2026-07-07

Horseshit

• Americans of all ages are spending less time socializing

• New York hasn't built this many apartments since 1965

• The Guardian view on gene-edited humans: darker uses alongside medical ones

• Life with hazard ratios

  • Statistics tell us something, but they are not "facts". It's hard to decide what exactly they tell us.

• There's a Good Reason You Can't Concentrate

• The Fun Shortage Is Real, and It's Making America Miserable

• The Midwestern Exodus Is Finally Ending

• Babies should not use screens at all in the first two years, major review finds

• Economies Thrive with Older, Smaller Population, New Study Finds

• Archaeologists uncover ancient Byzantine city in Egypt's western desert

• The healing power of watching the boys of 'Jackass' do stupid things

celebrity gossip

• Biohacker Bryan Johnson reveals he has incurable disease

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The evidence against "ultra-processed" foods is weaker than you think

• Less Apocalyptic Rhetoric Can Help Mitigate Anti-Tech Violence

• Majority of Americans Support Banning Social Media for Kids Under 16

Musk

• Elon Musk's AI data center sparks fight over who can enforce clean air laws

• US judge rejects Elon Musk bid set aside Twitter fraud verdict

• Tesla app code reveals cabin camera will verify driver before FSD

• Elon Musk promotes 'anti-migrant' Armie Hammer film with free download on X

• xAI makes its rebrand to SpaceXAI complete with a new logo

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Trucking Startup Aims to Challenge Tesla. Paychecks Are Missing. So Is a Truck

Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers

• China wants to solve the hardest problem in robotics – making hands

• Humanoid Robots in Japan Risk Losing Legacy to China

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Decline of PhD Admissions Could Imperil a 'Generation of New Talent'

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Netflix Viewers Are Abandoning Shows After One Season

• Buried Apple Feature Turns an iPhone into the Perfect Kids' Dumb Phone

• Threads, Meta’s ‘Twitter Killer,’ Finds Its People

• MFA-optional banks leave accounts wide open for thieves to pillage

• Consoles continue their trend of just becoming worse PCs

• Germany's 60K-game preservation project collapses after €1.5M funding dries up

• Meta's AI 'Perv Glasses' Now Come with Stupid Comcast-Esque Usage Restrictions

• Amazon will stop accepting new customers for Mechanical Turk

• Apple's Foldable iPhone Could 'Sell Out Immediately

• Young People Watch TikTok, Not Television

• It is investors vs. gamers as Sony ditches discs

• Why 3D TVs failed and the trouble with 3D in Hollywood

• Kernel Anti-Cheat Is an Overreach

  The current frontier is off the PC entirely. A DMA cheat is a separate FPGA card that sits in a PCIe slot and reads the game’s memory directly over the bus, while a second computer processes what it sees and feeds back aim and wallhacks — often through a device that emulates an ordinary USB mouse, so even the inputs look human. No cheat code runs on the gaming PC, so to a kernel anti-cheat the machine looks completely clean. These are not exotic: they are sold openly as plug-in cards, marketed as “undetected,” and have become the standard tool for serious cheating.

• FCC to end Biden-era rule that forces ISPs to list all their fees

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Until Heat Death Do Us Part

  Unlike the base case for a network connected accelerator the end of the universe counter block doesn’t listen to incoming packets on the network, even if they are addressed to it. This design decision was made because we are all going to be dead soon anyways. So every second this hardware sends an Ethernet frame to the broadcast designation address ( destination MAC : FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF ) containing the latest 48 byte counter value over the local network. Just like a cute little beacon forever reminding the vast emptiness that a group of apes that made religious rituals out of watching cat videos, were once here.

  (the receive software) is parsing the counter value as a uint64_t so technically this will only work correctly for the next 11680 years. Now I know this is concerning and you must be shocked at such sloppy engineering practice of knowingly releasing buggy software, I hear you. But let us first let humanity survive the Epochalypse before we start quibbling over this one.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Amazon Leo constellation nears 400 satellites as broadband launch looms

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Venice AI becomes a unicorn with its privacy-first AI platform takes off

• UN chief warns AI is developing faster than rules can keep up

• AI companies led by OpenAI and Anthropic say they're definitely not going to put hundreds of millions of people out of work so please don't lynch them.

• Voters Are Turning on AI

• Why OpenAI and Anthropic may struggle to float

• The Unstoppable Force of A.I. Hype Is Meeting One Immovable Fact

• How the AI bubble could pop and take down the global economy, according to BIS

• The Revenge of the Philosophy Majors

• DOE emergency orders let PJM curtail data centers during the July heat wave

• Treasury Has an Internal Report Warning About the Dangers of an AI Bubble

• OpenAI's apparent failure to visit key site raises questions over UK investment

• Governance can prevent AI from undermining democracy. But only if it has teeth

• Some of the nation's rich are letting AI teach their kids

• UK regulator warns of "arms race" to keep up with AI use in financial services

• The AI Superforecasters Are Here

  I met an AI superforecaster startup founder who told me his AI had turned $35 into $2 million on Kalshi over seven months. I met another who said they were beating the stock market by 25% with a market-neutral portfolio - of course this could be luck, but they’d beaten Kalshi and Polymarket by similar margins.

  • No one could possibly suspect such unassailable sources...

• Landmark Scottish AI project has no prospect of meeting renewables promise

• Marc Andreessen Says One Job Is Mostly Safe from AI: Venture Capitalist

• American A.I. Companies Say Chinese Copycats Are Quickly Catching Up

• Utah lets AI refill prescriptions. Doctors are wary

• Welcome to the Luxury City Built by Taiwan's A.I. Boom

• Sorry, A.I. Is Not Giving Us a Four-Day Workweek

• Even banks and hyperscalers are now sounding the alarm about the AI bubble

• Claude Fable 5 Backlash Grows

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• The Internet Is Drowning in Secret Ads

• Strategy sells $216M of Bitcoin as it abandons 'never sell' mantra

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Xbox Layoffs 3,200

  • Microsoft Fires 4800 as Xbox Division Undergoes Major Reorganization

  • Microsoft joins AI-driven tech layoff wave with 4,800 job cuts

  • Xbox to Lay Off Up to 3,200 in 'Most Significant Restructure' in Company History

  • Microsoft's Xbox to Cut 3,200 Jobs, Divest Five Studios in Major Overhaul

  • Microsoft is laying off 4,800 employees

  • Microsoft cuts 4,800 Jobs, Half from Xbox division

  • Microsoft cuts 4,800 jobs and shrinks Xbox in 'significant restructure'

  • Microsoft Lays Off Nearly 5K Employees Across Xbox, Commercial Sales

  • Microsoft cuts 4,800 jobs, many at Xbox in a 'reset' of its gaming division

• DOJ Closing Abbott Labs Case Spurs Wider Corporate Crime Retreat

• Heinz tomato ketchup and the sweet taste of market dominance

• US Car Payments Hit a Record $777 a Month as Down Payments Drop

• What is Bending Spoons? The little-known AOL and Vimeo owner that's now public

• Samsung's profit in 2026 is projected to exceed its cumulative profits for the past forty years .

• South Korea's SK Hynix launches $28B US listing to ride global AI wave

• We woz wrong about oil

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• The Supreme Court Just Lit a Fuse Under Flock's License Plate Camera Empire

• California's winery shakedown tests limits of free speech, association

  A California county is trying to force businesses to pay dues to a trade association they may not support — just like unions that once forced workers to join and to pay dues.

• McConnell 'continuing his recovery,' but details scarce after hospitalization

  Staff for Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell said last week that the senator is “continuing his recovery” in a hospital while the Senate is out of session. But his office has released no details about the former Republican leader’s condition during his weekslong hospitalization or whether he will be at the Capitol when the Senate returns next week.

  • What We Know About Senator Mitch McConnell’s Condition

Trump

• Karoline Leavitt has a theory on why her generation is going 'communist'

  White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt believes her generation is drifting toward the far left thanks to a mix of “laziness” and “liberal indoctrination” on college campuses. Leavitt, 28, made the assertion Sunday as she ripped into the “bad faith” actors who highlighted an interview she did with Fox News’ Jesse Watters last week about the rise of the far left, during which she argued that some young people are lazy, before elaborating on the phenomenon. “A combination of laziness, yes, and the liberal indoctrination that has been taking place in our education system for far too long,” Leavitt argued on X about the factors leading to the far left’s rise. “There are far-left educators pumping students’ heads with garbage, convincing them that hard work and sacrifice won’t pay off down the road because they want them totally reliant on the government instead,” she wrote.

Democrats

• Platner planning to drop out of Maine Senate race: Report

  Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is reportedly planning to drop out of the race, according to the Washington Reporter, which cited a "well-placed source." The development comes after the progressive canceled a string of campaign events set for the week, without specifying the reasoning.

  • Graham Platner Reflecting on ‘Path Forward’ After Latest Bombshell Sexual Assault Allegation

  • Woman who dated Graham Platner says he sexually assaulted her

  A woman who dated Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies. The woman, a 41-year-old Maine resident named Jenny Racicot, detailed the alleged incident to POLITICO in three interviews over the past two weeks. POLITICO also spoke with a man Racicot dated and confided in the years after the alleged incident, and reviewed documents, including emails between Racicot and her therapist and messages between Racicot and an acquaintance whom she warned against getting involved with Platner years before he ran for office. Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.

Left Angst

• FIFA lifts Balogun's World Cup suspension after Trump calls Infantino

  • UEFA slams FIFA's 'unprecedented, unjustifiable' Balogun decision

  • Trump's red card call stirs political storm around World Cup

  • Americans fear Trump's red card interference could ruin World Cup run

  • Trump intervention causes World Cup storm as FIFA clears US striker Balogun

• Despite the darkness, I still see signs of hope in America

• Trump's 'narco‑terrorism' war in Latin America evokes Reagan

• Lord of the Roths

• NASA Leader Flew His Vintage Jet at DC Air Show over FAA Objections

• DOGE Is Officially Ending. Agencies Are Hiring Again

• 'There Is No Going Back': The Inside Story of Europe's Rupture with America

• Hundreds of Patriot Front Demonstrators Hit DC’s July 4 Celebration and Minds Are Blown

• Man sues DHS after agents tracked him down for sending a scathing email to ICE

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The final voyage of USS Nimitz

• NATO to Replace Boeing Awacs with Saab GlobalEye

• Castro's Grandson Says He's Ready To Discuss Cuba's Future With President Trump

World

• South Korea's hottest new bachelors are chip workers

• ESM sees euro zone recession if US sell-off, new Middle East war hit at once

• Venice mayor proposes dynamic pricing for day-trippers with 50-euro ceiling

• YouTube urges creators to fight proposed UK algorithm changes

• Canadian spy agency hacked drug traffickers, extremists and a ransomware gang

• Spain's Solar Is So Cheap Investors Are Looking for an Exit

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• German prosecutors allege Ukraine ordered Nord Stream pipeline attack

• Kremlin suspected of flying drones over Europe using Russian shadow fleet

China

• China fires ballistic missile into Pacific nuclear-free zone

Health / Medicine

• Higher blood glucose levels linked to faster brain aging

• Experts offer advice on performing endurance events in excessive heat

• Ovaries may take on job in immune system after tenure as reproductive organs

  • Ovaries Appear to Develop a Second Role After Menopause

• Millions may be getting the wrong cholesterol test

• Should DayQuil Be Legal?

  Take your standard 12-ounce bottle of DayQuil, which costs around $15 at CVS. The entire bottle contains a small amount of acetaminophen (Tylenol) and two other ingredients that are supposed to help with your cough and congestion — dextromethorphan and phenylephrine — but in reality do nothing. Most studies have found that dextromethorphan performs the same as a placebo and some suggested it was worse than honey. Oral phenylephrine is so ineffective that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed removing it from the market — it is now nearly three years into the glacial regulatory process of actually doing so. So the only ingredient that’s doing anything in that bottle of DayQuil makes up just 2% of the bottle: the roughly 8 grams of acetaminophen, which separately would run you about 16 cents at Costco. Even if you opted for the $10 store-brand version of DayQuil, that’s more than a 6,000% markup rate.

  • Should it be legal that the FDA allows only selected parties to market such snake oil? Shouldn't everybody be able to mix up nasty flavored fluids and claim they're effective against whatever ails you?

• Doctors explain what really happens when you stop taking Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs.

• Woman's hip replacement disintegrates, causing metal poisoning

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Why does Europe remain so stubborn about air-conditioning?

  • Climate Change Blamed in Heat Waves: Science or Simulation?

  Whenever a major storm, wildfire, flood, or heat wave occurs, similar headlines soon follow. We are told that climate change made an event "twice as likely," "35 times more likely," or even "virtually impossible" without human influence. These figures are widely repeated by politicians, journalists, and activists as though they were direct scientific observations. They are not. They are estimates derived from computer models.

  • The history of heat deaths in Europe

  the lack of willingness to adopt the arrival of a very useful technology (AC) was something that we (Europeans) have brought onto ourselves over many decades, and this is largely independent from recent phenomena such as rising global temperatures, inequality trends, etc. This is simply inefficient governance and lack of attention to a problem that takes the lives of many.

  • I Survived Europe's Heat Wave Without AC

  • UK could run out of air-con units, engineer says

• Scientists demonstrate solar-powered plastic recycling at real-world scale

• Bomb the Arctic, dam the Mediterranean and build a second moon

• What Is 'De-Extinction' Really For?