2024-03-29
Cool
- (Video) a moment of unfettered joy: Skateboarding dog
etc
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How the Baltimore Bridge Collapse Could Snarl U.S. Supply Chains - The New York Times
what’s obvious to those of us in the shipping industry is that chronic underinvestment in America’s ports makes them ill-suited to handle the surging volumes they are likely to experience, as traffic planned for Baltimore is shifted to neighboring ports. America’s ports are vital to American interests and are the backbone of our economy. Yet some of our largest ports can only handle vessels two-thirds the size of the world’s largest and most efficient container ships, which today primarily sail on the Asia to Europe trade lane, avoiding the United States altogether.
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The window for great-grandmothers is closing - by Yakko
How old did people live to be in the 1900s? What about the 1500s? And the 800s? Given all the advances we’ve had in medicine and other areas of society, more people can reach old age now than ever before. And what that means is, while people had children even earlier, there likely weren’t as many people who got old enough to have grandkids even in that case. So all in all, out of all the time humans have been on Earth, it is possible that the window in history (be it a few or several hundred years) during which there were probably the most great-grandparents is kind of around now, and it’s seemingly about to end. Some people believe we can make significant jumps in longevity over the next century, but provided that doesn’t happen, we’ll likely see fewer and fewer great-grandmothers around.
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Actually, the internet's always been this bad
But a a fascinating new study out today in Nature complicates the presumption that online discourse is bad and worsening. A team of Italian researchers evaluated more than half a billion comments spanning 30 years, and concluded that online discourse is no more "toxic" today than it was in the early 1990s. "The toxicity level in online conversations has been relatively consistent over time, challenging the perception of a continual decline in the quality of discourse," said Walter Quattrociocchi, one of the study's authors, in an email. "While the platforms and how we use them have evolved, human behaviors in these spaces have remained surprisingly stable."
patterns proved surprisingly consistent across time and platforms: Overall, the study found that the prevalence of both toxic speech and highly toxic users were extremely low. But the longer any conversation goes on, on virtually any platform, the more toxic it becomes. At the same time, conversations tend to involve fewer, more active participants as they stretch on.
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Dogs can detect trauma stress by smelling humans’ breath, study shows.
Horseshit
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The 'Always On, Always in' Era Is Over (Archive)
People across workforces large and small, blue- and white-collar alike, are in no mood for the status quo. It’s what can at best be described as transitional and at worst somewhat mutinous. According to Gallup, there’s an engagement slump globally. America’s ennui is particular and significant because the US is so influential on the rest of the world when it comes to how we work. It’s not just that American innovation and technology for over a century has been scaling up everything from the car, the corporation and the credit card to the computer and communication. The corporate law, HR policies and management styles that dominate the world are largely American in origin. America’s live-to-work ethic fueled this influence.
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Nobody Wants to Buy the Future: Why Science Fiction Literature Is Vanishing
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7-Eleven, Inc. Announces the Arrival of New Big Bite Hot Dog Sparkling Water
The Big Bite Hot Dog Sparkling Water combines the delicious and mouthwatering experience of 7-Eleven’s iconic Big Bite Hot Dog into one refreshing beverage – ketchup and mustard included. Gone are the days of alternating bites of a hot dog with sips of a beverage, now those on the go can swap the bun for bubbles.
- If this, and the Doritos likker and similar, weren't mentioned in Revelations; they should have been.
Electric / Self Driving cars
celebrity gossip
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Jeffrey Epstein's Island Visitors Exposed by Data Broker | WIRED
Near Intelligence, for example, tracked devices visiting Little St. James from locations in 80 cities crisscrossing 26 US states and territories, with Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, Michigan, and New York topping the list. The coordinates point to mansions in gated communities in Michigan and Florida; homes in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts; a nightclub in Miami; and the sidewalk across the street from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
The coordinates also point to various Epstein properties beyond Little St. James, including his 8,000-acre New Mexico ranch and a waterfront mansion on El Brillo Way in Palm Beach, where prosecutors said in an indictment that Epstein trafficked numerous “minor girls” for the purposes of molesting and abusing them. Near’s data is notably missing any locations in Europe, where citizens are safeguarded by comprehensive privacy laws.
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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Free Speech Is Under Attack in the U.S., but It’s on the Ropes Elsewhere.
"The genie is already out of the bottle and there is little likelihood of getting it back in," moans The Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin about U.S. speech protections. "The greater likelihood is that extremes of free speech will continue to be tolerated." Let's hope the unhappy authoritarian columnist is right that the U.S. will remain a bastion of protection for free speech. Because nobody else looks eager to take on that responsibility.
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Twitter Files Extra: How the “Censorship Industrial Complex” Case Was Built.
Musk
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FCC dismisses Starlink mobile application
Starlink's mobile ambitions were dealt at least a temporary blow yesterday when the Federal Communications Commission dismissed SpaceX's application to use several spectrum bands for mobile service. The FCC said the SpaceX requests "do not substantially comply with Commission requirements established in rulemaking proceedings which determined that the 1.6/2.4 GHz and 2 GHz bands are not available for additional MSS [mobile-satellite service] applications."
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Elon Musk offers users free premium features on X, crypto scammers included
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
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Trump's DJT stock creates a unique new ethical nightmare
That a fledgling, unprofitable social media platform can make the former president billions of dollars on paper is a marvel of the stock market. Trump can’t realize the windfall by selling his shares or borrowing against them for six months unless the company’s board, which is packed with his supporters, gives him the OK. It probably can’t get Trump cash soon enough to make the drastically reduced $175 million bond he needs to post for the civil tax fraud charges levied on him and his other companies. Other penalties in that civil fraud decision, including the suspension of Trump’s ability to do business in New York, have been paused for now.
None of that has stopped what some experts have referred to as a bubble forming around the Trump Media & Technology Group. It is drawing comparisons to so-called “meme stocks” like GameStop and AMC, which were buoyed for a time by small individual retail investors who poured in so much money that the stocks rapidly outran the companies’ fundamentals.
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
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As with many rumors, there is a kernel of truth. Cancers were more likely to be diagnosed at a later stage (i.e., more aggressive) after Covid-19 hit. It’s likely that many cases of “turbo cancer” were actually just cancers diagnosed at a late stage, as these progress quickly and can make a seemingly healthy person sick very fast. But this started well before vaccines were available.
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Under the revisions, questions about race and ethnicity that previously were asked separately on forms will be combined into a single question. That will give respondents the option to pick multiple categories at the same time, such as “Black,” “American Indian” and “Hispanic.” Research has shown that large numbers of Hispanic people aren’t sure how to answer the race question when that question is asked separately because they understand race and ethnicity to be similar and they often pick “some other race” or do not answer the question.
A Middle Eastern and North African category will be added to the choices available for questions about race and ethnicity. People descended from places such as Lebanon, Iran, Egypt and Syria had been encouraged to identify as white, but now will have the option of identifying themselves in the new group. Results from the 2020 census, which asked respondents to elaborate on their backgrounds, suggest that 3.5 million residents identify as Middle Eastern and North African. The changes also strike from federal forms the words “Negro” and “Far East,” now widely regarded as pejorative, as well as the terms “majority” and “minority,” because they fail to reflect the nation’s complex racial and ethnic diversity, some officials say. The revisions also encourage the collection of detailed race and ethnicity data beyond the minimum standards, such as “Haitian” or “Jamaican” for someone who checks “Black.”
Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, recently alluded to arguments made by people who allege Democrats are promoting illegal immigration to weaken the power of white people. As president, Trump unsuccessfully tried to disqualify people who were in the United States illegally from being included in the 2020 census.Momentum for changing the race and ethnicity categories grew during the Obama administration in the mid-2010s, but was halted after Trump became president in 2017. It was revived after Democratic President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Canadia: Snapchat, TikTok, Meta being sued for $4.5B by school boards
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Ecommerce tariffs will kick in from 2026, says WTO chief
The first customs duties on digital products such as online films and software downloads will hit consumers and businesses in 2026, increasing prices in some countries, the head of the World Trade Organization has predicted. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said some governments would refuse to extend a 30-year exemption when it expired in two years' time. A further extension requires unanimity among members. “I don’t think the membership is prepared to continue arguing over this every couple of years. So they’ve agreed on this date. It sends a signal to business on what they need to do,” the WTO’s director-general told the Financial Times. “Two years is a very reasonable timeframe.”
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How the Atlantic Went from Broke to Profitable in Three Years
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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Aftermath of being on the front page of Hacker News for a day
Based on this experience, a wildly successful launch would feature 500+ stars, 50+ upvotes, and 5 strangers running Skyvern.
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
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FTX's victims may get their money back. Judge sentencing SBF might not care
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Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years for FTX fraud
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Bankman-Fried Is Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison over FTX Collapse
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Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years for multi-billion dollar FTX fraud | Reuters
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Sam Bankman-Fried: Disgraced 'crypto king' jailed for 25 years
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"I'm Sorry" - FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison
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Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in jail for crypto fraud
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Sam Bankman-Fried is going to prison. The crypto industry isn't any better
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
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Opinion | After the Moscow Attack, Putin’s Next Escalation Is Coming - The New York Times
Difficult months lie ahead for Ukraine. If anything, the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow — which brutally upended Mr. Putin’s claims to provide for Russia’s security — is likely to make matters worse. With the initiative on the battlefield and much of the world looking elsewhere, Russia may soon start to make good on its advantage. On Wednesday, Russia struck the northeastern city of Kharkiv with aerial bombs for the first time since 2022. It could be a premonition of things to come.
Health / Medicine
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Scientists weigh up current status of blue whale populations around the world
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North Sea oil rigs threatened with shutdown unless they start running on green electricity
Currently, more than 280 platforms extracting oil and gas from UK waters produce 3pc of the country’s total emissions, the equivalent of about 17 million tonnes of CO2 a year. However, UK oil and gas fields also account for half of the country’s energy needs. Despite this, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which regulates the offshore sector, has told oil and producers that they must convert platforms to run on green electricity or low-carbon fuels.
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Vegetables are losing their nutrients. Can the decline be reversed?
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Scientists Can Now Hack Weather Satellites to Quantify Methane Leaks