2025-12-05

etc

• Japanese Four-Cylinder Engine Is So Reliable Still in Production After 25 Years

Horseshit

• Google insider profited $1M in a single day betting on the Google search markets

• Feeling Old: 44 Is the First Big Aging Cliff for Millennials

• Volcanic eruption may have triggered Europe's deadly Black Death plague

• Pantone makes a surprising choice for its 2026 color of the year

• Travelers wear pajamas to airports in protest of government request

• Baby dies after being left lying on cold and damp bed sheets at Welsh hospital

Epstein

• How Epstein Infiltrated the Silicon Valley Network Behind Trump's New Tech Order

• Lawmakers obtain Epstein banking records, release new photos of private island

celebrity gossip

• Sam Altman Has Explored Deal to Build Competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX

• Lily Allen’s West End Girl Is Being Released On Butt Plug-Shaped USB Drives

Obit

• Last Native American WWII D-Day vet Charles Shay dies at 101

• was in the Blues Brothers movie: Steve Cropper, legendary guitarist for Booker T and the MGs, dies aged 84

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Tor: What we've learned from fighting censorship in Iran and Russia

• Elites could shape mass preferences as AI reduces persuasion costs

• The illusion of consensus is powerful. Here’s why you should fight it.

• A perspective on friction interventions to curb the spread of misinformation

• Clandestine Campaign To Defund ZeroHedge, The Federalist & Breitbart Traced To Kier Starmer Operation | ZeroHedge

  Very early into the COVID-19 pandemic, ZeroHedge suggested that a little-known Chinese lab in Wuhan might know something about the novel coronavirus sweeping the globe. As a result, and as you know, we were subject to an intense demonetization / deplatforming campaign that included getting kicked off of Twitter, PayPal, Facebook and other platforms, dropped by our advertisers, and targeted by MSM hit pieces which colluded with foreign 'watchdogs' to inflict maximum damage. These same groups also targeted outlets including The Federalist and Breitbart over various reporting, which suffered similar fates. Now, thanks to a new book by investigative journalist Paul Holden that builds on reporting by Matt Taibbi, Paul Thacker and others, we learn that the origin of these campaigns, launched years before the pandemic, was none other than UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer's political machine, which began targeting left-wing outlets speaking critically of Starmer such as The Canary, and then went after conservative outlets in America - just in time for the 2020 US election.

Musk

• Elon Musk's Grok AI Is Doxxing Home Addresses of Everyday People

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Humanoid Robot Walks 66 Miles Non‑Stop, Swaps Batteries Mid‑Stride

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Our Obsession with Statistical Significance Is Ruining Science

• People are way too eager to declare Mississippi a myth

  A provocative new article from Howard Wainer, Irina Grabovsky, and Daniel H. Robinson in Significance argued that, in fact, nearly all of Mississippi’s results are driven by the third-grade retention policy, not by the phonics instruction, curriculum changes, or the teacher training that accompanied them. It has gone viral, with lots of glee in certain quarters, where it was sometimes taken as proof that there’s nothing other states need to learn from Mississippi after all. This is an important debate, but I’ve been dismayed to see their article treated as a significant contribution to it. It’s badly mangled with straightforward factual errors that should undermine anyone’s confidence the authors did their homework — for example, the authors claimed that “the 2024 NAEP fourth-grade mathematics scores rank the state at a tie at 50th!” In fact, Mississippi ranked 16th on the fourth-grade math NAEP assessment. Unsurprisingly, the authors’ errors are not limited to these sorts of factual claims but also extend to their core argument, which is wholly unpersuasive.

  • I view the entire argument as one of religion; Missipi wandered into heresey and no one can acknowledge the results without becoming a heretic themselves. There is no Enlightenment without the Consensus of the Educational Elite.

• Kent State a cappella group bans white students from solo auditions.

• A Growing U.S. Tech Hub Needs Workers. Colleges Try to Keep Up

• Fall of a Prolific Journal Exposes the Billionaire Profits of Science Publishing

• Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Micron stops selling memory to consumers as demand spikes from AI chips

  • Micron Is Exiting Its "Crucial" Consumer Business

  • Crucial is shutting down because Micron wants to sell its RAM to AI companies

• Thieves are starting to steal RAM now that it's as expensive as gold

• Amazon Prime Video pulls eerily emotionless AI-generated anime dubs

• Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

• Meta Is Killing Messenger Desktop Apps

• Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

  UT2004 will soon be available to download once again. Free of charge. This is a community-run effort but we’re excited to make the game easier to access and play again.

• Cassette tapes are making a comeback

• 'End-to-end encrypted' smart toilet camera is not end-to-end encrypted

• Windows 11 growth slows as millions stick with Windows 10 • The Register

• Why One Man Is Fighting for Our Right to Control Our Garage Door Openers

• Zuck Plans Deep Cuts for Metaverse Efforts

  • Meta to cut up to 30% of metaverse budget

  • Meta stock climbs 6% on report of planned metaverse cuts

  • Meta reportedly plans to slash Metaverse budget by up to 30%, includes layoff

  • Meta Weighs Cuts to Its Metaverse Unit

• The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the US. Activists Are Fighting Back

• iPhone Air's Resale Value Has Dropped Dramatically, Data Shows

• Consumers are spending $22 more a month on average for streaming services

• A New Anonymous Phone Carrier Lets You Sign Up with Nothing but a Zip Code

• Subaru Owners Are Ticked About In-Car Pop-Up Ads for SiriusXM

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Sam Altman’s Dirty DRAM Deal

  On October 1st OpenAI signed two simultaneous deals with Samsung and SK Hynix for 40% of the worlds DRAM supply. Now, did OpenAI’s competition suspect some big RAM deals could be signed in late 2025? Yes. Ok, but did they think it would be deals this huge and with multiple companies? NO! he shock wasn’t that OpenAI made a big deal, no, it was that they made two massive deals this big, at the same time, with Samsung and SK Hynix simultaneously! In fact, according to our sources - both companies had no idea how big each other's deal was, nor how close to simultaneous they were. And this secrecy mattered. It mattered a lot. Had Samsung known SK Hynix was about to commit a similar chunk of supply — or vice-versa — the pricing and terms would have likely been different. It’s entirely conceivable they wouldn’t have both agreed to supply such a substantial part of global supply if they had known more

  now time for the biggest twist of all, a twist that’s actually public information, and therefore should be getting discussed by far more people in this writer's opinion: OpenAI isn’t even bothering to buy finished memory modules! No, their deals are unprecedentedly only for raw wafers — uncut, unfinished, and not even allocated to a specific DRAM standard yet. It’s not even clear if they have decided yet on how or when they will finish them into RAM sticks or HBM! Right now it seems like these wafers will just be stockpiled in warehouses – like a kid who hides the toybox because they’re afraid nobody wants to play with them, and thus selfishly feels nobody but them should get the toys!

• More than half of new articles on the Internet are being written by AI

• Wikipedia seeks more AI licensing deals similar to Google tie-up, Wales says

• Anthropic taps IPO lawyers as it races OpenAI to go public

• People Are Uploading Their Medical Records to A.I. Chatbots

• AI bubble a "key downside risk" to U.S. economy, OECD warns

• Google's Agentic AI wipes user's HDD

• OpenAGI emerges from stealth with an AI agent that it claims crushes OpenAI

• Why Does A.I. Write Like…That?

• Want This AI Hearing Aid? Well, Who Do You Know?

• Dartmouth Announces AI Partnership with Anthropic and AWS

• Google's toying with nonsense AI-made headlines

• AI Might Not Harm Us in the Way You Think

• An AI tool for lawyers produced by a billion dollar company had no security.

• Microsoft is lowering its AI sales targets because nobody is buying.

  • Microsoft drops AI sales targets in half after salespeople miss their quotas

• The Math Legend Who Just Left Academia–For an AI Startup Run by a 24-Year-Old

• The NPU in your phone keeps improving–why isn't that making AI better?

• AI Data Centers Can Tell Us Something About Credit Market Weakness

• A.I. Deal Making Is Getting Faster and Faster

• An AI toy meant for kids was happy to chat about sexual fetishes

• Researchers find what makes AI chatbots politically persuasive

• Chatbots can sway political opinions but are 'substantially' inaccurate: study

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Russian astronaut kicked out of the U.S. for stealing proprietary SpaceX designs

• Satellite megaconstellations will threaten space-based astronomy

• Mars briefly warmer than Minneapolis on Thanksgiving.

• Next Blue Origin tourist launch will fly wheelchair user to space for 1st time.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Kalshi Becomes CNN's Official Prediction Market Partner After Raising $1B

• Rare earths startup Vulcan Elements scores $600M US federal government deal

• Bond investors warned US Treasury over picking Kevin Hassett as Fed chair

• 18,000 Reasons It's So Hard to Build a Chip Factory in America

• How to spot a monopoly

• Amazon's dynamic pricing is causing chaos for school budgets

• Boston Rental Market Cools, Leaving Landlords 'Willing to Do Anything'

• Jane Street's Trading Haul Juiced by Surging Bet on Anthropic

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Nvidia lobbies White House and wins loosened AI GPU export control to China

  • US Senators Seek to Block Nvidia Sales of Advanced Chips to China

• America's mayors are right to support small business

• Supreme Court Allows Texas Redistricting Plan to Stand

Trump

• President DJT Said He Just Legalized Cheaper, Smaller 'Cute' Kei Cars in America

  • POTUS wants Asia's 'cute' kei cars to be made and sold in US

• Pentagon Investigator Faults Hegseth for Improper Use of Signal

• David Gentile not required to pay $15.5M in restitution after Trump commutation

Democrats

• Halle Berry Trashes Gavin Newsom’s Presidential Hopes

• Tim Walz Says Trump’s Slur Is Inspiring Others To Scream It Outside His House

  "This creates danger," the embattled governor said, discussing Republican rhetoric. "... I've never seen this before: people driving by my house and using the R-word in front of people. This is shameful, and I have yet to see an elected official — a Republican elected official — say you're right, that's shameful." Walz said he believes it's a slippery slope from name-calling to something more serious. "We know how these things go," he said. "It starts with taunts; they turn to violence."

Left Angst

• Trump administration orders enhanced vetting for applicants of H-1B visa

• New York Times Sues Pentagon over First Amendment Rights

• The 'Trump Phone' Is an Unsurprising No Show Months After Promised Launch Date

• Welcome to Tariff Complexity Hell

• Aluminium is crucial to vaccines – and safe. Why are US advisers debating it?

• Trump Renames Institute of Peace for Himself

  • U.S. Institute of Peace renamed for Trump after his admin dismantled the agency

  • Trump is fighting the Institute of Peace in court. Now, his name is on the building

• Trump’s anti-climate agenda is making it more expensive to own a car

• Critics Take Hakeem Jeffries To Task For Praising Trump's Latest Pardon

  House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday praised President Donald Trump’s decision to preemptively pardon Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas), a conservative Democrat who was indicted on charges of bribery and acting as a foreign agent last year. Cuellar and his wife were indicted last May for allegedly taking $600,000 in exchange for influencing U.S. foreign policy for an Azerbaijani government-controlled oil company and backing legislative acts to support a Mexican bank. In a post to his Truth Social platform, Trump claimed the indictment was a result of the Biden administration having “weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents,” adding that Cuellar was targeted as he “bravely spoke out against Open Borders.”

• Senate Democrats will force a vote on a 3-year extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits

  • Schumer unveils Democrats' Obamacare fix plan, likely dead in the water

  • Senate Democrats eye vote on 3-year Obamacare subsidy extension

• US will now review H-1B applicants' social media – require them to make public

• Vibecession: More Than You Wanted to Know

  The term “vibecession” most strictly refers to a period 2023 - 2024 when economic indicators were up, but consumer sentiment (“vibes”) was down. But on a broader level, the whole past decade has been a vibecession.

• Gen Z Loses Faith in America

• The AI boom is heralding a new gold rush in the American west

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Two Virginia Men Arrested for Conspiring to Destroy Government Databases

  The indictment alleges that on or about Feb. 18, Muneeb Akhter deleted approximately 96 databases storing U.S. government information. Many of these databases contained records and documents related to Freedom of Information Act matters administered by federal government departments and agencies, as well as sensitive investigative files of federal government components. Court documents further allege that approximately one minute after deleting a DHS database, Muneeb Akhter asked an artificial intelligence tool how to clear system logs following the deletion of databases.

  • Contractors with hacking records accused of wiping 96 govt databases

  • Virginia twins arrested for allegedly deleting government databases

• J6 Pipe Bomber Arrested

  “We don't know the suspect's name or anything about this person other than the fact [that] this is a male that was living in northern Virginia, arrested at some point within the last 90 minutes, now in federal custody. I'm told we'll know more as the day moves on, and as soon as we have the information, of course, we will break in with that.” While the bombs did not ultimately ever detonate, “they were viable,” the Fox anchor emphasized. “Those bombs were discovered the next day.

  • The pctures did not look like viable devices; they looked like props one might put together for a DHS excersize the previous week...

  • Who is Brian Cole, the DC pipe bomb suspect?

  The suspect who allegedly planted pipe bombs blocks from the U.S. Capitol on January 5, 2021, has been identified as Brian Cole Jr. of Woodbridge, Va., according to two sources briefed on the arrest. The sources say Cole, 30, is in FBI custody as of Thursday following roughly five years of investigation.

  • FBI Arrests Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Suspect

  Law enforcement officials told the Associated Press on Thursday that a suspect had finally been arrested. The suspect was described as a man, with the arrest made in Virginia, though no further details were immediately available. Some MAGA supporters have become fixated on the case and touted it as a possible “missing link” to prove a connection between the pipe bombs and the Capitol riot that erupted the next day. McNamara reportedly accessed confidential files and obtained the officer’s Social Security number before circulating the memo claiming she was a suspect. Before it was reviewed or approved by the agency’s leadership, the memo was leaked to The Blaze, owned by conservative radio host Glenn Beck. The officer was investigated by the FBI and ultimately cleared, but not before she was subjected to a MAGA firestorm.

  • J6 Pipe Bomb Suspect Arrested

• CDC advisory panel delays vote on hepatitis B vaccines after unruly meeting

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• How A Man Convicted of Running a Latin American Narco State Landed a Pardon

• Thunderbirds Jet Explodes Into Fireball After Crash-Landing In Desert

World

• Chat Control: A Disaster Waiting to Happen

• Porn company fined £1M over inadequate age checks

• Can Europe defend its frontier in the Amazon?

• India's government plans to launch zero-commission rideshare platform

• Australia says world will follow social media ban as Meta starts blocking teens

• Euro zone business activity expands at fastest pace in 30 months in November

• The snail farm don: is this the most brazen tax avoidance scheme of all time?

• German sitcom character Stromberg revived for Merz era

• Hostile states may target Ireland during EU presidency

• The rapid growth of data centres is delaying new homes in London

• Macron Denies 'Ministry Of Truth' Plan In Standoff With Far Right - Barron's

  President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday denied having any plan for a "ministry of truth" in France after right-wing and far-right politicians and media charged that his drive against disinformation risked curtailing freedom of press and expression. Macron has in the last weeks intensified warnings on the risks of disinformation, on Friday calling for changes to French legislation that would allow "false information" online to be urgently blocked. He has also called for "professional certification" of outlets to distinguish sites and networks that provide reliable information according to ethical rules from others that do not.

• Tonga’s Democratic Curtain Falling

  As a small band of Tongan voters all but closed the curtain on the kingdom’s 38-year experiment with political reform, King Tupou VI was nowhere near this key democratic moment. Instead, he was in authoritarian China, soaking up homage and guards of honour while alongside Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People.

• From Kenya to Nepal, how parents are battling ultra-processed foods

• Could Japan's 'snow monsters' soon vanish?

• We tested Europe's luxurious new 'business-class' sleeper bus

• Advertising on Prime Video: German consumer watchdog sues Amazon for 1.8B

• Guatemalans denounce exploitation on Mexican farms

• A small group of women changed the UK law on deepfake porn

• EU's Top Court Just Made It Impossible to Run a User-Generated Platform Legally

Iran / Houthi

• Country faces water crisis visible from space as taps risk running dry

Israel

• Microsoft faces complaint in EU over Israeli surveillance data

• Netherlands, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia Boycott Eurovision After Israel Allowed

• Bulldozed corpses and unmarked graves, CNN probes Gaza's missing aid seekers

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia bans Roblox over child safety fears

  • Russia Bans Roblox

• Snapchat and FaceTime Banned in Russia

• Russia blocks Roblox and FaceTime amid growing rebuke of foreign tech platforms

• Russia blocks Snapchat, RIA reports

• Russia blocks Apple's FaceTime in mounting push against foreign tech platforms

• Macron warned US could 'betray' Ukraine in leaked leaders' call

• U.K. sanctions Russia as probe blames Putin for deadly 2018 poison attack

• Unidentified drones breached no-fly zone to target Zelenskyy's arrival

• Ukraine stares down the barrel of population collapse

China

• China planted so many trees it's changed the country's water distribution

• China has invented a new way to do innovation

• China's chip champions miss their DRAM cue

Health / Medicine

• Is Male Infertility Contributing to Falling Birth Rates?

• Vitamin C shields lung cells from common air-pollution damage

• Autism should not be treated as a single condition

• Troubled nursing chain sells itself to itself in controversial bankruptcy deal

• Family dogs boost adolescent mental health through the microbiome, study suggests.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• A fentanyl vaccine is about to get its first major test

• Projected by the Gates Foundation: For First Time in Decades, Child Deaths Will Rise This Year

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The 'extinct' antelope bringing hope in the Sahara Desert

• Top Journal Retracts Study Predicting Catastrophic Climate Toll

• How an invasion of purple flowers made Iceland an Instagram paradise

• 'Chemtrails' Conspiracy Theory Dogging the Battle Against Drought

• Retracted: Safety Evaluation, Risk Assessment of Roundup/Glyphosate for Humans

  • Journal retracts landmark glyphosate paper after 25 years

  The journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has published a formal notice, acknowledging that the review, which underpinned global glyphosate policy for decades, is no longer credible.

• Corn's clean-energy promise is clashing with its climate footprint

• Zimbabwe's forest and energy projects reveal the downside of carbon credits

• Zillow Cuts Feature to Help Home Buyers Assess Climate Risks; It Reduced Sales