2025-04-14

Horseshit

• Airport face scans could replace boarding passes and check-in as soon as 2028

• Ghost stores: retailers promoting closing-down sales for shops that don't exist

• Universal basic income: German experiment bring surprising results

• Why educational inequality runs in families: Genetics more than environment

• A Secretive Gambler Called 'The Joker' Took Down the Texas Lottery

• Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

• Why Our Brains Crave Ideology

• An Arkansas City Became an Epicenter of the Biking World

• Tech workers are leaving notes in robot taxis seeking workers and lovers

• someone spent some PR money recently: Is this the $200K ticket to cheating death?

  • The hidden flaw in cryonics that could ruin your shot at living forever | BBC Science Focus Magazine

• Homeless in Colorado may sleep in their cars if they have a job

• Real-world problems that quantum computers could help solve

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Hacktivism is back – but don't be fooled, it's often state-backed goons in masks

Musk

• Tesla Releases Stripped RWD Cybertruck: So Much Worse for Not Much Less Money

• Europe is trying to leave Starlink behind

• Tesla accused of using sneaky tactic to dodge car repairs

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Latest crisis in education: Many university degrees may now be obtained by fraud

• Skepticism about the science establishment, then and now

  My point in discussing this book from 1991 is not to say that it’s always been this way, or to minimize the problems and opportunities associated with distrust of authority. Rather, I think these issues are real, and I also think it’s important to look at them with more historical perspective, rather than attributing this distrust to a recent mixture of the 2008 recession, the covid epidemic, and battles over masks and lockdowns.

• In Portland, teachers are missing more school than ever

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• How Meta has blown $45B failing at the metaverse

• Instagram artificially boosting negative comments

• Funkwhale Against Fascism

  Given the current political climate, we want to talk about making Funkwhale more actively involved in the fight against far-right ideologies. To achieve this, we're developing a filter to remove all far-right-associated artists from the network. Since anti-fascism is not optional in our community, this filter will be hardcoded into our codebase, preventing right-wing extremists from using Funkwhale. But who decides what constitutes far-right content? How do we moderate and fact-check this information? We believe the best approach is to have a centralized system with experience in fighting misinformation collectively. So, we’ve nominated... The Wikimedia Foundation!

• Google Pixel 9a Review: Still the Best Smartphone

  • Google outbid apple for this review?

• Google's Chrome team is planning to fix a bug that's been around for 23 years.

  A 23-year-old side-channel attack for spying on people's web browsing histories will get shut down in the forthcoming Chrome 136, released last Thursday to the Chrome beta channel. At least that's the hope. The privacy attack, referred to as browser history sniffing, involves reading the color values of web links on a page to see if the linked pages have been visited previously.

• iPads could get more Mac-like features soon

• You might not need a phone case any more

• 'Mario Kart World' Goes Open World with Free Roam for Nintendo Switch 2

• Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to 'delete all IP law'

• The biggest trial in Meta's history starts Monday. Here's what to know

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

• Mandatory short duration TLS certificates are probably coming soon

  This pain will arrive well before 2029; based on the proposed changes, starting March 15, 2027, the maximum certificate validity period will be 100 days, which is short enough to be decidedly annoying. Even a 250 day validity period (starting March 15 2026) will be somewhat painful to do by hand. I expect one consequence to be that some number of (internal) devices stop having valid TLS certificates, because they can only have certificates loaded into them manually and no one is going to do that every 40-dd or even every 90-odd days. You might manually get and load a valid TLS certificate every year; you certainly won't do it every three months (well, almost no one will).

• A tricky Commodore PET repair: tracking down 6 1/2 bad chips

  When I first powered up the computer, I was greeted with a display full of random characters. This was actually reassuring since it showed that most of the computer was working: not just the monitor, but the video RAM, character ROM, system clock, and power supply were all operational. With an oscilloscope, I examined signals on the system bus and found that the clock, address, and data lines were full of activity, so the 6502 CPU seemed to be operating. However, some of the data lines had three voltage levels, as shown below. This was clearly not good, and suggested that a chip on the bus was messing up the data signals.

  CNN was filming an interview with Bill Gates and they wanted background footage of the 1970s-era computers that ran the Microsoft BASIC that Bill Gates wrote. Spoiler: I didn't get my computer working in time for CNN, but Marc found some other computers.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Everyone's jumping on the AI doll trend – but what are the concerns?

• Generative AI is learning to spy for the U.S. military

• Anthropic removes Biden-era AI policy commitments from its website

• Meta's AI, built on ill-gotten content, can probably build a digital you

• How TikTok's Parent, ByteDance, Became an A.I. Powerhouse

• The Bitter Prediction

  One day, it hit me: the amount of money I had in the game must somehow be stored in the save files! I could use my hex editor to change it. Sure enough, my plan worked. I awarded myself a generous donation, and for a few hours, I was thrilled. I could buy all the cool stuff I couldn’t afford before and I had no problem fending off the pesky alien invasion. Aliens were no match for my hex editor.The next day, I stopped playing the game. It wasn’t fun anymore. It left me unsatisfied. Sure, I would win every time, but I didn’t enjoy it. Not only that, even playing without cheating lost its shine. Why bother playing when I knew there was an easier way to win? This is the exact same feeling I’m left with after a few days of using Claude Code. I don’t enjoy using the tool as much as I enjoy writing code, but if it gets me to the goal faster, no sane employer would allow me to do it any other way. Will programming eventually be relegated to a hobby? Something that you can do in your spare time to amuse yourself, like a crossword puzzle?

  Fast forward a few weeks, and I started noticing how much money I was spending on these tools. Programming used to be an amortized O(1) cost endeavor: once you had your computer, it was essentially free. If it hadn’t been, I’m sure I wouldn’t have had a chance to get into it as a kid. Working with an AI agent, I sometimes find myself spending $5 a day on code generation and refactoring. This deeply concerns me. In some countries, more than 90% of the population lives on less than $5 per day. If agentic AI code generation becomes the most effective way to write high-quality code, this will create a massive barrier to entry. Access to technology is already a major class and inequality problem. My bitter prediction is that these expensive frontier models will become as indispensable for software development as they are inaccessible to most of the world’s population. Don't even get me started on the green house gas emissions of data centers...

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

Crypto con games

• The US Is Turning a Blind Eye to Crypto Crimes

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Cocoa prices are rising so new chocolate firms are using alternative ingredients

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• DOE Identifies 16 Federal Sites for Data Center and AI Infrastructure

• Police investigating arson after Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence fire | ABC27

  Governor Josh Shapiro says an “arsonist” set fire to the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg overnight while he and his family were home. Everyone inside the home was in a separate section of the residence and was able to evacuate safely when firefighters and State Police responded to the North Front Street home around 2 a.m. Sunday morning. Pennsylvania State Police say the investigation is ongoing, however, authorities have confirmed that this was an act of arson after a significant portion of the residence was damaged.

Trump

• Trump Adds Tariff Exemptions for Smartphones, Computers and Other Electronics

  • After market tumult, Trump exempts smartphones from new tariffs

• US tech tariff exemption may only be temporary, says Lutnick

  • Trump Commerce says exemptions for phones, computers not permanent

  • Trump plans separate levy on exempted electronics amid trade war, Lutnick says

• RFK Jr.: 'By September we will know what has caused the autism epidemic'

• White House Releases Results of Trump's Annual Physical Exam

• Trump announces "no Tariff 'exception' announced on Friday"

• Trump Signals New Tariffs on Chips

Democrats

• Bernie Sanders urges Coachella crowd to stand up against ‘US oligarchy.’

  • comment

  “Bernie Sanders making a surprise appearance at Coachella to sermonize on the evils of wealth in front of a crowd of people who paid at least $600 a ticket to be there is peak 21st century Democratic Party.”

• The left gives up on saving the planet

Left Angst

• No One at the Ports Is Collecting Trump's Tariffs

• Apple Was on Brink of Crisis Before Tariff Concession from Trump

• White House proposal would slash NASA science budget and cancel major missions

• The Trump Tariffs Just Got Even Worse

• Chinese suppliers are offering U.S. sellers a tariff solution–but it's not legal

• How Much Are Tariffs on Chinese Goods? It's Trickier Than You Think

• In South Carolina, a Once Thriving Textile Hub Is Baffled by Trump's Tariffs

• Scores of Coal-Fired Power Plants Exempted from Rules by Trump

• The Economist Declares Europe the New 'Land of the Free,' and Holy Cow, the Replies – RedState

• Infosec experts fear China could retaliate against tariffs with a Typhoon attack

• Trump's iPhone olive branch is a significant trade war retreat

• Trump Is Using Emergency Law to Impose Tariffs. Is That Legal?

• On Tariffs, It's Good to Be Tim Cook

• FTC now has three Republicans and no Democrats instead of the typical 3-2 split.

• China Halts Critical Exports as Trade War Intensifies

• The Bond Market's Rout Is Bad News for the U.S. Economy

• Nostalgia for manufacturing will make the US poorer

• Revolt brews against RFK Jr. as experts pen rally cries in top medical journal

• 'Something worse than recession' worries predictor of 2008 financial crisis

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Insane Case: WI Teen Charged With Murdering Parents In ‘Neo-Nazi’ Satanic Plot To Kill Trump

  He also wrote of kicking off a race war, in order to “save the white race from Jewish control,” manufacturing bombs, and assassinating “Jewish politicians and billionaires.” When authorities recovered messages from Casap’s devices, they discovered that he had gotten as far as communicating with international accomplices, seeking out how to acquire explosives and drone weaponisation kits to deliver explosives and poisons, and was formulating an escape to Ukraine after completing “the job.”

  • Wisconsin teen allegedly killed parents in extremist plot to assassinate Trump, FBI says - ABC News

World

• Germany suspects Russian cyber attack on research group

• Thailand's prime minister survives no-confidence motion

• Amazon Turned Drivers into First Responders in Europe Experiment

• How Pakistan quietly became world’s biggest solar importer

• South Korea's 'heartbreaking' wildfires expose superaged society

• Venezuelan migrants' arrival in El Salvador: "They had no idea what was coming"

Israel

• The campaign to end Microsoft's collaboration with the Israeli army

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Ukraine's DIY drone makers are helping fighters on the front lines

China

• Samsung turns to China to boost its ailing semiconductor division

Health / Medicine

• Top regrets at the end of life, according to a death doula's 1k patients

• A scientist offers a simple, fascinating theory why mRNA jabs may have caused diffuse problems in so many people

  Could a few days of really severe inflammation have marginally sped up the process of those diseases in millions or tens (or even hundreds) of millions of jab recipients? Essentially, could the shots have done the equivalent of aging many of their recipients a few months or a year or two — in a few days? This theory is, of course, highly speculative. It would require a massive scientific effort to evaluate, much less prove.

• RNA Motifs Coming Into Focus | Science | AAAS

  For someone used to proteins, it's an interesting experience. From a distance, you'd certainly think that you were looking at amino-acid-based tertiary and quaternary structure, but as you get closer you see complementary base-pairing and the other features of oligonucleotide interactions, and you realize that you're in an alien landscape. These multimers interact with proteins in living systems in all sorts of ways, and the structural details of those interfaces (along with their dynamic behavior) is a complex area that's going to be of great interest. I'm very happy that we have developed the tools to start feeling our way into this terrain, and I look forward to seeing what gets discovered! And who knows - if we can assemble a few tens of thousands (or more) of structures like this, maybe we can start predicting them the way that we do with proteins.

• Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong?

• Erectile dysfunction as an indicator of cardiovascular health

  the medical community has long recognized an association between erectile function and cardiovascular (CV) health, which has been supported by decades of research. And yet, despite the strong correlation, there remains a glaring gap in public awareness and understanding of what ED can actually signify about systemic vascular issues and risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).

  ED does not merely co-occur in many instances with CVD — it frequently precedes overt cardiovascular symptoms due to the smaller diameter of penile arteries compared to coronary arteries. (Indeed, as we’ve often pointed out in the past, cardiovascular disease itself often has no symptoms at all until the occurrence of a potentially fatal event such as a heart attack or stroke.) This implies that ED could often be one of the first signs of systemic vascular disease, acting as an early warning rather than merely a concurrent symptom.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Can You Stop an Outbreak of a Contagious Disease?

• Audit: Cuomo Spent $453M On 247,343 Medical Devices For COVID... State Used Only 3 | ZeroHedge

  According to state comptroller Tom DiNapoli, New York bought a staggering 247,343 medical devices, but only wound up using a laughable three pieces of equipment out of the vast horde. Worse, the waste was only compounded by the state's utter neglect of its fiduciary duties to taxpayers. Rather than finding buyers for the once-valuable assets, bureaucrats have been content to let the equipment age and decay in warehouses. As if the erosion of the stockpiles weren't bad enough, New York is also wasting money on storage costs. “New York state bought hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of medical equipment at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, including ventilators and x-ray machines, that now sits unused in storage facilities across the state, missing recommended maintenance and costing taxpayers storage expenses,” said Napoli's office. Of the equipment that requires ongoing maintenance, auditors found that 90% of it is past due, with no process or contract in place to handle that need. Failure to keep up with maintenance risks voiding manufacturer warranties, and also rendering the equipment unusable in an emergency.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Keystone Pipeline spills estimated 3,500 barrels of crude oil

• Six decades of plankton decline sparks call to protect the marine food web

• A mysterious ocean glow reported for over 400 years has stumped scientists