Link. I think the images are uploaded to storage outside the photo library.
Swedenborgian — St Paul’s Virginia Street Church “he became able to experience the afterlife while still conscious andfunctioning in this world, and had spiritual experiences daily for 29 years.”
Link. Cult was hot in the 1920s! Church is still active I think. MSP has a lot of older cults.
Human jobs in an AGI World: comparative advantage? “compute is a producer-specific constraint on AI, similar to constraints on Marc’s time in the example above”
Link. Within this context I feel like there would also a Baumol effect on labor wages.
I doubt that world will be so predictable.
Iceland: “the space between the plates is so narrow that it’s possible to reach out and touch both North America and Europe at the same time”
Link. You need SCUBA gear.
Things the NYT totally fails at: “Trump recently promised in Richmond, VA to block federal funding to any school with a mask or vaccine mandate.”
Link. Vaccine mandates are common. He’s been promising this for a year. The NYT has never mentioned it. Sulzberger is a problem.
“The proton’s core features pressures more intense than in any other known form of matter … 10 times the pressure at the heart of a neutron star”
Link. There’s a long way to the Planck length.
“researchers … exploiting a peculiar way in which pairs of photons, particles of light, can imitate a graviton… “
The creation of GPS (part of a series on map history): “everything changed on September 1, 1983 when a Korean Airlines 747 jumbo jet en route from Anchorage to Seoul strayed into Soviet airspace”
Link. Recommend read.
“universe appears to be expanding at bafflingly different speeds depending on where we look”
Link. Unexpected.
Trust loss during pandemic: “It’s sometimes hard for people to know who is a straight shooter and who is an activist.”
Link. Some physicians active on social media are heavily invested in narratives that are possible but well supported by evidence. They use dramatic publications that are not representative and they often skew results to favor their strong beliefs. They get a lot of attention. The process of knowledge consensus in science is uglier than civilians used to think.
TikTok: “exactly the kind of influence campaign which, in the hands of a foreign adversary in a moment of national peril, could sow chaos and discord and division”
Link. TikTok demonstrated its power to algorithmically target children. US Representatives were impressed.
Also, the House GOP has more capable people than I had imagined.
“… Modi used law enforcement agencies to extort businesses into filling its coffers”
Link. India’s corruption is institutionalized.
Apple’s very expensive App Store security -> scam Bitcoin Wallet
Link. “… app was previously reported at least 12 days ago as a scam but its still up there, #1 search result.”
I hope the EU makes applesauce.
Gluteal pain in discogenic sciatica — role of the “piriformis”?
Link. Why not both?
Biden advice to a boy who stutters – after Trump: “But remember — look at me — you’re smart, you’re handsome, you know what you’re doing.”
Link. Biden’s childhood experience with bullies is helpful here. I hope Trump continues to mock Biden’s stutter. I think it will not serve Trump well.
“High growth and large decline in inequality have combined to eliminate poverty in India for the PPP$ 1.9 poverty line.”
Link. There’s immense poverty still, but it’s not the India I saw in 1982. The world improves.
Tsai: “Neither Apple nor Google has a monopoly, as normally defined, but there’s not enough competition to make them do right by customers and developers.”
Link. When switching costs are prohibitive vendors achieve competition free zones.
Regulators should focus on reducing switching costs. Ex: Photo Library migration with lossless edits managed, metadata preserved.
“Many cartoonists work in a hybrid of old and new: they draw in black ink, scan, and then digitally apply color and lettering.”
Link. Essay based on a book about cartoon art. For cartoonists the big tech breakthrough was not the stylus, it was the scanner.
“national office market lost $664.1 billion in value from 2019 to 2022”
Link. Look for a huge construction boom as fairly new office buildings are demolished to create residential spaces and parks.
CrossFit box on 9th floor? Climbing gym in the elevator?
If the mobster is president: “placing a bad tax bill in the same category as internment camps for undocumented immigrants undermines the case against internment camps”
Link. Organizing a non-violent and persistent national campaign to salvage American democracy. We can do better than Hungary.
Or we can reelect Joe Biden. Which is much better for everyone, including conservatives.
Viktor Orban of Hungary: a primer on how to destroy a democracy.
Link. GOP darling. The voters of Hungary did not love their democracy enough. Orban won the final fair election in Hungary.
I don’t think Americans are much smarter, but even 1% smarter may suffice.
The evolution of mitochondrial and related cellular apoptosis.
Link. Bacteria may commit suicide so their kin can feast on the corpse. Rather like children.
Also mitochondria are likely not only bacterial symbiont in eukaryotic history.
ALS Drug Fails: “patient advocacy groups took victory laps after Relyvrio was approved, and they were a big part of the pressure that made the FDA reverse its initial correct decision”
Link. Desperation does not make good choices.
Roku hacked, data use for fraudulent charges, 2 month notification delay. Never buy Roku.
Link. Don’t buy anything from Roku and never give any TV access to your WiFi.
Fidelity Investments Life Insurance complete data beach via Infosys McCamish
Link. “names, states of residence, Social Security numbers, bank accounts and routing information, and dates of birth were obtained during the breach.”
McCamish is probably how Fidelity outsources risk so their deep pockets are safe. I hope the lawsuits are able to breach that firewall. I look forward to future loss of all assets.
Manage your Mac’s battery for endurance and lifespan
Link. Just let the OS handle it. You can leave it plugged in. BUT stored devices need charging every 6m.
Desktop & Documents Folders in iCloud Drive: evaluation.
Link. Howard didn’t see technical bugs but some of the processes terrify users. He doesn’t mention impact on local network share.
macOS Sonoma 14.4 USB bug: “If you have not installed the 14.4 update yet, you should wait until Apple issues an update to fix this problem”
Link. In a just world Apple would need to give customers a report on how this passed QA.
“aside from chimps and humans, researchers have found clear evidence of menopause in only five species — all of them whales”
Link. For most animals evolution favors dying once eggs stop. In menopause species selection extends life beyond egg failure. Male lifespan extension is presumably a side-effect and they don’t live as long.
“Female elephants … stay fertile into their 60s”
“international network of online groups that have targeted thousands of children with a sadistic form of social media terror”
Link. “seek out children with mental health issues and blackmail them into hurting themselves on camera,”
If 1/100,000 of humanity is this broken that’s 80,000 people worldwide. They have always been with us, but enabling technologies give global reach and relative impunity. The same enabling technologies provide a rich pool of vulnerable people.
EU Carbon tariffs will hit China hard – US seeks other tariffs
Link. Carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). China exports at all time high: “trade surplus in manufactured goods, … largest the world has seen since World War II”
Dating App crunch: Millennials age out and Gen Z won’t pay
Link. Gen Z uses Insta DMs?! Or they just don’t date.
“naval victories have reopened the western Black Sea, allowing Ukraine to again ship grain from Odesa.”
Link. Ukraine has destroyed 1/3 of Black Sea fleet.
CDC isolation guidance for COVID and other respiratory viruses is sensible and thoughtful.
Link. Best summary anywhere.
Trump fuses RNC with his own operation – fires the establishment.
Link. This is excellent news. When Trump loses the GOP can be rebuilt from the ashes.
Wolfram Alpha integration in Kagi search engine.
Link. Kagi downranks ad supported pages. Which is something Google can’t do.
Prompt incantations: “The right answer is to pretend to be in a Star Trek episode or a political thriller, depending on how many math questions you want the AI to answer.”
Link. If you say the prompt incorrectly your soul is forfeit.
Roku locks TV until customers obey: “a huge “fuck you” to their customers”
Link. Life without TV isn’t all bad.
TikTok “ban” rationale – and Trump’s reversal.🆓
Link. Jeff Yass has a 33 billion stake in TikTok and Trump needs money. So Trump works for Xi now.
Which is an ominous sign for Putin.
Mental Health Rx ages 13-24 almost doubles from 2006 to 2020.
Link. Anxiety and depression. We don’t know why increase.
A.L.S. Drug Relyvrio: approved based on weak data, found to have no benefit.
Link. Similar story to an Alzheimer’s drug that was approved and doesn’t work.
NYT speculates that military blast exposure guidance is wrong.
Link. The speculation is plausible but the data seems limited.
“Apple appears to be engaged in refactoring the XNU kernel into a central micro-kernel with its protected exclaves.”
Link. Sifting Sonoma clues.
iCloud Drive in Sonoma: “iCloud Drive saves changed files at the file, not block, level … if one byte is changed in a file, then that whole file is resynced by copying it up to iCloud.”
Link.
GOP base is tired of Woke.
Link. The Woke were easy prey. Boriinnng. But what’s next?!
(Team Lib: We can start teaching history again. But keep your head down until November.)
Female Genital Cutting: “… Somalia, where an estimated 99 percent of women have had their clitoris excised”
Link. Since 2016 30 million more women have been surgically traumatized. Indonesia is 55% of girls.
In confidential surveys 2/3 of men and women in households where a woman was cut oppose the practice. In Djibouti and Sierra Leone more men than women are opposed.
Childhood trauma and adult psychiatric illness in identical twins.
Link. ” …. those who reported one or more trauma in childhood — physical or emotional neglect or abuse, rape, sexual abuse, hate crimes or witnessing domestic violence — were 2.4 times as likely to be diagnosed with a psychiatric illness as those who did not…
… 52 percent [risk increase] for each additional adverse experience.”
I would have bet the effect would be far smaller. This is mind boggling.
Aperture will launch on an M2 Air running Ventura 13.6.3 and will browse an old Aperture Library
Link. It won’t run on Intel Monterey. It never occurred to me it would run on Apple Silicon Ventura.
iOS 17.4 lets budgeting apps access Apple Card, Cash, and Savings data
Link. Maybe one day we can have good personal finance software options. I suspect Intuit will be unhappy.
“Elephants have 29 genes for TP53. Together, they may aggressively quash cancerous cells.”
Link. Big animals have more cells so more cancer so better anti-cancer. Learnings from wooly mammoth re-creation and stem cell experiments.
Haley the heir apparent: “She’s going to drop down to kiss ass when she quits, like she always does.””
Link. I love that quote. It’s so true. She has and she would; she’s a party pro.
But Haley gets money because GOP donors believe Trump is a loser. They hope he falls. Somehow.