yunyun333
2d ago
Why would foreign adversaries concern themselves with small fry, when they can go for the big fish?
In late 2024 U.S. officials announced that hackers affiliated with Salt Typhoon had accessed the computer systems of nine U.S. telecommunications companies, later acknowledged to include Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Spectrum, Lumen, Consolidated Communications, and Windstream.[8][9][10] The attack targeted U.S. broadband networks, particularly core network components, including routers manufactured by Cisco, which route large portions of the Internet.[3][4] In October 2024, U.S. officials revealed that the group had compromised internet service provider (ISP) systems used to fulfill CALEA requests used by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to conduct court-authorized wiretapping.[9]
The hackers were able to access metadata of users calls and text messages, including date and time stamps, source and destination IP addresses, and phone numbers from over a million users; most of which were located in the Washington D.C. metro area. In some cases, the hackers were able to obtain audio recordings of telephone calls made by high profile individuals.[11] Such individuals reportedly included staff of the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign, as well as phones belonging to Donald Trump and JD Vance.[12] According to deputy national security advisor Anne Neuberger, a "large number" of the individuals whose data was directly accessed were "government targets of interest."[11]
yunyun333
3d ago
Yup, one proposal was for a telescope in Chile, and it had a throwaway sentence about how it could help get more Hispanic students interested. As if telescopes are built in Chile for outreach and not because it has a crazy dry high desert.
yunyun333
3d ago
Today I see news that the NSF research experiences for undergraduates, which trains undergraduates to conduct real research and which I personally credit with making me into a scientist, is being shuttered across much of the country.
Someone did a look into science grants being cancelled on the ssc sub and their conclusion was that DOGE or whoever basically just ctrl+f'd "diverse", "underrepresented", and "minority" and axed all matches. This would correspond with why REUs are being shuttered.
yunyun333
3d ago
Ukraine doesn't even have meaningful amounts of minerals. This whole talking point is completely empty.
Ukraine has no significant rare-earth deposits other than small scandium mines. The US Geological Survey, an authority on the matter, doesn’t list the country as holding any reserves. Neither does any other database commonly used in the mining business. At best, the value of all the world’s rare-earth production rounds to $15 billion a year — emphasis on “a year.” That’s equal to the value of just two days of global oil output. Even if Ukraine had gigantic deposits, they wouldn’t be that valuable in geo-economic terms.
Say that Ukraine was able, as if by magic, to produce 20% of the world’s rare earths. That would equal to about $3 billion annually. To reach the $500 billion mooted by Trump, the US would need to secure 150-plus years of Ukrainian output.
Take, for instance, titanium. In 2023 the entire world market for the hard, super-light metal was $31 billion. Last year, Ukraine exported just $11.6 million – not billion – of titanium-bearing minerals. Though in theory some 7 per cent of the world’s reserves of titanium are under Kyiv’s control, it will take an investment of billions to create refining capacity to make more valuable and exportable titanium sponge. Even then, seven per cent of the world market would amount to gross sales of just over $2 billion a year.
It’s the same story with lithium. In Lindsey Graham’s imaginary world, Ukraine’s estimated 500,000 tonnes of reserves could be worth between $10 billion and $12.5 billion at current prices. But world lithium sales in 2024 were just $37 billion... according to a recent report by BNE Intellinews, “Kyiv has yet to even begin exploiting its deposits [and] produces no lithium.” Some of the most promising deposits at Kruta Balka deposits in the Zaporizhzhia region are partially under Russian control
It's too expensive to send Ukraine weapons, but also we must put boots on the ground and invest tens of billions into Gaza to make it an Israeli Monaco, or something. None of this is coherent.
yunyun333
11d ago
He appears to be an unironic MAGA guy though. I suppose it's not contradictory if you believe a war between US and China isn't inevitable.
yunyun333
11d ago
Physics professor Steve Hsu's take: https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1889350047004848291
Cutting ICs will only indirectly affect woke activities. The cuts will harm overall university budgets, but the main harm will be to very expensive STEM activities on campus, which require large IC charges to fund.
Building new labs, renovating old labs, hiring staff to deal with real regulatory and compliance requirements, etc. all require additional funds from ICs. Existing grants do not cover any of these costs which are very large and very real.
Without sufficient ICs a university could easily decide that STEM research is too expensive, while cash cow race-to-the-bottom courses in Sociology or Psychology become more attractive. There are fierce internal battles between factions within every university, and if STEM research becomes a big money loser, its advocates will lose more battles.
Overall this is a huge win for China because the appeal of working as a scientist at a US university is significantly diminished as the available resources decrease.
yunyun333
27d ago
U.S. President Donald Trump made the shocking announcement on Tuesday during a joint press conference with visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will pursue a plan where the U.S. assumes ownership of Gaza, shortly after calling for the permanent displacement of the Strip's residents.
"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we'll do a good job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out and create economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area," he said.
When asked if this meant that Trump would send U.S. troops to Gaza, he said "if it's necessary, we'll do that. We're gonna take over that piece and develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs. It will be something the entire Middle East can be very proud of."
Now there are a few problems with this. One is that Egypt and Jordan, the obvious candidates, are absolutely against it. Second is that it will be horribly embarrassing when an American soldier gets blown up by unexploded American ordnance that was donated to Israel. It's also somewhat incoherent - he's going to make it into some kind of big multicultural party zone?
"I envision the world's people living there. You'll make it into an international, unbelievable place. The entire world will be there - Palestinians also - many people will live there.
The US does have lots of leverage over Egypt though, their economy has been on the cusp of collapse for a while now. So maybe Trump's increased willingness to deploy coercion will bear fruit here.
yunyun333
1mo ago
No one has to push anything. Sometimes horrible accidents happen like the recent Jeju Air crash. We can learn things from them that have nothing to do with DEI, like "don't put concrete barriers at the end of runways". If the left wants to push "this is because he fired the head of TSA" (a real take) then just point out how ludicrous that is.
yunyun333
1mo ago
A plane crashed into an army helicopter over Reagan airport and everyone died. Of course, before the black boxes can be dug up come the recriminations. Trump blamed DEI; posters here may be familiar with the case of the FAA hiring lawsuit over a 'biographical questionnaire' designed to increase diversity in air traffic controllers. This leads to the always fun "please let it be a _____" game played by ideologues on both sides. Why not just let a sober investigation determine the causal factors first? And of course you can't draw conclusions about a 'competency crisis' simply from headline grabbing anecdotes. The point of moving away from DEI and such systems was to tamper down racial tensions instead of focusing even more attention on it.
yunyun333
1mo ago
The egypt thing according to twitter's translate is
My land is made up of goldsmiths who worked in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete.
which appears to be a reference to the Quimbaya goldsmiths whose artifacts date back to ~500 BC. Beautiful work and the pharaohs ruled until Cleopatra, so he's correct. Were the Chiribiquete natives the first artists? Probably not, but their rock paintings were pre-history so close enough.
where I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades
What the hell is he referring to here? The Floyd riots?
yunyun333
1mo ago
From Wikipedia it looks like there are about 7000 referrals to Prevent every year, and about 13% of them are followed up with by a 'Channel Panel'. It's also voluntary. I suppose the police could 'watch' him but it seems like you'd need a lot of surveillance to stop a guy from committing a very simple knife attack.
yunyun333
1mo ago
There are increasing calls to try IDF soldiers who travel to other countries for war crimes. It could never happen in the US of course.
yunyun333
1mo ago
What about the part where he was having sex while in the same room as his young kid? That's pretty messed up. Guy really went down the deviancy rabbit hole.
On February 19, 2022, Gaiman and his son spent the night at a hotel in Auckland, which they sometimes did for fun. Gaiman asked Pavlovich if she could come by and watch the child for an hour so he could get a massage. It was a small room — one double bed, a television, and a bathroom. When he returned, Gaiman and the boy ate dinner, takeout from a nearby delicatessen. Afterward, Gaiman wanted to watch a movie, but the child wanted to play with the iPad. The boy sat against the wall by the picture window overlooking the city, facing the bed. Pavlovich perched on the edge of the mattress; Gaiman got onto the bed and pulled her so she was on her back. He lifted the covers up over them. She tried to signal to him with her eyes that he should stop. She mouthed, “What the fuck are you doing?” She didn’t want the child to overhear what she was saying. Gaiman ignored her. He rolled her onto her side, took off his pants, pulled off her skirt, and began to have sex with her from behind while continuing to speak with his son. “‘You should really get off the iPad,’” she recalls him saying. Pavlovich, in a state of shock, buried her head in the pillow. After about five minutes, Gaiman got up and walked to the bathroom, half-naked. He urinated on his hand and then returned to Pavlovich, frozen on the bed, and told her to “lick it off.” He went back to the bathroom, naked from the waist down. “Before you leave,” he told Pavlovich, “you have to finish your job.” She went to the bathroom, and he pushed her to her knees. The door was open. (Gaiman’s representatives say these allegations are “false, not to mention, deplorable.”)
There's plenty of other bizarre accusations that paint him as more than just a regular sex pest.
One evening, Palmer dropped Pavlovich and the child off with Gaiman and retreated back to her own place. Pavlovich was in the kitchen, tidying up, when he approached her from behind and pulled her to the sofa. “It all happened again so quickly,” Pavlovich says. Gaiman pushed down her pants and began to beat her with his belt. He then attempted to initiate anal sex without lubrication. “I screamed ‘no,’” Pavlovich says. Had Gaiman and Pavlovich been engaging in BDSM, this could conceivably have been part of a rape scene, a scenario sometimes described as consensual nonconsent. But that would have required careful negotiation in advance, which she says they had not done. After she said “no,” Gaiman backed off briefly and went into the kitchen. When he returned, he brought butter to use as lubricant. She continued to scream until Gaiman was finished. When it was over, he called her “slave” and ordered her to “clean him up.” She protested that it wasn’t hygienic. “He said, ‘Are you defying your master?’” she recalls. “I had to lick my own shit.”
yunyun333
1mo ago
Trump's Mideast Envoy Forced Netanyahu to Accept a Gaza Plan He Repeatedly Rejected
Last Friday evening, Steven Witkoff, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, called from Qatar to tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aides that he would be coming to Israel the following afternoon. The aides politely explained that was in the middle of the Sabbath but that the prime minister would gladly meet him Saturday night.
Witkoff's blunt reaction took them by surprise. He explained to them in salty English that Shabbat was of no interest to him. His message was loud and clear. Thus in an unusual departure from official practice, the prime minister showed up at his office for an official meeting with Witkoff, who then returned to Qatar to seal the deal.
In fact, Witkoff has forced Israel to accept a plan that Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected over the past half year. Hamas has not budged from its position that the hostages' freedom must be conditioned on the release of Palestinian prisoners (the easy part) and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza (the hard one). Netanyahu rejected this condition and thus was born the partial deal proposed by Egypt.
It's hard to know how Netanyahu feels about this aggressive behavior. While it provides an excuse he can give to his base, he may resent being dragged into an unwanted deal that will end the war and possibly lead to political upheaval at home. His propaganda machine is pushing the no-choice narrative that it's Trump. On Monday, laments began to be heard on Channel 14 that Trump isn't what we thought. "I'm surprised all the senior officials in the U.S. administration are saying the same thing," Yotam Zimri said on the Patriots program. "If this doesn't happen by the time Trump comes in, Hamas will understand what hell is. I don't understand the Israeli interest in at least not waiting for Trump." Yinon Magal answered," It's because Trump is pressing to do it! That's what's happening."
Trump declared repeatedly that if the remaining Israeli hostages weren't out by his inauguration there would be 'hell to pay'. Most people assumed this meant that MIGA Don would fully back more aggressive Israeli military action, but instead he's willing to pressure Israel into a deal they don't want. Israeli finance minister Smotrich called it a 'catastrophe' and if he quits the government it would collapse Netanyahu's coalition.
Details of the proposed plan can be found here:
Both sides agreed that Hamas would release three hostages on the first day of the agreement, after which Israel would begin withdrawing the troops from populated areas. Seven days later, Hamas would release four additional hostages, and Israel would allow displaced people in the southern to return to the north, but only on foot via the coastal road. Cars, animal-drawn carts, and trucks would be permitted to cross through a passage adjacent to Salah al-Din Road, monitored by an X-ray machine operated by a Qatari-Egyptian technical security team.
The agreement includes provisions for Israeli forces to remain in the Philadelphi corridor and maintain an 800-meter buffer zone along the eastern and northern borders during the first phase, which will last 42 days. Israel has also agreed to release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including approximately 190 who have been serving sentences of 15 years or more. In exchange, Hamas will release 34 hostages. Negotiations for the second and third phases of the agreement would begin on the 16th day of the ceasefire.
yunyun333
1mo ago
I read about 35-40 books last year, in my defense some of them were really long (no one ever accused david halberstam of brevity). It's kind of a tragedy that so many people stop reading when they're not forced to. There are also disturbing stats about how half of American adults can't read above a 5th grade level.
Somewhat related, remember the goldfinch, bestseller from about a decade ago? Literary critics were disturbed by how popular it was despite being 'children's literature'. Is that still a criticism people level about modern fiction?
yunyun333
1mo ago
Speaking of Maidan, can anyone who knows Ukrainian peruse the court document from this article and check if it's accurate? The author claims that many of the protestors shot during Maidan were shot by far-right pro-Maidan groups, not the special police (Berkut), and that this has been confirmed by a recent trial verdict.
A nearly one-million-word verdict from Ukraine’s Maidan massacre trial has recently confirmed that many Maidan activists were shot not by members of Ukraine’s Berkut special police force or other law enforcement personnel but by snipers in the far-right-controlled Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled locations a decade ago today. The verdict, handed down on October 18, 2023, states specifically that this hotel was controlled by Maidan activists and that an armed, far-right-linked Maidan group was in the hotel and fired from it. It also confirms that there was no Russian involvement in the massacre and that no massacre orders were issued by then President Viktor Yanukovych or his ministers. The verdict concludes that the Euromaidan was at the time of this massacre not a peaceful protest but a “rebellion” that involved the killing of Berkut and other police personnel.
The document in question: https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/114304164
And some sections translated with google:
Video from a BBC reporter at the scene where he claims to have seen shooting from the Hotel Ukrainia: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zQhuD4F1yJ0
yunyun333
2mo ago
I figure the whole 'military technology is so far advanced!' thing is only in areas where the military has far more of an interest than civilian scientists, like radar stealth/detection. The US military probably isn't hiding super-iphones. Gravity manipulation certainly isn't in their wheelhouse.
yunyun333
2mo ago
Depends on what he considered a success. From his original letter to America, his goal was to get us to fuck off.
(5) We also advise you to pack your luggage and get out of our lands. We desire for your goodness, guidance, and righteousness, so do not force us to send you back as cargo in coffins.
(6) Sixthly, we call upon you to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington.
yunyun333
2mo ago
Eh, both Jesus and Saul believed that the end of days was supposed to happen soon. I wonder how those early Christians reacted when Jerusalem was razed to the ground and the world kept on ticking.
yunyun333
2mo ago
Canada's finance minister quits over Trump tariff dispute with Trudeau
Canada's Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has resigned from her post, citing disagreements with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on how to respond to incoming President Donald Trump's threat of tariffs. In her publicly-shared resignation letter, Freeland said Canada needs to keep its "fiscal powder dry" to deal with the threat of sweeping tariffs from US President-elect Donald Trump.
She added this means "eschewing costly political gimmicks" that Canada cannot afford. Trump has promised to impose a levy of 25% on imported Canadian goods, which economists have warned would significantly hurt Canada's economy. Referencing the tariffs, Freeland called them a "threat" that needs to be taken "extremely seriously".
She and Trudeau were reportedly also in disagreement over a series of recently-proposed policies by the prime minister designed to address the country's cost-of-living crisis. Among them is a cheque of C$250 that the government wanted to send to every Canadian earning less than C$150,000 annually. These cheques were expected to cost the federal government a total of C$4.68bn. Another is a temporary tax break on essential items during the holidays which is anticipated to cost C$1.6bn in lost tax revenue. Freeland's office had reportedly been concerned about the price of these two policies, saying they are economically unwise at a time when the country's deficit is growing.
Seems like Trudeau is floundering for some ways to keep his job and his head economist didn't approve. I'm not sure why Trump wants to mega tax Canada but it certainly can't have helped. This may end up bringing down the Trudeau government.
yunyun333
2mo ago
People don't look at the night sky enough. Here's the former governor of Maryland complaining about the constellation Orion. There are a lot of things up there that look strange when you zoom in really hard with a shaky camera!
yunyun333
2mo ago
Last Friday after several days of deadlocked deliberations, the judge agreed to the prosecutor's request to drop the most serious charge of manslaughter, and asked the jury to consider the lesser charge of negligent homicide. It's strange that the jury was so quickly able to dismiss this charge while spending multiple days debating the more serious one.
This case was pretty controversial but judging by the political temperature I don't forecast any major protests or riots.
yunyun333
2mo ago
Ports require lots of heavy machinery to do their job, you can't 10x their capacity in a few days. LNG terminals (Taiwan imports 98% of energy) also cannot be easily migrated.
The routes between west and east are highly mountainous. One was closed for 13 years due to typhoon damage. They could all be shut down with well placed missiles, crippling resupply.
This is all ignoring submarine warfare/anti ship ballistic missiles.
The kolomoisky thing is interesting. Guy basically bankrolled his run to president and then Z-man turns on him and jails him. Wonder what happened there.
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