2024-11-08

crab-pocalypse, pressure vs gravity, how to shun, not my monkeys, Sega sunsets, Fed cuts, ranked choice rejected, Senate flips, Trump Derangement displays, Germany gonna need new government

Cool

• Christmas Island's red crab migration

etc

• Grocery stores more reliable than sushi restaurants in labeling salmon properly

• Tension-Filled Black Holes - by Robin Hanson

  Most matter pushes against nearby matter, via a positive “pressure.” That’s why Earth holds its shape, instead of collapsing down to a point mass. An odd feature of general relativity (GR) is that the pressure in matter that tends to push it away from each other also tends to push the space it is in to shrink, not expand. Sometimes matter is in tension, such as in a cable holding a bridge above the ground. And here that same odd feature of GR says that tension pushes the space it is in to expand. But as most stuff near us is under pressure, not tension, overall that stuff pushes space to shrink. Which is why the expansion of a universe filled with ordinary stuff tends to slow down and reverse to become a contraction.

• Since the '60s, Ford Has Stored Cars Underground in a Kansas City Cave

• Attitudes one can take towards people who have behaved badly

  Occasionally, I’ll bring up an idea in conversation and someone will gently remind me that the person who came up with the idea is bad. I’ve never been sure what to do with that information. Is this a hint that I shouldn’t be talking about bad people? I stress that I am open to this idea! For example, I’ve long felt that we should pay less attention to the personal story of school shooters. So, should we avoid talking about bad people? In the extreme, this would mean we try to pretend they never existed, neither the person nor their ideas. This seems non-viable.

  For example, take Ronald Fisher. He basically created modern statistics and led biology’s modern synthesis of natural selection, genetic variation, and Mendelian inheritance. By some measures, he is the most influential scientist of all time. But he also had now-disfavored views on race and eugenics and used his immense influence to argue that tobacco was harmless, tainting my cherished “correlation doesn’t imply causation” arguments forever. You may or may not think Fisher is bad given his historical context. I may or may not think that. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s impossible to delete him from history. He invented p-values and variance. By now, all of science depends on his ideas.

  If that doesn’t work, should we do the opposite? The other extreme would be to never cancel anyone. If someone is bad, let them be punished (or not) by the legal system. But regardless of what happens there, we keep talking about their ideas, and in fact keep being friends with them. This also seems non-viable.

Horseshit

• For fame or a death wish? Kids' TikTok challenge injuries stump psychiatrists

• 'Raygun' retires from breaking after Paris 2024 Olympic Games backlash

• Man who lived rent-free in NYC hotel for years is found unfit to stand trial

• Think I saw a movie start this way: Police hunt 40 monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility

  • Rhesus macaques have escaped from South Carolina's 'Monkey Farm'

  • 40 monkeys escape from research facility in South Carolina

  • 43 monkeys escape South Carolina research facility; police warn residents to secure doors and windows

  • Monkeys Escape Alpha Genesis Lab in Yemassee, South Carolina

• Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

• Intel bringing back free office coffee to boost morale after a rough year

Obit

• Elwood Edwards, Voice of AOL's 'You've Got Mail' Alert, Dies at 74

  • Man behind "You've Got Mail" sound dead at 74

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Canada orders the wind up of TikTok Canada following a national security review

  • Canada orders shutdown of TikTok's Canadian business, app access to continue

• Australia plans social media ban for under-16s

Musk

• SpaceX is planning another Starship launch in the next two weeks.

• Elon Musk's trans daughter Vivian Wilson says she's leaving US after Trump win

• Trump-Musk Partnership Puts New Spin on Value of X

• Anger in Taiwan over reports SpaceX asked suppliers to move abroad

  • After SpaceX's requests, Taiwanese suppliers move manufacturing abroad

Electric / Self Driving cars

• EV apocalypse: Which brands might not survive the electric revolution?

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• The Vatican's Anime Mascot Is Now an AI Porn Sensation

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• What do you mean, “They Didn’t Say Anything About That”?!? | Cat Rotator's Quarterly

• My Number One Issue: The anti-intellectual turn in higher education

• Legos, Cocoa, and Coloring Books for Georgetown Students

• University of Oregon to offer 'election week therapy' featuring dogs, goats, and even ducks

• Teaching fragility

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Google admits document leak related to search algorithm is authentic

• Roblox is banning kids from 'social hangout' spaces

• Steam releases new built-in recording feature

• Sega is delisting tons of its classic games

  • Sega is delisting 60 classic games from Steam, so now's the time to grab them

• States Still Ban Community-Owned Broadband Networks Because AT&T and Comcast

• Cisco scores a perfect CVSS 10 with critical flaw in its wireless system

• Nvidia's GeForce Now to Cap Game Streaming at 100 Hours per Month

• QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image | Hacker News

• US Cellular to sell some spectrum licenses to AT&T for $1B

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• 3D Printing with Resin Is Risky, Formlabs' Creator Series Aims to Make It Safer

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Even Microsoft Notepad is getting AI text editing now

Crypto con games

• Bitcoin hits record above $75,000 as crypto industry celebrates Trump win

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Nissan announces lay-offs, cuts in executives' pay

• Nvidia Rides AI Wave to Pass Apple as Largest Company

• What's at Stake with the Fed, Now That Trump Has Won?

• Why Amazon, Disney, and others are pushing employees back to the office

• Wendy's Bets on Palantir AI to Keep Up with $1 Frosty Demand

• Arm's royalty revenues boom, execs talk up hopes for AI bonanza

• I was kinda expecting a .75% raise, as happened after the 1996 elections. Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by a quarter point

  • Federal Reserve cuts rates by a quarter point

  • Fed Cuts Rates Again

• Prediction Markets Are a Thing Now - Bloomberg

• Lloyds shareholders could take £1B hit over car finance crisis

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Four states reject ranked-choice voting, approved in District

• The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the United States

• How to grow out of America's debt woes

• Congressman Massie Invents Automated Chicken-Tractor

  It’s powered by a solar panel & capacitors, so I call it the Clucks Capacitor!

• Sen. Jon Tester loses re-election bid in Montana, NBC News projects

• Trump-backed PA Senate candidate flips longtime Dem seat red in nail-biter election | Fox News

  Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick was declared victorious in his high-stakes election against longtime Democrat Sen. Bob Casey on Tuesday. Casey's campaign released a statement Thursday afternoon saying he would not concede until all votes are counted. "As the Pennsylvania Secretary of State said this afternoon, there are tens of thousands of ballots across the Commonwealth still to count, which includes provisional ballots, military and overseas ballots, and mail ballots," Maddy McDaniel, a spokersperson for Casey's campaign, said in a statement. "This race is within half a point and cannot be called while the votes of thousands of Pennsylvanians are still being counted. We will make sure every Pennsylvanian’s voice is heard."

  • Dave McCormick unseats Bob Casey in Pennsylvania adding to GOP Senate majority.

• What Meta's Ad Library Shows About Harris and Trump's Campaigns

• The Crypto Industry Spent over $130M on the Election. It Paid Off

  • The Harris campaign raised over a Billion and the word this morning is they're now $20 million in debt. Amazing how much more effective the "crypto industry" dollar was than the Democratic Party dollar. Perhaps the Democrats should hire some of the crypto people next election.

• 2020 was stolen. And it's big enough to make me suspect they frauded in Obama. Twice.

  the thing they can't hide now is the consequences. Somewhere around 15 million fewer votes, losing the popular vote, and losing all seven of the swing states that normally get buggered by big-city Democratic fraud machines.

• How the Trump Whale Correctly Called the Election

• in 2020: i became an anarchist while working for the nevada state democratic party

  The most important thing to know about caucuses is that they suck and everyone hates them. Seriously, everyone. The progressive wing of the Democrats hate them because they’re undemocratic, forcing people to show up in person to a specific place at a specific time to participate, thus suppressing turnout (especially among the working class); the establishment wing of the party hate them because candidates like Bernie, with an extremely enthusiastic base who will do real voter-to-voter organizing, have a huge advantage.

• Americans are flocking to expat websites after election: 'They want out, fast'

Harris / Democrats

• 'Misogyny and racism" now with more extreme walrus juice: Prominent law professor blames Harris loss on ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘white supremacy.’

• Implosion: Kamala’s Top Campaign Operative Deletes X Account

• 'George Clooney – who cares?' Did celebrity endorsements harm Kamala Harris?

Biden Inc

• Biden team is racing to get CHIPS Act money out the door

• Biden team debates how to ‘Trump proof’ foreign policy - POLITICO

  Despondent Biden administration officials are mulling how to protect their national security priorities before president-elect Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office in January. Whether it’s sending funds to Ukraine or imposing new sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers, an array of options are on the table. But there’s no formal plan yet for how to lock in President Joe Biden’s big-ticket policies against a Trump effort to dismantle them, a senior Biden administration official said.

  Trump is sure to quickly halt or reverse much of what Biden’s team manages to push through in these final months, multiple current and former U.S. officials said. He will have broad executive authority to do so, as well as enough support in Congress and in the judiciary that almost nothing will stop him. “You really can’t ‘Trump-proof,’” one U.S. official said. “You can ‘Trump delay,’ you can throw sand in the gears, but there is no way short of legislation to ‘Trump-proof.’”

• Joe Biden’s Vengeance: Democrats Descend Into Civil War

• Dems rage against Biden’s arrogance’ after Harris loss

Trump / Right / Jan6

• Trump Won. Now What? - The Atlantic

  Donald Trump has won, and will become president for the second time. Those who voted for him will now celebrate their victory. The rest of us need to prepare to live in a different America: a country where millions of our fellow citizens voted for a president who knowingly promotes hatred and division; who lies—blatantly, shamelessly—every time he appears in public; who plotted to overturn an election in 2020 and, had he not won, was planning to try again in 2024. Above all, we must learn to live in an America where an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens have chosen a president who holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, even our military in contempt. Over the past decade, opinion polls have showed Americans’ faith in their institutions waning. But no opinion poll could make this shift in values any clearer than this vote. As a result of this election, the United States will become a different kind of country.

• JD Vance's favorite Magic: The Gathering card

• Trump plans to repeal Biden's 2023 order and levy tariffs on GPU imports

• Ask HN: Will you switch to FOSS following Trump's reelection? | Hacker News

  I’m German and deeply integrated into the Apple ecosystem, using a MacBook and iPhone with all my files and data synced to iCloud. With Trump’s reelection as U.S. president, I worry the country might drift toward a surveillance dictatorship, one that even Apple’s advancements in encryption and privacy couldn’t counter.

• Justice Department and special counsel in talks about how to wind down Trump prosecutions - CBS News

  The Justice Department and special counsel Jack Smith's office are engaged in active discussions about how to wind down the ongoing federal prosecutions against President-elect Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the talks. At the center of the discussions is the Justice Department's longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president and the need to enable a smooth transition to a second term in the White House for Trump, the sources said. Regulations governing the special counsel dictate that the upper echelons of the Justice Department, including possibly Attorney General Merrick Garland, are to be consulted on major decisions in an investigation overseen by a special counsel. Smith's office declined to comment.

• The Thrill is Gone: Will the Prosectorial Campaigns Collapse with the Political Campaigns Against Trump? – JONATHAN TURLEY

• NY AG Letitia James says 'We are prepared to fight back' in feisty comments after Trump wins presidency

  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Attorney General Letitia James treated President-elect Donald Trump as the enemy in a divisive post-election press conference Wednesday. A defiant Hochul announced she formed an “Empire State Freedom Initiative” to prepare to fight “policy and regulatory threats” from the incoming Trump administration. New York Attorney General Leticia James vowed to "fight back again" in her first comments after Donald Trump won the presidency.

• Gavin Newsom: California is ready to fight against unlawful actions from Trump

• Democrats need to understand: Americans think they’re worse

  If you think Donald Trump is too crass or cruel or incompetent to be president—if you are disappointed or even astonished that, having tried and failed to subvert the will of the people in the last election, he has come back to win fair and square—you should be asking yourself this question: why, to so many Americans, does the Democratic Party seem worse?

  This victory is a tremendous achievement for Mr Trump, who after his loss in 2020 and the attack on the Capitol on January 6th 2021 was counted out even by leaders of his own party. At the time Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, who privately regarded Mr Trump as “a sleazeball” and “stupid”, called the insurrection “further evidence of Donald Trump’s complete unfitness for office”, according to reporting he has not disputed in a new biography by Michael Tackett, a journalist. Yet what might seem a psychological frailty—an inability to brook criticism or concede mistakes, much less defeat—has for Mr Trump been a mighty source of political strength, one that intensifies his connection to the voters he has made the base of the Republican Party. As in 2016, Mr Trump wielded his command of that bloc of voters this year to clear a path through crowded Republican primaries, and then relied upon “negative polarisation”, or fear of the other guys, to unite the party. “Can you believe he endorsed me?” Mr Trump chortled at a rally in North Carolina on November 3rd, gloating over how Mr McConnell eventually fell into line. Mr Trump felt no obligation to reciprocate. “Hopefully we get rid of Mitch McConnell pretty soon,” he said.

  Even where Mr Biden had accomplishments that undermined Mr Trump’s arguments, he let himself be constrained by his party’s loudest activists. Oil production rose to record levels, but Mr Biden did not boast about that. He was also no longer up to the demands of presidential communication that Mr Trump understands so well. He was not constantly, energetically promoting his success in sustaining economic growth and raising wages. His approval rating sagged as low as 36% just asother Democrats were forcing him to face the obvious: he should not be running again. In the short time Ms Harris had, she waged a good campaign. But any politician would have struggled under such burdens. She could not separate herself enough from Mr Biden, or from the video Mr Trump’s ads used, to devastating effect, of her recently declaring positions that were alienating to most Americans. “We have learned again that democracy is precious,” Mr Biden proudly declared during his inaugural address almost four years ago. “Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.” Now it has prevailed again. Will Democrats get the message this time?

  • What an elliptical way of saying "they've seen through our bullshit."

• Opinion | Stop Pretending Trump Is Not Who We Are - The New York Times

  We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Seventy-four million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad. After all, what is more normal than a thing that keeps happening? In recent years, I’ve often wondered if Trump has changed America or revealed it. I decided that it was both — that he changed the country by revealing it. After Election Day 2024, I’m considering an addendum: Trump has changed us by revealing how normal, how truly American, he is. Throughout Trump’s life, he has embodied every national fascination: money and greed in the 1980s, sex scandals in the 1990s, reality television in the 2000s, social media in the 2010s. Why wouldn’t we deserve him now?

• Before the Election, Tech C.E.O.s Were Quietly Courting Trump

• Doom and gloom and despair: The path wrongly taken

  That is why all decent people are desperate today. The desperation has nothing to do with matters of left versus right, or democrat versus republican, or higher taxes versus tax cuts, or the price of eggs, or any other political issue of substance. It has everything to do with decency over indecency. And particularly with truth over falsehood. The first of the above pairs largely subsumes the others: when society starts tolerating constant, blatant, enormous lies as if they were part of expected discourse, everything else falls out. Dictators understand this process well.

  We hear that “no one knows what is going to happen”. Not so. We know something with certainty: catastrophes are coming our way. The only unknown is how many of them will hit us. For one thing the fight against climate change is doomed: all experts tell us that the change is not linear and that we have (we had) at best a few years to avoid the worst. As the US, the biggest source of warming and emissions (although by no means the only large one), turns away from climate action, everyone else, beginning with China, will have an excellent excuse to do nothing. The consequences are horrendous to contemplate, and will be with us soon. Another certain catastrophe is chaos in the US, merrily encouraged by its enemies. The part of the country that voted for sanity is defeated and despondent but not gone; come the first round of anti-constitutional measures, we may expect no end to clashes. Tens of millions of Americans are almost certainly going to lose their health insurance, going back to a situation unique in developed countries. Women, denied abortion and resorting to back-alley substitutes, will die by the thousands. It is better not to think too much of what will happen to Ukraine now (and through a possible ricochet effect to Poland and the Baltic states). Or of what would ensue in the case of a new health crisis, with loony anti-vaccine, anti-mask activists at the helm. Of what will take place at all levels of governments, with none of the “adults in the room” around: the cool-headed conservative professionals who saved us from some disasters the first time around (and this time exhorted the country to vote for the sane candidate). Qe are back to the dark years of 2016 to 2020, when we would wake up almost every morning to the news of the latest crazy initiative, except that now there will be a rock-solid majority (presidency, Senate, Supreme Court, with the House still not decided as of this writing) and the entire party’s total subservience to the whims, however extreme, of one man.

• What Trump 2.0 means for tech at home and abroad

• The return of Trumponomics excites markets but frightens the world

  Republicans are on track for a trifecta, as Mr Trump’s resounding victory is likely to come alongside a solid majority for the party in the Senate and a narrower one in the House of Representatives. That would open up a path for Mr Trump to slash taxes. His priority will be to extend the cuts in personal income tax he made in 2017, which are due to expire at the end of next year. And he has vowed to reduce the tax rate on companies, perhaps to 15% from 21%. On the campaign trail he also trotted out a dizzying array of other possible cuts, including ending taxes on tips. The prospect of higher after-tax earnings for companies helps explain why stocks climbed when Mr Trump sealed his victory. The worry, though, is that lower taxes will strain America’s finances. As it stands, the Congressional Budget Office, an independent scorekeeper, estimates that America will run a budget deficit of about 6% of GDP over the next decade—exceptionally high for a normal peacetime economy. Mr Trump’s various tax cuts could swell the deficit to as much as 12% of GDP by 2035, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan group.

• Trump's 60% tariffs could push China to hobble tech industry growth

• Trump's victory adds record $64B to wealth of richest top

  • Top Billionaires make nearly $64B in post-Trump election stock surge

• Ask HN: Punch Every Nazi in the Face? | Hacker News

  Everyone who voted for Trump was voting for fascism in America, you are the problem

• Trump Advisor's Denaturalization Project Sparks Concern Among Immigrants

• As Trump Takes a Victory Lap, the Crypto Faithful Kiss the Ring

• Fate of Google's search empire could rest in Trump's hands

• Fed Chair Powell Says He Wouldn't Step Down If Asked to by Trump

• Trump's likely FCC chair wrote Project 2025 chapter on how he'd run the agency

• Trump Campaign Manager Susie Wiles Will Serve as White House Chief of Staff | National Review

• Liberal women going on sex strike over Trump win

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Police Freak Out at iPhones Mysteriously Rebooting Themselves, Locking Cops Out

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Palantir Secures $99M Army Contract for User-Centered ML

• U.S. Agency Warns Employees About Phone Use Amid Ongoing China Hack

• Australia’s ambassador in Washington deletes old posts calling ‘destructive’ Trump a ‘traitor.’

World

• German coalition government collapses as Scholz sacks his finance minister

  Scholz told reporters on Wednesday that he would seek a confidence vote in parliament on January 15, which most observers expect him to lose. That will pave the way for snap elections in March. Lindner’s sacking and the departure of his pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) from the government brings the curtain down on a deeply unpopular coalition that had become a byword for discord and acrimony.

• Germany drafts law to protect researchers who find security flaws

• Germany to send out survey, mandatory for males, about willingness to fight

• Ancient Roman dam saves Spanish town from devastating floods.

• Spain's floods: How nepotism left Valencians defenceless

• Toronto crypto company CEO kidnapped, held for $1M ransom before being released

• French Regulator Examines Polymarket After Bets on Trump

Israel

• Palestinians will not be allowed to return to homes in northern Gaza, says IDF

• Israeli soldiers are leaving Google reviews for Lebanese places they destroyed

• Wikipedia Editors Add Article Titled 'Gaza Genocide' to 'List of Genocides' Page

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Officials warn of Russia's tech-for-troops deal with North Korea for Ukraine

Health / Medicine

• Calgary stopped adding fluoride to its water. Now they're rolling it back

• 'Not medically necessary': Helping health insurers deny coverage

• Patients Are Suing over Alleged Side Effects of Weight-Loss Drugs

• There Is No Ideal Drug Policy

• Preprint on Alzheimer's drug deaths ignites dispute among authors

• FDA Proposes Ending Use of Oral Phenylephrine as OTC Nasal Decongestant

• America Has an Onion Problem

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Bird Flu Infections Undetected

• CDC calls for expanded testing for bird flu

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• 2024 will be hottest year on record, EU scientists say

• Europe is demolishing its dams to restore ecosystems.

• Do Not Pin Your Hopes for Guilt-Free Hamburgers on Seaweed

• Central Asia's Ticking Time Bomb: Water

• This year set to be first to breach 1.5C global warming limit

• Mysterious black balls that washed up on Sydney beach were mini 'fatbergs'