2024-12-20

modern suck, hiding bodies is hard, faked racist hate, Wright loses, funds for telco purity, Musk did politics, Biden was "diminished", drone bans, USA got healthier, murder hornets eradicated

Cool

• Measuring A Well With Just A Hammer And A Smartphone

Worthy

• Never Forgive Them

  The people running the majority of internet services have used a combination of monopolies and a cartel-like commitment to growth-at-all-costs thinking to make war with the user, turning the customer into something between a lab rat and an unpaid intern, with the goal to juice as much value from the interaction as possible. To be clear, tech has always had an avaricious streak, and it would be naive to suggest otherwise, but this moment feels different. I’m stunned by the extremes tech companies are going to extract value from customers, but also by the insidious way they’ve gradually degraded their products. To be clear, I don’t believe that this gradual enshittification is part of some grand, Machiavellian long game by the tech companies, but rather the product of multiple consecutive decisions made in response to short-term financial needs. Even if it was, the result would be the same — people wouldn’t notice how bad things have gotten until it’s too late, or they might just assume that tech has always sucked, or they’re just personally incapable of using the tools that are increasingly fundamental to living in a modern world.

  The stakes are so much higher than anyone — especially the tech media — is willing to discuss. The extent of the damage, the pain, the frustration, the terror is so constant that we are all on some level numb to its effects, because discussing it requires accepting that the vast majority of people live poisoned digital lives. We all live in the ruins created by the Rot Economy, where the only thing that matters is growth. Growth of revenue, growth of the business, growth of metrics related to the business, growth of engagement, of clicks, of time on app, of purchases of micro-transactions, of impressions of ads, of things done that make executives feel happy.

etc

• World Magnetic Model 2025 Released

• Complete Mastodon Jaw Unearthed Marks Major Discovery in New York

Luigi

• Luigi Mangione to face federal charges over killing of UnitedHealth boss

• (Dec 13) Luigi Mangione and Left-Wing Nihilism

• 'United Healthcare' Using DMCA Against Luigi Mangione Images

Horseshit

• Humanoid robots coming soon, initially under remote control

• How the Samuel Smith beer baron built Britain's strangest pub chain

• The Passengers a Norwegian Cruise Ship Left Behind

• Google Street View solves murder as man pictured shoving body into car boot

  • Google Street View Captures a Man Loading a Bag into a Trunk. Arrests Follow.

  • Google Street View provides clue to catching alleged killers in Spain

  • Google Street View image helps police unlock murder case

• How the 1980s Engineered the Collapse of the Working Class

• New app lets US homebuyers see neighbors' politics

• First Geared CVT Could Be a Holy Grail Transmission

• Doctors find live cockroach in Indian man's small intestine

• Bentley wouldn't exist today if not for the Sultan of Brunei

• Historic operation returns almost 1k trafficked animals to Madagascar

• Obscene Prices, Declining Quality: Luxury Is in a Death Spiral

• GM accused of 'extortion' over threat to tear down Detroit's tallest skyscraper

• NYJets' Owner Reportedly Used Madden NFL Video Game to Make Hiring Decisions

• Making New Friends Costs Money. It's Worth It

• Grandmother gets false tickets due to Star Trek vanity plates

• Bat Feces Used to Fertilize Cannabis Is Linked to 2 Deaths

celebrity gossip

• Neil Cavuto leaves Fox News after almost 30 years at the network

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• France has evidence Russia trying to manipulate influencers in France

• In an increasingly volatile world, governments turn to Element and Matrix

• Human Civilization And The Black Plastic Kitchen Utensils Panic | Hackaday

  Obviously you cannot go through each moment of the day validating every single piece of information that comes your way. The key here is to validate and verify where it matters. After reading such an alarmist article about cooking utensils in one’s local purveyor of journalistic integrity and/or social media, it behooves one to investigate these claims and possibly even run the numbers oneself, before making your way over to the kitchen to forcefully rip all of those claimed carriers of cancer seeds out of their respective drawers and hurling them into the trash bin. The same kind of due diligence is important when a single, likely biased source makes a particular claim. Especially in this era where post-truth often trumps intellectualism, it’s important to take a step back when a claim is made and consider it in a broader context. While this miscalculation with flame-retardant levels in black kitchen utensils won’t have much of an impact on society, the many cases of clear cognitive bias in daily life as well as their exploitation by the unscrupulous brings to mind Carl Sagan’s fears about a ‘celebration of ignorance’ as expressed in his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

Bluesky

• So, Bluesky Has An Extortion Problem

• Jesse Singal: Bluesky Has a Death Threat Problem

• Bluesky: A Land of Unicorns, Rainbows and Death Threats

• Developers: Mastodon and Bluesky Want Your Twitter Bots

Musk

• Musk ready to bankroll Farage with biggest donation in British political history

• Tesla sales crash as drivers snub Trump supporter Elon Musk

• Tesla sales in Europe are down 14% year-to-date and it's time to worry

• Starlink's first nationwide satellite texting service goes live in New Zealand

• Elon Musk's Wealth Approaches Half a Trillion

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Waymo still doing better than humans at preventing injuries and property damage

• BMW to build $10M center to pioneer new EV battery recycling method

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Polyamory doesn't Liberate; Monogamy doesn't Protect

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Wageningen University allowed to revoke doctoral degree of fraudulent candidate

• Journal that published faulty black plastic study removed from science index

• Tennessee college says racial slurs found on campus were a fabrication | Fox News

  A Tennessee college revealed that racist messages found written on campus were fabricated by a student in an apparent attempt to make Donald Trump supporters look bad. Rhodes College confirmed to Fox News Digital that a student had admitted to leaving the messages strewn about campus that were found over Thanksgiving break and were being investigated as a hate crime.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Apple reportedly won't launch an iPhone subscription service

• UK data regulator criticises Google for 'irresponsible' ad tracking change

• Mozilla: Proposals in US vs. Google threaten vital role of independent browsers

• Critics, not fans, perpetuate the failed second album myth, study shows

• Apple and Meta trade barbs over interoperability requests

• Only 15% of all Steam users' time was spent playing games released in 2024

• Social media platforms are not like dying malls

• Florida to Lose Pornhub Access

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Intel terminates x86S initiative – x86 de-bloat quest ends

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Claude Fights Back

• US Homeland Security chief attacks EU effort to police artificial intelligence

• AIs Will Increasingly Attempt Shenanigans

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Chinese astronauts conduct record-breaking 9-hour spacewalk

• Private Japanese rocket explodes after liftoff in its 2nd launch failure of 2024.

• UFO Sightings and the Delusion of Crowds

• The New Glenn rocket's seven powerful engines may light up as soon as today

Crypto con games

• Fartcoin hits $1B market cap

• Craig Wright found in contempt of U.K. court

  • Computer scientist who falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto avoids jail

  • Craig Wright convicted for repeatedly lying about inventing Bitcoin

• The U.S. Government Shouldn't Fund Empty Crypto Schemes

  crypto trading is thin and almost entirely unregulated—perfect conditions for commodity market manipulation. The public image of cryptocurrency is still shaped by the 2023 trial of Sam Bankman-Fried of the failed FTX crypto exchange, culminating in his conviction—and not to mention the hangover from the NFT fiasco. Crypto is seen as the domain of cheap scammers. Ordinary people are not flocking into crypto. Coincident with the bitcoin price news was the collapse of the Hawk Tuah crypto token. Haliey Welch, who told an oral sex joke that went viral on YouTube, leveraged her momentary fame into a career as an influencer and podcaster. This culminated in the meme-coin cryptocurrency $HAWK, marketed entirely on amusement value, which crashed on launch in what looked very like a pump-and-dump—tokens were dumped on ordinary buyers soon after launch, crashing the price.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season

• Amazon Delays RTO Mandate for Workers Due to Space

• Amazon forces sellers to divulge COGS, won't reimburse other costs

• Companies That Spent Billions on M&A Are Now Selling for Peanuts

• The Boomer Index Gets Interesting | Kyle Vallans

  10 days down in the Dow f*ckin' Jones! In fact, yesterday's nine-day skid alone marked its longest consecutive losing streak since 1978. We get it, it's the boomer index and nobody cares about it, right?

• Dow plunges more than 1,100 points longest losing streak since 1974

• Oscar Mayer taking applications to drive ‘Wienermobile’ around U.S

• Federal Reserve ends enforcement actions against National Bank of Pakistan

• Don't blame inflation for the price of new cars

• Walmart Employees Now Wearing Body Cameras to Keep Them Safe

• Pricing software adds billions to rental costs, White House says

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Mammoth spending bill has clause that would let Congress block subpoenas for House data, "potentially preventing any investigation into the J6 Committee" | Not the Bee

• Congress approves $3B to remove Huawei and ZTE equipment from US networks

  • Congress funds removal of Chinese telecom gear as feds probe home router risks

• Jeffries says 'hell no' to GOP funding deal, ratcheting up chances of a shutdown - Live Updates - POLITICO

  House Democrats were skeptical of an emerging Republican-led funding deal as they walked into a closed-door caucus meeting Thursday afternoon, meaning it's almost certainly doomed on the House floor, with less than 36 hours to go until a shutdown deadline. “The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious. It’s laughable. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said to reporters as he walked into the meeting.

• US Government Shutdown: Donald Trump-Backed Republican Funding Plan Fails

Trump

• Jeff Bezos Dines with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago

• Georgia Appeals Court Removes Fani Willis From Trump Case.

• X Defeats Congress: In 32 days, Trump returns as president.

• Elon Musk Flexes His Political Strength as Government Shutdown Looms (Archive)

  Wielding the social media platform he purchased for $44 billion in 2022, Mr. Musk detonated a rhetorical nuclear bomb in the middle of government shutdown negotiations on Capitol Hill. In more than 150 separate posts on X, Mr. Musk demanded that Republicans back away from a bipartisan spending deal that was meant to avoid a government shutdown over Christmas. He vowed political retribution against anyone voting for the sprawling bill backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson. Mr. Musk reposted Republican lawmakers’ complaints about the spending measure, celebrating each as a win. He also shared misinformation about the bill, including false claims that it contained new aid for Ukraine or $3 billion in funds for a new stadium in Washington.

  • Musk floods X with spending bill misinformation

Democrats / Biden Inc

• How the White House Functioned with a Diminished Biden in Charge

  • "Wait, what? That was all right wing propaganda he's sharp as a tack!"

• White House Biden health cover-up blown wide open in bombshell report: Joe was senile from day one of presidency

• Contrast the WSJ's Piece on Biden's Senility with Kamala Harris's Lies About It | National Review

Left Angst

• High tariffs proposed by Trump could wipe out corporate profits

  • recall "we need price controls to prevent corporate greed" just weeks ago from these folks?

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Former Ozy Media CEO Carlos Watson Sentenced to Nearly 10 Years in Prison

• EPA, CISA warn water facilities to disconnect HMIs from internet

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The US government has warned politicians and government officials to avoid the phone network.

• How to Make the Drone Panic So Much Worse

• FAA Bans Drone Flights Near 'Critical Infrastructure' in New Jersey

• US temporarily bans drones in parts of New Jersey

• US temporarily bans drones in parts of NJ, may use deadly force against aircraft

• New US Space Force jammers aim to disrupt China's SATCOM signals

• U.S., India undertake strengthened space partnership - UPI.com

• Pakistan's missile program is 'emerging threat', top US official says

World

• Saudi Arabia Taps Aramco Oil Field Brine in Lithium Battery Push

• Gisèle Pelicot: Ex-husband and 50 others found guilty in France mass rape trial

• El Salvador strikes $1.4B IMF deal after scaling back Bitcoin policies

• UK Gas Plants Made Millions in a Few Hours During Price Spike

• Search for lost brother reveals dark secret of Mexico's 'death flights'

• Turkey looks set to play an outsize role in shaping the new Syria after Assad.

• Black day? Guinness runs dry in UK pubs amid online craze

  • Pubs start to run out of Guinness as supply limit bites

Israel

• Facebook restricted news in Palestinian territories

• Hamas fooled the media: A neuroscientist's view

• Human Rights Watch Accuses Israel of Genocide in Gaza

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Ukraine says it has a laser that can shoot down aircraft a mile away

China

• Man admits running secret Chinese 'police station' in NYC

  • Man Who Ran Secret Police Office in New York Admits He Was Chinese Agent

• China Looks to Build the Largest Human-Made Object in Space

• China's AI elite rethink their Silicon Valley dream job

Health / Medicine

• As Fertility Rates Fall, Some Scientists Say Everyday Chemicals Are a Factor

• America Is Suddenly Getting Healthier. No One Knows Why. - The Atlantic

  without much media fanfare, the U.S. has recently experienced a boomlet in good health news. In May 2024, the U.S. government reported that drug-overdose deaths fell 3 percent from 2022 to 2023, a rare bright spot in a century of escalating drug deaths. In June, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that traffic fatalities continued to decline after a huge rise in 2020 and 2021—and that this happened despite a rise in total vehicle miles traveled. In September, the U.S. government announced that the adult-obesity rate had declined in its most recent count, which ended in August 2023. Also in September, FBI analysis confirmed a double-digit decline in the national murder rate. How rare is this inside straight of good news? Some government estimates—such as rates of obesity and overdose deaths—have reporting lags of one to two years, meaning that these causes of mortality are not necessarily all currently declining. Still, by my count, this year marks the first time in the 21st century that obesity, overdose deaths, traffic fatalities, and murders all declined in the official data analysis. The level of premature death in the U.S. is still unacceptably high. But progress isn’t just about where you are; it’s also about what direction you’re going in. And by the latter definition, 2024 was arguably the best year for American health reports in decades.

  • Marketing budgets for weight loss drugs and the "right" people in power meant the statistics were bent positive instead of negative for a bit.

• Hillary, then Obama: Why are Americans paying so much more for healthcare than they used to?

• American doctors hate the health care system almost as much as you do

• Adding sweetener to coffee enhances 'night-owl' effects of caffeine

• Coverage of 'ultra processed' is overly broad, arbitrary, and wildly misleading

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• CDC Confirms First Severe Case of H5N1 Bird Flu in the United States

• Bird flu update: California declares emergency and U.S. sees first human case

• Two California house cats die from bird flu as three more appear to be infected

• More L.A. cats appear to be infected with H5N1 bird flu

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Humanity's noise is the natural enemy

• Cannabis pollen dispersal across the United States

• Trouble in Arctic town as polar bears and people face warming world

• Pollution exposure linked to mental health hospital admissions, says study

• Elevated levels of PFAS found in several smartwatch wrist bands

• Victory over the Largest Hornet Species

  • Two-inch long 'murder hornets' eradicated from US, agriculture department says

• US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

• New Magic Mushroom Species Suggests Shrooms Reached America on Bison Poop

• Some good news on climate change in 2024

• Free green power in Sweden is crippling its wind industry

• during Last Interglacial, Arctic Siberia summers were 10C warmer than today