2024-04-24
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Danish Heirs to Sell $72M Rare Coin Collection After 100 Years
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Work begins on a $12B high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles
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Four of the Five Least Expensive Car Brands to Maintain Are American
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Britain's mysterious WW2 'island of death': weaponizing anthrax
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Douglas DC-4 plane crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
Horseshit
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In Silicon Valley, You Can Be Worth Billions and It’s Not Enough - The New York Times
He got a phone call about the imminent sale of a tech company and allegedly traded on the confidential information, according to charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The profit for a few minutes of work: $415,726. The history of Silicon Valley is full of big bets and abrupt downfalls, but rarely has anyone traded his reputation for seemingly so little reward. For Mr. Bechtolsheim, $415,726 was equivalent to a quarter rolling behind the couch. He was ranked No. 124 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index last week, with an estimated fortune of $16 billion. Last month, Mr. Bechtolsheim, 68, settled the insider trading charges without admitting wrongdoing. He agreed to pay a fine of more than $900,000 and will not serve as an officer or director of a public company for five years.
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The ravines swallowing whole neighbourhoods around the world
Electric / Self Driving cars
celebrity gossip
Musk
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Turn of the woke tide will leave many stranded
A friend of mine who teaches in a famous North American liberal arts college, full of achingly cool rich kids, tells me her undergrads are “so over” pronoun rounds, eye-rolling whenever staff try to introduce them in the classroom. Taste-making East Coast broadsheets are dipping nervous toes in the water on subjects such as unfair male advantage in women’s sport and the experimental status of medicalised child transition, having avoided or spiked such stories for years. The once ubiquitous hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has fallen out of favour with many, after accusations that the founders of the namesake organisation misused donations and enriched themselves.
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IT Inclusive Language Guide – IT Connect
Use of the words “black” for something undesirable, wrong or bad, and light or “white” for desirable, right or good perpetuates concepts that have been used to oppress people of color. Using plain language (i.e.,”deny list” or “allow list”) makes the meaning more clear.
“First-class citizen” implies that this particular value is the best quality or in the highest grade, and thus others under this group are second-class or lower class. Using cultural hierarchies in people-people relationships to denote relationships between things is a form of classism, which is prejudice against or in favor of people belonging to a particular social class.
The assumption — if a mom or girlfriend can use a program, anyone can — is both sexist and ageist.
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Google fires more workers who protested its deal with Israel
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People are in denial following the Cass report – it's like deprogramming cult members
Indeed, the reaction to the Cass Review has been notable in that many who have previously intoned trans rights slogans have just changed the subject. Their silence is deafening. The other reaction is almost Trumpian in its delusion. When presented with the biggest survey of the evidence by a top paediatrician, some zealots simply come out with their own “alternative facts”. The disinformation they have spread has meant that Dr Hilary Cass, the report’s author, has been threatened and advised not to travel on public transport.
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Half of Americans say Public K-12 Education is Going In The Wrong Direction
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“Deactivated”: Columbia Reportedly Blocks Jewish Professor from Access to Campus – JONATHAN TURLEY
Professor Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, was reportedly denied access to the main campus on Friday as his school ID was “deactivated” during the recent protests over the Israeli-Gaza conflict. What was equally concerning is that the university did so for his own protection out of concern that, as an outspoken Jewish faculty member, he could not walk around the campus safely. It was reminiscent of the recent controversy of a man in London threatened with arrest because being “quite openly Jewish” would trigger pro-Palestinian protesters.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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As Meta flees politics, campaigns rely on new tricks to reach voters
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Vision Pro Demand Dwindles as Customer Interest Dropped After Initial Hype
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It's Not You. Those 'I Am Not a Robot' Tests Are Getting Harder.
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Movie industry demands US law requiring ISPs to block piracy websites
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Gen Z recreates MySpace as 'Nospace' – there's a 380K-person waitlist
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New York Times Brass Moves to Stanch Leaks over Gaza Coverage
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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As part of the partnership, Coca-Cola has made a $1.1 billion commitment to the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities. The collaboration underscores Coca-Cola’s ongoing technology transformation, underpinned by the Microsoft Cloud as Coca-Cola’s globally preferred and strategic cloud and AI platform.
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This is a shot across the bows of the advertising industry.
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Coca Cola Signs $1.1B Deal to Use Microsoft Cloud AI Services
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Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Economicon / Business / Finance
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High global food prices may see a bottom in 2024, says Oxford Economics
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Luxury house sales remain strong while overall market slumps.
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F.T.C. Bans Noncompete Clauses - The New York Times
The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday banned employers from limited their workers’ abilities to work for rivals, a sweeping change that the agency says could help raise wages and increase competition among businesses. The move bars contracts known as noncompetes, which prevent workers from leaving for a competitor for a certain amount of time, in most circumstances. The agency has said the proposal would raise wages and increase competition.
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How US shale keeps sheltering America from the next oil price surge
On Monday, less than a week after the first-ever direct military strikes by Iran on Israel brought fears of a wider regional war, oil prices settled at $87 per barrel — flat versus their level just before a strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus precipitated the eruption. It was a notable non-reaction from oil markets, especially given the threat Iran poses to the Strait of Hormuz, the sea lane through which passes one in every five barrels of petroleum consumed globally each day. Demonstrating its menace to the waterway, Iran seized a vessel there on April 13, the same day it launched its attack on Israel. The crude price calm in the face of this turmoil owes much to events 7,000 miles away in the shale fields of North Dakota and west Texas, where drillers have left global markets awash with American oil.
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Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison Tags Nashville as Company's Next HQ
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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U.S. Senate and Biden Shamefully Renew and Expand FISA Section 702
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If TikTok Is Such a Threat, Show Us the Receipts - Bloomberg
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Democrats back Republican effort to double fines for protesters in California
The bill by Assemblymember Kate Sanchez would double the fine for protesters who block a highway and prevent emergency vehicles from passing from $100 to $200. The penalty could rise to $1,000 for multiple offenses within three years.
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RFK Jr.: "I'm gonna put the entire U.S. budget on blockchain"
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
Iran / Houthi / Red Sea / Mediterranean
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
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China’s ageing tech workers hit by ‘curse of 35’
Just months from his 35th birthday, the developer was dismissed, another victim of the group’s reorganisation known internally as “Limestone”. Kuaishou is pushing out junior workers in their mid-30s, according to five people with direct knowledge of Limestone, including current and former employees. Laobai was told his termination was part of the company’s overall redundancy programme. Kuaishou declined to comment. The so-called curse of 35 has long plagued workers across white-collar professions, with older staff widely perceived as being less willing to put up with long working hours because of responsibilities at home.
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China acquired recently banned Nvidia chips in Super Micro and Dell servers
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Chinese scientists close in on laser propulsion for superfast, silent submarines
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How China's demand for donkey hide is devastating African communities
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Chinese Villagers Jumped at the Deal of a Lifetime–Then It Turned Sour
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'It Is Desolate': China's Glut of Unused Car Factories (Archive)
Health / Medicine
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Where Do Post-Surgical Bacterial Infections Come From, Anyway?
These results suggest that a more personalized approach to antibiotic therapy before surgery could be very helpful, not only in reducing post-operative infection rates but also in lowering the use of powerful broad-spectrum antibiotics when they may not even be needed. And it's very much worth knowing that some of these skin strains are in fact resistant to the common surgical prep antiseptic chlorhexidine, but can still be killed by (for example) povidone-iodine. The authors makes sure to point out that these findings don't mean that everyone can ease up on the environmental disinfection procedures! It's just that those already seem to be working, and working as well as they can. But we need to broaden our horizons.
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TikTok's Crackdown on Ozempic Influencers Threatens Weight-Loss Drug
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It Introduced Ozempic to the World. Now It Must Remake Itself
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Abortion Data Wars: States and Cities Debate How Much Information to Collect
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Chemical found naturally in cannabis may reduce anxiety-inducing effects of THC
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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The Moon brings a wild but precarious fish orgy to California's beaches
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Esther Duflo: Rich world owes $500bn in ‘moral debt’ to poor countries (Archive)
Esther Duflo: The point I’m making is very simple. I’m trying to put a number for the moral debt that rich people of the world — particularly people in rich countries — have towards the poor people of the world related to our consumption choices, and thereby our carbon emissions. And how do I compute this number? I focus on mortality: on the greatest cost of all, which is losing your life.
I have chatted with Laurence about this, and this very much dovetails with that effort. What is interesting with this $500bn number is that OK, it looks big, but it’s not really that big. There are two instruments [in my proposal], and they are not going to weigh on the middle class in rich countries. They’re not going to be a big burden on the ultra-rich, because 2 per cent of their wealth is only 30 per cent of their income from their wealth, which is currently untaxed. I think we need to rely on taxation because that is the way in which traditionally we ensure that everyone in the economy, private companies and individuals, contributes to the public good. And the two instruments I propose — they are not necessarily the only ones possible, but they will be sufficient to raise the money.
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A powerful volcano is erupting. Here's what that could mean for climate
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Red-hot isn't enough: government heat risk sets magenta as most dangerous level
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Forced to eat bat feces by tobacco farming, chimps could spread deadly viruses
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Cicadas are so noisy in South Carolina that residents are calling the police