2025-04-16

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• 'End of an era': The last RadioShack in Maryland is closing its doors

Horseshit

• 'We Are Not Programmed to Die,' Says Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan

• First-in-the-nation bill would let students live in cars

• Passenger's bathroom problem is another headache for Boeing

• The Techno-Utopians Who Want to Colonize the Sea

• A Scientist Is Paid to Study Maple Syrup. He's Also Paid to Promote It

• 570 million Frenchmen

  The demographic transition is usually thought to be driven by economic forces, but – in France at least – culture came first. Using data from online family trees, my work shows how the loosening of traditional religious moral constraints in Ancien Régime France drove the decline in fertility, setting France off on a wholly different course from England, which was about to see a dramatic increase in its population. From the dawn of humanity to the eighteenth century, human life was dominated by starvation, poverty, wars, and pandemics. It was nasty, brutish, and short, just like that of apes or any other animals.

• An Obituary for Millennial Culture

• A billionaire Russian 'sugar daddy' took over an iconic Olympic sport

• CEO Explains How He Faked Results in $300M Meltdown

• What Porn Taught a Generation of Women

celebrity gossip

• After Forty Years, Phish Isn't Seeking Resolution

• Ken Griffey Jr. Explains How He Became a Photographer at This Year's Masters

• Blue Origin spaceflight faces more backlash after launch: This is beyond parody

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Conservative Americans consistently distrust science, survey finds

  • Science doesn't need trust, it needs replication.

• Nonprofit newsroom Houston Landing to cease operations

  Houston Landing launched in February 2023, funded with a seed investment of over $20 million from the Houston Endowment, Arnold Ventures, Kinder Foundation, American Journalism Project and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Houston Landing was born out of a two-year study spearheaded by the American Journalism Project that found many Houstonians do not feel they have access to a trusted source for deeply reported stories that impact their daily lives.

Musk

• How Starlink took over Africa's largest internet market

• Crosswalk speakers across Silicon Valley hacked to play Musk begging for friends

• Starlink can be used as a global spectrum analyzer

• Tesla accused of hacking odometers to weasel out of warranty repairs

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Waymo to begin data collection in Tokyo with driver-operated test rides

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Zuckerberg's 2012 email dubbed "smoking gun" at Meta monopoly trial

  • Zuckerberg in the Dock

  • Mark Zuckerberg Takes the Stand

  • Meta vs. FTC, the Three Facebook Eras, Video Slop and Market Forces

  • Mark Zuckerberg considered spinning off Instagram from Facebook in 2018

  • Zuckerberg testifies on emails about Instagram, WhatsApp deals

  • Mark Zuckerberg's Failed Negotiations with the FTC to End Meta's Antitrust Case

  • Zuckerberg's antitrust testimony aired his wildest ideas in Meta's history

• 4chan hacked. Hacker reopens /QA/ and leaks all admins emails

  • 4chan Hacked

  • Is 4chan Down? What We Know Amid Hack Reports

  • 4Chan was hacked, its source code was leaked, admin emails were leaked

  • 4chan is down following an alleged hack

  • 4chan's 'cesspool of the internet' is down after apparently being hacked

  • 4chan hacked, internal data leaked on rival image board

  • Infamous message board 4chan taken down following major hack

  • 4chan down since Monday night after "pretty comprehensive own"

  • Hacked 4chan, Internet's 'cesspool', goes offline amid unconfirmed leak rumors

• New SSL/TLS certs to each live no longer than 47 days by 2029

• Hollywood Is Cranking Out Original Movies. Audiences Aren't Showing Up.

• Hertz says hackers stole customer credit card and driver's license data

• Chroma, Ubisoft's internal tool used to simulate color-blindness, open sourced

• PS5 price rises substantially in UK and Europe

• Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti arrives on April 16th starting at $379

• American Airlines to make Wi-Fi free on most of its fleet in 2026

• Apple airlifted iPhones worth a record $2B from India in March

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• A weird phrase is plaguing scientific papers due to a glitch in AI training data

• The Industrialization of IT

• The Post-Developer Era

• The problem with "vibe coding"

• The Utopian, or Dystopian, Future of Vibe Coding

• Apple to Analyze User Data on Devices to Bolster AI Technology

• ChatGPT's Studio Ghibli-style images are no laughing matter

• Teachers Worry About Students Using A.I. But They Love It for Themselves

• AI isn't ready to replace human coders for debugging, researchers say

• DeepSeek Being Applied Across China, Used for Surveillance and Propaganda

• Sex-Fantasy Chatbots Are Leaking a Constant Stream of Explicit Messages

• OpenAI is reportedly developing its own X-like social media platform

  • OpenAI is building a social network

• Anthropic's Claude can now read your Gmail

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Should we settle Mars, or is it a dumb idea for humans to live off world?

Crypto con games

• Bitcoin Core 29.0 Released

Economicon / Business / Finance

• CEO Explains How He Faked Results in $300M Meltdown

• another "Private equity rollup" field: Vets say they are under pressure to bring in more money per pet

• Even Credit Unions Are in on Banks' Junk Fee Racket

• AMD set to produce its CPU chip at TSMC plant in Arizona

• Novartis plans to invest $23B in US sites as Trump renews tariff threats

• Fed resists pressure to rescue Treasury market

• JPMorgan, BNY Limit Information Sharing with US Currency Comptroller After Hack

  • Big Banks Alarmed After Their Regulator Gets Hacked

• Deel's CEO is now in Dubai, complicating Rippling's lawsuit

• Figma confidentially files for US IPO after $20B Adobe deal collapse

• Trade War Sparks Run on US Warehouses with Tariff Loophole

• Trump Tariff Turmoil: Tech’s ‘Zombie Unicorns’ Reach the End of Days - Bloomberg

  President Donald Trump’s tariff tantrum has so far delivered only bad news for tech - as it has for just about everyone except MAGA diehards. Fintech firm Klarna Group Plc and ticketing platform StubHub have paused their initial public offering plans, threatening to starve venture firms of the cash they need to satisfy investors. That suggests the last two years of declines in startup funding have further to drop. But there are silver linings for tech founders and their backers. The tariff shock could offer a healthy correction to an ecosystem that has long struggled to focus on financial fundamentals.

  Even before the last two years of AI hype that fueled bubbly tech valuations, Silicon Valley had a zombie unicorn problem: Many startups that attained unicorn status by getting a valuation of $1 billion or more had dwindling prospects and little hope of justifying their status. In 2021, for instance, more than 354 startups reached the billion-dollar threshold, but only six have since held IPOs, according to a recent Bloomberg News report. Several others were acquired for less than $1 billion, while those that managed to raise venture capital funding did so at a lower valuation, a so-called down round. The result is that as of February 2025, there were a record 1,200 venture-backed unicorns that had yet to go public or get acquired, according to CB Insights.

  • The people who see their years long free ride ending are very upset.

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• FAA Moves to Protect Aircraft Owners' Private Information

• ‘An unlimited piggy bank:’ Inside a powerful union’s lavish spending - POLITICO

  Labor leader George Gresham has for years used union money to benefit himself, his family and political allies.

• Arkansas moves to ban candy, soda from SNAP eligibility

Democrats

• Abundance: Big Tech’s Bid for the Democratic Party

  The Tech Right has gained major influence in Washington by funding Republicans. The Abundance faction has taken a different route: funding Democrats.

  To understand the politics of the “Abundance Agenda,” look to the San Francisco Bay Area, where tech billionaire–backed groups successfully took over the city’s Democratic Party.6 They ousted a Democratic Socialist from the Board of Supervisors and helped elect several tech-aligned,7 right-leaning Democrats.8 In a state as blue as California, even conservatives run as Democrats—many backed by donors who fund Republicans nationally.9 What began as the Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) project’s narrow focus on zoning reform evolved into a sweeping pro-growth, neoliberal, and socially moderate brand of politics. “Abundance!” now serves as a rallying cry for a new kind of Democrat: techno-optimistic, skeptical of government, and supportive of a welfare state only when it comes with harsh restrictions.10 This agenda has been disastrous for San Francisco’s poor and working class. Mayor London Breed—who tech-backed Abundance groups campaigned for—successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to allow further criminalization of homelessness,11 even when no shelter is available.12

  • 65 footnotes! how scholarly...

Left Angst

• The Continuing Crisis, Part XII: Behold RFK Jr.'S FDA

• RFK Jr pledges to find the cause of autism by September

• Trump administration freezes funds for Harvard

  • $2.2B freeze on Harvard after university rejects policy changes

  • Trump administration freezes $2.2B in grants to Harvard

  • Trump Administration Will Freeze $2B After Harvard Refuses Demands

  • Trump administration announces freeze in $2.2B for Harvard

  • Harvard's Strength and How Far We've Fallen So Quickly

  • Trump freezes $2B in Harvard funds after it rejects demands

  • Trump threatens Harvard's tax-exempt status, escalating a billion-dollar feud

  • Trump Threatens Harvard's Tax-Exempt Status After School's Rebuke

  • Trump threatens to remove Harvard's tax-exempt status

  • I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

  I’ve blasted the takeover of entire departments and unrelated student clubs and campus common areas by the dogmatic belief that the State of Israel (and only Israel, among all nations on earth) should be eradicated, by the use of that belief as a litmus test for entry. Since October 7, I’ve dealt with comments and emails pretty much every day calling me a genocidal Judeofascist Zionist. So I hope it means something when I say: today I salute Harvard for standing up to the Trump administration. And I’ll say so in person, when I visit Harvard’s math department later this week to give the Fifth Annual Yip Lecture, on “How Much Math Is Knowable?”

• Pardon my whoops of laughter over "independence": Columbia Vows to Reject Any Trump Deal That Erodes Its Independence

• As Columbia Folds, Harvard Shows What Institutional Courage Looks Like

• EU gives staff 'burner phones, laptops' for US visits

• Trump Moves to Put New Tariffs on Computer Chips and Drugs

• Why It's Impossible for Most Small Businesses to Manufacture in the US

• As China tariffs kill fast fashion, a rave-wear startup sees opportunity

• The rise of end time fascism

• Nvidia's Mar-a-Lago Dinner Looks Like a Raw Deal for US AI

• Trump Revenge Tour Targets Cyber Leaders, Elections

• Palestinian activist arrested by ICE while expecting U.S. citizenship interview

• Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensitive NLRB data

• Lawyers say El Salvador blocks access to detained Venezuelans

• DOGE's tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data

• Home Alone 2 director says he fears he will be deported if he cuts Trump cameo

• Doge Is Far Short of Its Goal, and Still Overstating Its Progress

• ICE Agents Realize They Arrested Wrong Teen, Say 'Take Him Anyway'

• America Underestimates the Difficulty of Bringing Manufacturing Back

• Trump's war on universities is making one thing clear: STEM and the humanities are in the same lifeboat.

• Businesses sue to block Trump tariffs, say trade deficits are not an emergency

• Trump and Bukele Bond over Human Rights Abuses in Oval Office Meeting

• Trump team has not said what it wants in trade talks, says EU

• Program for young adults with mental illness closes due to funds in limbo

  In New York, $360 million in federal health funding is on the line, including $67 million for substance use and mental health services. Some advocates and state lawmakers are pushing for Gov. Kathy Hochul to create a contingency fund in the state budget that can be used to keep the at-risk services afloat if needed. Friedman said he’s working to connect the 21 patients in the program he closed to other services.

  • So how much does treatment of each of these 21 people cost the taxpayer?

• Trump plans to stockpile deep-sea metals to counter China

• Trump is halfway to making America a police state

• Trump admin ends $12.6 Million in NIH grants to UW-Madison, including projects on ‘gender identity.’

• These 77 Colleges (And 45 Law Schools) Have The Most To Lose From Trump’s Cuts.

• FCC chair calls EU satellite strategy 'anti-American'

  • FCC head Brendan Carr tells Europe to get on board with Starlink

• "We have no bros and no oligarchs"

• US senator warns 'China is cheering' for proposed NASA budget cuts

• ISPs and robocallers love the FCC plan to "delete" as many rules as possible

• Pentagon's 'SWAT team of nerds' resigns en masse

  • Elite Pentagon Tech Unit Resigns En Masse After Clashing with Doge

• Decline in European Travelers to U.S.

• Whistleblower says DOGE may have caused 'significant cyber breach'

• US readies national security card to justify taxing Americans for foreign chips

• Trump administration will ask Congress to cut funding for NPR and PBS

• Canadian university teachers warned against travelling to the United States

• DOGE Is Collecting Federal Data to Remove Immigrants from Housing, Jobs

• Portland physics student flees Trump crackdown, months from earning his PhD

• Nvidia Faces $5.5B Hit as U.S. Restrictions Halt Chinese Sales of H20 GPU

  • Nvidia to take $5.5B hit as US clamps down on exports of AI chips to China

• Trump official tells Europe to choose between US or Chinese communications tech

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Trump blames Zelensky for starting war

• Chinese snoops use stealth RAT to backdoor US orgs – still active last week

• US Army to control land on Mexico border as part of base, migrants could be detained, officials say.

• The Senior Ranks of America’s Military Have A Loyalty Problem

  There is a cancer in America’s military ranks, and it must be expunged before it’s too late. That cancer lies in uniformed service members’ widespread rejection of the uniquely American concept of civilian control of the military and disregard for the absolute necessity that America’s military officers remain apolitical in the face of the constitutional will of the electorate. Recent events reveal this cancer, and they include the relief for cause of Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield after she reportedly refused to hang photos of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on her headquarters’ customary “Chain of Command” board and reportedly told her subordinates in a town hall that she would “wait [the Trump administration] out” the next four years. They also include the relief for cause of Col. Sussanah Meyers, commander of the U.S. Space Force’s base in Greenland, after she openly questioned (to all of her subordinates via email) Vice President J.D. Vance’s official pronouncements regarding the United States, Greenland, and Denmark.

World

• Greece unveils ambitious defense overhaul focused on high-tech deterrence

• North Korea targets Irish tech sector with undercover workers

• Japan antitrust watchdog hits Google with cease and desist order

• British Steel: Royal Navy ready to escort crucial fuel shipments to Scunthorpe steelworks amid 'sabotage' threats

  Ministers are considering deploying the Royal Navy to escort a vital fuel shipment to Scunthorpe's steelworks following yesterday's landmark takeover. The move would ensure what's said to be a cargo of coking coal reaches the UK without being intercepted or redirected - as without fresh supplies, the furnaces would burn out and be nearly impossible to restart.

• The European Commission delays its Biotech Act once again

• The EU Could Effectively Ban Carbon Fiber in New Cars Starting in 2029

• Anthony Albanese backs Australian cafe owner in Canada over reported Vegemite stoush with local authorities | Anthony Albanese | The Guardian

  • Australian owner of Toronto café chain fighting Ottawa to save $8K of Vegemite | CBC News

  earlier this year, Canadian regulators flagged his latest shipment of Vegemite, which is only produced in Australia. After inspection, they told Walters he would have to pull the item. The reason behind the decision has left Walters — and the local expat community that buys his imports — frustrated and confused. "Pulling Vegemite off our shelves hits at the core and the heart of our brand," he said. It's also put roughly $8,000 worth of Vegemite, which Walters has already paid for, in jeopardy.

• Organ Trafficking: How Germans Buy New Kidneys in Kenya

• Amid US tariff doubts, South Korea reveals $23B chip industry support

Israel

• Gaza territory shrinks drastically as Israel seizes huge swaths of land.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia's Birth Rate Plunges to 200-Year Low

• North Korea's vast operation to help Russia's war

China

• China orders carriers to suspend Boeing jet deliveries amid trade war

  • China Orders Boeing Jet Delivery Halt as Trade War Expands

  • China orders its airlines to stop accepting deliveries of Boeing jets

  • China orders its airlines to halt Boeing jet deliveries amid US trade war

• Chinese police put 3 U.S. operatives on wanted list over cyberattacks

  • China Pursuing 3 Alleged US Operatives over Cyberattacks During Asian Games

  • China accuses US of launching 'advanced' cyberattacks, names alleged NSA agents

  • China accuses US spies of Asian Winter Games cyberattacks

  • China accuses US of launching 'advanced' cyberattacks, names alleged NSA agents

• China has stopped exporting rare earths to everyone, not just the U.S.

  • China suspended exports of rare earth minerals

• Revealed: Chinese researchers can access half a million UK GP records

Health / Medicine

• Someone bought coverage of this one: Overuse of CT scans could cause 100k extra cancers in US

  • CT scans could cause 5% of cancers, study finds

  • CT Scans Projected to Result in 100k New Cancers in the US

  • CT scans could cause 5% of cancers, study finds; experts note uncertainty

• Why an Aussie lab is racing to make a vaccine for haemorrhagic fever

• Man Hospitalized After Sniffing Dirty Socks Made Fungus Grow in His Lungs

• Neural basis for individual differences in Ritalin's attention-enhancing effects

• 2 in Oregon die of rare brain disease

• Dementia rates increase, experts warn hospital emergency rooms are underprepared

• FDA OKs trial of pig livers as dialysis-like treatment for liver failure

• Pfizer ends development of weight-loss pill after patient’s liver injury.

• “23 Percent of American 17-year-old boys have an ADHD diagnosis.” – small dead animals

• The Link Between Cannabis and Psychosis in Teens Is Real

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Geothermal Energy Poised for Significant Growth in the US

• Fifteen years after a volcano shut European airspace, could it happen again?

• Colombian coffee farmers make switch to cacao as climate warms and prices soar

• 'Thirstwaves' are growing more common across the United States

  As the climate warms, the atmosphere is getting thirstier. Scientists define this atmospheric thirst, or evaporative demand, as the amount of water that could potentially evaporate from Earth's surface in response to weather.

• Ocean Iron Fertilization

• Analysis raises concerns about misuse of atrazine weedkiller in US Midwest

• Europe's hottest year signals deepening climate crisis

• Permafrost melt poses 'significant risks' to Arctic regions, scientists warn

• Millions tune in for three-week live stream of Sweden's moose migration

• Growing wildflowers on disused urban land can damage bee health