2025-10-22
Horseshit
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Friedrich Engels 'took creative liberties' with descriptions of class divides
Friedrich Engels stands accused of exaggerating, or perhaps taking “creative liberties”, with just how segregated Manchester was in the mid-19th century, a study has found.
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The Mild Mannered Englishman Who Was the Most Prolific Ghost Hunter
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Scouts will now be able to earn badges in AI and cybersecurity
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'It's PR, not the ER': Gen Z is resisting the workplace emergency
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Why more people are going to gigs, festivals and clubs alone
celebrity gossip
Obit
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US chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky dies aged 29
US chess grandmaster and online commentator Daniel Naroditsky has died aged 29. The popular chess player's family announced his "unexpected" death in a statement released by his club, the Charlotte Chess Center, on Monday. No cause of death was given.
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George F. Smoot, Who Showed How the Cosmos Began, Is Dead at 80
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
Musk
Electric / Self Driving cars
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Wirelessly Charging Your Porsche EV Like an iPhone Is a Reality
Porsche’s wireless charging engineers said the system is 90% efficient compared to 94% efficiency of plugging into a wired charger. For comparison, a smartphone is about 60% efficient when charging wirelessly due to thermal losses and smaller inductive plates. Charging wirelessly enables up to 11-kw of current to transfer while the Cayenne Electric is in normal ride height mode. Lifting the Cayenne Electric up on its air suspension would make the system less efficient, and theoretically lowering it would make it more efficient, but Müller said it’s designed to work at the normal ride height to make things easier.
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GM to end electric van production at CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont
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Driverless Waymo taxis under investigation for failing to stop for a school bus
Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Hormone therapy alters body proteins to match gender identity
Melbourne researchers have discovered gender-affirming hormone therapy can alter body proteins to match a person’s gender identity, potentially affecting susceptibility to certain health conditions. The research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and the University of Melbourne, found that sex-specific blood proteins in transgender women shifted significantly after six months of gender-affirming hormone therapy, resembling those of cisgender women.
- Take enough estrogen and you can get breast and testicle cancers!
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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What went down at WCSB 89.3FM: Cleveland State's axed student radio station
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Can a University from Tennessee Help Accelerate Growth in West Palm Beach?
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Student loan forgiveness update: Trump admin cancels debt for millions - Newsweek
The latest decision marks a major policy pivot for the Trump administration, which previously paused or restricted student debt relief through federal income-driven repayment programs. Around 2 to 2.5 million borrowers are either directly enrolled in qualifying plans or were affected by policy shifts in 2025, and the resumption of debt cancellation offers financial relief and legal clarity to Americans who have spent decades making payments on federal student loans.
the government then resumed forgiving loans for borrowers enrolled in two Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plans: the Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) plans. To qualify for these plans, borrowers typically must have made 20 to 25 years of consecutive qualifying payments, depending on loan origination date and plan enrollment. As of October 2025, these plans account for more than 2 million borrowers.
Borrowers eligible for relief began receiving Department of Education notifications in October. The emails outlined options to accept forgiveness or opt out.
- I think this is the "forgiveness" that Obama promised in his first term. AFAIK there was never any attempt to produce enabling legislation for the promises Biden had made.
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Interest in US MBA Programs Shrinks, but Schools Across Asia Are Booming
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Harvard Cuts Science PhD Seats by over Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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NSO permanently barred from targeting WhatsApp users with Pegasus spyware
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Ticketmaster to ban multiple accounts, shut down TradeDesk after FTC lawsuit
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How Grand Theft Auto Legend's New Studio Blew $270 Million On A Flop | HotHardware
The truth is that Leslie Benzies used all of his expertise and capital to produce what's unfortunately been called "the worst game of 2025". The game in question is called MindsEye, and it released back on June 10th. MindsEye started as a playable component of a then-larger project called Everywhere before Leslie demanded the studio focus on it, and Leslie's spontaneous nature is very much a recurring theme here. Sadly, the near-complete failure of MindsEye proves that pedigree alone will not get you far in a competitive industry, and that successful game development is in fact a deeply collaborative process, especially at a AAA scale.
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Automattic CEO calls Tumblr his 'biggest failure' so far | TechCrunch
The exec noted that Tumblr was still on a different technical stack than WordPress — something he had intended to correct by migrating the back end to WordPress infrastructure. However, that massive undertaking was put on hold earlier this year, as the cost to move Tumblr’s half-billion blogs would be difficult given that the blogging platform wasn’t profitable and continues to be sustained by the profits of other Automattic products.
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Apple will let users roll back the Liquid Glass look with new 'tinted' option
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Qualcomm Buys Arduino, and the Open-Source Community Is Skeptical
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The 30-year-old drug website that transformed psychedelic research
Thirty years ago, drug users flocked to a website called Erowid to describe experiences on everything from Advil to LSD. Today it's become a goldmine for researchers and governments.
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Roku accused of selling children's data to advertisers and brokers
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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In September, a group of long-time maintainers of Ruby packaging tools projects had their GitHub privileges revoked by nonprofit corporation Ruby Central in what many people are calling a hostile takeover. Ruby Central and its board members have issued several public statements that have, so far, failed to satisfy many in the Ruby community. In response, some of the former contributors to RubyGems are working on an alternative service called gem.coop. On October 17, ownership of the RubyGems and Bundler repositories was handed over to the Ruby core team, even though those projects had never been part of core Ruby previously. The takeover and subsequent events have raised a number of questions in the Ruby community.
this is a much-abbreviated overview of what's known publicly about the RubyGems.org takeover so far. No doubt, there is even more yet to be uncovered and more to come. It is always disappointing to see this type of drama in open-source communities; and should serve as yet-another warning to other open-source projects to get their governance in order before experiencing a similar scenario.
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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What GPU pricing can tell us about how the AI bubble will pop
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Sam Altman got Silicon Valley's giants to tether their fates to his company
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These nonprofits lobbied to regulate OpenAI — then the subpoenas came | The Verge
In recent months, OpenAI has subpoenaed a wide range of nonprofits that have been critical of the company’s controversial for-profit restructuring. Ostensibly, the subpoenas are supposed to help OpenAI build its defense against Musk, who sued to stop the company’s transition. But in practice, recipients and legal experts say, they seem more like a campaign of intimidation with very real costs. Online controversy has roiled OpenAI, with current and former employees publicly criticizing the company’s legal tactics. And at a time when AI companies are garnering unprecedented money and power, the subpoenas call attention to OpenAI’s ongoing departure from its nonprofit roots.
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Universities are embracing AI: will students get smarter or stop thinking?
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A data center that doesn't even exist can raise your electricity bill
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Don't use AI to tell you how to vote in election, says Dutch watchdog
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Napster — yes, that Napster — wants you to buy a $100 device AI chatting
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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BlackRock Says Insurers Expect to Keep Ramping Up Private Bets
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U.S. Banks Are Hunting for Collateral to Back $20B Argentina Bailout
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Zions CEO Cautions of 'Yellow Flag' in Private-Credit Market
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After closing coal plants, Idaho Power is the rare utility cutting rates
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Bank of England chief warns of 'worrying echoes' of 2008 financial crisis
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Microsoft Exempts Many Salespeople from Return-to-Office Mandate
- And there was much rejoicing; nobody likes the smell of salesweasels anyway.
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National Average Falls Below $3; Refinery Outage in Midwest May Hike Regional Gas Prices - GasBuddy
“Gas prices have finally fallen below $3 per gallon nationally — the earliest date we’ve seen a $2.99 national average since 2020, when COVID was the primary driver of low prices,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “OPEC+ deserves much of the credit for this trend"
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
Democrats
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Democrats Have Become The Party Of Grumpy Elderly People
On Saturday, several so-called “No Kings” protests took place across the country. The protests looked more like an AARP meeting, with NBC Boston perhaps encapsulating the state of the protests best: “This is an older crowd … A lot of white hair. You see Q-Tips as we used to call them in the business … not a lot of young people.
Left Angst
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Trump claims 'unquestioned power' in vow to send troops to San Francisco
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Before Advocating to Repeal Section 230, It Helps to First Understand It
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RFK Jr. to unveil new guidance encouraging more saturated fats
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Money, muscles and anxiety: why the manosphere clicked with young men
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Saving democracy for the price of a swimming pool
We are in the midst of a second cold war, but the roles are reversed: Germany and its liberal allies in Europe are pitted against a fascistic United States of America intent on world supremacy, even if there’s not much of a world to rule over by the end of it. And the US is winning, because they already own and operate the vast majority of the digital infrastructure we've all come to rely on.
I'm narrowly focused on Bluesky and its underlying tech because it credibly threatens US supremacy enough that the US state is actively fighting it with both legal and social means.
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Complicating the Senate GOP’s efforts to secure passage of the CR is the recalcitrance of Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has voted against the measure at every opportunity because he claims it continues spending levels carried over from President Joe Biden’s administration.
“Democrats have been gaslighting us on this issue of Medicaid funds going to illegals for quite a while,” Oz told Fox News. “They keep claiming there is no federal money going from Medicaid, the agency I run, to illegal immigrants, so we decided to do our homework. We sent our best investigators out to see exactly what is going on.” It didn’t take long for the CMS investigators to find multiple examples of Medicaid money going to illegal immigrants, explaining that in “just over the last few months, we have proven that over a billion dollars, that’s with a B, that’s a lot of money, it’s not a rounding error, and it went to illegal immigrants in half a dozen states, and we’re just getting started. So, it’s going to be significantly more money.”
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How Trump Is Using Generated Imagery to Attack Enemies and Rouse Supporters
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Anti-science bills hit statehouses, strip away 100y of public health protections
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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Ex-director of nuclear programs at Oak Ridge National Lab arrested on child sex charges.
Andrew Worrall, 56, faces charges of attempted coercion and enticement, sex trafficking of a child, and exploitation of a child for the purpose of producing child pornography. He is no longer employed at the US Department of Energy’s largest national lab, a spokesperson told 6 News. Investigators reviewed Snapchat data from an account linked to Worrall and found sexually explicit communications with “many users” who stated they had not yet reached the age of 18. One user interviewed during the investigation said that Worrall sent her $20 in exchange for explicit images and videos according to court documents. Agents confirmed she was underage at the time by reviewing her driver’s permit.
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Pirro Busts Two Adult 'Big Balls' Attackers After Judge Lets Teens Off Easy | ZeroHedge
Laurence Cotton-Powell, 19, and Anthony Taylor, 18, have were charged with robbery and assault over their alleged roles in the Aug. 3 attack on Big Balls - as well as a separate incident which took place at a nearby gas station minutes before, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced Monday. The new arrests come days after a DC Superior Court judge let two 15-year-olds off with probation for the pair of Aug. 3 incidents. In her decision to go light on crime, Judge Kendra D. Biggs said that the goal of juvenile court "is rehabilitation, not punishment."
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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Marine artillery shell detonates over freeway during Camp Pendleton event
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What is Aukus, the submarine deal between Australia, the UK and US?
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8 months later, aircraft carrier still unrepaired after collision
Appears that the damage was painted over.
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US Treasury Sells Dollars to Keep Peso Within Argentina FX Band
World
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What I Wish I Had Known About Germany Earlier
On July 11, Zeit Magazin editor Elisa Pfleger, through our gallery, invited me to contribute 15–20 short reflections on the prompt “What I would have liked to know about Germany earlier” for an upcoming summer issue column. I subsequently wrote and submitted the piece. On July 23, in response to Zeit Magazin’s request for additional reflections in a more personal and light-hearted tone, I provided further contributions. Two days later, we were first shown a shortened and edited version by Pfleger, and then immediately afterward informed that Zeit Magazin’s Executive Editor Johannes Dudziak — Pfleger’s supervising manager — had reviewed the column, canceled its publication, and commissioned new contributions from other writers instead.
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A society governed by regulations, yet lacking individual moral judgment, is more dangerous than one with none at all.
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A society that values obedience without questioning authority is destined to become corrupt.
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When conversation becomes avoidance, when topics must not be mentioned, we are already living under the quiet logic of authoritarianism.
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Argentine peso weakens to fresh low despite US interventions
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Accepting US car standards would risk European lives – cities and civil society
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Three wrongly accused over child abuse images after BT gets 'wires crossed'
Israel
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Gaza famine claims face scrutiny as mortality data falls short of predictions
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Then "your Gaza" should destroy Hamas: My Gaza is ready for peace. Hamas is trying to destroy it
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
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Chinese staff go rogue after Dutch seize control of chip firm
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China imports no US soybeans in September for first time in seven years
China imported no soybeans from the U.S. in September, the first time since November 2018 that shipments fell to zero, while South American shipments surged from a year earlier, as buyers shunned American cargoes during the ongoing trade dispute between the world's two largest economies.
- the people that bought the South American beans last year are buying American beans today. Even this story mentions that the supply of "not American" beans probably runs out before February.
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US NSA alleged to have launched a cyber attack on Chinese timekeeping agency
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Trump Official Warns China Against Penalizing Companies Investing in US
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China Has Another Lever to Pull in Showdown with Trump: Factory Lines
Health / Medicine
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
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A surprise bonus from Covid-19 vaccines: bolstering cancer treatment
- All the fatalities "died with/of COVID" so we get to jink all the other statistics to match
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More Than 100 Cases of Measles Reported in Utah and Arizona in Latest Outbreak
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Mosquitoes found in Iceland for first time as climate crisis warms country
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California's Zone Zero fire rules clash with LA's desperate need for shade
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What goes up must come down: The 'universal thermal performance curve' that shackles evolution
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have unearthed a universal thermal performance curve (UTPC) that seemingly applies to all species and dictates their responses to temperature change. This UTPC essentially shackles evolution as no species seem to have broken free from the constraints it imposes on how temperature affects performance. One obvious takeaway from the work, published in PNAS, is that species may be more constrained than feared when it comes to their ability to adapt to global climate change, given that in most places temperatures are rising.
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The unlikely alliance pressing Trump to regulate PFAS on farms
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Squirrels Are Displaying 'Widespread Carnivorous Behavior' in a California Park
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How Hard Is It to Dim the Sun?
Once considered a fringe idea, the prospect of offsetting global warming by releasing massive quantities of sunlight-reflecting particles into Earth’s atmosphere is now a matter of serious scientific consideration. Hundreds of studies have modeled how this form of solar geoengineering, known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), might work. There is a real possibility that nations or even individuals seeking a stopgap solution to climate change may try SAI—but the proponents dramatically underestimate just how difficult and complicated it will be, say researchers from Columbia University.
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From Industry to EPA: Lobbyist Now Oversees Pesticide Rules
- The Tides Foundation lobbyists who used to have those jobs had so much more integrity, right? Or they just haven't been nailed for kiddie fiddling yet?