skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on U.S. Mint buys drug cartel gold and sells it as ‘American’ in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

    From the article:

    Every year, the United States Mint sells more than $1 billion of investment-grade gold coins. Each is stamped with an icon like the bald eagle, signifying the government’s guarantee, required by law, that the gold is 100 percent American.

    [...]

    But a New York Times investigation has found that the government’s program of gold sales is based on a lie. The Mint is actually the last link in a chain that launders foreign gold, much of it illegally mined, for an insatiable market.

    The Mint buys gold that originates in a Colombian drug cartel mine. It makes Lady Liberty coins out of gold from Mexican and Peruvian pawn shops and from a Congolese mine that is part-owned by the Chinese government, records show. Some Mint gold has come from a company in Honduras that dug up an Indigenous graveyard for the ore underneath.

    [...]

    Mr. Cuevas showed us ledger entries on the shop’s computer. His suppliers from La Mandinga, he said, have registered under a Colombian program for small-scale miners, or barequeros. Nearly anyone can get a license, as long as they mine in authorized areas using only hand tools and no mercury.

    Of course, La Mandinga’s workers are not mining only with hand tools. Or in authorized areas. And they are using mercury. Mr. Cuevas knows all of this. He mines in La Mandinga himself. But it is not his job to look beyond the paperwork. And the Colombian authorities rarely examine barequero gold’s origins to determine legality.

    Instead, they ask one question: Does it have paperwork?

    [...]

    Gold industry players know how this works. “If you’re buying from barequeros, you’re buying illegal gold,” said the trader Patrick Schein. He said his firm, Gold by Gold, will not buy barequero gold.

    The shop where Mr. Cuevas works, like others in town, sells to a government-owned exporter. The exporter said it checks the same database that Mr. Cuevas uses, verifying that the gold is legal. The gold from La Mandinga is mixed with supplies from around Colombia and melted into bars. Export records show that many of them, worth about $255 million over the past year or so, arrive in Texas.

    [...]

    At a refinery outside Dallas called Dillon Gage, workers dump the imported gold into a glowing cauldron, mixing it with molten gold from other suppliers: South American mines, secondhand U.S. jewelry dealers and Peruvian pawn shops, according to records and interviews.

    But to Dillon Gage’s customers, once that gold leaves the Dallas cauldron, it ceases to be foreign. Dillon Gage is in the United States and mixes American gold with Colombian gold. So, the industry logic goes, the end product must be American. “As far as they’re concerned, it originated within the U.S.,” said Terry Hanlon, Dillon Gage’s chief executive.

    [...]

    A full supply chain audit in the United States would flag the risk of Clan del Golfo gold. Colombian gold is considered high-risk by industry standards, and the U.S. government itself has documented the Clan’s operations in Caucasia, in particular.

    But for two decades — a period covering nearly all of the post-Sept. 11 gold boom — the Mint never asked its suppliers where they bought gold, a Treasury Department inspector general audit found in 2024.

    8 votes

  3. Comment on NHTSA tells US Congress: advanced impaired driving detection tech isn't ready in ~transport

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Looks like the Supreme Court will be hearing arguments on whether geofence warrants are legal soon. But meanwhile, Google changed how they handle location data, so maybe that won't work anymore?

    Looks like the Supreme Court will be hearing arguments on whether geofence warrants are legal soon. But meanwhile, Google changed how they handle location data, so maybe that won't work anymore?

    It is not clear how broad the impact of the court’s decision in the case will be, because Google now stores location data on mobile devices themselves, rather than in its own database. Additionally, even if the court ultimately determines that the search violated the Fourth Amendment, the government contends that the evidence against Chatrie can come in based on the the lower court’s finding that law enforcement acted in good faith in obtaining the location data from Google.

    But as one “friend of the court” brief, filed by the Cato Institute, points out, the court could still clarify a variety of issues related to cellphones, technology, and the Fourth Amendment – for example, whether Americans have a property interest in digital records, even if they are stored with tech companies like Google, and when the government must obtain a warrant if it seeks to search digital records.

  4. Comment on How Google’s Sergey Brin helped fuel a political war in California in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    https://archive.ph/E0cMc From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

    https://archive.ph/E0cMc

    From the article:

    Brin’s political push reflects a broader awakening among California’s ultrawealthy. Over the past six months, the proposed billionaire tax and a heated governor’s race have drawn tech titans and business leaders more directly into the state’s affairs — a space many of them have traditionally kept at arm’s length.

    Prior to this year, Brin’s last contribution in a California election cycle was 2010 when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor and the Google co-founder largely backed climate causes. He’s now spent more than $58 million in the last four months, including an extra $9 million disclosed late Friday, but more importantly has helped mobilize a network of fellow tech titans in a push to sway state issues.

    “The wealth tax was a wake up call, it was a fire that just lit up Silicon Valley literally in a matter of weeks,” said Steven Maviglio, a veteran Democratic strategist. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

    Altogether, ultrawealthy donors have injected more than $270 million into California’s political scene in this election cycle. Outside of the wealth tax, billionaire Tom Steyer is emerging as a top Democratic candidate for governor after the downfall of former Representative Eric Swalwell following allegations of sexual assault. Steyer, a former hedge fund manager, has spent more than $140 million in his election bid, crowding TV airwaves with ads and labeling himself a “class traitor” with a campaign modeled after Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

    [...]

    Ballots for the June 2 primary election start going out next week. Brin and a cohort of the ultrawealthy including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and venture capitalists Vinod Khosla and John Doerr have plowed millions into supporting Matt Mahan, a Silicon Valley mayor, with a back-to-basics agenda and a penchant for taking on the state’s Democratic establishment.

    [...]

    That money has helped Mahan buy airtime and attracted controversy, but his polling numbers remain stuck in the single digits while Steyer’s well-funded progressive campaign is gaining favor with voters. Brin has also backed Republican Steve Hilton, who’s currently leading polls.

    [...]

    “You have two polar opposites going on. You have a billionaire running who has actually fully adopted an agenda that the vast majority of voters agree with: Taxing billionaires, funding healthcare, fighting back against ICE,” said Lorena Gonzalez, head of the state’s largest union group, the California Federation of Labor Unions. “And then you have billionaires pushing a candidate whose talking points are apologetic to the tech industry.”

    [...]

    In California, Brin’s newfound political action was catalyzed by the wealth tax proposal, which would levy a one-time 5% tax on billionaires to help offset federal health-care cuts. In a Signal group chat earlier this year with other Silicon Valley elite, Brin floated the idea of raising hundreds of millions of dollars to influence California politics, according to a person who saw the message.

    [...]

    Shortly after leaving California, Brin contributed $20 million to a new group dedicated to fighting the tax and pushing pro-business policies, Building a Better California, making him the single largest contributor. He gave it another $37 million over the spring, as the group quickly started supporting a trio of anti-wealth tax measures that could nullify a billionaire tax if it gets passed in an election.

    [...]

    Joining Brin in the effort were other billionaires, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and venture capitalist Michael Moritz. Peter Thiel, who also left California ahead of the New Year’s Day deadline, gave $3 million to a separate committee opposing the wealth tax.

    [...]

    Many in Sacramento are skeptical that Brin and his fellow ultra-rich will succeed in swaying California state politics. They point to the failed candidacy of former eBay executive Meg Whitman, who spent around $144 million of her own fortune to become governor, or even venture capitalist Tim Draper’s longshot initiative to split California into six separate states.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on NHTSA tells US Congress: advanced impaired driving detection tech isn't ready in ~transport

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I think the idea is that the sensor readings would only be used locally to somehow disable the car… which is itself a problem, but it’s not technically surveillance. By contrast, a ride share or...

    I think the idea is that the sensor readings would only be used locally to somehow disable the car… which is itself a problem, but it’s not technically surveillance.

    By contrast, a ride share or even just using Google Maps for directions tracks your car’s location and speed. They use it for determining traffic. (They do promise that it’s anonymized.)

    1 vote

  7. Comment on What’s the best 3D-printed thing you have? in ~talk

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Making the encoder wheel bigger means that more holes fit per degree of rotation and therefore the speed that the lever angle changes (which controls the sound) can be measured more precisely. How...

    Making the encoder wheel bigger means that more holes fit per degree of rotation and therefore the speed that the lever angle changes (which controls the sound) can be measured more precisely. How small the holes can be printed is limited by the resolution of 3D printing, so I went bigger instead.

    And sure, there are other ways to do it, but I like the look.

    3 votes

  8. Comment on NHTSA tells US Congress: advanced impaired driving detection tech isn't ready in ~transport

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...]

    From the article:

    Back in 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included a provision that forced the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to mandate "advanced impaired-driving prevention technology" in all new passenger vehicles. Essentially, the legislation would force automakers to install anti-drunk-driving technology in cars from the factory. These systems are supposed to be passive, much like the kind of eye-sight monitors present in many new cars made by Subaru, General Motors, Ford, and others—but with the ability to shut off the vehicle if it detects deviations in driving or driver behavior that suggest impairment.

    Of course, ideological divisions ran rampant within Congress, with Republican representatives like Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced the No Kill Switches in Cars Act in February 2025. However, federal safety regulators are now weighing in from a more scientific point of view. In a February 2026 report directed to Congress, titled "Advanced Impaired Driving Prevention Technology," NHTSA officials said the passive anti-drunk driving technology isn't ready yet.

    "Currently, detection technology around the legal limit continues to have an error rate that would be unacceptably high ... while NHTSA has not made a final determination about the necessary level of accuracy, even a 99.9 percent detection accuracy level could result in millions to tens of millions of instances each year where the technology would incorrectly prevent or limit drivers from operating their vehicles, or fail to prevent or limit impaired drivers from doing so," the report reads. "At this time, NHTSA is not aware of any technology that claims to achieve anywhere close to [the needed] level of accuracy."

    [...]

    The report goes on to say that while the technology is worth investing in over the long term, federal regulators aren't aware of any version with anywhere close to this level of accuracy in minimizing false positives and false negatives. It's not just the opinion of federal regulators that the technology is behind, either; the report says testing data shows that the current advanced impaired-driving prevention technology doesn't meet the "precision, speed, and reliability" required by the act.

    [...]

    Counteracting drunk driving is not just about stopping the car from being driven, but also about safely interfering with impaired drivers who are already in motion. Ensuring the car doesn't start for drunk drivers is one thing, but federal officials say disrupting an already-rolling drunk driver adds additional layers of complication; as NHTSA points out, simply stopping a vehicle operated by a drunk driver may lead to unintended consequences.

    Either way, the federal safety watchdog says that, even if the technology isn't quite ready, additional resources to combat drunk driving are essential. Behavioral approaches and ignition interlock devices are well-established methods in the anti-drunk driving tool kit, and advanced impaired-driving prevention technology could prove to be another worthy avenue ...in due time.

    5 votes

  10. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 20 in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    Trump fires all 24 members of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s governing body But it's not like they were being listened to anymore anyway: ...

    Trump fires all 24 members of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s governing body

    But it's not like they were being listened to anymore anyway:

    The White House’s decision last month to ask Congress to give NSF $900 million next year for a new Antarctic research icebreaker is another example of how the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has prevented the board from meeting its obligations, says Stassun, who until yesterday chaired the group’s committee on large research facilities.

    “OMB basically said very directly to NSF’s chief of research facilities that ‘you will build a new research vessel,’ and there was no involvement by the board, which is required to approve and authorize any major infrastructure investment by NSF,” Stassun notes. “And when the board asked, the response was, ‘Well, OMB was very clear in its directive.’”

    ...

    Lofgren worries Trump will “fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won't stand up to him.” But Stassun believes it doesn’t matter whether Trump restocks the board or leaves its positions unfilled. As proof, he points to the increasingly awkward conversations in the last year between the board and NSF’s top two officials: Brian Stone, Panchanathan’s former chief of staff and now designated NSF head, and Micah Cheatham, its chief management officer.

    “We would ask them, ‘Are you following board governance directives?’” Stassun says. “And their answer would be, in effect, ‘We don't listen to you anymore.’”

    4 votes

  11. Comment on The people do not yearn for automation in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I think adoption of AI is higher in the US? People might have more experience with it, including with earlier models that were worse.

    I think adoption of AI is higher in the US? People might have more experience with it, including with earlier models that were worse.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Single, solo, poor, woman gets $500k pre-tax, how to make the most of it? in ~finance

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Perhaps the tax issue could be worked around by a 10-year mortgage, to be paid using the IRA. Living expenses come out of rent. After 10 years, the mortgage is paid off and the income from the...

    Perhaps the tax issue could be worked around by a 10-year mortgage, to be paid using the IRA. Living expenses come out of rent. After 10 years, the mortgage is paid off and the income from the rent is still there.

    Without using real numbers, this is just a story, not a plan. But I've heard roughly similar stories before.

    It's definitely having all your assets in one basket, though.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on Sloth World will not open following animal deaths in ~enviro

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...]

    From the article:

    A planned International Drive attraction called Sloth World will not open following dozens of animal deaths, conservation groups said late Friday, as its 13 remaining sloths were placed in the care of animal experts at Central Florida Zoo & Biological Gardens.

    The 13 sloths arrived Friday and are in quarantine at the Sanford zoo, said Richard E. Glover, CEO of the zoo. Sloth World owner Ben Agresta reached out to zoo officials early in the week, Glover said.

    In a joint statement, the Sloth Conservation Foundation and the Sloth Institute, two international conservation groups that had been critical of the attraction, said Sloth World would be closing permanently. It had been announced in December as a guided, walk-through tour with an emphasis on conservation and education. It was initially scheduled to begin public tours in February, and reportedly has sold many advance VIP tickets at $49 each.

    [...]

    News reports last week established that at least 31 sloths have died since late 2024 in a converted warehouse operated by Sloth World about a mile from the planned public venue. The conservation groups said Friday that another 24 sloths obtained by Sloth World are unaccounted for.

    [...]

    Also on Friday, Orange County said a county building inspector had sought access to the Sloth World warehouse Thursday because it does not have a required permit to hold animals, but was unable to gain entrance despite four separate attempts.

    [...]

    In December, Agresta described to the Sentinel his plans for Sloth World as a home for guided walk-through tours among sloths living in a re-created rainforest setting. He said he expected to have at least 40 sloths in the building.

    But by that time, inspectors for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had collected details about the deaths of 31 sloths imported from Guyana and Peru via Miami International Airport in late 2024 and early 2025.

    The first 21 were taken to the warehouse, which had neither electricity nor water. Space heaters were added, but a tripped fuse kept the animals in the cold for at least one night. Later, 10 more sloths were delivered, but two were dead on arrival, and the others died due to health issues, an incident report said.

    FWC detailed the warehouse conditions in a report of an August 2025 inspection disclosed by Inside Climate News. Some information in the state report was provided by Peter Bandre, who — at the time — was Sloth World’s vice president and a business partner of Agresta. Bandre has since left Sloth World.

    6 votes

  15. Comment on Planned Parenthood is turning to services like Botox to stay afloat in ~health

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...]

    From the article:

    The Sacramento clinic is part of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country, covering Northern California and parts of Nevada.

    It has started offering a new set of services, ranging from Botox to IV hydration for skin rejuvenation, or for after a night of drinking, all of which patients pay for with cash. They can also request sedation for certain procedures, like the placement of an intrauterine device.

    The shift comes as Planned Parenthood faces financial uncertainty after President Donald Trump and Congress stripped funding for the abortion-rights organization as part of the tax and spending package passed last year. The cuts, which prevent Planned Parenthood and other organizations that perform abortions from accepting Medicaid as payment for non-abortion services, are set to expire this summer. Congress could renew them for another year.

    The affiliate says about 75 to 80% of its patients are on Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program. Revenue from the new offerings could allow the affiliate to continue providing reproductive healthcare while it tries to fill the funding gap.

    [...]

    Planned Parenthood charges $9 per unit of Botox, which, depending on location, could be 25 to 50% cheaper than other providers.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and state lawmakers have allocated hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding to Planned Parenthood and other organizations like it since the federal cuts, including $90 million in February.

    [...]

    The organization's leaders, though, say it isn't clear whether that will cover costs for core services, including cancer screenings, STI testing and contraceptive care, in the long run if Congress reinstates cuts.

    [...]

    While the affiliate offers Botox and IV hydration at select locations for now, it's exploring an expansion into cosmetic fillers and GLP-1 weight-loss treatments. Dalton says the new services could serve as a blueprint for other clinics trying to keep their doors open.

    2 votes

  17. Comment on The people do not yearn for automation in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    The sort of lashing out you’re referencing is rarely well-targeted or calculated. Often minorities get the blame.

    The sort of lashing out you’re referencing is rarely well-targeted or calculated. Often minorities get the blame.

    8 votes

  18. Comment on The people do not yearn for automation in ~society

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Has that ever happened? Yes, conservatives sometimes win, and sometimes there has been talk about trickle-down theories of economics, but they talk about a lot of other things too. Proving...

    Has that ever happened? Yes, conservatives sometimes win, and sometimes there has been talk about trickle-down theories of economics, but they talk about a lot of other things too. Proving causation, that people actually believed a certain thing and acted on it, seems more difficult.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on How Ukraine is turning to renewables to keep heat and lights on in ~enviro

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

    From the article:

    Ukraine is revamping its power sector as rapidly as it can, not for climate protection but for energy security. “Ukraine’s energy transition is not a slogan,” says Ievgeniia Kopytsia, a Ukrainian energy analyst at the Institute for Climate Protection, Energy and Mobility. “Since the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has added over 3 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity. It’s a security-driven transformation, unfolding under extreme constraints, that prioritizes decentralization, flexibility, and speed of recovery.”

    Wind and solar arrays with independent transmission lines are scattered over the landscape, which makes them harder to hit and easier to repair. “A coal power station [is] a large single target that a single missile could take out,” says Jeff Oatham of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy company and its largest private energy investor. “You would need around 40 missiles to do the equivalent amount of capacity damage at a wind farm.”

    Solar, too, makes an unattractive target. “Attacking decentralized solar power installations is not economically rational,” says Ukrainian energy expert Olena Kondratiuk. “Missiles and drones are expensive, and significantly disrupting such systems would require a large number of strikes, while the overall impact on the energy system would remain limited.” Both solar and wind parks can function even when parts of them are out of operation.

    [...]

    European countries are bankrolling most of Ukraine’s energy makeover, including all of the Mykolaiv solar installations. West of Kyiv, the city of Zhytomyr has plans to run entirely on renewables by 2050 with the help of the Rebuild Ukraine initiative, which is largely European funded. And in the Kyiv region and beyond, solar systems supported by the Solar Supports Ukraine program are keeping schools open during blackouts. A self-financed exception: Before the war began, the Sunny City cooperative in Slavutych, a town near the Belarus border, crowdfunded to create a solar power plant on the roofs of three municipal buildings.

    [...]

    Some self-sustaining energy zones combine renewables with conventional energy. The central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, for example, boasts five microgrids that combine local generation, including solar, gas, and hydroelectric power, with energy storage systems. Five major wind farms will join the energy mix in the next two years. In Khmelnytskyi, the national university’s 4,400-kilowatt microgrid includes a natural gas-fired cogeneration unit (it produces both electricity and heat), a 264-kilowatt solar array, a diesel-powered plant, and a gas-fired boiler house, which generates heat.

    [...]

    Before Russia seized territory that hosted more than half of Ukraine’s wind power capacity in 2014 and 2022, including major wind farms on the Sea of Azov coast, Ukraine had 34 wind parks, comprised of nearly 700 turbines. Since wind generation is so central to its decentralized energy strategy, Ukraine has strived to increase wind generation even in the midst of Russian attacks.

    Just 65 miles from the front, DTEK is installing the 500-megawatt Tyligulska Wind Power Plant, the first wind park ever built in a war zone. It is a crucial source of electricity in southern Ukraine and will supply 900,000 households when it’s finished. The country currently has 7 gigawatts of wind power in the pipeline that could be installed this year, according to Andriy Konechenkov, of the Ukrainian Wind Energy Association, should conditions on the ground allow it. The new turbines would more than triple the country’s current wind-power capacity.

    While the war has sidelined the rollout of utility-scale wind farms, solar installations atop households, businesses, and public institutions have continued at an unprecedented rate. Ukraine’s YASNO utility, which supplies electricity and gas to millions of Ukrainians, says its customers are snapping up the solar and storage packages that it offers. On sunny days, Ukraine even boasts energy surpluses.

    [...]

    “Individual consumers want to get off the grid any way that they can,” explains Andriy Martynyuk of Ecoclub, a Ukraine-based NGO that helps communities develop renewables. “It’s largely a grassroots phenomenon and a bit chaotic now,” he says. But Martynyuk expects the demand for renewables will further surge when state subsidies for fossil energy, which have priced Ukrainian energy significantly below market rates, are eventually phased out.

    This boom, of course, begs for storage options, and there, too, Ukraine has moved quickly. In 2024 and 2025, the country’s national grid operator invested in half a gigawatt of storage capacity — an impressive amount according to experts, who note that it is just under a quarter of Germany’s total storage supply. The battery projects that in Europe take two years to roll out, the Financial Times reports, take just six months in Ukraine.

    [...]

    In terms of a new, cutting-edge distributed energy system, Ukraine may be racing forward with the zeal of a new convert, but even the planned rollout of renewables in 2026 won’t keep most of the Ukrainian population safe from Russia’s depredations next winter. Wartime Ukraine has the will but not the financial resources to revamp its energy production on its own. The nation’s largest donor, the E.U., is already contributing nearly $200 billion to Ukraine’s budget for military expenditures and humanitarian aid, including energy. The speed with which Ukraine blankets its territory with distributed energy systems could make the difference between surviving another punishing winter — or succumbing to its cruelty.

    6 votes