Link round-up for 15 March 2025

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

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Don't duck under the gate.

See a cat lose a fight with a box.

Some people are good at catching things, some are not.

I guess they can't all just get along.

Cool kitchen robot.

Have some fun with history.

You need to reboot your cat (from reader Chief Squirrel).

Stop poking me, asshole!  I fart in your general direction!  OK, now you're really gonna get it!

Here are a few inventions that never caught on.

Ancient philosophers anticipate progress.

I don't know what kind of machine this is but I don't think it's supposed to be doing that.

Drones can be useful in the US too.

"One day a great warrior will be born....."

Hey, I think you dropped this.

Yes, please, get that thing off the boat.

This is sand, not water.

It's a family on the move.

Learn about Amanita muscaria, the shroom with a difference.

Speaking of shrooms, Canadian research shows that this compound found in all fungi can reduce the damage done by the flu.

An antioxidant extracted from rosemary reverses the loss of memory associated with Alzheimers, based on animal testing.

Some older adults should get the measles vaccine, even if they were probably vaccinated as children.

Alcohol is unhealthy in many ways, but also surprisingly good for cholesterol.

This is what we get for some of that money spent on health research.

The UK is considering introducing a simple pill to minimize heart attacks and strokes in older people.

Incompetent amateurs don't belong in space.

"If we can't steal from everybody in order to create worthless bullshit, China will pull ahead in the creating-worthless-bullshit race!"  Read the comments too.

If the Star Trek transporters actually existed, they would pose bizarre philosophical problems.

This book sounds seriously icky and creepy.  Discussion here.

Here's a trick which is supposed to relieve migraines.  I haven't tried it.

"It felt evil to me."

Cas d'intérêt looks at the role of art and literature during times of oppression.

The internet doesn't make people shittier, but it's easy for shitty people to dominate.

Here are some verified charities for helping Ukraine.

"AI" search engines queried about news sources made errors in 60% of cases.

Here's some more info on the privacy changes at Firefox.  I don't have the technical knowledge to really understand this, but some readers may.

Automattic, which owns Tumblr and WordPress, has signed a deal to allow "AI" to steal the posts and art on those platforms.  Here's how to fight back.

In this situation, you really want the doors to open.

"AI" still basically doesn't work, and it's preventing the advent of a (stunningly tedious-sounding) gadget-based utopia.

Certain DVDs manufactured by Warner Brothers in 2006-2008 are deteriorating.  If you have any that fit that description, check them.  And in general, if you have old DVDs or CDs, you should probably make back-ups in case they start to deteriorate -- lots of good tips at that link.

"Absolutely no men" (click blurred image to make it clear).

The measles outbreak has grown to over three hundred cases in fifteen states.

This T-shirt trolling Zuckerberg (in Latin!) sold out in half an hour.

Thieves are stealing the wheels from Teslas in storage.  Apparently they fit other cars, so they're worth something.

Companies pay staggering sums to develop "AI" that does a piss-poor job compared with actual humans who would cost less to employ.

Are Mormon weddings really this bad?

Here are the people who founded Indivisible.

Amazon is funneling millions to Trump by various routes.  Every dollar spent with them supports him.

It's classic straight male entitlement.

Forcing remote workers back to the office is especially bad for women.

An Indian reservation in Arizona has won a small but ecologically-important victory against Trump.

Many younger programmers now rely on "AI" to write code, resulting in error-riddled programs whose own creators don't understand them.

Ariella Elm's blog chronicles Democratic resistance and wins against Trump, day by day.

Layoffs are bad for business, but bosses keep doing them.

Utah has an unusual plan for creating more jobs for dentists.

I've read twenty or thirty articles and blog posts on the CR/shutdown vote yesterday, some written before the vote and some after, and not one of them centered the issue of all the ordinary people who would have been hurt by a shutdown.  Not a single one.  The activist fringe have lost their souls -- we're acceptable collateral damage to them, just as much as we are to Trump and Musk.  I'll give Fetterman credit for at least mentioning the issue in passing during this brief but tough no-nonsense takedown.

The average price of a new car is almost $48,000, and even used ones average around $26,000.  This is insane.  And if Trump ever actually imposes the tariffs he keeps threatening, prices will get even worse.

Tesla is in deep shit.  A plan to produce a cheaper (still $25,000) car might possibly have turned things around, but the idea seems to have been abandoned in favor of making robotaxis and humanoid robots (products unlikely to find much of a market), and the damage done by Musk's toxicity is probably irreversible.

A proposed House bill would deny funding for any unprovoked military attack on Canada, Panama, or Greenland.  It is conceivable that some Republicans would vote for this; Trump might well veto it, but it could still deter him from making the most hideous blunder of all.

Peter Popoff is at it again.

Musk is being hit hard from all directions.  Keep up the pressure.

In North Carolina, yet another Republican congresscritter gets a hostile response from voters.

Confront colonialist brutality against indigenous people.

Musk has backed down from a plan to make it harder to file Social Security claims.

Marco Rubio understands perfectly what's at stake in Ukraine (this is from before he became secretary of state).  His going along with Trump represents corruption, not ignorance.

"They can treat women like shit and be praised as virtuous for doing so."

Since Musk's claims about how much money DOGE is saving are so error-riddled as to be meaningless, check out the DOGE tracker (found via Hackwhackers), which offers reality-based calculations.  It's made by the blog Musk Watch, which is dedicated to monitoring Musk.

Don't run government like a business, run it like a household.

Despite the plummeting support for Trump and the Republicans, the Democratic brand remains highly toxic with mainstream voters.  Don't assume the midterms will be a cakewalk without the party making serious changes.

The price of housing continues to skyrocket, while most government plans to deal with it involve building new housing that might help years down the line but do nothing to bring down rents now.  This is one area where electing Harris might have made a difference -- her rent control plan would merely have restricted increases on already-ruinously-high rents, but she was at least open to the idea of national rent control, and might have been open to doing something actually effective.

The president who pardoned the January 6 insurrectionists wants to classify attacks on Tesla dealerships as terrorism.  Shows you what his priorities are.

A pro-forced-birth CEO is urging the government to ban the mailing of abortion pills in order to alleviate the country's "baby shortage".  That is, women should be forced to churn out babies they don't want at the whim of religious weirdos.

More examples here of how Trump repeatedly backs down when firmly opposed. Also, this week he withdrew the nomination of an anti-vax, forced-birth crackpot to head the CDC.

John Oliver has bought, and forgiven, $15 million in medical debt.

Steve Bannon, who loathes Elon Musk, isn't ruling out running for president in 2028.

The USDA must reinstate six thousand workers who got fired in Musk's rampage.  It's DOGE's biggest defeat so far.  And National Park Service employees win too.

Canada is now considering abandoning a mass purchase of US fighter planes.  Portugal has already canceled an order.

British Columbia is excluding Tesla from a rebate program for electric vehicles.

Canada's new leader sounds like he'll be tough with Trump.

71% of Canadians support a moratorium on Tesla sales in Canada.  79% have a negative view of Musk.

"The class power dynamic of the situation is difficult to overlook."

Paul Krugman assesses the new awakening of European power in the face of Russia's aggression and Trump's betrayal.

Some American scientists who have lost their funding in the US will continue their work in France.

Europe can no longer take the risk of buying American.

Poland suggests that it may acquire its own nuclear weapons to deter the Russian threat.

If Elon Musk cuts off Ukraine from Starlink, replacement technology will not be fully ready for years.  It is lunacy to have such a critical system subject to the whims of one individual.  The US government should have nationalized Starlink years ago.

Musk has cut off funding for a team which finds and rescues Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.

Russia is using men from its strategic nuclear missile forces as mere cannon fodder, suggesting that it doesn't expect to need them for their real jobs -- that is, that it doesn't expect to use nuclear missiles anytime soon.

Most insensitive gift ever.

Mexicans like president Sheinbaum's handling of Trump, giving her an 85% approval rating.

Elon Musk's Starlink has lost a potential deal in Mexico that would have been worth seven billion dollars in revenue.

In Syria, jihadists have massacred at least a thousand members of the Alawite religious minority, of which Asad is a member and from which his regime drew much of its support.

"I don't advocate violence, but there are times when that is the only way to fight."

Here's a look at the potential consequences if Trump badly antagonizes Japan.

Chinese automaker BYD has surpassed Tesla as the largest seller of electric cars worldwide, largely due to cheaper models.

More links at Red State Blues and WAHF.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, the class struggle heating up, and the prospect of a government shutdown.

[Image at top:  poster displayed near a Tesla dealership in London UK]

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