2025-01-14

LA still burning, Zuck's musky scents, woke woes, IVF limbo, TikTok alternatives, big rocket go later, Biden bans AI exports, Romanians protest, UK loudly embraces AI, China prepares, thunk costs

etc

• Turkish chef recreates 8,600-year-old Neolithic bread

• 'Absolutely insane'. Dragonfly's extreme loop-the-loops unparalleled in nature

• FAA Acknowledges Gulfstream G550 Struck an Object at 27,000 Feet | Aviation International News

  “We can largely eliminate the possibility of common objects because: a weather balloon would have been transponding; this altitude is too high for hobby drones and illegal for any drone; there is no biological indicator of a bird strike; [and] video of the engine shows metal damage.” Graves, a former Navy lieutenant and F/A-18F pilot, wrote, “I am concerned the incident is being downplayed by FAA. The report is being classified as an ‘incident’ and not an ‘accident,’ which would require public announcement, investigation by NTSB, and an explanation.”

LA Fires

• Why California doesn't do more prescribed burning

• Two Months Before Deadly Blazes, LA Fire Chief Said She Needed More Firefighters—Then Karen Bass’s Admin Scrubbed the Memo

• L.A. Was Built to Burn - by Leighton Woodhouse

  There’s a common misconception that beneath the asphalt, Los Angeles is a desert. It isn’t. It’s grassland. And part of the natural cycle of the grassland ecosystem is fire. Twenty-seven years ago, Mike Davis wrote Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster. One of the chapters is titled “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.” In it, he argued that the area between the beach and the Santa Monica Mountains simply never should have been developed. No matter what measures we take to prevent it, those hills are going to burn, and the houses we erect upon them are only so much kindling.

• LA Mayor Refuses Help from NY Firefighters but Mexico Fire Crews More Than Welcome: Report.

• Zelensky says Ukraine has offered assistance on California wildfires

• LA wildfires could be the costliest in history, estimated at more than $250B

• California's Climate Time for Choosing

• Palisades Fire likely started near the remnants of a blaze believed to have been sparked by NYE fireworks: report

• Los Angeles Wildfires: Why These Homes Didn't Burn

• Saltwater ain't good for the landscaping: Why firefighting planes dumping ocean water on LA fires is a last resort tactic

• Soon to be out of a job Meta's fact-checkers battle wildfire conspiracy theories

Horseshit

• Two different opinion-field inversions that differ in some important ways

• Hotel booking sites overcharge Bay Area customers

• Ryanair calls for limit of two alcoholic drinks at airports in Europe

• Donald Trump ‘major health scare’ predicted in 2025 — by world’s only ‘asparagus fortune teller’ known for accurate readings.

• The Online-Betting Boom Is Ruining Sports–and Lives

• (Nov 2024) Bank of Mum and Dad: why we all now live in an 'inheritocracy'

celebrity gossip

• Linus Torvalds offers to build free guitar effects pedal

• The Dark Secrets Behind the Neil Gaiman Abuse Accusations

• Arrests after Charles Darwin grave spray-painted

Facebook

• Meta built a global fact-checking operation. Will it survive?

• Engineering and the Meta "Hateful Conduct" Changes

• Facebook blocks links to Pixelfed, a federated Instagram alternative

• The cravenness of Mark Zuckerberg

  These days, though, the Meta chief is sporting a whole new aesthetic: less lizard-man, more standard-issue billionaire tech bro. Gone are the modest grey T-shirts, fitted tightly over a slender frame; in their place, oversized Ts worn over a bulked-up body, topped off with a gold chain and $900,000 watch. The Julius Caesar haircut has also been replaced by a relaxed, Californian-casual curly mop, and Zuckerberg’s skin has gone from deathly pale to verging on “tan” (Americans insist that’s an adjective). I might even suggest that if you were standing in the same room as Zuck, you would notice he was wearing a new scent — a rather musk-y one, perhaps. Along with his new look come some new opinions, and they seem to have been strongly influenced by a certain fellow west coast billionaire.

• New Meta policies okay using dehumanizing slurs toward LGBTQ+ people

• Meta Is Blocking Links to Decentralized Instagram Competitor Pixelfed

• There's a reason why it feels like the internet has gone bad

Bluesky

• Block about 3.9k porn bots on Bluesky in one click

• Campaign aims to safeguard social media from billionaires using Bluesky's tech

Musk

• Elon Musk ally leads attempt to seize control of psychedelic biotech Lykos

• Polish presidential candidates discuss EU-wide restriction of X

• Elon Musk misrepresents Tesla self-driving data

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Tesla recalls 239,382 vehicles over rearview camera problems

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• The Origins of Wokeness

  Wokeness is a second, more aggressive wave of political correctness, which started in the late 1980s, died down in the late 1990s, and then returned with a vengeance in the early 2010s, finally peaking after the riots of 2020. This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely used in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one. What does it mean now? I've often been asked to define both wokeness and political correctness by people who think they're meaningless labels, so I will. They both have the same definition:

  • An aggressively performative focus on social justice.

  In other words, it's people being prigs about social justice. And that's the real problem — the performativeness, not the social justice.

  A new set of moral rules to enforce was exciting news to a certain kind of student. What made it particularly exciting was that they were allowed to attack professors. I remember noticing that aspect of political correctness at the time. It wasn't simply a grass-roots student movement. It was faculty members encouraging students to attack other faculty members. In that respect it was like the Cultural Revolution. That wasn't a grass-roots movement either; that was Mao unleashing the younger generation on his political opponents. And in fact when Roderick MacFarquhar started teaching a class on the Cultural Revolution at Harvard in the late 1980s, many saw it as a comment on current events. I don't know if it actually was, but people thought it was, and that means the similarities were obvious.

  But by the same token we should not automatically reject everything the woke believe. I'm not a Christian, but I can see that many Christian principles are good ones. It would be a mistake to discard them all just because one didn't share the religion that espoused them. It would be the sort of thing a religious zealot would to.

  • "the real problem: performativeness, not the social justice." No Paul, its the "justice" too. "mutilate your children and allow them to be instructed in perversion" really does rub a lot of people the wrong way. People aren't rejecting your faith because of the impurity of its adherents; they reject the principles on which it is founded.

• The dawn of the anti-woke era

• Apple asks investors to block proposal to scrap diversity programmes

  • Apple opposes investor calls to end its DEI efforts

• The limbo facing IVF embryos

  Frozen embryos are filling storage banks around the world. It's a struggle to know what to do with them.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Havard's private companies are collectively worth $393B

• Student loan forgiveness? The Movement to Redirect Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Private Schools

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

  • Mastodon's CEO and creator is handing control to a new nonprofit organization

  • Mastodon Founder Cedes Control to European Nonprofit

• A Bad App Led Sonos' CEO to Resign

  • Sonos Fires CEO

  • Sonos CEO Leaving After Botched App Revamp Led to Customer Revolt

• Vanished from Google/Bing/LinkedIn: a rebuttal of an anti-net neutrality paper

• Star Trek: Section 31 is Paramount Plus' attempt to add spies to Trek

• Nvidia Hands-Down Won AI at CES 2025

• After many leaks, Switch 2 announcement could come "this week"

• New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

• With a TikTok Ban Looming, Users Flee to Chinese App 'Red Note'

  • RedNote Jumps to No. 1 in App Store as TikTok Ban Looms

• CEO of AI Music Company Says People Don't Like Making Music

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• CES was a giant exercise in Al gaslighting

• Cosine Similarity Isn't the Silver Bullet We Thought It Was

• AI Mistakes Are Way Weirder Than Human Mistakes

• OpenAI Calls on U.S. Government to Feed Its Data into AI Systems

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Blue Origin pushes back first launch of giant New Glenn rocket

  • An icy vent line may have caused Blue Origin to scrub debut launch of New Glenn

• SpaceX now plans launch of Starship’s seventh test flight on Wednesday.

• The risks of 'space junk' are clear: what goes up, might well come back down

Crypto con games

• US Charges 3 Russians for Operating Cryptocurrency Mixers Used by Cybercriminals

• Judge ends man's 11-year quest to dig up landfill and recover $765M in Bitcoin

Economicon / Business / Finance

• The truth behind £10 dresses: Inside Shein's factories

• Lloyds bankers could face bonus cut if not in office two days a week

• Boeing production in 2024 expected to be less than half of rival Airbus

• Impact of Sports Betting Legalization on Household Finances

• eBay acquires Caramel to reduce risk and complexity of online car sales

• 1 of every 5 job postings is actually fake, study says

• Toyota Wants Salaried Staff Back in Office Four Days a Week

• JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

• US Reliance on Saudi Oil Is Nearing Its Endgame

• The New $30k Side Hustle: Making Job Referrals for Strangers

• Robinhood to Pay $45M in SEC Violations

  • Robinhood has agreed to pay fines of $45M to cover data breach

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Plans to transform a San Francisco highway into a park ignite recall furor

• TikTok ban violates Americans' First Amendment rights

• China Discusses Sale of TikTok US to Musk as One Possible Option

  • China mulls potential sale of TikTok US to Musk, Bloomberg News reports

• Barefoot children in the winter in the mountains.

Trump

• Taiwan expects small impact from Trump tariffs on chip exports

Democrats / Biden Inc

• Biden's sweeping new AI export controls cover most of the world

  • US imposes export controls on chips for AI to counter China

  • WH Executive Order Affecting Chips and AI Models (HN comments)

  • Nvidia Statement on the Biden Administration's Misguided 'AI Diffusion' Rule

  • Biden unveils last round of AI chip curbs aimed at China, Russia

• Coming cyber executive order includes a push to mobile drivers licenses

• Biden names Navy aircraft carriers after Bill Clinton, George W. Bush

  “I am proud to announce that the next two Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers will be named for two former presidents: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,” Biden said in a statement on Monday.

Left Angst

• Zuckerberg urges Trump to stop the EU from fining US tech companies

• People are rushing to install solar panels before Trump becomes president

• Cory Doctorow: Tech's benevolent-dictator-for-life to authoritarian pipeline

• The US Military Debates Possible Deployment on US Soil Under Trump - POLITICO

  According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.

• Mass deportations don't keep out 'bad genes'

• Falling Child Vaccinations

  • Even Adults May Soon Be Vulnerable to 'Childhood' Diseases

  • Childhood Vaccination Rates Were Falling Even Before the Rise of RFK Jr

• Opinion | The Old World Is Breaking Down. A New One Is Breaking Through. - The New York Times

  Donald Trump is returning, artificial intelligence is maturing, the planet is warming, and the global fertility rate is collapsing. To look at any of these stories in isolation is to miss what they collectively represent: the unsteady, unpredictable emergence of a different world. Much that we took for granted over the last 50 years — from the climate to birthrates to political institutions — is breaking down; movements and technologies that seek to upend the next 50 years are breaking through. Let’s begin with American politics. Trump is eight days from taking the oath of office for the second time, and America’s institutional storm walls are not, in 2025, what they were in 2017. The Republican Party is meek, and Trump knows it. He would not have dared to send Senate Republicans names like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth for cabinet posts in his first term. Even beyond the party, he faces no mass resistance this time, nothing like the Women’s March that overwhelmed Washington in 2017. Democrats are dispirited and exhausted.

• Incoming Trump team is questioning civil servants at NSC about their loyalty

  • Silly people. You're supposed to have the FBI frame their kids so the cop a plea.

• Economists Are in the Wilderness. Can They Find a Way Back to Influence?

• OpenAI wooed Democrats with calls for AI regulation. Now it must charm Trump

• The people fighting to get through to anti-science Americans

• WaPo’s Pretend Conservative Resigns — And Rage-Quits X — Over Trump-Musk Alliance

  • Jen Rubin "Exits" the Washington Post; Chuck Todd "Exits" NBC

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Bureau of Prisons Insider Exposes Documents Inside DOJ Proposing Policy Downgrading Child Exploitation from a “High Severity” to a “Low Severity” Offense.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Military drone calibration activities to be held in D.C. region

• Why America Abandoning Europe Would Be a Strategic Mistake

• The Return of Havana Syndrome - The Atlantic

  After long denying the possibility, some intelligence agencies are no longer willing to rule out a mystery weapon.

World

• Apple to face court over claims it overcharged UK users on App Store

• Sweden neither at war nor at peace, says PM

• In Huge Protest, Romanians Rail Against Do-Over Election Targeting Populist NATO Skeptic | ZeroHedge

  Iohannis' term was supposed to end on Dec. 21, but he's now slated to remain in power until the do-over election is complete. The dates are not yet official, but, last week, leaders of the ruling coalition government said they'd agreed on holding the two rounds on May 4 and May 18.

• UK adopts venture capitalist recommendations, leaves datacenter energy unsolved

  • Britain wants to become global AI leader, build domestic OpenAI rival

  • PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth

  • UK Prime Minister sets out blueprint to turbocharge AI

  • Starmer pledges to boost growth by making UK a 'great AI superpower'

  • Britain doesn't need to walk a US or EU path on AI

  • Key takeaways from Keir Starmer's action plan for AI

  • Water shortage fears as Labour's AI growth zone sited next to new reservoir

  • Prime Minister Starmer plans to make Britain AI 'superpower'

• Live London Underground / bus maps taken down by TfL trademark complaint

• India gears up for largest public gathering

• Tsunami advisory triggered after 6.9 magnitude earthquake rattles Japan

• Syria flooded with Pepsi and Pringles as rulers open economy

• NATO's newest member comes out swinging following latest Baltic Sea cable attack

• Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

Israel

• Lancet study reveals Gaza death toll 'undercounted' by at least 40 percent

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• "Project Russia," Unknown in the West, Reveals Putin's Playbook

China

• China building new mobile piers for possible invasion of Taiwan

  • China Suddenly Building Fleet Of Special Barges Suitable For Taiwan Landings

• How China could quarantine Taiwan: Mapping out two possible scenarios

• Chinese sea launch sends 10 navigation enhancement satellites into orbit

• China's Trade Surplus Reaches a Record of Nearly $1T

• Chinese university applies for undersea cable cutter patent

• Taiwan sees threefold surge in suspected Chinese espionage cases

Health / Medicine

• USDA report finds Boar's Head listeria outbreak due to poor sanitation practices

• The Metabolic Costs of Cognition

• Dementia Cases in the U.S. Will Surge in the Coming Decades, Researchers Say

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Zombie deer disease 'may have jumped to humans' as US Government issue warning

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Why did a frozen Earth coincide with an evolutionary spurt?

• After 2 years, Coca-Cola's promise to scale up reusable packaging is dead

• New NASA Study Tallies Carbon Emissions from Canadian Fires

• Aluminum oxides aren't easily digestible are they? Aluminum contamination of food during culinary preparation

• Understanding Why Climate Change Is Making Europe's Highest Peak More Dangerous

• One-quarter of freshwater fauna threatened with extinction – Nature

• Earth breaches 1.5 °C climate limit for the first time: what does it mean?

• All Chicago's city buildings now use 100% clean power

• Losing ground – the Mississippi River's sprawling delta could soon vanish

• Supreme Court lets Hawaii sue oil companies over climate change effects

• Big Oil and Big Ag turning cow poop into energy – and profits; it doesn't add up

• Chemical engineer devises efficient way to pull carbon directly from atmosphere