2024-04-07

etc

• The wealthy are starting to have more babies than the poor again

• Heathrow: British Airways and Virgin Atlantic planes collide

  The incident involved a British Airways plane with 121 passengers on board and a Virgin Atlantic plane. Heathrow said there were no injuries and no delays. Virgin Atlantic said its empty Boeing 787-9 was being towed from the stand at Terminal 3 when the collision happened.

• Falling fertility rates pose major challenges for the global economy, report

Horseshit

• How climate change is hitting vulnerable Indonesian trans sex workers | The Independent

  Trans women like Patiha are among the most affected by extreme weather linked to climate change, as well as suffering disproportionately when disasters strike. “No one is coming out during the longer rainy season,” said Patiha. “It is very hard to make money during that unpredictable weather.” Indonesia is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and trans women, who tend to face more stigma and marginalisation than trans men or other LGBTQ+ Indonesians, are also among those hardest hit by extreme weather.

• Insurers Are Spying on Your Home from the Sky

• Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on? | Hacker News

• Doctors warned to stop telling obese patients 'eat less, move more'

• Uber Eats courier's fight against AI bias shows justice under UK law is hard won

Quebec man has two healthy fingers amputated to relieve 'body integrity dysphoria'

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Waymo logged 1.4M ride hail miles and served 316k passengers in a quarter in SF

• Lease electric cars to rural care workers, UK climate charity says

• EV buyers want SUVs and sedans, not minivans or trucks, survey says

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Microsoft warns that China is using AI to stir the pot ahead of US election

• ‘Misinformation’ Is the Censors’ Excuse - WSJ

  In Murthy, however, the government defends its actions in terms of combatting misinformation and disinformation. The administration and other practitioners and proponents of censorship thereby pretend that they are merely protecting the public from cut-and-dried falsehoods. In doing so, they misrepresent their actions and attempt to evade responsibility for arrogating to themselves the decision of what is safe and sound for people to see and hear. In turn, they portray free-speech advocates as supporting falsehoods, even lies. The “misinformation” stratagem kneecaps them by trapping their objections in the limited dimension of information, forcing them to epistemologize to fight off censorship. Here we are, on the opinion page, talking about how information differs from interpretation and judgment.

• JK Rowling is the heir to George Orwell

Musk

• Tesla’s Sales Fell in First Quarter as Competition Intensified - The New York Times

• Tesla Cancels Mass-Market $25,000 Car, Musk Says This Is a Lie

• Tesla deliveries drop 8.5 percent year over year in first decline since 2020

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Paxlovid not having a positive impact for the healthy and already-vaccinated

• Bird flu may be spreading in cows via milking and herd transport

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Outcry after Michigan university announces plan to restrict protest rights

• Rutgers University President Escorted Out of Town Hall by Police as Student Protesters Take Over: Jewish Rutgers students told to ‘go back home’ by anti-Israel protesters.

• College president vows 'immediate suspension' for protesters

• Why are kids being forced to eat lunch in silence?

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• FCC won't block California net neutrality law, says states can "experiment"

• Xbox has a new team dedicated to game preservation and forward compatibility

• Porn restrictions are leading to a VPN boom

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• autodafe · GitLab

  This project collects resources for converting an autotools build recipe to a bare makefile that can be read and modified by humans.

• M4 always was horrible, and I say that as the original author of GNU M4

• Over 92,000 exposed D-Link NAS devices have a backdoor account

  a backdoor facilitated through a hardcoded account (username: "messagebus" and empty password) and a command injection problem via the "system" parameter. "D-Link recommends retiring these products and replacing them with products that receive firmware updates."

• Deconstructing functions: The xz sshd backdoor rabbithole goes quite a bit deeper

  • HN comments

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Florida man accused of using AI to create child porn

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Biden Takes Aim at SpaceX’s Tax-Free Ride in American Airspace - The New York Times

  President Biden wants companies that use American airspace for rocket launches to start paying taxes into a federal fund that finances the work of air traffic controllers.

• NASA has found the exact problem with Voyager 1 and expects to have it fixed... Eventually.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Distributors Maintain Profit Margins Four Times Higher Than Restaurants

• Fast fashion retailer Shein more than doubles profits as it awaits IPO approval

• The Costco Shoppers Putting $2k Gold Bars in Their Carts

• California is building fewer homes. The state could get even more expensive

• Y Combinator invites alums to invest in new funds

• Samsung: Tech giant sees profits jump by more than 900%

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• 'Impossible to envision': Candidates for Bay Area congressional seat tie for 2nd place

• "The Allegation Is False": CIA Denies Meddling In Hunter Biden IRS, DOJ Investigations | ZeroHedge

  • CIA refutes whistleblower claim pushed by Republicans leading Biden impeachment inquiry | CNN Politics

  House Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden were dealt their latest blow this week when the CIA informed them that an allegation they pushed was false, the latest example of House Republicans citing questionable information to make a serious claim. Without the evidence or the votes to impeach the president, at this point there is no clear consensus on how – or even when – to end the Republican-led impeachment inquiry. This latest development comes after the Department of Justice charged a once trusted FBI informant with lying about the president and his son Hunter Biden’s involvement in business dealings, undercutting a major aspect of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president.

• House Senate leaders nearing deal on landmark online privacy bill

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• In one of LA's largest cash heists, burglars steal as much as $30M from vault

• ‘World’s sexiest albino’ posed as BLM leader to steal nearly $500k through fake charity, prosecutors

World

• Sierra Leone declares emergency over drug kush – made from human bones

• German Intel Chief Defends Efforts to Police Citizens' Thought, Speech Patterns

• Macron says France and its allies 'could have stopped' the 1994 Rwanda genocide

• Mexico Breaks Diplomatic Ties With Ecuador After Police Raid On Quito Embassy  | ZeroHedge

  Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is severing diplomatic relations with Ecuador following a police raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito, Ecuador's capital, where they arrested former Vice President Jorge Glas, who had sought political asylum in the embassy after being indicted on corruption charges. AMLO announced Friday night that Ecuadorian police raided the Mexican embassy to arrest Glas. He has been hiding in the embassy since December as diplomatic relations between the two countries deteriorated. Hours before the raid, Mexico granted Glas political asylum - something the Ecuadorian government viewed as illegal.

  • Who Is Jorge Glas, an Ecuadorean Politician Arrested at Mexico’s Embassy? - The New York Times

  Mr. Glas’s most notable role was as Mr. Correa’s vice president, a position he held from 2013 to 2017. His term as vice president in the subsequent government, led by Lenín Moreno, lasted only a few months. In 2017, he was forced from office and sentenced to six years in prison after being found guilty of receiving over $13.5 million dollars in bribes.

• Zimbabwe launches new gold-backed currency – Zig

• Japan had a vibrant economy. Then it fell into a slump for 30 years

• Canadian Lawmaker Testifies Chinese Students Were Bused in to Elect Him

Israel

• Hamas Actually Believed It Would Conquer Israel. In Preparation, It Divided the Country Into Cantons - Israel News - Haaretz.com

• Australia demands Israel take action against those killing aid workers

• McDonald's forced to buy back all 225 Israel franchise restaurants after they gave free meals to IDF soldiers - sparking boycott in Middle East and other Muslim countries that caused 'meaningful' impact on profits | Daily Mail Online

• Israel must realise how bad things look now

• Still Facing US-Backed Famine, Yemenis Want to Save Gaza from the Same Fate

• Did Israel Intentionally Target a World Central Kitchen Convoy in Gaza?

• Tel Aviv protests: Thousands demand Netanyahu resign

China

• China buys an island with bottled water

Health / Medicine

• Farmed salmon production leads to an overall loss of essential dietary nutrients

• $158,000 ALS drug pulled from market after failing in large clinical trial

• Opinion | The Government Should Pay People for Kidney Donations - The New York Times

• Weight-loss drugs and surgery for kids leave parents with tough decisions

• A town employee lowered the fluoride in water for years

• Scientists Find No Benefit to Time-Restricted Eating

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Melting glaciers could help stop global warming

• Citizen scientist has measured Rockies snowfall for 50 years

• Greta Thunberg: Activist arrested at Hague climate protest

• Clearer skies may be accelerating global warming

• Climate change could cost Texans a month and a half of outdoor time by 2080

• U.S., Canada put 7 year ban on all forms of salmon fishing in Yukon, Alaska