2024-12-30
two planes crashed, RIP Jimmy Carter, ethical programming, people over brands, brain rot, streaming ads, porn found abusive, IOCCC28, they all FBI shills, Mexican tequila surplus, banning Red 3
etc
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Delta apologizes – again – after another stowaway boards a flight without ticket
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Fiery crash kills at least 167 in worst airline disaster in South Korea
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South Korean plane crash aircraft veers off runway and hits wall
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South Korea plane crash latest: Jeju Air crash kills 179, with two crew rescued - BBC News
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Plane With 175 Passengers Crashes At South Korea Airport, At Least 62 Dead | ZeroHedge
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Fiery crash kills at least 177 in worst airline disaster in South Korea | Reuters
Two crew members were rescued, and officials have suggested the final two missing people were presumed dead. The deadliest air accident on South Korean soil was also the worst involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades, according to the transport ministry. The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 was seen in local media video skidding down the runway with no visible landing gear before crashing into the wall in an explosion of flames and debris.
The incident is suspected to have been caused by a landing gear malfunction following a bird strike, according to the local fire department.
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Year 2024 ends on bad note for Boeing with twin 737-800 disasters on same day
The KLM Boeing 737-800 (#PHBXM) was operating flight KL1204 from Oslo to Amsterdam on December 28, 2024. Shortly after takeoff the pilots reported a hydraulic failure, halting the climb at 5,000 feet. The aircraft was diverted to Sandefjord Airport in Torp, where it successfully landed but skidded off the runway onto grass near the taxiway. Thankfully, all 182 people on board, including crew, were uninjured.
Horseshit
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Anti-Christmas Protest Cancelled After "Unpopular Men" Don't Complete Paperwork
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Does Car Dependence Make People Unsatisfied with Life? U.S. National Survey
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Robot that can do laundry and make coffee could be yours next year
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I Was Wrong about the Ethics Crisis – Communications of the ACM
I think I was right to advocate for laws and regulation to address the adverse impacts of computing, but I now believe we do have an ethics crisis in computing. What changed my mind? First, my anxiety about the ills brought on by computing has risen dramatically, as a perusal of my column over the past five years shows.c I bemoaned that humanity seems to be serving technology rather than the other way around. I argued that tech corporations have become too powerful and their power must be curtailed. I asked that ACM dedicate itself to the public good. I pointed out that Big Tech’s business models are unethical. I explained how technology increases societal polarization. I wailed that computing has blood on its hands. About two years ago, I started giving talksd on how to be an ethical computing technologist. But I have yet, until now, to point at the elephant in the room and ask whether it is ethical to work for Big Tech, taking all of the above into consideration. ACM’s Code of Ethicse does offer a clear ethical guideline. It opens with the following sentences: “Computing professionals’ actions change the world. To act responsibly, they should reflect upon the wider impacts of their work, consistently supporting the public good.” So, the ethical star we should follow is the support of the public good.
- Of course we're all smart enough to know what "the public good" is, in all instances. The people we disapprove of aren't just disagreeing with us, they're unethical!
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NBA Team Apologizes After Pretending to Give Kid a PS5, Then Taking It Away
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Scientist's 1925 predictions for the future mostly come true
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Y2K seems like a joke now, but in 1999 people were freaking out
- Because the media sold it as the apocalypse of the moment.
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Short-Term Rentals Are Hollowing Out Communities with Loose Restrictions
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This is evident in my industry, podcasting. Joe Rogan has become more influential than the world’s largest news networks. His podcast gets 3x more downloads than the average primetime viewership of CNN and MSNBC combined. Many have misdiagnosed this tectonic shift as a left vs. right phenomenon, i.e. “CNN is woke/liberal; Rogan is anti-woke/conservative.” In the context of loneliness, however, that’s a red herring. The key distinction between CNN and Joe Rogan is that one is a brand and the other is a person. This distinction is embedded in everything, from the name (CNN vs. Joe Rogan) to the logo (red letters vs. a face) to the product (“the news” vs. normal conversation). In a world of chronic loneliness, the person is more compelling.
- Joe doesn't tell people what to think, that they're idiots or Evil for disagreeing with him, or that there is no truth elsewhere. That might be a more significant difference.
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Consciously uncoupling: what drives rates of animal divorce?
celebrity gossip
Obit
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Charles Dolan, Cable-TV Pioneer Behind HBO and AMC, Dies at 98
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Former US President Jimmy Carter Dies at 100
Former President Jimmy Carter has died after deciding nearly two years ago to forgo further medical care following a series of medical crises, according to two people close to the family. At 100, he was the longest-lived president in American history and became known as much for his post-presidential diplomacy and charitable works as for his single, economically turbulent term in office.
Musk
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Welcome to the femosphere, the dark, toxic corner of the internet for women
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Bloomberg Flubs Data For Bombshell Report That Only 6% Of New Corporate Hires Are White
It’s an astonishing statistic that took the internet by storm: 94% of jobs created in 2021 went to racial minorities. It’s also completely untrue. The conclusion from Bloomberg — which credits five reporters and four editors for its report — is that on the heels of the Black Lives Matter protests, corporations followed through on their promise to diversify their ranks. The outlet reported that companies in the S&P 100 added 323,094 new employees in 2021, and that only 20,524 of those new jobs were filled by whites. If true, such a statistic could launch a legion of victorious racial discrimination lawsuits — blacks, Asians, and Hispanics make up roughly 40% of the population, and there is no way they could obtain 94% of new jobs without some level of discrimination. But the takeaway from Bloomberg is an example of innumeracy by journalists at an outlet once relied upon by businessmen for savvy financial analysis — or of willfully setting aside common sense in favor of what the publication acknowledged is an ideologically-driven “project to hold companies accountable to [diversity] pledges.”
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Elderly student loan borrowers owe $121 billion. They ask Biden for relief.
In the waning days of the Biden administration, activists are urging the Education Department to discharge the student debt of older borrowers who they say are in no position to repay. They say the department could use a little-known federal statute that considers a person’s ability to pay within a reasonable time and the inability of the government to collect the debt in full.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Social media, brain rot and the slow death of reading
Today, even literature students don’t read long books any more. The Shakespeare scholar Sir Jonathan Bate, who teaches at universities in both the US and UK, recently lamented this decline. Forty years ago “you could say to a student, ‘This week it’s Dickens. Please read Great Expectations, David Copperfield and Bleak House’,” he told BBC Radio 4. “Now, instead of three novels in a week, many students will struggle to get through one novel in three weeks.” A recent survey by the charity the Reading Agency showed that only half of adults in the UK read regularly for pleasure, down from 58 per cent in 2015. More troubling still, 35 per cent are lapsed readers who used to enjoy the hobby. My cocktail-party confessors — among them novelists — tell me they now find themselves scrolling in bed rather than reading. And who can blame them? Social media is designed to hijack our attention with stimulation and validation in a way that makes it hard for the technology of the page to compete.
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The Nintendo Switch eShop Is A Bigger Slop Factory Than Ever
If you’ve recently loaded up the Nintendo Switch’s eShop to buy something or search for a specific game, you’ve likely noticed that the digital store is filled with a lot of garbage that was likely made quickly and is only there to cash in on a trend or holiday. And worse, it seems Nintendo doesn’t give a shit, which could be bad news for the Switch 2.
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20% seems low. They're probably overestimating how many people don't have phones. The Average American Spent 2.5 Months on Their Phone in 2024
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Even Apple wasn't able to make VR headsets mainstream in 2024
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OnlyFans: Women describe lives of isolation, torment and sexual servitude
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Spotify showed porn videos in search results for some popular artists
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Economicon / Business / Finance
Trump
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January 6th and the Dog That Didn’t Bark – Chicago Boyz
If the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were so heavily infiltrated, what did the FBI know of their activities beforehand? As the IG report makes evident, the FBI was already tracking the movements of these supposedly dangerous groups in relation to January 6th, but they failed to convince the lead agencies that the groups were an adequate threat. Or to put it more conspiratorially, what was the role intended (however unwittingly) for those groups? So to take the IG’s report at face value we have to accept that the FBI, on a day that the Democrats called worse than 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, was amazingly incompetent. However, to take a step back and look at the entire intelligence picture involving FBI infiltration of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers raises more troubling questions of intent that have yet to be answered.
Democrats / Biden Inc
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
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Epic Construction Site in the Saudi Desert Is a Hazard for Workers
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Falling demand leaves Mexico with a 500mn-litre tequila lake
Mexico is sitting on more than half a billion litres of tequila in inventory, almost as much as its annual production, as the fast-growing industry reckons with slowing demand and the prospect of tariffs on exports to the US under Donald Trump. By the end of 2023, the industry had 525mn litres of tequila in inventory, either ageing in barrels or waiting to be bottled, according to data shared with the Financial Times by the Tequila Regulatory Council. Of the 599mn litres of tequila produced last year, about one-sixth remained in inventory, according to the figures.
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Garmin Varia Light Flash Pattern Ban Extended in EU
In Germany, bike lights with flashing patterns are prohibited, and France recently passed similar legislation. Now, if your Varia flashes at any frequency in France, it’s considered illegal. While it’s unclear if selling Varia lights with intermittent flash capabilities will be outright banned, there’s a growing risk that these restrictions could be extended across the EU. Cyclists caught flashing in France face a fine of approximately €11.
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Belgium will ban sales of disposable e-cigarettes in a first for the EU