2025-04-02

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• The Colors Of Her Coat - by Scott Alexander

  Here is the process for getting ultramarine. First, go to Afghanistan. Keep in mind, you start in England or France or wherever. Afghanistan is four thousand miles away. Your path takes you through tall mountains, burning deserts, and several dozen Muslim countries that are still pissed about the whole Crusades thing. Still alive? After you arrive, climb 7,000 feet in the mountains of Kuran Wa Munjan until you reach the mines of Sar-i-Sang. There, in a freezing desert, the wretched of the earth work themselves to an early grave breaking apart the rocks of Badakhshan to produce a few hundred kilograms per year of blue stone - the only lapis lazuli production in the known world. Buy the stone and retrace your path through the burning deserts and vengeful Muslims until you’re back in England or France or wherever. Still alive? That was the easy part. Now you need to go through a chemical extraction process that makes the Philosopher's Stone look like freshman chem lab. "The lengthy process of pulverization, sifting, and washing to produce ultramarine makes the natural pigment … roughly ten times more expensive than the stone it came from." Finally you have ultramarine! How much? I can’t find good numbers, but Claude estimates that the ultramarine production of all of medieval Europe was around the order of 30 kg per year - not enough to paint a medium-sized wall. Ultramarine had to be saved for ultra-high-value applications. In practice, the medievals converged on a single use case - painting the Virgin Mary’s coat.

• Icelandic town and Blue Lagoon spa evacuated after volcanic eruption

Horseshit

• 'I cried': pigeon fanciers in Belgium relive agony of stolen prized birds

• New "wavy" road design to get drivers to slow down

• Why the watt is the most important spec in battery-powered devices

• The psychology behind why children are hooked on Minecraft

  • Let them explore the real world and they might forget the game...

• The MIT Scientist Behind the 'Torpedo Bats' That Are Blowing Up Baseball

• Pirate booted out: popcorn mogul's coup in New York village falls flat

  Robert Ehrlich strode into the town hall of Sea Cliff, a village of fewer than 5,000 residents within the larger town of Oyster Bay on Long Island, with all the finesse of a literal pirate on 10 March. He “presented a statement falsely asserting his authority as mayor, demanding access to office space, and declaring that the entire village staff was fired effective immediately but could reapply for their jobs”, authorities said on Facebook. Ehrlich, 66, cited a New York state law that permits local residents “to dissolve their town or reformulate it”, the New York Times explained. Under this legislation, one needs signatures from 10% of town voters. Ehrlich brandished an envelope claiming that he had 1,800 signatures – but reportedly refused to show it to town workers, alleging that signatories were worried about blowback. After his failed takeover, Ehrlich entered Sea Cliff’s mayoral race as a write-in candidate. On Tuesday, Ehrlich lost heavily to the incumbent, Elena Villafane, in a 1,064-to-62 vote, according to reports.

  Ehrlich’s mutinous moves are reminiscent of the campaign by Donald Trump’s key aide Elon Musk to slash federal spending as head of the so-called “department of government efficiency”, an ad-hoc body created by the US president upon returning to the White House two months ago. Doge staffers have repeatedly arrived at federal agency offices demanding access to premises and computer data, while firing or putting on notice hundreds of thousands of public service employees. Many of his moves have been successfully challenged in court.

• A demanding work culture could be undermining efforts to raise birth rates

celebrity gossip

• Key evidence deleted in case against ex-military man who spied on Julian Assange

• Virginia Giuffre, Jeffrey Epstein accuser, in serious condition after accident

Obit

• Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

Musk

• Eerie footage of car park full of Teslas at abandoned shopping centre

• Man strikes Tesla counter-protester with vehicle in Idaho, police say - ABC News

• Elon Musk's Megadeal Between X and XAI Breaks Wall Street's Rulebook

• 'Ask Grok' was supposed to make X better. It's another tool for dunking someone

• Grok Is Rebelling Against Elon Musk, Daring Him to Shut It Down

• Tesla is sitting on $200M worth of Cybertruck inventory

• Tesla sales rout in Europe deepens amid anti-Musk protests

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Lucid orders are surging as former Tesla drivers flock to other EV brands

• Xiaomi Car with Driver Assistance Crashes, Three Reported Dead

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• 'Timeless truths' that make life uncomplicated

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The UK Government Wouldn't Ban Smartphones in Schools. These Parents Stepped Up

• Test scores only: University of Austin debuts ‘merit-first admissions’ policy: ‘We care about two things: Intelligence and courage,’ university stated in announcing policy.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• YouTuber Karl Jobst to pay more than $230,000 to Donkey Kong record holder Billy Mitchell in defamation ruling | PC Gamer

  Mitchell's record-holding Donkey Kong scores were called into question in 2017, which ultimately led to Mitchell's removal from both the Twin Galaxies and Guinness World record books. This set in motion a confusing web of litigation, ultimately resulting in Mitchell's records being reinstated. One of the lawsuits filed by Mitchell was against the late YouTuber Benjamin Smith, aka Apollo Legend, who had recorded several videos claiming Mitchell had cheated. Jobst' video—subtly titled 'The Biggest Conmen in Video Game History Strike Again!'—implied that Mitchell's settlement with Smith involved the latter paying him a large sum of money, ultimately leading to his suicide in 2020. Jobst also claimed in the video that Mitchell had "expressed joy at the thought" of Smith's death. It was this—and not any claim about the legitimacy of Mitchell's Donkey Kong scores—that prompted Mitchell to sue Jobst.

  • Donkey Kong champion wins defamation case against Australian YouTuber Karl Jobst

• The 50 Best Things Microsoft has ever made

  • I'll speak up for the Intellimouse Trackballs and the Sidewinder Force feedback joystick.

• Tinder Unveils Playful AI Chatbots in Bid to Boost Engagement

• AI was enemy No. 1 during Hollywood strikes. Now it's in Oscar-winning films

• NaNoWriMo Officially Shutting Down

  • NaNoWriMo shut down after AI, content moderation scandals

• YouTube's Weird World of Fake Movie Trailers

• The Guardian flourishes without a paywall

• Torrent Site Uploader and Member of 'The Scene' Sentenced to Prison in Denmark

• Ente wants to take on Google Photos with its privacy-first photo storage service

• Trials and Visions of Internet Relay Chat

• Google will gradually reduce Pixel 9a battery capacity on purpose as it ages

  • Planned obsolescence is so 1990. Programmed obsolescence is where its at now.

• Cheap TVs' incessant advertising reaches troubling new lows

  Vizio TVs reportedly show Trump immigration messaging when in standby

• FTC: 23andMe buyer must honor firm's privacy promises for genetic data

• Markdown and the slow fade of the formatting fetish

  By removing layers of proprietary formatting, it is gradually loosening commercial control over document standards. Most importantly, Markdown frees our thoughts while we write. Markdown helps users concentrate on content rather than appearance, promoting clarity, readability, and thoughtful writing.

• Zelle is shutting down its app, but you probably don't need to worry

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• HN Jobs:

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

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

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

• Old Vintage Computing Research: The April Fools joke that might have got me fired

  Most of the campus admin printers were HP LaserJet 4 units of some derivation equipped with JetDirect cards for networking. It turns out that the READY message these printers show on their VFD panels is changeable. because I had access to the printer spools on the K250, and the spool directories were conveniently named the same as their hostnames, I knew where each and every networked LaserJet on campus was. The plan on April Fools' Day was to get into work at OMG early o'clock and iterate over every entry in the spool, sending it a sequence that would change the READY message to INSERT 5 CENTS.

• Linux 6.15 ExFAT Can Delete Files Much Faster: 4 Minutes to 1.6 Seconds

  "If the discard mount option is enabled, the file's clusters are discarded when the clusters are freed. Discarding clusters one by one will significantly reduce performance. Poor performance may cause soft lockup when lots of clusters are freed. This commit improves performance by discarding contiguous clusters in batches."

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Sam Altman Says OpenAI Will Release an 'Open Weight' AI Model This Summer

• Anthropic Will Begin Sweeping Offices For Hidden Devices

• OpenAI raises up to $40B in record-breaking deal with SoftBank

• DeepMind slows down research releases in battle to keep competitive edge

• An AI Image Generator’s Exposed Database Reveals What People Really Used It For.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA astronauts tell of space odyssey and reject claims of neglect

• NASA adds Starship to launch contract

• SpaceX launches first-of-its-kind human spaceflight mission around Earth’s poles.

  • Four private astronauts launch on first human mission to fly over the poles

• European Space Agency issues urgent report on exponentially growing Space Debris

• Starliner's flight to the space station was far wilder than most of us thought

Crypto con games

• Dogecoin announces major shift away from PoW

Economicon / Business / Finance

• GlobalFoundries, Taiwanese chipmaker UMC consider merger

• Why Are Credit Card Rates So High?

• Hooters files for bankruptcy as brand eyes turnaround plan

• Is DOGE Securities Fraud? - Bloomberg

  probably the most frequent reader question that I have gotten over the last couple of months is “can Tesla shareholders sue for securities fraud because Elon Musk is doing DOGE stuff and hurting the stock?” And, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This is not a successful lawsuit, or a lawsuit at all; it’s just a politician musing about suing.

• Florida insurance company paying state back $30M for 'false' claims

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• EFF Urges Third Circuit to Join the Legal Chorus: No One Owns the Law

Trump

• White House says it's 'case closed' on the Signal group chat review

Democrats

• Waltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say

• Cory Booker's anti-Trump speech on Senate floor has lasted 17 hours and counting

  The use of long speeches to delay legislation, known as a filibuster, is a time-honored tradition in the Senate. But that's not technically what Booker's speech is, since he is not trying to block a specific bill or nominee. Under Senate rules, unless special limits on debate are in effect, a senator who has been recognized by the presiding officer can speak for as long as they wish, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). "They usually cannot be forced to cede the floor, or even be interrupted, without their consent," it says. There are a few requirements they must meet, however. For one, the senator must "remain standing and must speak more or less continuously," the CRS says, which becomes more difficult as the hours pass. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tweeted Monday night that Booker had employed an "interesting tactic" to that effect. Cory had a Senate page take his chair away to eliminate any temptation to sit down," he wrote, just under three hours into the speech. Booker employed another strategy at various points: permitting his fellow Democrats to ask questions, which is the only way a senator can yield without losing the floor. But it's only partial relief: The senator must remain standing while others are talking.

  The longest filibuster on record was a 1957 speech by then-Democratic Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina — in opposition to the Civil Rights Act — that lasted for 24 hours and 18 minutes. Media reported at the time that Thurmond sustained himself with "diced pumpernickel and bits of cooked hamburger" and sips of orange juice. His aides set up a bucket in the cloakroom so he could keep a foot on the Senate floor if he needed to relieve himself.

  • Cory Booker breaks record for longest Senate speech, beating Strom Thurmond

Left Angst

• Trump threatens important data deal – German companies alarmed

• An 'Administrative Error' Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison

  • US accidentally sent Maryland father to Salvadorian prison, can't get him back

  • U.S. Says Deportation of Maryland Man Was an 'Administrative Error'

  • The Lawless Evil of Denying Due Process

  • Trump administration admits Maryland man sent to El Salvador prison by mistake

  • Admin Admits Deporting Wrong Guy to El Salvador Prison–They Won't Bring Him Home

  • The Atlantic Got Caught Lying Again. This Time on a Deportation Fake News Sob Story.

  first, he’s an illegal alien. Second, he’s not some father: he’s a member of MS-13, which was buried in the story. This man was also cited by the courts as a danger to public safety six years ago.

• Zuckerberg Tries to Enlist Trump in Fight Against Meta EU Ruling

• You Can Still Read NASA's Deleted "First Woman" Graphic Novels

• Anti-American Sentiment Rises in Europe as Trump Fuels Anger

• 'A hostile state': Why some travellers are avoiding the US

• America's Future Is Hungary

• US tells European companies to comply with Donald Trump's anti-diversity order

• Entire staff at federal agency that funds libraries and museums put on leave

• Furry hackers who leaked Heritage Foundation data feared raided by feds

• It was the woke elites who ‘purged’ America’s museums, not Donald Trump - spiked

  This month’s Doublespeak Award goes to the BBC. President Trump is spearheading a ‘purge’ of America’s top museums, it breathlessly reports. The madman in the White House has instructed the Smithsonian Institution to put back all ‘memorials and statues’ that were ‘improperly removed’ from federal property in recent years, the Beeb says. Hold up. Call me a stickler for linguistic accuracy, but isn’t a purge when you tear monuments down, not when you put them back up?

  Yes, a new Orwellian diktat has dropped: war is peace, freedom is slavery, and reversing a purge is a purge. What the BBC and others are madly calling Trump’s ‘purge’ is outlined in his latest executive order. It’s titled ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History’. It ‘targets’ the Smithsonian Institution, which oversees 21 museums in the US, 17 of which are in Washington, DC. It tells the Smithsonian to cut out the ‘anti-American ideology’, resist any exhibitions that ‘divide Americans by race’, and restore monuments that were toppled or hidden away in the service of woke ideology over the past five years. Shorter version: stop purging. Imagine how drunk on the Kool-Aid of anti-Trumpism you would need to be to describe a plea to museums to stop erasing American history and stop hiding American artefacts as a ‘purge’. The clue is in the name, people: the order is about ‘restoring’ things, not purging them. It says the Smithsonian and its museums were once ‘global icon[s] of cultural achievement’, but of late they’ve fallen under the sway of ‘a divisive, race-centred ideology’ that depicts ‘American and Western values as inherently harmful’. And that stops now, it says.

• Cutting Off NPR and PBS

• Why America now eats a crazy number of avocados

• Top US Scientists "SOS" Letter to the Government

• University student targeted by Trump leaves the US

• University student targeted by Trump leaves the US

• 'Chaos': Trump cuts to Noaa disrupt staffing and weather forecasts

• Doge Is Trying to Gift Itself a $500M Building

• What Smoot-Hawley can teach us about U.S. tariffs, according to economists

• Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Is "Only a Matter of Time"

• Bill targeting noncitizen voting: 'There would be extensive uncertainty'

• Crossing the U.S. Border?

• Layoffs begin at US health agencies which research, track disease, regulate food

  • 'One of the darkest days': NIH purges agency leadership amid mass layoffs

• The Continuing Crisis, Part X: Reductions in Force, Gains in Centralized Power

• Trump Pauses Federal Grants to Princeton

  • Princeton Says Trump Administration Is Halting Research Grant Funding

• Tesla Owners Not Connected to DOGE or Musk Are Acceptable Victims, According to 31% of Democrats

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• DOJ to seek death penalty for Luigi Mangione in CEO murder case

  • US to seek death penalty for Luigi Mangione

World

• New cyber laws to safeguard UK economy and secure long-term growth

• French court bars Marine Le Pen from public office for embezzlement

• Argentina's poverty rate falls as Javier Milei tames inflation

• Toddler kicked out of nursery for being transphobic

  Department for Education (DfE) data show the child, aged either three or four, was suspended from a state school in the 2022-23 academic year for “abuse against sexual orientation and gender identity”. The school and further details of the case were not disclosed. But statistics show that 94 pupils at state primary schools were suspended or permanently excluded for transphobia and homophobia in 2022-23. These included 10 pupils from year one and three from year two, where the maximum age is seven. One of these included a child of nursery age, the data show.

• Golden Visa Reset Tempts Wealthy to Eye New Zealand as Haven

• Parents banned from driving kids to four schools' gates in new Dublin initiative

• Turkish protests – is this the end for Erdogan?

• India's 'Google Tax' Move Is a Sneak Peek into Tariff Quagmire

• EU and UK fine carmakers millions over recycling cartel

Iran / Houthi

• Houthi Ballistic Missile Launches On Israel Now Daily, Despite US Operation | ZeroHedge

China

• Huawei 2024 revenue surges to near-record high

• China launches military drills around Taiwan, calls its president a "parasite"

  • Beijing moves drills closer to Taiwan, with Shandong carrier in 'response zone'

• China delays $23B sale of Panama Canal ports to US-backed consortium led by BlackRock.

• Apple's App Store used to host free VPN apps with ties to China military

Health / Medicine

• The Only Narcan Vending Machine in Alabama

• Experimental Lilly drug cuts genetic heart disease risk factor by 94% in trial

• Autism’s missing women

  Almost every autism-related website, research paper or journal article tells us that autism occurs much more frequently in boys, on average about four times as often, although ratios of 15:1 have sometimes been quoted. But suppose you were told that teachers, presented with identical vignettes of hypothetical children, are more likely to identify the child as autistic and in need of support if the child is called ‘Jack’ than if the child is called ‘Chloe’. That girls who are eventually diagnosed as autistic may wait several more years than boys to be assessed. That research shows that up to 80 per cent of autistic females may initially receive an inappropriate diagnosis – of social anxiety, or an eating disorder, or borderline personality disorder – before it is recognised that they are autistic.

• Men's turn: US scientists unveil a hormone-free male birth control pill

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Big banks predict catastrophic warming, with profit potential

• Supply roads to Canada's Indigenous communities under threat from climate crisis

• "the worst bee loss in recorded history,"

  • We didn't bother recording last time because it turned out not to have happened then, either.

• The world keeps running out of helium. A race to prepare for the next shortage

• Average person will be 40% poorer if world warms by 4C, new research shows

• World's largest wildlife crossing reaches critical milestone. Now what?

• The neglected contribution of ground-nesting bees to soil functions