2024-12-02
questioning vaccines, X values up, Oxford porn, metrics consume quality, solar observatory flooded, crypto cons and their penalties, debanked debunked?, awful America, fentanyl less fatal
Worthy
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In 1962, children received 5 vaccine doses. Today, the recommended vaccine schedule is 72 doses of 16 different vaccine formulations. Next year, the CDC recommends that babies more than 6 months old receive 2 COVID vaccines before turning 4. Obviously, the schedule has hugely increased, most notably after 1986. Why? In 1986, many lawsuits were filed against vaccine makers for their DPT vaccine causing brain damage and sudden infant death. In a reaction to the lawsuit, makers of the DPT vaccine threatened to cease making vaccines if they continued to be exposed to legal liability for producing them. The result of this threat was the passage of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, a law that removed a vaccine maker’s liability for any injuries caused by their products. In effect, vaccine makers would no longer be financially liable for injuries or deaths caused by their vaccines (unlike drug manufacturers who do retain liability). Since this act was passed, the vaccine schedule has exploded. If you are 41 or older, you have had fewer vaccines in your lifetime than the average 6-month-old today.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act wasn’t passed without any guardrails. In exchange for this blanket liability protection, the Department of Health and Human Services promised to conduct safety reviews every two years and report them to Congress. Unfortunately, it appears they haven’t followed through on that obligation. After being sued to produce these records in 2018, HHS admitted they had never conducted any of the required safety testing and never issued a report to Congress as required by law.
Horseshit
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Beekeepers halt honey awards over 'huge fraud' in global supply chain
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Drummers... How should we treat beings that might be sentient?
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UK counter-terrorism unit demands Steam withdraw controversial shooter from sale
Valve has removed a game from its British Steam storefront following a request from the UK's counter-terrorism unit. The FPS/TPS Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque - which describes itself as "address[ing] the Israel x Palestine conflict from a Palestinian perspective" - was removed when Steam contacted developer Nidal Nijm to inform him it had "received a request from authorities in the UK to block the game and have applied such country restrictions".
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'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare' Rewrites the Highway of Death as a Russian Attack
Bluesky
Musk
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Musk files for injunction to halt OpenAI's transition to a for-profit
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Fidelity marks up its X stake by 32 percent
Even with this markup, Fidelity still values the company at 72 percent less than the $44 billion that Musk purchased it for in 2022.
Electric / Self Driving cars
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Oxford University Press textbooks have pornographic link
We wish to bring to your immediate attention an issue that may impact your school. It has come to our attention that certain Oxford University Press (OUP) textbooks contain a problematic and highly concerning website link. The URL "obookassess dot com" (hyperlink not provided) that appears on the inside front cover of these titles has been retired by OUP. Unfortunately, it has since been obtained by a third party abroad and is now pointing to inappropriate content. OUP is very concerned about this and is investigating as a matter of priority. OUP is providing high-adhesive stickers with the correct oxforddigital.com.au link to cover the retired URL in all relevant titles, to any distributor, school or customer that has a product containing the retired URL.
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Education and Healthcare Suck for the Same Reasons
our obsession with measurable outcomes has eclipsed the humans at the center of these systems. Just as a patient becomes reduced to their vital signs and lab results, students become their test scores and grades. The metrics that were meant to help us understand how well we're doing our jobs – caring for the sick and educating the young – have become the job itself.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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Writers condemn startup's plans to publish 8k books next year using AI
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AI was born at a US summer camp 68 years ago
- Turing would probably cite the people who inspired him to articulate his ideas about "thinking machines"...
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Marc Benioff, Owner of Time, Uses Magazine to Promote His AI Software
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
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NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) server room affected by flooding
On Tuesday, November 26, 2024 a 4-inch chilled-water pipe in the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Joint Science Operations Center (JSOC) server room broke. This caused major flooding in the building and extensive water damage in the lab that houses the machines that process and distribute data from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and Atmospheric Imaging Array (AIA) instruments and from the IRIS spacecraft. The Stanford JSOC team is working to assess the extent of the damage, but it is severe. Science data processing for HMI, AIA, and IRIS will be down for an extended length of time, as will access to the archived data at JSOC.
Although efforts are underway to access and recover the affected systems, the scale of the damage has significantly impacted JSOC’s ability to function, and the repairs and rebuilding process are expected to extend into early 2025. In the meantime, the global community of professional (and amateur) sun observers will need to rely heavily on alternative resources, such as GOES-SUVI and GONG. Additionally, contributions from the public and amateur astronomers will play a vital role in filling observational gaps. High-quality community-sourced photos of the sun, particularly those highlighting active regions or sunspots, can be instrumental in maintaining solar activity monitoring and analysis. This collective effort will ensure that despite the temporary loss of SDO’s processed data, the global scientific community can continue tracking solar phenomena, studying the sun’s behavior, and predicting space weather events that could impact Earth.
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The Imminence of the Destruction of the Space Program
Assuming the current launch rate going forward of around 1,500 satellites per year, the researchers estimate that the “critical population density” turning point will occur around 2050. By that year, a catastrophic event in low earth orbit becomes inevitable—if one has not already happened. The timeline shortens if launches increase in number.
Crypto con games
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Crypto's 'Middle Child' Ethereum Flounders as Rivals Gain Ground
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The Salvadoran government has 5,940 bitcoins worth $582M (HN comments)
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The epic spectacle that is the bitcoin juggernaut MicroStrategy
Has there ever been a capital markets spectacle quite like MicroStrategy? In the last month alone, the bitcoin-buying juggernaut has announced plans to raise a staggering $42bn in equity and debt while buying $10.2bn worth of bitcoin. On top of that, the company this month placed its fifth convertible bond issue of the year, this time raising $3bn with the jaw-dropping terms of a zero interest rate and a price to convert the debt into equity that is a 55 per cent premium to the current share price. Technical reasons might explain part of this, with traders seeking to exploit the volatility in the underlying shares. But in effect, people are lending MicroStrategy money at no cost to the company in the hope the shares rise above the conversion price. This is despite the fact they could buy shares from the market. If that all sounds like things are getting out hand, its shareholders are not yet showing much caution. The stock has risen more than 450 per cent this year, and its market cap has rocketed to $90bn. Not too shabby for a company whose legacy software business is bleeding cash and shrinking by the quarter.
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The Politics of Crypto Crime: Following the Money
More striking still is the case of Nishad Singh, whom The New York Times described as a "top advisor" who helped siphon $8 billion from customer accounts. Mr Singh, who distributed millions in political donations to left-leaning organizations, walked free with only supervised release. Yet these disparate sentences tell only part of the story. Behind the headlines about financial fraud lies a more complex tale—one of political influence and strategic prosecution. The decision to focus on financial crimes while dropping political corruption charges has left a trail of tantalizing clues about a broader campaign of influence-peddling that may never be fully illuminated.
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Even central banks are losing faith in CBDCs
Only 10 per cent of the central bankers surveyed said they’re still working on the concept, compared to 21 per cent last year.
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All Here founder's arrest shows it's easy for startups to scam investors
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Office CMBS Delinquency Rate Spikes to 10.4%, Just Below Worst of GFC Meltdown
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Marc Andreessen and the CFPB: Debunking the Debanking Debunkers
Many on the left are not familiar with the concerns that the crypto industry, and the right in general, have leveled around debanking. Hence the general sense of bafflement or disbelief following Marc’s statements and Elon boosting on X.
Trump
Democrats / Biden Inc
Left Angst
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Four years of Trumpian crypto regulation: What might we see? • The Register
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Ryan Routh, the second person to attempt to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, sent Politico a letter from jail that echoes Democratic rhetoric and calls Trump a "dictator."
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Why Americans Are So Awful to One Another - The Atlantic
Why have Americans become so mean? I was recently talking with a restaurant owner who said that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told me that many on her staff are leaving the profession because patients have become so abusive. At the far extreme of meanness, hate crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level in 12 years. Murder rates have been surging, at least until recently. Same with gun sales. Social trust is plummeting. In 2000, two-thirds of American households gave to charity; in 2018, fewer than half did. The words that define our age reek of menace: conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, safe spaces.
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
World
China
Health / Medicine
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Fentanyl deaths are falling. What’s behind the decline?
A few weeks ago, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published data showing that fentanyl deaths have been declining for 11 straight months, and now stand 20 per cent below their 2023 peak. This is a stunning turnaround in the opioid epidemic that has been ravaging the country for more than a decade, killing hundreds of thousands, and has reduced US male life expectancy by a whole year. One of the striking things about the reversal in fentanyl deaths is that it is spreading smoothly from the east coast of the US to the west. Charles Fain Lehman, a crime researcher with the Manhattan Institute, notes that this is an almost perfect echo of the drug’s initial spread a decade ago. The evidence suggests that whatever is driving this trend is probably coming not from the top down, but from the bottom up: from suppliers, substances and users. According to my analysis of state-level data on drug supply and deaths, the states that are furthest into their declines in fentanyl mortality are those where xylazine has been circulating for the longest.
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The brain microbiome: could understanding it help prevent dementia?
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Images reveal how an orca pod hunts the world’s largest fish
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Upstate NY could get up to 6 feet of snow as NYC braces for cold snap.
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A surprise solar boom reveals a fatal flaw in our climate change projections
What’s happening in Pakistan is the latest sign that energy authorities are underestimating how much clean power the world demands — and that energy models can suffer from the same biases as their makers. Those failures in number-crunching are not merely abstract. Failing to grasp how much energy is wanted, and the things people in places like Pakistan might be willing to do to get it, leaves the world unprepared to build, fund, and plan for a cleaner future.