2024-11-19

fighting fire with napalm, sell Chrome to whom? Crypto grew up, bankrupt Spirit, auto loan bubble, Mitch is a toad, verging on hysteria, subsea cable cut, real misogyny, China remains orderly

etc

• Stop chasing on-the-run emu in your 4x4s, say Lincolnshire police

• U.S. NHTSA Investigating "Excessive Frame Flex" in Winnebago Grand Design RVs

Horseshit

• (July 2024) AI-powered vending machines that sell bullets could be hacked, says expert

• The New Status Symbol of Luxury Kids' Parties

• Senator calls Steam unsafe for teens, calls for action agaist extreem content

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Norwegian startup Factiverse plans to fight disinformation with AI.

  In the wake of the U.S. 2024 presidential election, one fact became clear: Disinformation proliferated online at a startling rate, shaping Americans’ views about each candidate as well as a diverse set of topics, including public health, climate change, and immigration. Generative AI – with its ability to produce deepfakes in seconds and its propensity to hallucinate facts – only stands to exacerbate the problem. Factiverse, a startup that participated in TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield 200 in October, is bracing itself for the onslaught. The company, which won best pitch in the Security, Privacy, and Social Networking category, has developed a business-to-business tool that provides live fact-checking of text, video, and audio. The company’s pitch: to help businesses save hours of research and mitigate any reputational risk or legal liability.

Musk

• Is This the End for X?

• Krugman: Opinion | The Dollar Still Has Its Mojo. X, Not So Much. - The New York Times

  I won’t go through the litany of ways the platform has changed for the worse under Musk’s leadership, but from my point of view it has become basically unusable, overrun by bots, trolls, cranks and extremists. But where could you go instead? In the past couple of years, there have been several attempts to promote alternatives to X, but none of them really caught on. To some extent this may have reflected flaws in their designs, but a lot of it was simply lack of critical mass: Not enough of the people you wanted to interact with could be found on the alternative sites. Then came this year’s presidential election, which seems to have sparked an exodus (“Xodus”?) from Muskland. From my point of view, Bluesky, in particular — a site that functions a lot like pre-Musk Twitter — quite suddenly has reached critical mass, in the sense that most of the people I want to hear from are now posting there. The raw number of users is still far smaller than X’s, but as far as I can tell, Bluesky is now the place to find smart, useful analysis.

  And yes, most of the new Bluesky posters I find useful are liberal, but that reflects the modern right’s anti-intellectualism rather than political bias on the part of the site.

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Tesla gains on report Trump team plans federal self-driving vehicle regulations

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Ben and Jerry's vs. Unilever Is the End of Corporate Do-Gooderism

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Scientific American's Departing Editor Helped Degrade Science

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• New Dune Prequel 'Dune: Prophecy' Premieres on HBO and Max

• Reports of Unwanted Telemarketing Calls Down More Than 50 Percent Since 2021

• Tim Berners-Lee Wants the Internet Back

• Telegram announces "largest update in the history" of mini apps

• Substack’s Bet on Politics Newsletters Leads to Subscriber Growth - The New York Times

  The newsletter start-up, which once drew an overture from Elon Musk, is betting on politics content and recruiting stars. But profits remain elusive.

• Harpercollins wants authors to sign away AI training rights

• Roblox give parents control over childrens activity after warnings over grooming

• Bluesky's success is a rejection of big tech's operating system

• DOJ Will Push Google to Sell Off Chrome to Break Search Monopoly

  • Justice Department says it may ask judge to force Google to sell Chrome

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• April Fools' joke results in Japanese firm making a beige '80s throwback PC case

• Here's why you should only buy a magnetic keyboard for gaming

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• NIST trains AI to hear the 'oh crap' moment before batteries explode

  • AI Can 'Hear' When a Lithium Battery Is About to Catch Fire

• Microsoft boiling the Copilot frog: not a soup you want to drink at any price

• Google Gemini tells grad student to 'please die' while helping with his homework

• There's No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI

• AI and Machines are not villains, they are the ultimate job multipliers

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA May Have Inadvertently Killed Life on Mars, Scientist Says

Crypto con games

• Bitcoin’s identity crisis

  Remember when cryptocurrency was supposed to disrupt and replace finance? Well, history had other plans. As bitcoin surges past $85,000, doubling in price over the past year, we find ourselves in what might be called an “institutional legitimacy paradox”. Consider the historical irony: bitcoin, conceived as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that would eliminate the need for financial intermediaries, is now primarily traded through funds managed by the very intermediaries it was meant to circumvent. Two years ago, the collapse in crypto prices seemed to confirm what sceptics like myself had long maintained: crypto assets were a speculative bubble inflated by easy money and pandemic-era exuberance. The implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX, coupled with rising interest rates, appeared to sound the death knell for crypto’s mainstream aspirations. Yet here we are in 2024, witnessing what can only be described as a zombie-like reanimation. This recovery is different from the last bitcoin high. It is fuelled by both individual investors and institutional money, with UK pension funds and City asset managers increasingly experimenting with exposure. BlackRock’s spot bitcoin exchange traded fund is accumulating billions of dollars in assets. The shift towards “respectability” should concern us all. The financial industry’s embrace of crypto is less a validation of its alleged revolutionary potential and more an attempt to extract fees from what is, essentially, gambling. It has effectively neutered crypto’s radical promise of disintermediation.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Discount Airline Spirit Files for Bankruptcy

  • Spirit Airlines files for bankruptcy amid growing losses and debt

• AI Investments are Booming but VC profits are at an historic low

• China-based Vevor is manipulating Amazon reviews and tricking buyers

• Nearly 40% Of Cars Financed Since 2022 Are Underwater | ZeroHedge

  Bloomberg Intelligence's Joel Levington published a new report Monday, citing new data from CarEdge that showed a staggering 39% of vehicles financed since 2022 carry negative equity, including 46% of EVs

• Thanks to AI, Apple's China problem is only getting worse

• Arizona girl, 10, sold chickens. Chase froze her check and closed the account

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Biden's Trustbuster Draws Unlikely Fans: 'Khanservative' Republicans

• Sam Altman will co-chair SF mayor-elect Daniel Lurie's transition team

• NYC's congestion pricing tolls to launch Jan. 5: What you need to know

Trump

• (Oct 19 2024) Inside the Republican National Committee’s Poll-Watching Army | The New Yorker

  Topics ranged from whether you could put snacks or lunch in the fridge at the polling location (no) to how much “reasonable access” you should expect in order to observe poll workers at a close distance (it depends). What if seniors waiting in line to vote wanted water? Could they give out water? A hand went up. Liberals, apparently, got up close to voters under the pretense of handing out food and water. Everyone agreed that it was probably worth a call to the election-integrity hotline if someone was giving out water with what seemed to be ulterior motives. (The instructor said that she wasn’t sure about that.)

• Trump Picks Brendan Carr to Lead the Federal Communications Commission

  • Trump Appoints Brendan Carr, Net Neutrality Opponent, as FCC Chairman

  • Trump FCC Chair Pick Is Brendan Carr, Pro-Musk Republican - Bloomberg

  • Trump Tags Brendan Carr to Dismantle What's Left of Consumer Protection at FCC

  • Trump's pick to run the FCC has told us what he plans

• Trump picks former Rep. Sean Duffy for transportation secretary

• All the hyperbole about Trump's cabinet will be stale by the time confirmation hearings happen. There's probably people busily making AI videos of barnyard animals accusing all these people of sexual improriety.

• MAGA world outraged after now-deleted tweet reveals Mitch McConnell's secret plot to derail Trump's agenda in the Senate | Daily Mail Online

  Donald Trump's MAGA faithful were outraged after it was leaked that Mitch McConnell hatched a plot to stall his Cabinet nominations in the Senate. The backlash began after a now-deleted tweet from New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer claimed McConnell told colleagues 'there will be no recess appointments' for the president-elect's cabinet members. 'Message to Trump Team: "There will be no recess appointments" Sen. Mitch McConnell said tonight at a Washington gathering,' Mayer wrote on X at around 8 pm Sunday.

• Report Trump wants to relax U.S. self-driving rules

• Ramaswamy outlines DOGE’s vision to bring ‘sweeping change’ to bureaucracy: ‘Restoring… accountability.’

• Trump Media in talks to buy crypto trading platform Bakkt, shares soaring

Democrats / Biden Inc

• Biden locks in $6.6B for TSMC chip factories, ensuring Trump can't rescind deal

Left Angst

• The Verge Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel on Elon Musk and Donald Trump

  To be as clear as I can be, the second Trump administration with Elon Musk embedded within it represents the most direct and sustained threat to the First Amendment and the freedom of the press any of us will ever experience. If you’re a media executive or editorial leader and you haven’t met with your legal team to understand the current landscape of First Amendment threats, let alone the ones to come, you’re already behind. Get on it.

• My Trump trade went bust – with a consolation prize

  On Nov. 15, the day my put expired, the stock crawled back to about $28. I was out of luck and my $390 was gone.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• The FBI’s Biden-Era Murder Estimates Are Far Below the Number of Homicides Recorded on Death Certificates - Just Facts Daily

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Biden allows Ukraine to strike inside Russia with missiles

  • Biden allows Ukraine to use US arms to strike inside Russia

• T-Mobile confirms its network was hit by Chinese hackers

  “T-Mobile is closely monitoring this industry-wide attack, and at this time, T-Mobile systems and data have not been impacted in any significant way, and we have no evidence of impacts to customer information. We will continue to monitor this closely, working with industry peers and the relevant authorities,” the company said in its statement.

  • "we have no evidence of impacts" how reassuring.

• Mystery of the lost US nuclear bomb in Greenland

• Centrus confirms loss of access to Russian enriched uranium

World

• A fault in the Cinia C-Lion1 submarine cable between Finland and Germany

  • Mystery fault takes out undersea internet cable between Germany and Finland

  • Finland Says Subsea Germany Link Serving Data Centers Is Severed

  • Telecoms cable break reported between Finland and Germany

  • Finland and Lithuania Report Severed Undersea Data Cables

  • Undersea data cable between Germany and Finland broken

  • Undersea cable between Germany and Finland severed

  Germany and Finland say they are "deeply concerned" after an undersea cable linking the countries was severed. The rupture of the 1,170km (730-mile) telecommunications cable - which is being investigated - comes at a time of heightened tension with Russia. The two countries' foreign ministers said in a joint statement: "Our European security is not only under threat from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors."

  • Two telecoms cables in Baltic Sea severed, raising suspicions of sabotage

• Why is European productivity so poor and how can it be improved?

• Malala: I never imagined women's rights would be lost so easily

  In just a few years since the Taliban retook control of the country, women's rights have been eroded to the point where even singing is banned. Malala has a personal history with the Taliban across the border in Pakistan, after a gunman from the hardline Islamist group shot her as she sat on a school bus. The speed of change in Afghanistan, if not the brutality, has surprised Malala, who since that near-fatal shooting in 2012 has campaigned for equality. "I never imagined that the rights of women would be compromised so easily," Malala tells BBC Asian Network.

• Backlash after Ontario premier threatens to tear up cycling lanes in Toronto

• A day in the life of a New Delhi roadside barber

• India's capital shuts schools as smog exceeds 60 times WHO limit

• India's central bank plans to create a cloud platform for financial firms

• Alberta to end the right to sue in crashes

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Zelensky Says Trump's Election Will Hasten the End of the Ukraine-Russia War

• UK undersea cables worth £7.4T a day under 'real threat' from Russia

China

• Eight killed and 17 wounded in second mass attack in China in a week.

Health / Medicine

• Will the Average Human Life Expectancy Ever Reach 100?

• $500k Pay, Easy Hours: How Dermatology Became the 'It' Job in Medicine

• USC: Chemicals Found in Cookware/Food Packaging/Cosmetics Could Be Ruining Sleep

• Don't sit on the toilet for more than 10 minutes, doctors warn

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Bird flu risk to humans: Canadian case has unsettling viral mutations

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Climate activists sentenced for powder attack on U.S. constitution

• NitroFix wants to use electricity to make ammonia without the pollution

• Invasive plants drive homogenization of soil microbial communities across US

• Scientists Clone Two Black-Footed Ferrets from Frozen Tissues

• The UK is done with coal. How's the rest of the world doing?

• Climate crisis to blame for 'impossible' heatwaves, studies reveal

• Zebra mussels and a pump station spurred Texas to redraw border with Oklahoma

• Cows and pigs will face a carbon tax in Denmark

• New York City pauses $2B aqueduct repair project, citing drought

• The crazy race to stop cow farts and save the world