2025-12-20
Horseshit
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People with personality disorders often use language differently
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Scientists prove "impossible" Earth-to-space quantum link is feasible
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The moon-forming event: explosive ejection rather than a giant impact
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What If the Satanic Panic Had Never Happened?
I was recently reminded by a reader of the assertion that, rather than harming the sales or long-term fortunes of Dungeons & Dragons, the furor surrounding the game during the so-called “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s ultimately proved beneficial. According to this view, the controversies gave the game a level of publicity it might otherwise never have achieved, helping to propel it toward broader cultural visibility. This was certainly the position taken by TSR Hobbies and many of its employees in the years that followed and there is some evidence that lends this interpretation a degree of plausibility.
- Advertising persecution for marketing purposes is a standard tactic today.
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DraftKings forced to pay $923,000 to gambler who exploited glitch
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Overwhelmingly white, upper middle class+, and AMAB the FOSS community seems confused, why can't it attract more adherents? They got it, so obviously, every other person the planet can right? It's clearly an issue of willpower, if they just keep annoying everyone to death, they'll get it.
Take the case of the One Laptop Per child project - as catalogued in this great book called the charisma machine in which a bunch of FOSSbros thought that if they simply dropped off open source laptops in impoverished countries in the third world, the children would lift themselves out of poverty by learning to code and the world would have their FOSS revolution - except that didn't happen at all. The entire project top to bottom was a failure. The children didn't take to the laptops as hoped.
- The actual "FOSSbros" were puzzled on that one, and leery of the skeezy people who seemed to have dreamed it up as a way of proclaiming their relevance to the FOSS community and thus their worthiness to tell everyone else what to do. The rest of the post seems to be mostly racial hate.
Epstein
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The first dump of files: Jeffrey Epstein Court Records
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DOJ won't meet Friday deadline to release all the Epstein files
The Department of Justice will not be releasing all of its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by Friday’s deadline, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday morning. In an interview with Fox News, Blanche said the department would “release several hundred thousand documents today.” The delay means the White House is in apparent conflict with a law President Donald Trump signed in November that mandated the wholesale release of all of its non-exempt Epstein information within a 30-day period. A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined a request to expand on Blanche’s comments, saying they speak for themselves.
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — who led the successful discharge petition effort to trigger eventual passage of the law — pointed to a video on X on Thursday where he indicated he’d know whether the administration had met his disclosure standards. Following conversations with lawyers for Epstein’s victims, he believes the FBI has at least 20 names of men who are accused of committing sex crimes. “If we get a large production on Dec. 19, and it does not contain a single name of any male who is accused of a sex crime or sex trafficking or rape or any of these things, then we know they haven’t produced all the documents,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
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Today is the deadline to release the Epstein files. Here's what to expect
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Justice Department releases first batch of Epstein files | Just The News
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Epstein files, photos release: Live updates from documents disclosed by DOJ
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
Musk
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Tesla drivers are buying escape tools and cars to avoid getting trapped inside
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Elon Musk's SpaceX Valued at $800B, as It Prepares to Go Public
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Sleep Cots and Graham Crackers at Elon Musk's Child Care Program
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SpaceX's historic rocket landing that changed launch forever
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Elon Musk's 2018 Tesla pay package must be restored
Elon Musk’s 2018 CEO pay package from Tesla, worth some $56 billion when it vested, must be restored, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled Friday. “We reverse the Court of Chancery’s rescission remedy and award $1 in nominal damages,” the judges wrote in their opinion. In the decision out Friday, the Delaware Supreme Court judges said a lower court’s decision to rescind Musk’s 2018 pay plan was too extreme a remedy, and the lower court did not give Tesla a chance to say what a fair compensation ought to be. The decision on the appeal in this case, known as Tornetta v. Musk, likely ends the years-long fight over Musk’s record-setting compensation.
Electric / Self Driving cars
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Harms of the Current Global Anti-Female Gential Mutilation Campaign
We argue that a ubiquitous ‘standard tale’ obscures the diversity of practices, meanings and experiences among those affected. This discourse, driven by a heavily racialised and ethnocentric framework, has led to unintended but serious consequences: the erosion of trust in healthcare settings, the silencing of dissenting or nuanced community voices, racial profiling and disproportionate legal surveillance of migrant families. Moreover, we highlight a troubling double standard that legitimises comparable genital surgeries in Western contexts while condemning similar procedures in others.
- I advocate NOT whittling on kids' junk at all (male or female). Let them do it when they grow up, if they want. This makes me a radical heretic unwelcome by any side of the current debates.
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Don't go to physics grad school and other cautionary tales
some people who go to grad school go down a dark path. Imagine being a talented physics student, talented enough to end up in grad school at Brown, and ending up selling fruit (or whatever) in Florida on a visa lottery. Of course conspiriod nitwits are all over this; disappointed it wasn’t an antifa attack on college republicans, we have people saying it was all about the Professor’s research into limitless free energy (his research was nothing of the sort). One that it was Operation Gladio mind control operation, based on absolutely nothing. Also covering up magnetic pole reversals. To say nothing of flying saucers. Nah, pretty sure it was just some guy who cracked after his life was ruined by physics grad school, just like Professor Katz said. If you want to ask hard questions, ask questions like why it was someone talented enough to go to Ivy League physics grad school came to see mass murder as a rational decision. He wasn’t the only example; and there are no wiki pages for grad students who self-delete. Also why, despite all the allegedly socially useful higher education going on these days, so many people believe stupid shit like the men in black deleted a physicist and staged a mass shooting because muh flying saucers.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Amazon will allow ePub and PDF downloads for DRM-free eBooks
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Pa. high court rules that police can access Google searches without a warrant
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Pa Supreme Ct allows non-warranted access to your Google searches
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United Nations agrees to persist with multi-stakeholder internet governance
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AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D sells for more than 9800X3D, enthusiasts flock to AM4 DDR4
The DDR5 memory pricing crisis has sent the whole PC market into utter chaos, including pricing on AMD's flagship AM4 gaming chip. eBay prices for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D have skyrocketed to the point where these chips are being sold regularly for more money than a brand-new Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Second-hand prices for the 5800X3D average around $500-$600 on eBay. Some of the highest-selling units sold at nearly $800, showing how desperate some buyers are to buy AMD's best gaming chip that still uses DDR4 memory.
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Open-sourcing CORE One CAD Files Under the New Open Community License (OCL)
The Open Community License (OCL) is our answer to the gaps left by traditional software licenses when applied to physical hardware. It is designed to be concise and human-readable (it fits on one page) and it even includes practical examples linked directly in the document so you know exactly what you can and cannot do. For Makers & Hackers: You have complete freedom to use, modify, and share derivatives back to the community. For Businesses: You can build and modify machines based on the source designs for your internal production (e.g., a custom print farm). Unlike vague “Non-Commercial” licenses, OCL explicitly allows you to make money using these designs to run your business; you just can’t make money selling the machines. The Restriction: You cannot commercially exploit the design files (selling the product or remixes) without a separate agreement.
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Samsung Investigating Whether Employees Accepted Kickbacks for Memory Orders
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LG TVs' unremovable Copilot shortcut is the least of smart TVs' AI problems
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
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Americans Are Increasingly Convinced That Aliens Have Visited Earth
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Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will fly by Earth Friday. Here are the latest images.
Known as 3I/ATLAS, the comet will make its closest pass by us on Friday, coming within about 167 million miles (270 million kilometers) of our planet, but on the other side of the sun. For reference, the sun’s distance from Earth is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Big bets and broken unicorns: Tiger Global's rise and reckoning
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Apple pours $20.4B into Q3 buybacks, the most of any company
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Colorado steel mill halts rail shipments to BNSF and UP
BNSF Railway and Union Pacific have filed lawsuits against North America’s largest producer of rail, arguing that Orion Steel’s Rocky Mountain Steel Mills broke long-term supply deals by refusing to ship more rail unless the railroads agree to price increases of more than 50%. The railroads say Rocky Mountain’s halt in rail shipments threatens safety and service because no other domestic rail manufacturer can supply enough rail — and mills in Japan and China require long lead times and their rails are subject to U.S. tariffs and anti-dumping policies.
Four days after Atlas acquired the mill, its executives told UP that it would not deliver rail unless UP paid a price 61% higher than specified in the contract. “Atlas representatives further threatened to force Evraz into bankruptcy if Union Pacific refused to pay the increased price, claiming Atlas was the largest secured creditor and therefore Union Pacific would have no remedy against Evraz under the law,” according to the UP lawsuit. The mill stopped shipping rail to UP in September, which the railroad said would have a significant impact on its track renewal and maintenance program — and, by extension, UP’s safety and service.
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Revealed: How Toyota uses retro-style games and prizes to motivate workers
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New Texas Instruments $60B fab will pump out tens of millions chips per day
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The gift card accountability sink
the AARP, the FBI, and your friendly local payments nerd will all tell you that if you’re abused on your debit card you are quite likely to be made whole, and if you’re abused via purchasing gift cards, it is unlikely any deep pockets will cover for you. The difference in treatment is partially regulatory carveouts, partially organized political pressure, and partly a side effect of an accountability sink specific to the industrial organization of gift cards.
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Yet another reason I have trust issues
If they can do this to a former president, even one they despised, who else can they do this to? For all the FBI’s issues, the agents knew they didn’t have probable cause, and the Biden DOJ pushed forward anyway. Based on what we’re seeing from federal judges, it’s not hard to figure out how they got a warrant signed, but that’s only part of the issue. Our rights are our rights. Everyone has the right to be secure in their person and home, to be free from illegal search and seizures, and a then former president’s rights were trampled on simply because the person in charge didn’t like him.
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US government sues US Virgin Islands & accuses officials of violating 2nd Amend.
Trump
Democrats
Left Angst
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Administration Plans to Break Up Premier Weather and Climate Research Center
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Kennedy Center board votes to rename in honour of Trump, White House says
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New H-1B visa rules upgrade some lottery applicants – and squeeze out others
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Mark Zuckerberg stops funding the pro-immigration group he founded
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SNAP recipient goes viral: “What’s the point of food stamps if it’s just for real food?”
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Man sues cops who jailed him for 37 days for trolling a Charlie Kirk vigil
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PBS News Hour West to go dark after ASU discontinues contract
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Four died in ICE custody this week as 2025 deaths reach 20-year high
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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Brown University, MIT shooting suspect found dead
The suspect in the Brown University mass shooting was found dead last night after taking his own life. Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown University student and Portuguese national, was found at a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire. In an affidavit, investigators said a campus custodian’s observations and an anonymous Reddit post helped narrow the search for the suspect. He was “sophisticated in hiding his tracks” and is believed to have used an untraceable phone and avoided credit cards in his own name, said prosecutors.
Correio da Manhã tabloid explains that Loureiro, 47, was shot after one of his daughters answered a ring to the family’s doorbell at their home in Brookline, Massachusetts. The man waiting outside shot three, possibly four, times – right past the horrified daughter, missing her completely, but hitting her father who was standing a few metres behind her. The girl, aged 14, got a ‘good view’ of the man, and has reportedly described him to police.
Three days after the deadly shooting at Brown University, officers received an anonymous tip that stuck out from a flood of information. It directed the authorities to a post on Reddit. “I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental,” the Reddit user posted, according to an affidavit filed by the police in Providence. R.I. That tip would later lead to a breakthrough in not only the search for the campus attacker but also the suspect in the murder of a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It also ended the dayslong manhunt that had put both the Brown and M.I.T. communities on edge. A day after the Reddit post was made, the writer approached law enforcement officials and told them about his encounter with a suspicious man in Brown University’s Barus and Holley building.
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Brown University Shooting Suspect Found Dead in New Hampshire
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Man suspected in shooting at Brown and nuclear physicist has been found dead
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A Reddit tipster cracked the Brown University and MIT shooting cases
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Man suspected in Brown University shooting and MIT professor killing, found dead
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MIT fusion-lab head shot dead: a horror 'impossible to believe'
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A Reddit post blew Brown University shooting investigation wide open
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External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
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South Korea to mandate facial recognition for opening new mobile numbers
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Private donors pledge 860M euros for CERN's Future Circular Collider
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Mistakes marred Australian telco firewall upgrade, contributing to deaths
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Nearly 500 small businesses seek assistance in dispute with digital platforms
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The Telegraph: Patriots should not fight for the British state.
ccording to an Ipsos poll in June, almost half of us “say there are no circumstances” in which we “would be willing to take up arms for Britain”, with 39 per cent of men saying they would never fight for this country, and only 42 per cent of 18-34 year olds saying there are circumstances in which they would fight. Some of those refusing are Leftists, but an increasing number of those on the Right, especially the young, believe that to obey the British state is to act against the interests of the British people.
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BBC replaced by TNT Sports as Commonwealth Games live broadcaster
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Britain is reshaping the global internet without Americans' consent
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Toffee Crisp and Blue Riband can't be called chocolate any more
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
Health / Medicine
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Largest wildlife overpass in North America now open in Colorado
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Stately home's £25M restoration derailed by Alberto the albino badger
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Food becoming more calorific but less nutritious due to rising carbon dioxide
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Why the weirdest sea level changes on Earth are happening off the coast of Japan
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New Gene Drive Stops the Spread of Malaria–Without Killing Any Mosquitoes
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The World Is Awash with Oil and Prices Are Poised to Keep Falling
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DOE orders WA coal plant to continue operating despite state ban.