2025-03-15

romantic decay, fat hounds, Tesla fires, bad stereo updates, Echo spies, orbiting fuel tanks, ISS crew replacement, we had disinflation? FCC deregulation, FAA re-regulation, China angry about Panama

etc

• Plane Fire at Denver Airport Forces Passengers to Evacuate onto Wing

  • American B738 at Denver, engine vibrations, engine fire after landing

  • American Airlines Boeing 737 Catches Fire at Denver Airport

• Power bank likely caused S Korea plane fire – investigators

• Romantic Decay as Cultural Drift

  If you can see how hard it is for a couple to manage the drift of their pairwise culture, you might get how much harder it is for a CEO to stop his or her corporate culture from drifting into dysfunction and bankruptcy over time. Or for our world monoculture to prevent its decline into maladaption. In all three cases, selection is the main force limiting decay. So if our world monoculture is undergoing little selection, it is likely also drifting into maladaption.

• Have we accidentally bred some dogs for obesity?

  Labrador retrievers are common pets, but they also work as service dogs, aiding people with sight or hearing impairments. Unfortunately, the breed is particularly prone to getting overweight, and this tendency apparently is more severe in Labradors purpose-bred for service. To figure out the reasons behind this, researchers at Cambridge University investigated potential obesity genes in Labrador retrievers’ DNA. It turned out increased obesity risk in Labradors was linked to the same genes and mechanisms that cause obesity in humans. These gene variants were more common in purpose-bred dogs we carefully selected, generation after generation, to maximize the results of the demanding training programs service animals must go through. We thought we were picking the smartest Labradors to become guide dogs. But we might have been picking the ones that just wanted the snacks given as rewards the most.

Horseshit

• Death Toll in 1999 Columbine School Shooting Climbs to 14 With Homicide Ruling - The New York Times

  For more than a quarter of a century, the death toll in the Columbine High School mass shooting, a statistic intertwined with the gun violence epidemic in the United States, stood at 13 victims. But another name has now been added to the list: Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was a student at the time and was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the shooting. Her death on Feb. 16 has been officially classified by a coroner in Colorado as a homicide, bringing the number of victims to 14. In a 13-page autopsy report, Dr. Dawn B. Holmes, a forensic pathologist with the Jefferson County coroner’s office, linked Ms. Hochhalter’s death to the injuries that she suffered as a 17-year-old high school junior. “Complications of paraplegia due to two (2) gunshot wounds are a significant contributing factor,” Dr. Holmes wrote. The report, which was obtained on Thursday by The New York Times, said that Ms. Hochhalter had died from sepsis, an extreme immune response to an infection.

• Atlassian's Mike Cannon-Brookes defends buying private jet, sponsoring F1 team

  • Mike Cannon-Brookes is concerned about climate and yet still flies private

• A New Scientific Field Is Recasting Who We Are and How We Got That Way

• Roma Eterna? Roman rule explains regional well-being divides in Germany

• Carmakers Are Reinventing the Gear Shifter and Drivers Are Lost

• Consumers value domestic vanilla when informed, research shows

• Raising Screen-Free Boys

celebrity gossip

• The mystery of Masayoshi Son, SoftBank's great disrupter

Obit

• Former US Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who bridged partisan gaps with his quick wit, dies at age 93

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Elon Musk may be causing Reddit to censor Luigi Mangione posts

Bluesky

• Bluesky quickly sold out of the T-shirt its CEO wore to troll Mark Zuckerberg

Musk

• Tesla warns it could face retaliatory tariffs

• Tesla plans Model Y costing at least 20% less to produce to defend China share

• Tesla Needs a Better Story

• Tesla Owners Are Desperately Trying to Disguise Their Cars

• Tesla Cybertruck deliveries on hold as trims are flying off 'bulletproof' truck

  • Tesla Cybertruck deliveries reportedly on hold because the trim is flying off

• Four Tesla cars set on fire in Berlin arson attacks

• Tesla is done in Germany: 94% say they won't buy a Tesla car

• Elon Musk's Starlink Pushes Its Way into India

Electric / Self Driving cars

• The X Games Has Banned Electric Motorcycles, and the Reasoning Is Stupid

• Why Do Transit Agencies Keep Falling for the Hydrogen Bus Myth?

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg

• Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

• New Reddit controls let you block your most-hated advertisers for a year

• Xbox announces 'Copilot for Gaming' AI assistant

• $2k fancy system: Samsung bricked some home theater systems through automated firmware update

• Six mistakes I made in my dioramas-and-felt Steam game and one I didn't

• Guardian and Newsquest among latest publishers to tell readers: 'consent or pay'

• Netflix, Amazon and Peacock Go Big on Popular YouTubers

• Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI declares AI race "over" if training on copyrighted works isn't fair use

• AI search engines cite incorrect sources at an alarming 60% rate, study says

• Google agrees with OpenAI that copyright has no place in AI development

• Was Sam Altman Right About the Job Market?

• AI Scientists Are Told to Remove 'Ideological Bias' from Powerful Models

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• How Astronauts feel when they return to earth

• Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was minus 280° F

• Long duration propellant stability in Starship

  One of the major concerns with using Starship for the Human Landing System is that propellant (cryogenically liquid methane and oxygen) need to a) be transferred in orbit and b) maintained for the duration of the mission, which could be weeks, months, or years. In particular, no astronaut wants to board their Starship after a successful 6 week sortie on the Moon only to find the fuel’s boiled off and they’re stuck. The trick lies in using energy to pump heat out of the fuel faster than it gets in – seems obvious, and it is. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s still instructive to run the numbers and get a feel for how an inflight cryogenic refrigeration system could work.

• SpaceX launches new crew to the space station to replace NASA's stuck astronauts

  • NASA, SpaceX launches mission to International Space Station to retrieve Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• 1 in 4 programming jobs have vanished. What happened?

• Volkswagen to lay off 1,600 staff at Cariad software unit

• Gold pops above $3k/oz for first time in historic safe-haven rally

• US Cracking Down on Egg Smuggling from Mexico as Prices Soar

  • USA asks Sweden for help in the egg crisis

  • US asks Denmark for help in the egg crisis

  • How many eggs can you send? U.S. asks countries to help lower soaring prices

• these people live on another planet: Extraordinary Labor Market Developments and the 2022-23 Disinflation | NBER

  Two extraordinary U.S. labor market developments facilitated the sharp disinflation in 2022-23 without raising the unemployment rate. A direct inspection finds that average real wage growth from 2021 Q1 to 2024 Q1 in the U.S. economy was at least 3.5 to 4.4 ppts below the path suggested by pre-pandemic experience. This large shortfall in real wage growth aligns well with the interpretation of the 2022-23 disinflation offered here.

• IBM CEO: 23% pay rise to $25M; average Big Blue worker: $48,582 up from $43,069

• "3 to 6 months of normal expenses": How much money should I have in an emergency savings account?

  • Gen Z Americans Don't Have Enough Saved to Cover a Single Month of Spending

• California Approves State Farm's Emergency Rate Increase on Homeowners

• Lawmakers grill Florida regulators about study on insurance 'accounting tricks'

• Tariffs Are Proving 'Big Headache' for Tech Giants, Says Foxconn

• Taking $200 Out of an ATM Should Not Trigger Federal Financial Surveillance

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• FCC Chairman Carr Launches Deregulation Initiative

• FAA issues permanent restrictions on Washington helicopter traffic

• IRS pauses modernization investments to evaluate AI technology

• Several states seek end to property taxes

• Trump Administration Must Rehire Fired Workers, Judges Rule

Trump

• A Pro-Terrorism Mob Tried to Take Over Trump Tower. Here’s What Happened Next.

• House GOP subpoenas Big Tech for evidence that Biden made AI woke

• Grassley, Johnson, drop records revealing FBI obtained cellphones of Trump, Pence | Just The News

  An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that the FBI had listened into calls between President Trump and VP Pence. That did not happen. As this updated story says, the FBI "began its process of acquiring the pair's government phones in April of 2022. The phones were in the possession of the Biden White House. The FBI officially obtained them that May."

Democrats

• House Democrats denounce Senate Democrats for supporting GOP spending bill

  • If the Democrats held the house; would the "continuing resolution" spending bill look any different?

Left Angst

• Donald Trump makes Chinese stocks (somewhat) great again

• Why Does Musk Want to Privatize Amtrak,It Broke Ridership/Revenue Record in 2024

• Portugal rules out buying F-35s because of Trump

• Johns Hopkins University slashes 2k jobs

• DOGE's AI App Replacing Federal Workers Proves 'About as Good as an Intern'

• These Are the 10 Doge Operatives Inside the Social Security Administration

• Why America Betrayed Europe

  He really doesn’t understand why America, which has acted as Europe’s steadfast protector all of his life, is suddenly turning its back on its fellow democracies and aligning itself with Russia instead. His confusion is understandable. By all but abandoning Ukraine, endorsing Russia’s war aims, threatening not to defend NATO allies if they were attacked, and threatening to withdraw from NATO entirely, Trump is rapidly tearing up the global order that the U.S. built after World War 2. Although the administration frames this policy as “America first”, it will hurt the U.S. just as surely as it will hurt Europe. American defense exports will suffer, as countries realize that the U.S. can and will turn off support for its weapons platforms whenever it gets annoyed with the buyer. The U.S. position in Asia and elsewhere will be severely weakened — and China’s strengthened — as every country in the world realizes that America is now a fickle and unreliable ally. In the absence of U.S. protection, many nations will — quite reasonably and appropriately — now turn to nuclear weapons instead. It’s tempting to conclude that Trump and his people are simply working directly for Vladimir Putin — that, in Garry Kasparov’s words, “Donald Trump…has made his top priorities clear: the destruction of America’s government and influence and the preservation of Russia’s.” I will admit that it’s certainly often difficult to distinguish Trump’s behavior toward Russia from what it would be if he were on Putin’s payroll. But in fact I think there are a number of reasons why the U.S. has suddenly abandoned Europe, and none of them require shadowy conspiracies.

• Nobody Wants to Drink Sparkling Wine from the Midwest

• UMass disbands its entering biomed graduate class over Trump funding chaos

• Musk's Madisonian Insight – and Its Troubling Consequences

• Musk's Tesla raises concern over Trump tariffs

  • Tesla warns Trump tariffs could leave company 'exposed' to retaliation

  • Tesla warns Trump administration it is 'exposed' to retaliatory tariffs

  • The same day Trump bought a Tesla, automaker moved to disrupt trade war

• Trump to invoke 1798 law to increase number of migrants sent to Guantánamo

• Will RFK Jr's vaccine agenda make America contagious again?

• Volunteer Data Hoarders Resisting Trump's Purge

• See How Elon Musk's Team Inflated, Deleted and Rewrote Its Savings Claims

• ‘Mercury Poisoning Is Back:’ Colbert Freaks Out Over EPA Deregulation

• OMG, Obama Was Also A Nazi… - modernity

  In a now viral clip, dating from 2011, Barack Obama is pimping his very own “Campaign to Cut Waste,” a quaint little crusade to stop taxpayers from funding crap like a website for forest rangers who apparently moonlight as SoundCloud rappers. “I’ll put their jams on my iPod,” Obama smirks, “but I’m not paying for their bandwidth.” Joe Biden, then just Obama’s loyal sidekick, got saddled with the gig, which is probably why nothing ever came of it.

• Elon Musk's 'Digital Coup'

• The Dark MAGA Gov-Corp Technate

• 'My career is over': Columbia University scientists hit hard by Trump team's cut

• FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

• "There's no research that says artificial dyes are harmful" scientist says

• Wall Street is turning its back on Trump and flashing an economic warning

• Trump suggests media outlets be deemed illegal

• Salting the Earth and the Vandalism of America

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• A Massive Ship Came Out of the Blue, Sailer Recounts Collision

• Can the US switch off Europe's weapons?

• Canada responds to unjustified U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum

• The world should mitigate risks from the United States, not from China

• Stanford students want in on the military tech gold rush

World

• Fatberg weighing 30 tonnes hauled from Perth's sewers, setting a local record

• Echoing a Roman Emperor, Croatia Tries to Cap Soaring Prices

• India investigates whether Uber makes iPhone users pay more to ride

• India's Foreign Minister: The virtues of the old world order are exaggerated

• Huawei's lobbying campaign in Europe went rogue

  • Belgian cops raid Huawei in Euro bribery probe

Israel

• Israel Invites Europe's Far Right to Conference 'Combating Antisemitism'

• Israel asks Tesla to bid on tender for top officials' cars

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia leans on cryptocurrencies for oil trade with China, sources say

• As Trump thaws ties, Russia has a new public enemy number one: Britain

China

• 'All the birds returned': How China led the way in water and soil conservation

• Our Best Look yet at China's New 'Invasion Barges'

• 'A betrayal': Beijing runs scathing attack on Panama deal by Hutchison

  • China signals anger at CK Hutchison's Panama ports sale, rattling investors

• Chinese Warships Circle Australia and Leave It Feeling 'Near-Naked'

• China shouldn't prioritize low drug prices in procurement plan, EU group says

• China Cools on Musk: 'Two Cars for the Price of One Tesla'

Health / Medicine

• Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis through insulin-triggered inflammation

• Zyn and the New Nicotine Gold Rush

• Generation Xanax: The Dark Side of America's Wonder Drug

• 'Profit-Enhancing Middlemen' Fuel $200B Health-Care Chaos

• Annual shot might protect against HIV infections (lenacapavir)

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Older adults might be more resistant to bird flu infections than children

• European Region reports highest number of measles cases in more than 25 years

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The atmosphere is getting better at cleaning itself–but that's not all good news

• Butterfly population in US shrinking by 22% over last 20 years, study shows

• Record sea surface temperature jump in 2023–2024 unlikely but not unexpected

• NASA Analysis Shows Unexpected Amount of Sea Level Rise in 2024

• NOAA study says cooking contributes substantially to ozone pollution in L.A. area.

• "Environmental disaster": Toxic aftermath of Los Angeles fires

• Cougar cubs found in Michigan for first time in more than a century