2025-11-30

etc

• The JetBlue A320 Mid-Air Flight Control Issue: What We Know So Far

  • Airbus issues major A320 recall after mid-air incident grounds planes

  • Planes grounded after Airbus discovers solar radiation could impact systems

  • Totally unrelated surely: Seven years later, Airbus is still trying to kick its Microsoft habit

  • Airbus grounds 6,000 planes for urgent software update after jet suddenly lost altitude mid-flight.

  • Airbus issues major A320 recall due to software/radiation problem

  • Airbus calls for 'immediate' software upgrade to A320 aircraft

Horseshit

• Treasure hunt golden hare sold for £82k at auction

• An ancient foot reveals a hidden human cousin

• When did cats become domesticated? New DNA evidence changes the story.

• Infosys co-founder once again calls for longer than 70-hour weeks

• How Workplace Fashion Has Changed over the Decades

• Blimps lifting quantum data centers to the stratosphere?

• What a cranky new book about progress gets right

• Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea

  Cooling even a single H200 will be an absolute nightmare. Clearly a heatsink and fan won't do anything at all, but there is a liquid cooled H200 variant. Let's say this was used. This heat would need to be transferred to a radiator panel – this isn't like the radiator in your car, no convection, remember? – which needs to radiate heat into space. Let's assume that we can point this away from the sun. The Active Thermal Control System (ATCS) on the ISS is an example of such a thermal control system. This is a very complex system, using an ammonia cooling loop and a large thermal radiator panel system. It has a dissipation limit of 16kW, so roughly 16 H200 GPUs, a bit over the equivalent to a quarter of a ground-based rack. The thermal radiator panel system measures 13.6m x 3.12 m, i.e., roughly 42.5 square metres. If we use 200kW as a baseline and assume all of that power will be fed to GPUs, we'd need a system 12.5 times bigger, i.e., roughly 531 square metres, or about 2.6 times the size of the relevant solar array. This is now going to be a very large satellite, dwarfing the ISS in area, all for the equivalent of three standard server racks on Earth.

• Testing Shows Automotive Glassbreakers Can't Break Modern Automotive Glass

• I'm a Concert Pianist. This Is Why I Seek Imperfection.

• In Northern Scotland, the Neolithic Age Never Ended

• It's mathematically highly likely that there is life elsewhere in the universe

  • Which is as valid as any other faith based conjecture: no data.

• Get Your Kid a Watch

• The Beguiling, Misunderstood Theremin

• Couple allegedly used hidden camera, earpieces to win $1.18M from Crown casino

• Hong Kong high-rise fire shows how difficult it is to evacuate in an emergency

celebrity gossip

• Katy Perry sues disabled veteran for $5M over property dispute

  Katy Perry is suing an 85-year-old dying, disabled veteran over a long-standing property dispute. Perry is demanding $5 million in a lawsuit against the disabled veteran who owned a $15 million Montecito, California home she purchased more than five years ago. The Firework singer’s long-running housing dispute began in July 2020, when she and her ex Orlando Bloom purchased an eight-bedroom estate from Carl Westcott. Within days of the sale, Westcott, 86, a former army serviceman, sought to withdraw from the deal, arguing he lacked the mental capacity to comprehend the contract because he was on pain medication after back surgery when he signed. In December 2023, a judge eventually ruled in Perry’s favor, saying Westcott had offered no convincing evidence that he was incapable of consenting. Perry’s lawyer also said Westcott had a backup offer from Maria Shriver, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s former wife. The singer then countersued for $3.25 million, claiming losses from being unable to lease the property during the court battle, plus $2.2 million for alleged repair work to restore the home and $3 million in legal costs.

Obit

• Tom Stoppard, Award-Winning Playwright of Witty Drama, Dies at 88

  • Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• "Anti-Tobacco propaganda" must be a difficult row to hoe nowadays: Tobacco Imagery in Movies Surged in 2024

• Video Games Like Assassin's Creed Feed into Conspiracy Thinking

  • As do news stories like this.

• Big tech is creating its own media bubble to 'win the narrative battle online'

  • "We suddenly realized our interests may no longer coincide"

Musk

• Tesla looks to reset strategy amid sluggish India sales

• Tesla struggles to course correct from sales skid

• Tesla's Cybertruck is turning 2. It's been a big flop

• Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America – without Tesla

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Just a few self-driving cars stop traffic jams

• Self-driving cars will transform urban economies

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• China Issues Rare Bubble Warning Forming In Humanoid Robotics | ZeroHedge

  China's top economic-planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), issued a rare warning earlier today about the emergence of bubble conditions in the country's humanoid robotics industry. This warning comes just as Elon Musk is planning to scale production of the Tesla Optimus robot next year. Bloomberg cites comments from NDRC spokeswoman Li Chao, who warned that more than 150 companies and startups are developing nearly identical robots, creating the risk of a classic investment bubble that could trigger a bust cycle and stifle real innovation.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Physicist Says Consciousness Might Be Part of the Universe, Not Just the Brain

• Can the 'Lost Generation' be found?

  The negative stereotype of a Zoomer is a shiftless man, who plays too many video games. He is too coddled by parents and too afraid to strike out on his own. Zoomers rarely date supposedly out of fear that they would have to grow up, take charge, and head a household. Yet the opposite, sympathetic generalization of Gen Z seems more accurate. All through K-12, young men, particularly white males, have been demonized for their "toxic masculinity" that draws accusations of sexism, racism, and homophobia. In college, the majority of students are female. In contrast, white males — 9-10 percent of admittees in recent years at elite schools like Stanford and the Ivy League — are of no interest to college admission officers. So they are tagged not as unique individuals but as superfluous losers of the "wrong" race, gender, or sexual orientation. Gen Z men saw themselves scapegoated by professors and society for the sins of past generations — and on the wrong side of the preposterous reductionist binary of oppressors and the oppressed. Traditional pathways to adulthood — affordable homes, upwardly mobile and secure jobs, and safe and secure city and suburban living — had mostly vanished amid overregulation, overtaxation, and underpolicing. Orthodox and loud student advocates on campus — climate change, DEI, the Palestinians — had little to do with getting a job, raising a family, or buying a house.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Wacky fun physics ideas

  I don’t care for any of the PR touted baloney unified field theories by gentleman surfers or purple hair quaternion enthusiasts, which are about quirky personalities rather than quality of ideas. I’m also sick to death of anyone paying any attention to Avi Loeb, who sees flying saucers in every piece of space junk flying through the solar system. Anyone that hires a PR firm for his “results” is a fraud. Anyone who the media likes for other reasons is likely also a fraud. I do like weird science though. Stuff that makes you think, “hey what would happen if the universe was this way.” It might not be right, it might even be obviously retarded to people who work in the field, but considering that the post-1945 order is ending, we’d expect it to end in physics as well, just as it did post 1918. When the great upheavals happen in human history, previous certainties become less certain and things start to move in the arts and sciences. These are all theoretical noodlings, but at least they take the time to have an interesting thought. Anyway, in no particular order, here are some WEIRD SCIENCE papers and a few notes about each.

• Riding the Autism Bicycle to Retraction Town

  If it isn’t immediately apparent, it’s nonsense. There’s a bit of a random bicycle with a torture-device for a seat; a small child points — at what, we can never know? — as his parent, in a feat of grand body horror, has become attached to a slab of concrete. There’s the Factor Fexcectorn, the word AUTISM seemingly pointing to a small orb that sits just outside someone’s brain and, of course, the ┐ Tol LIne storee, that most vile thing!

• Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• 'Good Boy' Star Indy the Dog Becomes the First Animal Nominated for a Film Award

• Neato vacuum robots to stop working

• Amazon unveils Starlink rival capable of up to 1 Gbps satellite internet

  • "Rival". Neat how Amazon is the underdog when a Musk enterprise is available to compare to.

• Pirate Site Operator's Appeal Goes Bad, Court Extends Prison Term by 50%

• Vision Pro M5 review: It's time for Apple to make some tough choices

• Someone Is Trying to 'Hack' People Through Apple Podcasts

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out

• It Is Possible to Spend Too Much on AI

• Favourite influencer hasn't got a dozen dachshund dogs. It's just AI

• AI Tops Christian Artist Charts on iTunes

• Reanimation of pseudoscience in machine learning and its ethical repercussions

• Colleges Are Preparing to Self-Lobotomize

• N.Y. Law Could Set Stage for A.I. Regulation's Next 'Big Battleground'

• Ahead of the holidays, consumer and child advocacy groups warn against AI toys

• AI Teddy Bear That Talked Fetishes and Knives Is Back on the Market

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• The Moon gets written off as “ordinary,” but nothing about it is.

  A satellite that’s way too large for the planet it orbits. A density mismatch that suggests it didn’t form with Earth. A perfectly synchronized rotation so precise you only ever see one face. A stabilizing effect on Earth’s tilt so exact that without it, our climate would swing into chaos. Even NASA admits: the impact model still has gaps they can’t close. It’s the most improbable object in our entire sky. If we saw this with another planet, we’d treat it like a cosmic anomaly. Because that’s what it is.

Crypto con games

• Inflation-hit Americans receive free $12,000 in crypto

  Some low-income New Yorkers are receiving $12,000 in USDC crypto.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Five Years of Structural Deficit Broke the Silver Market

  This sequence illuminates a structural reality that paper markets have obscured: the physical clearing price of silver now exceeds the managed futures price by a material margin. The CME outage removed, however briefly, the dampening mechanism of infinite paper leverage. What remained was raw physical demand meeting constrained physical supply. The result was price discovery at a level the derivatives complex had previously suppressed.

• Nexperia crisis: Dutch chipmaker issues urgent plea to its China unit

• The 'S&P 493' reveals a different U.S. economy

• Goodbye, Price Tags. Hello, Dynamic Pricing

• Morgan Stanley Warns Oracle Credit Protection Nearing Record High

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• The Supreme Court Is About to Hear a Case That Could Rewrite Internet Access

  . In Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, the justices will decide whether an internet provider can be held responsible for failing to terminate subscribers accused of repeat copyright infringements. The ruling could determine whether access to the internet—today’s lifeline for education, work, and civic life—can be taken away as punishment for digital misdeeds. Cox’s indifference to repeat infringement is condemnable, but a sweeping ruling could harshly punish thousands for one company’s bad faith.

Trump

• White House launches website exposing media bias

  The media misrepresented President Trump’s call for Members of Congress to be held accountable for inciting sedition by saying that he called for their “execution.” The Democrats and Fake News Media subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members. Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful. It is dangerous for sitting Members of Congress to incite insubordination in the United States’ military, and President Trump called for them to be held accountable.

  • White House launches website to excoriate media for 'biased' stories

Democrats

• How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch

Left Angst

• Republicans get really mad

  when you point out the objective reality that the GOP is increasingly the party of inbred, sister-fucking, uneducated crackheads and the subhumans they claim to despise are actually the base of their own party

  • Wasn't the "liberal" position originally "no one is sub-human"?

• U.S. peace plan for Ukraine formulated months ago by Kremlin operative

  • A Just Peace should be imposed from outside with no input from those involved int he conflict, then?

• Make Money Not War: Trump's Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine

• How ICE is becoming a secret police force

• Oregon sues feds, saying USDA’s new SNAP guidance cuts legal immigrants

  Twenty-one other states joined Oregon in filing the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Eugene, arguing that the U.S. Department of Agriculture overstepped its authority when it issued an Oct. 31 memo telling states to cut off benefits for people who have long been eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. In the lawsuit, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and the other Democratic attorneys general said the USDA memo goes further than what Congress approved and effectively blocks many lawful permanent residents from the SNAP program even though they qualify under the law. Those include refugees, asylum seekers and people admitted under humanitarian programs once they obtain a green card and meet the program’s income and residency rules.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Copper thieves are wreaking havoc across America

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The Real-Life Hunt for Red October Happened 50 Years Ago

  The mutiny aboard a Soviet warship in November 1975 led to a chase across the Baltic Sea, involving everything the Soviets had available.

• Fort Bragg Psychological Warfare Group Posts Chilling Video. ‘We Are Everywhere’

  The 1:17-second clip, posted Nov. 19 on social media, is a string of baffling clips, including old cartoons, masked figures hiding in plain sight and a group of people staring blankly at the viewer over the phrase: “We are everywhere.” “There is another force applied in combat that we generally don’t think of as a weapon of war. That weapon is words,” the video says. “Words are weapons. ... This is psychological warfare.” The video then beckons: “Join PSYOP.”

• Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all - The Washington Post

  As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors

  • Hegseth responds to report that boat survivors were killed as a result of his orders to military - ABC News

  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded to a report that he ordered the military to kill all passengers aboard a boat suspected of ferrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea in September. According to The Washington Post, the Sept. 2 boat strike initially left two survivors clinging to the boat. The Post alleges Adm. Mitch Bradley, head of Special Operations Command, then ordered a second strike in order to comply with Hegseth's orders and to ensure the survivors couldn't call on other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo. In a post on X on Friday, Hegseth said the strikes were intended to be "lethal, kinetic strikes." "Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command," Hegseth said.

  If true, it is unclear why Bradley wouldn't have ordered troops to collect the survivors and their cargo from the water, as the military did in a subsequent strike when two survivors were taken aboard a Navy ship via helicopter. Those survivors were later repatriated to Ecuador and Colombia, although some legal experts said the survivors could have been prosecuted in federal court for smuggling narcotics.

• Inside the deal-making power of the F-35: A weapon, a network, strategic lock-in

World

• Why the Dutch embrace floating homes

• IT specialist shortage in Germany almost gone

• We Brexiteers must acknowledge the costs of leaving Europe

• MP resigns over allegations she duped South Africans to fight for Russia

• New record: Over 350k students in Japan miss school

• Smuggled North Korean phones reveal a dark reality

• Quebec to ban public prayer in new secularism law

• Sally Rooney books may be withdrawn from UK sale over Palestine Action ban

  Rooney says UK legislation may mean she cannot be paid royalties by her British publisher or the BBC because it could leave both at risk of being accused of funding terrorism. In August, she said she intended to use royalties "to go on supporting Palestine Action".

• Heavy metal, a new tune for Taiwan diplomacy

• Japan Unveils Human Washing Machine, Now You Can Get Washed Like Laundry

• 'The admin': why it's not easy to rename streets called after Prince Andrew

• Indonesia resists US trade deal 'poison pill'

Israel

• UN panel says Israel operating 'de facto policy of torture'

• Gaza death toll surpasses 70k, says health ministry

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Damage at Baikonur after Soyuz launch: Russia can't send people to space

  • The latest Soyuz launch to the ISS wrecked the rocket's own launchpad.

• Top Zelenskiy Aide Quits Amid Ukraine Corruption Allegations

  • Former top Zelensky aide sends The New York Post ominous message hours after resignation: ‘I’m going to the front.’

• Ukraine hits two Russian 'shadow fleet' tankers with drones

China

• A visual guide to how the Hong Kong fire spread

• Beijing's prison silences Chinese journalist and lawyer of Covid19 in Wuhan fame

• Anime event in Shanghai canceled after singer's show interrupted

  Amid growing backlash in China over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks regarding a potential Taiwan contingency, Japan-related events in the country such as music performances have been canceled one after another, signaling a full-scale move to exclude Japanese cultural content.

• Chinese parts supplier takes stake in leading Russian drone maker

Health / Medicine

• We're learning more about what Vitamin D does to our bodies

• Study: Long-term use of CBD supplements lowers aggression in dogs.

• Oxytocin boosts creativity, but only for approach-oriented people

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Plastic can be programmed to have a lifespan of days, months or years

• Kyoto and the Stories We Still Need to Tell About Fossil Fuel Obstruction

• Mixing water into diesel fuel lowers emissions and boosts efficiency

  involves dispersing extremely small water droplets within diesel fuel with the help of surfactants that keep the blend stable for as long as sixty days. When this mixture burns, the water rapidly turns to vapor, creating a “micro-explosion” that enhances the mixing of air and fuel.

• Iceland declares ocean-current instability a national security risk