2025-01-22

force fields, increasing abstemiousness, freedom of the press (for those who own one), kooky mystics, one ring to bind them, don't mod your Switch, Trumpocalypse, fish terrorist, snow in FL

etc

• (1996) David Swenson's electrostatic "invisible wall"

  Eventually they fixed the grounding issue on the machine and the problem never popped up again.

Horseshit

• Frequent Fliers Are Done with Loyalty Programs

• Do All Democracies Have to Die?

• The Gilded Age novel that helps explain our fascination with Luigi Mangione

• Why Dumping Seawater on Blazes Isn't the Answer to California's Wildfire Problem

• Avoid a fracture between people with cognitive augmentation and those who do not

  • The question is how much faith and credit we give to the "cognitive augmentations" of others.

• Ancient Celtic tribe had women at its social center

• We’ve lost our respect for complexity. – Wilsons Blog

  • HN comments

  • humans make simple, inaccurate, graven idols to represent complex ideas; and then charge ahead into folly with the idol carried before them. It's nice to speculate on a less foolish, more efficient means of progress.

• 15-Year-Old Hacker Diverts Ships in Mediterranean Sea for Fun

• Why Gen Z is drinking less

• the US is in a steep decline of food enjoyment – which has impacts on health

• 'Boomerasking' Is a Big, Self-Centered Foul in Conversation

celebrity gossip

• Despite Biden Pardon, Fauci Still Faces Legal Perils. Here They Are. | RealClearInvestigations

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube sign EU code to tackle hate speech

• Bearistotle Solves Free Speech - by Gabriel R

  it’s a huge problem for a free society when the communicative functions (contra performative) of a president’s speech compel action from private actors, essentially shoving the owners of Twitter aside so the President can do and say what he wants when he wants. This is, in fact, very clearly authoritarian: Dear Leader wants to tell you something and he gets to coerce other parties so he can do so. It is true that media has been deferential to presidential speech—they televise addresses and they publish their statements in the newspaper—but they do so voluntarily and they get to contextualize that speech how they see fit. A network may air a presidential address, but its analysts also get to immediately point out the problems with what the President has said.

  • "free speech" in the USA has traditionally meant that the State did not take a position on what may be said by whom in any media. That the disagreements of words we utter are civilian affairs, between ourselves. I would cease publication before honoring any State demand to publish or not publish something. I will not give this platform over to "public" commentary either. I publish many things here i disagree with, but the final decision of what gets said here remains mine. "Freedom of the press" applies to those who own a press: which can now be anyone, with less effort required than ever before.

• Europol chief says Big Tech has 'responsibility' to unlock encrypted messages

• Russian hackers target WhatsApp accounts of ministers worldwide

• Decentralized Social Media Is the Only Alternative to the Tech Oligarchy

• New study shows radical-right populists are fueling a misinformation epidemic

TikTok

• "Something bad happened while we were gone": TikTok has changed after the US ban

• TikTok Ban and Gen Z: Dying Social Media Is New Generational Rite of Passage

  • Usenet's Great Renaming and Eternal September puts a crimp in "new" here...

• Meta lures TikTok creators with $5K bonuses, content deals, free verification

Facebook

• Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok block democratic hashtags

  • Meta Censoring 'Democrat' on Instagram (HN comments)

  • Instagram hides search results for 'Democrats'

• "go build your own platform if you want to talk about that" i was the answer 4 years ago, right? The most vociferous anti-censorship voices have been removed from the discussion long ago, the people who saw it as a matter of principle. From communities on both sides of the political spectrum.

• Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook? | Hacker News

Musk

• Dutch pension funds divest from Tesla

• Reddit sports mods, users calling for a ban on X links in posts

• Elon Musk complains about China’s ban on X.

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Hyundai launches new Creta Electric SUV in India, starting at just $20,000

• Waymo vehicle involved in deadly 7-car crash in San Francisco

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Are mystics kooks or valuable disrupters?

  Today many people are abandoning religion (the bureaucratic institutionalisation of faith) but embracing spirituality (a personal sense of transcendence), so it is a good moment to look at those on the outer fringes of the sacred. As the author wryly puts it: “God might be ineffable, but the mystics are constantly effing the ineffable, for as long as it effing takes.”

• No White Men Allowed in Bally’s Chicago Casino Share Offering

  Bally’s, the big casino operator, is selling shares only to women and minorities in its new gambling resort mecca being built in Chicago’s River West neighborhood. A minority preference of some kind was a condition to city approval of the project, and this is what the city and Bally’s agreed to. Yes, that appears blatantly illegal, but wait to understand the deal before deciding whether it’s truly doing any favor for women and minorities. Opinions may vary on that. The offering is being promoted by the City of Chicago Treasurer and some city aldermen.

  Instead of just buying one share for $25,000, a buyer can put up as little as $250 and Bally’s will loan you the remainder of the purchase price. You thus buy an “Interest,” as it’s called in the offering documents. A buyer will never see any dividends until the loan is repaid plus interest at 11% annually, compounded quarterly, and that could be a long, long time, if ever. The company says in its S-1 that it currently expects not to have cash available for distribution until approximately three to five years after the Chicago facility opens, which they are targeting for September 2026. “However, this may fluctuate depending on ”the ability to generate cash from operations and its cash flow needs and payments on senior debt.” At 11% compounded quarterly, the loan balance would double in less than six and a half years. The good news is that the loans are nonrecourse, meaning a buyer is not personally liable for repayment; only the shares that would be bought with the loan is at risk.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

• Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries

• Network modeling of problematic social media use components in college students

• Toronto student information dating back to 1985 may have been accessed in hack

• Students, Educators Impacted by PowerSchool Data Breach

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Nokia's Next-Day Internal Competitive Analysis of the Original iPhone

• Apple's iPhone Sales in China Plunged 18% in Holiday Quarter

• Supreme Court lets $7B Meta ad fraud/reach inflation case proceed

• Vendor rolls out two new decade-old Nvidia GT 730 GPUs — 2GB and 4GB models, starting at $45 | Tom's Hardware

  we should address the elephant in the room: support. Nvidia ceased driver support for Kepler GPUs in 2021 and ended security updates last September, making these GPUs vulnerable to specific exploits. However, since this is now a 10-year-old GPU, you likely won't miss out on new features.

• Seagate smashes largest HDD world record with 36TB hard drive

• How a Little-Known Finnish Company Became One of the World’s Hottest Gadget Startups - WSJ

  In the startup world, smart-ring pioneer Oura is a rare beast. It isn’t just a unicorn valued at more than $5 billion, but also profitable in a uniquely unforgiving realm: consumer electronics. Oura’s smart ring is on its fourth iteration, and millions of people rely on it for tracking their health. Like a smartwatch, it monitors things like heart rate, skin temperature and movement. But what it does with that data is different—more focused on health than fitness. For example, because the ring gathers data 24/7, its wearers wake up to a “readiness score” which factors in everything from how they slept to evidence they might be feeling stressed. These insights are a product of a huge amount of health data, including a trove volunteered by 70,000 of its users that now enables the ring to predict when a wearer is becoming sick before they show symptoms.

• Doesn't Musk's X do that for "premium" tier? The social media platform that shares profits: A new vision for social media

  Kalar envisioned a platform that empowers users, prioritizes privacy and safety, and upends the attention economy.

  • But then they're actually soliciting for a "bid for TikTok" scheme?

• Weather Channel feed replaces local TV meteorologists

• FTC Finalizes Changes to Coppa Rules Limiting Ability to Monetize Kids' Data

• Should you be wondering why LWN is occasionally sluggish

  since the new year, the DDOS onslaughts from AI-scraper bots has picked up considerably. Only a small fraction of our traffic is serving actual human readers at this point. At times, some bot decides to hit us from hundreds of IP addresses at once, clogging the works. They don't identify themselves as bots, and robots.txt is the only thing they don't read off the site. This is beyond unsustainable. We are going to have to put time into deploying some sort of active defenses just to keep the site online.

• Meta Plans Oakley-Branded Glasses, Explores Watches and Earbuds

• Nintendo Switch modder arrested in Japan setting new harsher precedent

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Impact of Extremely Low Temperatures On The 5nm SRAM Array Size and Performance

  With the help of SRAM array simulations, we reveal that the maximum array size at extremely low temperatures is limited by WL parasitics instead of Ileak, and the performance of the SRAM is governed by BL and WL parasitics.

• Interesting BiCMOS circuits in the Pentium, reverse-engineered

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI's latest model will change the economics of software

• It sure looks like Meta stole a lot of books to build its AI

• Eric Schmidt's family office invests AI startups

• AI isn't evil. Its makers might be

• PhD-Level AI Poised for Release Soon.

Crypto con games

• SEC Crypto 2.0: Chairman Uyeda Announces Formation of New Crypto Task Force

• Trump's embrace of meme coin sours mood in crypto industry

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Sold Anything Online? The IRS Wants Its Cut

• Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost its Faith - Vincent Schmalbach

  • HN comments

• Big Tech earns enough in less than 3 weeks to pay all 2024 fines

• Stripe Lays Off 300 Employees

• The California insurance crisis could trigger broader financial instability

• FTC Sends $5M in Refunds to Consumers Harmed by Bogus Credit Repair Scheme

• American stationery nerds are fueling a Japanese notebook boom

• Costco Teamsters vote to authorize strike | Fox Business

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Admiral Fagan Is Fired as Coast Guard Commandant

Trump

• It's America's 'Manifest Destiny' to Plant a Flag on Mars, Trump Says

• Trump withdraws from Paris climate agreement, again

• Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization

  • Trump Withdraws U.S. from World Health Organization

• Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship

• President signs order refusing to enforce TikTok ban for 75 days

  • Application of Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act to TikTok

• Trump signs executive order to reverse Biden's electric vehicle policies

• United States Digital Service Renamed to DOGE

  • The United States Digital Service Is Now Doge

• Trump rescinds AI order by Biden

  • Trump revokes Biden executive order on addressing AI risks

  • Trump revokes Biden executive order regulating AI safety

• 'Everyone wants him out': How Musk helped boot Ramaswamy from DOGE

• Trump announces mass clemency for nearly all Jan. 6 defendants.

  • D.C. Gulag Holds J6 Prisoners Hostage Despite Trump’s Pardons – PJ Media

• Trump signs order to end 'government censorship' of social media

• Trump cancels sanctions on Israeli settlers in West Bank

• Trump signs executive order to promote "beautiful federal civic architecture"

• Trump vows to revert name of Alaska's highest peak from Denali to Mount McKinley

• California's air pollution waiver and the EV mandate are banned by Trump

• A wave of Trump-demanded departures hits senior leadership at the State Department.

• Trump's executive orders face pushback, legal challenges

• Trump to announce private sector AI infrastructure investment

  • Trump to Announce New AI Investment Push with OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle

  • Trump Plans to Announce $100B A.I. Initiative

• Trump's Bold First Moves Take Aim at Free Speech Erosion and Big Tech Collusion

• Trump expected to commute Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's life sentence

  • Trump pardons Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road drug marketplace

  • Trump Pardons Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht

  • Trump Pardons Creator of Silk Road Drug Marketplace

• Greenland's PM looks to meet with Trump

• Trump says ICE can arrest people at churches and schools

Democrats / Biden Inc

• The final corruption of Joe Biden

• The Real Biden Scandal: Running for a Second Term – Commentary Magazine

Left Angst

• The Red Giant - The Honest Sorcerer

• Trump's science advisers: how they could influence his second presidency

• Elon Musk Drops the Facade

  • Musk's straight-armed inauguration gesture ignites comparisons to Nazi salute

  • Right-Wing Extremists Are Abuzz over Musk's Straight-Arm Salute

  • Did Elon Musk Seriously Just Do a Nazi Salute at Trump's Inauguration?

• Doctorow Has the Best Idea for How Canada Should Retaliate to Trump's Tariffs

• ‘The Interview’: Ambassador David Pressman Is Alarmed by What He Has Seen - The New York Times

• Trump's crypto-frenzied inauguration makes first family billions of dollars

• Opinion | Two of the World’s Leading Thinkers on How the Left Went Astray - The New York Times

  Today, with Democrats struggling over how much of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda to support as well as the future of their party, Times Opinion has adapted Mr. Piketty and Mr. Sandel’s conversations. Both men have long been critics of mainstream liberalism from the distinct perspectives of their respective fields — Mr. Piketty as an economist, Mr. Sandel as a philosopher. Their back-and-forth, edited for length and clarity, builds to a surprising conclusion: that the left must reclaim a form of identity politics.

• Words alone won't get the stars and stripes to Mars

• Elon Musk to Get Terrifying Level of Access to Trump's White House

• The broligarchs have a vision for the new Trump term. It’s darker than you think.

  For the tech bros — or as some say, the broligarchs — this is about much more than just maintaining and growing their riches. It’s about ideology. An ideology inspired by science fiction and fantasy. An ideology that says they are supermen, and supermen should not be subject to rules, because they’re doing something incredibly important: remaking the world in their image. It’s this ideology that makes MAGA a godsend for the broligarchs, who include Musk, Zuck, and Bezos as well as the venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. That’s because MAGA is all about granting unchecked power to the powerful.

• Crypto Thought Trump Would Bring It Legitimacy. Then He Launched a Meme Coin

• China's DeepSeek Shows Why Trump's Trade War Will Be Hard to Win

• The U.S. Constitution Delivers a 404 Now on the White House Website

  • so did all the published URLs for the Biden pardons, etc. Someone did a slash and burn site churn.

• Swiping Left on MAGA

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• A Woman who Transformed Forensics by inventing the rape kit

• Oregon arsonist, climate educator couple arrested for impersonating firefighters in LA

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Poland fumes over US block on AI chips

• US Names One of the Hackers Allegedly Behind Salt Typhoon Breaches

• Red Sea Experience: Don’t Let Others Ignore It.

• Ex-spies say suburban D.C. casino would put nation's secrets at risk

• New Jersey drones are back as interactive map shows activity ramping up

World

• Internal documents reveal Commission fears over Microsoft dependency

• India's Economy Slows Down Just When It Was Supposed to Speed Up

• Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

• The fight over land holding back India's green energy revolution

Israel

• Hamas Emerges From Tunnels Still Intact, Starts 'Policing' Gaza Again | ZeroHedge

China

• China says Taiwan 'hyped' sea cable damage claims

• TSMC reportedly pauses production after strong earthquake hits Taiwan

Health / Medicine

• People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

• (2016) Glove and mitten protection in extreme cold weather: an Antarctic study

• FDA approves J&J's nasal spray for depression as standalone treatment

• The Inuit Are Genetically Resistant to Ketone Production

• Ozempic-style drugs tied to more than 60 health benefits and risks

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Tanzania confirms Marburg virus outbreak

• From Covid to Norovirus: Moderna's mRNA Tech Takes on Stomach Flu

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The New Zealand fish terrorist

  “He had more impact on New Zealand freshwater ecosystems than any other single human being. He was really one of our arch environmental criminals.” Over four decades, beginning in the 1960s, he illegally released thousands of ‘alien' fish into the wild. Armed with oxygenated fish tanks, he roamed New Zealand, stocking a variety of freshwater fish into virgin waters.

• A third of the Arctic's carbon sink now a source of emissions

• Scientists say they found oxygen where it shouldn't be

• The Energy Storage Fiasco -- How Soon Will It Be Abandoned? — Manhattan Contrarian

  After some straightforward calculations based on elementary-school-level arithmetic, that Report concluded that the amount of storage needed was so large, and the costs so completely unaffordable, that energy storage was totally infeasible as a way to make wind and solar work as the main power sources for an electricity grid. Calculations set forth in that Report concluded that the amount of energy storage needed to enable a predominantly wind/solar grid to get through a year without hitting a blackout was in the range of 500 to 1000 hours of average electricity usage.

• EU plans ban on 'forever chemicals' in consumer products

• Yellowstone's standing dead trees pose growing wildfire danger

• Dungeness crab fishery delayed as whale entanglements hit a six-year high

• Southern California wildfires likely outpace ability of wildlife to adapt

• Historic snow amounts could fall on Florida, Louisiana and Texas

  • It's Snowing in Florida

• Earth's magnetic North Pole is on the move, scientists just updated its position

• Florida's 'radioactive road' could prove to be a good thing. Here's why

• Invasive Plants Are Fueling California's Wildfire Crisis