2024-12-09

healthcare hatred, money in milking men, John Lennon's apostasy, SpaceX competition, we were promised a kaboom, bitcoin boom, pray for Intel, conservative art, Assad flees Syria, palaces looted

etc

• The History of Motorola

• The deep roots of Americans' hatred of their health care system

  • "the system is broken" was a reason to involve Hillary Clinton in the federal government back when. It goes back further than that. At least back to when eugenicists were convincing the public that there needed to be a "system".

• Assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and wife had lived separately for years: report.

• $25M UnitedHealth CEO Whines About Social Media Trashing His Industry

Horseshit

• Life is not a game... The morality and practicality of tit for tat

• Men are struggling. Here's how your philanthropy can help

• Facebook's Sperm Marketplace

• Young Men Are Making Risky Bets on Crypto and Politics–and Raking It In

• Dining Out Isn't What It Used to Be

• "Paycheck-to-paycheck" and five other popular myths

• They planned a day hike in Yosemite. Then they got lost in the snow

• Public housing didn't fail in the US. But it was sabotaged

• With this Raspberry Pi powered mask you can 'become anyone' behind 2,960 LEDs

celebrity gossip

• Raygun-inspired musical cancelled in Sydney after Rachael Gunn complained

• John Lennon was a secret Republican, former assistant says.

Bluesky

• Bluesky is working on a subscription, but it won't give you a blue check

Musk

• SpaceX Gets US Contract to Expand Ukraine's Access to Starshield

• Can anyone realistically challenge SpaceX’s launch supremacy?

  though it would look bad if Mr Musk killed it, the SLS is not and never could be a true competitor for Starship. Moon missions aside, whether it lives or dies makes no practical difference to his armlock on America’s space-launch industry. SpaceX’s actual main challenger at the moment is Blue Origin, a firm founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, 18 months before SpaceX’s formation in 2002. Blue Origin has not yet enjoyed SpaceX’s stellar success. Its current product, New Shepard, is a toy. (It cannot reach orbit. It merely carries rich tourists above the Karman line, 100km up, which is the official boundary of outer space.) But that will soon change. The firm is now conducting pre-launch tests on New Glenn, a rocket both reusable and orbital. If all goes well, a prototype will lift off from a specially built pad at Cape Canaveral sometime in the next few weeks.

• Grok is now free for all X users

• Great single-question filter for candidates/partners is what they think of Elon

  • "Do you hate as I do" is the prime question of the mass media's religion

• Elon Musk's Martian dreams are a boon to the U.S. military

Electric / Self Driving cars

• How Many Autonomous Vehicles Are Required to Stabilize Traffic Flow?

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• America's Role Reversal: Working-Class Blacks Make Gains While Whites Fall Back

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Plagiarism Accusations Surface over 2024 Nobel Prize

• Everyone Is Capable of Mathematical Thinking–Yes, Even You

• Study examines achievement gap between Asian American, white students

• US College Closures Are Expected to Soar, Fed Research Says

• College enrollment is falling at a 'concerning' rate, new data reveals

• Post office won't touch it... CERN plans to transport antimatter in a truck

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Brian Krebs Investigates Internet's Most Vicious Hackers–From a Secret Location

• "do not look behind that curtain" The £25,000 Tom Evans Pre-Amp Repair And A Copyright Strike

• Nokia celebrates pop-culture status by opening design archive

• Apple sued over abandoning CSAM detection for iCloud

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• The marvelous disappearing capacitor - lcamtuf’s thing

  I tinkered with a really cute way to improve the performance of photodiode amplifiers. The technique, known as bootstrapping, is outlined in a couple of application notes published by Analog Devices; that said, I don’t think it’s explained anywhere on the internet in a satisfying way.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• The UC Berkeley Project That Is the AI Industry's Obsession

• X gains a new image generator, Aurora

• Britain's plan to save the world from runaway AI

• You're so bad at recycling, this biz built an AI to handle it for you

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• The end of the ISS will usher in a more commercialized future in space

• Where's the Blaze Star? Why the overdue 'new star' T Coronae Borealis has yet to light up the night sky | Space

Crypto con games

• Why bitcoin is booming

• Bitcoin miner purchases 112-megawatt North Texas wind farm

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Intel looks beyond silicon, outlines breakthroughs at IEDM 2024

• Former Intel CEO asks people to pray and fast for employees

• Jane Street Reaps $14.2B in First Nine Months of Trading

• Two-thirds of startups don't last 10 years. The brutal truth is no one cares

• It Has Never Been More Expensive to Visit New York City

• Google sues to stop the US from monitoring it like a bank

Left Angst

• I took the test to find staff for the health department

• I Just Resigned from the Los Angeles Times

  My resignation is a protest and visceral reaction against the conduct of the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. Soon-Shiong has made several moves to force the paper, over the forceful objections of his staff, into a posture more sympathetic to Donald Trump. Those moves can’t be defended as the sort of policy adjustment papers undergo from time to time, and that an owner, within limits, is entitled to influence. Given the existential stakes for our democracy that I believe Trump’s second term poses, and the evidence that Soon-Shiong is currying favor with the President-elect, they are repugnant and dangerous.

• What David Sacks as AI czar (with Elon Musk as wingman) could mean for OpenAI

• Trump received $273.2M in donations from tech executives and VCs

• The tech bosses who poured $394.1M into US election

• Conservatives Can Curate Art for Themselves - Chronicles

  “In Grim Times, Art Finds a Way” is a pious, flowery, and tiresome essay about how “the arts community” can respond to the darkness of the second Trump era. Yes, it’s tempting to roast the quivering imbecility of the piece, but besides its despondent tone the piece is striking for its anachronistic quality. Art, just like the media, is nowhere what it was several decades ago. Protest and political art are not just irrelevant, they’re scorned. These types of “art” are even, as is argued in the new issue of Harper’s magazine, bad for art itself.

  • In grim times, art finds a way - The Washington Post

• Trump is stacking his White House roster with Uber-rich backers

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Airline informant received thousands from passenger cash seizures

• She had 20 stab wounds; police ruled suicide

• Broward Co. to vacate convictions for buying crack made by Sheriff's Office

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Chinese hack of global telecom providers is 'ongoing'

• Bolster defenses against China hackers or face fines, FCC warns telecoms

• US issues guidance for hardening Cisco devices targeted by Salt Typhoon

• Unidentified Drones Light Up New Jersey's Skies, Baffling Residents

• Top-Gun Navy Pilots Fly at the Extremes. Their Brains May Suffer

World

• Mexico just put animal welfare into its national constitution

• UK bans daytime TV ads for cereals, muffins and burgers

Syria

• Syrian government falls in end to 50-year rule of Assad family

  • HN comments

• Assad Has Left Damascus

• Syrian rebels claim Assad regime has fallen after entering Damascus

• Syria war live news: Opposition takes Damascus, al-Assad flees

• The Fall of Damascus: In Pictures

• Jihadists Reach Outskirts Of Damascus Amid Likely Transition Of Power Deal, Assad's Fate Uncertain | ZeroHedge

• Assad 'Leaves Syria' After Rebels Free Damascus

• Russian Media Claims Syria’s Fugitive Dictator Was Granted Political Asylum and Is in Moscow

• Rebels find Assad’s luxury car collection

  As rebel groups took control of the Syrian capital, videos emerged showing fighters and civilians entering the sprawling New Shaab Palace and combing through its rooms and grounds. Men, women and children can be seen touring the palace and its large garden, with rooms completely empty, save some furniture and a portrait of Assad thrown on the floor. One clip shows looters exhibiting Assad’s collection of luxury vehicles. The video gives a tour of a large hangar filled with millions of pounds worth of cars including Ferraris, Aston Martins, Rolls-Royces, BMWs, Mercedes and what appears to be a Bugatti Veyron.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• War, Deficits, and the Russian Economy: An Uphill Battle to Nowhere

• Russian techie flees Russia following FSB spyware plot

China

• China Completes Green Belt Around Taklamakan Desert

• How China's Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the Oceans

Health / Medicine

• Focusing on Healthcare's Administrative Costs Is Misguided

• UnitedHealthcare accused of relying on AI algorithms to deny Medicare claims

• What is the oral microbiome and how does it affect your health?

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• USDA Orders Raw Milk Testing Under Guise Of Bird Flu Amid War On Small Farms | ZeroHedge

• Why hasn't the bird flu pandemic started?

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Climate patterns from cave mineral deposits linked to Chinese dynasty collapses

• When Two Hemispheres Collide: Where to Now for Rewilding in Ireland?

• The most important climate case you haven't heard about

• Lockheed Martin enlists the help of goats for fire mitigation

• Climate change alone could kill off more than a hundred thousand species

• How a Never-Ending Home Renovation Project Is Fighting Climate Change