2024-04-14
etc
Horseshit
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Survey Shows Gen Z Is Shifting Toward Non-Monogamy, But Will It Work Long-Term?
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How a traditional craft became a Gen-Z statement
Embroidery is enjoying a resurgence as a new generation taps into its potential – both for upcycling clothes and for making an empowering declaration.
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Are smartphones, social media destroying teen mental health? The debate, explained. - Vox
It’s not clear that there has actually been an international increase in mental illness among young people. There is no question that adolescent suicide rates have risen in the United States in recent years. But, as Stetson University psychologist Christopher Ferguson told Vox, America’s recent suicide increase is not a phenomenon specific to teens — suicide has been increasing in the US among virtually all age groups.
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lately we’ve seen the rise of a global elite culture. Top university graduates from around the world mix at events like Davos, set convergent policy worldwide, and serve as interchangeable professionals in global organizations. The small peasant cultures of yesterday were poor, reluctant to change, and subject to frequent epidemics, famines, and invasions. They faced strong selection pressures—one false move could kill them. In contrast, today’s handful of huge, rich, fast-changing cultures face weak selection pressures and can survive many false moves. Paradoxically, that’s just why you should maybe distrust them.
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10 Ways Calvin and Hobbes Has Aged Poorly
What were you attempting to achieve with your piece? To get clicks for Comic Book Resources, of course, but I can’t believe that’s the only reason. Do you really think Calvin “is way too violent for a 6-year-old”? Have you ever met a 6-year-old? Do you really think Calvin “might be reviled for his actions with Susie” (Calvin’s more mature and well-behaved female rival)? Even Chairman Mao wouldn’t have believed that 6-year-old boys and 6-year-old girls could be conditioned out of squabbling with one another. Do you really think that Calvin being “unsupervised in an enormous forest” is an example of “terrible parenting that has aged horribly”? Never mind that it would seem bigger to him, as a child, than it would to us. Do you think helicopter parenting has been a great development?
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Guarding Royal Families for $1k a Day: Inside Executive Protection Jobs
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Why drivers risk tickets instead of parking in their garages
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The All-Volunteer Army of Tech Workers That Is Turning Texas Blue
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Tupperware Is in Trouble - The Atlantic
In theory, Tupperware should be even more popular now than it was decades ago. The market for storage containers, on the whole, is thriving. Practices such as meal-prepping and buying in bulk have further centered reusable food containers in America’s eating habits. Obsessive kitchen organization is among social media’s favorite pastimes, and plastic storage containers in every conceivable size and shape play an outsize role in the super-popular videos depicting spotless, abundant refrigerators and pantries on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. But Tupperware has fallen on hard times. At the end of last month, for a second year in a row, the company warned financial regulators that it would be unable to file its annual report on time and raised doubts about its ability to continue as a business, citing a “challenging financial condition.” Sales are in decline. These should be boom times for Tupperware. What happened?
Tupperware did not respond to an interview request on the company’s current woes, but the problems it faces are not difficult to see. The first is that, in a lot of ways, its products are still those products. Much of Tupperware’s range still looks at least a little bit like it did decades ago—textured, pliant plastic that obscures what’s inside. Some of these products are a clear nostalgia play to tempt younger shoppers with the retro, rainbow-colored bowls and tubs their mom used, but many of the products just look dingy, clunky, old. And nostalgia is not necessarily something buyers want in plastic kitchenware.
Electric / Self Driving cars
celebrity gossip
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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Yesterday, Brazil’s President Lula called for criminalizing lies. Given that everybody lies, Lula is proposing to give the government the power to arrest anyone he wants. Thousands of Workers Party activists took to X yesterday to demand that I be arrested for things I said during my testimony before the Brazilian Senate. And today, the head of X in Brazil announced he had quit, fearing for his safety.
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Small private colleges are struggling to keep their doors open
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(Jul 2022) Why Do We Have Such Terrible Evidence on Homework Effectiveness?
Students may spend less time on homework because they’re smart, find it easy, and can finish it very quickly. Or they might spend more time on homework because they love learning and care about the subject matter a lot. Or they might spend more time because they’re second-generation Asian immigrants with taskmaster parents who insist on it being perfect. Or they might spend less time because they’re in some kind of horrible living environment not conducive to sitting at a desk quietly. All of these make “time spent doing homework” a poor proxy for “amount of homework that teacher assigned” in a way that directly confounds a homework-test scores correlation. Most studies don’t bother to adjust for these factors. The ones that do choose a few of them haphazardly, make wild guesses about what model to use, and then come up with basically random results.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Axios Sees A.I. Coming, and Shifts Its Strategy (Archive)
In the view of Jim VandeHei, the chief executive of Axios, artificial intelligence will “eviscerate the weak, the ordinary, the unprepared in media.” Mr. VandeHei says the only way for media companies to survive is to focus on delivering journalistic expertise, trusted content and in-person human connection. For Axios, that translates into more live events, a membership program centered on its star journalists and an expansion of its high-end subscription newsletters.
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Google blocking links to California news outlets from search results
The California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA) would require large online platforms to pay a “journalism usage fee” for linking to news sites based in the Golden state. The bill cleared the California assembly in 2023. To become law, it would need to pass in the Senate before being signed by the governor, Gavin Newsom. In a blog post published Friday, Jaffer Zaidi, Google’s head of global news partnerships, explained that the company is experimenting with removing local news links for a “small percentage” of California users in preparation for the bill potentially passing.
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Future Apple Pencil may work on iPhone and never need charging
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NPR in Turmoil After It Is Accused of Liberal Bias - The New York Times
NPR is facing both internal tumult and a fusillade of attacks by prominent conservatives this week after a senior editor publicly claimed the broadcaster had allowed liberal bias to affect its coverage, risking its trust with audiences.
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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The Right Can’t Fight Like the Left: Different Ends, Different Means | National Review
If what you want is family, faith, order, and commerce, you prefer the values of civil discourse and the resolution of disputes by the judgments of elections and written law. These are better means for the Right than continual disruption and street theater because they are the tactics that can coexist with the ends sought. If your aim is to allow people to live — as much as possible — outside of politics and government, and to enjoy their liberties with their families, their churches, and their communities — well, that’s not consistent with demanding that they live the 24/7 politicized life. This is why boycotts and the like are so hard to sustain on the right: because people who are involved in politics defensively don’t want to make every choice in their life in a political fashion; indeed, they feel that if they are doing so, they have already lost.
We also wish to be free of arbitrary government power. That freedom can be the product of a government of your friends, but friends come and go in power; it is more secure when it is a government of laws, upon which all may fall back to claim protection at need. The stability and evenhandedness of law promote public order as well as the protection of life and limb and property. Because the loss of those things is felt dearly on our side, the remedy for the erosion of law is to insist upon its punctilious enforcement, rather than to retaliate in kind.
It is useful for conservatives to study Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and other templates for left-side activism, because we should know the other side’s playbook, and because there are always some lessons we can adapt to our own side. But the two sides of our politics seek different destinations; we should not expect them to follow the same road. If we try, we may find ourselves far from home with no way back.
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The 401(k) industry owns Congress: $300B windfall to the wealthy
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Senator wants an online privacy law. She's slowed efforts for years
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I stopped paying taxes a decade ago. The results shocked me
I basically got away with it. The only time I received a call from the IRS was after I filed to get my stimulus check. They told me I owed them some money—like, $700—and I said I’d get back to them. That was it. That was the extent of the conversation. They didn’t say, “Hey, we realized that you haven’t paid your taxes in years.” It was weird. I thought to myself, Man, I’m pretty sure I owe you a lot more than that.
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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The US Air Force is bringing a 40-year-old supersonic bomber out of mothballs. This is why
This is an operation the Air Force has done just three times in recent decades. Besides the B-1, the service returned to flying status two stored B-52s – one in 2020 and another in 2015 – in order to replace bombers that it lost to accidents.
World
Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean
Israel
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Iran launches drone attack at Israel, expected to unfold 'over hours'
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Iran-Israel Live Updates: Iran Begins Missile, Drone Strikes
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Iran launches a drone attack on Israel
More than 200 projectiles in total were launched by Iran, the "vast majority" of which were intercepted or shot down outside of Israel's borders, said Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari. Officials reported minor damage to a military base in southern Israel and one injury to a 10-year-old child, who was reported to be in critical condition.
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IDF Planning "Significant Response" Against Iran As Explosions Ring Out Across Israel | ZeroHedge
RAN’S UN MISSION: “Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”