2024-10-22

real Science (with beer), Musk dictates NASA schedules, Factorio will outsell Concord, Intelsat 33e breaks up, Walz rumors Rooski lies, Trump fries press, IDF announces "Three Kings" sequel

etc

• Scientists Started to Decode Birdsong

• Optimizing Beer Glass Shapes to Minimize Heat Transfer

  The solution obtained here is analytic, and the resulting function describing the relation between height ans radius of the glass, is in closed form, providing a family of optimal glass shapes that can be manufactured by conventional methods. Special attention is payed to the dimensions and the capacity of the resulting shapes.

Horseshit

• The Cartesian Crisis: Why You Will Believe Nothing

• The "child identifies as wolf" story was only ever about bullying

• We Need to Stop Treating Technology Like It's Foolproof

• Software engineer titles have almost lost all their meaning

• A crane collapsed in Hurricane Milton. Authorities aren't investigating

• Solar power from space? it might happen in a couple of years

• The Rich Are Different from You and Me

Obit

• One of the Last Navajo Code Talkers from World War II Dies at 107

• Gulen, the powerful cleric accused of orchestrating a Turkish coup, dies

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• U.S., Microsoft seize over 100 websites allegedly used by Russian spies

  The FBI said in an affidavit that the websites were used as part of a “spear phishing campaign,” a term for targeted efforts to trick people into divulging sensitive information, usually email login credentials. That information was sought “with the goal of gaining unauthorized access to the computers and email accounts of victims, to then steal valuable information and sensitive United States government intelligence,” the FBI said in the affidavit. The Justice Department seized 41 of the web domains, according to the FBI affidavit, and also granted Microsoft control of 66 additional domains the company said were part of the same operation.

  To date, the U.S. has not accused the FSB of attempting to significantly interfere with the 2024 U.S. election. The U.S. has accused Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, of hacking and releasing Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails in 2016 to damage her presidential candidacy.

  • (Oct 3) Protecting Democratic Institutions from Cyber Threats - Microsoft On the Issues

Musk

• Gov. Shapiro: Law enforcement should 'take a look at' Elon Musk voter payments

• Elon Musk Claims Media is “Actively Encouraging His Assassination”

  • Elon Musk: Staatsfeind Nummer Zwei - DER SPIEGEL

• Musk pushes debunked Dominion voting conspiracy theory

• Elon Musk offers $1M daily prize to voters who sign petition

• Elon Musk's Twitter takeover triggered academic exodus, study suggests

  • The Vibes Are Off: Did Elon Musk Push Academics Off Twitter?

• Elon Musk’s Big Business and Conflicts of Interest With the U.S. Government - The New York Times

  Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, effectively dictates NASA’s rocket launch schedule. The Defense Department relies on him to get most of its satellites to orbit. His companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies. Given Mr. Musk’s immense business footprint, he will be a major player no matter who wins the election. But he has thrown his fortune and power behind former President Donald J. Trump and, in return, Mr. Trump has vowed to make Mr. Musk head of a new “government efficiency commission” with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts at federal agencies and changes to federal rules. That would essentially give the world’s richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest.

• Catching the Starship: A Breakthrough for Humanity

  Mass is the key problem of spaceflight. At the dawn of the space race, the Soviets could throw more material into space in a single launch than the Americans, which created such a crisis of confidence that NASA was formed and went on to win the Moon race—primarily by building a rocket that could throw around nine times more mass at the Moon than the best functional Soviet rocket, the Proton. In the modern commercial era, the most important measure is cost per kg—and even with the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy substantially reducing costs, each kilogramme of matter sent into low Earth orbit still costs over $1,000 USD. What Starship promises is, depending on which estimates you believe, a per kilogramme cost in the range of $10–$100 USD.

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Ford Asks EV Customers to Stop Using Tesla NACS Adapters

• Billionaire behind Trump's 'unhackable' phone is on mission to fight Tesla's FSD

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Who's Mailing the Catholic Tribune? It's Not the Church, It's Partisan Media

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• There aren't enough smart people in biology doing something boring

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• A Video Game Flopped Harder Than Anything at the Box Office This Year, Unnoticed

  In the summer of 2024, an entertainment project went more spectacularly wrong than possibly any entertainment project in human history. A venture that cost an approximated $400 million, and is thought to have made back only $1 million, representing a flop that dwarfs the likes of movie disasters Joker: Folie à Deux and Borderlands. Yet, if you don’t read the specialist gaming press, there’s a really good chance you’ve never even heard of it. Concord was a multiplayer shooter game, in development for eight years by one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world, Sony. This game, released on August 23 to the PlayStation 5 console and PC, sold an estimated 25,000 copies, and never saw more than 700 people playing at once on PC. It was such a colossal disaster that Sony took the entire game offline some 14 days later, then deleted all evidence of it ever having existed from their websites and online stores. This erasure even extended to removing the purchased game from PS5 owners’ gaming catalogs.

• Alien: Romulus is getting a VHS release

• Bluesky grew by 10% in just two days this week, passing 12M accounts in total

• Nintendo Wii U Is a "Ticking Time Bomb" Say Gamers

  the BLACK Wii U models are most likely to have these troublesome Hynix chips, meaning their longevity is questionable at best. If you own one of these, you might want to look into accessing the BIOS menu or even opening up the console to find out what’s inside. Otherwise, it’s like having Schrödinger’s console—you don’t know if it’s about to give up until it already has.

• Factorio: Space Age Is Here!

• Can the Media Survive? The Media Elite on Its Future

• Big browsers are about to throw a wrench in your ad-free paradise

• Intuit asked us to delete part of this Decoder episode

• The TikTok documents: Stripping teens and boosting 'attractive' people

• FBI Shuts Down Botnet Run by Beijing-Backed Hackers That Hijacked 200k+ Devices

• Over 6k WordPress hacked to install plugins pushing infostealers

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Linus Torvalds Growing Frustrated by Buggy Hardware and Theoretical CPU Attacks

• Coloring for Colorblindness

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• TikTok owner sacks intern for sabotaging AI project

• AI 'bubble' will burst 99 percent of players, says Baidu CEO

• The surprising way OpenAI could get out of its pact with Microsoft

• Wall Street Journal, New York Post Sue AI Startup Perplexity

  • Dow Jones and New York Post Sue AI Startup Perplexity

  • Murdoch's news sue Perplexity AI for allegedly engaging in 'massive freeriding'

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Florida's Space Coast poised to break its yearly rocket record before Halloween

• Intelsat 33e breaks up in geostationary orbit

  The Intelsat 33e satellite has broken up in geostationary orbit (GEO) and lost power, ceasing communications services for customers across Europe, Africa and parts of Asia Pacific. Intelsat said Oct. 19 it is working with satellite maker Boeing to address an anomaly that emerged earlier that day, but “believe it is unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable.” An Intelsat spokesperson said the satellite was not insured at the time of the issue. The U.S. Space Force reported it is tracking 20 pieces of debris associated with the spacecraft. Intelsat 33e launched in August 2016 and entered service in January 2017 at 60 degrees East, about three months later than planned following an issue with its primary thruster. A second propulsion issue that emerged during in-orbit tests helped knock off around 3.5 years from the satellite’s initially estimated 15-year lifespan.

Crypto con games

• Stripe acquires stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1B

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Family offices are increasingly interested in defence tech

• AWS CEO tells workers to quit if they don't want to come back to the office

• What we know about the layoffs at Meta

• Global Electricity Demand Is Rising Faster Than Expected, IEA Says

• 'The Great Stay' is preventing young workers from getting a foot in the door

• IEA Says Oil Demand Growth Weakness to Continue on China and EVs

• Welcome to the Era of the $20k Family Car Insurance Bill

• Arkansas May Have Lithium Reserves, Researchers Say

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Crises at Boeing and Intel Are a National Emergency

• The IRS Papers

Harris / Democrats

• Russian Propaganda Unit Appears to Be Behind Spread of False Tim Walz Sexual Abuse Claims | WIRED

  A Russian-aligned propaganda network notorious for creating deepfake whistleblower videos appears to be behind a coordinated effort to promote wild and baseless claims that Minnesota governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz sexually assaulted one of his former students, according to several specialists tracking the disinformation campaign. Experts believe that the campaign is tied to a network called Storm-1516, which has been linked to, among other things, a previous effort that falsely claimed vice president Kamala Harris perpetrated a hit-and-run in San Francisco in 2011. Storm-1516 has a long history of posting fake whistleblower videos, and often deepfake videos, to push Kremlin talking points to the West. The propaganda unit’s work has successfully reached the highest levels of the Republican party, with vice presidential candidate JD Vance repeating at least one of their narratives. NBC reported this week that the group has pushed at least 50 false narratives in this manner since last fall, which comes amidst a broader Russian government effort to disrupt next month’s election with the aim of helping former president Donald Trump return to the White House.

Trump / Right / Jan6

• Elon Musk’s Big Business and Conflicts of Interest With the U.S. Government - The New York Times

  Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, effectively dictates NASA’s rocket launch schedule. The Defense Department relies on him to get most of its satellites to orbit. His companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies. Given Mr. Musk’s immense business footprint, he will be a major player no matter who wins the election. But he has thrown his fortune and power behind former President Donald J. Trump and, in return, Mr. Trump has vowed to make Mr. Musk head of a new “government efficiency commission” with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts at federal agencies and changes to federal rules. That would essentially give the world’s richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest.

• Donald Trumps McDonald's Shift: Was it 'Staged'? - Newsweek

  • McDonald's Donald Trump Worked at Failed Last Health Inspection - Newsweek

  McDonald's restaurant where Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump briefly worked on Sunday failed its last health inspection, documents show. The former president manned the fry station and served takeout to people in the drive-thru lane in Feasterville-Trevose in Bucks County, a key swing voter area in battleground Pennsylvania. The restaurant was closed to the public for Trump's visit. Trump, a big fan of McDonald's food and a self-professed germophobe, wore an apron over his shirt and tie but did not wear gloves or a hairnet during his visit, stating that his hands were "nice and clean." According to the Meidas Touch, he went straight to work without washing his hands. Employees not washing their hands was one of the reasons that restaurant failed its most recent inspection.

• Trump Played Worker at a Closed McDonald’s: Election Updates

  With early voting well underway across the country, Donald Trump is spouting off like a punch-drunk sailor, Kamala Harris is using Trump clips like a late-night host, and Elon Musk is acting like a “dark MAGA” Oprah at town halls in Pennsylvania.

  in an effort to highlight his claim that Kamala Harris never worked at McDonald’s, Trump pretended to work at a closed McDonald’s where he served pretend orders to supporters pretending to be customers. Hopefully the fries weren’t cold.

• Trump tries to troll Harris by serving french fries at McDonald's

• Trump serves up McDonald’s fries, but dodges question on minimum wage - The Washington Post

  Wearing an apron, the Republican presidential nominee lifted fries out of the hot oil, shook them, salted them and placed them into containers for service. He praised the staff and the company, then popped his head out the drive-through window and waved at a crowd that had gathered across the street. He began to hand out paper bags to the cars that had been waiting in line before his arrival. One man said, “Trump 2024!” as he drove away. The restaurant was closed to the public during Trump’s visit, and the motorists whom Trump served were screened by the U.S. Secret Service and positioned before his arrival. No one ordered food. Instead, the attendees received whatever Trump gave them. Trump was at the fry station for about five minutes and spent about 15 minutes at the drive-through window, much of it taking questions from reporters.

• Law enforcement missed ‘pivotal moments’ to engage Trump gunman, House panel finds - POLITICO

  The Secret Service “did not effectively verify responsibilities were understood and being executed,” and there was no joint meeting between the Secret Service and state and local law enforcement on the day of the rally, according to the report. The Secret Service also put the building where the shooter accessed the roof outside of the security perimeter for the rally — a point that has sparked frustration among both Democratic and Republican lawmakers for months. And the panel found that there was “disagreement and confusion” about who was responsible for making sure the building was secure.

• Trump Appears to Post Fake Image of Himself as a Star NFL Player - Newsweek

• (2019) Laughter: The New Symbol of the Far-Right

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US Government Says Relying on Chinese Lithium Batteries Is Too Risky

World

• Schadenfreude reigns as Berlin pays the price of its tough line on debt

• The EU will make vendors liable for bugs

• Millions buried in Paris catacombs come to light

• Cuba's power grid has now collapsed four times in two days, making people start to wonder if this communist utopia thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

• Moldova votes yes to EU membership as president Sandu claims Moscow meddled

  • Russia paying people to vote against joining EU, Moldova warns

• Patients to get full access to record on NHS App

• Ireland adopts Online Safety Code for video-sharing platforms including TikTok

• India's airline industry in chaos after 90 hoax bomb threats in a week

Israel

• Inside Yahya Sinwar’s bunker beneath Gaza — UN food rations, millions in cash, cologne and his own shower.

  • Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s wife reportedly spotted with $32,000 Birkin bag as she went into hiding.

• Meta's Israel Policy Chief Tried to Suppress Pro-Palestine Instagram Posts

• IDF reveals location of Hezbollah treasury

  "There are hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold there right now"

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Seoul wants N Korean troops to leave Russia immediately

China

• Tesla, Intel, deny they're mapping China

Health / Medicine

• Egypt is certified malaria-free by WHO

  • Egypt declared malaria-free after 100-year effort

• Canadian Doctors Struggle to Euthanize Poor

• Under a L.A. Freeway, a Psychiatric Rescue Mission

• Stress isn't all bad. Here's when it can help

• 'As if someone tuned the radio': Why are more adults being diagnosed with ADHD?

• An mRNA vaccine protected mice against deadly intestinal C. difficile bacteria

• The Weak Science Behind Psychedelics

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Tackling AI's Climate Change Problem

• Climate-Techs Want to Save the Planet. First They Need to Save Themselves

• Deep inside a Norwegian fjord, a dream of farming salmon sustainably

• Tiny parasitic wasp helps save one of rarest birds from extinction

• The rate of global sea level rise doubled during the past three decades

• Anti-fossil fuel comic that went viral in France arrives in UK

• Australia to toughen rules on forever chemicals in tap water

• Nation's first commercial carbon sequestration plant is in Illinois. It leaks

• Wild animals are spiraling to extinction. Can a bunch of bureaucrats save them?

• How Climate Disasters Are Making Mobile Homes a Huge Risk

• Global burned area increasingly explained by climate change