Media culture brainwash for now people
Donald Trump boasts about not needing teleprompter, then falls apart when he can't read teleprompter (video)
2 May 2024 @ 12:11 am
Donald Trump used to boast about not needing a teleprompter, but had a fit today when he couldn't read his teleprompter (emphasis on "couldn't read").
"Isn't it nice to have a president who doesn't need a teleprompter?" he once asked, as shown in the "then" part of a then-and-now video posted by MeidasTouch (see below). — Unruly passenger ordered to pay United Airlines $20,638 for acting like a jerk
1 May 2024 @ 10:48 pm
A 30-year-old gentleman from England was ordered to pay United Airlines $20,638 for being an unruly passenger. He was also arrested.
The pricey incident occurred in March on a flight from London to Newark, when the lead flight attendant asked Alexander Michael Dominic MacDonald — who was "arguing loudly" with his girlfriend — to lower his voice. — Baby cow looks into a mirror for the first time and makes a handsome new friend (video)
1 May 2024 @ 9:04 pm
When a baby cow named Milo looked into a mirror for the first time, he became a bit bashful and kept his distance. But he couldn't take his eyes off the handsome little guy staring back at him.
And after a few moments, he built up the courage to take a few steps forward, but abruptly stopped when he noticed the coy newcomer had the same idea. — This $10 2-day parking deal takes the sting out of going to the airport
1 May 2024 @ 9:00 pm
TL;DR: Get two days of parking at The Parking Spot for just $9.99 during yoDrunken man kicks bison in Yellowstone, gets attacked and arrested
1 May 2024 @ 7:02 pm
Clarence Yoder had the time of his life at Yellowstone National Park earlier this month. He got drunk, kicked a bison, got attacked and injured by the animal, and ended the adventure by getting arrested on four different charges.
CNN reports that park rangers received a report of an individual who harassed a herd of bison and kicked a bison in the leg." — Programming language BASIC is 60 years old
1 May 2024 @ 6:26 pm
10 PRINT "On May 1, 1964, John and Thomas ran the first BASIC program"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
On May 1, 1964, John and Thomas ran the first BASIC program On May 1, 1964, John and Thomas ran the first BASIC program On May 1, 1964, John and Thomas ran the first BASIC program On May 1, 1964, John and Thomas ran the first BASIC program Florida kidnapper was released from prison — only to kidnap the same woman weeks later
1 May 2024 @ 5:52 pm
A Florida man found guilty of kidnapping a woman was released from prison in February — only to kidnap the same woman again in April.
After 53-year-old Jeffrey Holley spent less than one year behind bars in Santa Rosa County for kidnapping and abusing his girlfriend, the determined gentleman immediately picked up where he left off. — The far-right Zoombombing hate speech crisis in town halls: "a deliberate tactic being employed to remove people's ability to engage democratically"
1 May 2024 @ 5:49 pm
"Zoombombing" is the malicious disruption of video conference calls, particularly public meetings, by coordinated far-right groups aiming to sabotage democratic processes. As detailed in Dale Dougherty's article in The Sebastopol TimesDon't hate the drinking fountain button — it's just misunderstood
1 May 2024 @ 5:12 pm
If you've ever been disappointed by a weak trickle from a public drinking fountain, don't holler at the button. As outlined this article from The Verge, those much-maligned metal discs are actually ingenious pieces of engineering that are "tragically misunderstood." — Facebook pushing AI-generated images of starving, drowning, bruised and mutilated children into users' feeds
1 May 2024 @ 3:57 pm
At 404 Media, Jason Koebler reports that AI images of suffering children, some depicting them mutilated or dying, are appearing in Facebook users feeds. It's the latest and most alarming example of AI-generated garbage filling the platform, complete with inane replies from bots, from "boomers", and from una
When the EU approved the European Green Deal in 2020, the bloc unveiled a plan to lead the clean energy transition. Yet it has since faced growing competition from both China — which has quickly and quietly buried Europe’s solar panel industry and is now taking aim at its EV market — and the US, which under the Biden administration took an about-face on sustainability with the introduction of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. As the EU invests more into renewables, it will need to overcome hurdles around reliability, storage, transmission, and scalability to reach its ambitious 2030 renewable…
Lithuanian climate investment firm HeavyFinance has added over 700,000 football pitches-worth of farmland in Ukraine to its soil carbon credit programme. Modern agriculture has taken its toll on soils. Centuries of plowing, cutting, and overgrazing has made land less fertile. This has also released billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. HeavyFinance pays farmers to put some of this carbon back into the ground. Specifically, the company issues loans to encourage the switch to regenerative farming practices. This includes rotating crops, growing cover crops during the off season, or plowing less often. These processes can remove carbon from the…
In June, Kubernetes celebrates its tenth birthday. The system is now so widely used by hundreds of thousands of companies worldwide to scale their applications to meet demand it’s hard even to remember a time before it existed. But there was a time when other options were available, and I even remember using some of them. Despite this relative vintage, many large developers teams and companies are still yet to embark on a migration to Kubernetes, or are in the middle of the process. But to many developers who like to live on the edge, 10 years of a technology…This story continues
Another Dutch tech firm has been caught in the simmering tensions between the West and China. Amid growing calls to curb Chinese access to chipmaking equipment from ASML, a Dutch minister has raised a separate alarm about the sale of Philips spinoff Anteryon. Although the digital-optics developer remains based in Eindhoven, the business was bought in 2019 by China’s Jingfang Optotelectronics. The Suzhou-based firm reportedly spent between €40mn and €50mn on the acquisition. Following a separate buyout in 2021, the chip company China Wafer became Jinfang’s majority shareholder. These deals attracted the concerns of Micky Adriaansens, the outgoing Dutch Economy…
Utrecht-based Vitestro has raised €20mn to bring its robotic blood drawing device to market. Founded in 2017, Vitestro aims to improve the blood draw experience for patients and address personnel shortages in healthcare — where the demand for skilled laboratory professionals is growing at a higher rate than any other occupation. The startup’s device relies on infrared to locate the vein and ultrasound to create an image of the blood vessel. Then, an AI-based robotic needle uses this information to determine the right puncture location with submillimetre precision. Since 2023, Vitestro is running the world’s largest-scale clinical trial for autonomous…
Blockchain is often criticised as a solution in search of a problem. But one group of people has already found immense value in the tech: money launderers. Their crimes cause painful headaches for financial institutions, crypto businesses, legitimate law enforcement agencies, and cryptocurrency regulators. All of them need to tackle illicit activity on blockchains. Enter Elliptic, a British firm that specialises in cryptocurrency forensics. The company uses blockchain analytics to protect customers from financial crimes. Its latest safeguard taps the power of AI. By applying machine learning to transaction data, Elliptic has created a new method of detecting money laundering on…
Welcome to the new episode of the TNW Podcast — the show where we discuss the latest developments in the European technology ecosystem and feature interviews with some of the most interesting people in the industry. In today’s episode, Linnea and Andrii talk about the availability of AI compute, Getir’s imminent departure from Europe, quite some cash for German game developers, and a few things in between. The guest of the show is Alexandra Balkova, general partner and head of portfolio at Startup Wise Guys. In the interview recorded at TechChill in Riga, Alexandra talked about the current state of…
Vinted, the popular online marketplace for second-hand fashion, has announced its first-ever annual profit. The milestone follows a strong 2023, reaching €596.3mn in revenue — a 61% increase compared to the previous year (€370.2mn). With an adjusted EBITDA at €76.6mn, Vinted turned a €20.4mn net loss in 2022 into a €17.8mn net profit in 2023. The startup attributes its profitability to significant growth, starting with increased penetration in existing markets and its expansion to Romania, Denmark, and Finland. In addition, the company continued its expansion into luxury fashion with verification, and further developed Vinted Go, its own shipping service. “Second-hand…
MindAffect, a Netherlands-based healthtech startup, has raised €1.1mn to bring its hearing diagnostics technology to market. A spinout from Radboud University, MindAffect has developed a patented brain computer interface (BCI) technology, which enables diagnosis of hearing impairments using brain signals. The startup aims to provide a more equitable testing solution that specifically caters for hard-to-test patients, such as children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Current methods, such as pure-tone or speech testing, depend on the constant responses of patients. But this can be challenging or ineffective for individuals who are unable to communicate due to age or disability —…
The European Space Agency (ESA) has secured a ride for its solar wind satellite. The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer — or Smile for short — will blast into space aboard a Vega-C rocket. The launch is scheduled for late 2025 from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. “We are delighted to be launching Smile on such a versatile launch vehicle,” said David Agnolon, project manager of Smile. “Vega-C has been selected as it perfectly matches the needs of the mission, such as required mass capability and injection orbit.” Vega-C — a small-life rocket developed by the ESA and Italian…