2024-06-07

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• In pictures: 80th anniversary of D-Day

• Boeing hit with $72M verdict in EV aircraft trade secrets case

• Widespread horse-based mobility arose around 2,200 BCE in Eurasia

• Pembrokeshire man breaks world record for fastest wheelbarrow

• Humanity Is Riding a Sports Car, with Broken Steering

  With cultural evolution, the main way that humanity “sees” the shape of the unfamiliar terrain ahead is via selection acting on current variations among cultures. But in the last few centuries, selection forces have become far weaker, while cultural variation has become far smaller. So it has become much darker outside our sports car, and we’ve lost our power steering. And at the same time, our accelerator has been pushed down, and gotten stuck, so that we see unprecedented rates of change in key norms and values. We are thus at serious risk of drifting off the smoother terrain, better suited for us, and onto rougher terrains, and perhaps even falling into a ravine. The strongest sign that we are actually drifting toward rougher terrain is falling fertility, whose main proximate causes are changing cultural norms re school, work, marriage, kids, housing, gender roles, and parent-kid relations.

• Oklahoma Stakes Its Claim to the Tallest Building in the U.S.

Horseshit

• A humble Indian fabric became a symbol of luxury in 1960s America

• How to entertain your Kids: Let them play with garbage

• Cars are becoming data harvesting nightmares

• Killer Application: The Surprising Correlation Between Engineering Education and Terrorism - Slow thoughts

  Scholars don’t just claim that there’s a correlation between engineering education and extreme views, but they also have a strong opinion about which way the arrow of causality is pointing. Apparently, it’s not that terrorists are desperate for tech-talent; it’s that engineering education breeds the type of mindset that’s conducive to extremism, and in the extreme extension of that, terrorism.

• Why it's good news that robots are getting smarter

• Why are candles so expensive?

Electric / Self Driving cars

• China's plan to sell cheap EVs to the rest of the world

• Amazon's robotaxi unit Zoox to begin testing in Austin, Miami

celebrity gossip

• China Miéville Writes a Secret Novel with the Internet's Boyfriend

• Larry Ellison Owns 98% of Lanai Island, Hawaii

• Sam Altman Was Bending the World to His Will Long Before OpenAI

• Jack Dorsey donated to anonymous founder with deep devotion to 'fascist guru'

• Tech tycoon Mike Lynch cleared of all fraud charges in Hewlett-Packard trial

Obit

• Mike Karels, BSD's TCP stack author, has died

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Vaccines don't cause autism, but the lie won't die. In fact, it's getting worse

• Beating Political Disinformation Is Knowing When Not to Fact-Check

  at the beginning of the last decade it seemed like campaigns were using big data and reams of academic research to winnow politics down to an increasingly precise science. But that’s all been turned upside down by the wave of conspiracy theories and “fake news” that’s defined American politics since 2016. Issenberg’s narrative centers around the people who weren’t surprised by 2016 because they’d seen similar dynamics play out in other elections across the globe. I spoke with Issenberg about the globalization of online disinfo, playing politics in the context of social media’s landscape of no context, and how to recognize when the best decision is just to ignore the crazy guys screaming about you online.

• How many of our "facts" about society, health, and the economy are fake?

  And in 2023, the Wall Street Journal declared that U.S. maternal mortality was the highest it had been since 1965. These were only two of many outlets that reported on the trend. Politicians took note. Social media shouters declared one more piece of evidence of America’s rapid decline as a nation. There’s just one problem: The U.S. maternal mortality increase was fake. It was a thing that never happened.

  This is absolutely breathtaking, and not in a good way. One of the most prominent doctors in the field of obstetrics is openly arguing that positive data about U.S. health should be suppressed, and that popular misconceptions based entirely on data artifacts should be encouraged to persist, in order to motivate the public to devote more resources to the goals he thinks are important. To me, this clearly qualifies as disinformation. Zahn is demanding that researchers bury their findings so that the doctors, activists, and politicians he likes can get more money. That deserves to be a bigger scandal than it is.

• Misunderstanding the Harms of Online Misinformation

• Belgian Court Penalizes Meta For Failing To Boost & Promote Far-Right Politician

• After Jan. 6, Twitter banned 70k right-wing accounts. Lies plummeted

Musk

• Elon Musk Accused of Insider Trading at Tesla

• Elon Musk's xAI to build US' most advanced supercomputer in Memphis

• Elon Musk’s X defeats Australia’s global takedown order of stabbing video.

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Donald Trump news: For years, I couldn't say what he did on The Apprentice

  I should know. I was one of four producers involved in the first two seasons. During that time, I signed an expansive nondisclosure agreement that promised a fine of $5 million and even jail time if I were to ever divulge what actually happened. It expired this year. No one involved in The Apprentice—from the production company or the network, to the cast and crew—was involved in a con with malicious intent. It was a TV show, and it was made for entertainment. I still believe that. But we played fast and loose with the facts, particularly regarding Trump, and if you were one of the 28 million who tuned in, chances are you were conned.

• Trump heads to Silicon Valley fundraiser on wave of support

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• First fatal human case of bird flu subtype A(H5N2) confirmed in Mexico: WHO.

  • WHO confirms first death in Mexico from bird flu never seen in humans

  • Mexico man dies from first human case of bird flu strain H5N2

• Paper: Not one government policy during the COVID epidemic accomplished anything to stop the disease’s spread.

• 'Unusual' cancers emerged after the pandemic – Doctors ask if Covid is to blame

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Apple Store Employees Say Coworkers Were Disciplined for Supporting Palestinians

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• After publishing critical Israel arricle, Columbia Law Review's site shut down

  • “If you’re a student editor and distrust the leadership, you try to “preempt” it by acting irregularly, as the editors here did by rushing the article online. If you’re on the board and you distrust the student editors, you use that action to justify shuttering the website altogether.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Oral B has bricked its $230 Alexa toothbrush.

• Apple Commits to at Least Five Years of iPhone Security Updates

• The future of Netflix games could look like reality TV

• Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Recall

• GOG will delete cloud saves over 200MB per game on August 31

• Mother hits out at Meta over sextortion death data delay

• Canada demands 5% of revenue from Netflix, Spotify, and other streamers

• Artists are fleeing Instagram to keep their work out of Meta's AI

• TikTok confirms CNN account hijacked via zero-day vulnerability

• Why the video game industry is such a mess

• 'Washington Post' publisher tried to kill a story about allegations against him

• How Public Radio Became the Enemy of the Public.

• Turns out Spotify can't open-source Car Thing because it's a potato

  Spotify has technically already made the Car Thing as open source as possible. It runs on Linux, and the source code for the device’s U-boot and Linux kernel is publicly available on GitHub. Additionally, the device’s Amlogic chip allows for easy access to BootRom mode, enabling users to run custom code and even add their own software. With a weak Amlogic processor, 4GB of eMMC storage, and only 512MB of RAM, the device is too underpowered to run anything more demanding than its intended lightweight web-based media player.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Microsoft exec blames Azure layoffs on the 'AI wave' in leaked memo

  • Microsoft's big AI ambitions helped it become the most valuable company

• How to Lead an Army of Digital Sleuths in the Age of AI

• The Rise and Fall of BNN Breaking, an AI-Generated News Outlet

• Testing and mitigating elections-related risks

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• After several scrubbed launches, Boeing's Starliner is finally on its way to the ISS, with just one minor leak.

  • Starliner experiencing 3 small helium leaks, will continue to ISS as planned

  • Boeing Starliner team detects new helium leaks en route to space station

  • Boeing's Starliner Docks at ISS After Five Thrusters Unexpectedly Shut Off

• 4th flight test: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

  • SpaceX's Starship survives return to Earth, achieves demo landing on fourth test

  • SpaceX's Starship rocket completes test flight, successfully splashes down

  • SpaceX's Super Heavy-Starship rocket launches on "epic" test flight

  • Starship survives reentry during fourth test flight

Crypto con games

• Robinhood bets big on crypto with $200M deal for Bitstamp

• Spanish Court Grants 'Bitcoin Jesus' Bail in Extradition Fight

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Nvidia hits $3T and surpasses Apple as second most valuable company

  • Nvidia overtakes Apple as its market capitalisation surpasses $3T

  • Nvidia passes Apple in market cap, becoming the second-most valuable company

  • Nvidia overtakes Apple as No. 2 most valuable company

  • Nvidia passes Apple as second-most valuable company

• US Diesel Demand Hits 26-Year Seasonal Low in March

• Is Ticketmaster Telling the Truth About Its Finances?

• Migrant Women, Eager for Work, Turn to Construction

• Wall Street Admits The Biggest Economic Shocker: All Jobs In The Past Year Have Gone To Illegal Aliens | ZeroHedge

  For much of the past year we had been pounding the table on two very simple facts: not only has the US labor market been appallingly weak, with most of the jobs "gained" in 2023 and meant to signal how strong the Biden "recovery" has been, about to be revised away (as first the Philly Fed and now Bloomberg both admit), but more shockingly, all the job growth in the past few years has gone to illegal aliens.

• US Payroll Gains Not as Robust as Reported, BLS Data Suggest

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• U.S. clears way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

  • HN comments

• Meet the sex-obsessed, gay ‘activist physician’ in charge of vaccines, COVID at the CDC.

• The City That Can't? Saving San Francisco Will Take More Than Winning Elections

• Why New York scrapped congestion charging

• FDA reverses marketing ban on Juul e-cigarettes

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• FBI has obtained 7k Lockbit ransomware decryption keys

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US and allies say China is 'aggressively recruiting' their fighter pilots

• Mitch McConnell: D-Day’s Lesson Impels Us to Deter Russia and China - The New York Times

  Eighty years ago, America and our allies fought because we had to. The forces assembled on the English Channel on June 6, 1944, represented the fruits of many months of feverish planning. And once victory was secure, the United States led the formation of the alliances that have underpinned Western peace and security ever since. Today, the better part of valor is to build credible defenses before they are necessary and demonstrate American leadership before it is doubted any further.

• Russian naval ships, including nuclear-powered submarine, to visit Cuba

World

• A Triumph for Indian Democracy

• New research raises hopes of exhuming foreign Spanish civil war dead

• Paris Closed 100 Streets to Cars for Good. Now, the City Is a Cyclists' Paradise

• Why Canadians are angry with their biggest supermarket

Israel

• Israeli strike on UN school in Gaza kills at least 35

• Starvation already causing many deaths and lasting harm in Gaza, agencies say

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• 'Russia now is like 1984': Inside a Russian dystopian library

• France will send Mirage fighter jets to Ukraine, Macron says

China

• TSMC says it has discussed moving fabs out of Taiwan but such a move impossible

• Once embraced, Chinese companies now shunned in U.S. on security fears

• Hiker finds pipe feeding China's tallest waterfall

Health / Medicine

• 'Natty or not?': how steroids got big

• Weight-loss drugs are forcing changes to grocery store offerings

• In China, weight-loss drugs are becoming big business

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Secretive court system has awarded over $100B public money to corporations

• For the First Time Ever, the Colossal Squid Might Have Shown Its Secret Face

• Ditch brightly coloured plastic, anti-waste researchers tell firms

• Vermont Moves to Hold Fossil-Fuel Companies Liable for Climate-Change Damage

• Ranking the Top Four Battery Storage World Powers

• Shark seen regurgitating echidna in surprising first

• A Natural-Gas Billionaire Bets on Greener Fossil Fuel

• Major disruption of the Atlantic overturning circulation (AOMC) is not expected

• Lake Tahoe completely full for 1st time since 2019, US officials say - ABC7 San Francisco

• UN calls on tech and media to stop taking fossil fuel ad money gets no response

• Who Wants to Have Children in a Warming World?

• How the US battery boom is shifting the power mix

• Plug-in polluters? How Biden's emissions rules go soft on hybrid trucks, SUVs

• Feds expect to decide this year on Mosaic's 'radioactive roads' plan in Florida