2024-10-28

choose to write, envy economics, symbolic band-aids, what metaverse?, personal prices, elephant rights, political economics, Walz plays a game, misinfo propaganda, more "Trump == Nazi", climate billions

etc

• Norlha, the Luxury Yak Wool Brand Made by Nomads on the Tibetan Plateau

• Writes and Write-Nots

  a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too. This situation is not unprecedented. In preindustrial times most people's jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be. It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.

Horseshit

• UK sleep experts say it's time to kill daylight saving for good

• They Used to Be Ahead in the American Economy. Now They've Fallen Behind

  One economic question that really matters in an election year: Are others doing better than you?

• We are in a second Gilded Age, some experts say

  As economic inequality and wealth concentration rise, the U.S. is entering a new era of support for workers' rights, reminiscent of the Gilded Age. This historical period -- which ran from the 1870s and to the early 20th century -- saw rapid industrialization and significant wealth disparity, with a small elite growing rich while the working class faced poverty.

• Lost for centuries, Silk Road cities are revealed by drone technology

• Rumble in the Jungle 50 years on: how Ali danced rings around apartheid

• 'Americans just work harder' than Europeans, says CEO of Norway's $1.6T oil fund

• Don't use Summer and Winter for event invites, it's "northern" and not inclusive

  • 68% of the land surface of the earth is in fact "northern". What percentage of scientific publications originate in the southern hemisphere? We should immediately classify all human knowledge by the geography of its originators and refuse to accept anything not of "southern" origin until the imbalance is addressed. only statistics can enforce equality.

• Wants, Bad Decisions, and Prelude to Cooperative Goals

  Probably 90% of band aids used in my house, and the houses of most of my friends with kids, are for injuries that are not bleeding. Sometimes, the band-aids are not even on their skin - they go on over their clothes. Why? As a parent, it is clear that they want a band-aid on the bruise as a symbol that someone cares for them; the actual use of a band-aid, stopping bleeding, isn’t relevant, but it requires parents to do something actively to address the pain. And adults do the same thing - they often go to the doctor to feel cared-for, even when they know there’s nothing a doctor can do. (So it’s no wonder that the demand for medical care keeps expanding - it seems to be one of the truly non-satiable goals people have.)

• American Airlines tests boarding technology that audibly shames line cutters

Musk

• Elon Musk worked in US illegally in 1995 after quitting school

  the Washington Post reported Saturday that the world’s wealthiest individual was almost certainly working in the US without correct authorization for a period in 1995 after he dropped out of Stanford University to work on his debut company, Zip2, which sold for about $300m four years later.

  • Elon Musk Was an Illegal Migrant Worker Who Abused His Student Visa

• Musk has been in secret contact with Putin since 2022, says bombshell new report

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• The EU Throws a Hand Grenade on Software Liability

  Eric Geller has a good article covering “the struggle for software liability” in the United States. Geller covers some of the reasons why there has not yet been significant progress. These include lack of political will, extensive lobbying, and debate about how to implement liability. The Biden strategy suggested that new legislation should define standards for secure development as well as prevent companies from fully absolving themselves of liability. By contrast, the EU has chosen to set very stringent standards for product liability, apply them to people rather than companies, and let lawyers sort it all out.

• Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

• World of Warcrafts $90 Mount Is So Popular the Auction House Sells Out of Tokens

• Meta smart glasses outsell traditional Ray-Bans even before AI features roll out

• (Sep 2024) Is there now a generation of users who never worked with files?

  That's when I realized that many users today simply aren't used to saving files manually. They've grown up using cloud-based editors like Google Docs, where autosave is the default. Of course, autosave is only possible if you have a robust, automatic history-tracking system built into your app, which Google Docs certainly has. The thing is, you can only offer this feature if your app's architecture is designed from the ground up to support it. Since MapHub wasn't built that way, I had to come up with a solution to remind users that they need to save their work regularly.

• A Million People Play This Video Wargame. So Does The Pentagon

• How Virtual Reality Died - by Ted Gioia - The Honest Broker

  Mark Zuckerberg eventually figured this out. But the company lost more than $20 billion over the next two years in a desperate attempt to convince normal people to abandon reality and enter his fake world. Guess what? These same four companies—Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Google—have a new dream technology built on fakery. It’s called artificial intelligence. What an amazing coincidence! Do these four CEOs coordinate their moves in secret? Or are they just obsessed with imitating each other in some kind of warped Girardian way? But their AI plans aren’t much different than the virtual reality debacle.

  In VR, we go into a fake world to interact with real people. In AI, we remain in the real world but interact with fake people.

  That’s not much of an improvement. By my measure, it’s actually a step backward. Reality is not something to trifle with. It always gets the last laugh.

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• The Raspberry Pi CM5 Is Weeks Away?

  On Mouser today, we seem to have a bunch of Raspberry Pi CM5 accessories.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• James Cameron says the reality of AGI is 'scarier' than the fiction of it

• Google to develop AI that takes over computers, The Information reports

• The AI bubble is looking worse than the dot-com bubble. Here's why

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Top astronomy researchers call on FCC to study satellite mega-constellations

• SpaceX Booster Came Within 1 Second of Aborting Its First 'Catch' Landing

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Are Boeing's problems beyond fixable?

• Nvidia overtakes Apple as most valuable company

  Nvidia ended the day up 0.8%, with a market value of $3.47 trillion, while Apple’s shares rose 0.4%, valuing the iPhone maker at $3.52 trillion.

• Bolt CEO changes RTO to stop insanity of working remotely from places like Bali

• Kroger and Walmart Deny 'Surge Pricing' After Adopting Digital Price Tags (Archive)

  Members of Congress are raising the alarm about new technology at supermarkets: They say Kroger and other major grocery stores are implementing digital price tags that could allow for dynamic pricing, meaning the sticker price on items like eggs and milk could change regularly. They also claim data from facial recognition technology at Kroger could be considered in pricing decisions. Kroger denied the claims, saying it has no plans to implement dynamic pricing or use facial recognition software. Walmart also said it had no plans for dynamic pricing, and that facial recognition was not being used to affect pricing, but the company did not specify whether the tool was being used for other purposes.

• 'Open banking' rules will put your financial data back where it belongs

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Should elephants have the same rights as people? A Colorado court may decide

  an animal rights group is trying to release the elephants from what they say is essentially a prison for such highly intelligent and social animals known to roam for miles a day in the wild. Colorado's highest court will hear arguments Thursday on whether the older African female elephants should be legally able to challenge their captivity under a long-held process used by prisoners to dispute their detention. The animal rights group NonHuman Rights Project says the animals are languishing while “unlawfully confined” at the zoo, and wants them released to an unspecified elephant sanctuary.

• Former Intel CEO says splitting Intel isn't good for the U.S.

• Will Arab Voters Flip Michigan? Real-Time Election Predictions Reveal Trends

• It's rough out here: Why Trump and Harris should listen to this mum

  The mother of seven children, aged 10 months to 16, said she often fears buckling under the weight of the economy. From sky-high prices on groceries to petrol, Ms Williams said she has had to cut back on vacations as well as on football and gymnastics lessons for her kids that would force her to stretch an already strained household budget. "We haven't been able to do the things we want to do," she said. "I want a future for my kids." She is not alone. In dozens of interviews with Las Vegans who work in vital local industries from construction and casinos to restaurants and bars, low-wage workers from across the political spectrum told the BBC that kitchen-table issues - especially unaffordable housing and costly childcare - are what will determine how they vote on 5 November.

• Senator accuses sloppy domain registrars of aiding Russian disinfo campaigns

• These Are the Rumors and Misinformation to Watch for on Election Day | Scientific American

  False allegations and conspiracy theories about widespread voting by non-citizens is a major theme in this election. For example, we have seen several person-on-the-street video interviews on social-media platforms such as Tiktok and Instagram that supposedly show non-citizens admitting that they are registered, planning to vote or have voted. Some videos use selective editing and inaccurate subtitles to create a false impression. In other cases, interviewees have acknowledged providing erroneous answers owing to anxiety, for example not wanting a stranger to know that they are not a citizen. We’ve seen this playbook before. In January 2016, just after he took office, then-president Trump claimed that votes cast by three million to five million illegal immigrants had cost him the popular vote.

Harris / Democrats

• Opinion | It’s now the Washington Post humor writer’s job to endorse Harris for president - The Washington Post

• Doctors speaking for Harris refuse to assist crowd

• Gov. Walz and AOC are playing Madden and talking about Trump’s Project 2025

Trump / Right / Jan6

• Trump Attacks Bipartisan Semiconductor Law, a Key Policy Achievement for Biden

• Eric Adams says Donald Trump is not a fascist, defending the Republican again: The New York City mayor is setting himself apart from fellow Democrats as Donald Trump prepares to rally in deep-blue Manhattan.

• Why is Trump holding a rally at Madison Square Garden? | FOX 5 Atlanta

  • Many are questioning the decision to hold a rally in New York this late in the campaign drawing dark comparisons to a Nazi rally held at MSG in 1939.
  • The Garden has held several political events throughout history like JFK's birthday and the DNC.
  • President Nixon also held a rally at the Garden on Halloween nearly 55 years ago, making the timing significant.

  • When 20k Americans Held a Pro-Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939

• Opinion | There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth. - The New York Times

  Democracy’s last bastion of defense is civil society. When the constitutional order is under threat, influential groups and societal leaders — chief executives, religious leaders, labor leaders and prominent retired public officials — must speak out, reminding citizens of the red lines that democratic societies must never cross. And when politicians cross those red lines, society’s most prominent voices must publicly and forcefully repudiate them.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Marijuana Arrests Comprised over 40 Percent of Drug Arrests over Dozen States

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US has become a terrible example of democracy for today's world

World

• A Population Expert Deciphers South Korea's Plummeting Birth Rate

• Germany's Mittelstand Is Collapsing

• Elderly workers now dominate South Korea's labor force as population ages

• Leaked recording shows McDonald's manager briefing Uber Eats drivers

  A McDonald’s manager at a branch in Northern Ireland warned Uber Eats drivers they had a “responsibility” to learn English in their own time and claimed to have dismissed a courier for being “cheeky,” a leaked recording reveals.

• Shanghai cracks down on Halloween costumes (Archive)

  Police on Saturday rounded up people in costume on Julu road, the heart of Halloween celebrations last year in China’s financial hub, and took them to an administrative building to remove their make-up and downplay their outfits. Authorities had on Friday night set up makeshift barriers to prevent a repeat of crowds gathering on Julu road. “We had hats and cat ears, and they’re like ‘you can’t do that this year, unless you’re going to Disneyland’ or something,” said one 22-year-old student who did not give his name. He had been taken to the building and made to remove his make-up. The process had taken half an hour, he added, due to the “queue” of people brought in by authorities. One security guard inside confirmed that costumes were not permitted this year.

Israel

• Israel hit Iranian nuclear test sites, satellite reveals

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Georgia Shows Why Ukraine Must Win

  What we are seeing in Georgia might best be called the dictator’s playbook—one we have seen used repeatedly in the last few years in countries like Belarus and Venezuela. A state calls an election which it says is free, even allows in some foreign observers—but it goes ahead and in front of the world steals the vote. It uses intimidation, ballot-box stuffing, ballot irregularities, etc, and in the end it simply declares itself the victor. Sure, the people might protest, get together in their hundreds of thousands, but the dictators have prepared for this. They have their security forces, even the army, prepared and by their side. The crush the dissent where its dangerous, and let it die of neglect where its not a direct threat. The end result is that they keep power and are freed even more from any restraint.

Health / Medicine

• 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat

• New study finds obesity operations dropped 25.6% in 2023 due to GLP-1 drugs

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Key Atlantic current could collapse soon

• Gem dust could cool the planet

• How Pollution Controls For Cargo Ships Made Global Warming Worse

• 'Aerial arms race' with birds may have turned ancient cicadas into ace fliers

• App Set Out to Fight Pesticides. After VCs Stepped In, Now It Helps Sell Them

• Oxfam says close to $41B in World Bank climate finance unaccounted for

  Oxfam’s audit of the World Bank’s climate finance portfolio, covering the period from 2017 to 2023, found that between 24 billion and 41 billion U.S. dollars went untracked from the time of project approval to closure.

• Billionaire emits a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person

• Scientists Were Wrong: Plants Absorb 31% More CO2 Than Previously Thought