2024-07-07
etc
Horseshit
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'NEETS' and 'new unemployables' – why some young adults aren't working
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Oklahoma, Alabama Now Have AI-Powered Vending Machines That Sell Bullets
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The Coming Labor Shortage Is Not Good News - The Atlantic
While inflation has been the primary story of the COVID-19 economic recovery, pro-worker advocates have also stressed the positives: Workers have seen fantastic gains. Over the last few years, as demand for employment skyrocketed, employees got to be choosy. What bosses called the Great Resignation was actually workers having the power to demand better wages and working conditions, as well as the willingness to quit jobs that wouldn’t offer those things.
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Intelligence is correlated with a range of left-wing and liberal political beliefs. This may suggest intelligence directly alters our political views. Alternatively, the association may be confounded or mediated by socioeconomic and environmental factors. We studied the effect of intelligence within a sample of over 300 biological and adoptive families, using both measured IQ and polygenic scores for cognitive performance and educational attainment. We found both IQ and polygenic scores significantly predicted all six of our political scales. Polygenic scores predicted social liberalism and lower authoritarianism, within-families. Intelligence was able to significantly predict social liberalism and lower authoritarianism, within families, even after controlling for socioeconomic variables. Our findings may provide the strongest causal inference to date of intelligence directly affecting political beliefs.
Electric / Self Driving cars
celebrity gossip
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Neil Gaiman Accuused of Sexual Abuse | MetaFilter
- comment:
I am going to reserve judgement at this time. The author, Rachel Johnson, has also written pieces such as "When it comes to trans issues, JK Rowling is the heir to George Orwell". Given that this came out a day before elections, and shortly after Gaiman came out in support of David Tennent...I'll need a little more to go on before forming an opinion.
Musk
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Free and Open Source Software–and Other Market Failures
the FOSS movement has won what it wanted, and no matter how much oldsters dream about their glorious days as young revolutionaries, it is not coming back; the frustrations and anger of IT in 2024 are entirely different from those of 1991. One very big difference is that more people have realized that source code is a liability rather than an asset. For some, that realization came creeping along the path from young teenage FOSS activists in the late 1990s to CIOs of BigCorp today. For most of us, I expect, it was the increasingly crushing workload of maintaining legacy code bases. But the thing that will convince anyone is that one single server still runs OS version N-4, because we have not yet found out why it stops working when we attempt to upgrade it. But we can figure it out, and we will figure it out—because we have the source code. We have all 562,227 lines of Perl5 source code for it.
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The "Netflix of anime" piracy site abruptly shuts down users
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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A Brief History of PCBs: Where did printed circuit boards come from? – EEJournal
Although the initial success in making bare PCBs came in 1947, components were still hand-soldered to the board one at a time. The breakthrough in mass production of PCB assemblies came in 1949 when Moe Abramson and Stanislaus F. Danko, working for the U.S. Army Signal Corps in Fort Monmouth, developed the “auto-sembly” technique, which plugged through-hole components into a blank PCB and passed the assembly over a solder wave to make all the component connections in seconds. That’s the year that mass manufacturing of electronic systems became possible. Danko and Lanzarotti published an article about their auto-sembly methodology in the July 1951 issue of “Electronics” magazine, and the PCB industry has been growing ever since. (
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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A Hacker Stole OpenAI Secrets, Raising Fears That China Could, Too - The New York Times
The hacker lifted details from discussions in an online forum where employees talked about OpenAI’s latest technologies, according to two people familiar with the incident, but did not get into the systems where the company houses and builds its artificial intelligence. OpenAI executives revealed the incident to employees during an all-hands meeting at the company’s San Francisco offices in April 2023 and informed its board of directors, according to the two people, who discussed sensitive information about the company on the condition of anonymity. But the executives decided not to share the news publicly because no information about customers or partners had been stolen, the two people said. The executives did not consider the incident a threat to national security because they believed the hacker was a private individual with no known ties to a foreign government. The company did not inform the F.B.I. or anyone else in law enforcement.
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Economicon / Business / Finance
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How algorithms are worsening the housing affordability crisis
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As Amazon turns 30, three factors will define its next decade
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US created 111,000 fewer jobs in April and May than previously estimated
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Italian prosecutors found Dior paid $57 to produce bags retailing for $2,780
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Move over, remote jobs. CEOs say borderless talent is the future of tech work
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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The Supreme Court Doesn't Want You to Have Clean Water and Safe Air (Archive)
Overturning Chevron is just a cog in the larger plan to dismantle the administrative state and environmental law as we know it—and the ultraconservative forces and fossil fuel defenders, like the Koch brothers, behind it are only getting started. The Koch-funded, Leo-facilitated assault on the administrative state hasn’t been isolated to Chevron. On Monday, the court ruled along familiar 6–3 party lines in Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, in a decision that creates new opportunities for companies to attack federal regulations years after they’re put in place.
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Your Constitutional Right to Be a Pirate | The Free Press
“I brought you this. It’s an application to get a letter of marque from Congress. I’m interested in becoming a privateer.” I handed the congressman a piece of paper on which, in an old-timey font, I had evoked what is my right, according to Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. He examined it for a couple of seconds, then asked: “How do we do this?” I loved Representative Khanna’s optimism, his let’s-make-this-work attitude. He was on board even before he really understood what I was asking. I explained that every American had the right to seek approval to “detain and seize any seafaring vessels considered to be operated by enemies of the United States.”
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House Democrats whip against GOP's latest non-citizen voting crackdown
House Democratic leadership is bringing out the big guns against a Republican bill set to be voted on next week that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections, Axios has learned. House Republicans have made non-citizen voting in federal elections — for which there is no evidence of a widespread phenomenon — a marquee issue going into the 2024 campaign.
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ABC's George Stephanopoulos' exclusive interview with President Biden: Full transcript - ABC News
JOE BIDEN: Because I was sick. I was feeling terrible. Matter of fact, the docs with me. I asked if they did a COVID test because they’re trying to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see whether or not I had some infection, you know, a virus. I didn't. I just had a really bad cold.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And-- did you ever watch the debate afterwards?
JOE BIDEN: I don't think I did, no.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You talked a lot about your successes in-- at the beginning of this interview. And-- and I don't want to dispute that, I don't want to debate that. But-- as you know, elections are about the future, not the past. They're about tomorrow, not yesterday. And the question on so many people's minds right now is, "Can you serve effectively for the next four years?"
JOE BIDEN: George. I'm the guy that put NATO together, the future. No one thought I could expand it. I'm the guy that shut Putin down. No one thought could happen. I'm the guy that put together a South Pacific initiative with AUKUS. I'm the guy that got 50 nations out-- not only in Europe, outside of Europe as well to help Ukraine.
I'm the guy that got Japanese to expand their budget. I'm the-- so I mean, these-- and, for example, when I decided we used to have 40% of computer chips. We invented the chip, the little chip, the computer chip. It's in everything from cell phone to weapons.
And so, we used to have 40%, and we're down to virtually nothing. So I get in the plane, against the advice of everybody, and I fly to South Korea. I convince them to invest in the United States billions of dollars. Now we have tens of billions of dollars being invested in the United States making us back in a position we're gonna own that industry again. We have, I mean, I-- I just-- anyway. I'm-- I don't wanna take too much credit. I have a great staff.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But hold on. My-- I guess my point is, all that takes a toll. Do you have the mental and physical capacity to do it for another four years?
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Biden’s ABC Interview Showed a President in Denial - WSJ
After a week of frantic machinations, Democrats believed they were getting through to President Biden about the serious trouble his campaign is in. His first televised interview since the presidential debate made clear that isn’t the case—setting the stage for a more acrimonious phase of the efforts by some in the party to push him off the ticket. “I’ve convinced myself of two things: I’m the most qualified person to beat [Trump], and I know how to get things done,” Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in the 22-minute interview that the network aired in its entirety Friday evening. He repeatedly rebuffed the idea that his campaign is swooning in the polls, that he might not have what it takes to continue for the next four years or that more thorough medical examination of his neurological state might be warranted. The interview, billed as a chance for Biden to put his party’s worries about his capacity to rest, seems likely only to inflame them. Though he was mostly cogent, the president appeared to be in denial about the crisis that has engulfed his party and firmly dug in on staying in the race. If he is to leave the Democratic ticket, it seems he won’t do so willingly.
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DISASTER: Biden Completely Out of Touch With Reality in ABC Interview
“After watching the 23-minute interview, it was obvious that Stephanopoulos was sent out to stab Caesar to death on [pre-recorded] television. There’s no other way to spin it. After the interview, ABC political hacks piled on. Rather than reassuring skittish Democrat operatives (let alone the public) that Biden is fine, it reinforced the narrative that he is too old and feeble to remain as the nominee.”
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Biden's ABC interview flops with Congress' Democrats: "He's toast"
Four House Democrats have publicly called for Biden to step down from the ticket, with lawmakers saying they expect more to follow soon.
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Biden refuses cognitive test, denies poll slump in ABC interview
In an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, the president avoided the verbal flubs and unfinished sentences that defined his disastrous debate performance last week. His answers were a mix of offense, defense — and denialism about the state of the race. "I have a cognitive test every single day," Biden said when Stephanopoulos pressed him about taking a cognitive test. "Everything I do. Not only am I campaigning, I am running the world."
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Warner is telling Democratic senators that Biden can no longer remain in the election in the wake of his faltering debate performance, according to the people familiar with private conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely. The Virginia senator has told others that he is deeply concerned Biden is not able to run a campaign that could beat former president Donald Trump.
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Hollywood donors ‘furious’ at movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg for ‘agewashing’ Biden: report
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A ‘scared’ Biden aide sounds an alarm
Here is the assertion this person would like to get across: It’s unclear even to some inside the West Wing policy process which policy issues reach the president, and how. Major decisions go into an opaque circle that includes White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients (who talks to the president regularly) and return concluded. (The big exception to this pattern, they said, is foreign policy.) This pattern had already been a topic of discussion, and curiosity, among the high-powered aides who work in and around the White House. The rituals of paperflow are technical, but they say they’re surprised by the lack of briefings to the president, and of readouts from consultations with the president and worry about the possibility of decisions “being made without him.” My source has no reputation for being involved in factional fights on hot button issues, and no obvious ulterior motive for picking up the phone.
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Local Radio Hosts Blow the Whistle Biden Admin, Telling CNN Interview Questions Were Scripted
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First Biden hosts donors at the White House. Then they give massive checks. - POLITICO
Shortly before Christmas, four billionaires with a long history of writing checks to Democrats were escorted into the White House, past the candy-themed holiday decorations and down the steps to the ground-floor Map Room. There, the group heard directly from President Joe Biden about his second-term agenda and were able to ask him questions about his campaign and policy, according to two people familiar with the meeting granted anonymity to discuss a private discussion. One day later, an attendee at the meeting, Mark Pincus, a tech entrepreneur, donated the maximum allowed — $929,600 — to Biden’s joint fundraising committee, Biden Victory Fund. Within three weeks, another person in the meeting, venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, sent $923,000. A third attendee, former Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson, wrote a nearly half million dollar check two days before the meeting, according to campaign finance disclosure records.
It is not illegal for Biden to invite donors into the White House, and prior presidents have similarly used the grandeur and convenience of the building to connect with political supporters and donors. Dozens of former President Barack Obama’s campaign donors visited the White House more than once for meetings, parties and state dinners. Former President George W. Bush hosted at least nine donors for overnight visits. Former President Bill Clinton infamously invited donors to stay the night in the Lincoln bedroom. And Trump blurred the lines further, using the White House lawn to claim the Republican nomination in 2020.
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The Media Didn’t Report On Biden’s Senility Because Republicans Noticed It | OutKick
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Reporters Blame “Right-Wing Media” for Their Failure to Disclose Biden’s Infirmity – JONATHAN TURLEY
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Biden’s Physician Met with Parkinson’s Disease Expert at White House, Visitor Logs Show
Dr. Cannard’s spate of visits began on July 28, 2023 and continued at least through March 28, 2024. The most recently released logs end on April 1, so it is not clear if Dr. Cannard has been to the White House more recently. The logs do not note the purpose of Dr. Cannard’s visits.
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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Private firms and open sources are giving spies a run for their money
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U.S. Faces Sea Power Gap in China's Backyard As Carriers Leave Asia - Newsweek
The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and its escorts are racing from Asia to the Middle East, leaving a rare carrier gap in the Western Pacific region where it hopes to counter China's expanding military footprint.
This summer, the Reagan is scheduled to conduct a carrier swap in California with the Nimitz-class USS George Washington. The Washington, which is currently operating in waters off the western coast of South America, will take over as the only forward-deployed aircraft carrier in Japan. Before the Washington arrives at the Seventh Fleet headquarters, however, no American aircraft carrier will be available to support crises or respond to contingencies in the Western Pacific, a stated priority at the Pentagon.
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We've banned Chinese telco kit and drones. Next: Mountain bikes?
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(May 2024) When the C.I.A. Turned Writers Into Operatives | The New Yorker
a group biography, as he calls it, of the writers Dwight Macdonald, Kenneth Tynan, and Richard Wright, whose trajectories help to illuminate the shadowy maneuverings of the cultural Cold War between 1956 and 1960. (Macdonald and Tynan contributed to The New Yorker.) All three men’s lives intersect with the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a lavishly funded anti-Communist organization secretly set up by the C.I.A. and headquartered in Europe, which sponsored conferences, literary magazines, art exhibitions, and other projects. Macdonald, an ornery American essayist, was a critic of Stalin and totalitarianism, and then a critic of paranoid McCarthyism. Tynan, the influential British theatre critic for The Observer, lustily called for political engagement in art, for dissent, and for “anti-anti-Americanism”; during the series’ time frame, he lives in London and New York. Wright, the American novelist and essayist (“Native Son,” “Uncle Tom’s Children”), was living in Paris, where he had moved in the forties, partly for the freedom from American racism. An anti-Communist former Communist, he was involved in many C.C.F. projects, and contended with his literary antagonist and fellow-expatriate James Baldwin, who was on the C.C.F.’s radar, too.
World
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'Money always wins': Inside Sydney's underground tree-killing industry
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The French republic is under threat. We 1k historians cannot remain silent
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What the "Conservatives" Have Wrought
So we are seeing the emergence of an explicitly Islamic domestic politics with members elected on explicitly Islamic tickets. Four "pro-Gaza" MPs doesn't sound like a lot, but, for purposes of comparison, it's exactly the same number as Nigel Farage's Reform party managed to elect. I would account the rise of a separate Islamic political force that no longer needs to work within the established parties as the most significant development of last night - and not in a good way: this is Britain's future.
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Labour vote share declined in districts with high Muslim populations
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Portugal to reintroduce tax breaks for skilled foreigners
Portugal’s new centre-right government plans to reintroduce controversial tax breaks that enticed a wave of foreigners to the country, but it will ensure wealthy expatriate pensioners cannot benefit from the perk. Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, finance minister, told the Financial Times the move would “attract some people” to the country as part of a package of 60 measures unveiled on Thursday to stimulate growth.