2024-08-31

Horseshit

• British abolition of slavery led to India's indentured labour system

• Happiness recession': UK 15-year-olds at bottom of European satisfaction league

• AI cameras spot toddlers not wearing seat belts

• Round-the-world cruise delay keeps passengers in Belfast for three months

• Xiaomi Will Sell You a 1527-HP Car, but Only If You Pass Its Driving Test

celebrity gossip

• Will HP still demand $4B from Mike Lynch's estate?

  • Mike Lynch yacht sinking must be due to human error, boss of boat builder says

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• DOJ declares victory over Backpage as judge sends founder Lacey to prison: Lacey gets 5 years for one money laundering charge but was acquitted on 50 counts.

Telegram

• Telegram’s financial future in doubt as chief faces criminal inquiry

• Behind the Telegram boss arrest:a small Paris cybercrime unit with big ambitions

• Emmanuel Macron admits he gave Telegram chief French citizenship

Musk

• Starlink will now be free in Brazil since remote hospitals, schools use it: Musk

  • HN comments

  • SpaceX will provide Internet service to users in Brazil for free

• X braces for shutdown in Brazil as Elon Musk's spat with judge intensifies

• Elon Musk’s X Banned by Brazil’s Top Court - Bloomberg

  Brazil’s top court ordered the immediate suspension of X in the country after its billionaire owner Elon Musk defied orders to name a legal representative for the social network in Latin America’s largest nation. The banning of the platform formerly known as Twitter caps a months-long feud between Musk and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is spearheading efforts to combat fake news and hate speech that he says are harming Brazil’s democracy.

  • Musk's X banned in Brazil after disinformation row

  • Brazil judge orders suspension of X amid standoff with Musk

  • Brazil Blocks X After Musk Ignores Court Orders - The New York Times

  • Judge orders Musk's X shut down in Brazil

• The Tesla Files: RICO Lawsuit Describes How Elon Musk Got Rich

• Elon Musk is out of control. Here is how to rein him in

• Fidelity cuts Twitter's valuation to $12.3B, down from $44B

• Elon Musk and Tesla Triumph in Dogecoin Manipulation Case

• X can proceed to trial in case against Media Matters after Texas judge ruling

• 'Catastrophic' SpaceX Starship explosion tore a hole in the atmosphere last year

Electric / Self Driving cars

• When EV startups shut down, will their cars still work?

• EV sales hit speed bump as drivers unplug from the electric dream

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Scientists make startling discovery after analysing cloth 'Jesus was buried in'

  Italian researchers who used a new technique involving x-rays to date the material have confirmed it was manufactured around the time of Jesus about 2,000 years ago.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Court battle over Biden's student loan repayment plan leaves borrowers in limbo

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Studios are cracking down on some of the internet's most popular pirating sites

• Asia's Richest Man Says He Will Give Everyone 100 GB of Free Cloud Storage

• AnandTech shuts down after 27 years

• CrowdStrike exec will testify to Congress about July's global IT meltdown

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Orphaning bcachefs-tools in Debian – Jonathan Carter

  back in April the Rust dependencies for bcachefs-tools in Debian didn’t at all match the build requirements. I got some help from the Rust team who says that the common practice is to relax the dependencies of Rust software so that it builds in Debian. So errno, which needed the exact version 0.2, was relaxed so that it could build with version 0.4 in Debian, udev 0.7 was relaxed for 0.8 in Debian, memoffset from 0.8.5 to 0.6.5, paste from 1.0.11 to 1.08 and bindgen from 0.69.9 to 0.66. I found this a bit disturbing, but it seems that some Rust people have lots of confidence that if something builds, it will run fine. And at least it did build, and the resulting binaries did work, although I’m personally still not very comfortable or confident about this approach (perhaps that might change as I learn more about Rust).

  With that in mind, at this point you may wonder how any distribution could sanely package this. The problem is that they can’t.

  the upstream author is 100% against any solution other than vendoring all its dependencies with the utility and insisting that it must only be built using these bundled dependencies. I’ve made 6 uploads for this package so far this year, but still I constantly get complaints that it’s out of date and that it’s ancient. If a piece of software is considered so old that it’s useless by the time it’s been published for two or three months, then there’s no way it can survive even a usual stable release cycle, nevermind any kind of long-term support.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Feds to get early access to OpenAI, Anthropic AI to test for doomsday scenarios

• Amazon turns to Anthropic's AI for Alexa revamp

• Chatbots Are Primed to Warp Reality

• OpenAI considers changes to its corporate structure amid latest funding talks

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Starliner return from ISS set for Sept. 6

• NASA cuts 2 from next SpaceX flight to make room for astronauts stuck at space station.

• Boeing's stranded astronaut fiasco takes sickening twist

Crypto con games

• Rise and Fall of OpenSea

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Intel CEO, under growing pressure, addresses company's 'difficult few weeks

  • Intel Is Said to Explore Options to Cope with Historic Slump

  • Intel mulls spinning off its manufacturing division

  • Gelsinger opens up about Intel troubles amid talk of possible split

• Many disabled workers earn subminimum wages under U.S. labor program

• Why Interest Rate Cuts Won't Fix a Global Housing Affordability Crisis

• As if they ever go away: When Interest Rates Go Down, the Hucksters Spring Up

• Goldman Sachs to Lay Off over 1,300 Workers

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• USGS announces elevation and hydrography data acquisition partnership scheme

  provides a vehicle for partnering with the USGS and other Federal agencies to acquire high-resolution 3D elevation and 3D hydrography data. The partnerships foster collaboration across the nation to respond to a growing need for high-quality elevation and hydrography data

  Applicants may contribute funds toward data acquisition acquired through the USGS-managed Geospatial Products and Services Contracts or they may request 3DEP or 3DHP funds toward data acquisition where the requesting partner manages the data acquisition contract. Federal agencies, State and local governments, Tribes, academic institutions, and the private sector are eligible to submit projects through the DCA.

• Opinion | Naked Emperors and Crypto Campaign Cash - The New York Times

  while crypto has thus far been largely unable to find legitimate applications for its products, it has been spectacularly successful at marketing its offerings. Cryptocurrencies, which are traded for other crypto assets but otherwise mainly seem suited for things like money laundering and extortion, are currently worth around $2 trillion. And in this election cycle the crypto industry has become a huge player in campaign finance. I mean huge: Crypto, which isn’t a big industry in terms of employment or output (even if you posit, for the sake of argument, that what it produces is actually worth something), accounts for almost half of corporate spending on political action committees this cycle.

  • no mention of SBF, FTX, or the previous elections..

Harris / Democrats

• What Kamala Harris Doesn’t Get About Food Costs - The Atlantic

  Last week in North Carolina, Kamala Harris called for a new federal law to ban “price-gouging on food.” Such a law might be popular, but it would have, at best, no impact on grocery prices and might even make the problem worse. That’s especially unfortunate because it distracts from all the federal policy changes that actually could reduce food prices. The evidence that price-gouging was responsible for the post-pandemic spike in food prices is somewhere between thin and nonexistent. A recent report from the New York Federal Reserve found that retail food inflation was mainly driven by “much higher food commodity prices and large increases in wages for grocery store workers,” while profits at grocers and food manufacturers “haven’t been important.”

• If Donald Trump’s Sex Life Is Fair Game For The Election, So Is Kamala Harris.’

Trump / Right / Jan6

• Jack Smith Ain’t Cannon Fodder - by Kim Wehle - The Bulwark

  Last month, Cannon tossed out the indictment on foundational grounds, declaring Smith himself an unconstitutional actor, as if everything he touches is worthless as a matter of law. The appeal signals that the Justice Department is not going to tolerate Smith getting “fired” this way. Cannon is a trial court judge, so her deeply flawed ruling has no weight beyond this particular case. Still, Smith’s filing the appeal carries a risk. The Supreme Court in Trump v. U.S. created immunity for crimes committed by presidents using their “official” power. In his concurring opinion in that case, Justice Clarence Thomas offered a roadmap for Cannon’s dismissal of the case on the grounds that Smith’s very office is unconstitutional.

• FBI releases new evidence photos from July 13 Trump rally shooting

  • Two improvised explosive devices as initially discovered in Thomas Crooks’ car trunk. The receiver for remote detonation was in the “off” position; devices had several problems in the way they were constructed.

  • of course, the FBI is not above releasing completely fake photos for PR purposes, having done so before in at least one other Trump case. I have no specific reason to doubt any of these but they've stained their image.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Colorado apartment building overrun by Venezuelan gang has armed group flaunting guns

• US indicts duo over alleged Swatting spree that targeted elected officials

  Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, called crisis intervention hotlines, alerted government agencies, or posted evidence of crimes online. The indictment describes their activities as “Swattting” – a reference to the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams operated by some law enforcement agencies. SWAT teams are often heavily armed and frequently exercise deadly force. In an announcement of the indictment, the Attorney’s office claimed that the duo’s targets included " members of Congress, cabinet-level executive branch officials, senior officials of federal law enforcement agencies, and state officials.”

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• B1-B Crash Report Unfairly Targeted Airman's Body Weight, Family Member Says

• Green Berets Hijacked WiFi to Control Home Security System in Mock Raid

• Biden admin weighs price support for US critical minerals amid Chinese pressure

World

• Workers in UK could get right to request four-day compressed week

• Eton to Charge Parents Full 20% Vat on School Fees in January

• Japan police: Nearly 4k who died alone at home not found for over a month

• Claw machine games are Rio de Janeiro's new public enemy

• Hungary FM teases more Gazprom contracts after blowup with EU ministers

• Putin, cash and guns prompt 'explosive' rethink of Swiss neutrality

• Japan was the future but it's stuck in the past

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia's Military Fears for Its Secrets After Telegram Founder's Arrest

• Russia produces first set of Poseidon super torpedoes

• Friendly Fire Fiasco: Ukrainian Army Shoots Down Its Own F16 Jet, Pilot Killed | ZeroHedge

  It appears that the US-made F-16 fighter jet, which was handed over to Ukraine earlier this year, was downed by a Ukrainian Patriot air defense system in a friendly fire incident, Ukrainian lawmaker Maryana Bezuglaya said

• Ukraine Air Force chief fired after F-16 crash - The Washington Post

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday he had “decided to replace” the commander of the country’s Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk. The shake-up came a day after Ukraine’s military announced that one of its few F-16 fighter jets crashed during an operation this week to combat a wave of Russian missiles. Oleshchuk said an investigation was ongoing into what caused the “aviation disaster,” adding that the United States had joined the investigation.

  • Zelensky Fires Air Force Commander After Ukraine F-16 Was Downed By Friendly Fire | ZeroHedge

  • Ukrainian president fires Air Force commander after fatal F-16 crash

Health / Medicine

• The State That Chose to Cover Obesity Drugs for Its Poor, but Not Its Employees

• Marijuana Is Too Strong Now

• The wellness drink for sober people that some say they can't stop drinking

• Blood puddles, mold, tainted meat, bugs: Boar's Head inspections are horrifying

• FDA mandates photo ID for all under 30 to buy tobacco.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• US repeating Covid mistakes with bird flu as spread raises alarm, experts say

• Mpox vaccines are available – why are they not reaching Africa

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Birds have cultural traditions that affect nest building, new study finds

• All-in-one solution captures and destroys 'forever chemicals' using light

• The fight to ban gas-powered cars in the 1960s

• Coating clothes with this simple material could cool your body up to 8 degrees

• How climate change is expanding the reach of a deadly mosquito-borne illness

• How Joseph Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect