21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Mice headsets make it easier to study brain response to virtual reality.
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
December 27, 2024
TELL THEM TO STOP: Novel biomarker catches aging cells in the act.
DEMOCRATS. DEMOCRATS HAPPENED. Opinion: California ruled with great jobs and boom times. What happened?
INSURRECTION!
Watching Trump's most fanatical opponents argue that they have the right on January 6 to reject his Electoral College victory is one of the funniest things ever. I hope it spreads.@RepRaskin has already threatened this, and @tribelaw is, of course a vocal advocate of it. https://t.co/xNLsvubb9a
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 26, 2024
There is someone being jailed for Jan 6th when they were not even in Washington DC for supposedly encouraging an insurrection. How can The Hill provoke and encourage an insurrection without consequence?
— lilredboat (@eggle33218) December 26, 2024
DON SURBER: Primary Democrats, Too. “While history points to Democrats retaking the House in 2026, the question is will that majority be Tim Walz crazy or just Joe Manchin duplicitous?”
ABUSE OF POWER: Why Did the ATF Raid Baltimore Gun Rights Advocate Mark ‘Choppa’ Manley’s House? “It isn’t really clear what the feds were looking for in the raid. They spend hours tossing Manley’s home, checking gun serial numbers, and ultimately confiscating his phone. But no one was charged or arrested and no guns were confiscated. Harassment has been a hallmark of the ATF since the Biden administration launched its war on legal gun ownership not long after it took office. And the agency is, of course, refusing to comment on the case. . . . It wasn’t long ago that ATF decided that an early morning raid on the home of Bryan Malinowski was preferable to stopping him on his way to or from his place of work. Malinowski thought it was a home invasion, armed himself, and the ATF’s finest shot and killed him.”
Shut the ATF down. Of the many terrible federal law enforcement agencies, it’s arguably the worst.
WELL, IT’S NOT LIKE THE LIZ CHENEY STRATEGY WORKED WELL FOR LIZ CHENEY: ‘Uncommitted’ voters blame Harris ‘choosing path of Liz Cheney’ for their turn to Trump.
FIGHTING OVER H1B VISAS: Elon and Vivek Under Fire From the Right.
The real problem with H1B visas is that companies abuse the process to exploit workers and hold pay down. Here’s an IEEE report on the subject. I’ve seen some people characterizing this fight as the smart people versus the retarded rednecks, but I don’t think you can read this IEEE description of what’s going on and think of it that way. “This difference illustrates an important point about H-1B visas. While some companies pay their H-1B employees’ salaries equivalent to what American workers get paid, many companies do not. In fact, most H-1B visas are used, not by Facebook and other big tech companies, but by outsourcing and consulting companies. And the salaries paid by those companies tell a different story.”
Related:
Peter Thiel (Germany), Sacks (South Africa), Elon (same), Sergey Brin (Russia), Jensen Huang (Taiwan) many such cases, we can do this all day. OBVIOUSLY America benefits from skimming the cream. Simultaneously, it's obvious H-1B visa and chain migration have been exploited.
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 26, 2024
As a pro-worker President, Trump needs to fix these exploitative arrangements. He should also take on the treatment of another class of abused workers, adjunct professors in academia. “Academics seem to think that the business world is a feudal environment characterized by huge status differentials and abusive treatment of underlings. They think that because, to be honest, that’s a pretty good characterization of . . . the modern university, where serfs in the form of adjunct professors toil in the vineyards.”
UPDATE:
Love this. Now we can have an even healthier, informed conversation.
— justmytwosatoshis (@SirBootUSA) December 27, 2024
Plus: “The O-1 visa is intended for individuals who demonstrate extraordinary ability in their field — the kind of world-changing talent that any country would welcome with open arms. By contrast, the H-1B visa is often used to bring in foreign workers at lower wages, tied to their employers by a system that leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. While the O-1 visa focuses on attracting brilliance, the H-1B program has largely become a mechanism for cost-cutting at the expense of American workers and the foreign workers it ostensibly benefits.”
MORE:
Looks like somewhere from 10 to 20 million people either read or participated in a debate about H-1B visas. Impressive stuff. Only on X
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 27, 2024
It really is the global town square.
Plus, more thoughts, from Eric S. Raymond:
Today's big beef is between tech-success maximizers like @elonmusk and MAGA nationalists who think the US job market is being flooded by low-skill immigrants because employers don't want to pay competitive wages to Americans.
To be honest, I think both sides are making some…
— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) December 26, 2024
THE CAMPAIGN WAS THE EASY PART: Roger Kimball: Trump was elected to change the status quo.
Meanwhile in every institution:
THE LIES DID THEIR WORK, EVEN THOUGH IT FAILED.
Now that Trump has won, they are revising all of their numbers during the Biden administration.
The govt initially reported Q2 of 2024 had 653,000 job gains. It was actually NEGATIVE.
There was also a revision of 800,000 jobs from last year. They falsified the data to try to… https://t.co/xnmayjjCKP
— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) December 25, 2024
REPUBLICANS NEED TO PRAISE HIM A LOT SO DEMOCRATS WON’T LISTEN: Fetterman Emerging as the Dem ‘How to Handle Trump’ Voice of Choice.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: How China’s satellite megaprojects are challenging Elon Musk’s Starlink.
December 26, 2024
OPEN THREAD: Happy Boxing Day!
SOME PARTS OF THE 21ST CENTURY ARE TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: SpaceX’s big year: The new records and feats Elon Musk’s space company achieved in 2024.
EVERYONE BLAMES COLUMBUS FOR BRINGING DISEASE TO THE NEW WORLD, NOBODY BLAMES THE INDIANS FOR SYPHILIS: New Study Indicates That Syphilis Originated in the Americas Prior to the Arrival of Columbus.
THEN WHY HAVE PEOPLE BECOME SO MUCH MORE RISK-AVERSE SINCE IT BECAME COMMON? World’s Most Common Pain Relief Drug May Induce Risky Behavior. “Acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol and sold widely under the brand names Tylenol and Panadol, may also increase risk-taking, according to a study from 2020 that measured changes in people’s behavior when under the influence of the common over-the-counter medication.”
THE E.V. BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Our 2023 Fisker Ocean Extreme Longtermer Proved a Cautionary Tale.
SHOTGUN: First Look: LTT A300 Ultima Patrol Shotgun. This article would be more useful if it said how many shells that rather long tubular magazine holds. I guess it’s the same as the unmodified Beretta Ultima Patrol, 7+1.
IF COMPANIES CAN’T PROTECT THEIR DATA, THEY SHOULDN’T KEEP IT: Health care giant Ascension says 5.6 million patients affected in cyberattack.