Author name: Mike M.

monthly-roundup-#14:-january-2024

Monthly Roundup #14: January 2024

There’s always lots of stuff going on. The backlog of other roundups keeps growing rather than shrinking. I have also decided to hold back a few things to turn them into their own posts instead.

I wonder if it is meaningful that most of the bad news is about technology?

I don’t even know if this is news, but Rutgers finds TikTok amplifies and suppresses content based on whether it aligns with the CCP.

It would be great if we could find a way to ban or stop using TikTok that did not involve something crazy like the Restrict Act. I still think the Restrict Act is worse than nothing, if those are our only choices.

If the CCP limited its interference to explicitly internal Chinese topics, I would understand, but they do not: WSJ investigates the TikTok rabbit hole, in particular with respect to Gaza pro-Hamas content.

Noah Smith: At this point, whether America can bring itself to ban TikTok will determine whether it’s an actual country, or just a country-shaped sandbox for totalitarian states to play in

An analysis of Chinese censorship of American movies. Under their analysis, without such bans we would have 68% of the Chinese market instead of our current 28%. They emphasize factors like occult content, which has an effect but a remarkably small one, only raising an otherwise 50% to be banned movie to a 67% chance to be banned. An R rating similarly takes the odds to 70%, likely largely as a proxy for various things that get you the R rating.

I love buttons that do things. The thing I loved most about early iPhones was that they had a button. A nice, big, physical button, that bailed you out of pretty much anything. Things were simple. Alas.

Matt Palmer: Observation from younger brother: “Whenever I have to adjust the settings on my iPhone I have to Google how to do so, this seems like a red flag.”

Patrick McKenzie: No lie, I had to ask my wife how to turn my iPhone off, now that I have one that doesn’t have a physical home button.

“Isn’t it basically same as it is on an iPhone with a home button?” The thing which stopped was that you need to long press two things but Siri triggers immediately when on button(s) down and I would immediately release them thinking “No I didn’t want Siri.”

And almost every interaction with Settings or any part of the Apple ecosystem is brokered by a Google search leading to Apple dot com or a content farm explaining in four steps which buttons I need to hit. These don’t seem learnable or predictable in most cases.

A decade ago when I started using Macs seriously (quite late in my career for that relative to most geeks’ expectations) I was routinely surprised and delighted by how much the iOS experience on phone/iPad had prepared me for.

These days iPhone doesn’t prepare me for iPhone.

Can anyone explain why various meeting and calendar apps continuously fail to understand what time zone they are in? I’ve dealt with this a lot as well.

Patrick McKenzie: Why Google’s Calendly won’t crush Calendly’s Calendly in one image. Necessary context: I live in Chicago and am accessing this from a phone which knows it is currently 10: 15 AM to schedule an appointment with someone in San Francisco.

Patrick McKenzie: Here are two things Google PMs would say: “The default time zone set in your Google Calendar account is JST. I know a user could have two time zones there, but org politics will not allow me to override the default one.” and “This affects almost no users. Only millions.”

Meanwhile the businesses which actually care about calendaring for power users of calendaring know that many of their favorite users have two, three, or more home time zones and always getting this exactly right is important.

Do they? I am not convinced they do. I am also very convinced that it is utterly insane for a calendar app not to default to the time zone in its current location. It should also be loud about any conflicts, when it sees you moving around or in an unusual location.

Takeovers of phone numbers, especially important phone numbers, are getting worse. The system as it currently exists essentially lets any telecom worker give anyone your phone, and many of them are easy to either dupe or bribe. Meanwhile, everyone increasingly uses phones as account recovery and security, which you have to actively guard against to stop them from doing, and some of them will outright insist.

Twitter Safety: We can confirm that the account @SECGov was compromised and we have completed a preliminary investigation. Based on our investigation, the compromise was not due to any breach of X’s systems, but rather due to an unidentified individual obtaining control over a phone number associated with the @SECGov account through a third party. We can also confirm that the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised. We encourage all users to enable this extra layer of security. More information and tips on how to keep your account secure can be found in our Help Center

SwiftOnSecurity: The attacker uses other channels to enumerate and guess the phone number attached to an account and then checks against the telco they have control over.

The insider only briefly temporarily forwards the victim number to a 3rd party then switches it back to normal once they’re in. This is how they stay quiet since most victims will not have leverage or telemetry to understand how they got hacked. It was their cell phone provider.

Make it so account recovery systems require multiple factors and remove telephony-based recovery for VIP accounts entirely. Go check your systems now. Go try to access all your stuff like you forgot your password.

At a minimum, it is insane at this point to allow verification of anything valuable via only a phone, you need to at least also require another source.

We increasingly care too much about comfort versus other things. But that’s peaked?

From November 2022 (!), 1 in 4 hiring managers said (he admit it!) they’re less likely to move forward with Jewish applicants.

When asked why they are less likely to move forward with Jewish applicants, the top reasons include Jews have too much power and control (38%), claim to be the ‘chosen people’ (38%), and have too much wealth (35%).

Seventeen percent of hiring managers say they have been told to not hire Jewish applicants by company leadership. This is true of more hiring managers in education (30%), entertainment (28%), and business (26%).

And that’s with it improving!

Nine percent of hiring managers say they have a less favorable attitude toward Jews now than 5 years ago, while 31% say they think more favorably of Jews; 60% say their attitude is unchanged.

So yeah, antisemitism was already quite alive and well, all the standard tropes. If anything, that’s still historically pretty good. We have been dealing with this for several millennia. In every generation they try to kill us. We all know Hamas aim at another holocaust. Some people were surprised at who joined the ‘they’ this time, that’s all. I wasn’t.

Sarah Constantin on various reasons she sometimes feels she can’t say various things.

US high skill immigration policy has figured out it can use the O-1A visa for extraordinary ability and also the STEM EB-2 for advanced STEM degrees.

Alec Stapp: Major win for the US on high-skilled immigration policy: “USCIS data show that the number of O-1A visas awarded in the first year of the revised guidance jumped by almost 30% The number of STEM EB-2 visas after a ‘national interest’ waiver shot up by 55%”

If you have an advanced STEM degree and want to put it to work, or have any valuable extraordinary ability, it seems rather insane to not let you come to America and become a citizen. I strongly support doing as much of this as possible.

The rest of the world standardized, but the USA and Canada have their own exclusive standard for elevators, excluding us from global parts markets.

State Farm stops writing new home insurance policies in California due to legal inability to raise prices and massive resulting losses. If you could be stuck selling insurance at or close to current prices indefinitely while facing adverse selection over customers, I don’t see how you can sell insurance priced in a reasonable way.

Federal highway officials hate us, tell local and state officials they must stop using humor and pop culture references on their road safety signs because they might ‘distract.’ That’s the point. You get people to pay attention. Also you brighten up their day. I sincerely despise people who issue rules like this. How do we fight back?

The Farm Bill is mostly subsidized crop insurance. Taxpayers cover 62% of premiums. Which is profitable enough for the farmers that it forces farmers to make decisions that are legible to the insurance, often preventing them from being flexible and adapting to weather conditions or doing proper crop rotations.

This is of course an utterly insane way to do some combination of lowering food prices (which we then try to raise with other programs, and lower again with yet others) and transferring wealth to farmers. It should be up to them how much and what type of insurance to buy. If we want to bribe farmers because we think that’s in our interest to do so or we want to be corrupt, let’s write some checks (or at least give out tax credits) and bribe farmers.

At least it’s not as bad as the part where we also pay people not to plant crops.

Agreed with retiring congressman Patrick McHenry, we need to pay Congress more. I think it was Robin Hanson who I saw say that either you pay them or someone else will pay them, you get to pick which one.

As was inevitable, meet the new Speaker, same as the old Speaker, cutting the same spending deal because of the same conditions, and the same people getting mad about it. Question is what they dare do about it at this point.

California Fatburger manager trims hours, eliminates vacation days and raises menu prices in anticipation of $20/hour fast food minimum wage. That seems like a best case scenario, unless the goal is to make fast food uncompetitive.

UK moves to exclude family members from coming in on student visas. The usual suspects pointed out how this is going to discourage students from coming. Nathan Young points out that this is one of those ‘ruining it for everyone’ situations.

The chart clearly shows that this was rapidly transforming into a backdoor immigration mechanism. If the situation is what it was in 2015, something like ‘5% of students take someone along because they need to,’ then you want to allow that. If the ratio starts exceeding 100%, then the policy is being gamed so much it is clearly unsustainable. If you want to allow more immigration, great, but you still do not want to give active preference to those who twist their lives to game the system.

UK’s lawyers advised the government that it was unable to legally discriminate against companies on the basis of their past performance.

Nathan Young: This is disastrous. The UK Government can’t discriminate based on performance. What on earth are we even doing?

Vegard Beyer: Aren’t the rules governing the UK Government’s discrimination between contractors based on past performance… within the sphere of influence of the UK Government…?

Nathan Young: I wouldn’t want to discriminate on past performance so I’m sure they’ll fix it this year.

UK decides what is important to crack down upon.

Emmett Shear: We’re shutting you down. Your pizzas have consistently come in 1/2” too wide, and we have caught you five times distributing excess pepperonis.

Biggest surprise is that this is a UK pizza photo where the pizza looks edible.

Well, that and any productive activity whatsoever, like renewable energy.

In the past five years, the number of applications to connect to the electricity grid — many of them for solar energy generation and storage — has increased tenfold, with waits of up to 15 years. The underinvestment is restricting the flow of cheap energy from Scottish wind farms to population centers in England and adding to the delays for those with high power needs, like laboratories and factories. Laws that give local planning authorities considerable power are blamed for Britain’s shortage of housing and blocking the construction of pylons needed to carry electricity from offshore wind farms. Residents’ objections to noisy construction and changes to the landscapes have been a stumbling block.

One way the British government turned off investors was by changing planning measures in 2015, and tightening them further in 2018, so that a single objection could upend a planning application — effectively banning onshore wind in England. John Fairlie was a consultant in the wind industry at the time.

Mr. Fairlie is currently a managing director at AWGroup, a land development and renewable energy company that recently got an onshore wind turbine up and running in Bedfordshire, in the east of England, that will generate enough electricity to power 2,500 homes. Because of planning restrictions and grid connection delays, the project took seven years to complete.

It is amazing, and a statement about the expected returns to investment, that such projects still continue at all. Imagine what the UK could accomplish if people were allowed to build houses and generate energy, even if nothing else changed.

Ah, standard plugs.

European Parliment: From 28 December 2024 all mobile phones, tablets and cameras sold in the EU will be equipped with a standard USB Type-C charging port, making it easier for you and better for the environment.

How do they think that works exactly? In twelve months I get rid of all my existing devices? I note all the concerns about ‘what if they had done this five years ago with micro-USB’ and if a new better tech comes along in the future, and yeah, sure, but I’m still inclined to say Worth It at this point.

Also:

The map is full of little joys, like Cyprus being in purple.

It is insane that we are not doing our job of protecting international trade. A bunch of rebels shoot a few missiles, and we can’t stop them? We take weeks to even start responding?

There is a list of things you absolutely do not tolerate as leader of the free world. Disrupting international trade routes is near the top of that list. That’s the job.

Don’t tell me we can’t handle it. Point, counterpoint:

Almutawakkil: I advise Americans and British people to familiarize themselves with some points about the Yemeni fighters ( Houthis) before rushing into anything.

– They don’t follow your movies and TV shows at all.

– They are not bothered by your media or social media distractions.

– Psychological warfare is utterly useless against them.

– They are natural-born fighters, really, no kidding.

– Their life goal since childhood has been to fight America.

– The last will and testament passed down from their ancestors is to liberate Palestine.

– At the very least, they have 4 to 5 wars of military experience in various terrains.

– They have all written and recorded their life wills in both audio and video formats.

– The martyrdom of one of them is a tremendous source of pride for their children, family, village, province, and country.

– Their poets passionately glorify war more than any love, flirtation, or romance poetry.

– They all obey their leader, Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi, with absolute obedience.

– Their only fear is the punishment and wrath of Allah if they fail to support the people of Palestine and backtrack on their support.

– They love death as much as you love life, if not more.

In any confrontation they engage in… I won’t explain these words… you will come to know, understand, and feel them more when facing them.

Frank Fleming: I advise foreign countries to familiarize themselves with some points about United States citizens (Americans) before rushing into anything.

– They enjoy multiple streaming services.

– Each day they get worked up and outraged by something on social media that would be impossible to explain to you.

– Psychological warfare works really well on them but only for a few seconds before they get distracted by something else.

– They probably have no idea where your country is and maybe have never even heard of it.

– Their life goal since childhood is to be a popular influencer.

– The last will and testament passed down from their ancestors is to prefect their BBQ recipe.

– At the very least, they can walk up two flights of stairs before being winded. – They have 401ks, but probably not enough in them.

– Getting a post to go viral is an extensive source of pride among their community.

– Their poets passionately glorify getting superpowers and fighting supervillains.

– They only elect the dumbest idiots as leaders and never listen to them.

– Their only fear is their phone running out of power when they’re away from home.

– The only reason their enemies are still around is it feels unChristian to completely obliterate them.

In any confrontation they engage in… I won’t explain these words… you will come to know, understand, and feel lucky if your entire effort to fight against them merits you to even be a future question on Jeopardy!.

History is littered with tribes who studied nothing but war wiped about effeminate guys in white wigs. If you want to defeat America, learn to code or something.

There was a time, for thousands of years, when ‘we do nothing but fight for generations’ was the way to go to win wars. When the dudes on horseback periodically sacked the cities and became the new ruling class. When it was said, as in the end of Herodotus, let us live somewhere hard so we might win wars.

Now, not so much. I may not be ‘appreciating the complexities’ but if I am Biden I get on the phone, explain that either shipping is going to resume or there are not going to be any more rebels, as an example to the next ten generations, and I mean what I am saying.

We did not go that far. We did eventually start using force.

Bret Devereaux: There is a sort of performative naivete for the folks acting shocked, shocked! that it turns out that disrupting more than 10% of all global trade does, in fact, lead to a kinetic military response. Of course it did.

And just a reminder for the folks who think this is about Israel – the Houthis have been firing on ships indiscriminately. If they were just attacking ships bound to or from Israel, I doubt we’d see the same level of response.

You do not get to pirate ships chartered by Japanese companies to move from Turkey to India because you are mad about Israel. You don’t get to try to seize Danish ships moving from Singapore to Egypt because you are mad about Israel.

Or, well, you can, but then this happens.

I continue to be surprised and dismayed that we have not done more. The situation is completely unacceptable. Anyone who has an issue with using force to stop pirates, or thinks that the actions of unrelated nations could possibly excuse it whatever you think of those actions, can go to Davey Jones’s Locker.

It does seem that on the 22nd we did another set of airstrikes. This still does not seem to appreciate the stakes:

Jim Bianco: ~70% of all shipping is conducted on a long-term contract. A cargo ship is essentially a shuttle between ports. If they have to go around Africa, that adds 20+ days to the route.

So, if a ship can make six runs yearly, the extra distance means it can only do four or five runs yearly under current conditions.

To make up for this shortfall of runs, excess shipping capacity is contracted on the “spot” market. This chart shows worldwide “spot” rates are up 85% in the last two weeks, the largest two-week jump (bottom panel) since Drewey started its index in 2011.

Shippers are aggressively grabbing excess shipping capacity and will pay up big to do it.

The objective of the military action against the Houthis is to allow unarmed commercial ships to sail the Red Sea with affordable “war insurance” rates. These rates are up 300% to 500%.

I FEAR we are weeks or months away from commercial shipping returning to normal in the Red Sea. Until then, supply chains remain snarled, and the inflation pressure on goods is very real.

Meanwhile, the propaganda wars got weird. Why are we having propaganda wars where one side are literal pirates? How is this a call people are in doubt about?

Daniel Eth: Describe the last 500 years of great power conflict in a tweet:

Kane: the funniest part of the red sea houthi pirate conflict is that the pirates keep posting super macho propaganda videos only to be annihilated while the captain of the carrier doing the annihilating is just tweeting about cute dogs and stuff

Chowdah Hill: This captain only loves me for the snax. I was hoping for a more productive working relationship, perhaps a few team ups or something. Instead… just snax.

There are those here who are cheering on the rebels for trying to disrupt shipping. These people are enemies of civilization and of humanity. Treat them accordingly.

Periodic reminder: The rate of rape in prison is almost 5% per year, the majority of sexual abuse reports were of rapes by staff rather than other prisoners. It is pretty stunning that we all continue to accept this as part of our justice system.

If someone is indeed saying this (the video won’t load), many things have gone very wrong.

EndWokeness: Canadian police warn residents not to post photos of thugs stealing packages.

“You cannot post the images… we have a presumption of innocence & posting that could be a violation of private life” -Comms Officer Lt. Benoit Richard

If the police are unwilling to do their jobs and arrest people who steal, as often the police are unwilling to bother to do, the least they can do is not actively get in the way. You have a presumption of innocence in court, and only in court. Even if that was not true, a presumption of innocence does not mean no one can accuse you, and no one can post evidence. That is completely absurd. As is any ‘expectation of privacy’ while stealing a package off someone else’s private property.

Poor people commit more crimes. Alex Tabarrok asks, why? He points to a Swedish study by Cesarini et al, studying lottery winners there. Winning the Swedish lottery does not substantially decrease crime despite it paying out over time and looking a lot like a permanent income shock. This continues the pattern of lottery winners proving largely unable to use their money to get better life outcomes. I do not think it translates zero to other questions, but lottery winnings being very clearly luck and happening all at once I do think makes them categorically different.

The cost of crime is high, even when it does not happen to you.

Audrey (of San Francisco): I used to take dance classes at a studio on Market st 3-5 times a week. I was perplexed by people who would pay $25 for a 50min yoga class when a 90min ballet or jazz class with live music cost $9. I would usually jog there and walk back, but then the area got more sketchy so I started to call Ubers there (which made the yoga classes comparable in price).

Then the area got SO scary I basically go 0-1x a week (to just one ballet class during weekend day time since the instructor is dear to me). Meanwhile the building put metal over their glass doors and now has at least two people to guard the door and manager elevator.

I can’t imagine how hard this is for the dance studio to need to spend more money for building security and have fewer dancers come. I am also begrudgingly taking more yoga classes that are boring and expensive because I can walk there and back without having to dodge needles and people on some horrible drug shrieking and violently flailing around.

Nix: I think I know this dance studio… stopped going for same reason. The side street was so rough especially as it got dark (like people screaming etc)

I pay a huge portion of my discretionary income so my family can live in New York City. If crime was the way it was when I was growing up, my willingness to pay that would go way, way down. Luckily, things are much better.

Illinois eliminates cash bail. It seems the plan is to not charge bail, hope everyone shows up anyway and that it will all work out?

George Washington University law professor Kate Weisburd said in other states that have implemented bail reforms, like California and Texas, the use of ankle monitors has gone up while jail populations decreased. She said an increased reliance on monitoring isn’t “moving the ball forward when it comes to pretrial justice.”

“I think what makes the [Illinois law] so powerful is that judges are required to release people who are deemed not to be a safety risk and not likely to flee,” Weisburd said. “So that means that most people released under this new law don’t need to have an electronic monitor, because they’re not a safety risk, and they’re not a flight risk.”

I notice I am confused. How is going from ‘put you in jail’ to ‘have you wear an ankle bracelet’ not ‘moving the ball forward?’ That seems like moving the ball forward to me. Wearing an ankle bracelet is at least an order of magnitude less bad than being held in jail? I would say at least two? And for many people, far better than paying the bond to post bail even if they could? I mean, you could pay me to wear an ankle bracelet and it would not even be that expensive.

As always, people confuse ‘not available’ with ‘not available at this price’:

Garrison said even if they had more money, there aren’t attorneys available to hire. Macoupin County is part of Illinois’4th Judicial District. It includes 41 counties in central Illinois. This year, only 55 new lawyers were sworn in in the 4th District, fewer than 112 attorneys per county.

There are tons of lawyers, by all accounts, who are in need of work. AI will likely streamline much legal work further, expanding that pool. Do these people want to go to Macoupin Country to work with criminal defendants? No, mostly they do not want to do that. Also, if you raise your price, some of them will do it anyway.

RCTs on interventions in criminal justice almost always show no benefit. The obvious follow-up is, suppose we did anti-interventions, would we expect to see no harm?

What happened when judges were given algorithmic risk assessments on defendants, while still having discretion to make final decisions on sentencing?

Megan Stevenson (paper author): We find that the judges DO use the risk assessment tools, but mostly only during the first couple of years after adoption. After that, they seem to stop consulting them.

But even in high-use periods, they overrode the recommendations associated with the risk assessment frequently!

Although the risk assessment was implemented solely for the purpose of diverting people from prison, it had no effect on incarceration rates.

There are some curious expectations at play here. Megan seems surprised that judges frequently ‘overrode’ the recommendations, despite the recommendations being based on only a subset of the factors judges care about and considering only some of the evidence, and also judges being humans who think they know better.

Megan also seems surprised overall sentences stayed the same. Whereas of course judges are not going to think risk assessments should alter how tough they are on crime. Good job judges making the proper calibration adjustments. Yes, if you say some people are low risk hoping those people go to jail less, the ones it says are high risk will then be put in jail more.

Megan Stevenson: Below, we compare the *actualimpact of risk assessment in the hands of humans to the *simulatedimpact of sentencing by risk assessment alone (no discretion). [shows graph with no impact on average length of sentence]

Deviation from the recommendations of the algorithm is systematic: longer sentences for Black defendants and shorter sentences for young defendants.

Risk assessment had not impact on racial disparities, likely because judges already sentenced in a racially disparate manner. It led to harsher punishment for young defendants — but human discretion mitigated the full negative impacts on young people!

I read this as: Judges care about things your risk assessment does not. They think younger people, and women, deserve consideration, for reasons that are not about risk.

Not sure what the story is here regarding unemployed? If I had to guess, the judges noticed (consciously and systematically, or otherwise) that the risk assessments made unemployed people very high risk, and did not think that was equitable or something they should get punished for so much, so they scaled it back.

What about black defendants? Certainly there is some amount of racism involved. There is also the possibility that the risk assessments deliberately ignored or controlled for various factors to correct for racial disparities or ensure equities, and the judges learned to correct for this or simply observed the facts and overruled.

Stevenson is framing this as ‘we had a risk score, and they overruled it.’ I am confident the judges instead were thinking ‘ah, good, a risk score, we can try using this as one of our considerations.’

If you thought this could convince a system to stop being racist, or stop putting people in prison so often, I would wonder why one would expect that to stick?

Instead, the risk scores worked in doing the thing one would hope, which is moving incarceration from those with low risk scores to those with high risk scores.

In sum, risk assessment use in the hands of humans led to a reshuffling of prison beds — no net decline, but a shift towards incarcerating those with higher risk scores and releasing those with lower scores.

And yet, this didn’t work?

Theoretically, this should have led to lower recidivism rates, since the highest risk people were locked up. This did not happen. We can reject even small declines in recidivism.

So what is going on there?

Why not? Maybe the tool had less novel information than expected. Maybe judge’s used it in the “wrong” way, over-riding it when they shouldn’t.

The tool meant more emphasis on the factors considered by the tool, excepting those undone intentionally by the judges, and less emphasis on other factors. Yet this did not help.

I find the ‘over-riding it when they shouldn’t’ hypothesis unconvincing. The model predicts that things should have improved given these choices. Things did not improve. Judges would have to be doing far worse than random, in terms of recidivism, in deciding when to overrule.

But “wrong” is subjective. If the only goal is preventing crime via incapacitation, teenagers should get the longest sentences. Young people are by FAR at the highest statistical risk of crime.

But there are lots of goals at sentencing. And many people — Virginia judges included — don’t love the idea of harsh punishment for teenagers.

In Virginia, discretion mitigated some of the adverse effects of risk assessment (harsh sentences for the young) at the expense of its benefits (reduced incarceration/recidivism).

Quite so. This is certainly a reason to expect judge final decisions to score worse than the algorithm on risk alone. But it would still predict that, given you saw a shift in who got sentenced from low risk to high risk, an improvement in results.

So the algorithm has some explaining to do. Why were judges unable to improve the production possibilities frontier?

Why did the judges ultimately decide the scores were not useful? Notice that they were correct about this.

To be useful, a risk score has to tell the judge something they do not already know. So we’d need to look at what makes up the scores. What is the new information?

Adam Grant suggests: “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations for you, and I’m confident you can reach them. I’m trying to coach you. I’m trying to help you.” Then you give them the feedback. Love it.

Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil and gas drilling, purely in terms of directly damaging wildlife. And of course they are four (yes, 4) orders of magnitude less deadly than cats. A sane civilization would have a blanket ‘no you do not get to say what about the birds’ rule in place, certainly not if the particular bird is not endangered.

Claim that solar power and energy storage will eat all other power sources and reach total dominance. Certainly if you continue on an exponential for long enough that is what will happen. Predicting total dominance is a much better prediction than the continuous official predictions of linear increase every year.

Cost per hour for various digital media. Essentially all TV and video subscriptions are bargains for the average user, as is Twitter. The only issue is that this makes us unwilling to pay for the movies and shows we actually want if they’re not included, I am learning to stop doing that but it is tough. Games he treats strangely, with $60/game and also assuming very long play times. Games are reliably a bargain if you like them, the trick is finding the right games for you. That’s true for basically everything here. The real cost is always your time.

The Puritans would one-box in Newcomb’s Problem. So what if the decision on whether you are Elect has already been made and what you do now can’t change that? Have a good enough decision theory to do your best anyway. Generalize this!

Suhail notes a curious effect.

Suhail: One thing I’ve noticed that drastically reduces my screen time is not allowing my phone to be in the same room as I sleep. Unsurprisingly it’s the first thing I’ll reach for and I’ll clock in 30-45 min. What’s been surprising is how much less I’ll reach for it throughout the day.

The other benefit is it protects my mind. It’s subtle but if I read a tweet, news article, etc I’ll start thinking about it. If I wake up to my own thoughts, I find those thoughts far more satisfying to begin the day. Maybe it’s a personal thing or a project I was working on.

Everyone gives the ‘don’t have your phone there’ advice and almost no one follows it. I do believe I have gotten pretty good at not actually using the phone while it is there without a good reason, but there is a clear effect where doing that still requires effort. The part that is interesting is that he reports this also helping throughout the day.

Note that ‘out of the room’ need not be literal. Technically my computer and work area are within the bedroom. Leaving the phone there would be distant enough for me.

Emmett Shear threads on agency and how to cultivate or teach it. A key suggestion is ‘write down the dumbest plan that could possibly work’ to avoid having to find a plan that will work, and still verifying that your efforts could, somehow, end up working. Other good questions include ‘what’s the stupidest easiest one thing you could do to make even a little progress?’ ‘What if it was possible? What might be a good first step?’ and ‘It sounds like you’re sure you won’t succeed, what’s going on with that?’

He says agency is a complex skill. In some ways it is. In other ways it is simple. Or, it is functionally complex, but conceptually simple.

Modern elevators have overlapping failsafes. If the cable snaps, then most of the brakes would have to fail, and even then compression of air and the springs at the bottom should mostly prevent injury from a freefall.

JOMO, the Washington Post says, is the Joy of Missing Out, and you should cultivate it more. I was ready for a historically bad take. Then I got a good one, which is that ‘missing out’ on social media in particular is good, go live your life. You want to fear missing out on real activities, especially in person. You want the joy of not looking at your phone.

Bernie Sanders again quoting the claim “63% of Americans do not have $500 in the bank to pay for an emergency healthcare bill.” The good news is that this is obviously false. Median household net worth is $192k including $8k in checking.

Rampant corruption in Chinese military procurement led to purge of army, Bloomberg says, with missiles filled with water instead of fuel.

NPR reporter fired for ‘offensive’ stand-up jokes, was forcibly rehired because arbiter decided jokes were funny.

This seems true, and I have occasionally done this:

Paul Graham: A lot of essay writing is not so much telling people new things as helping them to reach conclusions they were already 90% of the way to themselves. It’s easy for an uncharitable reader to dismiss such essays as obvious.

That’s 90% true. And yet false; that last 10% is hard.

Nate Silver is optimistic about the new Las Vegas A’s.

I strongly agree with Tyler Cowen and his reasons that we want to keep sports teams playing within city centers. You want to encourage people to make trips to the city center. You want to enable people to combine trips to multiple locations. You want to allow easy transitions in and out of the stadium. You do not want to be locked into only the team’s offerings.

Location, location, location. All of this is vastly more important than a nominally nicer venue. I love Citi Field. It is an amazing ballpark. I would still happily prefer a lousy ballpark that was closer and within the heart of the city. And I would happily take the old lousy Shea Stadium over a Citi Field (or even the platonic ideal of a stadium) if the new place was not on a Subway line, or on a much less accessible subway line.

NBA in-season tournament is a big hit, everyone loves it. I agree that this is a great development and we need to see more things like this. If they never flop, we are not running enough experiments. What sports needs are storylines, stakes and motivation. With the expanded playoffs in every sport, if you don’t do anything to fix it, the regular season loses meaning. The NBA should also flat out reduce how many games they play, but there are understandable reasons they don’t.

NFL players go bankrupt at a constant rate regardless of how much money they earned over how many years. That is super weird to me. The amount of money really should matter, yet somehow it doesn’t? It is really hard to be that bad with money.

ESPN used fake names to get unearned Emmys for many of its stars, including those on College Gameday. It seems like what they actually did was get them Emmy-shaped physical statues which they never earned? Which is hilarious, also who cares. There is a very clear record of who did and did not earn one. An unearned trophy is nothing.

Ben Krauss calls for reform of sports betting, saying that the combination of mobile betting, aggressive notifications and other advertising tricks is increasingly causing big problems. It is a difficult balance to strike, but I agree things need to change. I actively like that College GameDay discusses point spreads and has someone making a few picks. I do not think it is fine that people are getting lots of in-game push notifications. Charles Barkley should not be able to, on television, offer ‘guaranteed parlays.’ Letting people bet on their phones is clearly dangerous at best. The balance is tricky.

One place the industry continuously offends me, that does not offend Ben Krauss as a purely casual gambler, is the prices. With the epic growth in gambling volumes, and the ability to bet in person with low transaction costs, we need to see a lot more competition on price. Alas, regulatory and advertising costs, and the cost of deposits and withdraws, are standing in the way. It is still insane and kind of criminal that ESPN is showing us truly obnoxious baseball lines that go -120/+100 or worse as if that is an acceptable thing to do.

As Seth Burn put it, math is not this hard.

Kirk Herbstreit: “I think the 12-team playoff is going to create a lot of buzz,” Herbstreit said on College GameDay. “How many games will that be, seven total?

“I think you eliminate the bowls,” Herbstreit added. “Nobody wants to play in them, don’t play the bowls. Just have the 12 teams—we’ll get excited about those—and if you want to add maybe five or six bowls outside of that, then do five or six. But we’re getting to a point where it’s ridiculous.

Kirk is actually pretty great both on GameDay and as one of the best full-spectrum play-by-play announcers. I agree that there are far too many bowls. You should only get a bowl if you accomplish something, which does not mean going 6-6. I think it would be fine to say you need either 8 wins, a conference title game or the top 25?

Tony Hawk one year made four million dollars off the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games.

Magic: The Gathering bans some cards. Channel Fireball’s LSV reacts. It is odd to read about such developments while this removed from the game.

Magic: The Gathering Arena introduces Timeless, their version of Vintage complete with original versions of all tabletop cards and an actual three-cards-only restricted list of Channel, Demonic Tutor and Tibalt’s Trickery.

Brilliant, passionate and scarily accurate thread from Cedric Phillips about what drives Magic players to attend tournaments. Decklists, feature matches, deck techs, chance to make your name, narratives and excitement, aspirational experiences, staying at top of the circuit. Not the prize money. Amazing points. Also someone hire this man please? He is very good at this sort of thing. Alas, I have nothing relevant for him to do.

I am not as down as he is on the importance of prize money, you need to give them that kind of hope too, especially if you want to let people turn fully pro. You also need enough to drive the proper attention and prestige, so they feel real. But what matters to people most is attention and prestige. Ben Seck confirms. Brian Kowal confirms. Sam Black confirms, was was never focused on asking for more money, but as he noted he made his money off content creation. LSV confirms that switching from aspirational to esports and entertainment was deadly, players need to think that could be them.

I continue to think Magic would get a huge ROI from a true return to form of the Pro Tour including very large prize pools. But to make it work, all the prestige stuff has to get knocked out of the park too.

Selling slots on a Magic Pro testing team for $300 is either way too much or way too little. The amount of labor and value here is intense. You’ll spend a lot of time with at least one dedicated pro. So either this is a sacred value that must be $0, or it is worth way more. I lean towards the latter. There was basically never a point at which I would have let someone I didn’t otherwise want onto my team this cheap, and I’d happily pay $300 for someone else to be handling all the logistics.

Crypto trader withdraws $25 million worth of ETH by spending it all on Magic: the Gathering cards that got handed to him in person. Patrick McKenzie is both offended as a geek and respects the genius of the move, where you buy an object you can move physically, using payments that look like product purchases, that then trades like a gold bar, without screaming ‘I am a gold bar.’

Advice to anyone building a new rogue deckbuilder is to not make it easy to assemble tiny decks, or to do something to seriously punish anyone who does it.

Jorbs reascends the Spire from scratch, going 80-3 on ascending over about 80 hours, with 3 additional losses in act 4 for 70-6 (since the first three runs weren’t allowed access to Act 4). One of the losses outside of act four (A17 Watcher) sounds clearly avoidable if not goofing around, the other two sound like whammies. He notes biggest difficulty spike was losing third potion slot, other notables are Ascender’s Bane, gold hits and worse events. He didn’t much notice stronger enemies, whereas I do notice, he notes that is likely a reflection of how he builds. He also notes he had fun playing janky decks that don’t work on A20. As he noticed right in his first run, the problem with such runs is that you spend a lot of time going through motions of runs you’ve already won, which is also the issue with many daily climbs.

Interview with Jonathan Rodgers, co-founder of Grinding Gear Games, about Path of Exile 2. He says that loot can only have value if it might have value to someone else, hence you must enable trade. I thought Diablo 3’s auction house proved the opposite, that if you allow trade then loot only has value that it holds in the marketplace, which means loot mostly has no value. The variance disappears, you can always trade for items that get the job done. Whereas if you are looting for yourself (e.g. Solo Self-Find, or at most a small group) and there is no fungibility, loot becomes more interesting.

I strongly agree with him to stop with the +2% modifiers, +20% or GTFO, you want to make sure everything each item does counts and you can feel it. I also agree on the power and necessity of the reset button, to strongly encourage everyone to start over.

I’m very much looking forward to Path of Exile 2. Path of Exile is far and away the best Action RPG of all time, and the only one I’d put in my Tier 1 of Must Play (I’d have considered putting Diablo 2 there, if Path of Exile didn’t exist, but it does.)

Exodus sounds like it’s going to have some cool things to do with time dilation.

Emmett Shear reminds us that if you are playing Street Fighter [2 Turbo, presumably] then the solution to the so-called ‘cheese’ moves that seem overpowered is not to ban them, it is to use them until someone shows you or figures out the counter, then everything is fine.

This works exactly because the game is well-designed, with good counters to every such move. If that was not true, this would fail. It also relies on having enough data to find the counter-moves, and enough practice to learn them, to get to the new equilibrium. It does genuinely ruin a different experience some people want. Keep those things in mind while generalizing.

China announces planned restrictions on video game monetization. They intend to ban daily log-in rewards, bonuses for first-time spenders, incentives for repeat 5spenders, not having a spending cap, offering loot boxes to minors, not letting items be purchased directly, and the auctioning off of game assets. Also unspent currency must be refunded at purchase price if a game shuts down.

Bravo. Mostly. I notice that there is a problem with Magic: The Gathering and other tradable or collectable card games. It would be nice to find a way to exempt sufficiently ‘real’ games. I presume Magic: The Gathering Arena and Modo can survive this in China, but it will be tricky. Emergents, had it survived, would have had to either leave China or radically change its economic system.

That is still a price I would be willing to pay. Gacha (I will always call this Gotcha in my head) and gambling games, and dopamine-based tricks like daily logins, are the bad money that drives out good due to how mobile customer acquisition works. Despite all the obvious reasons to be opposed, I think this is sufficiently good for human flourishing that I am fine with it.

Mahokenshi was a fun little game. I did a relaxed pace, no-information full-achievement run in about 15 hours. Think rogue deckbuilder, with a very small deck, on a hex grid with goodies and enemies, usually against a clock. I rank it Tier 3, worthwhile for fans of the genre, with two caveats. The first is that the game is not difficult. The other is that there is a huge lack of balance between the four characters or Samurai houses. One is very obviously busted, especially going for many challenges where you need to go fast. Then again, if you want the game to be more challenging, one way to do that is to say you have to rotate between the houses you can play, and then you can’t use the broken house (you’ll know which it is) once all four houses are unlocked.

Cobalt Core is a fun little roguelike deckbuilder in small doses, and it has its charm, but ultimately I can only put it at Tier 4. There is not enough variety in cards, strategies or enemies, you often know you’ve won a run before the first boss, there are severe balance issues and the game doesn’t encourage you to do challenging things, with the highest level being more ‘you randomly die easily’ than anything else and the game not gating anything behind playing on it. And it asks you to play way more games to unlock things than is reasonable. With some more work this could be Tier 3, but in its current state, diehards only. But did I have some fun? Sure.

I played a bunch of Backpack Hero. I wanted to like this game a lot, but ultimately can only classify it as Tier 4, for diehards only. I had fun with the core concepts. Alas, the balance was all off. It took quite a long time before I was in any danger of dying. When I occasionally did, it felt like carelessness, until I moved to secondary characters that had it much harder, were far more fiddly, and that I enjoyed less. You had to do a lot of runs before things unlocked properly. The powerful things are stupidly powerful, many options seem highly under-developed. The first two heroes are straightforward and fun at their core, the next two felt fiddly and not fun.

Octopath Traveler II is my current game, so I don’t yet know if they stick the landing (I’m wrapping up the first few of the individual stories now with the main party around level 51), although other reviews hint that it does. The first game didn’t lay sufficient groundwork for the real ending, whereas I am pretty sure I know more or less where the second one is going. Did you like Octopath Traveler? This is more of it, seems to be improved around many margins. There are a few places where one could reasonably say ‘are we really doing this again?’ and yes you are doing it again but that is mostly fine. It is impressive how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The flipping between stories makes them work. You do have to be in for a long journey. My guess is this is on pace to be Tier 3 but fighting for Tier 2.

Waymo crash data shows only three injuries in seven million miles, all minor, much lower rates than you expect with human drivers. They only generate 25% as many insurance claims as human drivers and generated zero injury claims. This does not tell us much yet about fatal crashes since those are one every 100 million miles, and tail risk could be different if there are weird failure modes, so the question is whether there are rare weird failure modes.

Not enough links? Astral Codex Ten’s monthly links are here, only a few are things I’ve linked to here or otherwise.

Americans do not read many books. Even listened to counts here.

It makes sense to me that not many people read exactly one book in a year. Once you’ve read one, about half the time you’ll read more than six, and half of that time you’ll read more than fifteen.

A fun study found via MR of how long chocolates last in hospitals. This is one case where it should have reversed its final statement and said ‘further study is not needed.’

I had a whole Christopher Alexander sequence planned before AI happened. There’s so much good stuff there, I am still glad I read A Pattern Language.

Made in Cosmos: Christopher Alexander is so wild. 80% of his ideas about home design make me go “wow, how come I never thought about it before?”, and then he’ll randomly come up with something like putting guest alcoves in your master bedroom so that you can all have big sleepovers together.

Charlie Page: Are you saying that’s not a phenomenal idea? Master bedrooms are too big anyway.

Made in Cosmos: lol our entire apartment is probably the size of an average American master bedroom. I dream of a time we’ll have a bed that can be approached from both sides.

A Pattern Language is very clear that not every pattern fits into every house. You choose the patterns that have the most value to you, that fit your space and your life. Also yes, alcoves in the master bedroom are an awesome idea if you have a lot on which you can build a non-standard structure, and therefore can choose to add alcoves. Remarkably efficient use of space to generate optionality. As Cosmos notes, not applicable for everyone, but also it would be a very good way to get extra beds into a tiny footprint if that was your puzzle.

Is this the year?

Paul Graham: Prediction: Wokeness will recede significantly in 2024. There were always more people against it than there seemed, but many were afraid to say so. Now that it’s safer to criticize it, more will.

Manifold traders say 39%, which is pretty good for a substantial move in one direction.

I mostly tried this for a few years. In my job it didn’t take.

Paul Graham: I don’t think journalists or universities grasp how much their reputation has suffered, and that it’s due to their own intellectual dishonesty. A generation ago newspapers and universities were esteemed institutions. Now you see open contempt for them.

A journalist seeing Suhail’s tweet would presumably think “nutjobs are always saying things like that.” But Suhail is not a clueless extremist. Exactly the opposite. And yet is there any journalist in the world who can even see, let alone admit, that there’s a problem?

I mean, not quite the opposite. I’ve seen his views on AI. He does, from what I can tell, support building smarter than human intelligence as quickly as possible and letting it proliferate and thinks that would be good for us. He quoted his company’s written testimony to the House of Lords with pride, in which they commit outright fraud regarding the ‘integrity’ of their investment portfolio’s AI products, claiming we now understand such AI models. But definitely not a nutjob.

Amjad Masad (CEO Replit): Agreed, but what’s the alternative to find ground truth? I hoped Twitter/X + Community Notes + Free Speech + Transparency would be it. But it’s neither free nor transparent, and notes are easily gamed.

Paul Graham: One way is to follow people whose judgement you trust.

Andrej Dabrowski: It doesn’t scale though.

I disagree, Andrej. I think it scales fine. If everyone has a pool of people they trust, but is doing the work to adjust that pool to get it right, that absolutely scales. In my model, everyone has a ‘level’ (from 1-4 or so) of sense making production, and your goal is to follow people one level above you and those at your level, make sense of the worthy ones, and then make sense to those at or below your level in return.

Journalists used to be accepted into this as All-Level sources, without much question, in a way that rewarded reliability and allowed everyone to understand. Now they’ve lost the necessary faith in that institution. You need higher-level people you trust to be able to use Bounded Distrust on the outputs. Thank you for putting some of that trust in me, keep an eye and ensure I stay worthy of it.

Andrew Gelman reweighs himself on his bathroom scale 46 times to compute the standard error. I mention this partly because it is inherently cool, and partly to tell the story that you cannot do this on my bathroom scale. If you do, you will get an answer of zero. It will come back the same every time.

Is that because the scale is super accurate, or at worst off by a fixed amount? Oh, no. Nothing like that.

It is because someone decided that the scale should have memory. If it gives you 161.3, then it has decided that everything from about 160.9 to 161.7 is going to count as 161.3 for a while. You can even see it, sometimes, bouncing towards the ‘real’ number, then at the last moment it reverts to its baseline. So if you (for example) were to pick up something weighing 0.2 pounds before weighting yourself, then weigh yourself again without it, you’d get an answer 0.2 pounds higher than otherwise.

I am fascinated by who thought this was a desired behavior. Writing this inspired me to get a second scale, for now keeping both around because it is fascinating.

You want to complain? I want to complain about all your complaining. Or do I?

Owen Cyclops: There’s a culture divide you can go your whole life without pinpointing: groups where complaining is negative, and groups where complaining is a normal positive method of socializing. they cant understand each other. larger than a language gap. probably best if they never interact.

Emmet Shear: Games People Play names a bunch of these games, like “Wooden Leg” and “Ain’t It Awful.”

Lilibeth: I’ve found that the ones who don’t tend to thrive in the cultures of the ones who do. Mainly because they don’t know how good they have it, and so the ones who don’t can lap up all the good things. And thrive.

Ben Linzel: Those groups are called men and women and civilization is built around pairing them.

Emily: Been thinking about this all day with shame about my whole family’s complaining culture. So far I have not complained today and I’m going to try actively not to anymore. This tweet bodied me with embarrassment.

I would divide complainers into two key subcategories. One we could call the commiserators (or simply the complainers, or if you want to treat them with proper disdain rather than be even-handed, the whiners), the other the critiquers or the optimizers. The first group wants your social attention on the complaints they are making, the second group wants to fix the problem.

Then you can also divide the non-complainers. You have those who do not complain because they are in Guess Culture, and you have those who don’t complain because they choose to instead not expect their complaints to be heard, at least at this time. They don’t expect you to figure it out or tell you implicitly, they don’t ‘drop hints,’ they suck it up, do what needs to be done and keep things positive. The first group wants your attention on their complaints they aren’t making, the second group does not.

I love the culture where it is standard to critique and complain about everything in a good natured way. Magic: The Gathering culture is like that. When I was gambling it was like that. Rationalist culture is often like that.

Over time, I have also grown to appreciate the need, often, to prioritize a nice time and keeping things positive. You still need to strike a balance in a way that often doesn’t happen, where when it is sufficiently important you speak up. But yes, there is something pretty great about there being times and places to sit back and enjoy, and not be optimizing or complaining and not getting nerd sniped by everything.

There is also a time and place to enjoy a good rant, and loudly complain about how awful things are even if you don’t have a larger goal in mind. In small well-timed doses this is great. When people make it a habit or can’t stop or take it too seriously? Not so much.

There are also times when one must stop complaining because the social punishment would be too large, and find ways to indicate your information and preferences when you can. I hate this. The ‘upper classes’ seem to largely operate this way in most times and places, playing these comedies of manners, and I think this alone is bad enough that you mostly shouldn’t envy them. Their lives seem rather worse than mine.

I mean, I love it, too perfect, so even thought you’ve all seen it by now:

Gary Gensler (January 9): The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.

The ETFs were ultimately approved.

Vitalik Buterin offers financial advice, much of which many in crypto need to hear:

Vitalik Buterin: [not diversifying] is awful advice. Some actual financial advice:

Diversification is good.

Save. Get to the point where you have enough to cover multiple years of expenses. Financial safety is freedom.

Be boring with most of your portfolio.

Don’t use >2x leverage. Just don’t.

Nothing I ever say is investing advice, but I agree, especially about the leverage. I would add a general principle that one should not worry much about the details of things like diversification or ‘balancing.’ The point, once you have enough savings that it maters, is not to die on any one hill even if that hill is Nvidia. Or if that hill is cryptocurrency. I do not care how bullish you are, there is no reason to risk ruin.

We were promised a recession. Tyler Cowen reminds us of this, asks why we were promised one that then never arrived. As he notes, the correct response is to notice the confusion, not to sweep it under the rug or pretend you made a better prediction. Scott Sumner notes that this seems to be due to aggregate demand stubbornly refusing to fall. I did not predict a recession, but only because I did not make a prediction at all. No points.

My hypothesis is a little out there, and of course Cowen’s Third Law that all propositions about real interest rates being wrong applies, but my hypothesis is that this is not unrelated to AI.

Everyone keeps saying that expectations for AI should raise real interest rates. Well, what if they did raise real interest rates? Not a ton yet, but some. The mechanism is for now only a little bit productivity and consumption effects, although we do have a few areas like coding. It is mostly investment and the anticipation of future investment and opportunity and growth, leading to consumption smoothing and also greater willingness to borrow and such, and people who place bets on future rates impacting rates now. Real monetary policy is not a number like 5%, it is where the rate sits compared to its ‘natural’ setting, so it meant monetary policy was looser than it looked.

Congressman Sean Casten has a thread that explains some issues with banking regulations and the ‘inflation reduction act.’

The way the IRA works is that it declares some forms of investment related to climate ‘good’ so you get tax credits for them. Can you feel the inflation reduction? So that’s great, says Sean, because it means for every dollar in tax credits given out, you generate several dollars in investment activity. We pay $2, industry puts up $10 and we get $10 of windmill if and when it passes environmental reviews and isn’t stopped by the Jones Act.

Sometimes there will actually be a profitable windmill where they put up the same $10 they would have anyway and pocket the $2, but hey, that’s life, and they might do it bigger and faster. Not an obviously crazy strategy.

The problem is that the payment is in the form of tax credits rather than in the form of money. That means that if you are making money, you get paid money in the form of owing less money. But if you are not making money, and presumably need the money all the more, you get nothing. That’s by design. They could have written checks instead and didn’t.

Why didn’t we? Because a certain Senator threw a hissy fit over how it looked:

Sean Casten: Postscript because a few people have said that we fixed that with refundability / direct pay. The House version did that – but a certain Senator substantially limited its availability in exchange for his vote. Here’s to tax code (and Senate) inefficiency!

The good news is that banks can get you out of this. The bank invests in the project. As payment, instead of taking money, they take the tax credits, which are money to the bank because the bank owes taxes. So by rerouting banking capital to these projects, we allow the money we gave as tax credits to turn back into money, so everyone involved can feel like they kind of didn’t spend it, and it is only moderately convoluted.

But there is a problem. To do this, the bank must invest capital. We worry when banks invest capital, bank runs and solvency and all that, so we impose capital requirements on the banks before they can reroute our money that isn’t money back into money.

And the Basel III draft rules for how this works say that energy investments are four times ‘riskier’ than housing investments. They do this because there is greater risk in energy projects, much of it due to all the environmental and other regulations that could sink the project. And we are forcing the bank to take on that risk in order to facilitate the tax credit transfer, so it needs to account for that.

Oh no, Sean warns us. If we account for this risk by measuring it accurately, this will cripple the ability of banks to provide the capital, so we won’t be able to reconvert the tax credits. All because of this ‘oversight.’

None of this is an oversight. It is the result of negotiations and deliberate decisions. It would all be deeply funny if the stakes were lower.

Crypto has this issue where people keep getting their crypto stolen.

Crypto also has the problem where crypto people treat this as a marketing issue.

Approve infinity strikes again.

Do you think the user who just lost $4.4million will stay in crypto? Won’t he just sell everything and hate crypto after? It is so irresponsible to build on ERC-20 token standard, but with the current EVM, all token standards will fall to the same problems.

I say the responsibility here is not to the reputation and adaptation of crypto. It is to your users, whose money you want to not be stolen.

Nothing I say is ever investment advice, but we may have spotted Patrick McKenzie giving actual investment advice, and it is the best advice:

Patrick McKenzie: Almost all investment advice is written for people who cannot action the strategy “Choose to earn more.” My investment advice for most geeks begins with “Choose to earn more” and underlining that a lot, because NPV of your career and any optimization of that >>> your $ capital.

Read “cannot easily move the needle drastically” for “cannot choose to earn more” in above. A schoolteacher doesn’t have a static income but they don’t have nearly the dynamism of options available to the people this advice is for.

Thread occasioned by someone who asked for advice given particulars of personal situation which they felt rhymed with my life story.

In the my life story version, best investment in 2010 wasn’t Chipotle even though that was great. Best investment was quitting $40k salaryman job.

I strongly believe this as well, and have acted accordingly. Do something reasonable with your savings, there are various low-fee broad based ETFs available as a baseline option, and then focus on what matters. This holds until you have an extraordinarily large amount of savings relative to potential future earnings.

He also notes that a lot of people who believe that they need to worry about someone draining their bank account, and for the bank to refuse to fix the problem, whereas this is exceedingly rare. It is indeed weird that it is rare, and that we write our account numbers on every check and anyone with the account number can initiate arbitrary transfers out of the account. Somehow we do that, and we have a system on top of it that almost entirely prevents this from going wrong. It still baffles. And yeah, I’m still going to try to avoid putting my account number on various computer servers.

Pat Reginer: When I was in college someone stole my checkbook and used it to clear out my bank account. And then the bank… just gave me my money back. This has informed my intuitions about crypto.

A bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it works out:

Patrick McKenzie: The charmingly American healthcare experience of receiving a bill for $89 from a medical office you don’t recognize in a state you don’t live in for a service which sounds plausible but not actually remembered and wondering: scam, data entry error, or actual real bill?

So then you call them and of course that doesn’t work because why would a phone number on an invoice saying “If you have billing questions please call us.” actually result in reaching a human who can answer billing questions.

In Japan that would move the probability far, far towards “scam” but my general feeling is that it moves the probability precisely zero in America.

Anton: I stopped paying any bills that came by mail over a year ago and it’s had zero consequences. Any mail that isn’t obviously personal (hand written, addressed to me, from someone I know) immediately goes in the trash, i don’t even think about it.

“they’ll send it to collections, they’ll hit your credit score” – urban legend, never happened. “important! retain for your records!” – in the shredder with you, then the trash

I have explained to the mail carrier that they’re just creating waste but she refuses to listen to reason.

Anyone can send anyone else a bill for any amount, for any reason or no reason at all. If you don’t pay, they can keep sending the bill and potentially involve collections, again with or without any real reason to bill you for that amount. It is a strange system, or complete lack of a system.

In practical terms, Anton seems largely right. When you see a paper bill, if you do not think it is legitimate, and you ignore it, mostly all that happens is they keep sending you paper copies of the bill. There are exceptions if the size gets bigger, but mostly as far as I can tell they end up writing it off. Often they are ‘making the bill up’ in the sense that you did not agree to pay that amount, and sometimes it is entirely fake, and other times they also billed your insurance and paying the bill would be deeply stupid.

Meanwhile, every legitimate service I use that is not medical, to my knowledge, will bill me only electronically. Makes you think.

Tyler Cowen warns that with fertility on the decline, this could be the last chance for many countries to get rich. If they wait until their populations are in decline, they will face too many headwinds. The obvious response is that AI will change all that, whereas he only mentions AI as making it harder for low-wage economies to offer basic services such as call centers, which seems like such a minor part of the changes coming.

What frustrates me whenever I see such talk is that Tyler emphasizes that the causes of the trend, which he cites as reliable birth control and freedom for women, will not and should not be reversed. But then he does not call for other options or speak of potential interventions, instead he presumes this problem will go unsolved. There is a hell of a missing mood when you warn of countries failing to get rich, when what you are actually warning about is a dramatic and rapid fall in their populations.

Scott Sumner movie reviews for 2023 Q4. Such different worlds we live in. I’ve seen two movies here, Matchstick Men and The Sting. He given Matchstick Men a slightly higher rating, which is bold, but I suspect he is correct. I notice I am much more inspired to watch recent picks, and expect to enjoy similarly rated ones more.

For my own movie reviews, I have decided to try storing them at Letterboxd, with 10 movies so far. I am not claiming to be objective or correct in the way Sumner is. I am going to punish you if the movie is too slow developing, or is not pleasant to watch, although great is still great.

How I’m thinking about the scale:

5/5 is ‘drop what you are doing, see this and I will answer no questions’ and the only movie of 2023 that clearly qualifies is Across the Spiderverse, I think Barbie is my #2 and on the edge between 4.5 and 5.

My ‘Must See’ threshold is if something gets 4.5/5 stars, ideally this is also ‘see this and I will answer no questions’ but you don’t need to drop what you’re doing.

I think it is typically a good decision to see anything 3.5/5 or 4/5 as well. 3/5 is either inessential but fun, or has value but also downsides, and could go either way. A 2.5/5 means this is a subpar product but in the right mood or with a reason, and no better options, sure why not. A 2/5 means serious issues but there’s something there and it isn’t automatically a mistake. Below that, there isn’t, what are you doing, stop.

I notice that there are kind of two tracks, the ‘this is trying to be entertainment’ track and a ‘this is trying to be art or otherwise do something’ track. It is not the comedy/drama divide, although that is related. It is also related to Hollywood/independent, but again not the same and I can think of exceptions.

Of the 10 I saw recently, there were three excellent films that each got 4.5/5, and I can recommend them to any adult reading this: May/December, You Hurt My Feelings and Poor Things. I also gave 4/5 to Godzilla Minus One. I was relatively low on Anatomy of a Fall at 3.5, although I appreciated seeing a very different system in operation, and I was an outlier in the negative direction on Saltburn, which got the only 2.

Monthly Roundup #14: January 2024 Read More »

mass-exploitation-of-ivanti-vpns-is-infecting-networks-around-the-globe

Mass exploitation of Ivanti VPNs is infecting networks around the globe

THIS IS NOT A DRILL —

Orgs that haven’t acted yet should, even if it means suspending VPN services.

Cybercriminals or anonymous hackers use malware on mobile phones to hack personal and business passwords online.

Enlarge / Cybercriminals or anonymous hackers use malware on mobile phones to hack personal and business passwords online.

Getty Images

Hackers suspected of working for the Chinese government are mass exploiting a pair of critical vulnerabilities that give them complete control of virtual private network appliances sold by Ivanti, researchers said.

As of Tuesday morning, security company Censys detected 492 Ivanti VPNs that remained infected out of 26,000 devices exposed to the Internet. More than a quarter of the compromised VPNs—121—resided in the US. The three countries with the next biggest concentrations were Germany, with 26, South Korea, with 24, and China, with 21.

Censys

Microsoft’s customer cloud service hosted the most infected devices with 13, followed by cloud environments from Amazon with 12, and Comcast at 10.

Censys

“We conducted a secondary scan on all Ivanti Connect Secure servers in our dataset and found 412 unique hosts with this backdoor, Censys researchers wrote. “Additionally, we found 22 distinct ‘variants’ (or unique callback methods), which could indicate multiple attackers or a single attacker evolving their tactics.”

In an email, members of the Censys research team said evidence suggests that the people infecting the devices are motivated by espionage objectives. That theory aligns with reports published recently by security firms Volexity and Mandiant. Volexity researchers said they suspect the threat actor, tracked as UTA0178, is a “Chinese nation-state-level threat actor.” Mandiant, which tracks the attack group as UNC5221, said the hackers are pursuing an “espionage-motivated APT campaign.”

All civilian governmental agencies have been mandated to take corrective action to prevent exploitation. Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies had until 11: 59 pm Monday to follow the mandate, which was issued Friday by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Ivanti has yet to release patches to fix the vulnerabilities. In their absence, Ivanti, CISA, and security companies are urging affected users to follow mitigation and recovery guidance provided by Ivanti that include preventative measures to block exploitation and steps for customers to rebuild and upgrade their systems if they detect exploitation.

“This directive is no surprise, considering the worldwide mass exploitation observed since Ivanti initially revealed the vulnerabilities on January 10,” Censys researchers wrote. “These vulnerabilities are particularly serious given the severity, widespread exposure of these systems, and the complexity of mitigation—especially given the absence of an official patch from the vendor as of the current writing.

When Avanti disclosed the vulnerabilities on January 10, the company said it would release patches on a staggered basis starting this week. The company has not issued a public statement since confirming the patch was still on schedule.

VPNs are an ideal device for hackers to infect because the always-on appliances sit at the very edge of the network, where they accept incoming connections. Because the VPNs must communicate with broad parts of the internal network, hackers who compromise the devices can then expand their presence to other areas. When exploited in unison, the vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887, allow attackers to remotely execute code on servers. All supported versions of the Ivanti Connect Secure—often abbreviated as ICS and formerly known as Pulse Secure—are affected.

The ongoing attacks use the exploits to install a host of malware that acts as a backdoor. The hackers then use the malware to harvest as many credentials as possible belonging to various employees and devices on the infected network and to rifle around the network. Despite the use of this malware, the attackers largely employ an approach known as “living off the land,” which uses legitimate software and tools so they’re harder to detect.

The posts linked above from Volexity and Mandiant provide extensive descriptions of how the malware behaves and methods for detecting infections.

Given the severity of the vulnerabilities and the consequences that follow when they’re exploited, all users of affected products should prioritize mitigation of these vulnerabilities, even if that means temporarily suspending VPN usage.

Mass exploitation of Ivanti VPNs is infecting networks around the globe Read More »

sierra-space-is-blowing-up-stuff-to-prove-inflatable-habitats-are-safe

Sierra Space is blowing up stuff to prove inflatable habitats are safe

Sierra Space's 300 cubic meter inflatable habitat burst at 77 psi, five times the pressure it would need to handle in space.

Enlarge / Sierra Space’s 300 cubic meter inflatable habitat burst at 77 psi, five times the pressure it would need to handle in space.

Sierra Space says it has demonstrated in a ground test that a full-scale inflatable habitat for a future space station can meet NASA’s recommended safety standards, clearing a technical gate on the road toward building a commercial outpost in low-Earth orbit.

During a December test at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, Sierra Space’s 300 cubic meter inflatable structure withstood five times the pressure it would need to handle in space. The so-called ultimate burst pressure test was designed to measure the limits of the soft goods technology Sierra Space is developing alongside ILC Dover, which also built spacesuits for NASA.

The 27-foot-diameter (8.2-meter) inflatable structure burst at 77 psi, exceeding NASA’s recommended safety standard of 60.8 psi, which is four times the module’s real-life operating pressure at 15.2 psi.

Perhaps best known for developing the Dream Chaser spaceplane, Colorado-based Sierra Space also manufactures satellites and is one of several companies in the mix for helping build a new commercial space station to replace the International Space Station.

“We’re ecstatic over the results,” said Shawn Buckley, senior director of engineering and chief technologist for Sierra Space’s EarthSpace Systems division. “Transitioning from our from our sub-scale articles, we’ve done a series of tests to validate our architecture. And being able to go into our first full-scale LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) burst test, to meet the safety factor by 27 percent, was just an amazing accomplishment by the team.”

Sierra Space is partnering with Blue Origin on a commercial space station concept called Orbital Reef. If the companies see it to fruition, Orbital Reef could become a hub for research, manufacturing, tourism, and other applications in low-Earth orbit.

The inflatable technology from Sierra Space is similar to the work performed by Bigelow Aerospace, which pioneered inflatable habitat tech for more than 20 years before laying off its entire workforce in 2020. Buckley worked on Bigelow’s inflatable habitat technology for more than 10 years, then joined Lockheed Martin for two years. In 2022, he took a leadership position overseeing Sierra Space’s space station work.

Bigelow’s design centered on a 330 cubic meter inflatable habitat, while Sierra Space’s design is slightly smaller in volume. Buckley said he couldn’t state definitively whether the LIFE burst test in December was the largest such test of an inflatable habitat design, due to restrictions about what he could say about his previous work at other companies.

“I will say that this is the largest full-scale habitat that has been publicly announced in this architecture being tested,” he told Ars in an interview.

Sierra Space is blowing up stuff to prove inflatable habitats are safe Read More »

the-white-house-has-its-own-pharmacy—and,-boy,-was-it-shady-under-trump

The White House has its own pharmacy—and, boy, was it shady under Trump

yikes —

It wasted $750K during the Trump years and freely handed out Ambien and Provigil.

The White House seen in the early evening.

The White House has its own pharmacy that, until recently, could perhaps best be described as a hot mess, according to a recent investigation report from the Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General.

For years, the White House Medical Unit, run by the White House Military Office, provided the full scope of pharmaceutical services to senior officials and staff—it stored, inventoried, prescribed, dispensed, and disposed of prescription medications, including opioids and sleep medications. However, it was not staffed by a licensed pharmacist or pharmacy support staff, nor was it credentialed by any outside agency.

The operations of this pseudo-pharmacy went as well as one might expect, according to the DoD OIG’s alarming investigation report. The investigation was prompted by complaints in May 2018 alleging that an unnamed “senior military medical officer” was engaged in “improper medical practices.” This resulted in the OIG’s investigation, which included 70 interviews of military office officials who worked in the White House between 2009 and 2018 and covers the office’s activity until early 2020. However, the investigation heavily focused on prescription drug records and care between 2017 and 2019 during the Trump administration.

During that time, staff at the White House pharmacy kept handwritten records of prescriptions, the OIG found. The records frequently contained errors in medication counts, illegible text, crossed-out text, and lacked medical provider and mandatory patient information. The pharmacy let White House staff pick up over-the-counter drugs from open bins, in violation of Navy medical regulations. It didn’t dispose of controlled substances properly, increasing the risk of diversion. Staff provided prescriptions without verifying patients’ identities, and provided prescriptions to people who were ineligible for care. And it dispensed pricey brand name products freely, rather than generic equivalents that are considerably cheaper—also a violation of regulations.

In one interview, a White House pharmacy staff member said an unnamed doctor asked “if I could hook up this person with some Provigil as a parting gift for leaving the White House.”

Provigil is a drug that treats excessive tiredness and is typically used for patients with narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and other sleep disorders. Brand-name Provigil is 55 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Between 2017 and 2019, the White House pharmacy spent an estimated $98,000 for Provigil. In that same time frame, it also spent an estimated $46,500 for Ambien, a prescription sedative, which is 174 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Even further, the White House Medical Unit spent an additional $100,000 above generic drug cost by having Walter Reed National Military Medical Center fill brand-name prescriptions.

White House baggies

Another White House pharmacy staff member gave clues as to what the staff was doing with those brand name prescriptions. The staffer told OIG investigators that ahead of overseas trips, the staff would prepare packets of controlled medications to be handed out to White House staff. “And those would typically be Ambien or Provigil and typically both, right. So we would normally make these packets of Ambien and Provigil, and a lot of times they’d be in like five tablets in a zip‑lock bag. And so traditionally, too, we would hand these out. . . . But a lot of times the senior staff would come by or their staff representatives . . . would come by the residence clinic to pick it up. And it was very much a, ‘hey, I’m here to pick this up for Ms. X.’ And the expectation was we just go ahead and pass it out.”

In addition to the excessive costs of Ambien and Provigil, the White House Medical Office may have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on health care for ineligible staff members. White House Medical Unit senior officials estimated that its Executive Medicine clinic has 60 enrolled patients, but it provided care for 6,000 employees, potentially billing the DoD. Between 2017 and 2019, officials also offered senior government officials a patient category code for care at Walter Reed, such that the facility was unable to properly bill them. In the three years, Walter Reed waived over $496,000 in outpatient fees because of these patient categories.

Overall, the OIG concluded that “all phases of the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations had severe and systemic problems due to the unit’s reliance on ineffective internal controls to ensure compliance with pharmacy safety standards.”

The report does not mention Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, who served as the physician to the president from 2013 to 2018 under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Stat, which first reported on the OIG’s new report, noted that Jackson had been accused of fostering a toxic work environment, engaging in alcohol-fueled misconduct, and misusing Ambien, specifically. OIG received those allegations during the first part of 2018, around the same time when the pharmacy complaints came in. And some of the allegations against Jackson were confirmed by a separate OIG investigation released in 2021.

Though a draft of the new report on the White House pharmacy was completed in 2020, it sat under review in the White House Military Office until July 2023.

The OIG laid out a series of recommendations for establishing oversight of the White House pharmacy, create policy to determine staff eligibility, and pharmaceutical oversight. DoD officials have agreed to the recommendations and are working to implement them, the OIG report noted.

The White House has its own pharmacy—and, boy, was it shady under Trump Read More »

a-“robot”-should-be-chemical,-not-steel,-argues-man-who-coined-the-word

A “robot” should be chemical, not steel, argues man who coined the word

Dispatch from 1935 —

Čapek: “The world needed mechanical robots, for it believes in machines more than it believes in life.”

In 1921, Czech playwright Karel Čapek and his brother Josef invented the word “robot” in a sci-fi play called R.U.R. (short for Rossum’s Universal Robots). As Even Ackerman in IEEE Spectrum points out, Čapek wasn’t happy about how the term’s meaning evolved to denote mechanical entities, straying from his original concept of artificial human-like beings based on chemistry.

In a newly translated column called “The Author of the Robots Defends Himself,” published in Lidové Noviny on June 9, 1935, Čapek expresses his frustration about how his original vision for robots was being subverted. His arguments still apply to both modern robotics and AI. In this column, he referred to himself in the third-person:

For his robots were not mechanisms. They were not made of sheet metal and cogwheels. They were not a celebration of mechanical engineering. If the author was thinking of any of the marvels of the human spirit during their creation, it was not of technology, but of science. With outright horror, he refuses any responsibility for the thought that machines could take the place of people, or that anything like life, love, or rebellion could ever awaken in their cogwheels. He would regard this somber vision as an unforgivable overvaluation of mechanics or as a severe insult to life.

This recently resurfaced article comes courtesy of a new English translation of Čapek’s play called R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life accompanied by 20 essays on robotics, philosophy, politics, and AI. The editor, Jitka Čejková, a professor at the Chemical Robotics Laboratory in Prague, aligns her research with Čapek’s original vision. She explores “chemical robots”—microparticles resembling living cells—which she calls “liquid robots.”

Enlarge / “An assistant of inventor Captain Richards works on the robot the Captain has invented, which speaks, answers questions, shakes hands, tells the time and sits down when it’s told to.” – September 1928

In Čapek’s 1935 column, he clarifies that his robots were not intended to be mechanical marvels, but organic products of modern chemistry, akin to living matter. Čapek emphasizes that he did not want to glorify mechanical systems but to explore the potential of science, particularly chemistry. He refutes the idea that machines could replace humans or develop emotions and consciousness.

The author of the robots would regard it as an act of scientific bad taste if he had brought something to life with brass cogwheels or created life in the test tube; the way he imagined it, he created only a new foundation for life, which began to behave like living matter, and which could therefore have become a vehicle of life—but a life which remains an unimaginable and incomprehensible mystery. This life will reach its fulfillment only when (with the aid of considerable inaccuracy and mysticism) the robots acquire souls. From which it is evident that the author did not invent his robots with the technological hubris of a mechanical engineer, but with the metaphysical humility of a spiritualist.

The reason for the transition from chemical to mechanical in the public perception of robots isn’t entirely clear (though Čapek does mention a Russian film which went the mechanical route and was likely influential). The early 20th century was a period of rapid industrialization and technological advancement that saw the emergence of complex machinery and electronic automation, which probably influenced the public and scientific community’s perception of autonomous beings, leading them to associate the idea of robots with mechanical and electronic devices rather than chemical creations.

The 1935 piece is full of interesting quotes (you can read the whole thing in IEEE Spectrum or here), and we’ve grabbed a few highlights below that you can conveniently share with your robot-loving friends to blow their minds:

  • “He pronounces that his robots were created quite differently—that is, by a chemical path”
  • “He has learned, without any great pleasure, that genuine steel robots have started to appear”
  • “Well then, the author cannot be blamed for what might be called the worldwide humbug over the robots.”
  • “The world needed mechanical robots, for it believes in machines more than it believes in life; it is fascinated more by the marvels of technology than by the miracle of life.”

So it seems, over 100 years later, that we’ve gotten it wrong all along. Čapek’s vision, rooted in chemical synthesis and the philosophical mysteries of life, offers a different narrative from the predominant mechanical and electronic interpretation of robots we know today. But judging from what Čapek wrote, it sounds like he would be firmly against AI takeover scenarios. In fact, Čapek, who died in 1938, probably would think they would be impossible.

A “robot” should be chemical, not steel, argues man who coined the word Read More »

patreon:-blocking-platforms-from-sharing-user-video-data-is-unconstitutional

Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional

Patreon, a monetization platform for content creators, has asked a federal judge to deem unconstitutional a rarely invoked law that some privacy advocates consider one of the nation’s “strongest protections of consumer privacy against a specific form of data collection.” Such a ruling would end decades that the US spent carefully shielding the privacy of millions of Americans’ personal video viewing habits.

The Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) blocks businesses from sharing data with third parties on customers’ video purchases and rentals. At a minimum, the VPPA requires written consent each time a business wants to share this sensitive video data—including the title, description, and, in most cases, the subject matter.

The VPPA was passed in 1988 in response to backlash over a reporter sharing the video store rental history of a judge, Robert Bork, who had been nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan. The report revealed that Bork apparently liked spy thrillers and British costume dramas and suggested that maybe the judge had a family member who dug John Hughes movies.

Although the videos that Bork rented “revealed nothing particularly salacious” about the judge, the intent of reporting the “Bork Tapes” was to confront the judge “with his own vulnerability to privacy harms” during a time when the Supreme Court nominee had “criticized the constitutional right to privacy” as “a loose canon in the law,” Harvard Law Review noted.

Even though no harm was caused by sharing the “Bork Tapes,” policymakers on both sides of the aisle agreed that First Amendment protections ought to safeguard the privacy of people’s viewing habits, or else risk chilling their speech by altering their viewing habits. The US government has not budged on this stance since, supporting a lawsuit filed in 2022 by Patreon users who claimed that while no harms were caused, damages are owed after Patreon allegedly violated the VPPA by sharing data on videos they watched on the platform with Facebook through Meta Pixel without users’ written consent.

“Restricting the ability of those who possess a consumer’s video purchase, rental, or request history to disclose such information directly advances the goal of keeping that information private and protecting consumers’ intellectual freedom,” the Department of Justice’s brief said.

The Meta Pixel is a piece of code used by companies like Patreon to better target content to users by tracking their activity and monitoring conversions on Meta platforms. “In simplest terms,” Patreon users said in an amended complaint, “the Pixel allows Meta to know what video content one of its users viewed on Patreon’s website.”

The Pixel is currently at the center of a pile of privacy lawsuits, where people have accused various platforms of using the Pixel to covertly share sensitive data without users’ consent, including health and financial data.

Several lawsuits have specifically lobbed VPPA claims, which users have argued validates the urgency of retaining the VPPA protections that Patreon now seeks to strike. The DOJ argued that “the explosion of recent VPPA cases” is proof “that the disclosures the statute seeks to prevent are a legitimate concern,” despite Patreon’s arguments that the statute does “nothing to materially or directly advance the privacy interests it supposedly was enacted to protect.”

Patreon’s attack on the VPPA

Patreon has argued in a recent court filing that the VPPA was not enacted to protect average video viewers from embarrassing and unwarranted disclosures but “for the express purpose of silencing disclosures about political figures and their video-watching, an issue of undisputed continuing public interest and concern.”

That’s one of many ways that the VPPA silences speech, Patreon argued, by allegedly preventing disclosures regarding public figures that are relevant to public interest.

Among other “fatal flaws,” Patreon alleged, the VPPA “restrains speech” while “doing little if anything to protect privacy” and never protecting privacy “by the least restrictive means.”

Patreon claimed that the VPPA is too narrow, focusing only on pre-recorded videos. It prevents video service providers from disclosing to any other person the titles of videos that someone watched, but it does not necessarily stop platforms from sharing information about “the genres, performers, directors, political views, sexual content, and every other detail of pre-recorded video that those consumers watch,” Patreon claimed.

Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional Read More »

oneplus-12-gets-$800-us-release-along-with-the-interesting-$500-oneplus-12r

OnePlus 12 gets $800 US release along with the interesting $500 OnePlus 12R

If only the software was better —

$800 and $500 are some pretty sweet price points.

  • The OnePlus 12.

    OnePlus

  • The design looks just like last year, but there’s this new marble green color.

    OnePlus

  • This weird circle + wraparound camera bump is still here.

    OnePlus

  • The top and bottom. There’s an IR blaster on the top.

    OnePlus

  • The black version.

    OnePlus

  • The sides. That camera bump makes the phone unstable on a table.

    OnePlus

OnePlus previously announced the OnePlus 12 flagship smartphone in December, but now it’s getting a US release and pricing. The phone ships on February 6 in the US and Canada with a $800 price tag. OnePlus is also bringing the rather interesting OnePlus 12R to the US, a 6.8-inch device running last year’s flagship Qualcomm chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, for $500.

$800 is a pretty good price for a flagship phone. Samsung’s 6.8-inch flagship is the $1,300 Galaxy S24. The Pixel 8 Pro is a $1,000, so OnePlus is undercutting the competition quite a bit. As we said, this device was already announced in December, but the highlights are an impressive 5400 mAh battery and super fast charging. The phone has 80 W proprietary wired charging in the US and 100 W internationally, while wireless charging is 50 W. OnePlus says 80 W is still fast enough to go from 1 percent to 100 percent in 30 minutes. OnePlus only promises an IP65 dust and water resistance rating, so it’s not submergible, which is worse than most flagships. Other than that, it’s a lot of normal flagship things: a 6.82-inch, 3168×1440 120 Hz OLED that—unlike Samsung and Google—is still curved, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and too many cameras.

The 24GB of RAM/1TB of storage spec apparently isn’t coming to the US—the $800 model is 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and there’s a single higher tier of 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $900. The white color is also not arriving here. You get black for $800, with the $900 model arriving in black or green.

  • I had to double-check this, but this is OnePlus 12R. It’s nearly identical to the other phone.

    OnePlus

  • There’s still a mute switch on the side there.

    OnePlus

  • The sides.

    OnePlus

  • The top and bottom.

    OnePlus

As for the OnePlus 12R, these “R” models usually don’t come to the US, but this one is headed here on February 13. On the surface, you’re not missing a lot with the lower price. There’s still a 6.78-inch 120Hz OLED display, and while the resolution is 2780×1264 that’s still totally fine 450 ppi. There’s a plenty-fast Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, what must be an industry-leading 5500 mAh battery, an in-screen fingerprint reader, NFC, and 80 W charging. Compare this to a $500 Pixel 7a, which still has a “flagship” class SoC, the Google Tensor G2, but it only has a 6.1-inch, 90 Hz display and a barely there 4385 mAh battery. OnePlus is jumping back into the value phone game.

Now we’re starting to find downgrades: The phone has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS 4.0 storage. The cameras are downgraded, too. The main sensor is a 50 MP Sony IMX890, which is usually a secondary camera on other phones. Then the other two rear cameras sound like junk: an 8 MP wide-angle camera with no autofocus and a 2 MP “macro lens. The front camera is 16 MP and also doesn’t have autofocus. The phone has an IP64 dust and water resistance rating, which means it’s only “splash proof”—I don’t even think you can run it under a sink faucet. (Sometimes, I wash my IP68 phone in the sink like it’s a dirty dish!) There’s also no wireless charging.

Listing image by OnePlus

OnePlus 12 gets $800 US release along with the interesting $500 OnePlus 12R Read More »

openwrt,-now-20-years-old,-is-crafting-its-own-future-proof-reference-hardware

OpenWrt, now 20 years old, is crafting its own future-proof reference hardware

It’s time for a new blue box —

There are, as you might expect, a few disagreements about what’s most important.

Linksys WRT54G

Enlarge / Failing an image of the proposed reference hardware by the OpenWrt group, let us gaze upon where this all started: inside a device that tried to quietly use open source software without crediting or releasing it.

Jim Salter

OpenWrt, the open source firmware that sprang from Linksys’ use of open source code in its iconic WRT54G router and subsequent release of its work, is 20 years old this year. To keep the project going, lead developers have proposed creating a “fully upstream supported hardware design,” one that would prevent the need for handling “binary blobs” in modern router hardware and let DIY router enthusiasts forge their own path.

OpenWRT project members, 13 of which signed off on this hardware, are keeping the “OpenWrt One” simple, while including “some nice features we believe all OpenWrt supported platforms should have,” including “almost unbrickable” low-level firmware, an on-board real-time clock with a battery backup, and USB-PD power. The price should be under $100 and the schematics and code publicly available.

But OpenWrt will not be producing or selling these boards, “for a ton of reasons.” The group is looking to the Banana Pi makers to distribute a fitting device, with every device producing a donation to the Software Freedom Conservancy earmarked for OpenWrt. That money could then be used for hosting expenses, or “maybe an OpenWrt summit.”

OpenWrt tries to answer some questions about its designs. There are two flash chips on the board to allow for both a main loader and a write-protected recovery. There’s no USB 3.0 because all the USB and PCIe buses are shared on the board. And there’s such an emphasis on a battery-backed RTC because “we believe there are many things a Wi-Fi … device should have on-board by default.”

But members of the site have more questions, some of them beyond the scope of what OpenWrt is promising. Some want to see a device that resembles the blue boxes of old, with four or five Ethernet ports built in. Others are asking about a lack of PoE support, or USB 3.0 for network-attached drives. Some are actually wondering why the proposed device includes NVMe storage. And quite a few are asking why the device has 1Gbps and 2.5Gbps ports, given that this means anyone with Internet faster than 1Gbps will be throttled, since the 2.5 port will likely be used for wireless output.

There is no expected release date, though it’s noted that it’s the “first” community-driven reference hardware.

OpenWrt, which has existed in parallel with the DD-WRT project that sprang from the same firmware moment, powers a number of custom-made routers. It and other open source router firmware faced an uncertain future in the mid-2010s, when Federal Communications Commission rules, or at least manufacturers’ interpretation of them, made them seem potentially illegal. Because open firmware often allowed for pushing wireless radios beyond their licensed radio frequency parameters, firms like TP-Link blocked them, while Linksys (at that point owned by Belkin) continued to allow them. In 2020, OpenWrt patched a code-execution exploit due to unencrypted update channels.

OpenWrt, now 20 years old, is crafting its own future-proof reference hardware Read More »

ios-17.3-adds-multiple-features-originally-planned-for-ios-17

iOS 17.3 adds multiple features originally planned for iOS 17

New Features —

macOS 14.3, watchOS 10.3, and tvOS 17.3 were also released.

An iPhone sits on a wood table

Enlarge / The iPhone 15 Pro.

Samuel Axon

Apple yesterday released iOS and iPadOS 17.3 as well as watchOS 10.3, tvOS 17.3, and macOS Sonoma 14.3 for all supported devices.

iOS 17.3 primarily adds collaborative playlists in Apple Music, and what Apple calls “Stolen Device Protection.” Collaborative playlists have been on a bit of a journey; they were promised as part of iOS 17, then added in the beta of iOS 17.2, but removed before that update went live. Now they’re finally reaching all users.

When enabled, Stolen Device Protection requires Face ID or Touch ID authentication “with no passcode fallback” for some sensitive actions on the phone.

And a related feature called Security Delay requires one use of Face ID or Touch ID, then a full hour’s wait, then another biometric authentication before certain particularly important actions can be performed, like changing the device’s passcode.

Other iOS 17.3 additions include support for AirPlay in participating hotels, an improved view for seeing the warranty status of all your devices, a new Unity wallpaper honoring Black History Month, and “crash detection optimizations.”

As is so often the case for these simultaneous operating system updates from Apple, iOS is the most robust. macOS 14.3 also adds the collaborative playlist feature and the AppleCare & Warranty Settings panel, but that’s about it as far as user-facing additions.

watchOS 10.3 adds a new 2024 Black Unity face that is meant to pair with a new watchband by the same name. And tvOS 17.3 simply reintroduces the previously removed iTunes Movie and TV Show Wishlist feature.

iOS 17.3 release notes

Stolen Device Protection

  • Stolen Device Protection increases security of iPhone and Apple ID by requiring Face ID or Touch ID with no passcode fallback to perform certain actions
  • Security Delay requires Face ID or Touch ID, an hour wait, and then an additional successful biometric authentication before sensitive operations like changing device passcode or Apple ID password can be performed

Lock Screen

  • New Unity wallpaper honors Black history and culture in celebration of Black History Month

Music

  • Collaborate on playlists allows you to invite friends to join your playlist and everyone can add, reorder, and remove songs
  • Emoji reactions can be added to any track in a collaborative playlist

This update also includes the following improvements:

  • AirPlay hotel support lets you stream content directly to the TV in your room in select hotels
  • AppleCare & Warranty in Settings shows your coverage for all devices signed in with your Apple ID
  • Crash detection optimizations (all iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 models)

macOS 14.3 Sonoma release notes

  • Collaborate on playlists in Apple Music allows you to invite friends to join your playlist and everyone can add, reorder, and remove songs
  • Emoji reactions can be added to any track in a collaborative playlist in Apple Music
  • AppleCare & Warranty in Settings shows your coverage for all devices signed in with your Apple ID

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urban-agriculture’s-carbon-footprint-can-be-worse-than-that-of-large-farms

Urban agriculture’s carbon footprint can be worse than that of large farms

Greening your greens —

Saving on the emissions associated with shipping doesn’t guarantee a lower footprint.

Lots of plants in the foreground, and dense urban buildings in the background

A few years back, the Internet was abuzz with the idea of vertical farms running down the sides of urban towers, with the idea that growing crops where they’re actually consumed could eliminate the carbon emissions involved with shipping plant products long distances. But lifecycle analysis of those systems, which require a lot of infrastructure and energy, suggest they’d have a hard time doing better than more traditional agriculture.

But those systems represent only a small fraction of urban agriculture as it’s practiced. Most urban farming is a mix of local cooperative gardens and small-scale farms located within cities. And a lot less is known about the carbon footprint of this sort of farming. Now, a large international collaboration has worked with a number of these farms to get a handle on their emissions in order to compare those to large-scale agriculture.

The results suggest it’s possible that urban farming can have a lower impact. But it requires choosing the right crops and a long-term commitment to sustainability.

Tracking crops

Figuring out the carbon footprint of urban farms is a challenge, because it involves tracking all the inputs, from infrastructure to fertilizers, as well as the productivity of the farm. A lot of the urban farms, however, are nonprofits, cooperatives, and/or staffed primarily by volunteers, so detailed reporting can be a challenge. To get around this, the researchers worked with a lot of individual farms in France, Germany, Poland, the UK, and US in order to get accurate accounts of materials and practices.

Data from large-scale agriculture for comparison is widely available, and it includes factors like transport of the products to consumers. The researchers used data from the same countries as the urban farms.

On average, the results aren’t good for urban agriculture. An average serving from an urban farm was associated with 0.42 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents. By contrast, traditional produce resulted in emissions of about 0.07 kg per serving—six times less.

But that average obscures a lot of nuance. Of the 73 urban farms studied, 17 outperformed traditional agriculture by this measure. And, if the single highest-emitting farm was excluded from the analysis, the median of the urban farms ended up right around that 0.7 kg per serving.

All of this suggests the details of urban farming practices make a big difference. One thing that matters is the crop. Tomatoes tend to be fairly resource-intensive to grow and need to be shipped quickly in order to be consumed while ripe. Here, urban farms came in at 0.17 kg of carbon per serving, while conventional farming emits 0.27 kg/serving.

Difference-makers

One clear thing was that the intentions of those running the farms didn’t matter much. Organizations that had a mission of reducing environmental impact, or had taken steps like installing solar panels, were no better off at keeping their emissions low.

The researchers note two practical reasons for the differences they saw. One is infrastructure, which is the single largest source of carbon emissions at small sites. These include things like buildings, raised beds, and compost handling. The best sites the researchers saw did a lot of upcycling of things like construction waste into structures like the surrounds for raised beds.

Infrastructure in urban sites is also a challenge because of the often intense pressure on land, which can mean gardens have to relocate. This can shorten the lifetime of infrastructure and increase its environmental impact.

Another major factor was the use of urban waste streams for the consumables involved with farming. Composting from urban waste essentially eliminated fertilizer use (it was only 5 percent of the rate of conventional farming). Here, practices matter a great deal, as some composting techniques allow the material to become oxygen-free, which results in the anaerobic production of methane. Rainwater use also made a difference; in one case, the carbon impact of water treatment and distribution accounted for over two-thirds of an urban farm’s emissions.

These suggest that careful planning could make urban farms effective at avoiding some of the carbon emissions of conventional agriculture. This would involve figuring out best practices for infrastructure and consumables, as well as targeting crops that can have high carbon emissions when grown on conventional farms.

But any negatives are softened by a couple of additional considerations. One is that even the worst-performing produce seen in this analysis is far better in terms of carbon emissions than eating meat. The researchers also point out that many of the cooperative gardens provide a lot of social functions—things like after-school programs or informal classes—that can be difficult to put an emissions price on. Maximizing these could definitely boost the societal value of the operations, even if it doesn’t have a clear impact on the environment.

Nature Cities, 2019. DOI: 10.1038/s44284-023-00023-3  (About DOIs).

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Novel camera system lets us see the world through eyes of birds and bees

A fresh perspective —

It captures natural animal-view moving images with over 90 percent accuracy.

A new camera system and software package allows researchers and filmmakers to capture animal-view videos. Credit: Vasas et al., 2024.

Who among us hasn’t wondered about how animals perceive the world, which is often different from how humans do so? There are various methods by which scientists, photographers, filmmakers, and others attempt to reconstruct, say, the colors that a bee sees as it hunts for a flower ripe for pollinating. Now an interdisciplinary team has developed an innovative camera system that is faster and more flexible in terms of lighting conditions than existing systems, allowing it to capture moving images of animals in their natural setting, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS Biology.

“We’ve long been fascinated by how animals see the world. Modern techniques in sensory ecology allow us to infer how static scenes might appear to an animal,” said co-author Daniel Hanley, a biologist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. “However, animals often make crucial decisions on moving targets (e.g., detecting food items, evaluating a potential mate’s display, etc.). Here, we introduce hardware and software tools for ecologists and filmmakers that can capture and display animal-perceived colors in motion.”

Per Hanley and his co-authors, different animal species possess unique sets of photoreceptors that are sensitive to a wide range of wavelengths, from ultraviolet to the infrared, dependent on each animal’s specific ecological needs. Some animals can even detect polarized light. So every species will perceive color a bit differently. Honeybees and birds, for instance, are sensitive to UV light, which isn’t visible to human eyes. “As neither our eyes nor commercial cameras capture such variations in light, wide swaths of visual domains remain unexplored,” the authors wrote. “This makes false color imagery of animal vision powerful and compelling.”

However, the authors contend that current techniques for producing false color imagery can’t quantify the colors animals see while in motion, an important factor since movement is crucial to how different animals communicate and navigate the world around them via color appearance and signal detection. Traditional spectrophotometry, for instance, relies on object-reflected light to estimate how a given animal’s photoreceptors will process that light, but it’s a time-consuming method, and much spatial and temporal information is lost.

Peacock feathers through eyes of four different animals: (a) a peafowl; (b) humans; (c) honeybees; and (d) dogs. Credit: Vasas et al., 2024.

Multispectral photography takes a series of photos across various wavelengths (including UV and infrared) and stacks them into different color channels to derive camera-independent measurements of color. This method trades some accuracy for better spatial information and is well-suited for studying animal signals, for instance, but it only works on still objects, so temporal information is lacking.

That’s a shortcoming because “animals present and perceive signals from complex shapes that cast shadows and generate highlights,” the authors wrote. ‘These signals vary under continuously changing illumination and vantage points. Information on this interplay among background, illumination, and dynamic signals is scarce. Yet it forms a crucial aspect of the ways colors are used, and therefore perceived, by free-living organisms in natural settings.”

So Hanley and his co-authors set out to develop a camera system capable of producing high-precision animal-view videos that capture the full complexity of visual signals as they would be perceived by an animal in a natural setting. They combined existing methods of multispectral photography with new hardware and software designs. The camera records video in four color channels simultaneously (blue, green, red, and UV). Once that data has been processed into “perceptual units,” the result is an accurate video of how a colorful scene would be perceived by various animals, based on what we know about which photoreceptors they possess. The team’s system predicts the perceived colors with 92 percent accuracy. The cameras are commercially available, and the software is open source so that others can freely use and build on it.

The video at the top of this article depicts the colors perceived by honeybees watching fellow bees foraging and interacting (even fighting) on flowers—an example of the camera system’s ability to capture behavior in a natural setting. Below, Hanley applies UV-blocking sunscreen in the field. His light-toned skin looks roughly the same in human vision and honeybee false color vision “because skin reflectance increases progressively at longer wavelengths,” the authors wrote.

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OpenAI opens the door for military uses but maintains AI weapons ban

Skynet deferred —

Despite new Pentagon collab, OpenAI won’t allow customers to “develop or use weapons” with its tools.

The OpenAI logo over a camoflage background.

On Tuesday, ChatGPT developer OpenAI revealed that it is collaborating with the United States Defense Department on cybersecurity projects and exploring ways to prevent veteran suicide, reports Bloomberg. OpenAI revealed the collaboration during an interview with the news outlet at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The AI company recently modified its policies, allowing for certain military applications of its technology, while maintaining prohibitions against using it to develop weapons.

According to Anna Makanju, OpenAI’s vice president of global affairs, “many people thought that [a previous blanket prohibition on military applications] would prohibit many of these use cases, which people think are very much aligned with what we want to see in the world.” OpenAI removed terms from its service agreement that previously blocked AI use in “military and warfare” situations, but the company still upholds a ban on its technology being used to develop weapons or to cause harm or property damage.

Under the “Universal Policies” section of OpenAI’s Usage Policies document, section 2 says, “Don’t use our service to harm yourself or others.” The prohibition includes using its AI products to “develop or use weapons.” Changes to the terms that removed the “military and warfare” prohibitions appear to have been made by OpenAI on January 10.

The shift in policy appears to align OpenAI more closely with the needs of various governmental departments, including the possibility of preventing veteran suicides. “We’ve been doing work with the Department of Defense on cybersecurity tools for open-source software that secures critical infrastructure,” Makanju said in the interview. “We’ve been exploring whether it can assist with (prevention of) veteran suicide.”

The efforts mark a significant change from OpenAI’s original stance on military partnerships, Bloomberg says. Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp., a large investor in OpenAI, already has an established relationship with the US military through various software contracts.

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