2025-02-05

fat bear, blowing air, Kernel Rust activism, Airbus to space, minimum wage suck, eggspenses, PBS bias, what did USAID do?, malignant Musk angst, Salvadoran jails, China responds, MDMA scams

etc

• The 22-Year-Old Who Unlocked the Secrets of Ancient Rome

• Dutch Bring Back Risky Play–Parks Where Kids Climb, Sword-fight with Sticks and Build with Hammers

• 525-Lb. Bear Discovered Under Evacuated Altadena Home Too Fat to Tranquilize.

Horseshit

• Aliens from a Parallel Universe May Be All Around Us–and We Don't Even Know It

• Do big tech companies have a 'duty of care' for users?

• Paraguay's AI chatbot "Eva" is driving social justice reform

• The 'AI granny' driving scammers up the wall

• Argentina breeds gene-edited polo super ponies

• A new life for empty offices: Growing kale and cucumbers

  • Expect few places have the necessary water, power, drainage, or vapor barriers.

• Flying taxis are on the horizon as aviation soars into a new frontier

• Compressed-Air Energy Storage Plans Stymied

• Palantir designed to 'power the West to its obvious innate superiority' says CEO

• Why Americans are moving in with strangers twice their age

celebrity gossip

• How much is Gates paying for the PR? A Billionaire's Biggest Regret

  • Bill Gates Traumatized His Parents–and Other Stories of a Wild, Wonky Youth

• Eisenberg: I don't want to think of being associated with Zuckerberg

• Daniel Penny Gets Hired by Andreessen Horowitz

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The Bust That Took Down Pavel Durov–and Upended Telegram

Musk

• Reddit page banned after facing criticism from Elon Musk

Electric / Self Driving cars

• I bought a container full of Chinese electric excavators. Here's what showed up

• Cruise to slash workforce by 50% after GM cuts funding to robotaxi operations

  • GM acquires full ownership of Cruise

  • GM cuts 50% of Cruise staff after ending robotaxi business

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• The Left won’t let go of woke.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Why even physicists still don't understand quantum theory 100 years on

• see also, Robert Maxwell: A shady business is buying up scientific journals to earn millions

• Head scores victory as Google agrees to delete school reviews

• Quiz: US children are falling behind in school. Would you do any better?

• The Hired Guns Who Make Sure School Cyberattacks Stay Hidden

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Popular Linux orgs Freedesktop and Alpine Linux are scrambling for new webhost

  Both services have largely depended on free server resources provided by Equinix (formerly Packet.net) and its Metal division for the past few years. Equinix announced recently that it was sunsetting its bare-metal sales and services, or renting out physically distinct single computers rather than virtualized and shared hardware. As reported by the Phronix blog, both free software organizations have until the end of April to find and fund new hosting, with some fairly demanding bandwidth and development needs.

  • Alpine Linux Seeking Support After Equinix Metal Sunsets

• Debian Powered Phone: FuriPhone

• "Zero warnings": Longtime YouTuber rails against unexplained channel removal

  • YouTube restores SineVibes channel after Peter Kirn & Ars Technica get involved

• Rep. Zoe Lofgren Introduces Act to Block Sites Infringing on U.S. Copyrights

• Serious RTX 5090 and RTX 5090D driver issues turning GPUs into paperweights

• 'Street Fighter' almost went off the rails due to Van Damme's erratic behavior

• Meta smart glasses spending approaches $100B

• China saved Apple from bankruptcy but now holds the company hostage

• Hank Azaria's 'Simpsons' Voices Won't Be Fully Replicated by A.I

• Spotify Paid $10B to the Music Industry in 2024, $1B More Than Last Year

• Apple lashes out at iPhone porn app maker and EU rules allowing its download

• Chris Anderson Is Giving Ted Away to Whoever Has the Best Idea for Its Future

• Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11

• Microsoft cracking down people upgrading to Windows 11 on unsupported hardware

• Google Pixel 4a's ruinous "Battery Performance" update is a bewildering mess

• New Bill to Kill Anime and Other Piracy in US Backed by Netflix, Disney and Sony

• Canada shouldn't retaliate with U.S. tariffs–build a Canadian app store instead

• Fox streaming service to launch in 2025

• Apple's attempt to intervene in the Google Search antitrust trial is denied

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• A Low-Cost, Open-Source 3D Bioprinter

• Resistance to Rust abstractions for DMA mapping

  • Here comes the hate: A Linux maintainer admitting to attempting to sabotage Rust for Linux project

• AMD: Microcode Signature Verification Vulnerability

  This vulnerability allows an adversary with local administrator privileges (ring 0 from outside a VM) to load malicious microcode patches. We have demonstrated the ability to craft arbitrary malicious microcode patches on Zen 1 through Zen 4 CPUs. The vulnerability is that the CPU uses an insecure hash function in the signature validation for microcode updates.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Strengthening America's AI Leadership with the U.S. National Laboratories

• Deep Research, Deep Bullshit, and the potential (model) collapse of science

• Why recent statewide artificial intelligence regulation legislation was vetoed

• LANL partners with OpenAI to install models onto newest supercomputer

• SoftBank Is Betting Billions That OpenAI's Agents Will Automate Work

  • OpenAI announces SoftBank partnership as fallout from DeepSeek continues

• AI-Generated Slop Is Already in Your Public Library

• Anthropic dares you to jailbreak its new AI model

• OpenAI clinches deal with Kakao, talks with SoftBank and Samsung about Stargate

• Evaluating Security Risk in DeepSeek and Other Frontier Reasoning Models

• Who's Afraid of Jonathan Turley? ChatGPT, for One

• DeepSeek not as disruptive as claimed, firm has 50k GPUs and spent $1.6B

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Boeing has now lost $2B on Starliner, but still silent on future plans

• New record coming? 5 rockets scheduled to launch in a day

• Europe has the worst imaginable idea to counter SpaceX's launch dominance

  It is difficult to see Airbus and some of the other large, institutional space companies in Europe banding together and becoming nimble and more efficient operators in spaceflight. That would require enormous changes in companies that have decades of ossified culture, with layers of management that are difficult to cut through.

Crypto con games

• It's Hard to Fund Midsize Green Assets. This Startup Wants to Change That

• U.S. Charges Andean Medjedovic for Alleged Kyberswap and Indexed Financ Hacks

• El Salvador Backs Away from Its Bitcoin Experiment

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Moscow Has $2B Stuck at JPMorgan. The U.S. Isn't Sure What to Do with It

• Mastercard plans to get rid of credit card numbers

• Microsoft implements instant layoffs with no severance for departing staff

• Salesforce Cutting 1k Roles While Hiring Salespeople for AI

• The New Consensus on the Minimum Wage

  You can draw your own conclusions about the desirability of the minimum wage, but the fleeting hope that it raises wages without trade-offs is gone. The effects of the minimum wage are nuanced, heterogeneous, and by no means entirely positive.

  • the only thing "New" here is that it is now acceptable, socially, to say this. If it is true now it has been true since the minimum wage was first implemented, but we have preferred not to talk about it. This is not how science is done.

• Egg Shortages Are Now Hitting Restaurants, with No Relief in Sight

• Waffle House is placing a surcharge on every egg it sells

  • Waffle House places surcharge on eggs as bird flu fallout hits consumers

• Vanguard's Average Fee Is Now Just 0.07% After Biggest-Ever Cut

• Intel knocked off global chip revenue top spot after rotten 2024

• EU Consumer Group Calls Out Safety of Temu Products

• Okta to Cut 3% of Workforce to Reallocate Resources Toward Growth Priorities

• Colorado King Soopers workers to begin strike on Thursday

• Americans Kiss Job Hopping Goodbye

• Return-to-office policies are leading to increased brain drain in the U.S.

• The U.S. Economy Is Racing Ahead. Almost Everything Else Is Falling Behind. - The New York Times

  The gap between Americans’ prosperity and quality of life has grown since the 1990s.

  “We’re so wealthy but so unhappy,” said Bradley Birzer, a historian at Hillsdale College, a Christian school in Michigan. “It seems like the central question of modernity.” Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, put it this way: “We are the richest country in the world, but we chronically fail to offer broad-based economic prosperity and security.”

• State Farm seeks 22% emergency rate hike

  State Farm General requested a 22% emergency rate hike in California on Monday, Feb. 3 to cover losses from the Los Angeles County wildfires and stop its “financial deterioration,” the company wrote in a letter filed with the state’s insurance commission. The property insurer, the state’s largest and a subsidiary State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., said it has received more than 8,700 claims from the Jan. 7 fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas. The company said it has paid more than $1 billion to customers.

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• House Panel Asks PBS, NPR Chiefs to Testify on Alleged ‘Biased Content’ | The Epoch Times

  The heads of the taxpayer-funded Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are being asked to testify at a congressional hearing on allegations of “blatantly ideological and partisan” coverage. In a Feb. 3 letter to PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), chairwoman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s (HOAC) Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE), cited as an example of such coverage PBS reporting that characterized a recent gesture by Elon Musk as a “Nazi salute.”

• America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

• Russian and Uzbek Charged with Filing False Voter Registration Applications

• USAID Threatened Senator Trying to Exercise Oversight

  Elon Musk on USAID threatening Senator Joni Ernst: “It’s outrageous that a taxpayer-funded organization would threaten a U.S. Senator who is simply trying to figure out if American taxpayer money is being spent correctly and not fraudulently.”

• State Dept: Rank Insubordination of USAID Employees Undermines State Dept Effort

  "They just think they're a global entity and that their master is the globe and not the United States. And that's not sustainable." “The goal was to reform it. But now we have rank insubordination. Their basic attitude is we don't work for anyone. We work for ourselves. No agency of government can tell us what to do."

  • "Rank Insubordination": Rubio Says USAID Full Of Rogue Employees | ZeroHedge

  • 'What Elon Musk Said Is a Bold-Faced Lie'

• New DNC chair: Democratic Party ‘not dead’

• Federal layoffs 'likely' if too few employees choose to quit, memo says

• About 20,000 federal workers accept Trump's buyout offer, official says

• $42B broadband grant program may scrap Biden admin's preference for fiber

• USPS has suspended inbound parcel service from China and Hong Kong

Trump

• A Plan for Establishing a United States Sovereign Wealth Fund

• Trump says US will 'take over' Gaza: 'We'll own it'

Left Angst

• Concern about SpaceX influence at NASA grows with new appointee

  I spent this weekend talking and texting with NASA sources at various centers around the country, and the overriding message is that morale at the agency is "absurdly low." Meetings between civil servants and their leadership, such as an all-hands gathering at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia recently, have been fraught with tension. No one knows what will happen next.

  • Even with the press obliging them with the overnight 180 on "stranded astronauts", they ain't got a lot to brag on.

• Not what was said but who cares? "Musk bad!" Musk says group that built IRS 'Direct File' program 'has been deleted'

• The Billionaire Blueprint to Dismantle Democracy and Build a Digital Nation

• Severance and DOGE: How to Spend $1M in a Hurry

• 25yr Old with Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System

• What's Going on at the FBI?

  The Situation on Friday was too fluid to write responsibly on the ongoing purge at the FBI. Things have clarified enough today to say one thing clearly: A lot of people at the bureau—leadership and street agents, analysts and staff alike—are flirting with heroism right now.

  Specifically, they were told to administer a questionnaire to staff—a questionnaire that was due at 3:00 pm today—in which agents and others are asked to self-report on their own Jan. 6-related activities. From what I gather, the pushback has been remarkable. A large number of agents are refusing to fill out the questionnaire. The FBI Agents Association has sent around model language for agents who refuse to cooperate. At the management level, the leadership of a number of field offices has made clear that they will not take administrative action against those who do not self-report. And the bureau’s acting leadership itself is clearly pushing back against the demands for this information.

  What does an administration bent on revenge do when FBI personnel en masse choose to “hang together” rather than hanging separately?

  • Eliminate the entire agency

• FBI agents who investigate UFOs worried they could be pushed out

• Elon Musk’s Blitz Shakes U.S. Government as He Sweeps Through Agencies - The New York Times

  Empowered by President Trump, Mr. Musk is waging a largely unchecked war against the federal bureaucracy — one that has already had far-reaching consequences. Mr. Musk’s aggressive incursions into at least half a dozen government agencies have challenged congressional authority and potentially breached civil service protections.

• Can anyone stop President Musk? | The Verge

• D.C. Federal Judges Join the Resistance - by John A. Lucas

• How NSF is scouring research grants for violations of Trump's orders

• NASA Told to to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites

• Payments Crisis of 2025: Doge Have "Read-Write" Access to Federal Payment System

• Musk Shows Us What Actual Government Censorship on Social Media Looks Like

• Health agencies purge Trump-targeted programs and websites

• Day 5 of Trump-Musk and Treasury Payments: Not "Read Only" Access Anymore

• Woke DEI teacher complains about Trump removing their pronouns in parody-like speech.

• New Orders Could Drain Millions from Universities

• 2.2B gallons of water flowed out of California reservoirs because of Trump

• The 'Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly' of the United States Government

• Federal Workers Sue to Disconnect Doge Server

• Elon Musk tightens grip on federal government as Democrats raise alarms

• Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system

• Elon Musk is shredding America's government as he did Twitter

• Trump’s trade war exposes German carmakers to a ‘full-on storm’

• A Sovereign Wealth Fund Wouldn't Work for the US

• FBI agents sue over DOJ efforts to investigate agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases

• Elon Musk Installs Illegal Server to Seize All Federal Workers' Data

• GitHub Reveals How Software Engineers Are Purging Federal Databases

• Elon Musk's Power Grab Is Lawless, Dangerous, and–Yes–A Coup

• Musk Allies Discuss Deploying A.I. To Find Budget Savings

• Musk Cronies Dive into Treasury Dept Payments Code Base

• Luke Farritor: Elon Musk Hires 23-Year-Old Engineer to Cut Federal Spending

• Musk intensifies government spending attack with push to cut all regulations

• Purge begins as DOGE enters FBI to obtain names of 5,000 agents who worked January 6 cases and face firing

• I'm a Federal Worker. Elon Musk's Government Data Heist Is the Entire Ballgame

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Gangmap: An aggregation of gang maps, territories and activities made by Reddit

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• USAID Lavished U.S. Cash on Hamas-Run Gaza.

• Biden Admin Quietly Funneled $3 Mil to Palestinian Government ‘Security Forces’ for Weapons Training— After Its Members Carried Out Attacks on Israelis.

• U.S. Begins Migrant Flights to Guantanamo Bay

World

• Electricity prices in Europe to stabilise if 2030 targets for renewables are met

• Cherry Ventures Raises $500M Fund, Wants Europe's Trillion Dollar Company

• El Salvador offers to house violent US criminals and deportees of any nation

  • El Salvador offers to jail 'American criminals,' including U.S. citizens

  • El Salvador offers to lock up US criminals in its mega-jail

• A flooded quarry, a mysterious millionaire and the dream of a new Atlantis

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

• Poland's Justice Minister Arrested for Illegal Use of NSO Group Malware

• Thousands flee Santorini as quakes rattle Greek tourist haven

• 'No medical evidence' to support Lucy Letby's conviction, expert panel finds

• Taliban minister ‘forced to flee Afghanistan’ after speech in support of girls’ education

• Campus attack 'worst mass shooting in Swedish history; around 10 people' killed

China

• China unveils US tariffs and Google investigation in response to Trump levies

  • China hits back at Trump with Google probe

  • China responds to tariffs with antitrust investigations of Google, Nvidia

  • Trump tariffs: China counters US with measured opening move

  • China announces measures against Google, other US firms, as trade tensions escal

• Xi's Reply to Trump Tariffs Shows China Has More to Lose

• (Nov 2024) Chinese solar firms go where US tariffs don't reach

Health / Medicine

• Lung cancer diagnoses on the rise among never-smokers worldwide

• How an Activist Group Helped Torpedo MDMA Therapy - The New York Times

  Then came skeptics with disturbing accusations: that Lykos was “a therapy cult,” that practitioners in its clinical trials had engaged in widespread abuse of participants and that the company had concealed a litany of adverse events. “The most significant harms in Lykos’s clinical trials were not caused by MDMA, but by the people who were entrusted to supervise its administration,” Neşe Devenot, one of the speakers opposed to Lykos’s treatment and a writing instructor at Johns Hopkins University, told the committee. Dr. Devenot and six others presented themselves as experts in the field of psychedelics, but none had expertise in medicine or therapy. Nor had the speakers disclosed their connection to Psymposia, a leftist advocacy group whose members oppose the commercialization of psychedelics and had been campaigning against Lykos and its nonprofit parent, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS.

• Why the WHO has recommended switching to a healthier salt alternative

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Here Come the Lionfish

• Bee species differentially prioritize quantity and quality of floral rewards

• Bonobos recognize when humans are ignorant, try to help

  • Apes are willing to tell us what we don't know

• Sunken worlds under the Pacific? Models reveal workings of Earth's mantle

• Ban on agricultural burning takes effect in San Joaquin Valley

• The Way Hurricanes Kill Is Changing. Helene Shows How

• Male mosquitoes to be genetically engineered to poison females with semen

• Half degree rise in global warming will triple area of Earth too hot for humans

• Which is worse for wildlife, wind farms or oil drilling?

• Colossal Squid: The Eerie Ambassador from the Abyss

• Ancient Air, Frozen in Time, Holds Clues to Modern Mystery

• Climate Change Could Upend the American Dream

• Temperatures at North Pole 20C above average and beyond ice melting point

• Human brain samples contain an entire spoon's worth of nanoplastics, study says

• Climate change target of 2C is 'dead', says renowned climate scientist

• A coastal California community is sliding 4 inches a week toward the ocean