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July 31, 2023

The Weekly(?) Whatever: Unsuitable for gorillas

Elon

  • "Free speech absolutist" threatens to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate for hurting his company's reputation with their words.

  • Tesla's been lying about its cars' battery range.

  • The far right are now being paid to post by Twitter.

Law and order

  • Police are not primarily crime fighters — "U.S. police spend much of their time conducting racially biased stops and searches of minority drivers, often without reasonable suspicion, rather than 'fighting crime.'"

  • Woman prosecuted for helping her daughter obtain abortion pills after Facebook provides her chat logs to police.

  • Officials bust an illegal medical lab stocked with at least 20 varieties of infectious agent, including COVID and HIV.

  • Ponzi scheme fraudster whose sentence was commuted by Trump is arrested again for allegedly defrauding investors.

Education

  • Houston Independent School District plans to eliminate libraries from 28 schools, replacing them with "discipline centers".

  • Florida approves new standards for African American history; students will be taught that slavery gave Black people a personal benefit because it helped them develop skills.

This is fine

  • That was the hottest July in 120,000 years.

  • It's so hot in Arizona that the cactus are dying.

  • Meanwhile in Florida, the ocean is 37°C.

  • Former head of the UN's climate body says he's very pessimistic that we stand any chance of keeping global warming to less than 2°C. (One current projection: 2.7°C.)

Brexit dividends

  • Britain's fish and chip shops are disappearing thanks to Brexit and the energy crisis.

Nature

  • Humans didn't start by keeping chickens as food — they were initially kept as exotic pets

  • A third of north America's birds have disappeared.

  • Toronto Zoo would like people to stop showing gorillas mobile phone photos and videos, it makes them anti-social.

  • Oh, Hugh the manatee dies after high intensity same-sex behavior with his brother.

Sports

  • Maria Sharapova and John McEnroe take on Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi... in pickleball.

Entertainment

  • At last you can buy an empty collector's edition metal case for your streaming Disney movie.

Real estate

  • Can we turn some of those empty office buildings into much needed housing? Turns out that's a hard problem.

Technology

  • A new browser extension will get rid of irritating YouTube face.

  • IMAX movies are still controlled using Palm Pilot software.

  • Microsoft will stop charging $57 a month for access to your security logs.

  • AT&T says its lead cables in Lake Tahoe are no big deal.

  • The Internet Archive sends a DMCA takedown notice targeting a book DRM removal tool. Don't worry, you can still download it from the Internet Archive.

AI

  • MIT student Rona Wang asks an AI to make her look more professional, so it gives her white skin and blue eyes.

  • Someone asked an AI what Europeans think typical Americans from each state look like. Here are the results.

  • A Google AI chatbot is already being tested in hospitals.

Politics

  • An Alabama town elects a Black mayor, so the previous mayor and council reappoint themselves in a secret special election and lock him out of the council buildings.

  • An Arizona Republican refers to Black people as "colored people".

  • The Minnesota Republican party has funds of $53 and debts of $334,000. Now that's fiscal conservatism.

Finally...

  • Is your head stuck in a fence? Then this is the perfect article for you.

  • Yo dawg, I heard you like Crocs.

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