2024-10-18

post truthiness, Berenson's case, hundreds of bots, BYD bit Apple, software aint real, Snapdragon vaporizes, Starliner superseded. de-banking deviants, media likes Harris, peace through strength

etc

• Petroleum drilling technology now used for geothermal power

• Information about North Carolina and the hurricane/flood response

  • Duke Power opened the dam that caused the water that created mudslides which then caused the roadways to fail and rivers to flood.
  • The River monitors were broken and had been broken and were reported by homeowners in the area near Chimney Rock.
  • No evacuation was given until after Duke Power opened the dam after the mudslides began.

• Blue whale skeleton at New Bedford museum still oozing oil

Horseshit

• (2017) but theres a new one going round now 3D printing is yesterday's news. Westworld-style liquid printing is the future

• Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

• Why "founder mode" is a rebranding for micromanaging, top-down leaders

• Two Decades Ago, Ford Killed Its Legendary 7.3 Power Stroke

• I Went from Reading 40 Books a Year to Reading 0 - Durmonski.com

• For the love of God, stop talking about "post-truth"

  Most people have encountered some version of the following narrative:

  We are living through an “epistemological crisis,” a crisis of disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. Whereas politicians, pundits, and the public used to respect facts, there is now mass deception and delusion. In this post-truth era, populist demagogues spread blatant lies, voters prioritise emotion over reason, fake news runs rampant, and nefarious algorithms suck citizens down rabbit holes, trapping them in echo chambers where comforting delusions are repeated, reflected, and reinforced.

  In other words, we now inhabit a reality in which many people have lost touch with reality, either by design or deception. Judging by its continued influence since 2016, this narrative appeals to many people, especially liberals and progressives bewildered by recent political events and trends. However, it is deeply confused. It obscures our political and epistemological challenges and directs our attention away from possible solutions.

• Why are people dropping flour in weird patterns around Austin?

celebrity gossip

• Drew DeVault's connections to latest Stallman slur campaign (Archive)

• Paul Rudolph Was an Architectural Star. Now He's a Cautionary Tale

• Former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee shot multiple times in Las Vegas | AP News

  • It’s been 37 years since I’ve seen Jake E. Lee

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Thank you for your trust and support! - by Alex Berenson

  I knew the tweet that provoked my suspension hadn’t violated Twitter’s rules. I knew Covid vaccine mandates were coming and the White House hated my reporting. I knew outside pressure had driven the censorship. I just couldn’t prove what had happened. Now I can.

• Americans' Trust in Media Remains Near Record Low

• Digital Yard Signs: Analysis of an AI Bot Political Influence Campaign on X

  This inauthentic network includes at least 686 accounts, and likely more. The campaign uses large language models to create organic seeming content in the replies of real users’ posts. Taking on conservative persona and perspectives, this campaign has targeted both Republican candidates (in primaries) and Democrats (in generals) in addition to advocating for specific issues.

Musk

• For the EU Commission X should not be designated as gatekeeper under the DMA

  • X isn't important enough to feel the full force of EU regulation

• Elon Musk is a ‘promoter of evil,’ EU rule-of-law chief says – POLITICO

• Musk's Empire Risks Being Targeted by EU for Potential X Fines

  • EU considers calculating X fines by including revenue from Musk's other firms

• Twitter/X Will Use Your Posts for AI Training and There's No Opting Out

• Elon Musk Surprised Jensen Huang by Installing 100k Nvidia GPUs in 19 Days

• The rockets are nifty, but it is satellites that make SpaceX valuable

• Musk Keeps Paying for X

• Why Is Elon Musk So F'ing Successful? And how do we do more of it?

• Musk pushes debunked Dominion voting conspiracy theory at campaign appearance

Electric / Self Driving cars

• A Barely Modified Tesla Cybertruck Has Made It to Europe; Regulators Are Worried

• Apple Secretly Worked With China’s BYD on Long-Range EV Battery - Bloomberg

  Apple Inc. worked with Chinese automaker BYD Co. for years as part of its now-canceled car project, developing long-range batteries that helped lay the groundwork for technology used today, according to people familiar with the situation. Apple and the Shenzhen-based company teamed up around 2017 to build a battery system using lithium iron phosphate cells, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the effort hasn’t been disclosed. The technology was designed to be longer-range and safer than typical electric-vehicle batteries at the time. Though Apple doesn’t own any of the technology used in BYD’s current Blade batteries, the partnership shows just how far the iPhone maker went in its efforts to produce a car. The tech titan spent roughly $1 billion a year over the past decade on the vehicle project — often seen as one of the company’s “next big things” — before scrapping it in February.

• Ranking Human Rights Due Diligence Reporting of Leading Electric Vehicle Makers

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Dimwitted TikTokker tore down Greek flags at NJ restaurant thinking they were Israeli: ‘My bad’.

• 'Race science' group say they accessed sensitive UK health data

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The University of Michigan Doubled Down on DEI What Went Wrong?

• The Guru Who Says He Can Get Your Child into Harvard

• From software to reality? – Daniel Lemire's blog

  While the ascendancy of computer scientists in natural sciences might herald a new era of discovery and efficiency, we have yet to see this era in concrete terms. Hinton might have won the Physics Nobel prize, but did Physics see many new breakthroughs? Hassabis might have won the Chemistry Nobel prize, but did Chemistry see actual advances? We have been promised extraordinary medical cures. I am sure that better software can improve medical care, but we should not assume that we can magically go from software to reality.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• US talk on Google breakup gives EU political cover to get tough

• Two accused of DDoSing some of the biggest tech companies

• WordPress retaliation impacts community (HN comments)

  • Automattic offered employees 9 months pay to quit over WordPress drama

• Open-sourcing of WinAmp goes badly as owners delete entire repo

• Sales of Apple's ludicrously expensive Vision Pro headset are down 80%.

• Reverse-Engineering Redbox Stands

• Bluesky gains 100k users in 12 hours after X/Twitter changes TOS and blocking

• How Dungeons and Dragons is taking over the theatre, even the Sydney Opera House

• Neuralink Co-Founder's New Startup Sells a Brain Computer Toolkit

• FCC Requires All Mobile Phones to Be Hearing Aid Compatible

• Netflix says subscribers spend two hours a day on the platform

  • Netflix Adds 5M Subscribers as Profits and Margins Soar

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• RF-modulated high fidelity laser microphone and keystroke sniffer

  • (Aug 2024) Watch How a Hacker’s Infrared Laser Can Spy on Your Laptop’s Keystrokes | WIRED

• Qualcomm cancels Snapdragon Dev Kit, refunds all orders | Jeff Geerling (HN comments)

  I feel sorry for the hardware team at Qualcomm who worked on this project, because it had a lot of promise, just too many roadblocks to make it successful. Windows on Arm could certainly use more developer focus, and a great developer workstation (which is more readily available) would help with that.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• US prosecutors see rising threat of AI-generated child sex abuse imagery

• The AI Boom Has an Expiration Date

• How to build god and get away with it

  Humanity will inevitably build god in man's own image. If we want to get away with it, we must manufacture transparency at scale, polish thoroughly, and smile.

• Meta criticised for calling its AI models ‘open-source’

  The social media company is “confusing” users and “polluting” the term open-source by using it to describe its Llama family of large language models, said Stefano Maffulli, head of the Open Source Initiative. The body coined the term open-source in the late 1990s and has been seen as the guardian of the concept ever since. Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times, Maffulli said this was “extremely damaging” at a time when bodies such as the European Commission were seeking to support true open-source technologies that are beyond the control of any particular company.

• Sam Altman's Energy 'New Deal' Is Good for OpenAI and AI. What About Americans?

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• How to Prevent Another Europa Clipper Transistor Panic

• ISS leaks among 50 'areas of concern' for astronaut safety

• NASA further delays first operational Starliner flight - SpaceNews

  NASA will use SpaceX’s Crew Dragon for its two crew rotation missions to the International Space Station in 2025 as it continues to evaluate if it will require Boeing to perform another test flight of its Starliner spacecraft.

  • NASA Freezes Starliner Missions After Boeing Leaves Astronauts Stranded

• Bridgit Mendler, a former Disney actor, launches space startup

• It's increasingly unlikely that humans will fly around the Moon next year

Crypto con games

• Sam Altman's Worldcoin rebrands as project broadens

• Historic Bitcoin theft tied to Connecticut kidnapping, $500K bar bill

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Meta is laying off employees at WhatsApp, Instagram, and more

  • Meta lays off employees across multiple teams | TechCrunch

• Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

  • Meta fires staff for abusing $25 meal credits

  • Meta fires staffers for using $25 meal credits on household goods

• 1,300 jobs will be eliminated at Intel's Hillsboro campus, company tells state

  • Intel meanwhile is laying off 1300 workers at its Oregon foundry as part of its company-wide reduction of 15,000.

• DHL Pioneered the Sharing Economy

• Microsoft hasn't chased Amazon back to the office. It's even cutting back

• Qualcomm wants to buy Intel. Would that be enough to overtake Nvidia?

• Apple celebrates 10 years of Apple Pay

• Boeing's Breakup Is Not If, but How and When

• The Math Says It's Getting Harder to Break into the American Middle Class

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Clarence Thomas Thinks the Real Victims Are Prosecutors Who Engage in Misconduct

• California passes law allowing Dutch-style cannabis cafes

• The Debanking of America

  it’s not just Trump supporters. Also debanked have been a number of Christian charities, including Indigenous Advance Ministries, a Memphis-based charity that does philanthropic work for orphans in Uganda, and Family Council, a pro-life charity based in Arkansas. According to Democratic lawmakers, many Arab and South-Asian Americans—who are considered “high risk” because of being Muslim—have been debanked, too. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a right to banking, although for the vast majority of Americans, it is a staple of everyday life. But as the financial sector, like most every facet of contemporary society, has moved online—and as every major American institution, including banks, have been politicized—banks have felt compelled to monitor their customers’ political and personal lives. They need to be sure that the brands of the people who bank with them jibe with their own, so that they do not upset too many other customers or potential customers.

Harris / Democrats

• Who won the day? Harris

  Donald Trump, who has tried to position himself as women’s “protector” for weeks, certainly needs more of them: A new Marist poll this morning had Harris leading Trump by 15 points with likely women voters, while Trump only leads by 6 points among likely male voters. But in a Fox News town hall in Georgia with an all-female audience — taped on Tuesday but airing Wednesday, driving the day’s headlines — Trump inexplicably declared himself “the father of IVF.” At the same time, he said that Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama — “just a fantastically attractive person,” he said — explained to him the process as he acknowledged he “didn’t even know” there were embryos involved. On top of that, it appeared Trump was preaching to the choir: CNN reported that his town hall was packed with his own supporters.

• Senior Meta Engineer Reveals Anti-Kamala Posts Are Automatically Demoted

  • Meta software engineer reveals platform demotes content critical of Kamala

• "That's how she's gonna feed herself"

  Tim has a net worth of over $1 million, and yet has his 90 year old mom depending on her social security check for basic necessities like food

Biden Inc

• Biden Administration to Invest $900M in Small Nuclear Reactors

• Biden tells Obama 'she’s not as strong as me' — and ex-prez agrees 'that’s true' at Ethel Kennedy service

  President Biden griped to former President Barack Obama that “she” is “not as strong as me” — with Obama agreeing “that’s true” — in a stunning off-mic conversation deciphered for The Post by a professional lip reader. The apparent candid assessment of Vice President Kamala Harris’ standing going into the Nov. 5 election occurred Wednesday afternoon as America’s two most recent Democratic presidents conversed at Ethel Kennedy’s memorial service in Washington. “She’s not as strong as me,” said Biden, 81, according to the translation, which was produced by analyzing the on-video lip movements during the discussion. “I know … that’s true,” the popular former president agreed, adding, “We have time.”

• their Administration is delivering

  President Biden and Vice President Harris vowed to fix the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program when they took office.

Trump / Right / Jan6

• Trump claims Tim Cook called him about EU fining Apple $17B

  • Trump says Tim Cook called him to complain about the European Union

• 'Off the charts': How Trump tariffs would shock U.S., world economies

• (Jun 2024) The Return of Peace Through Strength: Making the Case for Trump’s Foreign Policy

  Trump’s foreign policy and trade policy can be accurately understood as a reaction to the shortcomings of neoliberal internationalism, or globalism, as practiced from the early 1990s until 2017. Like many American voters, Trump grasped that “free trade” has been nothing of the sort in practice and in many instances involved foreign governments using high tariffs, barriers to trade, and the theft of intellectual property to harm U.S. economic and security interests. And despite hefty military spending, Washington’s national security apparatus enjoyed few victories after the 1991 Gulf War while suffering a number of notable failures in places such as Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Trump thinks highly of his predecessor Andrew Jackson and Jackson’s approach to foreign policy: be focused and forceful when compelled to action but wary of overreach. A second Trump term would see the return of realism with a Jacksonian flavor. Washington’s friends would be more secure and more self-reliant, and its foes would once again fear American power. The United States would be strong, and there would be peace.

• Welcome to the Era of Finding Out

  they will never understand, and never accept, that young men are not fallen leaves which move whichever way the wind blows them. They were not sitting around on the couch, their heads vacant of ideas, when Trump and Vance appeared on the television and made them right wing. They were seething with hatred for the left, and if Trump didn't exist, they would have had to invent him. Trump is a moderate compared to them, because he has to appeal to other demographics as well. Their hatred for the left is uniquely their own, and leftists themselves are 100% the authors of that hatred. The left infiltrated every institution they interacted with, and subverted to the purpose of spreading the word that masculinity was toxic and evil, and that they were problematic and bad for wanting to be men.

• The Election Will Decide President Trump’s Legal Fate

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Two Sudanese Indicted for Alleged Role in Anonymous Sudan Hospital Cyberattacks

• FBI arrest Alabama man suspected of hacking SEC's X account

• FBI confirms: Violent crime in 2022 was up, not down as it reported last year

• Texas man's execution in shaken baby syndrome case paused by judge

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US Army announces survivability and communications upgrades for rotorcraft fleet

• No, Tariffs Don't Fuel Growth

• Salt Typhoon Shows There's No Security Backdoor That's Only for the "Good Guys"

World

• GPS Jamming Is Screwing with Norwegian Planes

• Social media faces big changes under new Ofcom rules

Israel

• How Hezbollah was fooled into purchasing explosive pagers

• Booby-trapped robots loaded with explosives used by Israel in northern Gaza

• Israel investigating possible death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar

  • 'Gaza's Bin Laden,' Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar Killed in Gaza

• Revealed: The Israeli Spies Writing America's News

China

• China Is Winning. Now What?

Health / Medicine

• Non-invasive eye test for multiple diseases to advance under $4.8M NIH award

• Fentanyl Vaccine Could Help Solve Opioid Drug Deaths, Overdoses

• Walking in short bursts found to consume 20% to 60% more energy

• Ozempic: Weight Loss Drug May Help with Addiction Too

• Organ transplant comp. pressured staff to harvest organs from still-alive person

• 23andMe is on the verge of bankruptcy. My be too late to delete your data

• Canadians with nonterminal conditions sought assisted dying for social reasons

• Legal Marijuana Contains Dangerous Mold. States Approve It Anyway.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• The flu shot is different this year, thanks to Covid

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• City microbes surviving on disinfectants, research reveals

• Biosciences' 2028 goal: Bringing back the woolly mammoth

• Scientists claim breakthrough to bringing back Tasmanian tiger from extinction

• Supreme Court Allows EPA to Limit Power Plant Emissions

• Global water crisis leaves half of world food production at risk in next 25 year

• Royal Caribbean fined $470k for environmental regulation violations

• Bacteria implanted in fungi helped cells evolve

• Rooftop solar may be impeding U.S. energy transition