2024-04-10

Horseshit

• "The Science is Settled" Why this eclipse could prove Einstein was correct

• After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate safer table saws

• Amid Marijuana Legalization, a Civic Problem Lingers: That Smell (Archive)

• Study sheds light on the white dwarf star, likely destroyer of our solar system

• 'Fear is the basis of human psychology': how self-doubt haunts the NBA

• Sunny Hostin Blames Climate Change For Solar Eclipse

Boeing

• FAA probing Boeing whistleblower's quality claims on 787, 777 jets

• Whistleblower claims Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is flawed. The FAA is investigating

Electric / Self Driving cars

• India's electric rickshaws are leaving EVs in the dust, like YC Electric

• EV maker Lucid beats first-quarter delivery estimates as price cuts boost demand

Obit

• As in "Higgs Boson" Peter Higgs Has Died

  • Peter Higgs Has Died

  • Peter Higgs, Physicist Who Shed Light on Dark Matter, Dies at 94

  • Statement on the Death of Professor Peter Higgs from The University of Edinburgh

  • Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the 'God particle,' has died

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• We Can Meet the Coming Storm of Fraud and Disinformation

  how worried should we be about the impending deluge of disinformation and fraud? As I have argued above, I believe that effective, technical countermeasures can be developed. The question is: will they be? AV software is a $4Bn industry globally because it is in everyone’s interests to secure their own devices and data. Can the same be said of disinformation? Maybe not. It’s discouraging to observe how eager we all are to blindly accept information which conforms to our existing beliefs. Do I really want to pay for software whose purpose is to challenge my preconceptions and spoil my outrage? Maybe for some of us but I doubt for all. For media and social platforms, however, the incentive would seem to be there. Even for the most libertarian among them, there would seem to be no conflict between championing free speech and flagging AI-generated content. Sure, they might have to be chivvied to act by governments and regulators but such portals are natural places for AI detectors to be running.

Musk

• Brazil's top court says 'every company is subject to the constitution'

• 'Brazil's Darth Vader' Orders Investigation Into Elon Musk After Defying X Court Order | ZeroHedge

  "The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil," wrote de Moraes - who Musk called "Brazil's Darth Vader" over the weekend.

• Elon Musk says his posts did more to 'financially impair' X than help it

• The Black Market That Delivers Elon Musk's Starlinks to U.S. Foes

• Amsterdam public transport drops Musk's X over constant hateful messages

• Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall

• X automatically changed 'Twitter' to 'X' in domain names, breaking legit URLs

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Highlights from the Comments on the Lab Leak Debate

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Sex and gender: The medical establishment's reluctance to speak honestly

• England Limits Youth Gender Medications, Part of Big Shift in Europe

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Embattled Harvard honesty professor accused of plagiarism

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• TikTok is getting closer to launching an Instagram rival

• New Net Neutrality Rules Won't Harm Telecom Giants in the Slightest

• FCC chair rejects call to impose Universal Service fees on broadband

• How NPR Lost Americas Trust

• Spotify to hike UK subscription prices in May

• The Collapse of Small Press Distribution

• Mattel debuts collaborative way to play Scrabble

• Got an unpatched LG 'smart' television? It could be watching you back

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• San Francisco's light rail to upgrade from floppy disks

• Irish power crunch could be prompting AWS to ration compute resources

• Python 3.13 starts to support Android officially

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Please stop throwing money at AI founders with no commercial plan, besides AGI

• South Korea to invest $7B in AI in bid to retain edge in chips

• AI hardware company from Jony Ive, Sam Altman seeks $1 billion in funding

• Google's new AI video generator is more HR than Hollywood

• OpenAI prepares to fight for its life as legal troubles mount

Crypto con games

• Young Americans as likely to own cryptocurrency as they are to own real estate

Economicon / Business / Finance

• TikTok staff face eye-watering US tax bills on shares they cannot sell

  ByteDance, the app’s Beijing-based parent, is facing a backlash from US employees over a stock awards programme that blocks them from cashing in their shares while leaving them exposed to a large potential tax bill, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former workers.

• Doubts Creep In About a Fed Rate Cut This Year.

• Amazon's Just Walk Out stores relied on '1k people in India watching', not AI

• Costco selling as much as $200M in gold bars monthly, Wells Fargo estimates

• Norfolk Southern Agrees to $600M Ohio Derailment Settlement

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Biden and Kishida likely to discuss reviving Texas bullet train project

• US to award Samsung up to $6.6B chip subsidy for Texas expansion

• How Presidents Got Consumed By Culture Wars

• Democratic tensions over Israel threaten to boil over at Chicago convention.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Multimillion-dollar L.A. heist was seamless, sophisticated, stealthy

• Bay Area Workers Charged for Building Secret Apartments Inside Train Stations

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• China and Russia agree to boost ties in opposition to West

• Iran's Better, Stealthier Drones Are Remaking Global Warfare

World

• U.K. Lawmaker Admits Giving Out Colleagues' Numbers in 'Honey Trap' Scandal

  • UK politician admits giving MPs' personal phone numbers to someone on Grindr

• German Business Is Tangled in Red Tape

• El Salvador offers 5k passports to skilled foreign workers

• European ports turned into 'car parks' as vehicle imports pile up

• Saudi cuts back NEOM desert city plans by 98.6 percent

Israel

• The Fire This Time: Aaron Bushnell and the Rage that Burns Within All of US

  Bushnell was not merely an American. But an American soldier. He wore that badge of shame on his chest. The stain of guilt from “complicity in genocide” inflected his voice and infected his camouflaged uniform. Unlike most Americans, Bushnell understood his nation’s central role in Gaza’s rolling demise. The reality of 40,000 slain Palestinians burned him with guilt, and buoyed him to undo his military service in radical fashion.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia accused of using chemical gas attacks against Ukrainian soldiers

• Russian trolls target U.S. support for Ukraine, Kremlin documents show - The Washington Post

  In an ongoing campaign that seeks to influence congressional and other political debates to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism, stir fear over the United States’ border security and attempt to amplify U.S. economic and racial tensions, according to a trove of internal Kremlin documents obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post.

  The documents — numbering more than 100 and dating between May 2022 and August 2023 — were provided to The Post to expose Kremlin propaganda operations aimed at undermining support for Ukraine in the United States, as well as their scale and methods. The files are part of a series of leaks that have allowed a rare glimpse into Moscow’s parallel efforts to weaken support for Ukraine in France and Germany, as well as destabilize Ukraine itself.

• Wider war in Europe ‘no longer a fantasy’, warns EU’s top diplomat

  Europe must prepare for potential war, as a full-scale conflict on the continent beyond Ukraine is “no longer a fantasy”, the EU’s chief diplomat has warned. “Russia threatens Europe,” both through its ongoing war in Ukraine and hybrid attacks on EU member states, Josep Borrell said on Tuesday in a speech in Brussels. “War is certainly looming around us,” said Borrell. “A high-intensity, conventional war in Europe is no longer a fantasy.”

China

• Taiwanese groups consider overseas headquarters to hedge against Chinese attack

  “We have clients who are looking into or planning for setting up a second headquarters,” said Rauniei Kuo, a partner and head of the family office business at KPMG in Taiwan. The groups are “in manufacturing [and] currently looking for a location for a second headquarters in south-east Asia, just in case an emergency happens in Taiwan, to give them an alternative command system abroad that they can immediately activate”.

• China's ageing population: A demographic crisis is unfolding for Xi

Health / Medicine

• A deep dive into the genetics of alcohol consumption

• (Jul 2023) Body can build up tolerance to heat

• Nicotine pouches are growing in popularity. Are they safe?

• Cannabis use is linked to a lower likelihood of experiencing cognitive decline

  • Cannabis Use Linked to Lower Dementia Risk

• In the womb, a brother's hormones can shape a sister's future

• Metabolism in adulthood does not slow as commonly believed, study finds

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• European court rules human rights violated by climate inaction

  • HN comments

  • Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

• Tenth consecutive monthly heat record alarms and confounds climate scientists

• Nepal to remove trash and dead bodies from tallest mountain

• March marks yet another record in global heat

• Connections between the meat industry, lobbying efforts and EU policy

• Octopus cannibalism among fears for pioneer cephalopod farm

• Eco-friendly startups are turning to treeless toilet paper