2025-01-01

trust in culture, should Tesla pay Musk?, privacy enhancing lies, fake anti-Trump ads in DC, more homemade explosives than ever, Treasury hack, Norovirus up, manbearpig cow bird flu, Antarctic summer

etc

• Video shows close call between Gonzaga men's basketball plane, Delta flight

• Scientists crack the code of how gold reaches Earth's surface

• Butterfly collector with more than 4.2 million seeks to share them

• TIME's Top Photos of 2024

• Herbie Hancock Demos a Fairlight CMI Synthesizer on Sesame Street

  a clip from a 1983 episode of Sesame Street starring Herbie Hancock demonstrating the Fairlight CMI synthesizer to a group of kids, including a very young Tatyana Ali (who grew up to play Ashley Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air).

• NYC's Taxi Mess Was Driven by Decades of Inaction and 'Massive' Fraud

• Most of Puerto Rico Hit by New Year's Eve Power Outage

Horseshit

• The British Empire Was Much Worse Than You Realize

• Scientists believe they have discovered the real reason Stonehenge was built

• Didn't they just sell off a "supercomputer" cluster 'cuz the water cooling was leaking? Electrical circuits encased in fluid may reshape data-center design

• Texas teenager accused of using poison to kill rival's competition show goat

• Hackers Could Turn Your Smart Pet Feeder into an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet

• A Doping Feud Almost Cost Salt Lake City the Olympics. It Still Might

• What Culture Can You Trust?

  The process by which cultures change doesn’t seem to be that different from the process by which we all assimilate to them. Various people make various bids for cultural influence, via songs, stories, essays, art, etc., and we all let ourselves be more influenced by the ones we judge to be more prestigious, according to current standards of prestige. And those standards include winning popularity contests; Star Wars was more popular than expected, and thus gained more prestige and influence than expected. All of which suggests that we are really rather gullible re prestigious culture. Which should make you worry: which cultural variants can you trust? That is, should you just naively embrace all that most around you embrace, or hold higher standards?

• 'Barbarians' May Have Been Inspired by Opium When Attacking Rome, Study Suggests

• What Statistics Can and Can’t Tell Us About Ourselves  | The New Yorker

  This is the underlying principle behind how modern science comes to its conclusions. It doesn’t matter if we’re uncovering evidence for climate change or deciding whether a drug has an effect: the concept is identical. If the results are too unusual to have happened by chance—at least, not more than one time out of twenty—you have reason to think that your hypothesis has been vindicated. “Statistical significance” has been established.

celebrity gossip

• Ridley Scott angers Maltese govt despite them setting aside $48M for him

• Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepo Agree to Share the World Blitz Chess Championship

Obit

• Tell HN: John Friel my father, internet pioneer and creator of QModem, has died | Hacker News

• San Francisco counterculture legend behind bell-bottoms craze dies at 84

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI

• Obama’s ‘Censorship’ Office Goes Bankrupt.

  • Just before they might get sued by all those people they said was "russian bots".

Musk

• Elon Musk's ties to Trump won't benefit Tesla, investor Ross Gerber says

  • We've got judges insisting that Tesla cannot pay Musk, so why should he benefit Tesla?

• The Only Real Winners Are the Trial Lawyers

  Let’s unpack the absurdity of this ruling: A Tesla shareholder with just nine shares sued over Musk’s proposed compensation, triggering a six-year legal battle. While Tesla argued the case was flawed, the judge sided with the plaintiff, citing transparency issues. The plaintiff’s lawyers originally demanded up to $7.74 billion in fees—more than Volvo’s market cap—and ultimately walked away with $345 million in legal fees, one of the largest payouts in securities litigation history.

• German fascism crisis escalates as Elon Musk publishes a devastating 600-word editorial explaining why he supports Alternative für Deutschland

  While Burgtard believes that “Musk’s diagnosis is correct,” he argues that “his approach … that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong.” I find it hard to see how that can possibly be true, and I mean this objectively. The CDU won’t be able to reverse “failed migration, energy and social policies” if they govern with the Greens or the Social Democrats. The only chance to address any of these problems lies with ditching the cordon sanitaire and forming a government with the AfD. All of this is so extremely simple, that there are really only two options for the honest editorialiser: One can argue that Germany is doing just great and that mass migration is fantastic and the energy transition is going swimmingly, or one can propose forming a right-of-centre government with the AfD.

  Establishment discourse always insists that the AfD is very bad, but when it comes time to explain why the AfD are very bad we get nothing but transparent lies and mischaracterisations about what the AfD stand for. Our betters want the AfD to be very bad in a way that it is not, and this raises profound questions about their real reasons for hating the AfD, and why they can never explain these reasons.

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Self-driving cars don't stop for me at a crosswalk I use every day

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• String theory is not dead

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Evolution journal editors resign en masse

• New California law aims to reduce homework burden on students

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Mufasa's 'Bye Bye' shows how Disney villain songs went wrong

• Paramount Series 'Landman' Surprises With Conservative Anti-Climate Agenda Message | ZeroHedge

• What's going on with that Cyberhaven browser extension compromise? Nothing good.

• Apple TV+ free first weekend of 2025

• Apple Vision Pro May Now Be Out of Production

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

• The Linux Kernel Hit a Decade Low in 2024 for the Number of New Commits per Year

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• By default, capital will matter more than ever after AGI

• 'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton says it could drive humans extinct in 10 years

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• India launches its first space docking mission

• Blue Origin hot fires New Glenn rocket for first time, gets FAA license for test

Crypto con games

• Montenegro extradites cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon to the United States

  • Crypto fugitive Do Kwon extradited to US over $40B crash

• Software firm MicroStrategy's big bet on Bitcoin went stratospheric

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Where Have All the Managers Gone?

• Samsung becomes largest shareholder of South Korea's Rainbow Robotics

• Returning to Office Is Great and Everyone Should Do It

• Madoff victim fund covers most of Ponzi scheme losses

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Trump's Former FCC Head Ajit Pai Asks Supreme Court to Uphold TikTok Ban

• TikTok is headed for a ban – but can Trump still save it?

• California will require insurance companies to offer coverage in wildfire zones

  • California will require insurers to offer home coverage in wildfire-prone areas

Trump

• Economic Gurus Debate Elon Musk's Visa Clash with Trump's MAGA Base

• Elon Musk Calls for Major Reform of Broken H-1B Visa Program — Proposes to Make it More Expensive to Hire Overseas Than Domestically.

• The Top 10 Hoaxes The Propaganda Press Peddled In 2024

Democrats / Biden Inc

• Jill Biden’s ‘frosty’ feud with Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff takes new bitter turn

Left Angst

• Bill Ackman Expects Trump to Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

• DC Scrambles To Remove 'City Ads' Calling Trump Supporters 'Trash' | ZeroHedge

  The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) was quick to distance itself from the contentious ad. "This image was not created, funded, or authorized by the DC government, and our teams are currently working to remove them," DDOT DC stated on X in response to a post by Caleb Morell, a pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church who first spotted the ad. The ad also incorrectly displayed logos for the District of Columbia Department of Public Works and the Mayor’s Office of the Clean City program, misleading viewers about its origins. The city has denied any involvement, emphasizing that the installation of the ad was unauthorized. "If you see additional images like this, we encourage you to report them to 311," the DDOT added.

• With Gaza war and Trump's return, Silicon Valley embraces a military Renaissance

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Getting Cheated in a Videogame Led Him to a World of Online Crime

• As New England Mafia fades away, FBI Boston disbands organized crime squad

• FBI: Largest homemade explosives cache in agency history found in Virginia

  Brad Spafford was arrested earlier this month at his farm outside Norfolk on charges related to failing to register a short barrel rifle, but court documents posted Monday seeking to prevent his release outline broader concerns, including that he had more than 150 explosive devices stored at his home. Investigators also found hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, which the agency described as “an explosive material that is so unstable it can be exploded merely as a result of friction or temperature changes.” “Agent found this jar found unsecured next to food items with handwritten labeling marking it as ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Do Not Touch,’” the filing states. Collectively, the cache was “preliminarily assessed as the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history.”

  Spafford first came to the attention of authorities through a neighbor who reported the defendant was using a photo of President Biden for target practice, expressed approval for political violence and shared a conspiracy theory that missing children were taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooters.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• What Happened in the U.S. Department of the Treasury Breach? A Detailed Summary

  • Beijing denies involvement in US treasury cyber-attack

  • US Treasury says Chinese hackers remotely accessed documents in cyber incident

  • US Treasury says it was hacked by China in 'major incident'

  • 'Major incident': China-backed hackers breached US Treasury workstations

  • US Treasury letter to the Senate regarding a major cyber breach

  • Treasury says China hacked documents in 'major' cyber incident

  • US Treasury Department Admits It Got Hacked by China

  • US Treasury Department breached through remote support platform

• More telcos confirm Salt Typhoon breaches as White House weighs in

• Report: Foreign Adversary ‘Likely’ Responsible For Havana Syndrome, Whistleblower Accuses CIA of ‘Coverup,’ ‘Gaslighting’ › American Greatness

  • Whistleblower Claims CIA Covered Up Foreign Involvement in Havana Syndrome Attacks in Revealing Interview.

World

• South Korean adoptees and families rocked by fraud allegations

• South Korea court approves arrest of President Yoon in martial law investigation

• Samsung Set to Account for Half of South Korea's Economic Growth

• Venezuela fines TikTok $10M over viral challenge deaths

• A South American waterway becomes a cocaine superhighway – to Europe

• Malaysian satirist Fahmi Reza arrested for sedition in Sabah

• Labour urged to drop ‘Western-centric’ science in school curriculum

• Romanians and Bulgarians Can Now Travel the EU by Land Passport-Free

• Finland Finds Anchor Drag Marks Left by Tanker That Broke Cables

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia is trying to make its own game consoles in a bid for tech independence

China

• China's cyber intrusions took a sinister turn in 2024

• China's Xi Jinping asked 'What's so bad about deflation?' amid economic slowdown

• China's Xi expects 2024 GDP growth of around 5%, state media says

• China to tighten export curbs on critical metals

• What China's persistent deflation means for the world economy

• ByteDance appears to be skirting US restrictions to buy Nvidia chips: Report

• Chinese Organized Crime Now Targeting Gift Cards in U.S.

Health / Medicine

• Oh boy. That'll help. NIH launches initiative to double check biomedical studies

• Norovirus Cases on the Rise in the US

  • Documented norovirus cases rising but might not tell full story on total infections.

• Why the long-term success of weight-loss drugs may depend on exercise

• Keeping off weight may be a challenge because our fat cells can't forget

• Women are closing in on men when it comes to ultra-endurance events

• USC researchers fit clear "window" in man's skull

  • not the technique pioneered by Seth Green in "Idle Hands"

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• WHO implores China to share Covid origins data, five years on

  • As Covid lab leak suspicion lingers, WHO urges China to share virus origin data

• Silence of the Labs: How a Censorship Campaign Failed to Kill a COVID Origin Theory.

• The Cows in the Coal Mine

  The case fatality rate for cows appears to be low but significant, perhaps 2%. A small number of pigs have also been infected. On the other hand, over 100 million chickens, turkeys and ducks have been killed or culled.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Chlamydia could make koalas extinct. Can a vaccine save them in time?

• Saltwater to Widely Taint Coastal Groundwater by 2100

• Sport produces mountains of high-tech waste. We've New ways to recycle it

• NASA Is Watching a Growing Anomaly in Earth's Magnetic Field

• Ice cores: obscure Pacific volcano cause of 19th century climate disaster

• Mushy ice and lost kit: The scientists studying Antarctica as it melts

• CA Gov. Newsom is Banning Gas Cars, Gas Stoves, Gas Furnaces, Gas Water Heaters.

• California's native wildflowers can be restored by raking dead grass

• Climate negotiations obstructed by Saudi Arabia

• What climate records were broken in 2024?

• Octopus DNA tells scientists that total collapse of Antarctic ice sheet is close