2025-05-17

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Mutation Explains the Mystifying Color of Orange Cats
Rubenerd: An open letter to Gen X

most of you do something I feel the need to point out. You seem… incapable of sharing what brings you joy in life. At least, directly. You can’t say you’re proud of something, or loved something, or be seen as too enthusiastic or eager for some reason. Everything positive you discuss has to be carefully and meticulously coached in sarcasm, irony, or a sense of aloofness.

This interests me on a sociological level; it hints at some deeper generational trauma with which I can empathise. But I want to tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way. You can be genuine! One thing I think Gen X and Millennials like me can learn from Gen Z is their willingness to be upfront about their interests, orientations, and dreams. There’s something… disarming about hearing someone open up like that, without qualifications. And boy, if any generation has some shit to share right now, it’s Gen X.

Horseshit

celebrity gossip

Obit

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

What News Is (and Isn't) According to Americans

Musk

Electric / Self Driving cars

Amazon-owned Zoox issues recall following robotaxi crash

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

Why bad philosophy is stopping progress in physics

You might think that this repeated ‘no’ to wild speculations beyond our best theories would encourage a certain humility in our methodological attitude. Yet I see little evidence for that among many of my fellow theorists, who remain intent on pursuing the next big theory ‘beyond’ those we have today. Why? My hunch is that it is at least partly because physicists are bad philosophers. Scientists’ opinions, whether they realize it or not (and whether they like it or not), are imbued with philosophy. And many of my colleagues — especially those who argue that philosophy is irrelevant — have an idea of what science should do that originates in badly digested versions of the work of two twentieth-century philosophers: Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.
After exam fiasco, California State Bar faces deeper financial crisis
It's Breathtaking How Fast AI Is Screwing Up the Education System

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

TechSuck / Geek Bait

Zstandard (ZSTD) added to Python standard library
And has done more damage than Smalltalk, ADA, and .NET: Rust Turns 10

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

Crypto con games

Economicon / Business / Finance

I was a Theranos whistleblower. Here's what I think Elizabeth Holmes is up to
Tariff fallout: Inflation, recession fears may be overblown, data suggests
- Tariffs have little impact on prices, defying forecasts - POLITICO
Programmers bore brunt of Microsoft layoffs as AI writes up to 30% of its code
NJ Transit train engineers go on strike, all rail service suspended
Consumer sentiment slides to second-lowest on record

Recent inflation data has not shown a tariff bump, as both the consumer price index and producer price index for April came in below consensus estimates.
- Neat how they're not telling us how misled the public is, how the economy is stronger than ever, etc etc.
Nvidia says it is not sending GPU designs to China
Nord Stream 2 Enters Debt Restructuring Deal with Creditors
U.S. Loses Last Triple-A Credit Rating
- US Credit Rating Cut by Moody's on Government Debt Increase
- Moody’s strips U.S. of triple-A credit rating
China Drops to No. 3 Holder of Treasuries, Falling Behind UK

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

Exclusive | New Allegations About Timing of Pfizer Covid Vaccine Passed to House Panel - WSJ

Lawmakers are investigating whether Pfizer waited to share results of the Covid vaccine in 2020 until after that year’s presidential election, based on new allegations that a former Pfizer scientist has said he was part of an effort to “deliberately slow down” the testing, according to a new letter from the House Judiciary Committee. The House panel is seeking information from Pfizer and from the scientist, Philip Dormitzer, after learning he allegedly told colleagues in 2024 at a subsequent job he was worried he would face an investigation of his role in the vaccine’s release and asked to be relocated to Canada.
Clarence Thomas Sends a Nuke Into the Left’s National Injunctions.
Rescinding the Amended Water Use Standards for Residential Dishwashers

Trump

Left Angst

FEMA Head Admits in Meetings He Doesn't yet Have a Plan for Hurricane Season
Trump's sanctions on ICC prosecutor have halted tribunal's work
- Trump's sanctions on ICC's chief prosecutor have halted tribunal's work
US Tech Visa Applications Are Being Put Through the Wringer
Political Parties Are Illegal in the United States – J. W. Mason

It is difficult for many Americans to grasp this point because Americans simply don’t have any experience of a “real” political party. They’ll say “how can you say that the Democratic Party doesn’t exist as a real political party? Democratic Party powerbrokers, including shadowy donors and prominent politicians, screwed Bernie Sanders and Jamaal Bowman, for example; the party exerted real power.” The objection itself is telling. For Americans, a “party” is a vague and nebulous constellation of wealthy donors, prominent politicians and political brand identifications whose power consists in their ability to coordinate to influence primary voters. That nebulous constellation certainly exists, and it’s not tied to a particular ballot line—many interest groups, like AIPAC and the charter school lobby, coordinate to influence primary voters in both major parties (and could do so in the Socialism Party, too). But Americans tend to miss the glaringly obvious fact that “the Democratic Party,” as a formally constituted institution in civil society—as the DNC and state Democratic committees and so on—is utterly powerless to decide who runs as a Democrat, while the UK Labour Party can ban a prominent and popular former party leader by a simple vote at a scheduled meeting.
Outsourcer in Chief: Is Trump Trading Away America's Tech Future?
Yarvin's blueprint of a CEO-led American monarchy
DHS Is Considering Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete for Citizenship
- Dept Homeland Security in vetting process for immigrant reality TV show
Thanks, Trump tariffs, now I gotta replace my phone battery | The Verge

After five years, I was still happy with my phone, even though its battery had started the inevitable process of slowing to a stop. But Donald Trump’s tariff nonsense pushed me to make a decision: buy a new phone or fix the old one now, before the prices go up.
The Mortality Impacts of Usaid Cuts
Nine Federally Funded Scientific Breakthroughs That Changed Everything
From free planes to crypto meme coins, Democrats seize on Trump’s deals to raise corruption concerns | CNN Politics

Democrats are leaning into a corruption argument against President Donald Trump, pointing to his crypto meme coin and plans to accept a luxury jet from Qatar as evidence that the president is potentially violating ethical norms and the US Constitution. It’s a familiar strategy for Democrats and ethics watchdogs, who criticized Trump during his first term as foreign officials sought to curry favor with the president by staying at his hotels. This time, however, Democrats and ethics groups argue that the potential corruption of the second Trump administration has far surpassed the first term. Tiffany Muller, president of the Democratic-aligned group End Citizens United, said that how Democrats message their anti-corruption arguments will be critical. “Voters don’t know who to trust on this issue, and whoever wins that trust battle will win the election,” Muller said in an interview with CNN. “We have to connect the corruption that we’re seeing day to day back to their everyday lives and then also talk about how Trump and the Republicans are using it to line their own pockets.”
- After the "Biden Brand" redefined corruption...
We've Been Thinking About Gun Violence All Wrong

Even if we can’t do all that much about guns, we can make real progress on gun violence by reducing interpersonal violence. In fact, a growing body of data and evidence shows that preventing shootings in the first place is not only possible, but enormously cost-effective compared to the traditional policies of U.S. partisan politics. This, in fact, is the central problem: going back at least to the 1930s the Left and Right have bitterly disagreed about how to reduce violent behavior. The Right tends to think of violence as being caused by intrinsically bad people who are unafraid of the criminal justice system. The only response, under this perspective, is to try to disincentivize gun violence with the threat of ever-more-severe criminal justice punishments. The Left tends to think of violence as due to bad socio-economic conditions, which leads desperate people to resort to crime and violence in order to feed their families. The only response in this view is to disincentivize violence by improving the alternatives to crime and ending poverty. But the root of gun violence is not what we think it is. Both the Left and Right, despite their heated disagreements, share an implicit assumption about gun violence: That before anyone pulls a trigger, they carefully weigh the pros and cons beforehand. That gun violence is a deliberate, rational act. That’s not what most shootings in America are. Most shootings are not premeditated. Most shootings, instead, start with words—arguments that escalate and end in tragedy because someone has a gun.
- s/ shooting & guns / stabbings and knives / and you've got the next step of the program, where the UK is at now. Once everyone is disarmed and observed by cameras 24/7 and not allowed to disagree, then finally there will be Peace! We pinky swear!
Dems are upset about DOGE's IRS hackathon, but the IRS says it never happened

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

Scammers are deepfaking voices of senior US Government officials, warns FBI

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

Chinese 'kill switches' found in US solar farms

World

British ICC chief prosecutor lost access to email and has bank accounts frozen
Put on a tie and get off your laptop, EU's top tech officials told
EU preliminarily finds TikTok's ad repository in breach of Digital Services Act
Auto engine stop-start tech in new cars could be banned in the US
Three siblings rescued from house of horrors after ‘COVID syndrome’ parents kept them locked inside since 2021

Three children were dramatically rescued from a COVID lockdown house of horrors after being forced for years to stay inside and wear face masks long after pandemic restrictions ended. The siblings — 8-year-old twins and a 10-year-old — were finally freed from the home in Oviedo in Spain’s northwest on Monday after being locked inside since 2021, local outlet El Comercio reported. “As soon as we got them out, all three children began to breathe deeply, as if they had never been outside before,” an investigator said.
Belgian parliament scraps nuclear phaseout plan
Increased ERC funding for top global researchers moving to Europe now confirmed
Trial testing ways to enforce Australia's under-16s social media ban but tech flawed

Israel

Microsoft conducts audit in Israeli use of Azure/AI, finds no harm to Gazans

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

China

Health / Medicine

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

Polio Outbreak in Papua New Guinea

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

Removing atmospheric CO₂ through scaleup of crops with enhanced root systems
One Nuclear War Can Ruin the Whole Climate
Climeworks' capture fails to cover its own emissions
Orcas abandoned in shuttered marine park filmed in algae-infested pool
Marine life's latest hotspot could be an underwater volcano primed to erupt
The truth behind the accuracy of weather forecasts

Contrary to recent claims that climate change is making forecasting more difficult, an increase in computer power, detailed satellite data, along with an improved scientific understanding of the atmosphere, has greatly advanced the model simulations that are the basis of modern meteorology. This has resulted in temperature forecasts improving by about one day per decade since the 1970s, and according to a Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) spokesperson, the advancements have become even more rapid in recent years. "Forecast accuracy for maximum temperature has improved by two days in the last 10 years. This means that the four-day forecast issued today is as accurate as the two-day forecast issued in 2015," they said. Significant improvements have also been made in other fields, like rainfall, wind and cyclone tracks.
Why climate researchers are taking the temperature of mountain snow