2024-06-14

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• Wreck of explorer Shackleton's last ship has been found off the coast of Canada

• Nevada's Figure-8 Roundabout Is Being Removed After Too Many Crashes

  According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, one such intersection in neighboring Henderson has seen 95 crashes since being installed in 2018. Ninety. Five. And that includes 13 crashes through May 15 of this year. As a former Clark County resident and frequent return visitor (hi, fam), I am familiar with this wonky roundabout in the Inspirada neighborhood. First of all, it’s in the boonies. The area traffic is generally just residents in the not-yet-overcrowded subdivisions, Raiders employees, and hikers headed to Sloan Canyon (that would be me). But if Hendo city data is accurate, the Via Inspirada-Bicentennial Parkway intersection averages a crash and a half per month. What are y’all doing?

• The Magnet Fisherman’s Dilemma: What to Do With $70,000 Before It Disintegrates - The New York Times

  two professionally dressed Treasury employees, a man and a woman, promptly came downstairs. Both looked unfazed as Mr. Kane repeated his treasure hunter spiel. They rifled through his backpack and pulled out a plastic bag containing a stack of money that appeared to be a solid clump about four inches thick. “Yeah, all of this is currency,” said the woman. “Even the mud,” said the man.

  Right there in the lobby he estimated that Mr. Kane was holding somewhere in the ballpark of $50,000 to $70,000. They and the rest of their 11-person team would need about nine months to officially count it and replace it with unblemished currency. But when they were done, the money would be his, tax-free. "America the beautiful!” Mr. Kane said.

Horseshit

• (1997) Where No Candy Has Gone Before: Light as the Secret Ingredient - The New York Times

  Mr. Begleiter thus became the creator of holographic food. ''I liked the idea of consuming the images as you are consuming the food,'' he said. ''A slightly different version of art as commodity.'' He and his partners are making foods with micro-grooves etched into their surfaces that defract light to create a hologram, a ghostly, seemingly three-dimensional image. These are not coatings or pasted-on pictures, but ridge patterns molded right into the food's surface, which don't affect its taste. So, Mr. Begleiter noted, there is no concern about toxicity.

• 40 Acres and a Lie – Mother Jones

  A government program gave formerly enslaved people land after the Civil War, only to take nearly all of it back a year and a half later. We used artificial intelligence to track down the people, places, and stories that had long been misunderstood and forgotten, then asked their descendants about what’s owed now.

  Over the course of two and a half years, a team of Public Integrity reporters, editors, and researchers identified 1,250 Black men and women who had earned land as reparations after the Civil War. From there, the team conducted genealogical research to locate living descendants of many of those who had received and then lost the land. For the first time, these living Black Americans were made aware of the specific land that had been given to and then taken away from their ancestors.

• Even Hardened Convicts Are No Match for These Guard Geese

• Photographers Don't Want Their Negatives Back from the Lab Anymore

  Gone are the days when people return to the shop to pick up a photo wallet of prints that also contain their negatives. Most shops now scan the negatives into a computer and email the digital files to customers. Another New York photo lab tells The Times that it has made a new policy asking customers to declare whether or not they want their negatives back.

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Ford ends EV dealership program that required hefty investment to sell EVs

celebrity gossip

• Ursula K. Le Guin's home will become a writers residency

• Tyson Foods heir suspended as CFO after second alcohol-related arrest

Musk

• Elon Musk says Tesla shareholders voting to back $56B pay deal

• Both Tesla shareholder resolutions are currently passing by wide margins

• Musk Says Vote on His Pay Winning by 'Wide Margins'

• Musk says Tesla investors backing pay deal

• Has Elon Musk Finally Lost Tesla Shareholders?

• Elon Musk claims he is set for victory in $56B Tesla pay vote

• Elon Musk says Tesla shareholders re-approved his pay package worth billions that a judge struck down.

• Tesla’s Stock Pops 7% on News of Elon Win.

• Elon Musk invites SEC scrutiny with tweets encouraging $45B pay package

• Elon Says He Got His Money

• Elon Musk's $56B Pay Package at Tesla Approved In Shareholder Vote

• Tesla shareholders vote yes again to approve Elon Musk's $56B pay plan

• Tesla shareholders approve Elon Musk's $56B US pay package

• Elon Musk targeted in lawsuit alleging sex bias, unfair firings at SpaceX

• Musk's X demands money from laid-off employees, claims they were overpaid

• Elon Musk Sued for Harassment by Former SpaceX Employees

• Orsted to install Tesla battery for UK offshore wind farm

• Tesla, Musk sued by shareholders for breach of fiduciary duty over AI threats

• Elon Musk claims Optimus robots could make Tesla a $25T company

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Turley Weighs in on How Pelosi's Admissions Highlight Credibility Issues of J6 Committee

• Supreme Court rules California man can't trademark 'Trump too small'

• Bitcoin miners at Trump's event say he thinks Bitcoin can help win AI arms race

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Documents Catch NIH Officials Misleading Science Writers at Science Magazine and STAT News About Dangerous Virus Research

  Moss’s disclosure that he planned to insert genes from the more deadly clade 1 monkeypox strain into the more common and transmissible clade 2 monkeypox virus triggered a second story in Science Magazine with scientists expressing alarm at the study’s dangers. On the other hand, Ohio State University researcher Linda Saif told Science Magazine’s Jocelyn Kaiser that she was worried that excessive regulation could “greatly impede research into evolving or emerging viruses” and drive research overseas, where U.S. regulations don’t apply or are looser. Oddly enough, I previously reported that Saif helped orchestrate a February 2020 essay ghostwritten by Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology that called the possibility of a Wuhan lab accident a “conspiracy.” Based on a statement from Moss’s NIAID, Science Magazine’s Kaiser later updated her article to claim that Moss’s research would only involve clade 2a, not clade 2b monkeypox virus.

  Eight months later, STAT News reporter Helen Branswell wrote that Republicans were “targeting” NIAID researcher Bernie Moss and alleged he had never proposed to move forward with the dangerous virus studies. Branswell then posted on X that “House Republicans want to interrogate poxvirus scientist Bernie Moss—who has been at NIH for 57 years—for work he did not do.” The reports by Science Magazine’s Kaiser and STAT’s Branswell are both false.

  In their report, House investigators document that—weeks after NIAID claimed to Science Magazine’s Kaiser that Moss’s planned monkeypox research involved clade 2a, not clade 2b monkeypox—Moss posted a preprint reporting he already started research with clade 2a and planned research with clade 2b.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Native Americans see omen in Yellowstone's rare white bison

• The Problem with "Gimp"

  • Every so often, we take the GIMP out of its box, when we need it. wrestle with it, usually some yelling and frustration, and we manage to get the job done. Then the GIMP goes back in the box, conveniently forgotten until the next time its wanted. It's kinda ugly, it does things with less grace than others, but it does them. It doesn't require constant upkeep and we don't hafta let others know that we're good at using it (or not, as the case may be). The shame of utilitarian pragmatism can stay hidden if we want. "GIMP" is the perfect name for this application.

• SPLC Terminates a Quarter of Staff, ‘Decimates’ Three Departments, Union Claims

• Founder of DEI-focused hiring firm Joonko allegedly bilked investors out of $27M

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Taboos and Self-Censorship Among U.S. Psychology Professors

  Professors more confident in the truth of the taboo conclusions reported more self-censorship, a pattern that could bias perceived scientific consensus regarding the inaccuracy of controversial conclusions. Almost all professors worried about social sanctions if they were to express their own empirical beliefs. Tenured professors reported as much self-censorship and as much fear of consequences as untenured professors, including fear of getting fired. Most professors opposed suppressing scholarship and punishing peers on the basis of moral concerns about research conclusions and reported contempt for peers who petition to retract papers on moral grounds. Younger, more left-leaning, and female faculty were generally more opposed to controversial scholarship. These results do not resolve empirical or normative disagreements among psychology professors, but they may provide an empirical context for their discussion.

• Why are America's elite universities so afraid of this scholar's paper?

• China's research clout leads to growth in homegrown science publishing

• While women outnumber men on campus, their later earnings remain stuck

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Microsoft Chose Profit over Security, Whistleblower Says

• Canada Imposes 5% Tax on Streaming to Fund Local News, Diverse Content

• Canon announces compact dual fisheye lens for VR content creation

• The Daylight Tablet Returns Computing to Its Hippie Ideals

• 'Blair Witch Project' Cast Hasn't Seen Financial Success from Franchise

• Meta Won't Fight Online Kid Safety Regs Since It Sees Them as a Competitive Moat

  • Meta says it won't support suit against major child safety law

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Why Swift's type checker is slow ・ Daniel Hooper

• Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy'

• FCC, Navy Expand Commercial Access to 3.5 GHz Band

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• What Do Google's AI Answers Cost the Environment?

• OpenAI expands lobbying team to influence regulation

• OpenAI announces new top executive hires

  • OpenAI appoints Retired U.S. Army General Paul M. Nakasone to Board

  • Former head of NSA joins OpenAI board

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Dyson spheres: Scientists say they've found potential evidence

• NASA hits wrong button, broadcasts ISS emergency training by mistake

• Voyager 1 Returning Science Data from All Four Instruments

  • Voyager 1 is back to life in interstellar space, but for how long?

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Why Nearly Half of US Online Job Postings Are Fake | The Epoch Times

  Amid complex hiring processes, a shadow is spreading in the American business world. Companies are using fake online job openings to project an image of growth, keep existing employees motivated, and cultivate a pool of possible future candidates with no intention of hiring, according to research. The practice is commonly known as “ghost posting” and it accounts for 43 percent of online job openings across multiple industries.

• Democrats Celebrate More Americans Working Three Or More Jobs To Make Ends Meet.

• WeWork has emerged from bankruptcy. What's next?

• Wells Fargo Fires over a Dozen for 'Simulation of Keyboard Activity'

• The fast-food industry claims the California minimum wage law is costing jobs. Its numbers are fake

  Something else the ad doesn't tell you is that after January, fast-food employment continued to rise. As of April, employment in the limited-service restaurant sector that includes fast-food establishments was higher by nearly 7,000 jobs than it was in April 2023, months before Newsom signed the minimum wage bill. Despite that, the job-loss figure and finger-pointing at the minimum wage law have rocketed around the business press and conservative media, from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Post to the website of the conservative Hoover Institution. We'll be taking a closer look at the corporate lobbyist sleight-of-hand that makes job gains look like job losses. But first, a quick trot around the fast-food economic landscape generally.

• Not named "Enron" tho? Wild Weather Is Roiling Electricity Prices. This Startup Is Looking to Help

• Lower Inflation Sparks Oil Price Rise as Dollar Weakens

• Proposed Visa and Mastercard Swipe-Fees Settlement Is Likely to Be Thrown Out

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Microsoft president to testify before House panel over security lapses

• US Supreme Court backs Starbucks over fired pro-union workers

• Supreme Court Upholds Broad Access to Abortion Pill Mifepristone

• Why Americans Aren't Buying Biden's "Strong Economy" Propaganda | ZeroHedge

  t's become a bit (or more than a bit) of a joke: Biden is doing everything in his power - and beyond that too now that Fed Chair Jerome Powell has admitted what we have been saying all along and that the White House has been "overstating" jobs - to prove to America just how great his "economic recovery" is, and the more he tries the more people hate it. And the funny thing is, the responses themselves are prima facie evidence of precisely the propaganda embedded in this discussion.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Oakland homeowner arrested in suspected burglary-turned-killing

  A 77-year-old homeowner was arrested and booked into jail early Tuesday after allegedly shooting and killing one of three burglary suspects at his East Oakland home, authorities said. The man was held without bail on suspicion of murder in the Monday evening killing at a house on the corner of 98th Avenue and Burr Street, according to Santa Rita County Jail records. As of Wednesday afternoon, police were continuing to interview witnesses and gather evidence, and Alameda County prosecutors had not decided whether to file charges. According to Oakland police Acting Deputy Chief Frederick Shavies, the man was arrested largely because he “did not provide a statement.”

  he fatal shooting marked the fourth killing in Oakland within an 18-hour stretch on Monday. The other three people shot were all teenagers, ages 16, 17 and 18. The Alameda County Coroner’s Office did not release their names as of Wednesday. The unrelated killings brought the number of deaths that Oakland police have investigated as homicides this year to 41, down from 46 at this time in 2023 and mirroring a trend of declining crime rates across Oakland.

• Arizona man wanted to start ‘race war’ with mass shooting at Atlanta concert.

  According to the indictment, between January and May 2024, Prieto had been in discussions with two people who were secretly working with the Federal Bureau of Investigations to plan a mass shooting at the Atlanta venue in May.

  • When the employees of law enforcement outnumber the "plotters" one must wonder.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• DARPA may be exploring using neutrinos for long-range underwater communication

• Osprey V-22s won't return to full flight operations until mid-2025

• Saudi Arabia ends 50-year petrodollar pact with US

  The 50-year-old petrodollar agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was just allowed to expire. The term “petrodollar” refers to the U.S. dollar’s role as the currency used for crude oil transactions on the world market. This arrangement has its roots in the 1970s when the United States and Saudi Arabia struck a deal shortly after the U.S. went off the gold standard that would go on to have far-reaching consequences for the global economy. In the history of global finance, few agreements have wielded as many benefits as the petrodollar pact did for the U.S. economy.

  • Saudi Arabia Exits US Petrodollar Deal | Newsmax.com

• The U.S. Military's Diesel-Powered Pickups Don't Bother with Emissions Equipment

World

• Josep Rull, former political prisoner, new President of Parliament of Catalonia

• Finland and Sweden move to relax strict alcohol laws

Israel

• GOP Senators Press IRS To Revoke Tax-Exempt Status of ‘Palestine Chronicle’ Nonprofit Tied to Hamas Hostage Taker.

• UN finds at least 14 Israelis likely intentionally killed by own army on 7 Oct

• Israeli troops use medieval-style trebuchet weapon in fighting at Lebanon border

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• High court grants Russian Church permission to seize Google South Africas assets

• From prison to trenches: Inside Ukraine's attempt to turn inmates into soldiers

• G7 strikes 'provisional' deal on $50B loan to Ukraine

• New US sanctions against Russia force end of dollar, euro trading

• Russian Banks Are Collapsing

• WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich, Falsely Accused of Espionage, Indicted in Russia

• Ukrainian cops collar Kyiv programmer believed to be Conti, LockBit linchpin

• Chinese Yuan becomes Russia's main foreign currency, replacing Dollar and Euro

China

• How worrying is the rapid rise of Chinese science?

  China is now a leading scientific power. Its scientists produce some of the world’s best research, particularly in chemistry, physics and materials science. They contribute to more papers in prestigious journals than their colleagues from America and the European Union and they produce more work that is highly cited. Tsinghua and Zhejiang universities each carry out as much cutting-edge research as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chinese laboratories contain some of the most advanced kit, from supercomputers and ultra-high-energy detectors to cryogenic electron microscopes. These do not yet match the crown jewels of Europe and America, but they are impressive. And China hosts a wealth of talent. Many researchers who studied or worked in the West have returned home. China is training scientists, too: more than twice as many of the world’s top ai researchers got their first degree in China as in America.

Health / Medicine

• (2022) "Old age" no longer a diagnosis as a cause of death

  As of January 2022, “old age” was removed from the ICD as a cause of death, and agreement was reached to replace it with “aging-associated biological decline in intrinsic capacity.” No more dying of old age.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Surprising New Renewable Power Source Has 'Negative Carbon Emissions'

• Legislation would block carbon dioxide pipelines in Illinois for up to two years

• Potential Ozone Depletion from Satellite Demise During Atmospheric Reentry

• How do you cool a 100F city?

• Doug Casey on How the Climate Hysteria Is Lowering Your Standard of Living