2024-09-08

etc

• Avocado plant producing giant fruit set to hit nursery shelves

• 1.5M RAM pickups recalled over software problem affecting stability control

Horseshit

• The Truth Is Out There, Part 1: The Will to Believe

  On Tuesday, August 28, 1995, Fox broadcast a program called Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?, whose one-hour running time — or rather 45 minutes with commercials — included about four of the nineteen and a half minutes of footage which Santilli had provided to Murdoch. The balance of the time was spent talking about the film, plus the long-rumored UFO crash at Roswell whose veracity it might prove.

  Facing increasing pressure to explain the many aspects of his story that didn’t fully make sense, Santilli committed a blatant self-own in 1997, when he showed pictures of the canisters in which, so he claimed, the film had been stored when he acquired it. (He was still refusing to provide the artifacts themselves for forensic examination.) The canisters were neatly labeled, “Property of the Department of Defense.” But, sadly for him, no agency of the American government had yet existed under that name at the time the autopsy was supposed to have been conducted.

  In 2004, long after the cultural moment that had produced the alien-autopsy sensation had passed into history, Ray Santilli finally came clean — partially, at any rate. He admitted to the British television presenter Eamonn Holmes that he and a few friends had faked the film in a vacant London flat, using “aliens” that had been made out of plaster and stuffed with sheep brains, chicken entrails, and other assorted offal picked up at a local butcher shop. (The smell in the apartment, the hoaxers said, was “horrendous.”) After the filming was complete, they had cut what was left of the aliens up into small pieces and dropped them into dumpsters all over the city, as you do when you’re looking to hide the evidence of a crime.

• With 'Founder Mode,' Silicon Valley Makes Micromanaging Cool

• Ask HN: I miss the internet of the 90s/00s. What should I do? | Hacker News

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Finally read the full indictment involving Tenet Media

  The DOJ got all their evidence from emails, phone records, IP addresses, Discord messages and google searches without having the physical devices. Meaning they have all the communications from Lauren Chen, all employees, friends, known associates... as well as anyone that has ever communicated with Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson and or associates of. You can thank Congress for extending FISA 702. The story isn't Russia Russia Russia...it's that they just collected all of your data and communications. Welcome to the surveillance state.

• Russia's election influence efforts more sophisticated than in recent years

• Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Our Government Censors

Telegram

• How Telegram Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists - The New York Times

Musk

• X Is Working with a GOP Consulting Firm

• X Exec Who Defended Restoring Account with Child Abuse Content Resigns

Electric / Self Driving cars

• What do Uber drivers make of Waymo? 'We are cooked'

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• College Grades Have Become a Charade

• Children of Big Brother: What It Means to Go Back-to-School in the American Police State

  The message is chillingly clear: your children are not your own but are, in fact, wards of the state who have been temporarily entrusted to your care. Should you fail to carry out your duties to the government’s satisfaction, the children in your care will be re-assigned elsewhere. This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today: where parents have to worry about school resource officers who taser teenagers and handcuff kindergartners, school officials who have criminalized childhood behavior, school lockdowns and terror drills that teach your children to fear and comply, and a police state mindset that has transformed the schools into quasi-prisons. Instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance.

• There's a fix for AI-generated essays. Why aren't we using it?

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Ford Patents In-Car System That Eavesdrops So It Can Play You Ads

• Threads is full of exactly the sort of tiresome idiots you mute on Twitter.

• Google is a monopoly and judges want to fix that. Outcomes are hard to predict

  • Google search monopoly US case remedies to come by December

• Making Videogames Was a Dream Career. Then the Mass Layoffs Came.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Starliner Lands in New Mexico

  • Boeing Starliner, leaving its crew behind, lands in New Mexico

  • Without astronauts, Boeing's Starliner returns to Earth

  • Boeing Starliner capsule lands back on Earth, without astronauts, to end troubled test flight (video) | Space

  Starliner has finally come home, more than three months after it launched on a planned 10-day mission.

  • Boeing Starliner capsule returns without astronauts

Economicon / Business / Finance

• PwC tells employees it will use location data to police "back-to-office" rule

• Can't find a job? It's not you, it's white-collar America

• FTC urged to stop tech makers downgrading devices after you've bought them

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Treasury recovers $1.3B in unpaid taxes from high-wealth tax dodgers

• Florida health agency launches anti-Amendment 4 site, spurs complaints

  Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is leaning on the state’s power to combat a proposed abortion amendment on Florida’s November ballots. On Thursday, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration launched a website opposing Amendment 4, saying that it “threatens women’s safety.” The website, which includes the agency’s seal, reiterates much of the same rhetoric used by political committees dedicated to fighting the amendment, including concerns about a lack of definitions in the amendment.

• US Gov Removing Four-Year-Degree Requirements for Cyber Jobs

Harris / Democrats

• Silicon Valley's elite rattled by prospect of tax on unrealised gains

• Unrealized gains taxes are a pointless hassle

Biden Inc

• Biden Aides Working on Proposal for US Sovereign Wealth Fund

Trump / Right / Jan6

• Heritage Foundation chief at S.F. tech event vows 'Project 2028' if Harris wins

• Nate Silver faces backlash for pro-Trump model skewing

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Cops lure pedophiles with AI pics of teen girl. Ethical triumph or new disaster?

• North Carolina Musician Charged with Music Streaming Fraud Aided by AI

• Mom jailed for opposing reunification between kids and ex accused of rape

• Law enforcement leans on 3D-printer industry to thwart machine gun conversion

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Carrier Captain: What Went on During 7 Months Under Fire Around the Red Sea

  Navy Capt. Christopher “Chowdah” Hill commands the Nimitz class aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower which recently returned from the Middle East. The historic, nine-month deployment saw the ship and its escorts under fire from an array of weapons old and new and ended up being one of the most dangerous and grueling the sea service has experienced since the Korean War. Now the combat-proven skipper opened up to TWZ like never before about what being under constant threat of attack was like and the rapidly changing tactical realities he and thousands of his sailors faced while plowing the waters of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKECSG) was called into the region following the Oct. 7 surprise Hamas attack on Israel. Once there, they battled Houthi rebels repeatedly attacking them and commercial shipping off Yemen’s shores. Collectively, the IKECSG used its various weapons to destroy a bevy of Houthi aerial drones, missiles, uncrewed surface vessels, and undersea vehicles, and different kinds of targets ashore, firing nearly 800 missiles and other munitions in the process. They also helped defend Israel from the first-ever direct attack from Iran.

  that all changed on Oct. 7th. Hamas invades Israel, and then we go ahead and deploy a week later. We didn’t really have a mission right away, other than to make best speed to the eastern Med, meet up with the [aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford], take some pictures, provide some presence operations to deter countries around Israel during that time.

World

• Malaysia started mandating ISPs to redirect DNS queries to local servers

• An 'earthquake' at Volkswagen – and a crisis for Germany?

  • Closing factories will not be enough to save Volkswagen

• Montreal man given $664 fine for tying dog to parking meter

• American mom accused of murdering her children claims god told her to do it

China

• As China, Africa woo each other, who gains more?

Health / Medicine

• The mystery over why human brains have shrunk over time

• Man, 70, dies after Florida surgeon removed liver instead of spleen

• Teenage E-Cigarette Use Drops to a 10-Year Low

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Missouri sees first positive bird flu case without known animal contact

  • Person in Missouri caught H5 bird flu without animal contact

• Pediatricians scale back on Covid shots amid declining interest from families

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The jet stream may be starting to shift in response to climate change

• How the maelstrom under Greenland's glaciers could slow future sea level rise

• Americans misunderstand their contribution to deteriorating environment

• Landslides are destroying multimillion-dollar homes in CA, and are getting worse