Today in Assassination Coordinates:

You should follow @TaylorSwiftsJets as Taylor Swift goes Full Musk:

Taylor Swift's attorneys have threatened legal action against a Florida college student who runs social media accounts tracking the flights of her and other celebrities' private jets.

Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, has for years run accounts that log the takeoffs and landings of planes and helicopters owned by hundreds of billionaires, politicians, Russian oligarchs and other public figures, along with estimates of their planet-warming emissions. The accounts use publicly available data from the Federal Aviation Administration and volunteer hobbyists who can track the aircraft via the signals they broadcast.

Sweeney's accounts fueled a free-speech debate in late 2022 when Twitter banned Sweeney for sharing what the platform's owner, Elon Musk, said were his "assassination coordinates." [...]

Private-jet flights are routinely criticized for their "disproportionately high" impact on climate change, and Sweeney's accounts have often been used to name and shame their most famous passengers. In 2022, the accounts were cited in an analysis that estimated that Swift was the "biggest celebrity [carbon dioxide] polluter" of the year.

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Extreme metal guitar skills linked to intrasexual competition, but not mating success

From the Journal of Least Surprising Research Results:

The findings highlight a potential distinction between mating motivation and actual mating success. While time spent playing chords was linked to a higher desire for casual sex, this did not necessarily translate into a higher number of sexual partners. [...]

"Heterosexual men who play extreme metal guitar do not seem to be doing it to attract women, as has been suspected about musicians of other genres," DeLecce said. "Instead, it seems they are trying to impress and/or intimidate other heterosexual men with their skills." [...]

"I do want to make it clear that we did not purposely exclude women from the study," DeLecce added. "Unfortunately, our recruiting efforts yielded only one female extreme metal guitarist, which isn't enough to meaningfully represent this population."

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Today in "Finding Out"

eBay to Pay $3 Million in Connection with Corporate Cyberstalking Campaign:

eBay was charged criminally with two counts of stalking through interstate travel, two counts of stalking through electronic communications services, one count of witness tampering and one count of obstruction of justice and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement. Pursuant to the agreement, eBay admitted to a detailed recitation of all the relevant facts about its conduct and agreed to pay a criminal penalty of $3 million, which is the statutory maximum fine for these six felony offenses.

Previously: eBay exec gets 5 years for sending spiders and cockroaches to online critics. "I can't believe that rich white fratboys would do something like this", says prosecutor.

The seven convicted eBay employees and contractors include Baugh, who was sentenced to 57 months in prison in September 2022; David Harville, former Director of Global Resiliency, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison in September 2022; Stephanie Popp, former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2022; Philip Cooke, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement in July 2021; Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea, a former Manager of Global Intelligence and a contract intelligence analyst, respectively, who were each sentenced to one year in home confinement in October and November 2022. Brian Gilbert, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

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Jungle

"I can't accept Drum & Bass. We need jungle, I'm afraid."


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Sic semper tyrannis!

Phineas:

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Jan. 6 rioter nabbed in Bumble dating app sting pleads guilty to assaulting officers

"I regret exactly nothing lol," the woman told NBC News on Wednesday.

Nearly three years ago, a young professional in the nation's capital was sitting in her apartment after the Jan. 6 attack and saw that the FBI was looking for help identifying the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. So she opened up the Bumble dating app, changed her political beliefs to conservative and got to swiping. [...]

The woman referred to as "Witness 1" in Taake's FBI affidavit has previously recalled how "comically minimal ego-stroking" from her led Trump supporters to give her information about their activities on Jan. 6.

"I felt a bit of 'civic duty' I guess, but truthfully, I was mostly just mad and thinking, f--- these guys," she said, speaking anonymously for fear of online reprisal. Her strategy, she said, was saying "Wow, crazy, tell me more" to guys on repeat until they gave her enough for her to send their information to the FBI. [...]

"One of my friends was like, 'You basically got all these confessions just being, like, Haha! Then what?'" she said.

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Shrimpfluencer

9,990 orders of shrimp paste:

The woman was having a meal with friends at a hotpot restaurant in Kunming, a city in southwest China. When everyone's selections arrived at the table, she posted a photo of the spread on the Chinese social media platform WeChat. What she didn't notice was that she'd included the QR code on her table, which the restaurant's customers use to place their orders. [...]

Wang was absolutely shocked to learn that "her" meal soon included 1,850 orders of duck blood, 2,580 orders of squid, and an absolutely bonkers 9,990 orders of shrimp paste. According to the South China Morning Post, Wang didn't know what she'd accidentally done until a member of the restaurant's staff stopped by her table to confirm her $60,400 order. [...]

It is commonplace in China for restaurant customers to use QR codes to both order and pay for their meals -- and in many situations, diners have to follow the restaurant's page on WeChat before they can order the first item.

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Happy Four Seasons Total Landscaping day, to all who celebrate

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Happy They Live day to all who celebrate

35 years ago today, They Live debuted at #1 at the box office. In honor of my favorite documentary about the Reagan administration, here are some highlights from my OBEY tag:

2016, just before the election:

They Live and the secret history of the Mozilla logo:

One of my most popular posts of all time.

"I'm going to draw a line through 1930s agitprop, Ronald Reagan, methane-breathing zombie space aliens, the Mozilla logo, Barack Obama and the International Commiunist Conspiracy. It's a long walk, so please stick with me."

I ended with, "In this upcoming presidential election, please vote against the methane-breathing zombie space alien."

Reader, my supplication did not work.

2016, just after the election:

Bubble Failure:

I wore my They Live costume, including the "MAKE AMERICA OBEY AGAIN" hat, and some guy -- in San Francisco, at a DNA Lounge synthwave event -- thought I was not joking and straight up admitted that he voted for Trump.

And another guy told me I was "brave" for wearing it, and that he threw away his vote for some third candidate whose name I don't even recognize any more, "Because Hillary? Is like corrupt? Or something?"

When I heard that 9.7% of San Francisco voted for Trump, I was puzzled, because does San Francisco even have that many cops?

2018: They Fake:

"Please point me at software that will replace all the faces in a video with skinless, methane-breathing space zombies."

Nobody did. As a team, you have all failed me, and us all.


2018: Real-life Hoffman lenses. It's a start.


2019: Halloween, Night Five:

I dressed as a centrist.

"See, my dress shirt isn't white, it's actually light purple! That's how you can tell I say things like 'socially liberal but fiscally conservative' and 'I'd really like to meet Elon Musk some day'."

2021: They Loki:

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Fake gearshift busybox

The author of this article is giddy about being able to play a driving-simulator video game while driving.

To be clear: Literally nothing is happening in the car at this point other than the sound changing pitch. [...] I stopped and tried again. Clutch in first gear, I dropped the clutch just to see what would happen. The car lurched, and then it stalled. [...]

I ran the thing up to its rev limiter, and it abruptly stopped accelerating. When I clumsily downshifted, the car bucked when I came off the clutch. When I rev-matched, everything was more smooth. The car even modulated the brake regen and throttle sensitivity based on my chosen gear and simulated coasting in neutral.

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