2024-09-20
Population control took work, Science reinvents souls, media companies spy on us, the money in Python, migrants go Blue, MAGA now equals Apartheid, kids labor for climate
etc
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How We Got the Story | The New Yorker
To protect our reporting, we moved all our research to a locked office, and communicated using only emojis. During one particularly intense night, Bruce let Stephen know that he was laughing so hard he was crying, and applauded three times, to which Stephen replied that he prayed this was true, while also wearing sunglasses. At this point, our editor-in-chief began calling us “Nimrod and DimStein,” which we took as a compliment.
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Diatom Arrangements – The Hidden Beauty of Single Cell Algae Art Arrangements | trebeljahr.com
Horseshit
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DNA stored on crystal could bring back humanity after extinction
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In retrospect, Cotelingham says, she should have known it was a scam. The game of law-enforcement telephone made no sense. All the callers had heavy accents. Each instructed her not to tell anyone what she was doing. The bank teller at Truist, where she withdrew the $18,000, asked if Cotelingham was OK, and warned her of scams. Even the Bitcoin machine where she deposited the money had a warning, in big red letters, to beware of scams and fraud.
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To reduce South Korea’s birth rate, Park’s government spread a contraceptive mentality and punished childbearing. In its early years, the government placed family planning units in every hospital; promoted vasectomy procedures and the use of condoms and jellies; conducted nationwide training for physicians in new family planning technologies; tripled the number of family planning bureaucrats; and trained physicians in IUD insertion techniques. A family planning bureaucracy was created in the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and in 1961 the government established Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea, a conduit for international aid and domestic propaganda. The Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, longtime advocates of population control, funded advanced Western training to accomplish these goals, including by providing funds to incentivize sterilization.
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This is a prescription for re-enslaving women to domestic service, and ensuring that only the wealthy can live with the basic dignity of cleanliness.
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Flashy office and studio complex in Hollywood may become apartments instead
celebrity gossip
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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Hillary Clinton Wants To Jail Americans For ‘Misinformation.’ Let’s Start With Her.
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Wikipedia Was Never Better Than This – Commentary Magazine
High-profile controversies, such as the recent one over Wikipedia’s explosion in anti-Zionist disinformation, make it more obvious. Wikipedia’s value is not in its accuracy but in the transparency of its sourcing because when it comes to information, passion always has to answer eventually to knowledge.
Yesterday, social-media users highlighted the change in Wikipedia’s definition of Zionism. In 2023, it was “a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to espouse support for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. Following the establishment of Israel, Zionism became an ideology that supports ‘the development and protection of the State of Israel.’”
Here’s the 2024 (and current) version: “Zionism is an ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside of Europe. It eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 by way of the proclamation of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, Zionism became the ideology supporting the protection and development of Israel as a Jewish state and has been described as Israel’s national or state ideology.”
When zealots get hold of a supposedly neutral source of information, they must make a public execution of it and parade their victim through the streets. The mutilated corpse of a Wikipedia page isn’t a sign of intellectual inquiry but an indication of a kind of ISIS-of-the-mind.
No one should be surprised by this: Merriam-Webster changed its dictionary definition of “sexual preference” in 2020 immediately after Democrats attached a stigma to the phrase in order to criticize Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. If an actual reference publication will allow day-to-day partisan politics to dictate its contents, an imitation reference publication will have no qualms about doing so. Wiki see, Wiki do.
Musk
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Twitter decides to comply with Brazilian Supreme Court order, will return
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2nd-gen Starlink satellites emit 30x more RF interference, blinding telescopes
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Paranoid Elon Musk Now Constantly Surrounded by 20 Armed Bodyguards and a Medic
Mr. Musk spent an average $145,000 a month on security, according to invoices and receipts viewed by The Times. One of the few companies to spend more is Meta, which allocated $23.4 million last year to the security of its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, filings show.
The Times compiled details of Mr. Musk’s security, which have not previously been reported, from hundreds of pages of Tesla documents, police and local government documents obtained through public records requests, state records of Mr. Musk’s security company, audio recordings, court documents, and Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The Times did not include details of Mr. Musk’s locations.
Electric / Self Driving cars
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Does Consciousness Come From a Higher Dimension?
Despite centuries of scientific study, the nature of consciousness remains a mystery. Theories to explain the phenomenon abound, ranging from neural networks in the brain to complex algorithms of cognition, but none have definitively captured its essence. Michael Pravica, Ph.D., a professor of physics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, believes that we should be looking at hidden dimensions to explain consciousness. In his view, consciousness has the ability to transcend the physical world in moments of heightened awareness. His concept ties into the theory of hyperdimensionality, or the idea that our universe is not just made up of the three dimensions we perceive. Instead, the universe might actually be part of a much larger nexus with hidden dimensions, Pravica suggests. If this controversial theory turns out to be true, we would have to accept not only that some beings may be residing outside the physical realm, free from the limitations of space and time, but also that our consciousness might have a similar capacity, Pravica claims.
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Why is academic writing so awful?
The opacity of academic prose arises from the epistemological imperative to operationalize disciplinary jargon, facilitating intra-specialized discourse while obfuscating heterogenous interpretive accessibility and perpetuating a recursive dialectic of erudition and exclusion.
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won’t repeat everything the anti-Israel students said to tonight’s guest speaker
They took nine pizzas. First a student took four pizzas, left, and came back to call the veteran professor a “murderer” and the rest of us “a bunch of people apologizing for him.” “This is bullshit,” she said, “you all should not be able to talk about sexual assault like authorities on the topic.”
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My French Teacher Was Beloved for 25 Years. Then She Was Asked About Hijabs. | The Free Press
According to Protopappas’s complaint, the student who had asked the question, Sarai Wilks, “unexpectedly burst out of anger and displayed an uncharacteristically emotional and intensely personal reaction to the discussion, focusing on how unfair the French law was to her friend from her former school on the West Coast who wore the hijab.” Sarai is not just any student. She is the daughter of the head of school, Felicia Wilks, who began her tenure in July 2022. The next day, Sarai returned to class—the last day of her senior year—and “expressed even more anger, as if she had been inflamed,” according to the complaint. “She also tried but failed to get her peers involved and join in her outrage. She was very disappointed to be unsuccessful and to remain isolated in her anger. Her classmates were embarrassed and confused by what seemed completely out of the ordinary and blown out of proportion,
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Discworld RPG is a "wordplay based pun-stravaganza" with bendy rules
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Mozilla has fired their Chief Product Officer after cancer diagnosis
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iPhone 16 to be assembled in Brazil in addition to China and India
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Google offered to sell part of ad tech business, not enough for EU publishers
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GTA V, one of the most popular Steam Deck games, is now 'unsupported'
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Mysterious "LOVE" packet storms flood the internet since 2020
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FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies
A new Federal Trade Commission staff report that examines the data collection and use practices of major social media and video streaming services shows they engaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens.
the companies collected and could indefinitely retain troves of data, including information from data brokers, and about both users and non-users of their platforms. The staff report further highlights that many companies engaged in broad data sharing that raises serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the companies’ data handling controls and oversight. In particular, the staff report noted that the companies’ data collection, minimization and retention practices were “woefully inadequate.” In addition, the staff report found that some companies did not delete all user data in response to user deletion requests. The staff report also found that the business models of many of the companies incentivized mass collection of user data to monetize, especially through targeted advertising, which accounts for most of their revenue. It further noted that those incentives were in tension with user privacy, and therefore posed risks to users’ privacy. Notably, the report found that some companies deployed privacy-invasive tracking technologies, such as pixels, to facilitate advertising to users based on preferences and interests.
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Disney to Stop Using Slack Following Hack That Exposed Company Data
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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Things I’ve learned serving on the board of the Python Software Foundation
You can see how that money has been spent in the 2023 Annual Impact Report. The PSF had $4,356,000 revenue for that year and spent $4,508,000—running a small loss, but not a concerning one given our assets from previous years.
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Real-time Linux is officially part of the kernel after decades of debate | Ars Technica
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Patents for software and genetic code could be revived by two bills in Congress | Ars Technica
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Attorney General Merrick Garland broke precedent just weeks before the November election, delivering politically charged remarks at the U.S. Attorneys’ National Conference in Washington – pointedly speaking publicly rather than privately in a departure from his usual practice. “Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon,” he said before a packed house, gathered in the Great Hall of DOJ headquarters on Sept. 12. “Federal prosecutors and agents may never make a decision regarding an investigation or prosecution for the purpose of affecting any election or the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
in the view of many, his assertions clearly belie the Justice Department’s deeds. These critics say it’s obvious that the FBI and DOJ have repeatedly put a thumb on the scale of justice to defeat Trump. In 2016, it was the Russia-gate collusion hoax. In 2020 it was the FBI’s refusal to say not only that it was in possession of Hunter Biden’s incendiary laptop, but that it had verified its contents, even as Joe Biden claimed erroneously that it was a Russian plant.
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Failed CR, SAVE Act vote represents another loss for Speaker Johnson's leadership | Just The News
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US Map Shows Potential Areas Of Migrant 'Great Job Replacement' | ZeroHedge
In the battleground states that will decide this November’s election, about 72% of migrants in 2023 went to Biden counties while less than a third went to Trump counties, the Bloomberg analysis found. Counties that voted for Biden four years ago are home to roughly 60% of the overall US population.
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Apple introduces California driver's licenses and state IDs in Apple Wallet
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State by state, one lobbyist is reshaping American tech laws
Harris / Democrats
Trump / Right / Jan6
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Musk, Thiel and the shadow of apartheid South Africa
Elon Musk lived in apartheid South Africa until he was 17. David Sacks, the venture capitalist who has become a fundraiser for Donald Trump and a troll of Ukraine, left aged five, and grew up in a South African diaspora family in Tennessee. Peter Thiel spent years of childhood in South Africa and Namibia, where his father was involved in uranium mining as part of the apartheid regime’s clandestine drive to acquire nuclear weapons. And Paul Furber, an obscure South African software developer and tech journalist living near Johannesburg, has been identified by two teams of forensic linguists as the originator of the QAnon conspiracy, which helped shape Trump’s Maga movement. (Furber denies being “Q”.)
In short, four of Maga’s most influential voices are fiftysomething white men with formative experiences in apartheid South Africa. This probably isn’t a coincidence. I say that as a fiftysomething white man whose formative experiences include childhood visits to my extended family in apartheid South Africa. (My parents left Johannesburg before I was born.) We’d swim in my grandparents’ pool while the maid and her grandchildren lived in the garage. These experiences were so shocking, so different from anything I experienced growing up in Europe, that they are my sharpest childhood memories.
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Trump Media shares slide with DJT sale restrictions set to lift
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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Justice Department disrupts Chinese operation that infected consumer devices
The FBI has disrupted a group of hackers working at the direction of the Chinese government who targeted universities, government agencies and other organizations, Director Chris Wray said Wednesday. The hacking campaign known as Flax Typhoon installed malicious software on more than 200,000 consumer devices, including cameras, video recorders and home and office routers, to create a massive botnet — a network of infected computers. The botnet was used to facilitate cyber crimes, such as the theft of sensitive information from victims’ networks. “Flax Typhoon’s actions caused real harm to its victims, who had to devote precious time to clean up the mess when they discovered the malware,” Wray said at the Aspen Cyber Summit.
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Alaskan Man Arrested for Reportedly Threatening the Six Conservative Justices – JONATHAN TURLEY
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Cops lure pedophiles with AI pics of teen girl. Ethical triumph or new disaster?
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
Israel
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Walkie-talkie explosions spark fresh day of chaos in Lebanon
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Regarding Current Media Reports (follow-up) | News Release | Icom Inc.
Earlier today in worldwide media, there have been reports that two-way radio devices bearing the Icom logo have exploded in Lebanon. We hereby provide the following update about this incident at this time. The IC-V82 is a handheld radio that was produced and exported, including to the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014. It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company. The production of the batteries needed to operate the main unit has also been discontinued, and a hologram seal to distinguish counterfeit products was not attached, so it is not possible to confirm whether the product shipped from our company.
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Lebanon explosions raise alarm about supply chain security, safety of tech
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There's people saying "Jewish space lasers can cause any electronics to explode" out there yesterday. I'm not arguing with them: it might be nice if they gave up electronics.
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Israel didn't tamper with Hezbollah's exploding pagers, it made them
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New Details of Hezbollah Exploding Pagers' Supply Chain Emerge
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Taiwan Company Disavows Links to Pager Explosions, Points to Budapest Company
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Lebanon Bans Pagers & Walkie-Talkies On All Flights Leaving Beirut
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
Health / Medicine
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Groundbreaking brain scans explain the 'mommy brain' phenomenon
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U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease in 2023, First Time Since 2018
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US health system ranks last compared with peer nations, report finds – US news
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'It's not fun anymore': Fentanyl users rush for treatment as drug deaths drop
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Novo's older obesity drug is safe and effective for children, study finds
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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From the files of 'Be careful what you ask for'
A new report from the Department of Labor raises tough questions about whether and to what extent forced labor and child labor are intertwined with climate-friendly technology.
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Open-source release of Aurora: a foundation model of the atmosphere