2025-02-04

Stradivarius for sale (not cheap), Tesla hate. recycling VR, detecting intelligent life on Earth, payments to states, tariff tussles, new DNC, moar ships, moar money, extremely expired medicine

etc

• Physicists Confirm the Existence of a Third Form of Magnetism

• NYC taxi drivers call for 'bathroom placard' to relieve cabbies

• The Second-Longest Conveyor Belt Is Rolling in West Texas

• Power generation is fine. It's transmission that's the problem

• Nissan Still Sells the 28-Year-Old Y61 Patrol in Some Parts of the World

Horseshit

• Can you resist all the addictions modern life throws at you? Only if you're rich

• US datacenters in for shock as Canada mulls cutting the juice over Trump tariffs

• Excavated: 52 Egyptian Mummies. Over a Dozen Had Mysterious Golden Tongues

• AI to revolutionise fundamental physics and 'could show how universe will end'

• Robinhood to Offer Super Bowl Betting via Kalshi

• In the LA fires and the NC floods, 'CPR for mental health' treats unseen wounds

• Stradivarius violin for auction could become most expensive instrument ever sold

celebrity gossip

• Kanye West and naked Bianca Censori are unceremoniously kicked out of Grammy Awards 2025 after turning up uninvited amid infamous Taylor Swift feud

• Bill Gates revisits rivalry with Steve Jobs

Obit

• Karen Pryor, Guru of Positive Reinforcement, Is Dead at 92 - The New York Times

  Ms. Pryor, whose experience as a dolphin trainer showed her how positive reinforcement could be used to train just about any animal, including horses, dogs, cats and people, died on Jan. 4 at a memory care facility in Santa Clarita, Calif. She was 92. Her daughter, Gale Pryor, said the cause was dementia.

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Meta Dropped Fact-Checking Because of Politics

• TikTok's recommendations skewed towards GOP content during the 2024 election

Bluesky

• Bluesky now has 30 million users

Musk

• Tesla showroom in The Hague vandalized with swastikas, anti-fascist texts

• Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril

• Elon Musk Cheats at Video Games

• Should Canada ban X and Tesla? Why calls are growing

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Cutting-edge Renault Filante concept hopes to break EV efficiency records

• Indonesia, with largest nickel reserves, struggles to achieve EV dreams

• Tesla Sales Plunge 63% in EU's Second-Biggest EV Market

  • Tesla January sales plunged 63% in France

• Tesla sales are dropping like a rock in Europe, but not just because of Musk

• Tesla Sales Decline in California with Model 3 Plunging 36%

• How Honda is incorporating EVs into the cars it builds in America

• South Carolina Gave Scout $1.3B, yet Taxpayers Can't Buy Its EVs in SC

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Google removed 2.36M apps from Google Play using AI threat detection

• IPv6 adoption should cross 50% in 2025

• Windows dark mode has been embarrassingly incomplete for nearly a decade

• They've stopped making it, not they have to sell out the remaining units to someone who wont demand a discount: How Apple Vision Pro is finding a home in healthcare

• Meta sinks more than $100bn into virtual reality and smart glasses bet

  In its latest annual report, Meta revealed it invested $19.9bn in its Reality Labs division last year, hitting a new high after more than a decade of heavy losses. The unit develops its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which Zuckerberg last week called a “real hit”, as well as its Quest VR headsets, which have been slower to take off. The company sold 1mn sets of its Ray-Ban glasses in 2024, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Silicon Valley-based company’s cumulative investment in VR and AR product development and acquisitions has now exceeded $80bn since the initiative began in 2014 when it bought VR headset maker Oculus, according to analyst estimates and the Financial Times’ calculations based on company disclosures.

• Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

  • HN comments

• Go programs freeze when they are launched via a Steam client

• WP Engine losing market share in WordPress hosting

• Bambu Lab controversy continues: Orca Slicer rejects new Bambu Connect

• Sony issues DMCA takedown for Bloodborne 60fps mod

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• HN Jobs:

  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2025)

  • Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2025)

  • Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (February 2025)

• What the Okta Bcrypt incident can teach us about designing better APIs

  if the user had a username above 52 chars, any password would suffice to log in. Also, if the username is, let’s say, 50 chars long, it means that the bad actor needs to guess only 3 first chars to get in, which is quite a trivial task for the computers these days.

  My first question after seeing that the majority of the tools follow the pattern that leads to the vulnerability. Wikipedia article about Bcrypt gave a hint:

  Many implementations of bcrypt truncate the password to the first 72 bytes, following the OpenBSD implementation

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• DeepSeek gives Europe's tech firms a chance to catch up

• OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion

• OpenAI in Talks for Investment Round Valuing It at Up to $300B

• Sam Altman: OpenAI plans to develop a dedicated AI device to replace smartphones

• China's new AI DeepSeek reportedly cost just $6 million to train but that was after the company spent $1.6 billion on Nvidia AI accelerators.

• DeepSeek has ripped away AI's veil of mystique

• DeepSeek's Answers Include Chinese Propaganda, Researchers Say

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Balloon-Borne Telescopes Take Off

• Earth Detecting Earth

  f an extraterrestrial civilization existed with technology similar to ours, would they be able to detect Earth and evidence of humanity? If so, what signals would they detect, and from how far away? Researchers used a theoretical, modeling-based method, and this study is the first to analyze multiple types of technosignatures together rather than separately. The findings revealed that radio signals, such as planetary radar emissions from the former Arecibo Observatory, are Earth’s most detectable technosignatures, potentially visible from up to 12,000 light-years away.

  • "potentially" crumbles under the load here. IMO we would not consider our emissions "unarguably artificial" if they were a full light year away from us. The most fanciful estimate if we allow more credulity in saying what is "signal" goes out to 10s of LY, and fewer rather than more. See also the data rate and power inputs for the Deep Space Network when it talks to the Voyagers.

Crypto con games

• Crypto finding takers outside crypto bros

• Canadian Man Charged in $65M Cryptocurrency Hacking Schemes

• El Salvador Abandons Bitcoin as Legal Tender After Failed Experiment

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Google offers cash to quit for workers who aren't 'deeply committed'

• Hedge funds bet billions on market crash in Trump's America

• Nasdaq futures down, oil up as tariffs loom with largest US trading partners

• Drones and 'Game Film': Inside Chick-Fil-A's Quest to Make Fast Food Faster

• Fed officials' comments highlight split on central bank about interest-rate cuts

• The world is moving on to trade without the US

• Tariffs Give U.S. Steelmakers a Green Light to Lift Prices

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Federal government grant award search

• DOJ Opens Investigation into Chuck Schumer.

• FAA embroiled in lawsuit alleging it turned away 1,000 applicants based on race — that contributed to staffing woes.

• Democratic States Are Wards of Washington - WSJ

  Democratic states and their economies depend much more on Washington largesse than Republican states do. This year, New York received roughly $4,900 per capita from the feds and California $4,300—two to three times as much as Florida ($1,700) and Texas ($1,500). That’s because Democratic states provide more generous social welfare, which is increasingly funded by Washington thanks to regulatory changes by the Biden administration. Democratic states also received a disproportionate share of the more than $1 trillion that Congress sent to state and local governments in 2020 and 2021 as pandemic relief.

  Federal spending on disaster relief creates a moral hazard by reducing the incentive for states to invest in disaster preparation and mitigation. The same goes for social welfare. States have less incentive to help lift people out of poverty since they receive more federal dollars if people stay poor. When you’re spending someone else’s cash, there’s hardly an incentive to spend it prudently. Medicaid, states’ biggest source of federal dollars, encourages inefficient spending. States receive $1 to $3 from Washington for every dollar they spend on Medicaid—and $9 for lower-income able-bodied individuals covered under the ObamaCare expansion. Democratic states provide more-expansive benefits and easier eligibility to wring more money out of Washington. Some 36% of Californians are covered by Medicaid, compared with 19% of Floridians and 15% of Texans. The federal share of the Golden State’s Medicaid spending—nearly $120 billion—is more than Florida’s entire budget.

• CDC researchers to withdraw papers to allow for review by Trump administration

• US Administration Removes Apollo Moon Rock from White House Oval Office

• Designation of Secretary Scott Bessent as Acting Director of the CFPB

  • Bessent Takes Helm of Consumer Finance Watchdog, Orders Halt to Work

• Officials blame late Section 8 rent payments on federal disarray

• DOJ Says Administration Doesnt Have to Follow Court Order Halting Funding Freeze

• U.S. attorney in D.C. backs Musk, warns against resisting DOGE

  • US attorney tells Musk he will prosecute anyone who "targets" DOGE employees

Trump

• Musk says he is working to shut down "beyond repair" USAID

  • Musk says he's working to shut down USAID as employees told to stay home

• "Full-On Corruption": A Horrific Account Of Government Harassment Against Jan. 6 'Survivor' | ZeroHedge

• DOJ demands list of FBI agents who worked on Jan. 6 investigations

• Donald Trump statement.

  I just spoke with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country. We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations

• Trump orders creation of US sovereign wealth fund, says it could buy TikTok

• IRS Direct File team disbanded

  • Musk Says He's 'Deleted' Popular Free IRS Tax Filing Program

  • Elon Musk claims 'far left' tech team that built Warren's tax website 'deleted'

• Trump to pause tariffs for 30 days: Trudeau

• Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Mexico, Canada after border enforcement pledge

• Trump threatens to double tax rates for foreign nationals, companies

• (PDF) Order Declassifying JFK and MLK Assassination Records

Democrats

• Does the DNC’s Election of New Chairman, Vice Chairmen Show the Party Is Still in Disarray?

  • Democrats Begin Their New More Masculine Era By Electing David Hogg DNC Vice Chair.

• Obama Library: Behind Schedule, Over Budget and Mired in Lawsuits

  • The pictures look like post WW2 Berlin Obama Center subcontractor files $40 discrimination lawsuit against engineering firm | Fox News

  "In a shocking and disheartening turn of events, the African American owner of a local construction company finds himself and his company on the brink of forced closure because of racial discrimination by the structural engineer," the lawsuit reads.

• The DNC’s outgoing chair says Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden in 2024.

  “The gap in which she lost wasn’t huge, but when you add up little pockets where it’s, some people because of Gaza, some people because of the economy, some people because she was a woman. And I think in many of those states, those little nicks here and there added up to how she lost in some of those states.”

• They still aint figured out elections. or gender.

  "With the results of the previous four elections, our elected officers are currently two male and two female. In order to be gender balanced, we must elect one male, one female, and one person of any gender."

Left Angst

• What Did Trump Just Do on Tariffs?

• Elon Musk's DOGE takeover is reportedly being spearheaded by young college grads

• The Economic and Fiscal Effects of the Trump Administration's Proposed Tariffs

• The Dumbest Trade War Fallout Begins

• Musk Says DOGE Halting Treasury Payments to US Contractors

• Trump's tariffs on Taiwan's chips likely to backfire

• Former Levi Strauss exec explains why CEOs now suck up to Trump and ditched DEI

• Why does Musk want USAID 'to die'? And why did its website disappear?

• Elon Musk's Attempt to Control the Treasury System Is Incredibly Dangerous

  • Elon Musk Is Permanently Deleting Government Agencies

• The legal theory that would make Trump the most powerful president in US history

• Trump is sowing the seeds of an anti-American alliance

  By targeting allies and neighbours with tariffs, the US is playing into the hands of China

• Authoritarianism: How You Know It When You See It

• Purging the Government Could Backfire Spectacularly

• Musk's Takeover of the Government's Computer Systems Is Akin to a Cyberattack

• EPA warns more than 1,100 employees could be fired 'immediately'

• Tariffs on Video Games Would Cause 'Significant Harm' to 'Everyday Americans,'

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• NYPD Confidential: Inside America's Most Unconventional Counterterror Squad

• Deep-sea treasure hunter jailed for 10 years scores legal win but won't be freed

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The Nation Needs a Shipbuilding Revolution

• US Navy releases photo showing USS Preble firing HELIOS laser weapon

• Zelenskyy: Ukraine only received $76B out of $177B approved by America

World

• It's France vs. the rest on buying U.S. weapons

• AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

  • EU kicks off landmark AI law enforcement

• Privacy Commissioner warns of 'digital doppelgangers'

• Japan plans to sell rice from emergency stockpiles to cut prices

• Scotland's first 'enclosed' salmon farm to open on Loch Long

• Ontario rips up $100M Starlink contract ahead of U.S. tariffs

  • Ford 'ripping up' Ontario's $100M contract with Elon Musk's Starlink

  • Ontario premier ripping up contract with Starlink in response to tariffs

  • Ontario Cancels $100M Starlink Contract

• What's in von der Leyen's plan to save the EU economy?

• The first 'approved' iPhone porn app is coming to Europe

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• How Russia launched a giant space mirror in 1993

China

• New Unreported Submarine in China Leaves West Guessing

• Experts Say China's Military Faces Major Issues

• Is DeepSeek China's Sputnik Moment?

Health / Medicine

• The Mediterranean diet is a lie

• What Have We Learned from Centuries of Chasing Immortality?

• The legacy of lies in Alzheimer's science

  • Was the harm doen by lies; or by the priests insisting those lies were The Settled Science and no questions could be asked?

• About half of Americans approve of using weight-loss drugs to treat obesity

• (2012) Stability of Active Ingredients in Long-Expired Prescription Medications

  Eight long-expired medications with 15 different active ingredients were discovered in a retail pharmacy in their original, unopened containers. All had expired 28 to 40 years prior to analysis.

  The 3 drugs found with less than 90% of their labeled potency were amphetamine and aspirin in both samples tested and phenacetin in 1 of 2 samples tested.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• The frontline against bird flu, egg farmers fear they're losing the battle

• S.F. must rehire employees who refused to get vaccinated, court rules

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• New York claims a small victory in 'forever war on rats'

• That Giant Sucking Sound? It's Climate Change Devouring Your Home's Value

• Levels of microplastics in human brains may be rapidly rising, study suggests

• we pee in the water; so this seems only fair: River dolphins launch pee streams into the air

• How huge parts of the US could become uninhabitable within decades