2025-02-02
selective publishing, Apple tanks AR, gubmint IT sux, Pentagon press perturbed, Musk "gains access" to data, Tulsi won't hate right, trade wars, Zizian doctrine, baby excuses, electric dreams
Plane crashes
Horseshit
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"Booga Booga" World-Altering 'Black Swan' Scenarios That Could Upend Life in 2025
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Ayn Rand as Self-Help: The Good, the Bad, and the Tragicomedy
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The LA Fires Burned Homes. The Data Show Insurers Saw the Risks
- Were they allowed to adjust prices accordingly?
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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These questionable referrers are what we've recently found to be social platforms that have either joined the current administration or made their alignment with it clear. That alignment and participation has been clearly demonstrated as conceding moderation of toxic views and posts directed at minorities and marginalized social groups or actively directing state power to curtail the rights of said groups.
- "I will only speak top those who will not disagree with me". Oh please let this catch on. Let the chattering idjits voluntarily remove themselves from public discourse.
Musk
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Apple Scraps Work on Mac-Connected Augmented Reality Glasses
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Seagate responds to fraudulent hard drives scandal
Following a German outlet reporting that over fifty of its readers bought supposedly new Seagate hard drives that were actually used, the storage company tells Tom's Hardware that resellers need to buy from certified Seagate partners. “Seagate did not sell or distribute these fraudulent drives to resellers,” Seagate said in a statement
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Spotify and UMG enter multi-year partnership to restructure monetization
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eBay users are getting back at scalping bots by listing pictures of the RTX 5090
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RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 may arrive in March to steal AMD's spotlight
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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Hell Is Overconfident Developers Writing Encryption Code
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No one is fully qualified; we have to work with the knowledge that there will be errors and corrections needed. Pointing out the known dangers is one thing; but it often becomes an argument for clerics: "Let us handle the difficult thing, don't worry your mushy head about it"
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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The Manhattan Project Was Secret. Should America's AI Work Be Too?
- Foundational NSA patents for LLM's were popped public in 1998. What did they know and when did they know it, and how much farther have they got since then?
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Class Action over Biased FAA Hiring Practices Is Cleared for Takeoff
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Musk is right — US government badly needs a digital makeover
even as many observers recoil, quite understandably, from Musk’s brutal style, there is one point that no one should ignore: if Doge can actually unleash digital reform in the US government, and in a non-corrupt manner, that would be an unambiguously good thing. Indeed, if I had a Musk-focused magic wand, I would wish him to make digital reform, not trolling his critics, Doge’s main priority. Digitising government is not just the key to creating greater efficiency and effectiveness; it could also restore some of the public’s shattered trust in the state.
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The booted outlets will retain their status as full members of the Pentagon Press Corps, entitled to attend briefings and be considered for travel with officials. "The only change will be giving up their physical workspaces in the building to allow new outlets to have their turn to become resident members of the Pentagon Press Corps," wrote Ullyot.
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U.S. Department of Education to Enforce 2020 Title IX Rule Protecting Women
Trump
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Why would people auditing the Government's spending need access to government accounting data? such a mystery...
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Top Treasury official retires over DOGE request for access to payment systems
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Treasury official retires after clash with DOGE over access to payment system
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Treasury Official Quits After Resisting Musk's Requests on Payments
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They literally never denied a payment in their entire career
The DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.
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On Trump's orders, officals released water from two California dams - Los Angeles Times
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dramatically increased the amount of water flowing from two dams in Tulare County, sending massive flows down river channels toward farmlands in the San Joaquin Valley. Federal records show that water releases from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success jumped early Friday morning.
- So... there was water available for firefighting that was not being used, then?
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Why Snowden – not Russia or Syria – could tank Tulsi Gabbard's nomination
Instead, it is Gabbard’s past support for the now exiled former National Security Agency whistleblower, Edward Snowden, and her refusal to label him a “traitor” that is threatening to become the rock on which her nomination founders. In a striking series of exchanges during her confirmation hearing on Thursday, Gabbard declined to denounce Snowden in unequivocal terms, despite repeated chivvying from Republican and Democratic senators, and to the obvious chagrin of both sides.
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Executive Order: For each new agency regulation issued, 10 must be repealed
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Trump launches trade war against Canada with a 25% tariff on most goods
The Justice Department’s campaign of retribution against officials who investigated President Trump and his supporters accelerated late Friday with the firing of more than a dozen federal prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, according to a memo.
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The Trump Administration Said It Lifted Its Ban on Lifesaving Humanitarian Aid
Left Angst
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Trump orders USDA to take down websites referencing climate crisis
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(2021) Authoritarian Coups Are Gradual then Sudden
The process Trump started in Portland and Seattle in the summer of 2020 of unmarked vans and stormtrooper-like police with no identifying patches kidnapping people off the streets would have expanded nationwide; tens of thousands would be in custody without charges. Private prisons would expand to take in the hundreds of thousands of people arrested protesting in the streets or speaking out on social media; for most Americans who voted Republican or were completely apolitical, though, life would go on as normal (just like in the early years of the takeovers of Chile, Russia, and Hungary — or Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1930s). A handful of high-profile progressive politicians would have been assassinated or survived assassination attempts; the police and the FBI, however, would have been as clueless about their killers as they were about 10,000 people planning to storm the Capitol and assassinate the Vice President and Speaker of the House on January 6th.
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Health and climate information disappearing from federal websites
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CDC Removes Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity Pages
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And the "Environmental Justice Index"...
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The government information crisis is bigger than you think it is - Free Government Information (FGI)
The scale of loss and alteration of information under Trump may prove to be unprecedented and certainly requires immediate short-term action. But librarians and archivists and citizens should use this current crisis to demand more than short-term solutions. A new distributed digital preservation infrastructure is needed for digital government information.
How is the following not a non-sequitur, "Cutting spending and regulation is authoritarianism. What we need are more regulations, central planning from unelected bureaucrats and socialism"?
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FCC demands CBS provide unedited transcript and video of Kamala Harris interview
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr repeatedly echoed Trump's complaints about alleged media bias before the election and has taken steps to punish news broadcasters since Trump promoted him to the chairmanship. Complaints against CBS, ABC, and NBC stations were dismissed under former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, but Carr reversed those dismissals in his first week as chair. Carr also ordered investigations into NPR and CBS. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, criticized what she called Carr's "latest action to weaponize our broadcast licensing authority." "This is a retaliatory move by the government against broadcasters whose content or coverage is perceived to be unfavorable," Gomez said today. "It is designed to instill fear in broadcast stations and influence a network's editorial decisions. The Communications Act clearly prohibits the Commission from censoring broadcasters and the First Amendment protects journalistic decisions against government intimidation. We must respect the rule of law, uphold the Constitution, and safeguard public trust in our oversight of broadcasters."
The complaint to the FCC regarding the Harris interview was filed by the Center for American Rights against flagship station WCBS-TV. The conservative group alleged that CBS violated the news distortion rule with its editing of the interview, and asked for an FCC order compelling CBS to release the full unedited transcript.
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Notable & Quotable: The Right - WSJ
The move to allow podcasters and bloggers into the Press Corps is part of a broader shift on the Right, that really starts with @elonmusk’s acquisition of X. Before that, when conservatives complained about bias and censorship on social media, the left/lib response was “well go ahead and build your own social media site.” Which everyone knew was very difficult. And then there would be moves to get whoever hosted the new site to refuse to host it and the response would be “well build your own hosting platform” and so forth. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter/X really looks increasingly like an important turning point in the conservative approach, which in the face of this became “well what can you do?” It was a realization “no, actually we can take these institutions and make them ours.” And what you’re increasingly seeing is a frontal assault on the institutions that buttress the left. So in Trump’s first term, using a (pretty shaky, imo) interpretation of the 1st Amendment, we established you can’t kick a reporter out for his bias. The Right’s response now is “ok, fine, we’ll just flood the press corps with new right-of-center podcasters and bloggers. . . .”
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"Operation Wrath of Zion" Aims to Dox and Deport Pro-Palestinian Protestors
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Trump Media Gifts DJT Shares to FBI Pick Kash Patel, Linda McMahon
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Donald Trump threatens to ignite era of trade wars with new tariffs
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Musk's Brings in HR Consultant Focused on 'Non-Woke' DEI Aligned with Our Faith
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Keep telling us how "tech became right wing": Ask HN: Why are we all pretending everything is normal?
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We do not know what Elon Musk is doing to the federal government
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Phyllis Fong, who was investigating Neuralink, "forcefully removed "
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National Science Foundation freezes payments in response to executive orders
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Elon Musk staff has been caught installing drives inside the OPM office
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Elon Musk's DOGE reportedly gained "full access" to the federal payment system
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DOGE Staff Had Questions About the 'Resign' Email. Their HR Chief Dodged Them
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Brawl over Tariffs on EV Graphite Will Test Musk's Sway with Trump
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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The Zizians and the Rationalist Death Cult
None of the right-wing accounts that had initially been pushing the story seemed to know what to make of this development. Who were these armed programmers, and how did they get into a gun battle with the C.B.P.? Elsewhere on Twitter, however, the new information was clarifying, rather than confusing. “Oh no,” tweeted the blogger Jessica Taylor, once she learned the identity of the dead suspect. “I know this person. Went by ‘Ophelia’ (transfeminine). Was involved with rationalist discourse. Was somewhat of a Ziz fan. Oh no.” Our alleged shooters--it has become clear over the past week--weren’t the thuggish murderers and rapists of fevered reactionary imagination, but Rationalists: Members of a large and loose community of autodidact and amateur philosophers and activists focused on self-described rationalist inquiry and self-improvement that’s become influential in A.I. research and philanthropy.
Four other people went with Ziz to her protest. Doing a quick count there's at least 9 folks in her orbit who endorse her ideas and keep mutual friendships. The purpose of this document is to warn you not to join them! Ziz is a master manipulator; she is extremely skilled at selling people on nonsense ideas about decision theory and ethics that defy not just the "rules of rationality" but basic common sense. Ziz is particularly interested in AI risk researchers, and approaches them under the guise of providing "mental tech" for people to build a singleton based on "altruism" (i.e., rewarding people Ziz likes and hurting people she doesn't like). If you're an [FAI person] who has been approached by Ziz you should read the sections Roko's Basilisk and Unihemispheric Sleep before getting involved.
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U.S. probes hacking campaign that targeted climate activists : NPR
As part of its probe, the U.S. is trying to extradite an Israeli private investigator named Amit Forlit from the United Kingdom for allegedly orchestrating the hacking campaign. A lawyer for Forlit claimed in a court filing that the hacking operation her client is accused of leading "is alleged to have been commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing ExxonMobil, one of the world's largest fossil fuel companies."
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DEA Officer Who 3D-Printed Cocaine Gets 17 Years in Prison
deputy James Darrell Hickox used his position with law enforcement to moonlight as a drug dealer. He once even stole cocaine from an evidence locker and replaced it with a 3D printed brick. His various schemes didn’t work out and now he’s been sentenced
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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Remarks by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at European Parliament's Committee
sometimes what you will see is that you have 155 ammunition and you would think that is one particular design for every company which is producing the 155 ammunition. But you would then be amazed how many companies would have some very small specific additions to their system so that you can only use their 155 ammunition and not generally. So this is something we are working on.
- ammunition standards are pretty simple and foundational. If thats fucked up how bad are the complicated and difficult problems?
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U.S. sending dozens of Patriot missiles from Israel to Ukraine
The U.S. military transferred around 90 Patriot air defense interceptors from storage in Israel to Poland this week in order to deliver them to Ukraine, three sources with knowledge of the operation tell Axios. Getting more Patriot missiles to Ukraine has been a top priority for the Pentagon to help Kyiv defend against Russia's attacks on its critical infrastructure.
World
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Some children starting school "unable to climb staircase"
as quarter of children begin reception in nappies
Some children are starting reception school “unable to climb a staircase”, while others use Americanisms in their speech because of too much screen time, according to a survey of teachers. The pandemic has been blamed for a decline in school readiness among reception-aged children, but some teachers who took part in the annual poll said the “Covid baby” explanation was starting to feel like an excuse.
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Temu, Shein and Amazon to be liable in EU for 'unsafe' or 'illegal' goods
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Sweden releases suspects held in killing of Iraqi man who burned the Quran
Momika had stood trial in Sweden after he burned and desecrated copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in public and in social media broadcasts, and a verdict in the case had been due just hours after the killing.
Health / Medicine
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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California’s Plan: Make the Poor Sweat in the Dark - WSJ
California’s headlong rush to force people to buy electric cars, trucks, boilers and stoves has skipped over a key detail: Where is all the electricity going to come from, and how will it be delivered? While mandating electrification, California’s regulators have also imposed pricing strategies that punish consumers for using electricity when they most need it. Coupled with the rising costs of wind and solar generation—and the cost of backstopping that generation with batteries—electricity is becoming increasingly unaffordable.
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Giant Solar Farm in Mojave Desert Could Close Just a Decade After Opening