2024-05-15
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Ask HN: What separates "super smart" people from commonfolk? | Hacker News
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All Eels in America and Europe Come from the Bermuda Triangle
“Despite Schmidt’s discovery almost 100 years ago, no one has ever been able to find direct evidence that eels spawned in the Sargasso! Scientists tried to track eels using trackers, but the eels always mysteriously disappeared... UNTIL THIS WEEK! Researchers were finally able to track European eels all the way to the Sargasso Sea using satellite trackers! Despite this, NO ONE HAS EVER PHYSICALLY SEEN A MATURE EEL IN THE SARGASSO SEA!"
Horseshit
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Trypillia mega-sites: a social levelling concept? | Antiquity | Cambridge Core
The results indicate temporarily reduced social inequality at mega-sites. It was only after several generations that increased social differentiation re-emerged and this may explain the subsequent abandonment of the mega-sites. The results indicate that increases in social complexity need not be associated with greater social stratification and that large aggregations of population can, for a time at least, find mechanisms to reduce inequality.
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Silicon Valley once chafed at dictatorships. Then came a Middle East gold rush
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Alabama prisoners' organs vanish, and there's a whole lot of passing the buck
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Family Discover Hidden Camera Disguised as a Rock Outside Their Home
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Disruptions Loom as 17 Air Traffic Controllers Balk at Job Relocation
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The monsters that made me: Growing up disabled, all of my heroes were villains
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The red-hot market for vintage IKEA, pieces can fetch thousands
Electric / Self Driving cars
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
Musk
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
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Trump Says He Will Reverse Protections for LGBTQ Kids on "Day One" If Reelected
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"doxxing" is when someone does it to them? US university lecturer behind far-right Twitter account and publishing house
A Guardian investigation has identified former University of California, Irvine (UCI) lecturer Jonathan Keeperman as the man behind the prominent “new right” publishing house Passage Press and the influential Twitter persona Lomez. The identification is based on company and property records, source interviews and open-source online materials. The reporting has revealed that Keeperman’s current status as a key player and influential tastemaker in a burgeoning proto-fascist movement came after years of involvement in far-right internet forums.
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Election 2024: Trump Economic Outlook Is More Inflation, Less Sanity - Bloomberg
If the former president’s stated agenda is any indication, inflation is likely to make a roaring comeback.
Tariffs, one of Trump’s only consistent enthusiasms, are a sure thing. Starting in 2018, his administration imposed several rounds of duties, prompting predictable retaliation. Combined, these measures eliminated jobs, slashed incomes and cost consumers about $51 billion annually. Now Trump wants to impose tariffs of 60% on Chinese-made products and 10% on other imports. Bloomberg Economics estimates that this would raise consumer prices by 2.5% over two years and reduce growth by 0.5%. Trump has also promised a 100% duty on imported cars. Details TBD — one analyst describes the likely effect as “catastrophic” — but the point is that trade wars of this kind are always prone to raising prices.
- see the "gubmint" news, where Biden just announced a 100% duty on Chinese cars, among other things. after at least a week of news tease.
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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What it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services
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The Creator of 'Magic: The Gathering' Knows Where It All Went Wrong
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More Wireless Consolidation and Price Hikes Loom as T-Mobile Eyes U.S. Cellular
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Meta is shutting down Workplace, its enterprise communications business
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The rise and fall of Ashley Madison: 'People lost their lives'
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It's Time for Furries to Stop Using Telegram
First, Signal has sticker packs now. If you want to use mine, here you go. For years, the main draw for furries to Telegram over Signal was sticker packs. This is a solved problem.
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Less than 10% of the price 3 years ago: Fort Worth’s tallest building sells for just $12.3M at auction in stunning price drop.
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Google will exit prominent San Francisco waterfront office tower
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Digital bank Chime debuts advance wage product ahead of anticipated IPO
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High Interest Rates Are Hitting Poorer Americans the Hardest
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Biden Administration's new round of tarrifs on Chinese products
The tariff rate on semiconductors will increase from 25% to 50% by 2025.
The tariff rate on electric vehicles under Section 301 will increase from 25% to 100% in 2024. With extensive subsidies and non-market practices leading to substantial risks of overcapacity, China’s exports of EVs grew by 70% from 2022 to 2023—jeopardizing productive investments elsewhere. A 100% tariff rate on EVs will protect American manufacturers from China’s unfair trade practices.
The tariff rate on lithium-ion EV batteries will increase from 7.5%% to 25% in 2024, while the tariff rate on lithium-ion non-EV batteries will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2026. The tariff rate on battery parts will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2024.
The tariff rate on natural graphite and permanent magnets will increase from zero to 25% in 2026. The tariff rate for certain other critical minerals will increase from zero to 25% in 2024.
The tariff rate on solar cells (whether or not assembled into modules) will increase from 25% to 50% in 2024.
The tariff rates on syringes and needles will increase from 0% to 50% in 2024. For certain personal protective equipment (PPE), including certain respirators and face masks, the tariff rates will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024. Tariffs on rubber medical and surgical gloves will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2026.
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'It's a Money Loser': Tax Breaks for Data Centers Are Under Fire
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A Jarring and Growing Disconnect - Cybereport
Sitting in the ornate Washington, DC event space at Semafor’s ? World Economy Summit, I listened as a member of the Federal Reserve and then a Biden cabinet official (Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su) and then President George W. Bush’s former Treasury Secretary all blithely talked about how our American economy is actually healthy. The audience of well dressed leaders from across the world looked on in agreement. Later, I read Nobel Prize recipient and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman as he lectured Americans that they were experiencing a strong economic recovery for which, he implied, they should be grateful. Just this week, Newsweek touted a story where “experts” declare the economy is doing “relatively well.”
Democrat leaders have become ever more tone deaf. President Biden’s repeated jokes about Trump’s “legal troubles” and “stormy weather” come off as smug to many swing voters across the nation. Even more mind numbing, President Biden continues to tout the economy under his leadership saying just this week in Wisconsin that the economy is fine. Then, in a CNN interview, Biden actually said the polls showing Americans not happy with the economy are “wrong” and he implied that Americans are wrong when thinking that they are struggling economically!
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The Rise of Left-Wing Nonprofit Journalism -Capital Research Center
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AT&T paid bribes to get two major pieces of legislation passed
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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U.S. orders Chinese-backed crypto miner to sell land near nuclear missile base
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DOJ Busted for Illegally Retaliating Against Whistleblowers.
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Boeing violated deal that avoided prosecution after 737 MAX crashes, DOJ says
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The Real ID Deadline Will Never Arrive - The Atlantic
If you fly regularly, you’ve probably seen signs saying that the Real ID Act will soon go into full effect. When that happens, all domestic travelers using a driver’s license at TSA checkpoints will have to show a federally compliant one—or be turned away. On May 7, exactly a year ahead of the latest purported enforcement date, a USA Today story bore the headline “The 2025 Real ID Deadline for New Licenses Is Really Real This Time, DHS Says.” Maybe the Department of Homeland Security needs to pinkie-swear to make the 2025 date really, really real, because those airport signs and travel stories have been telling us about a final deadline for more than 15 years. And yet, that deadline has never arrived. If past extensions are any indication, it probably never will.