Link round-up for 1 February 2025

Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week.

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Here are some people being not very good at things.

You can visit this mountain in Germany.

But can you remember the name of this town in New Zealand?

They're gonna need a bigger boat.

Hold on, let me get some ice cubes.

This roller coaster is small, but not lacking in drama.

We need better editors.  And better whale enthusiasts.

Cows make the best of things.

I've heard that the way to treat snakebite is to suck the venom out.

These guys are just showing off, but it's a pretty good show.

Imagine what this woman could do to anybody who made her mad.

See machines at work.

This passionate and moving song became a revolutionary anthem in Iran.

This is what great writing looks like.

Watch actor Gene Hackman take a threatening situation in hand.

Magawa retired after a long and useful career.

Here's how you handle a depressed fish.

Be careful how you interpret statistics on bird flu.

Dolphins have a sonar equivalent of X-ray vision -- they can "see" your internal organs.

Moderna is already working on an mRNA vaccine for bird flu.

Here are fifteen ways you can reduce your risk of dementia.  Some are obvious, some aren't.

You need to de-frag your brain every so often.

Most of what people "know" about human sleep needs is mistaken, according to a new book.

If you can decipher the ancient Indus Valley script, you'll win a million dollars (found via Miss Cellania).  Sad to say, it's probably impossible.  Experts have been trying for decades, but we just don't have enough surviving material to work with.

An anonymous coder has created Nepenthes, a program you can use to sabotage "AI" crawlers that come to "scrape" (steal) material from your site.  Another such program is Iocaine.  Here's a listing of programs designed to sabotage and poison "AI".  This Ars Technica posting about such programs takes a neutral and slightly nervous tone, because Ars Technica treats "AI" and the content theft it depends on as legitimate and acceptable -- but check out the comments there, which are almost unanimous in enthusiastically supporting programs to attack "AI".

This YouTuber came up with her own approach to poison "AI" thief bots.  Again, pretty much all comments are supportive.

Here's a look at the rise of Bluesky, including how its decentralized structure makes it less susceptible to ads or a billionaire take-over.

This site claims it can de-paywall paywalled articles.  I haven't tried it.

Nowadays, this is what you will probably see when you walk into the women's restroom (NSFW).

Tips here on screening out anything Trump-related from your online news.

If you use ChatGPT, this is the kind of accuracy you're getting.

Create your art using the tool best suited to it.

Trump goes to Hell.

With "AI", profanity actually works.

Two women compare their vehicles.

How dare you call this man a Nazi.

Don't drive a Cybertruck in the UK.

A Cybertruck driver suggested a way of boosting owners' morale which definitely would not make them more popular.

More fun with Cybertrucks here.

"AI" bots are flooding Bluesky with bickering.

This sounds like an interesting joint business venture.

When the trash will not come to the trash can, the trash can must come to the trash.

Are any of the MSM still worth your time?  Here's a recommendation.

"AI" "art" cannot be copyrighted.

The Oscars this year are shaping up to be a celebration of fakery.  It's the woke eating the woke.

Stop pretending that Trump has authority over the English language.  He doesn't.  Nobody does.

We need to get these absurdly oversized death machines off the road.

The Chinese "DeepSeek" "AI" is predictably censored.

Writers, beware of scams like this.

Here's a weird article about why some Christians consider empathy sinful.

Sounds like ads these days are just getting worse.

This art post captures much of the feeling of office life.

Here's an explanation of the term "sex by deception".

This bus driver prevented a murder/suicide.

Here's what we now know about the Titan submersible implosion.

Libraries can defend privacy.

The news website Quartz is now generating text with "AI" that rips off other "AI", creating an endless cycle of self-cannibalizing garbage.

After living eight months in the Netherlands, she saw the US with fresh eyes.

Remember the world before modern regulations.

People with disabilities can contribute a lot to activism.

It's a very bad thing to scare children with religious bullshit.

Would you want to confront this man?

"AI" may soon usher in a golden age of drug abuse.

Investing in Trump stock has cost this man hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and his wife.

Blogger Annie's letter to Verizon about spam actually got a response, but it wasn't very useful.

You can report landlords who are price-gouging to exploit the Los Angeles fire victims.

Policy changes affect different groups in different ways.

Facebook has banned discussion of Linux, for some reason.

A proposed law in Texas would help teachers to push Christianity on students.

Musk's supporters have been posting videos of various celebrities making gestures that superficially resemble a Nazi salute, but are obviously innocent, in order to argue that Musk was doing the same thing.  Don't be fooled.

There have been some suspicious deaths recently (I'm not taking any position on whether the implied accusations here are true).

UnitedHealthcare had revenues of almost three hundred billion dollars during 2024 -- and even that wasn't enough for wealthy investors.

Temporarily outside the US, blogger John Hill has found some peace being away from the "constant barrage of idiocy and meanness" of US political news.  The problem will be maintaining that when he returns.

The electronics in modern cars allow you to be closely tracked, and are vulnerable to hackers who could take control of some of the functions of the car.  This article focuses on Subaru, but I think the problems are similar in most modern tech-clogged vehicles.  I'm just going to keep on fixing my 1999 car, and avoid this nonsense.

FFS stop perving on kids.

Even the big oil companies have reasons to dislike withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

Here is the text of Caroline Kennedy's letter opposing RFK Jr.

Instagram is censoring content that supports abortion rights.

Navajo people are being advised to carry ID and proof of citizenship in case they get picked up in ICE raids.

In case you've seen the story, no, it's not true that a YouTuber "rented" the Giza pyramids.

Here's a report on the lived reality of DEI; discussion here.

Reminder:  Mexico sent us help after Katrina too.

Most of Trump's actions so far are unpopular with the public, who are mainly concerned about food and housing prices.  60% of Americans oppose the dominance of billionaires in the administration, with only 12% approving.

"The world failed the survivors.  It did not keep its promise."

Here are ten wins for the American people during 2024.

Trump's new policy random blundering about health science is already disrupting research, forcing scientists and experts to mobilize to defend their work politically.  Especially if RFK Jr is confirmed, expect a "brain drain" as the best US researchers decamp to Europe, Israel, Canada, or wherever else offers a more supportive environment -- to the detriment of US leadership in the field.

Hate is hate.

The law must take precedence over religious dogma.

"I think the lunatic left is losing power in the Democratic Party and in four years we'll see a more sane and grounded version of the left, more focused on helping the middle class and less on helping fringe groups like TIMs."

States may be able to file state conspiracy charges against January 6 insurrectionists, to which a presidential pardon cannot apply.

She's not taking any of his bullshit.

Elon Musk's goons have seized control of the US government's HR agency and locked the actual workers out of most of the computer system.

Dell is trying to drag most work-from-home employees back to the office, likely triggering many of the best to leave.

TikTok is now censoring anti-Trump, pro-Mangione, and other anti-authoritarian material.

Van Jones visited Auschwitz.

Market forces will keep the shift to green energy going regardless of government policy.

Steelmakers in Canada and Mexico are starting to refuse orders from the US due to uncertainty about the effects of future tariffs.

This is why we shouldn't let men stay in women's shelters.

Only a third of British Jews believe they have a long-term future in the UK, and half have considered leaving the country due to rising anti-Semitism.  The young are more pessimistic than the old, and few have confidence in the media or the authorities to stand up to bigotry.

Rapists are rapists and should never be coddled for ideological reasons.

Irish Jews were dragged out of a Holocaust commemoration event after turning their backs on offensive remarks by the Irish president, who was speaking there (no Israeli speakers were permitted).

Women and gays are losing legal protections in Australia.

However, Australia, unlike the US, holds religious fanatics accountable for killing children.

85% of Greenlanders oppose joining the US.  Only 6% favor the idea.

France is offering to send troops to defend Greenland from the US, if it comes to that.

As the Holocaust passes out of living memory, thinly-disguised anti-Semitism is on the rise again among Germany's "elites".

He visited Auschwitz -- and adopted a new cause.

As Jew-hatred rises across Europe, the Czech Republic remains an oasis of sanity.

In Russia, as here, the ultra-wealthy are getting even richer while most people struggle to get by.

Russia's grain export revenues are plummeting, due to sanctions and government incompetence.

Russia is deploying awesomely advanced military technology against Ukraine.

Israel is sending Patriot missiles to help Ukraine, suggesting that it is no longer concerned about antagonizing Russia now that Russian influence in Syria has collapsed.

The UK is providing £2 billion for Ukrainian air defense.

With Asad gone, formerly-banned books return to Syria's bookstores.

The new Syrian government has terminated its treaty allowing Russia to use Syrian ports, meaning that Russia no longer has any bases in the Mediterranean.

South Korea's president has been indicted on insurrection charges less than two months after his failed attempt to declare martial law -- and, yes, he could face the death penalty.  Why couldn't US justice move this fast after January 6?

Here's why imposing tariffs on Taiwan would mean big problems for the US (and for everybody).

More links at Red State Blues and WAHF.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, and a political rant.

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I am not cutting out political news entirely, but I need to cut out the kind of sites I mentioned on Wednesday, where almost every post is some variant of "Look how terrible and bad the politicians and party I oppose are!  Be angry!  Be scared!  Be stressed out!"  I can already feel my sanity eroding from exposure to this stuff.  I don't know whether they can sustain that level of hysteria for four whole years, but they seem determined to try.  I'd guess my odds of living more than another four years at not much better than fifty-fifty.  I'm not going to spend that time being exhorted and getting high blood pressure over things I mostly can't even do anything about.

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January 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Of the posts I saw which recognized this, almost every one used the Holocaust essentially as a prop, a jumping-off point to reiterate the same tired old talking points about present-day US politics.  Only a few (all on Jewish blogs) were purely about the Holocaust and refrained from mentioning present-day US politics.  Are we unable to take even one goddam day to recognize that not everything is about us?

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From Europe, a more balanced view of Trump -- not the second coming of Hitler, just an offensive windbag with some good ideas and mostly stupid ones.