2024-09-27

Kafka was a prophet, Breaking ice, Bluesky echoes, CUPS has holes, LibGen fined, FRAM IC pr0n, Biden "bans" 3d printed guns, union goes postal over Trump, Vance dossier released, epic LAPD boners

etc

• The world is becoming more Kafkaesque - by Ron Ghosh

  The Kafkaesque nature of the world is all around us. It’s the healthcare insurance systems that get to deny you over a technicality, the difficulty of getting through to an actual human on the helpline, or the indignity of navigating the various school/job/government portals which provide conflicting information. It’s a sort of gaslighting. The bureaucrats get to hold the Blade of Damocles over your head, and for any reason whatsoever it could come down over your neck.

  Stated another way, it is the asymmetry of bad luck. If you make a mistake, or otherwise show yourself to be ignorant of the intricacies, that’s your problem. If the institutions make a mistake or otherwise prove themselves to be incompetent, that’s also your problem.

• Why the U.S. Can't Build Icebreaking Ships

  while the U.S. is trying to remedy this with a Polar Security Cutter program to build a series of new heavy polar icebreakers (to be followed by a series of medium icebreakers), the program is going poorly. When the contract was first awarded in 2019, the plan was to have the first icebreaker completed by 2024. But as of July this year, the design of the ship was still incomplete. If and when the ships are completed (currently 2029 for the first vessel at the earliest), they are expected to cost $1.7-1.9 billion apiece, roughly four to five times what a comparable ship would cost to build elsewhere. Icebreakers, then, are another unfortunate example of the costs inflicted by binding national interests to an inefficient shipbuilding industry.

Horseshit

• Montreal Kicked Cars to the Curb and Thrived

• 'Blue Zones' where people reach 100? Fake data, says academic

• Zuckerberg: there's no connection between social media and teen mental health

• Galaxy Buds reportedly exploded in a user's ear causing permanent hearing loss

• Promises of 'passive income' on Amazon led to death threats for online review

• Pilots Are Dying of Tiredness. Tech Can't Save Them

• Jockey Can't Walk After Manufacturer Refuses to Fix Battery in $100k Exoskeleton

  After a horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the waist down in 2009, former jockey Michael Straight learned to walk again with the help of a $100,000 ReWalk Personal exoskeleton. Earlier this month, that exoskeleton broke because of a malfunctioning piece of wiring in an accompanying watch that makes the exoskeleton work. The manufacturer refused to fix it, saying the machine was now too old to be serviced, and Straight once again couldn’t walk anymore.

• Promises of 'passive income' on Amazon led to death threats for negative review

• Mothers who regret having kids: 'I wished I were holding a cat and not a baby'

celebrity gossip

• Sean 'Diddy' Combs Is Now Jailed with Sam Bankman-Fried

  • FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried's new jail cellmate is Sean 'Diddy' Combs

• Las Vegas staff say MrBeast should be 'blacklisted', cite OSHA

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• With Bluesky, the social media echo chamber is back in vogue

  There is currently great danger,” a man wrote two years ago, “that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.” It may surprise you to learn that the man in question was Elon Musk, who wrote these words when he bought the social media platform formerly known as Twitter back in October 2022, stressing the need for humanity to have a “common digital town square” that was “warm and welcoming to all”, not a “free-for-all hellscape”.

  That there is a new place for such people to congregate is all well and good, but the problem is that the chatterati — very nice and non-conspiracy-theorising and non-overtly-racist though they may be — tend to coalesce around some quite similar viewpoints, which makes for a rather echoey chamber. I’m not sure I have ever felt more like I’m at a Stoke Newington drinks party than when I’m browsing Bluesky (including when tucking into Perelló olives and truffle-flavoured Torres crisps in actual N16). An even more fundamental problem is that nobody on Bluesky seems to actually mind that they are in an echo chamber. When I told a friend, who happens to be an enthusiastic Bluesky user, what I was writing about this week, she replied “oh yes, but it is an echo chamber, that’s what people like about it, it’s lovely”.

  Many enthuse about how like “old Twitter” Bluesky is, which is telling in itself: in the old days of Twitter, progressives far outnumbered their conservative counterparts in terms of how much they posted about politics on the platform, but that share has fallen dramatically since Musk took it over. According to the British Election Study, in the run-up to both the 2015 and 2019 elections, about 30 per cent of the most progressive Britons posted about politics on the platform. This year, while the most conservative Britons remained no less likely to post than before, the share of progressives posting on X had halved to 15 per cent; presumably that has since fallen much further, given that this survey preceded the riots.

Musk

• Elon Musk has gained a concerning level of power over US national security

• Musk hits back after being shunned from UK summit

• Elon Musk hits back at UK government over lack of invite to tech summit

• Twitter blocks EFF tweet that criticized bogus takedown of a previous tweet

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Do people act ethically out of true morality or fear of consequences? | MetaFilter

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Scores of papers by prominent neuroscientist/top NIH official under suspicion

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• LG TVs Start Showing Ads on Screensavers

• The Severity of the Linux Vulnerability: CVSS Score of 9.9

  • Unauthenticated RCE vs. all GNU/Linux systems (+ others) disclosed 3 weeks ago | Hacker News

  • 9.9 Linux CVE

  • We shall see. It's easy to holler "wolf".

  • Full disclosure happening at 20:00 UTC today, in a bit more than 2 hours

  • with link to openprinting (Cups) CoC Mark This. 1hr to go

  • Attacking Unix Systems via Cups, Part I

  Quoting one of the first comments from the guy who literally wrote the book about CUPS, while trying to explain to me why this is not that bad:

  I am just pointing out that the public Internet attack is limited to servers that are directly connected to the Internet

  • HN comments

  Anyone exposing CUPS to the internet is living a level of not giving a fuck that CVEs cannot reach.

• Vice Debuts a Subscription Product and Relaunches Its Print Magazine

• Google Maps is cracking down on fake reviews

• Google says a closed ad ecosystem isn't anticompetitive – it's just safer

• A First Look at Automatic Content Recognition Tracking in Smart TVs

• The Tor Project merges with Tails, a Linux-based portable OS focused on privacy

• Meta's big tease Orion is an impressive demo of AR glasses

• Wordpress.org blocks WP Engine; CEO demands legal concessions

  • Wordpress.org denies service to WP Engine, potentially putting sites at risk

• California's film industry crisis: Will stronger tax credits help?

• Pirate library must pay publishers $30M, but no one knows who runs it

  On Thursday, some links to the notorious shadow library Library Genesis (Libgen) couldn't be reached after a US district court judge, Colleen McMahon, ordered what TorrentFreak called "one of the broadest anti-piracy injunctions" ever issued by a US court. In her order, McMahon sided with textbook publishers who accused Libgen of willful copyright infringement after Libgen completely ignored their complaint. To compensate rightsholders, McMahon ordered Libgen to pay $30 million, but because nobody knows who runs the shadow library, it seems unlikely that publishers will be paid any time soon, if ever.

• Libraries will only exist as long as we borrow from them. It's your civic duty

• Winamp contained modified GPL code, violating the GPL

  • They added 4 inconsequential lines: It's technically a GPL violation, but not a massive one

• Instagram deleting archived stories, turning old videos into photos

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• NIST's New Password Guidelines Will Eliminate Periodic Changes and Special Characters

• Inside a ferroelectric RAM chip

  Ferroelectric memory is nonvolatile like flash memory, able to hold its data for decades. But, unlike flash, ferroelectric memory can write data rapidly. Moreover, FRAM is much more durable than flash and can be be written trillions of times. With these advantages, you might wonder why FRAM isn't more popular. The problem is that FRAM is much more expensive than flash, so it is only used in niche applications.

• Intel finds root cause of CPU crashing and instability errors

  The problem stems from a clock tree circuit in the IA core that is prone to failure under high voltage and temperature, causing a shift in the clock duty cycle and leading to system instability. Intel has pinpointed four key operating conditions that trigger this issue and implemented mitigations through various microcode updates.

  • Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen Desktop Instability Root Cause Update

  • Intel rolls out 'final' microcode fix for Raptor Lake CPUs

• Leak claims RTX 5090 has 600W TGP, 32GB VRAM, 512-bit bus

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI to Become For-Profit Company

  • OpenAI Discusses Giving Altman 7% Stake in For-Profit Shift

  • OpenAI Takes Its Mask Off To Reveal What It Really Is

• Zuckerberg chats with AI clone as human creator looks on in year's weirdest demo

• If your AI does the crime, you'll do the time, warns DOJ

• The Secret Service Spent $50k on OpenAI and Won't Say Why

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Nancy Pelosi’s husband sold more than $500K in Visa stock ahead of DOJ action.

  • I've already seen refutations of the claim that Pelosi made $65 million off VISA in that transaction. "Pre-bunking:" deny the lie you've told already, to discredit the truth others are coming out with.

• Cautious Bank of England hold rates, extends bond reduction plan | Reuters

• Super Micro shares tumble 12% after DOJ reportedly opens probe into company

• DoorDash is trying a new way of making deliveries without gig workers

• McDonald’s Faces the End of the Cheap Burger Era as Prices Rise, Sales Drop - Bloomberg

  Ever since the McDonald brothers first launched their vision of fast burgers at 15 cents a pop in 1948, inexpensive beef has become an American touchstone, practically a birthright along with voting and the high school prom. These days, that’s an entitlement drifting out of reach for many Americans. In the second quarter of 2024, the average price of a fast-food restaurant burger was $8.41, up 16% from five years ago, according to food consultant Technomic’s Ignite Menu data. Even at McDonald’s, the average price of a Big Mac (no fries, no drink, just the sandwich) in June was $5.29, a 21% increase from 2019. Burgers have gotten expensive enough that low-income consumers have been coming in less frequently, driving the chain’s first sales drop in four years, it said in its last quarter earnings.

• Fed's high-rates era handed $1T windfall to US banks

• Private Credit and Banks Team Up - Bloomberg

• Workers: US cannabis company Eaze pays supervisors less than those they oversee

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• NYC Mayor Eric Adams Is Indicted

  • Eric Adams becomes first sitting NYC mayor to be indicted by grand jury in historic federal probe: sources

  • Eric Adams is indicted in New York

  • FBI searches home of NYC mayor Eric Adams as federal charges loom

• DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

• Drone Photographer Seeks First Amendment Rights for His Aerial Images

  Jones argues that the useful “data” and “information” that he provides clients in his aerial photographs qualify as free speech in the digital age and that state licensing boards do not have the authority to censor it. Photographer and FAA-licensed drone operator Jones runs an aerial-mapping business in North Carolina, according to a press release by the Institute of Justice (IJ), the public interest law firm that is representing him.

  In 2019, the North Carolina surveying board issued a cease-and-desist letter. The board ordered Michael to shut down his operations or face civil and criminal penalties. In response, Michael sued the board, arguing that his aerial photographs and maps are forms of speech protected by the First Amendment. The photographer says that government cannot criminalize the communication of aerial photographs simply because of the “data” and “information” they contain. Now, it is likely that state regulators will shut the drone photographer’s business down — unless the Supreme Court intervenes in his case.

• FCC Unlocks Spectrum to Support Advanced Satellite Services

  new rules to open 1300 megahertz of contiguous spectrum for non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) fixed-satellite service operations in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band.

Harris / Democrats

• Kamala Harris Makes Dan Quayle Look Like A Superhero – Issues & Insights

Biden Inc

• Biden signs executive order to combat gun violence

  President Biden on Thursday will sign a new executive order on gun violence prevention, aiming to crack down on 3D printed guns and to improve active shooter drills at the nation’s schools.

Trump / Right / Jan6

• Postal Union Sends Letter Calling Trump 'Existential Threat'

  If former President Donald Trump wins November’s election, he would pose an “existential threat” — at least according to a letter apparently from the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), obtained by The Federalist. “If Donald Trump wins the upcoming election, it could prove an existential threat to our union and our contract,” the letter reads. “Your vote matters: consider how the consequences could affect you, your job, and our union when deciding how to vote.” The letter appears to be signed “in solidarity” by Georgia NALC President Don Griggs. It takes issue specifically with Trump and Project 2025, leftists’ favorite catch-all bogeyman.

• GOP lawmaker deletes racist social media post after swift backlash - Live Updates - POLITICO

  Higgins (R-La.) wrote a post on the platform X — using his official congressional account — that called Haitians "wild" and added: "Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangster ... but damned if they don't feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP. All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th."

• Trump forced to cancel Wisconsin rally after Secret Service says it ‘did not have sufficient assets’ to secure event: whistleblower

• Trump is getting wilder and wilder, but the White House race remains a toss-up | CNN Politics

  Wild weeks of outlandish rhetoric by the ex-president have revived memories of the cacophony of his four White House years and shattered perceptions that he’s running a more disciplined campaign than in 2020 or 2016. But the nature of the race — a toss-up contest in swing states — has not budged. Trump has peddled baseless rumors that immigrants in Ohio are eating pets. He’s warned that Jewish voters will be to blame if he loses in November. He’s refused to openly condemn a protege in the North Carolina gubernatorial contest who described himself as “black Nazi” on a porn site, as CNN’s KFile reported last week. Trump also reacted to a second apparent assassination attempt by implying that Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats are inviting such attacks when they highlight his refusal to accept his 2020 election loss and say he’s a danger to democracy.

• Read the JD Vance Dossier

  It reportedly comes from an alleged Iranian government hack of the Trump campaign, and since June, the news media has been sitting on it (and other documents), declining to publish in fear of finding itself at odds with the government’s campaign against “foreign malign influence.” I disagree. The dossier has been offered to me and I’ve decided to publish it because it’s of keen public interest in an election season. It’s a 271-page research paper the Trump campaign prepared to vet now vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable. I’ll let it speak for itself.

  This is not the Steele Dossier of 2016, with its golden showers and anti-Trump fanfiction. Unlike the Steele Dossier, which was both fraudulent and discredited, the Vance Dossier is factual and intelligently written. No Jason Bourne style capers appear, and there’s no sleaze. Instead, the Vance Dossier enumerates pretty reasonable liabilities as a then-contender for VP nominee,

  the document is clearly newsworthy, providing Republican Party and conservative doctrine insight into what the Trump campaign perceives to be Vance’s liabilities and weaknesses. Those perceptions provide clues about what a campaign of remarkably little substance might actually think.

  • X (Twitter) blocks links to hacked JD Vance dossier

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Kentucky sheriff pleads not guilty in fatal shooting of local judge | Just The News

• LAPD raid goes bad after gun allegedly sucked onto MRI machine

  An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department found out the hard way that you can’t take metal near an MRI machine after their rifle flew out of their hands and became attached to the machine during a pot raid gone bad, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week. The incident’s details were described in a lawsuit filed by the owners of a Los Angeles medical imaging center, who allege that their business was wrongly targeted by LAPD during a raid in October 2023

  Officers raided the facility on Oct. 18, 2023, and detained the lone female employee while they searched the business, the lawsuit said. However, they didn’t find a single cannabis plant and only saw a typical medical facility with rooms used for conducting x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRIs, the owners said. The officers then released the employee and told her to call a manager, the lawsuit said, while they continued to wander around various rooms of the facility. The plaintiffs say the officers’ behavior was “nothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures, or even a hint of coordination.” At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine. An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.

  • (PDF) Full Complaint

• A Chinese billionaire's Silicon Valley splurge caught the eye of the FBI

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Three years after U.S. withdrew, former Afghan forces are hunted by the Taliban

World

• Japanese court acquits death row inmate after 58 years

• UK government's bank data sharing plan slammed as 'financial snoopers' charter'

• Rents Fall and Listings Increase After Milei Ends Rent Control in Argentina

• Police are responsible for killing a doctor held for blasphemy, Pakistan says

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Google restricts creation of new accounts in Russia, news agencies report

• Russian Economy on the Verge of Implosion

• Ukraine Discovers Starlink on Downed Russian Shahed Drone: Report

China

• China's Newest Nuclear Submarine Sank, Setting Back Its Military Modernization

  • Chinese nuclear-powered submarine sank earlier this year, US official says

Health / Medicine

• Antiaging enthusiasts are taking a pill to extend their lives. Will it work?

• Racoon Roundworm: Brain-infecting parasite found in two LA County residents

• Harvard medical student, ate 720 eggs in a month, cholesterol levels dropped

• 'Weekend warrior' workouts may be as effective as daily exercise, study shows

• Rural Americans are dying younger, living less healthy lives, report reveals

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• It's time to roll up sleeves for new COVID, flu shots | AP News

  Yes, you can get your flu and COVID-19 shots at the same time. Don’t call them boosters — they’re not just another dose of last year’s protection. The coronavirus and influenza are escape artists that constantly mutate to evade your body’s immune defenses, so both vaccines are reformulated annually to target newer strains.

• 'Order Your 4 Free At-Home Covid-19 Tests'

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Earth exceeds safe limits: First Planetary Health Check issues red alert

• You could push it to extinction: social media is putting rarest wildlife at risk