Yet another website has published its year-in-review. This one comes from Pornhub’s statisticians, who have published its users’ consumption habits in colorful infographics for the ninth year. 

Let’s begin with the US, the country with the highest daily traffic to Pornhub this year. 

Pornhub’s global average visit duration decreased by 1 second to 9 minutes and 54 seconds. The US saw a 3-second decrease to 9 minutes and 41 seconds. 

On a state-by-state basis, users in many southern states, including Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi, had the highest visiting times on the website. Ohio, Washington, and South Dakota users had some of the lowest. 

Worldwide, Friday was the least favorite time to watch porn, while Sunday afternoon into the evening was the best time. 

Here are the world’s most viewed categories. 

The average user age is 37 years old.

A breakdown of searches by generation. 

How most users access the website. 

A breakdown of most searched terms, pornstars, trending searches, top categories, and relative categories for the US. 

Oh, and there’s this…

In a separate report, data from SimilarWeb shows Pornhub is one of the top-trafficked websites in the world. 

Digging deep into Pornhub data can provide a glimpse into society’s darkest and dirtiest secrets. 

Authored by Victor Xing via The Mises Institute,

Executive Summary

• In the near term, China’s reopening and buying of ESPO crude would likely erode the role of Brent & energy indices

• Gulf nations envision the scope of petroyuan to be on par with demands for Chinese goods & technology transfer

• Rising yuan payments for Russian energy and more China-Gulf bilateral trade imply future dollar demand decline

• In the long term, more local currency trade settlements would erode dollar flows and Federal Reserve’s influence

China’s yuan denominated Russia crude rivals Saudi imports

In 2021, China imported 79.6 million tons of crude from Russia (1.6 million barrels per day) vs. 87.6 million tons from Saudi Arabia (1.8 million barrels per day). These two producers respectively accounted for 15.5% and 17.1% of China’s total crude import at 513.2 million tons (10.3 million barrels per day), which was near Saudi Arabia’s total 2021 output of 515 million tons. At present demand, China is both Saudi Arabia and Russia’s top energy customer:

Following the onset of the war in Europe, rising yuan-denominated Russian crude export and omission of Russia’s Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) grade crude from broader commodity indices would likely erode Brent crude’s role as a global oil benchmark. Investors focusing solely on Brent may overlook key market shifts.

China’s energy demand was subdued in 2021 and 2022 due to pandemic restrictions, and a broader economic reopening would likely accelerate demand for both Russian and Saudi energy products (by 2+ million barrels a day). However, Brent would only reflect part of the demand surge due to ESPO shipment and direct Russo-China pipeline flows. In 2022, sale of Russian pipeline crude to China totaled 33.3 million tons by October (nearly half of Russian flows to China over the period). Given crude pipelines would not use EU or G7 insurance services, the products would trade at uncapped prices into 2023.

Meanwhile, seaborne ESPO crude traded at $79 per barrel in Asian markets after the G7 + EU price cap came into effect at $60 per barrel, because the presence of a Russian tanker fleet that uses its own insurance.

The Bloomberg Commodity Index, as well as its futures instruments, uses WTI and Brent crude to construct its crude constituents, and it would underrepresent energy market developments in Asia if ESPO decouples from Brent:

Currently, yuan-denominated purchases of Russian crude uses a quasi-barter system: Chinese buyers would settle Russian crude purchases in yuan, and Russia would subsequently use the yuan to purchase Chinese technology products.

This is the same petroyuan model discussed at the China-Saudi Summit.

Saudi-China Summit and long-term impacts

A key market focus on the Saudi-China Summit attended by Crown Prince Bin Salman and President Xi was petroyuan. Xi proposed making “full use of the Shanghai Petroleum and National Gas Exchange as a platform to carry out yuan settlement of oil and gas trade.” A Saudi source previously said a decision to sell small amounts of oil in yuan to China could make sense in order to pay for Chinese imports directly, but “it is not yet the right time” to take the step.

This ambiguous stance preserved policy option for the Kingdom, for the Saudis do not see the yuan as an alternative reserve currency as Russia does. Riyadh, like Hong Kong, pegs its currency to the dollar, and it would require an ample dollar reserve to defend the riyal. As long as this system persists, Saudi Arabia would use petrodollar as a liquidity source, and it would reinvest reserves in interest-bearing dollar-denominated assets such as U.S. Treasury securities or corporate bonds. This supports the dollar and contributes to easier dollar-based financial conditions by boosting dollar asset prices. Ultimately, the petrodollar system plays a role to elevate the Federal Reserve as the dollar system’s central bank that affects global financing costs.

Yet, Saudi Arabia’s willingness to consider a system modeled after yuan-based Russian crude trade reflects its pragmatic considerations: it creates an incentive for Beijing to broaden economic ties with Riyadh. Greater the overall bilateral trade in yuan, greater the Kingdom’s demand for renminbi to pay for Chinese goods and technology, and petroyuan would fulfill a similar purpose as petrodollar to supply Riyadh with a non-dollar invoicing currency.

Overtime, greater the Saudi-China bilateral trade, greater the likelihood of more crude transactions settled in yuan, thus smaller the role of the dollar (and Fed policy) on global asset markets. While petroyuan would hardly replace petrodollar given its limited scope, less dollar in commodity settlement would result in less reinvestment of dollar reserves into dollar assets. This has ramifications from U.S. fiscal policy (less demand for dollar debt) to U.S. fixed income and equity markets.

Combined with India’s work on rupee transactions with Russia, a slow grind toward a multipolar (fragmented) world would likely weaken the dollar and erode existing asset correlation paradigms to create new market opportunities.

Authored by Kyle Anzalone & Will Porter via The Libertarian Institute,

The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning has sailed near the Japanese island of Okinawa and the US territory of Guam over the past two weeks. The naval operations came at the end of a year which saw several military escalations between Washington and Beijing.

Tokyo reported that the Liaoning and at least four other large warships operated in waters near Okinawa, adding that the ships remained about 150 miles offshore for several days. While in the area, the Chinese carrier conducted over 200 takeoff and landing drills.

On Thursday, Japanese officials confirmed that, after sailing away from Japan, the flotilla then traveled near the US territory of Guam. According to the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper closely linked with the country’s ruling Communist Party, the operation “showed that the Chinese carrier is ready to defend the country against potential US attacks launched from there.”

The relationship between Washington and Beijing has continued to deteriorate in 2022, perhaps best exemplified by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last summer and a massive round of Chinese military drills launched near the island in retaliation. 

President Joe Biden has further fueled tensions by repeatedly asserting that US forces would come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion. However, Taiwan is not recognized as a sovereign nation under US law, which instead endorses Beijing’s claim to the island and calls for a position of “strategic ambiguity” towards Taipei. 

While a number of past US administrations have refrained from openly saying whether Washington would intervene against China on Taiwan’s behalf, Biden has increasingly eroded that position, prompting senior White House officials to walk back his statements on multiple occasions. Proponents of strategic ambiguity contend that the policy acts as a deterrent against any future attack by Beijing, and stops short of emboldening Taipei to take aggressive actions of its own. 

Biden recently met with Chinese President Xi on the sidelines of the G20 summit. While the goal was to seek to resolve various outstanding issues between the two powers, both countries continue to conduct provocative military exercises. 

Tokyo – which is part a three-way security pact with Washington and Seoul created to confront Beijing – has also escalated regional tensions by announcing an end to its post-WWII defense-oriented military and plans to become the world’s third-highest weapons spender over the next five years. Moreover, the United States has worked to persuade its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to take part in its operations in Chinese-claimed waters, while Canada recently announced plans to conduct more military transits through the disputed Taiwan Strait. 

Beijing has significantly deepened its security and diplomatic ties with Moscow this year, with the two allies striking a “no limits strategic partnership” in the days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. The Asian superpowers have conducted joint drills in the waters and skies around both Japan and Taiwan in recent weeks, having just wrapped up naval exercises in the East China Sea on Tuesday. Another round of wargames on December 14 saw Chinese warships cross multiple Japanese straits as Russian fighters and bombers flew near Japanese airspace over the Sea of Japan. 

Underscoring the rising hostilities, earlier this week the Pentagon released a video, captured on December 21, showing a Chinese fighter that approached an American spy plane over the South China Sea, accusing the pilot of performing an “unsafe maneuver” that risked a collision. 

Silicon Valley tech companies have benefited from over a decade of low-interest rates and easy money. But since the Federal Reserve turned off the liquidity taps to combat inflation — at least for now — tech firms have been forced into aggressive cost-cutting measures, such as reducing headcount. 

This brings us to the workers who were fired this year. Financial Times reported, “employees of embattled tech groups are flooding secondary markets — where stakeholders in a private company sell shares to third parties.” And as they unload shares on the private market, the valuations of these startups are collapsing. 

The latest data from Crunchbase shows more than 91,000 workers in the U.S. tech sector have been laid off this year. 

“We are seeing an inflow of people being laid off trying to sell their shares,” Greg Martin, managing director of Rainmaker Securities, which facilitates private stock transactions. “These companies have built their headcounts up so much, so there are a lot of people highly motivated to get a sale done,” he said.

Martin added while there’s an increasing number of laid-off workers trying to cash out, many of these sales are happening during valuation declines of “30-80% from a year ago.” 

A valuation reset for startups has led venture capitalists to sit on the sidelines and wait for the smoke to clear. The selling of private stock has also pushed down startup valuations. 

FT published market valuations of private companies that show a rollercoaster ride in the last year. 

The highly illiquid market for private secondary markets, such as those operated by Rainmaker, further complicates assessing valuations in times of market turmoil. 

Data from Rainmaker showed that shares in Anduril, a defense artificial intelligence company backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz valued at $8.5bn, traded at $16.95 per share in November, down from $31.50 in March. Brokers such as Rainmaker trade Anduril shares indirectly through special purpose vehicles, as Anduril prohibits direct trading of its shares on secondary markets.

Shares in SoftBank-backed Chime Bank, which was valued at $25bn when it last raised external capital in August 2021, have lost a quarter of their value since then on secondary markets, trading at $60 per share, according to the most recent data. –FT

Rainmaker’s Martin warned there’s a wave of laid-off employees who are dumping private stock into illiquid markets. The collapse in fundraising for the IPO market has complicated things for private companies, who are now scrambling to find lending lifelines.  

On public markets, unprofitable tech companies have underperformed this year and are likely to continue doing so until the Fed pivots. Interest rate swaps suggest the Fed could begin cutting by late 2023. 

The basket of money-losing tech companies compiled by Morgan Stanley has plunged 54% — an epic roundtrip back to pre-Covid days. 

Profitability has become necessary for investors in these challenging times. There may come a time when unprofitable companies outperform again, but that widely depends on Fed policy. 

Authored by Prashant Jha via CoinTelegraph.com,

2022 was supposed to be the year crypto went mainstream, with a significant chunk of traditional venture capital firms betting heavily on the ecosystem in 2021. However, with one disaster after another, 2022 turned out to be a catastrophic year for the nascent crypto ecosystem. Some of the biggest names touted as pivotal to taking the crypto ecosystem forward turned out to be the orchestrators of its worst year in recent memory.

That said, quite a few protagonists rose to the occasion. These winners proved that crypto is not just about a few select individuals and companies but a vibrant ecosystem that can survive significant setbacks.

Let’s start with some of the biggest winners of the crypto ecosystem in 2022. The list includes individuals, companies and anonymous groups working for the betterment of the industry.

The winners

In a year that saw the multibillion-dollar collapses of the Terra ecosystem, FTX and Three Arrows Capital, it’s hard to pick winners. However, crypto has faced adversaries before, and 2022 was no different. Several positives came out of the year despite the collapse of several centralized entities.

Ledger and Trezor

When Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, a core idea was to give people financial sovereignty that made them less dependent on centralized intermediaries.

With offers of lucrative interest rates on yield products and derivatives trading services, most crypto users preferred to keep their crypto assets on centralized exchanges. However, these lucrative offerings become a nightmare when millions of customers lose their funds in the wake of a centralized exchange collapse.

In the rubble of the FTX collapse, crypto investors lost trust in centralized exchanges. Hardware wallet providers like Ledger and Trezor have benefitted from investors shifting their behavior toward self-custody.

In direct response to the failure of FTX, #Bitcoin investors, of all wallet cohorts, have made a distinct behavioural shift towards self-custody.

From Shrimp, to Whales, #Bitcoin onchain balances are on the rise🔵

Read more in The Week On-chain👇https://t.co/cVUE7QHbtQ pic.twitter.com/uIxUIcI46a

— glassnode (@glassnode) November 14, 2022

By December, self-custody services and hardware wallets became the preferred choice of many. After the collapse of FTX, Trezor saw a 300% surge in sales and revenue and Ledger saw its biggest sale day ever.

White hat hackers

The crypto ecosystem is relatively new, and several use cases like decentralized finance (DeFi) are in early development. This makes it prone to bugs and exploits. According to DefiLlama, DeFi protocols were exploited for nearly $5.93 billion in 2022

Total value hacked (USD) from DeFi protocols in 2022. Source: DefiLlama

However, the figures would have been much higher if not for white hat hackers. These white hats returned millions of dollars in stolen funds and flagged security bugs that could have led to more exploits. Security service provider Immunefi claims to have prevented the theft of $20 billion worth of crypto assets alone through its bug bounty program for white hat hackers..

While many projects tend to ignore white hats, 2022 showed that it’s better to pay out millions in bug bounties than lose billions in exploits.

Tether

Amid the chaos of 2022, the Tether stablecoin has successfully manoeuvred its way through the wreckage of both the Terra and FTX collapses.

USDT price and volume on a 1-year chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

The centralized stablecoin has been at the forefront of critics’ commentary for as long as it has existed. When Terra’s native stablecoin depegged, there were rumors about Tether’s exposure to the doomed ecosystem.

However, USDT managed to overcome the scare, and throughout 2022, it has significantly decreased its volatile exposure. The firm also pledged to stop lending out funds from its reserves and put a full stop to all the fear, uncertainty and doubt, or FUD.

Tether has become more transparent over time, with 82% of its reserves in liquid assets. The firm had total assets of $68.06 billion at the end of the third quarter, exceeding its total liabilities of $67.8 billion.

The losers

The crypto ecosystem saw many losers in 2022, with Sam Bankman-Fried the first to earn a mention. The former CEO of crypto exchange FTX started 2022 with a $20 billion net worth. In less than a year, that net worth disappeared and Bankman-Fried is now out on bail for allegedly stealing customers’ funds and committing securities fraud. Terra’s co-founder Do Kwon, whose last known location was Serbia, also makes the list.

TerraUSD

Algorithmic stablecoins were a novel, promising concept during the bull market. The Terra ecosystem rose to new highs based on this hype. However, the flawed design of TerraUSD (UST), now known as TerraClassicUSD (USTC), aided by the reckless decision-making of Kwon, led to its eventual downfall. The failure of Terra’s native stablecoin also tainted the concept of algorithmic stablecoins, with regulators warning against them.

The collapse of UST obliterated $40 billion of investor capital and caused a contagion that claimed nearly half a dozen other crypto firms with exposure to Terra. While many firms and individuals could qualify in the losers list, Terra’s UST implosion was the catalyst that precipitated more upheaval in 2022.

Alameda Research, FTX and centralized exchanges

At the start of 2022, FTX was valued at $32 billion, while its sister company Alameda Research boasted a several-billion-dollar valuation of its own. However, the November bank run on FTX soon turned into bankruptcy. As more details emerged, it turned out FTX and Alameda Research were not as independent as they claimed. Even FTX US, which was supposed to be a separate entity regulated under United States law, was found to be embroiled in the complex saga.

According to the authorities, FTX and Alameda funneled funds to each other, and the two firms were also involved in the embezzlement of customers’ funds. Alameda used FTX funds to loan billions of dollars to other firms. FTX, on the other hand, used nonexistent in-house projects with inflated valuations as collateral to take out significant loans. The whole Ponzi came crashing down in November.

The downfall of FTX and Alameda created more contagion in the crypto ecosystem and single-handedly erased trust in centralized exchanges and the broader crypto ecosystem practically overnight.

Crypto investors

Among all the chaos and downfall of many crypto exchanges and leading venture capital firms, the biggest losers are crypto investors. If the burn of the bear market was not enough, millions of crypto investors who had their funds on FTX lost their life savings overnight.

Terra was once a $40 billion ecosystem. Its native token, LUNA — now known as Terra Classic (LUNC) — was one of the top five biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. With millions of customers invested in the ecosystem, the collapse brought their investment to zero within hours. After the Terra collapse, crypto investors lost their funds on a series of centralized exchanges and staking platforms like Celsius, BlockFi and Hodlnaut. Crypto investors also lost significantly in the nonfungible token market, with the price of many popular collections down by 70%. Overall, crypto investors are among the biggest losers of the year.

2022 will go down in crypto history as an annus horribilis. Crypto investors will want to forget the year and start fresh. Venture capital firms and investors in crypto projects are reevaluating their investment strategies. After such a tumultuous year in crypto, a likely outcome will be the acceleration of regulations in the industry throughout the coming year. This may restore some of the lost confidence in the industry.

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Elon Musk has criticized mainstream media outlets over their coverage of the so-called “Twitter Files.”

“Why is corporate journalism rushing to defend the state instead of the people?” Musk wrote on Twitter on Dec. 27, in response to a tweet from journalist and documentary filmmaker Leighton Woodhouse. The latter was sharing his new Substack post about how corporate media rushed to defend the FBI and the state instead of exposing them.

“The Hunter Biden laptop story shows the extent to which the corporate media has become the propaganda arm of the state,” Woodhouse wrote in his Substack, pointing to the recent release of the seventh installment of Twitter’s internal documents.

Independent author Michael Shellenberger published the seventh installment on Dec. 19, revealing how there was an “organized effort” by federal law enforcement agents to discredit the 2020 Hunter Biden laptop report, by targeting social media and news companies.

Other installments of Twitter’s internal communications have shown how the media giant placed certain individuals on “secret blacklists,” debates over how to handle former President Donald Trump’s account before it was suspended in January 2021, and how the FBI allegedly flagged accounts and tweets for Twitter to take action against.

The FBI has dismissed the “Twitter Files,” alleging that “conspiracy theorists” are attempting to discredit the bureau.

A Twitter user responded to Musk’s question by writing, “Simple… it’s Corporate Journalism… Not Journalism.”

To which Musk replied: “Exactly. Why would anyone trust corpo journalism?”

Substack

In the same thread, Musk also said that he was “open to the idea” of buying the Substack platform, while responding to a tweet from Wall Street Silver.

The latter wrote, “Twitter plus Substack creates instantly massive competition for obsolete legacy corporate media.”

Substack allows independent writers and podcasters to publish directly to their audiences and get paid through subscriptions, the platform’s website says.

Tuesday was not the first time that Musk has expressed an interest in buying Substack.

On Dec. 8, conservative commentator Dave Rubin started a thread by alleging that Google and YouTube’s “manipulation for political purposes is FAR worse than Twitter’s.”

A Twitter user continued the thread and recommended Musk buy Substack.

The Twitter user wrote: “You would have the information layer with Twitter and the narrative layer. Corporate media would then have [to] specialize on reporting government leaks, from ‘people familiar with the matter.’”

“I’m open to the idea,” Musk wrote in response to the recommendation.

Reputation

On Dec. 28, Musk responded to a Twitter clip posted by CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” during which Axios reporter Hope King said the new Twitter chief’s reputation was “in danger.”

“All of the macro conditions are against his favor. Market-share for $TSLA is down year-over-year. His reputation with Twitter is impacting his reputation when it comes to all of his companies,” she said.

In response, Musk wrote: “The legacy media should worry about its reputation. We have only just begun.”

Musk has promised to promote free speech after acquiring Twitter and his decision to release the company’s internal documents is tied to his promise.

“The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened,” Musk wrote on Twitter on Dec. 28, just days before the first batch of the “Twitter Files” was released by independent journalist Matt Taibbi.

The first installment exposed how the social media giant’s efforts to suppress the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story published just weeks before the 2020 presidential election.

Emails from the laptop’s hard drive and Treasury records revealed how then-Vice President Joe Biden, his brother James, and Hunter Biden were involved in various foreign business ventures, in countries such as Ukraine, Russia, and China. At the time, many media outlets discredited the revelations as “Russian disinformation” and the news was blocked by social media platforms.

Hunter Biden recently hired high-profile defense lawyer Abbe Lowell to his legal team, as House Republicans plan to launch probes into his overseas business interests.

Congressional Probe

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, said Congress needs to probe “Big Tech” companies, following the revelations made by the “Twitter Files.”

“These explosive revelations show the enormous power that a handful of liberal tech executives have over our public discourse,” Wicker wrote in his weekly report published on Dec. 26.

“We should be grateful that new leadership is lifting the hood on Twitter, but Congress needs to follow up with wider investigations into Big Tech companies, including Facebook and Google,” he said.

Read more here…

The smartphone camera has come a long way since the early 2000s, and its impact on the overall camera market cannot be understated.

In fact, modern smartphones have become so sophisticated that the CEO of Sony’s semiconductor manufacturing company predicts that smartphone cameras will soon produce better quality images than DSLR cameras.

Whether smartphones will be able to completely replace standalone cameras is still a contentious debate topic, but one thing is clear—while smartphone sales have skyrocketed over the last decade, digital camera sales have plummeted.

As Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang notes, this animation by James Eagle compares annual sales data for film cameras, digital cameras, and smartphones over the years to show just how much smartphones have impacted the camera market.

Charting the Smartphone Effect on the Camera Market from Visual Capitalist on Vimeo.

A (Brief) History of Standalone Cameras

Below, we’ve broken down the history of cameras into three overarching periods: early cameras, film cameras, and digital cameras.

Early Cameras

Cameras have been around for thousands of years, with descriptions of camera-like devices found in historical writings dating back as far as the 4th century:

• 330 AD: Ancient Chinese texts describe a device known as a camera obscura. Similar to pinhole cameras, these didn’t produce actual photographs, but rather reflected light onto screens which could then be traced to produce a lasting image.

• Early 1800s: It’s generally accepted that Joseph Nicéphore Niépce invented the first photographic camera in 1816. Using silver chloride, Niépce managed to develop an image that’s still around today.

• 1840s: Early cameras produced negative images which had to be color corrected, until mirrored cameras were invented. Alexander S. Wolcott was the first person to patent a mirrored camera in 1840.

• 1871: Richard Leach Maddox came up with an invention that led to instantaneous exposure, meaning cameras only needed to be exposed to light for a few seconds before producing an image.

These early inventions were critical milestones in the development of the modern-day camera. However, cameras and film weren’t available to the masses until Kodak’s Brownie camera made photography relatively cheap.

The Emergence of Film Cameras

Released in 1900, the Kodak Brownie was a handheld, inexpensive roll film camera invented by George Eastman.

When it first launched, the camera sold for $1.00, equivalent to about $35.48 in 2022 dollars. With more than 100,000 cameras sold within the first year, Eastman is often credited for making photography accessible to the masses.

Fast forward a few decades, and technological advancements led to features in cameras like viewfinders, different shutter speeds, and detachable lenses. These features were possible on what’s known as twin lens reflex cameras, or TLR for short, but they were soon replaced by single lens reflex cameras (SLR).

Digital Cameras Enter the Scene

By the late 1990s, digital cameras were invented and began quickly outselling film cameras.

Unlike their film counterparts, digital cameras feature a digital sensor, and store images on a memory card which could store thousands of pictures.

Digital camera sales grew throughout the early 2000s—in 2005 the Photo Marketing Association International even estimated that 52% of households would own a digital camera by the end of the year.

The Smartphone Camera Changes the Game

In the early 2000s, camera phones were far less powerful than their standalone counterparts.

For instance, one of the first camera phones to hit the market, Samsung’s SCH-V200, could take 20 pictures at 0.35-megapixel resolution. In contrast, Canon’s EOS D30 digital camera released the same year had a resolution of 3 megapixels.

But the advent of the iPhone, and the rollout and accessibility of modern smartphones with powerful cameras, quickly saw many non-enthusiasts switch to smartphone cameras only. In 2022, Google’s Pixel 7 has multiple built-in cameras, with both a 50 megapixel wide rear camera and a 12 megapixel ultrawide rear camera. In comparison, Canon’s ​​enthusiast EOS 850 has a 24.1 megapixel sensor.

The animated chart above highlights the direct impact on the digital camera market after its 2009/2010 peak:

So does that make a modern smartphone camera better? Not at all, as there are other a multitude of factors to consider when assessing a camera’s quality besides resolution. But in an article in Wired Magazine, tech journalist Sam Kieldsen explains how the market has shifted:

[Smartphones have] effectively killed off the cheap pocket point-and-shoot camera already, but there’s still so much they can’t do in comparison to a true purpose-built mirrorless or DSLR camera. Low light image quality, convincing bokeh effects and extreme close-up macro photography are all still significantly better on a real camera.

Smartphones may not be fully replacing DSLR cameras anytime soon, but they’ve certainly changed the industry and game in which it plays.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Authorities in Pennsylvania arrested a suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death in their beds in November, authorities announced in a Friday news conference.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was arrested early Friday morning by the Pennsylvania State Police at a home in Chestnuthill Township, authorities announced. He is being held for extradition to Idaho on a warrant for first degree murder, according to arrest paperwork filed in Monroe County Court.

Latah County prosecutor Bill Thompson confirmed in the Friday press conference that a criminal complaint was filed against Kohberger with four counts of murder and other charges in connection to the case. An affidavit has been sealed until Kohberger returns to Idaho to be served with a warrant, Thompson said.

The prosecutor said that Kohberger is being held without bond in Pennsylvania, also confirming earlier reports that he was a graduate student at Washington State University. In the news conference, few details were given about the suspect, including a possible motive.

“Once he gets here, he will have an initial appearance with a magistrate,” Thompson said.

Earlier Friday, a mugshot of Kohberger was released to various news outlets by the Monroe County Correctional Facility in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Reports indicated that he was arrested near the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania

Kohberger graduated from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania with an associate of arts degree in psychology in 2018, according to college spokesperson Mia Rossi-Marino. A Ph.D. student by the same name is listed in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University, which is a short drive across the state line from the University of Idaho.

DeSales University in Pennsylvania confirmed that a student by that name received a bachelor’s degree in 2020 and completed graduate studies in June 2022.

In a post that was deleted from Reddit after his arrest, a student associated with DeSales University named Bryan Kohberger sought participation in a project “to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime.”

“In particular, this study seeks to understand the story behind your most recent criminal offense, with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience,” the post read.

Other Details

Four Idaho students identified as Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death at a rental home near the campus sometime in the early morning of Nov. 13. Investigators were not able name a suspect or locate a murder weapon for several weeks, triggering widespread online speculation about a possible suspect and motive.

Read more here…

When the Democrats finally passed the “Inflation Reduction Act” in 2022 (how’s that going?), they included several tax hikes set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023.

Americans for Tax reform‘s Mike Palicz has conveniently compiled a list of them, along with his take on their intended effects:

$6.5 Billion Natural Gas Tax Which Will Increase Household Energy Bills   

Think your household energy bills are high now? Just wait until the three major energy taxes in the Inflation Reduction Act hit your wallet. The first is a regressive tax on American oil and gas development. The tax will drive up the cost of household energy bills. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the natural gas tax will increase taxes by $6.5 billion.

And of course, this tax hike violates Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on Americans making under $400,000 per year. According to the American Gas Association, the methane tax will slap a 17% increase on the average family’s natural gas bill.

$12 Billion Crude Oil Tax Which Will Increase Household Costs

Next up – a .16c/barrel tax on crude oil and imported petroleum products which will end up on the shoulders of consumers in the form of higher tax prices.

The tax hike violates President Biden’s tax pledge to any American making less than $400,000 per year.

As noted above, Biden administration officials have repeatedly admitted taxes that raise consumer energy prices are in violation of President Biden’s $400,000 tax pledge.

As if it weren’t bad enough, Democrats have pegged their oil tax increase to inflation. As inflation increases, so will the level of tax.

$1.2 Billion Coal Tax Which Will Increase Household Energy Bills

This one increases the current tax rate on coal from $0.50 to $1.10 per ton, while coal from surface mining would increase from $0.25 per to to $0.55 per ton, which will raise $1.2 billion per year in taxes that will undoubtedly be passed along to consumers in the form of higher energy bills.

$74 Billion Stock Tax Which Will Hit Your Nest Egg — 401(k)s, IRAs and Pension Plans

Democrats are now imposing a new federal excise tax when Americans sell shares of a stock back to a company.

Raising taxes and restricting stock buybacks harms the retirement savings of any individual with a 401(k), IRA or pension plan.

Union retirement plans will also be hit.

The tax will put U.S. employers at a competitive disadvantage with China, which does not have such a tax.

Stock buybacks help grow retirement accounts. Raising taxes and restricting buybacks would harm the 58 percent of Americans who own stock and more than 60 million workers invested in a 401(k). An additional 14.83 million Americans are invested in 529 education savings accounts.

Retirement accounts hold the largest share of corporate stocks, accounting for roughly 37 percent of the outstanding $22.8 trillion in U.S. corporate stock, according to the Tax Foundation.

In 2017, corporate-sponsored funds made up $4.45 trillion in market value; union-sponsored funds accounted for $409 billion; and public-sponsored funds, which benefit teachers and police officers, added up to $4.25 trillion.

A tax on buybacks could dissuade companies from doing so, and US companies will face significant compliance costs, which will – again, be passed along to consumers.

$225 Billion Corporate Income Tax Hike Which Will Be Passed on to Households

American businesses reporting at least $1 billion in profits over the past three years will now face a 15% corporate alternative minimum tax, which will be passed along in the form of higher prices, fewer jobs and lower wages, according to Americans for Tax Reform.

A Tax Foundation report from last December found a 15 percent book tax would reduce GDP by 0.1 percent and kill 27,000 jobs.

Preliminary cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office found the provision would increase taxes by more than $225 billion.

According to JCT’s analysis, 49.7 percent of the tax would be borne by the manufacturing industry at a time when manufacturers are already struggling with supply-chain disruptions.

Which industry will likely be most affected? According to the Tax Foundation, “the coal industry faces the heaviest burden of the book minimum tax, facing a net tax hike of 7.2 percent of its pretax book income, followed by automobile and truck manufacturing, which faces a 5.1 percent tax hike.”