New book takes on Big Pharma---and the Gates Foundation. Interest piqued? Read my Q&A with Rohit Malpani, co-author of the excellent "Pharma Monopoly."
My newest on Substack is up----check it out!
LINK: https://t.co/0kbXzmNkcB
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed into law a bill that will protect fire and rescue workers who use medical cannabis in their off-time! This bill’s passage is the result of a multi-year effort by firefighters and other advocates.
https://t.co/TGY9acK0OU
Orcas have brain structures you don't have.
Neurobiologist Lori Marino's MRI work on killer whales identified a fourth cortical segment called the paralimbic lobe. It sits next to the limbic system and handles emotion and social awareness. It doesn't exist in humans or in any land mammal. In orcas, it's so elaborated it erupts into the cortex.
Their cortical limbic lobe, the region handling self-awareness and social processing, is exceptionally developed. Their brain weighs roughly 12 pounds, four times the mass of yours. They have spindle cells, the same neurons that let humans reason about other minds.
When an orca surfaces and locks eyes with you, it's running a social assessment with neural hardware specialized for exactly that. It knows you're a separate being. It knows you're watching it back. It's evaluating you.
Here's what should recontextualize the clip. In all of recorded history, wild orcas have killed zero humans. Zero documented fatalities. One surfer was bitten off California in 1972, and the orca released him the moment it realized he wasn't a sea lion. A 12-year-old was bumped in Alaska in 2005. The orca approached, touched him, turned back.
Orcas hunt great white sharks. They coordinate wave attacks that sweep seals off ice floes. They take down moose swimming between islands. They have every capability to kill you. They have never chosen to.
Marino's explanation: the orca neocortex is developed enough to instantly distinguish a human from prey. Other researchers point to orca culture, the traditions passed through pods across generations, in which humans simply aren't food.
That look is recognition and restraint. From a mind built for social cognition at a scale your brain can't reach.
You see hundreds of ads every single day. On your phone. Your laptop. Your smart TV. Your game console. Your kid's tablet. Even your thermostat.
Someone built a tiny $5 computer that blocks every single one of them. For every device in your house. Forever.
It's called Pi-hole.
Not a browser extension. Not an app. A network-wide ad blocker that lives on your WiFi. Every device that connects to your home internet gets ad-free browsing automatically. No setup on each device. No subscription. No tracking.
Here's how it works:
Every time your phone loads an ad, it asks the internet "where is this ad server?" Pi-hole sits between your phone and the internet. When your phone asks for an ad, Pi-hole says "that server does not exist" and the ad never loads.
The ad is dead before it reaches your screen.
Here's what Pi-hole blocks:
→ Ads in mobile apps. Ads inside games. Ads on free apps that usually can't be blocked.
→ Smart TV ads. Roku ads. Amazon Fire ads. Samsung TV ads. Every TV ad at the DNS level.
→ Tracking pixels. Facebook tracking. Google Analytics. TikTok pixels.
→ Telemetry. Windows spying on you. Apple sending data. Your smart fridge phoning home.
→ Malware domains. Phishing sites. Crypto miners.
→ Ads and telemetry on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch.
Here's the wildest part:
A Raspberry Pi Zero costs $5. An old Android phone, you already own. An old laptop in your closet, you already own.
Any of them can run Pi-hole.
One small device. Plug it in once. Forget about it. Every phone, tablet, laptop, smart TV, and game console on your WiFi gets ad-free browsing.
Forever.
No monthly fee. No subscription. No tracking. No account. No login.
Pi-hole users report their home internet feels faster because ads are never downloaded in the first place.
The developers are volunteers. They've been building this for over a decade. It handles hundreds of millions of DNS queries on server-grade hardware.
52,000+ GitHub stars. EUPL-1.2 license.
100% Open Source.
Several of the proposed amendments to the adult-use sales bill will have profound effects on consumers in Virginia, adding criminal penalties to conduct that is now a civil offense. We hope that legislators will reject the most egregious of the amendments.
https://t.co/4BUU9V0LRJ
Ill never openly hate on millennials, they were up against gen x AND boomers all by their lonesome and still gave us millennial optimism and freedom to be cringe with each other. Over here in gen z town everything ever made is slop and everyones larping and maxxing
Cannabis users' brains look YOUNGER!
People who used cannabis showed better scores on various thinking tests (multiple areas of cognition / mental performance).
The brain changes linked to cannabis and the better thinking abilities appeared together across many different brain systems.
Cannabis users' brains showed connection patterns more like those seen in younger people, plus stronger cognitive (thinking) skills.
https://t.co/2vOC2Mcxj9
ARC Raiders GIVEAWAY
We're giving away 5 Bonecrown Sets in ARC Raiders, it comes with the skin & 2,400 Raider Tokens!
To enter:
👤 Follow @ArcRaiderAlerts
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💬 Comment your gaming platform
Giveaway will conclude on January 15th.