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running commentary

The internet is filled with things. Here are some of them.

#crime

2024

Another doctor who thinks he's God 2024 Dec 8
ProPublica with a detailed investigation into yet another doctor who is a sociopath, playing God with his patients' lives.
Hailed as a savior upon his arrival in Helena, Dr. Thomas C. Weiner became a favorite of patients and his hospital’s highest earner. As the myth surrounding the high-profile oncologist grew, so did the trail of patient harm and suspicious deaths.
Nobody knows what the criminal system's purpose is 2024 Dec 3
Prior to Running Commentary, I bookmarked this Hacker News comment by leobg reacting in 2022 to the criminal sentencing of that Theranos con-women Elizabeth Holmes, and am only now sharing it here:
The criminal system’s purpose is not just prevention.

Actually, nobody is really sure what its purpose is.

Why do parents, when they get really angry, sometimes hit a child? Psychology has proven that doing so is a really terrible way of preventing further infractions. So the impulse to punish is not necessarily rational.

A whole religion has been built on the idea of consciously letting go of the urge to judge and punish - and it hasn’t worked out for 2000 years.

So one reason why the government punishes criminals is to take the wind out of the sails of all the private parties that otherwise would cry for punishment of that person, or take it into that own hands. In that sense, it is essentially a power move by the state in order to remain in control and “keep the peace”.
CostCo Butter Conspiracy 2024 Nov 24
I missed this eleven months ago when it happened, but apparently a reddit post gained some attention for accusing CostCo's store-brand butter of having secretly changed, causing their butter-centric recipes to start failing. When others started chiming in "same here" it sparked Allrecipes to do an investigation, the results of which were entirely inconclusive. But along the way, we learn all sorts of interesting facts about butter, such as that European butters are slightly more fat-to-water than American sweet-cream butters.

But what of the conspiracy? Did CostCo change how they make their butter? People are still saying yes this season, which is how I heard of this. And whether they did or not, it all speaks to the basic, fundamental underlying issue: food standards in America are old, and the allowances are more generous than needed for modern manufacturing. So whether or not CostCo really is doing this devious thing – decreasing the fat percentage in their butter to the legally allowable tolerance in order to save money – the fact that they can at all is problem enough. And in an era of increasing shrinkflation, is it any wonder that nobody trusts the massive corporations to be actually selling you what they claim to be selling you?
The bloodiest Western gunfight you’ve never heard of 2024 Nov 13
In 1880 California the railroads (led by among others Leland Stanford) squared off against a group of former Confederate soldiers now squatting on speculated land in a place called Mussel Slough, in the southern Central Valley. When the conflict spilled over into violence, it resulted in a gunfight leaving 7 dead immediately. The incident's infamy was felt far and wide though, by those as far away as Karl Marx in London, with many siding with one interest or the other for their own ideological or political reasons. This linked well-researched 2015 blog post by historian Adam Smith goes into all the details.
Wikipedia's List of the Indian Wars in California's history is horrifying 2024 Oct 31
I grew up here in California, going to school in the regular public education system. It's been a long time, but I do not remember covering in much (or any) depth the Native Americans who lived in this state prior the wars and genocide which killed them off. Indians weren't completely forgotten -- our curriculum did at least acknowledge that the Indians were killed off, but we were told it was primarily through disease and the word "genocide" definitely was not used. I used to think "how nice it is to live in a place where there's never been a major war."

That was pretty naive of me, right? A recent quick glance through this list of California Indian Wars on Wikipedia left me noticing a stark trend, one which I feel should have been taught to us:
  1. White Americans move into California Indian lands and push them out so they can take those lands over for agriculture and mining.
  2. California Indians make what peace they can with their new white neighbors. It's not great, but it's not so bad. But one white neighbor in particular hates that Indians exist at all, and despite the relative peace, goes about raping and murdering Indians.
  3. The Indians get tired of being raped and murdered, and kill that asshole.
  4. The white townspeople hear of this, and don't care that the white man in question was an asshole and that the Indian's lethal revenge was justified. They only see race, and can abide no Indian killing any white man, so they step up the revenge and go and murder and burn entire Indian villages in reprisal.
  5. Repeat the massacres until there's almost no Indians left.
So many of the entries on the list follow this pattern, it's shocking. (Maybe not shocking if you're Indian and grew up knowing this.)
Who knows what really happened to Robert A Levinson? 2024 Oct 30
Robert A. Levinson was working for the CIA, supposedly investigating cigarette smuggling, when he disappeared on the resort island of Kish off the coast of Iran. Not a CIA agent, but a retired FBI special agent working a contract for the CIA which the agency paid his family $2.5m/yr to keep quiet about, Levinson's death remains merely speculation at this time based on his age and the length of his captivity.

A US judge ordered Iran to pay $1.45bn in penalty for his kidnapping, which Iran has not, as far as I can tell, done. In March 2020 the Iranian foreign minister said "According to authentic evidence, the person had left the Iranian soil for an unknown destination years ago."

Cases like this expose weird rough edges of statecraft, such as that when Obama's team negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran in 2016 in exchange for some other hostages, Levinson's name was not mentioned. Was this a tacit and unofficial way of acknowledging his death?

There remains to this day a $5m reward for information leading to his return.
Uber Greyball Conspiracy 2024 Sep 24
That time that Uber's app would use your behaviors and habits and location data and whatever else they can get their hands on to determine whether or not you were a government regulator and, if so, show you only fake cars with no available rides, therefore preventing you from investigating the company. Oh wait, that's still happening now. And yes, Uber actually openly admits to doing this conspiracy bullshit.
eBay stalking scandal 2024 Sep 24
That time in 2019 that eBay staff literally gangstalked and gaslit a couple of people critical of their policies. This really happened. eBay staff were really arrested for this unbelievable shit, including a senior director.
Environmental Disaster in Los Angeles 2024 Sep 11
It is common knowledge in Northern California that LA is an toxic hellhole living embodiment of the apocalypse ocean's garbled vomit on the shore, but it turns out some of this is actually true. The Dominguez Channel running through all of LA's poorest and ethnic neighborhoods has been used as an industrial runoff open sewer for so long that it is literally poisoning everything near it. Not that once the waters of the channel reach the ocean they fare much better, seeing as the coastal waters have been used as an industrial dump site for everything from radioactive waste to live ammunition to raw poisonous sludge. Los Angeles, I'm yours.
Simple Sabotage Field Manual 2024 Jul 26
Quoth the CIA:
The rascally spies of OSS knew a thing or two about mischief making, especially when it came to undermining America’s enemies in World War II. One of their more imaginative ideas was to train everyday citizens in the art of simple sabotage. Thus, the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” was born.

This previously classified booklet describes ways to train normal people to be purposely annoying telephone operators, dysfunctional train conductors, befuddling middle managers, blundering factory workers, unruly movie theater patrons, and so on. In other words, teaching people to do their jobs badly.
And then the manual's best guidance:
Managers and Supervisors: To lower morale and production, think of the worst boss you’ve had and act like that. Be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work. When possible, refer all matters to committees for 'further study and consideration.' Attempt to make the committees as large and bureaucratic as possible.
Moron lies his way into full scholarship and then brags about it online 2024 Jul 26
Here's a reddit thread from someone who frauded and scammed their way through high school in India and into Lehigh University in Philadelphia and actually pulled all this off. Until they decided to brag about the entire thing on a reddit post... which was promptly turned over to Lehigh's fraud team, who then had the student arrested and deported. Brilliant.
The Forged Apple Employee Badge 2024 May 16
Apple (the computer company) has inadvertently created a market in memorabilia, apparently, to the point that sellers on eBay are forging old company documentation and selling it for (in this instance) $950. Good lord.
Massive corruption conviction in Vietnam worth ~9% of GDP 2024 Apr 12
Truong My Lan has been convicted of embezzling some impossibly huge percentage of Vietnam's gross domestic product alongside 85 other prominent bankers and government officials. What is clearly internal party politics boiling over as economic news, things are shaking up in the country in a way that's easy for an outsider like myself to miss the nuance of. But as each place on Earth struggles with adapting old strongman practices into modern power structures, it's interesting to see what's the Vietnamese version.
Apple is facing Monopoly charges because of the iPhone 2024 Mar 23
I'm tracking this story because it feels relevant to me even though I neither work in the industry nor have any stake in its outcome. But this article, titled "A few thoughts on the Apple DOJ antitrust case, from someone who isn’t riding his first rodeo" helps explain why – tech anti-trust cases such as this have historically been hugely impactful on technology itself in ways that aren't immediately apparent. And I especially appreciate this line: "So, based on my specific expertise, I can tell you: Be prepared, over the coming months, for some lousy punditry."
Do immigrants commit more crimes than natives? 2024 Feb 27
It's a Presidential election year in the US so that of course means we get to revisit, among others, a favorite talking point: filthy immigrants and all the filthy crimes those degenerates commit. But do they actually? The linked article starts with an overview of perception – what the data shows people actually think in various countries – before diving into the answer: it's complicated.

There are many aspects at play, the article points out, such as immigrants coming frequently as young men, a group which demographically is the highest percent criminal. Or the "illegal" immigrants finding their illegal status makes employment harder to find. Or that immigrants tend to be over-represented in their new country's prisons, except in the US where we love to incarcerate our own. Or how countries may shuttle asylum-seekers into less prosperous areas where crime rates are already higher.

But what about American political talking points? The article doesn't say this, but it seems clear to me from it's evidence that immigration doesn't lead to crime, but rather how their new home welcomes them. So, treat immigrants well, and remember that you were once an immigrant, too.
Thanks FedEx, This is Why we Keep Getting Phished 2024 Feb 23
FedEx is increasingly terrible to work with, but the linked example of abhorrent business practice is a new egregious low. Is FedEx circling the drain?
Rajneeshee Bioterror Attack 2024 Feb 12
In September 1984, there was an outbreak of salmonella food poisoning in The Dalles, Oregon, where at least 751 cases were confirmed. This, in a community numbering only in the 10s of thousands, was massive in scale. The CDC blamed poor food handling practices. It was only a year later, when the FBI was investigating the nearby cult Rajneeshee that they discovered, in a lab on the cult's compound, vials carrying organisms identical to the outbreak strain that authorities understood the salmonella outbreak to in fact be bioterrorism, the first and most successful major such attack in our country's history. That this incident is so little-known baffles me.
Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’ 2024 Feb 5
Phishing has reached a whole new level of dumb.
Chan said the worker had grown suspicious after he received a message that was purportedly from the company’s UK-based chief financial officer. Initially, the worker suspected it was a phishing email, as it talked of the need for a secret transaction to be carried out. However, the worker put aside his early doubts after the video call because other people in attendance had looked and sounded just like colleagues he recognized, Chan said.

2023

UK court rules photos of out-of-copyright artworks are not themselves copyrightable 2023 Dec 30
In essence, the judge ruled that because the intent of a photo of an artwork is to, as accurately as possible, show that art digitally, and not to add any creativity of its own, that the photo is not itself copyrightable. This now catches up with the US, where several different rulings over the years have explicitly barred from copyright photos such as these, 3D scans of objects, and databases such as phone directories.
YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads 2023 Dec 12
Caveat emptor in full effect when watching ads on YouTube, since apparently even deep fake videos of celebrities promoting scam investments do not violate YouTube's policies. As the comments point out, YouTube makes money off these ads, so they could use that money to police them, but they choose not to.
How AI is being abused to create child sexual abuse imagery 2023 Oct 26
sigh
Eating the Rich Sounds Pretty Good to Most of Us Right Now 2023 Sep 13
There are no repercussions. There is no justice. Meritocracy is a lie the wealthy tell themselves to project morality onto a system that exists solely to preserve their unearned status ... Regular people are not only indifferent to bad things happening to rich people, they make no effort to hide that it delights them.
Santa Claus Bank Robbery 2023 Jul 30
The synopsis of this 1930s shootout between cops and robbers includes too many fanciful details for me to quite believe all of it as it's been recorded on Wikipedia, but it does make for a fantastic story, one I could easily visualize being turned into a movie film.