2025-04-28
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From Walden Pond to the Ganges - by George Dillard
the idea of a truly global ice trade — of Massachusetts ice going all the way to India, becoming accessible to more than a tiny elite — was a product of the globalizing nineteenth century and the stubborn drive of one businessman. Frederic Tudor reminds me a little bit of the startup bros of the twenty-first century. When he pioneered the idea of transporting ice all over the world, he was a familiar type: a young, ambitious, stubborn guy from a wealthy background who had skipped college at Harvard to jump into the business world and make money.
Tudor died a very rich man in 1864, and his industry continued to prosper for a few decades afterward. But inventors eventually devised machines that could make ice from water.
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The Missteps That Led to a Fatal Plane Crash at Reagan National Airport - The New York Times
On Jan. 29, the Black Hawk crew did not execute visual separation effectively. The pilots either did not detect the specific passenger jet the controller had flagged, or could not pivot to a safer position. Instead, one second before 8:48 p.m., the helicopter slammed into American Airlines Flight 5342, which was carrying 64 people to Washington from Wichita, Kan., killing everyone aboard both aircraft in a fiery explosion that lit the night sky over the river.
Direct, immediate intervention was needed that night. Instead of seeing and avoiding Flight 5342, Captain Lobach continued flying straight at it. Investigators might never know why. There is no indication that she was suffering from health issues at the time or that a medical event affected her during those final moments aboard the Black Hawk, according to friends and people familiar with the crash investigation, which included autopsies and performance log reviews. Two seconds after the controller’s cut out instruction about passing behind the jet, Warrant Officer Eaves replied, affirming for the second time that the Black Hawk saw the traffic. “PAT two-five has the aircraft in sight. Request visual separation,” he said. “Vis sep approved,” the controller replied. It was their last communication.
The Black Hawk was 15 seconds away from crossing paths with the jet. Warrant Officer Eaves then turned his attention to Captain Lobach. He told her he believed that air traffic control wanted them to turn left, toward the east river bank. Turning left would have opened up more space between the helicopter and Flight 5342, which was heading for Runway 33 at an altitude of roughly 300 feet. She did not turn left.
Horseshit
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New study reveals wealth inequality was never inevitable
Based on a massive dataset of over 50,000 houses in some 1,000 archaeological sites worldwide, the study suggests that economic inequality is not an inevitable result of societal advancement, agriculture, or population. Instead, it seems to be a consequence of political choices and governance structures.
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Time to quit your pointless job, become morally ambitious and change the world
Moral ambition is the will to make the world a wildly better place. To devote your working life to the great challenges of our time, whether that’s the climate crisis or corruption, gross inequality or the next pandemic. It’s a longing to make a difference – and to build a legacy that truly matters.
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What Porn Did to American Culture - The Atlantic
The world we live in has been molded by the porn we watch—and you don’t have to look too hard to find it. Instagram models hawk their OnlyFans subscriptions, sex workers post “Day in My Life” vlogs, and the market for erotic romance novels is a gold mine. People’s interest in sex is a demand that has long been met with ready supply, but porn is not an inert product: As Americans feed the multibillion-dollar industry’s growth, it gives something back to American culture.
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Trust collapsing as job fears surge worldwide, warns UN
Despite people living longer, being better educated and more connected than ever before, many believe that life today is worse than it was 50 years ago. Close to 60 per cent of people surveyed on life satisfaction reported that they were “struggling” with a further 12 per cent describing themselves as “suffering”, the report notes. economic instability is no longer limited to the world’s poorest regions. Even in high-income countries, rising job uncertainty, gig work and the digital transition are contributing to this trend. These jobs may offer flexibility but often come at the cost of security and rights – reducing workers to mere service providers in a commodified labour market.
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Unraveling the Colorful History of Why Girls Wear Pink and Boys Wear Blue
celebrity gossip
Electric / Self Driving cars
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Are they not an independant bookstore? Amazon Just Happens to Hold Book Sale During Independent Bookstore Day
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Asus RTX 50 GPUs feature built-in gyroscope and accelerometer to detect sag
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Meta's 'Digital Companions' Will Talk Sex with Users–Even Children
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Google will stop supporting early Nest thermostats on October 25
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Hundreds of smartphone apps are monitoring users through their microphones
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Former Disney employee who hacked Disney World menus sentenced to 3 years
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Gen Z ditch Meta and turn to Tumblr as a social media safe space
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Apple Conformer-Based Speech Recognition on Extreme Edge-Computing Devices
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New APNIC director general steps up to steer the internet for 4B users
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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(2014) How many bytes can you pack on a floppy, and how to hack the FDC to achieve it
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(2007) Tim Paterson: The First DOS Machine
The software situation did not change until I wrote DOS for this machine, first shipping it in August 1980. When IBM introduced their PC in August 1981, its 8088 processor used 8-bit memory, virtually identical in performance to using 8-bit memory with the SCP 8086 CPU. Except IBM ran their processor at 4.77 MHz while the SCP machine ran at 8 MHz. So the SCP 8086 computer system was about three times faster than the IBM PC. IBM also reintroduced memory limitations that I had specifically avoided in designing the 8086 CPU. For S-100 computers, a low-cost alternative to using a regular computer terminal was to use a video card. The video card, however, used up some of the memory address space. The boot ROM would normally use up address space as well. SCP systems were designed to be used with a terminal, and the boot ROM could be disabled after boot-up. This made the entire 1 MB of memory address space available for RAM. IBM, on the other hand, had limited the address space in their PC to 640 KB of RAM due to video and boot/BIOS ROM. This limitation has been called the "DOS 640K barrier", but it had nothing to do with DOS.
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USB 2.0 is 25 years old today – the interface standard that changed the world
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
Democrats
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Obama era CAFE standards had the opposite of the desired impact: sedans died, vehicles ballooned in size, and America's streets turned into an SUV parking lot. All thanks to a policy that accidentally incentivized bloat instead of efficiency. Don't get me started on "cash for clunkers!"
Left Angst
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Doge is building a master database for immigration enforcement, sources say
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Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
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Tech industry tried reducing AI's pervasive bias. Now Trump wants to end woke AI
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U.S. autism data project sparks uproar over ethics, privacy and intent
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Against the Tyranny of Opinionated Ignorance
The recent disagreement on The Joe Rogan Experience—between journalist Douglas Murray on one hand and Rogan and comedian Dave Smith on the other—has exposed a problem with the populist media ecosystem: the casual normalisation and celebration of opinions untethered to knowledge. In what follows, I offer eight brief reflections on this trend and its hazards.
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Musk Shutting Down Government Loan Office That Gave Him the Money to Grow Tesla
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Decision could allow agencies to skip climate analysis when approving projects
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Trump admin says it wants a nuclear Renaissance. These actions suggest otherwise
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Clean energy manufacturers cancel projects as Trump-era policies take hold
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Trump's new tariffs are placing administrative burden on Customs agents
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The American democratic republic has died. It was 236 years old
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
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German Court Orders Meta to Pay a Tiny 200€ Fine over GDPR Non-Compliance
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Tokyo court fines Amazon Japan ¥35M over counterfeit products
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9 people killed after SUV rams into Vancouver street festival | CBC News
Nine people have been killed and multiple others injured after the driver of a black SUV slammed into a crowd Saturday evening at a street festival in Vancouver celebrating the contributions of the Filipino Canadian community, police say. Rai, in a midnight news briefing, said bystanders held the suspect until police could arrive. He said the man was known to police "in certain circumstances." Rai said the event had been assessed and monitored for security with stakeholders — including those in charge of garbage trucks used in the past to block streets from traffic. "We are confident that this incident was not an act of terrorism," Vancouver police said on X.
In an update by VPD Interim Chief Steve Rai just after 12 a.m., police confirm that a 30-year-old Vancouver man is in custody. Rai says the suspect is “known to police in certain circumstances.” “We have some knowledge of interactions. It would be unfair and inappropriate to the investigation and to a proper conclusion for the investigation if I taint it with any details right now,” he said.
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Ukrainians gather to mark the 39th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster
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Canadians average more work-from-home days than any country, global survey finds
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Unemployed youths 'won't get out of bed for anything less than £40k': Lords told
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How the idea of stripping citizenship for crimes spread across Europe
Iran / Houthi
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
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Chinese firms race to open US factories to avoid sky-high tariffs
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Where 'Made in China 2025' missed the mark
When Beijing released its “Made in China 2025” plan in 2015, it was met with significant international criticism for promoting Chinese business at the expense of their foreign counterparts. The country subsequently downplayed the initiative, but has doubled-down on domestic tech development given U.S. restrictions in the last several years.