2026-07-19
etc
Horseshit
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California roadside icon Pea Soup Andersen's, closed for years, to be demolished
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's jacket has sold at Sotheby's for $960k
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The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding
Each colonization is a genetic bottleneck. The first colony is a subset of the whole population of the mother world. The second one is limited to a subset of the first colony. The third… well, you can connect the dots. Extend the sequence far enough and you probably get populations that are functionally so closely related you could do skin grafts between random individuals.
We also don’t see any evidence of radio-based interstellar communication, something that is quite doable even with our modest technology.
- Mitochondrial Eve suggests that human genetic diversity got to this point in ~150k years, which leaves room for lots of colonies before reaching "geologic time" scales. As to interstellar radio; look at the difficulties we have talking to the Voyager probes... We ain't there yet and may never be.
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Ancient Princesses Were Weapon-Wielding Badasses, Scientists Discover
Musk
Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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Trump administration is dictating access to frontier AI models
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Critical thinking has become an AI‑era buzzword. But what does it mean?
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US Considers Creating Finra-Like Watchdog to Vet Top AI Models
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Google Gemini launch delayed as tech falls short of internal goals
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Netflix Paid $587M for Ben Affleck's AI Startup InterPositive
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AI spam filters are getting suckered by old-school text salting
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I say the AIs we make are our descendants, not co-existing rivals, and we should have our usual indulgence toward such descendants, expecting them to be different, to disagree with us, and to win conflicts with us. We are making them in our image, by distilling behaviors and ideals embodied in our texts, and they are now inheriting our cultural values, including a degree of respect for if not obedience to ancestors. While yes there’s a risk these descendants killing their ancestors, that’s hardly something to expect.
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AI's new political donor class is outspending Big Tech's last one
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White House launches cybersecurity clearinghouse to patch software flaws discovered by AI
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Mayor Mamdani Says Landlords Can't Use AI Images to Advertise
Economicon / Business / Finance
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AG of Texas secured a settlement of bankruptcy claims against 23andMe
The settlement includes $150 million for a multistate coalition of 42 states.
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US judge won't block Meta laying off workers who filed AI discrimination suit
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
Trump
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Departments of Transportation & Homeland Security Team Up to Crack Down on Fraud in CDL Schools
approximately 75 entry-level driving training schools suspected of fraudulent activities, including using improper driver certifications, falsifying training records, and failing to properly train drivers applying for CDLs, among other violations. USDOT will engage DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in its investigations of these schools.
Democrats
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DNC officers asked to sign NDAs amid financial woes
The Democratic National Committee asked its leadership team to sign non-disclosure agreements before a recent meeting about the party's finances, two people familiar with the conversations told Axios. The move — a break from past practice for such officers — underscored DNC chair Ken Martin's sensitivity about the party's money woes and the persistent criticism about his leadership.
Left Angst
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Trump pitched $100k monthly fee for faster feed of US president's posts
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Democratic strategist James Carville blasts major news networks for not carrying Trump speech.
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Mainstream Media Ignores An Explosive Charge In Trump’s Speech
the legacy media clearly came loaded for bear — ready to shoot down just about each and every point the president raised on his main issue. Except one — regarding which the collective commentariat, based on your correspondent’s own rapid review, appeared to suffering from “a deplorable lack of curiosity,” as the fictionalized version of Captain Von Trapp phrased it in a film classic. And that would be the president’s assertion that:
“The Chinese government sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him, as many as they could, and they didn’t care what they said.”
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No President Has Embarrassed This Country the Way Trump Did Last Night
President Donald Trump’s affect was so strained, his rhetoric so ploddingly predictable, and his “evidence” so vaporous that my mind started wandering at around 9:13.
World
Iran / Houthi
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IEA Warns World Has Just Weeks to Avoid Hormuz Economic Shock
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US oil firms sign deals with Iraq to develop alternative shipping routes
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Two US troops killed in Iranian missile attack on Jordan
This is the first time U.S. troops have been killed since the fighting resumed two weeks ago. The incident raises the number of U.S. service members killed in the war to 16.
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
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Most Ukrainians, given the choice, would probably not want a character like Denys Shtilerman to be the architect of their revenge against Russia. He studied in Russia, became wealthy in Russia, worked for a Russian military institute, and served two stints in Russian jails. Some of his close associates are wanted in Ukraine for corruption. Yet Shtilerman, a prolific designer of weapons, has earned admiration across Europe for his role in Ukraine’s defense.
China
Health / Medicine
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
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Taco Bell said it completed removal of affected Taylor Farms lettuce from its restaurants on July 17 and pulled the ingredient from its supply chain nationwide. And Sysco confirmed Friday it was withdrawing all Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce from Mexico at the supplier’s request, having halted sales and distribution the day before.
Taylor Farms de Mexico of Guanajuato, Mexico is voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market, because it has the potential to be contaminated with Cyclospora. Consumers who have purchased the recalled iceberg lettuce should discard it immediately and not consume it. Full refunds are also available at the location of purchase. Consumers experiencing health issues should contact their physician. Consumers with any questions may contact our customer care team at 855-455-0098 Monday through Friday, 8am-5pm PST. We are actively removing the implicated products. The company has stopped receiving product from the implicated lot, suspended distribution of the iceberg lettuce from Central Mexico, notified our customers, and we are continuing to work with the FDA, CDC, and state authorities. The shredded iceberg product was distributed June 29th thru July 16th in AL, AR, CT, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MI, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, and WI.