{"id":15056,"date":"2024-12-22T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=15056"},"modified":"2024-12-22T12:11:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T18:11:52","slug":"12-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=15056","title":{"rendered":"12.22"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/infectious-diseases-killed-victorian-children-at-alarming-rates-their-novels-highlight-the-fragility-of-public-health-today-242273\">Infectious diseases<\/a> killed Victorian children at alarming rates \u2014 their novels highlight the fragility of public health today<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Search through Rijksmuseum artworks based on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/artexplorer.ai\/\">meaning<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sasboomstick\/status\/1868469716970525003?s=12\">California finally certified election<\/a> results Friday after 5 weeks, I dove into the 67 page PDF and found some interesting stats between November 2020 and last month&#8217;s election. Some were really eye popping<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/verovenia.wordpress.com\/2024\/12\/16\/787-3-that-was-never-built\/#comments\">hypothetical<\/a> small widebody aircraft for short and medium haul routes may need the rethinking of the way we define the structure of engine thrust ratings. Weneed to offer at least the option of takeoff thrust ratings, climb thrust rating and maximum continuous thrust rating for domestic-regional high cycle utilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So why might a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boomcampaign.org\/p\/on-the-higher-fertility-of-semiconductor\">worker at TSMC be more likely to have a child<\/a>? I propose that TSMC\u2019s own policies are boosting birth rates at the company in two connected ways.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer: It\u2019s happened because people are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/the-year-of-mcdonalds-trump-luigi-mangione\">fundamentally wired to make meaning<\/a>, and because having a community you feel you belong to is foundational to who we are. If you provide people with a landscape of banal franchises, they will form communities and make meaning in a banal franchise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over a century before Allen and Gates wrote their BASIC interpreter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twobithistory.org\/2018\/08\/18\/ada-lovelace-note-g.html\">Ada Lovelace wrote and published a computer program<\/a>. She, too, wrote a program for a computer that had only been described to her. But her program, unlike the Microsoft BASIC interpreter, was never run, because the computer she was targeting was never built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Together, these tools provide the state with an enormous capability to gather data both covertly, as in the case of spyware, and overtly, <a href=\"https:\/\/securitylab.amnesty.org\/latest\/2024\/12\/a-digital-prison-surveillance-and-the-suppression-of-civil-society-in-serbia\/\">through the unlawful and illegitimate use of Cellebrite mobile phone extraction technology<\/a>. The authorities in Serbia have systematically deployed these tools against peaceful protesters who are already all too often subjected to unjustified criminalization for their activism. This unlawful digital surveillance and data collection directed against civil society violates people\u2019s right to privacy and personal data protection, and profoundly affects their other rights and freedoms, including the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pretty incredible <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/charliespiering\/status\/1868741840612237658?s=12\">admission<\/a> from Kamala&#8217;s digital chief via Semafor&#8217;s Max Tani: &#8220;There\u2019s just no value \u2014 with respect to my colleagues in the mainstream press \u2014 in a general election, to speaking to the New York Times or speaking to the Washington Post, because those are already with us.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Biden Admin paid <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mikebenzcyber\/status\/1868945446875676693?s=12\">Reuters<\/a> over $300 million in government contracts. 11 different Biden government agencies targeted Elon&#8217;s businesses. All 11 agencies paid millions to Reuters. Reuters then won the Pulitzer Prize for &#8220;their work on Elon Musk and misconduct at his businesses&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, most of the customers using a camera of any sort, perhaps nearly all of them (&gt;90%), want automagic, a word I invented something like 40 years ago. In other words, <a href=\"https:\/\/bythom.com\/newsviews\/smartphones-v-cameras-2024.html\">press a button and the machine does all the thinking<\/a>, setting, and rearranging for you. What is really being compared in every one of the smartphone versus dedicated camera comparisons I&#8217;ve see to date is &#8220;how&#8217;s the automagic work?&#8221; I&#8217;ll give the gold crown here to Apple first and foremost, with Google a step behind, and Samsung, et.al. right there at their tails. Dedicated cameras bring up the rear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a special interest in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wellness\/2024\/12\/07\/alzheimers-doctoor-daniel-gibbs-dementia\/\">Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a> disease. For nearly 25 years, I practiced general neurology in Portland, Oregon, and some of my patients had dementia. In 2012, while doing a genealogical DNA search, I inadvertently discovered that I have two copies of the APOE-4 allele, meaning I had a very good chance of getting Alzheimer\u2019s-caused dementia by age 80.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An existential threat. An unlikely alliance. A massive feat of engineering. Today, I\u2019m going to share one of the most important stories in <a href=\"https:\/\/weblog.rogueamoeba.com\/2024\/12\/13\/the-developers-who-came-in-from-the-cold\/\">Rogue Amoeba history<\/a>. \u201cand you can get started with our apps in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/C5tb5pYoCjy\/\">under a minute<\/a>. This major improvement will allow many more people to utilize our tools, and we want everyone to know about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spglobal.com\/en\/research-insights\/special-reports\/major-new-us-industry-at-a-crossroads-us-lng-impact-study-phase-1\">US liquefied natural gas (LNG) Industry<\/a> has emerged within the past decade to become an important and growing sector of the US economy, with LNG exports not only contributing more than $400 billion to US GDP but also supporting hundreds of thousands of high-quality American jobs since 2016. However, the industry is facing significant hurdles, from the January 2024 US Department of Energy \u2018pause\u2019 to mounting permitting challenges and the shifting regulatory and political landscape.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what about the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/matthewstoller\/status\/1869439490609316171?s=12\">other guy<\/a>? James Coughlan is an official with the Export-Import Bank, and his views on dumping and IP isn&#8217;t clear. So why is he nominated? He&#8217;s the husband of Kamala&#8217;s campaign chief of staff. That&#8217;s it. That&#8217;s the reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To make this a bit more concrete, let\u2019s focus on the biggest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.global-developments.org\/p\/why-did-the-industrial-revolution?publication_id=720614&amp;post_id=152331564&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=3o9&amp;triedRedirect=true\">Industrial Revolution<\/a> in recent memory: the rise of China. (The macroeconomist Basil Halperin has done several&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BasilHalperin\/status\/1816896778081566743\">great Twitter<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BasilHalperin\/status\/1811058315008295134\">threads<\/a>digging into the Chinese miracle.) A very live question is the extent to which China\u2019s rise was driven by agriculture or manufacturing. This has critical implications for other developing countries\u2014if state resources are limited, which should policymakers prioritize?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By July, the story had burst into public view, after a&nbsp;<em>Vulture<\/em>&nbsp;article resurfaced a year-old item from the trade press claiming that Spotify was <a href=\"https:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2025\/01\/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians\/\">filling some of its popular and relaxing mood playlists<\/a>\u2014such as those for \u201cjazz,\u201d \u201cchill,\u201d and \u201cpeaceful piano\u201d music\u2014with cheap fake-artist offerings created by the company. A Spotify spokesperson, in turn, told the music press that these reports were \u201ccategorically untrue, full stop\u201d: the company was not creating its own fake-artist tracks. But while Spotify may not have created them, it stopped short of denying that it had added them to its playlists. The spokesperson\u2019s rebuttal only stoked the interest of the media, and by the end of the summer, articles on the matter appeared from NPR and the&nbsp;<em>Guardian,&nbsp;<\/em>among other outlets. Journalists scrutinized the music of some of the artists they suspected to be fake and speculated about how they had become so popular on Spotify. Before the year was out, the music writer David Turner had used analytics data to illustrate how Spotify\u2019s \u201cAmbient Chill\u201d playlist had largely been wiped of well-known artists like Brian Eno, Bibio, and Jon Hopkins, whose music was replaced by tracks from Epidemic Sound, a Swedish company that offers a subscription-based library of production music\u2014the kind of stock material often used in the background of advertisements, TV programs, and assorted video&nbsp;content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fast &amp; Efficient <a href=\"https:\/\/gribstream.com\/\">Historical<\/a> Weather Forecast API<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On October 15 we started our <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/tonydungy\/status\/1870037294893183470?s=46\">journey through the book of John<\/a>. For the last 2 months we\u2019ve looked at Jesus\u2019 birth, life, death &amp; resurrection. We\u2019ve seen miracles &amp; heard Jesus proclaim \u201cI Am\u201d in many different ways. John\u2019s point through all of this has been to help us believe- believe Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, Boeing <a href=\"https:\/\/leehamnews.com\/2024\/12\/20\/a-decade-to-normal-delivering-every-airplane-in-backlog-wont-clear-debt-to-2018-levels\/\">increased its net debt position<\/a> by ($4.158bn), year over year, while spending $12.946bn on buybacks and dividends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"css-k3zb6l-Paragraph e1e4oisd0\">In doing so, she quotes a refrain attributed to her father, a film agent who\u2019d sold hair driers before he secured the rights to adapt Ian Fleming\u2019s novels.&nbsp; <em>\u201cDon\u2019t have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/business\/media\/james-bond-movies-amazon-barbara-broccoli-0b04f0db?st=XN8sQs&amp;reflink=article_copyURL_share\">temporary people<\/a> make permanent decisions.\u201d <\/em>Broccoli\u2019s response to such enthusiasm, one friend said, is often the same: <em>Did you read the contract?<\/em> Broccoli was irked in one early meeting when Salke referred to James Bond by a dreaded word: \u201ccontent.\u201d Using such a sterile term, one friend reflected, was like a \u201cdeath knell\u201d to Broccoli.&nbsp;&nbsp; has complained to friends that he <em>couldn\u2019t land a meeting with anyone at Amazon above an \u201cL6,\u201d<\/em> the internal designation for a senior role that is nonetheless six rungs below Chief Executive&nbsp;Andy Jassy, an L12.&nbsp; At Amazon, <em>the algorithm often does the work<\/em>, surfacing shows to Prime users based on their viewing habits. During a company meeting about the second season, an Amazon employee admitted her own misgivings. <em>\u201cI have to be honest,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think James Bond is a hero.\u201d. The room went silent<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apple is close to reaching an agreement with Indonesia to lift the ban on iPhone 16 sales in the country after securing preliminary approval for a $1 billion investment proposal, according to&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2024-12-19\/apple-close-to-winning-indonesian-approval-to-end-iphone-16-ban\">Bloomberg<\/a><\/em>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2024\/12\/19\/apple-nears-deal-to-end-iphone-16-ban-indonesia\/\">more<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What follows is an essay on how my <a href=\"https:\/\/jpkoning.blogspot.com\/2024\/12\/after-twelve-years-of-writing-about.html?m=1\">thinking on bitcoin has changed<\/a> since I began to write on the topic starting with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/jpkoning.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/bitcoin-steps-on-toes-of-few-popular.html\">my first post<\/a>&nbsp;in October 2012. Since then I&#8217;ve written 109 posts on the Moneyness Blog that reference bitcoin, along with a few dozen articles at venues like CoinDesk, Breakermag, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nevertheless, RFK Jr. has <a href=\"https:\/\/topsecretumbra.substack.com\/p\/rfk-jr-doesnt-want-the-truth-about\">failed<\/a> his first political test regarding the incoming administration. He pushed to have his daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, installed as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The 44-year-old managed RFK Jr.\u2019s presidential campaign and wasn\u2019t an entirely implausible suggestion to be the number two official at Langley, given her service with CIA for several years in her twenties. However, that history is why she won\u2019t be the deputy director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Will largely get lost in the shuffle, but worth noting that the Biden brass just <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/curtmills\/status\/1870115982334648515?s=46\">admitted<\/a> they misreported the Syria troop count by 2x<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Analyzing the <a href=\"https:\/\/haigpartners.com\/resources\/the-evolution-of-new-vehicle-sales-per-location-since-2019-key-insights-for-dealership-owners\/\">average new vehicle sales per dealership location by franchise<\/a> reveals stark contrasts in growth and contraction since 2019. Here\u2019s a closer look at how some brands have adapted successfully while others face ongoing challenges:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like I say, Mister, I believe that was the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/tracesoftexas\/status\/1870517075770495067?s=12\">wonderfulest<\/a> Christmas in the United States of America.&#8221;&#8216;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sweethomemich\/status\/1870640363473449106?s=12\">Whitmer<\/a> &amp; Soros<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Infectious diseases killed Victorian children at alarming rates \u2014 their novels highlight the fragility of public health today Search through Rijksmuseum artworks based on&nbsp;meaning Now that California finally certified election results Friday after 5 weeks, I dove into the 67 page PDF and found some interesting stats between November 2020 and last month&#8217;s election. Some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15056"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15056"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15093,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15056\/revisions\/15093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}