2025-03-18

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• The Prime Suspect Behind California's Eaton Fire: A 'Zombie' Power Line

• Antarctic researcher accuses colleague of death threat and assault

  • Trapped Antarctic scientists plead for rescue after 'assault'

  • Scientists at Antarctic base rocked by alleged assault

  • Antarctic scientists beg for help after assault and death threats from colleague

• Knocking down abandoned buildings is costly but has benefits for Detroit

• What Did We Learn From Torturing Babies?

  Claims that X cannot feel or think because Y should be met with skepticism—especially when X is screaming and telling you different. Theory may convince you that animals or AIs are not conscious but do you want to torture more babies? Be humble. We should be especially humble when the beings in question are very different from ourselves. If we can be wrong about animals, if we can be wrong about other people, if we can be wrong about our own babies then we can be very wrong about AIs. The burden of proof should not fall on the suffering being to prove its pain; rather, the onus is on us to justify why we would ever withhold compassion.

Horseshit

• Hawaiian avocados arrive in Seattle for first time in 25 years

• Laughter not laptops: cafe culture fights back against keyboard invaders

• 'I thought I was going to be someone': how Gen Z became a generation of rejects

• 3D-printed tissue restores erectile function, aids reproduction in animal study

• Brain Fog Is Here to Stay

• Sex Without Women - The Atlantic

  What a testament to man—how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties!—that he continued doing anything else after the advent of online porn. Plenty of women, of course, consume and enjoy or create and profit from porn—people of every sexual orientation and gender identity do. But the force that through the green fuse drives the flower (and the money) is heterosexual male desire for women. And here was porn so good, so varied, so ready to please, so instantly—insistently—available, that it led to a generation of men who think of porn not as a backup to having sex, but as an improvement on it. They prefer it. Where would this take us? Well, now we know. The heterosexual man can now have what many see as a rich sex life without ever needing to deal with an actual woman.

  • The legal liabilities of a male who keeps proximity to a female for any length of time grew massively in the past 2 decades. Porn carries much less risk.

• Los Angeles launches effort to encourage starter homes on city-owned vacant lots

celebrity gossip

• Signs of Terry Pratchett's dementia may have been hidden in his books

  • He kept writing the same Vimes stories, even as the character evolved. It worked tho.

• Telegram founder allowed to leave France following arrest

  • Telegram CEO allowed to leave France amid investigation

• Zuckerberg 'lied' to Senate, Sandberg asked me to bed, says author

Obit

• Gene Winfield, One of History's Greatest Hot-Rodders, Dies at 97

Musk

• Jam 7 CEO: I bought a Tesla. Strangers have mocked me for supporting Elon Musk

• SpaceX asks US to address foreign trade barriers

• It's no surprise to see art deco being avidly embraced by the likes of Elon Musk

• Cybertrucks are falling apart due to bad adhesive

• Tesla readies a cheaper Model Y in China

• Elon Musk’s Cybertruck reminiscent of apartheid-enforcing vehicle in South Africa.

• Tesla fans exposes Tesla's own shadiness in attempt to defend Autopilot crash

• A Tesla protester targeted by Elon Musk speaks out: 'I have to protect myself'

• Tesla Stock Is Plunging Again. It Could Drop for a Ninth Straight Week

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Small electric cars were said to be the future – but SUVs now rule the road

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Russell T Davies: gay society in 'greatest danger I've ever seen'

• If The New England Journal Of Medicine Doesn’t Correct This Error, You Cannot Trust Anything It Publishes

  when I wrote about that white paper, I was disturbed not only by the fact that Yale Law School published and promoted such propaganda-posing-as-science on its website, but also by what happened next. Despite the fact that critics (myself included) pointed out numerous errors and distortions in the paper, some of them of a straightforward factual nature, none of the authors — Meredithe McNamara, Kellan Baker, Kara Connelly, Aron Janssen, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, Ken C. Pang, Ayden Scheim, Jack Turban, and Anne Alstott — took their names off the paper or pushed for a correction. They failed to clear the lowest bar imaginable for a public intellectual, in other words. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if a researcher is willing to affix their name to a claim that they know is false — and I specifically emailed Alstott, Olson-Kennedy, and Jannsen about this — then what won’t they do to further whatever causes they think are righteous? If someone is openly willing to lie, it should call into question everything that comes out of their mouth. The same thing applies to publications, from the lowliest tabloids to the most celebrated medical journals. And I think The New England Journal of Medicine is about to put itself into that camp.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Harvard Is Going Tuition Free for Families Making Up to $200k

  • Harvard Will Make Tuition Free for More Students

• Columbia University Revokes Degrees of Pro-Palestinian Student Protesters

  • Columbia expels, suspends students after government threats

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Amazon's Plan to Reshape Its Alexa Devices Business

• Tokyo's vinyl experts say overseas buyers are 'sustaining the scene'

• Microsoft isn't launching its Xbox handheld this year, but Asus might be

• Akira ransomware can be cracked with sixteen RTX 4090 GPUs in around ten hours

• They Named Their Companies Lumon. Then 'Severance' Aired

• Lobste.rs not geoblocking UK "for now"

• Alphabet spins off Starlink competitor Taara

  • Alphabet spins off laser-based internet project from 'moonshot' hub

• Bluesky users debate plans around user data and AI training

• U.S. Atari parts store still open after 41 years, has spent $100K+ designing new parts — last original Atari hardware launched 32 years ago | Tom's Hardware

• Actors with dwarfism to protest outside Disney over ‘unacceptable’ Snow White remake.

• Microsoft accidentally wipes out Copilot in latest Windows 11 update

• LLM crawlers continue to DDoS SourceHut | sr.ht status

• A Sinister Brood of Web Crawlers is Hatching

• Xbox 360 consoles can now be hacked with just a USB key

• Motherboard dies after marathon 100-hour BIOS update process, vigil attended by thousands online | Tom's Hardware

• Customer is accused of spamming for repeatedly replying STOP to political texts

• 'Matrix,' 'Ocean's Eleven' producer files for bankruptcy, blames streaming

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Raspberry Pi RP2350 Now Available for Purchase, Stacked Memory Variant Coming

  • RP2350 available: high-performance secure microcontroller for your next project

• Archival Storage

  What is a useful definition of archival data? It is data that can no longer earn its keep on readily accessible storage. Thus the fundamental design goal for archival storage systems is to reduce costs by tolerating increased access latency. Data is archived, that is moved to an archival storage system, to save money. Archiving is an economic rather than a technical issue.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Tech Giants, Stop Trying to Build Godlike AI

• Apple will try to right the Apple Intelligence Siri ship, don't expect firings

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Scenes of joy as stranded US astronauts moved a step closer to returning home

• Starlink satellite part hit a Canadian farm when it fell from orbit

• SpaceX Dragon docks with ISS in mission to get NASA astronauts back to Earth

• 'I have a stockpile':ULA CEO says of rocket backlog awaiting next launch

Crypto con games

• 'Italian vendetta': SEC targeted by triumphant crypto industry

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Darker Than a Dark Pool? Welcome to Wall Street's 'Private Rooms'

• Off-exchange volumes in US equity market surpass 50% for first time

• 22% Drop in Programming Jobs

• Buy, Borrow, Die – How to be a billionaire and pay no taxes

• PepsiCo to Acquire Soda Brand Poppi for Nearly $2B

  • PepsiCo to buy prebiotic soda brand Poppi for nearly $2B

• Why rents are still rising too fast

• A Secret Mortgage Blacklist Is Leaving Homeowners Stuck with Unsellable Condos

• Why the Law Against Business Bribes Is Good for Business

• Job Hopping doesn't lead to more income

• America is facing a beef deficit

• Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Treasury Secretary Bessent says White House is heading off a ‘guaranteed’ financial crisis.

  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday the Trump administration is focused on preventing a financial crisis that could be the result of massive government spending over the past few years. “What I could guarantee is we would have had a financial crisis. I’ve studied it, I’ve taught it, and if we had kept up at these spending levels that — everything was unsustainable,” Bessent said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We are resetting, and we are putting things on a sustainable path.”

• Judge Now Demanding DOJ Reveal Classified Information On Deportation Flights | ZeroHedge

Trump

• Trump Calls Biden Pardons Void Because of Autopen Usage

  • Trump Declares Biden's Autopen-Signed Pardons "Void" | ZeroHedge

  Overnight, President Trump declared that the 11th-hour pardons, including those given to members of Congress who investigated the January 6 insurrection, were "void, vacant, and of no further force or effect, because of the fact that they were done by autopen." Some of those last-minute pardons include Deep Staters, such as former Representative Liz Cheney, retired General Mark Milley, and government scientist Anthony Fauci. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late last night: "It's not my decision — that'll be up to a court — but I would say that they're null and void, because I'm sure Biden didn't have any idea that it was taking place, and somebody was using an auto pen to sign off and to give pardons."

  • Trump Says Biden's Pardons Are 'Void' and 'Vacant' Because of Autopen

  • Trump declares autopen signed pardons void

  • Here’s the Brilliance Behind Trump’s Move Declaring Biden’s Pardons ‘Void' – PJ Media

  roving that Biden wasn't aware of these pardons might be an uphill battle. But something tells me that's not the point. While I suspect that it will be virtually impossible to prove that Biden didn’t authorize those pardons, I still think this may have been a brilliant move by Trump. Here’s why. Every legal challenge, every court filing, every public statement will keep this scandal front and center. Even if the pardons ultimately stand, the damage to Biden's legacy and the Democratic Party will be done.

  Why we’ve been reporting on this scandal for several days, mainstream media coverage of the scandal has been virtually nonexistent. However, I’m starting to see reports from mainstream outlets trickle out. So far, I've seen reports from NBC News, Axios, Bloomberg, The Hill, USA Today, NewsNation, and ABC News. The story is out there now, which means that the American people will see exactly how the Deep State operates behind the scenes with its cognitively challenged puppet, Biden. Why focus specifically on pardons and not Biden's executive orders or judicial nominations? Because Trump knows exactly what he's doing. By challenging these pardons, he's forcing several sitting Democrats who received preemptive pardons from Biden to publicly defend their get-out-of-jail-free cards and attack Trump for declaring Biden’s pardons void. The mainstream media can't ignore this story when their favorite Democrats are squirming under the spotlight. The mere fact that we're having this conversation about whether the President of the United States actually knew who he was pardoning should terrify every American. This isn't about political parties anymore; it's about the integrity of the highest office in our land.

  • This Will Cause Some Heartburn: Trump Declares POTATUS Auto-Pen Pardons ‘Void.’

• NPR Guess Who The Woman Who Hit Trump In The Face With A Mic Works For…

• Federal Judge Orders Astronauts Be Returned To Space Station | Babylon Bee

  A district judge has issued a ruling saying Trump lacked the Constitutional authority to pick up two astronauts who have been stranded at the International Space Station for several months. SpaceX has been ordered to return the astronauts immediately.

• Trump Says He'll Release JFK Assassination Files on Tuesday

Democrats

• Top Democrats Demand Investigation into DeJoy's Deal with Musk to Gut USPS

• Trump strips Hunter and Ashley Biden of Secret Service protection ‘effective immediately.’

Left Angst

• Black Medal of Honor Recipient Removed from US Department of Defense Website

• Arlington Cemetery strips content on black and female veterans from website

• Brown University Professor Is Deported Despite a Judge's Order

  • Brown Medicine professor and doctor deported to Lebanon despite valid visa

• Can Trump Arbitrarily Take Money from Anyone's Bank Account?

• FCC stands up Council on National Security to fight China – like CISA used to

• The head of a Biden program that could help rural broadband has left

• America's (lack of) separation between church and state

• 'How Gratifying': Cheers in China as Trump Dismantles Voice of America

• An obscure US Government office has become a target of Elon Musk

• Trump calls for jailing his perceived opponents in Justice Department speech

• The Deadliest Infectious Disease Is About to Get Worse

• How Trump's White House defied a judge's order halting deportations

  The Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn't apply, two senior officials tell Axios. They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable," a second senior administration official told Axios.

  The Trump administration was already spoiling for a fight over the Alien Enemies Act — one of several fronts on which they believe legal challenges to the president's authority will only end up strengthening it when the Supreme Court rules in his favor. Officially, the Trump White House is not denying it ignored the judge's order, and instead wants to shift the argument to whether it was right to expel alleged members of Tren de Aragua.

  • Trump's border czar: "I don't care what the judges think"

• How Trump's tariff chaos is already changing global trade

• US may be staring at a housing crisis, thanks to Elon Musk and DOGE

• Doge Cuts Reach Key Nuclear Scientists, Bomb Engineers and Safety Experts

• Scientists Say NIH Officials Told Them to Scrub mRNA References on Grants

  • Were they not inserting (the word) "mRNA" into anything they could while it was the new hawt? Just as every study was enhancing diversity?

• Heritage Foundation and Allies Discuss Dismantling the EU

• NASA gets extension to submit layoff plans

• Trump plan to fund Musk's Starlink over fiber called "betrayal" of rural US

• Under Trump 2.0, Europe's dependence on US clouds back under the spotlight

• Canadians Want to Cut off Americans' PornHub Access

  The trade war between the U.S. and Canada is getting nasty and two new suggestions for how to give Canada the edge could make it worse. The first is for Canada to flout U.S. intellectual property law and become a nation that exports jailbreaks. The second is to ban PornHub. Trump’s reciprocal tariffs kick in on April 2. If they go through, they’ll disrupt the economies of both nations. Last week Ontario Premiere Doug Ford announced a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the states before “suspending” it pending negotiations. It’s hard to know where all this ends up, how nasty it will get, and how much suffering people will endure. Canadian science fiction writer, tech journalist, and friend of Gizmodo Cory Doctorow had a great suggestion last month that would put incredible pressure on the U.S. “What if Canada stopped upholding U.S. tech companies’ intellectual property?” He asked in a paper for the Canada Centre for Policy Alternatives.

• Trump demands admissions overhaul and control of academic department at Columbia

• 'I'm a little angry': Canadian firms boycott US products

• Navajo Code Talkers get DEI label as military info disappears under Trump order

  • Navajo code talkers disappear from military websites after Trump DEI order

• Halting of Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam puts lives at risk

• It's time to start panicking about the national debt

  I know you all have a lot of things to worry about with regards to the Trump administration. Trump’s tariffs are tanking the stock market and sending consumer confidence crashing. Trump is abandoning America’s European allies in order to court Vladimir Putin. Elon Musk’s DOGE is haphazardly smashing U.S. government institutions in an attempt to root out progressive ideology. And Trump is asserting dramatic expansions of presidential power in an attempt to incarcerate protesters and deport immigrants. But unfortunately, I have to give you one more thing to worry about, because this one is really big and important. Trump and his party are getting ready to massively increase the national debt, at a time when the existing debt is becoming increasingly unaffordable.

• 'It Is Facing a Campaign of Annihilation': 3 Columnists on War Against Academia

• mRNA vaccines are in RFK Jr's crosshairs; funding in question

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• LAPD Surveilled Gaza Protests Using This Social Media Tool

• FBI investigating rise in swatting attacks | Fox News

  "I want to address the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures," Patel wrote Friday morning on his social media. "The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable." The director stressed, "This isn’t about politics—weaponizing law enforcement against ANY American is not only morally reprehensible but also endangers lives, including those of our officers."

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Pentagon deploys Navy destroyer for unusual U.S. border mission

• Breaking the Bad Houthi Habit - CDR Salamander

• Drones swarming sensitive national security sites

World

• They came to Canada to chase a dream. Now they're being forced to leave

• Airbus and others call for sovereign fund and higher Europe tech autonomy

  • European tech industry coalition calls for digital sovereignty

• Stolen statue head of King George V makes surprise appearance at concert

• Electricity gradually returns to Cuba after substation failure left millions in the dark.

• Romania's election body rejects far-right Diana Sosoaca's presidential bid, approves George Simion | AP News

  The bureau said in its decision that it barred the pro-Russia Sosoaca, a former lawyer and leader of the far-right nationalist S.O.S. Romania party, from entering the race on the same grounds that she was excluded from last year’s annulled election. The CCR argued that her public discourse, including opposition to Romania’s European Union and NATO memberships, made her unfit to uphold the constitutional obligations of the presidency.

• Ontario and Toronto move to ban US contractors

• The Tragedy of the Democratic Republic of Congo

• UK Online Safety Act comes into force today

• In Nicaragua, Ortega and Murillo now have their legion of 76,800 paramilitaries

• The many hands behind Rio de Janeiro's Carnival

• Audi to Cut 7,500 Jobs in Germany to Become More Efficient

• France plots tax on super-rich to rearm – and Britain could be next

• Why the EU Is Failing

• Missile maker MBDA takes more calls from EU militaries seeking non-US weapons

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Putin decree authorises US hedge fund to buy foreign-owned Russian securities

China

• Chinese scientists turn tumours into 'pork' in cancer treatment

• China creates hacker-proof quantum satellite communication link to South Africa

• DeepSeek has banned its employees from leaving China

Health / Medicine

• Woman who lived to age 117 had genes keeping her cells 'younger', study shows

• Hair loss drug finasteride can cause debilitating side-effects, men say

• Are you cleaning your water bottle enough?

• Florida demands patient names, prescriptions from drug middlemen

• Ingredient hidden in your spice rack could reverse Alzheimer's disease

  A compound hiding inside rosemary and sage has been turned into a new treatment that may reverse Alzheimer's disease. Carnosic acid is antioxidant that has anti-inflammatory properties and is found in both of the herbs.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Angela Merkel 'covered up report blaming China for Covid'

• UK “Intelligence” Also Knew Covid-19 Was Manufactured in Fauci’s Wuhan Lab, and Also Lied to the World About It

• The Times, They Aren’t Changin’ - by Quoth the Raven

  The New York Times apology from this weekend is devoid of any genuineness or authenticity. I don’t believe for a second that the people on the left truly regret how they reported on the response to COVID, nor do I believe they would alter how they covered a similar event in the future. But the one positive I can find in this pathetically timed piece from the weekend is that it is one of what will be a million small indicators that the will of the majority of the American people is finally beginning to be reflected in our day-to-day. And no matter which way the political landscape shifts going forward, that power—the people’s power to affect change—remains something to be overwhelmingly optimistic about.

• European Region reports highest number of measles cases in more than 25 years – UNICEF, WHO/Europe: 127,350 measles cases were reported in the European Region for 2024 – double the number reported for 2023 and the highest number seen in the Region since 1997.

• Ontario is having its worst measles outbreak in almost 30 years. Here’s what you need to know: Measles was rare in Ontario, with only 101 cases reported between 2013 and 2023 — until a surge in cases last year.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Spotted owls are disappearing fast: cuts could mean no one's left to count them

• Scientists declare a "full-on emergency" to save US bird populations

• Chewing gum is plastic pollution, not a litter problem

• Europe should focus on sustainable chip production as sector emissions rise

• First FireSat satellite has launched to help detect smaller wildfires earlier

• Dangerous heat is a real threat for the 2026 World Cup. Are teams ready?

• The optimum nitrogen fertilizer rate for maize in the US Midwest is increasing

• Study finds signs of tuna abundance outside marine protected areas