2024-11-21

road quality, minimum wages suck, ivy league is meritocratic?, c-mode maintainer quits, Prusa is less open, AI challenges, Target missed, future phone hacking, cables were cut French exit Red Sea

etc

• Findings by dark energy researchers back Einstein's conception of gravity

• How Good Are American Roads? - by Brian Potter

  Overall, the quality of US interstates is very high, while the quality of roads in major cities is quite poor. And while there’s some anecdotal evidence that US roads are worse than European roads, I wasn’t able to find much international road quality data to compare. The limited data I found points to the US not being a huge outlier in road quality. But more data is needed to compare accurately.

• For octopuses, changing colors is hard work

Horseshit

• 'Manifest': Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year

• An 83-year-old short story by Borges portends a bleak future for the internet

• I expect human agendas to color the translations past any utility: What are animals saying? AI may help decode their languages

• Seven-year-old gets job offer from Russian IT firm

• Exiled from the Happiest Place on Earth, Disney DieHards Settle for Mini Golf

• "Feed plants to chickens" is too complicated Cracking the recipe for perfect plant-based eggs

• Automatic braking systems save lives. Now they'll need to work at 62 MPH

• The Greatest Chess Player of All Time Is Bored with Chess

• Modern cars are surveillance devices on wheels with major privacy risks

Obit

• Arthur Frommer, travel guide innovator, has died at 95

• Vic Flick, guitarist on the James Bond theme, dies aged 87

Musk

• MPs to summon Elon Musk to testify about X's role in UK summer riots

• SpaceX Eyes Hundreds of Starship Launches During Trump Presidency

• A year after ditching waitlist, Starlink says it is "sold out" in parts of US

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Installing E.V. Chargers Is Finally Paying Off for Retailers

• Volvo Cars partners with OVO to deliver ultra-low charging rates for EV drivers

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Shaved heads, uniforms: they've gone cult. Jaguar Cars rebranding without any cars (HN comments)

• I give 10 percent of my income to charity. You should, too

• Do Minimum Wages Reduce Job Opportunities for Blacks? | NBER

  We find evidence that job loss effects from higher minimum wages are much more evident for blacks, and in contrast not very detectable for whites, and are often large enough to generate adverse effects on earnings.

• Is Cultural Technical Debt Sabotaging Our Survival?

  The simplest example of cultural technical debt I can reach for is Christianity—a system built centuries ago to enforce social order, maintain power structures, and spread a specific worldview, now embedded so deeply in Western society that it’s hard to tell where faith ends and control begins. It’s a cultural operating system that has, for centuries, justified conflicts, sanctified hierarchies, and imposed its moral framework on anyone within reach. And while the world has moved on, this legacy code lingers, shaping everything from laws and educational curricula to foreign policy and social expectations. The core of Christianity is a worldview that sees itself as the default—morally superior, culturally “pure,” and universally applicable. This mindset has left us with a moral infrastructure that treats anything outside its narrow lens as a deviation or a threat. Ideas around sexuality, gender roles, family structures, and “American values” all trace back to a code written centuries ago, designed to control rather than to adapt. The effects are everywhere: in the way laws still echo puritanical standards, in a foreign policy that often disguises cultural dominance as benevolence, and in a public education system that insists on whitewashed history while marginalizing everyone else’s stories.

• Fifty years ago, the remains of "Lucy" rewrote the story of human evolution

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• How Ivy League Admissions Broke America - The Atlantic

  The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.

  it’s not obvious that we have produced either a better leadership class or a healthier relationship between our society and its elites. Generations of young geniuses were given the most lavish education in the history of the world, and then decided to take their talents to finance and consulting. For instance, Princeton’s unofficial motto is “In the nation’s service and the service of humanity”—and yet every year, about a fifth of its graduating class decides to serve humanity by going into banking or consulting or some other well-remunerated finance job.

• Deepfakes Shut Down School

• Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Google Spent 15 Years Concealing Its Internal Conversations

• Google reacts angrily to report it will have to sell Chrome

  • DOJ wants to force Google Chrome sale, Android de-bundling

  • DOJ proposing to buy Google Chrome for $20B if judge OKs sale: Reports

• Google is further cracking down on sites publishing 'parasite SEO' content

• Apple is selling Apple News ads directly

  • Apple Further Expanding into Ads, Now Directly Selling Ads in News App

• Apple TV+ Will License Its Movies to Other Services to Reduce Billions in Losses

• Musi fans refuse to update iPhones until Apple unblocks controversial app

• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 arrives with a "full digital twin" of Earth

  • Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Received Overwhelmingly Negative Review on Steam

• Xbox cloud streaming expands to games you own

• Honest trolling: Banned from Bluesky Within 30s (HN comments)

• Bluesky is ushering in a pick-your-own algorithm era of social media

• AMD Eyes Smartphone Market with AI-Ready Ryzen Processors

• Let's Encrypt is 10 years old now

  • (2019 to 2023) Let's not Encrypt

• Strava closes the gates to sharing fitness data with other apps

• Tiny Glade 'built' its way to 600k sold in a month (HN comments)

• The Weirdest Domains Alex Jones Has to Give to The Onion

• Comcast to spin off cable networks as subscribers flee the bundle

• Coca-Cola's AI Holiday Ad Went from Praise to Rage

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Understanding the BM25 full text search algorithm

• (May 2024) Dial-up Internet access in 2024 using the Viking DLE-200B telephone line simulator | ToughDev

• GitHub offering security tools, advice to Open Source Projects

• D-Link says replace vulnerable routers or risk pwnage

• My resignation from Emacs development

  I'm resigning my position as Emacs contributor. The immediate reason is that, as maintainer of CC Mode, CC Mode's symbols, its names, were taken by Emacs and used for other purposes without informing me, much less consulting me. That makes my position as CC Mode maintainer here untenable. Eli Zaretskii and I have had extensive discussions, both in public and in private email, over the last week or so, but we have been unable to reach any satisfactory compromise solution.

  Names are important. They have power. To take somebody's/somthing's name and misuse it is an exercise of aggression. Try using "Emacs" or even "free software" to mean something different, and see just how quickly you would hear back from Richard Stallman. This misuse of CC Mode's "trademarks", the symbols c-mode, c++-mode, and perhaps c-or-c++-mode, is just such an act of aggression.

• With Core One, Prusa's Open Source Hardware Dream Dies

  If it wasn’t already obvious that Prusa’s commitment to open source was beginning to waiver, Josef’s post on the Prusa Blog made his position abundantly clear. Framed as a call for discussion, the post outlined his feelings on the open source community and what he perceived as the failures of common licenses such as the GPL. While he said that the company still intended to make their machines open, the writing was clearly on the wall.

  While Prusa’s newer printers certainly do not meet the literal requirements of OSHW, they’re still remarkably transparent in a world of proprietary black boxes. We might not get the design files for the printed parts in these new machines, but you’ll get STLs that you can run off if you need a replacement. We can also be fairly sure that Prusa will continue their tradition of releasing wiring schematics for the Core ONE as they’ve done with essentially all of their previous printers, which is more than we can say for the vast majority of consumer products.

  part of me will always be disappointed that the guy with the open source hardware logo tattoo took his ball and went home as soon as the game starting getting tough.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Kissinger and Schmidt on AI and world politics

• Meta forms product group to build AI tools for businesses

  • Mark Zuckerberg has rebuilt Meta around Llama

• The Bitter Religion: AI's Holy War over Scaling Laws

• US Government commission pushes Manhattan Project-style AI initiative

• An AI startup CEO has been charged with defrauding investors out of $10M

• Inside The Booming 'AI Pimping' Industry

• OpenAI is developing an AI 'operator' that performs everyday tasks

• AI Should Challenge, Not Obey

  In between the two extreme visions of AI as a servant and AI as a sentient fighter-lover, resides an important and practical alternative: AI as a provocateur. A provocateur does not complete your report. It does not draft your email. It does not write your code. It does not generate slides. Rather, it critiques your work. Where are your arguments thin? What are your assumptions and biases? What are the alternative perspectives? Is what you are doing worth doing in the first place? Rather than optimize speed and efficiency, a provocateur engages in discussions, offers counterarguments, and asks questions4 to stimulate our thinking.

• AI's Slowdown Is Everyone Else's Opportunity

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA to Assign Lunar Delivery Missions to SpaceX and Blue Origin

Crypto con games

• Judge Rules Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Not So Decentralized in Law

• Gary Wang, a Top FTX Executive, Is Given No Prison Time

  • FTX co-founder Gary Wang avoids prison after assisting in Sam Bankman-Fried case

• $100K Bitcoin next? No euphoria 'encouraging' as BTC price breaks new highs

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Robots Struggle to Match Warehouse Workers on ‘Really Hard’ Jobs

• Resentment is building as more workers feel stuck

• Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation

• Klarna's US listing is a sad reflection of Europe's failings

• As Americans bargain shop, six-figure earners flock to Walmart.

• Target Shares Crash On Profit Miss, Downgraded Outlook, & Market Share Loss As Walmart Reigns Supreme | ZeroHedge

  The current consumer environment is very dire for households making less than $100k a year, with the surge in the trade-down phenomenon—driven by both wealthy and low-income consumers grappling with record credit card debt and sliding personal savings—solidifying Walmart's dominance as 'America's low-cost budget retailer,' quickly eroding market share from competitors like Target and Dollar General into the end of the year. Target reported a disappointing margin performance for the fiscal third quarter on Wednseday and slashed the annual EPS forecast over market share losses.

• Short Squeezes Are Legal Now - Bloomberg

Trump

• Trump taps transition co-chair Linda McMahon as Education Secretary | Just The News

• DOGE could create a mobile app for tax filing: report

  • Intuit shares fall after report that gov't efficiency team is considering tax app

• Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: The Doge Plan to Reform Government

• Quails On Cocaine: DOGE Shares Examples Of Gross Government Waste - modernity

  The X account of the department shared a video of Senator Rand Paul highlighting absolutely mental programs and studies that the US government has funded recently. One example was pumping a hundred grand into an experiment to determine whether gin or tequila makes a sunfish more aggressive. Another involved almost one million dollars towards a study to discover whether cocaine makes Japanese quail more “sexually promiscuous.” The video also highlights how the government spent $750,000 to determine if Neil Armstrong said “One small step for man” or “one small step for ‘a’ man,” with the outcome determined to be “inconclusive.”

• Can Robert F. Kennedy, Jr influence the Dietary Guidelines? Most definitely, yes

Left Angst

• Cable companies and Trump's FCC chair agree: Data caps are good for you

• How Big Tech made Trump 2.0

• The Technology the Trump Administration Could Use to Hack Your Phone | The New Yorker

  In September, the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) signed a two-million-dollar contract with Paragon, an Israeli firm whose spyware product Graphite focusses on breaching encrypted-messaging applications such as Telegram and Signal. Wired first reported that the technology was acquired by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—an agency within D.H.S. that will soon be involved in executing the Trump Administration’s promises of mass deportations and crackdowns on border crossings. A source at Paragon told me that the deal followed a vetting process, during which the company was able to demonstrate that it had robust tools to prevent other countries that purchase its spyware from hacking Americans—but that wouldn’t limit the U.S. government’s ability to target its own citizens. The technology is part of a booming multibillion-dollar market for intrusive phone-hacking software that is making government surveillance increasingly cheap and accessible. In recent years, a number of Western democracies have been roiled by controversies in which spyware has been used, apparently by defense and intelligence agencies, to target opposition politicians, journalists, and apolitical civilians caught up in Orwellian surveillance dragnets. Now Donald Trump and incoming members of his Administration will decide whether to curtail or expand the U.S. government’s use of this kind of technology. Privacy advocates have been in a state of high alarm about the colliding political and technological trend lines. “It’s just so evident—the impending disaster,” Emily Tucker, the executive director at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, told me. “You may believe yourself not to be in one of the vulnerable categories, but you won’t know if you’ve ended up on a list for some reason or your loved ones have. Every single person should be worried.”

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Russian Phobos Ransomware Operator Extradited to US

  • Russian suspected Phobos ransomware admin extradited to US

• California Man Sentenced for Acting as an Illegal Agent of the PRC and Bribery

• Justice Department Seizes Cybercrime Website and Charges Its Administrators

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Data Tracking US Soldiers and Spies to Nuclear Vaults and Brothels in Germany

• U.S. Military Selects Little-Known Utah Supplier for Drone Program

World

• Danish Navy Stopped a Chinese Ship Suspected of Damaging Undersea Cables

  • Yi Peng 3 crossed both cables C-Lion 1 and BSC at times matching when they broke (HN comments)

  • Chinese cargo ship suspected in ‘sabotage’ of Baltic Sea cables

  • Finland urges NATO, EU to shield critical networks after undersea cables damaged.

  • Why Undersea Cables Are a Tempting Target for Saboteurs

• Brazil arrests soldiers over 'plot to kill' President Lula in 2022

• UK open to social media ban for kids as gov't kicks off feasibility study

  • Social media ban for under-16s 'on the table' in UK

• Thousands of British Farmers Protest Changes to Inheritance Tax.

  • Thousands of British farmers protest against ‘tractor tax’ on inheritance.

• 'Jews and homosexuals are no longer safe in Berlin,' warns city's police chief

  While she maintained that Berlin is “as safe as many other cities in Germany and safer than some other European capitals,” Slowik admitted there are parts of the city where heightened vigilance is necessary. “Basically, there are no no-go areas,” she said. “However, there are areas — and we have to be honest at this point — where I would advise people who wear a yarmulke or are openly gay or lesbian to be more careful. In many metropolises, you should be vigilant in certain public places to protect yourself from any crime.”

Iran / Houthi

• Yemen's 'uninhibited' attacks push French warship to exit Red Sea

Israel

• Witnesses: Israel is using sniper drones in Gaza and they're shooting civilians

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Dutch children's channel outages caused by Russian sabotage of six satellites

• Vladimir Putin is in a painful economic bind

  Most central banks are cutting interest rates. Not Russia’s. Last month policymakers raised rates to 21%, a two-decade high; markets expect them to reach 23% by the year’s end. The shift is all the more unusual as it is happening at a time of war, when central bankers are normally loth to supress economic activity. Russia’s economy has confounded analysts since the country invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Despite facing one of the tightest sanction regimes in modern history, it has undergone its fastest expansion in more than a decade. Russia enjoyed growth of 3.6% last year and is expected to maintain such a pace this year. Yet rather than being a demonstration of strength, the central bank’s decision to lift interest rates is a warning of trouble to come.

China

• China rushes to boost domestic chip supply

Health / Medicine

• As Ozempic turns consumers off processed foods, junk food industry fights back

• Ozempic Could Prevent Diabetes. Should It Be Used for That?

• Hillsboro residents reject adding fluoride to water

• As the Pandemic Deepened, Americans Kept Drinking More

• The Best Time to apply antiperspirant is right before bed

• Perspectives on Inhaled Nutrients and Bacteria to Improve Human Health

• Are we right to strive to save the world's tiniest babies?

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Analysis: China's emissions have now caused more global warming than EU

• Hope to Beat Climate Change Is Vanishing

• Oysters as large as cheese plates: How NYC is reclaiming their harbor's heritage

• Skiers leaving 'forever chemicals' on pistes, study finds

• Living in Delhi smog is like watching a dystopian film again and again

• The Conspiracy Theory Handbook – Center for Climate Change Communication

• 'A little dirty': inside the secret world of McKinsey

• Acorns: From an Ancient Food to a Modern Sustainable Resource

• The Northeast is becoming fire country