wepon | Link Roundup October 2022

15-year-old killed in Hesperia shootout was likely unarmed as she ran toward deputies, report says

The Fontana teenager killed this week alongside her father in a shootout with law enforcement in Hesperia was likely unarmed as she ran toward deputies, according to a new report.

Elon Musk’s Texts Shatter the Myth of the Tech Genius

There is a tendency, especially when it comes to the über-rich and powerful, to assume and to fantasize about what we can’t see. We ascribe shadowy brilliance or malevolence, which may very well be unearned or misguided. What’s striking about the Musk messages, then, is the similarity between these men’s behavior behind closed doors and in public on Twitter. Perhaps the real revelation here is that the shallowness you see is the shallowness you get.

Food brands 'cheat' eastern European shoppers with inferior products

Multinational food and drink companies have “cheated and misled” shoppers in eastern Europe for years by selling them inferior versions of well-known brands, according to the European commission’s most senior official responsible for justice and consumers.

The best thing you can do to quash a deadly Covid-19 surge this winter

Boosters ramp up immune protection and reduce the likelihood of severe Covid-19 cases. The problem is that few people are getting boosted. Almost 80 percent of the US population has had at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose. Yet since regulators gave bivalent boosters the green light last month, less than 4 percent of eligible Americans have received the new shots. Even among people over the age of 65, one of the highest-risk groups for severe Covid-19, less than one-third have gotten the bivalent booster.

Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could Be Why.

Unimpeded by human worries, YieldStar’s price increases sometimes led to more tenants leaving. Camden’s turnover rates increased about 15 percentage points in 2006 after it implemented YieldStar, Campo, the company’s CEO, told a trade publication a few years later. But that wasn’t a problem for the firm: Despite having to replace more renters, its revenue grew by 7.4%. “The net effect of driving revenue and pushing people out was $10 million in income,” Campo said. “I think that shows keeping the heads in the beds above all else is not always the best strategy.”

House GOP introduces bill cutting federal funds for ‘sexually oriented’ events for kids

Johnson’s bill defines “sexually-oriented material” as depictions, descriptions or simulations of sexual acts, human genitals or “any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects.”

California Becomes First Sanctuary State for Transgender Youth Seeking Medical Care

This year a wave of bills in states ranging from New Hampshire to Arizona have attempted to limit, ban or criminalize access to medical care for transgender and nonbinary youth. An Alabama law passed in February not only banned medication for transgender youth, but ruled that doctors who break it could face up to 10 years in prison.

Texas schools send parents DNA kits to identify their kids’ bodies in emergencies

"This sends two messages: The first is that the government is not going to do anything to solve the problem. This is their way of telling us that," Walder said. "The second is that us parents are now forced to have conversations with our kids that they may not be emotionally ready for. My daughter is 7. What do I tell her?"

Federal appeals court temporarily halts Biden’s student debt relief program

The states argue that the debt relief program causes them economic injury in the form of lost tax revenue and other losses stemming from federal student loans that state-related entities manage, own, or invest in. But Autrey ruled that most of those alleged harms were too speculative.

Welcome to hell, Elon

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have identical policy positions on Section 230: they both want to repeal it. Do you know why? Because the First Amendment prohibits them from making explicit speech regulations, so they keep threatening to repeal the law that allows social networks to even exist in order to exert indirect pressure on content policy. It’s not subtle!

Petition to reinstate Aotearoa as official name of New Zealand accepted by select committee

A 70,000-strong petition from Te Pāti Māori went to Parliament in June, gaining attention at home and internationally.

Pepper spray, shouting as people clash at anti-transgender rally in Tacoma on Wednesday

One counter-protester sprayed the rally with Silly String. Hoch responded with pepper spray and hit a different nearby counter-protester, Lorenzo Cervantes, in the face with the painful liquid.

Use of N-word on Twitter jumped by almost 500% after Elon Musk's takeover as trolls test limits on free speech, report says

The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a research group that analyzes social media content to predict emerging threats, said that use of the N-word on Twitter increased by nearly 500% in the 12 hours immediately after Musk's deal was finalized. The newspaper also noted that several online trolling accounts called on others to use racist language in the aftermath of the deal.

You’re Going To Have To Pay To Use Some Fancy Colors In Photoshop Now

There are workarounds to this specific issue, however. Not least freeing yourself from the misery of such closed software, where ridiculous situations are able to breed like rabbits. There’s Free Software like Gimp, and free, open color schemes like Open Color. Of course, there are always introduced difficulties when stepping away from industry standards, but then, if we all did it, those problems would go away pretty fast.

Lula defeats Bolsonaro to again become Brazil’s president

With 99.9% of the votes tallied in the runoff vote, da Silva had 50.9% and Bolsonaro 49.1%, and the election authority said da Silva’s victory was a mathematical certainty. At about 10 p.m. local time, three hours after the results were in, the lights went out in the presidential palace and Bolsonaro had not conceded nor reacted in any way. Before the vote, Bolsonaro’s campaign had made repeated — unproven — claims of possible electoral manipulation, raising fears that he would not accept defeat and would challenge the results if he lost.

'Stop the Steal' leader Ali Alexander calls for a military coup in Brazil to intervene in its presidential election after Jair Bolsonaro's defeat

Ali Alexander, the far-right activist who organized the "Stop the Steal" rally held just before the Capitol riot, is now egging on discussion of a coup in Brazil, calling on the Brazilian military to intervene in the election defeat of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro.