm cuts 72,000 CA home insurance policies citing outdated regulations
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Lisa Murkowski, done with Trump, won’t rule out leaving GOP | CNN Politics
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, aghast at Donald Trump’s candidacy and the direction of her party, won’t rule out bolting from the GOP. The veteran Alaska Republican, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she “absolutely” would not vote for him. “I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told CNN. “I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”
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The Left Has a Meltdown Over NBC Hiring McDaniel, So MSNBC Says No to Ronna
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Lawmakers pass milestone privacy bill overshadowed by TikTok fever
Though last week’s TikTok bill captured far more attention, with app users flooding phone lines and former President Donald Trump unexpectedly weighing in on behalf of the video-sharing app, it may be the lower-profile data bill that has more influence and a clearer path to passage. The data-privacy bill passed Wednesday, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, H.R. 7520, is highly targeted: It prevents any companies considered data brokers — third-party buyers and sellers of personal information — from selling that information to China, Russia or other “foreign adversaries.”
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The song was a protest anthem that questioned: 'We want to know, Kamala, what did you come to do? We want to know, Kamala, what is going to happen?'
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'The final act': fears that US journalism crisis could destabilize 2024 election
Last week, NBC reported on a seminar in New York that gamed out what could happen if AI-created misinformation disrupts November’s presidential vote. A former Department of Homeland Security official, Miles Taylor, told NBC that it was “jarring” for attendees to see how rapidly such scenarios “could spiral out of control and really dominate the election cycle”. Nor has an anticipated election year spike in readership – “the Trump bump” (in essence the the positive economic effects of selling negativity in the media) – materialized. Nor may it. Only about a third (35%) of US voters say they are satisfied with the people who will be running for president, according to Pew Research.
Alongside that, a decline of regional news outlets has led to what is termed “news deserts”, which are defined by UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media as “a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level”.
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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(2000) Case Study: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps?
During two years of trading, Lebed made a minimum of 27 trades, and netted nearly $800,000. The SEC later investigated these 27 trades and eventually declared eleven of them as illegal trades and forced to Lebed to pay approximately $272,000 in fines and over $12,000 in interest. In particular, these eleven trades occurred during the five and a half month period between August 23, 1999, and February 4, 2000. While Lebed never admitted or denied the findings by the SEC, he consented to entry of the findings and the imposition of sanctions.
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Cargo thefts spiked 68% in Q4, led by food and beverage freight
When trade operator Mary Sandoval recently sent a truck to pick up a load of avocados from a warehouse in Laredo, Texas, she was appalled when the load and tractor-trailer vanished without a trace almost immediately after leaving the facility. It’s the second time Sandoval’s Texas-based logistics brokerage has been the target of strategic cargo thieves over the past year, leaving the company with over $200,000 in damages that they had to pay out of pocket.
Cargo thefts surged 68% year over year (y/y) in the fourth-quarter of 2023 compared with 2022, according to CargoNet, a subsidiary of data analytics firm Verisk. During the third quarter of 2023, cargo thefts were up 57% y/y compared to the same year-ago period. “The trends tell us that cargo theft is currently at a 10-year high,” Scott Cornell, transportation lead and crime and theft specialist at Travelers, told FreightWaves.
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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US urges Ukraine to stop attacking Russian oil refineries, report says – POLITICO
In recent months, Kyiv has ramped up its strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, hitting several oil refineries across multiple regions, causing financial damage to the Kremlin, which still trades oil and gas despite sanctions. Now Washington has urged officials in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) to put a stop to these attacks, the Financial Times reported Friday, citing three unnamed sources.
The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning that the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions. The repeated warnings from Washington were delivered to senior officials at Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, and its military intelligence directorate, known as the GUR, the people told the Financial Times. Both intelligence units have steadily expanded their own drone programmes to strike Russian targets on land, sea and in the air since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. One person said that the White House had grown increasingly frustrated by brazen Ukrainian drone attacks that have struck oil refineries, terminals, depots and storage facilities across western Russia, hurting its oil production capacity.
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American Military-Civil Fusion at Risk with the Loss of the Shift Fellowship - War on the Rocks
I often get asked by prospective investors, other venture capitalists, or Department of Defense officials why defense technology has suddenly become salient to venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Over the last five years, venture capitalists have invested approximately $135 billion in defense technologies compared to a paltry $40 billion in the prior five-year period. The answer is Shift, and the Defense Ventures Program that Shift built. For the last five years, the Defense Ventures Program has been embedding high-potential active-duty, reserve, and civilian members of the Department of Defense inside the top venture capital firms and defense-focused startups around the country on one- or two-month high-impact fellowships.
Due to a combination of malignant neglect and gross incompetence inside the Department of Defense, the program was not renewed for 2024. The loss of this program is a perfect demonstration of the capriciousness of the valley of death in action and shows why even successful programs can fail to transition. Unfortunately, the fellowship’s death comes at a pivotal moment for the relationship between the department and the innovation ecosystem. It’s not hyperbole to say that the loss of this program, and what that tells founders and investors about the department’s credibility as a counterpart, is likely to destroy critical trust between the two sides.
- People working at "public" companies who don't work for the company, but for the government; helping ensure the alignment of the company's goals to those of the Government. Totally Not Fascist
World
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Sugar in India, Fueled by Child Marriage and Hysterectomies - The New York Times
Young girls are pushed into illegal child marriages so they can work alongside their husbands cutting and gathering sugar cane. Instead of receiving wages, they work to pay off advances from their employers — an arrangement that requires them to pay a fee for the privilege of missing work, even to see a doctor.
Labor abuse is endemic in Maharashtra, not limited to any particular mill or farm, according to a local government report and interviews with dozens of workers. Maharashtra sugar has been sweetening cans of Coke and Pepsi for more than a decade, according to an executive at NSL Sugars, which operates mills in the state. PepsiCo, in response to a list of findings from The Times, confirmed that one of its largest international franchisees buys sugar from Maharashtra. The franchisee just opened its third manufacturing and bottling plant there. A new Coke factory is under construction in Maharashtra, and Coca-Cola confirmed that it, too, buys sugar in the state. These companies use the sugar primarily for products sold in India, industry officials say.
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Canada has a national maple syrup reserve. It's almost empty
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Bleak images show snapshots of daily life in the closed world of North Korea
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In Australia, 'granny flats' gain traction as rents skyrocket
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'Happy Ramadan' lights up London's Piccadilly Circus for the first time ever | UK News | Sky News
Haiti
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Haiti’s ‘deal with the Devil’: The malicious tale that emerges every crisis - The Washington Post
“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it,” the televangelist turned seismologist told viewers of “The 700 Club,” his news and talk show. “They were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’” Robertson continued, “True story. And so the Devil said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal.’ But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another.”
it goes back much further than that, to what many historians believe was a real event: a clandestine assembly of Africans in 1791 plotting against their European enslavers in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue. As practitioners of Vodou, the admixture of West African and Catholic beliefs indigenous to the country, they sacrificed an animal. The gathering has been misrepresented by frightened White people ever since. Now, as criminal violence in Haiti spikes, its embattled prime minister prepares to step down and the United States tries once again to stand up a new government, the tale is resurfacing — aided, this time, by social media.
Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean
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Chinese-Owned Tanker Hit By Houthi Missile Despite Safe Passage Deal
What remains unclear is why the Houthis would attack the vessel if there were a safe passage deal. Also, the ship was broadcasting "India All Crew China," which Houthi rebels could see.
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
Health / Medicine
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Filling Nuclear Power’s $5 Trillion Hole Is Beyond the Banks - Bloomberg
Nuclear-energy officials arrived in Brussels this week amid a growing wave of public support for atomic power. They left humbled by the tepid reaction of bankers assessing the price tag of their ambitions. The International Atomic Energy Agency convened a summit to build momentum for a low-emissions technology that many expect will be critical for hitting climate targets. A group of mostly Western countries pledged to triple nuclear generation by 2050. But lenders balked at the eyewatering cost of doing so.
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With organic fields next door, conventional farms dial up the pesticide use
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US Kleenex plant contaminated drinking water with PFAS, lawsuit says
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Turns Out Nature Didn’t ‘Heal’ While Humans Were in Lockdown.
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Food prices will climb everywhere as temperatures rise due to climate change