2026-08-13

Cool

• How to spot the Perseid meteor shower, a summer light show that promises to dazzle.

Horseshit

• Gen Z has rediscovered the joy of going to the movies

• Big Tech Wants to Harvest Your Thoughts

• The eBay Harassment Scandal

• The global fertility freefall: trends, drivers and uncertainties

• Are Men to Blame for the Birth-Rate Collapse?

• Where Has All the Testosterone Gone?

• Demographic Dividend, my ass; overpopulation sucks

• Tarot Was a Courtly Card Game. How Did It Become a Tool for Divination?

• In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

• The Creators of VHS Dates Are Ready to Come Clean

• NASA debunks viral claims Earth will lose gravity this week.

• Why New Cars Cost More: The Car Got Better, The Deal Got Worse

  The car, in many ways, is the best it has ever been. The transaction wrapped around it is the worst it has ever been. The cars and the production processes around them got so good that the industry stopped making its money on the vehicles themselves. It discontinued the cheap version, moved you into a bigger one, stretched the loan until the payment looked survivable, and took its margin on the lending, the paperwork and the service bay instead.

Musk

• Why sexualisation of women by Grok's GenAI is a data privacy issue

• Why space is a terrible place to cool a data center

Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers

• United & Delta Become Latest Airlines To Ban Humanoid Robots From All Flights

  The updated restrictions distinguish humanoid robots from conventional consumer electronics and small robotic devices. While toy robots and other electronic devices that meet existing battery requirements generally remain permitted, human-like robots are specifically prohibited regardless of their intended use. The move follows similar action by Southwest Airlines earlier this year after a highly publicized incident involving a humanoid robot traveling on a commercial flight.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Computer scientists today are in the position of economists in the early 2000s and Freudian psychiatrists in the 1950s

  omputer scientists, or computer-science-associated businessmen, are the new gurus, in a way that wasn’t the case before. Yes, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were culture heroes back in the 80s and 90s, but nobody was particularly interested in what they had to say outside of their narrow technological realms. Nowadays, many computer scientists and tech lords present themselves, and are often taken as, all-purpose pundits. (Many of the tech lords are actually tech investors; they’ve absorbed the prestige of information science through the transitive property of money.) As with the economists and Freudians of past eras, they are presented as having some special authority derived in part from their almost inhuman hyper-rationality, a willingness to tell uncomfortable truths. But then you get the same problem we had before, which is when the gurus and their hangers-on start to believe their own hype.

• Even Elite Colleges Have Become Trade Schools

• To Improve Student Mental Health, University of Michigan Eases Grading

  • University of Michigan won't use letter grades for some freshmen next fall

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Flock is just the latest example of using surveillance to stalk women

  • The Government Is Monitoring Anti-Flock TikTok and Instagram Accounts

  • There does seem to be a coordinated movement to damage their property that has sprung up suddenly. I just can't imagine why they haven't had their shit busted or stolen from when they started until just now.

• DEF CON crowd suspected in fake-hotspot attack on Delta flight

  • DEF CON dingus suspected of trying to take over Delta in-flight Wi-Fi

• Chrome adopts what may be the best protection yet against account takeovers

• We analyzed the comments in 6,400 New York Times stories

• Mozilla revokes Firefox signing key after unencrypted copy lands in GitHub

• Meta can't stop states' $1.4T lawsuit from going to trial

  • Meta, 29 states head to court; biggest test yet of youth social media litigation

• The StubHub Customers Who Battled for Tickets–and Battle Harder for a Refund

• SK Hynix plans to expand its production in China by 50%.

• Facebook ads are so hard to block that uBlock Origin stopped filtering them

• Tool Unmasks the Shadowy World of Ads That Track Your Location

• McDonald’s Built a 515-Page Dossier on Me. It Says I’ll Never Stop Eating There

  I requested a copy of my data from McDonald’s loyalty program and received an extensive, personalized report that algorithmically predicts my next purchase.

• German advocacy group lodges criminal complaint over Meta AI glasses

  • UK Venues Ban Meta Smart Glasses En Masse

  • Researchers Show How Meta's 'Pervert Glasses' Are Used to Harass Women

• Apple Can't Delay App Store Fee Fight While Waiting on Supreme Court

• Things that should not connect to the Internet: Cats and dogs are missing meals after a popular smart feeder went down

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Mark Zuckerberg doesn't understand how to live

  • Mark Zuckerberg: The Future Is for Everyone

  • The future is for billionaires – the rest of us will get open weight AI, maybe

• Anthropic's Watermarking, How It (Probably) Works, Worse Than It Seems

• When the AI Bubble Bursts, Who Will Be Left Holding the Bag?

• A New Label for AI-Generated Artist Identities on Spotify

• Turkey's AI dilemma, the impact on entry level jobs for game development

• OpenAI Is Quietly Testing an $8 Pay-to-Reset Quota Feature

• Swiss public broadcaster to block AI scrapers – except Swiss model Apertus

• What happens when the AI bubble pops?

• Company Offering '100% Human-Written, Never AI' Medical Research Is 100% AI

• Gemini has reached a billion users.

• AI was supposed to destroy jobs. Where's the carnage?

• Most Power Sought for US Data Centers Will Never Materialize

• AI compute power becoming tradable asset class as CME launches futures contracts

• Oh Lord, AI Reporters Are Breaking Big News

• Anthropic is getting a fleet of data centres. Someone else is paying to build

• Wall Street giants hand Nvidia $500B to fund boom in AI projects

• Apple Caps Bug Bounty Submissions After AI Surge

• Researchers have successfully used AI to create brand new viruses

• Roku's AI slop channel is worse than expected

• AI-assisted grant proposals may win more often–while narrowing research ideas

• The Datamaxxers Feeding Their Every Health Move to AI

• AI Startup Cognition in New Funding Talks at $40B Value

• Sequoia Raises Its Comfort with Risk in AI Bets

• South Africa's Eskom targets data centre 'gold rush' for its power surplus

• If the markets reject OpenAI and Anthropic, the US should nationalize them

• AI is removing the middle class of software engineering

• But Can It Pay?

  Nobody can afford this. It is getting into nation-state levels of capital and debt expenditure and even the mighty hyperscalers can't pay for their bets, especially as the market for AI bonds appears to be softening. Between known on-balance-sheet debt and estimated off-balance-sheet debt, the Big Five hyperscalers have racked up almost $2.5 trillion in debt so far. Alphabet (Google) plays the hide-the-risk game comparatively little and most of its debt is on its balance sheet and because of that, its accounting is easier to understand - and it is also is in negative free cash flow for the first time since going public as its capital expenditures exceed its cashflows. How many of its fellow hyperscalers are in the same situation, with the reality hidden off the balance sheet?

• Data Center Foes' Newest Tack: Sue Locals over Approval Process

• Crypto executives desert the sinking ship for the AI lifeboats

• Twitch Is Mining Peoples' Streams to Train Amazon's AI

• Adults have struggled to set rules for AI in school. These teens figured it out

• AI agents aren't legally responsible for harm they cause. So who is?

• Influencers draw backlash for attending OpenAI's first luxury trip

• Fraud is not exotic: Why Wall Street and Nvidia Are Building an Exotic Money Pipeline for the AI Boom

• The Google executive moves that led to its big AI reshuffle

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• CFTC uses "emergency authority" to let Kalshi continue operating in New York

• Kalshi and Polymarket bets on clinical trials criticized as 'ghastly'

• World's Biggest Crypto Exchange Has Made It Harder to Fight Crime, Police Say

• Polymarket let users bet on wildfires. Lawmakers warn that could spur arson.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Panama Canal fees hit record high as El Niño and Iran war choke shipping

• More companies flee Delaware: DoorDash is set to become a Nevada-incorporated company

• Hooray for index funds–just don't call them passive

• Apple Executive in Charge of Pay and Wallet Services Is Leaving

• Revolut cuts back WeWork access for premium customers after price rises

• How Malta Became A Tax Haven For Crocs and Other U.S. Companies

• US Treasury ends ownership reporting rules for U.S. companies

  • FinCEN Ends Beneficial Ownership Reporting for Small Business Owners

  Under the final rule, foreign entities that are reporting companies will still be required to report beneficial ownership information for foreign individuals.

• Singapore Airlines loses almost $800M on Air India bet

• Manhattan rents reach all-time high of $6,655/month amid Mamdani’s rent freeze and pied-a-terre tax threat.

• Oracle has drawn up plans for a new round of layoffs this month

• World oil and gas demand could grow until 2050, IEA says after U.S. pressure

• Cerebras Hardware Business Declines After 'Lumpy' Orders

• Lakers sold to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for record-breaking $12.5B

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Water Groups Push Washington for Cyber Rules After Hacking Spree

Trump

• Trump's childhood vaccine order: what it does and what doctors say

  • Trump signs executive order calling for fewer childhood vaccines

• Trump's secret plane switch: How Air Force One protects president from threats

  • With Trump Secretly Evacuated, Imperiled Air Force One Became a Flying Decoy

  • Trump's flight switch indicates severity of assassination threat by Iran

  These are not the first assassination attempts to have been reported against Trump or officials and family members close to him – but experts such as Colin P Clarke, the executive director of The Soufan Center, have said that the unusual lengths taken to protect the president while potentially leaving others in harm’s way were “not a good look” and risked making him look “weak”.

  • Then they conclude that there is no real threat.

Democrats

• Ohio Senator says Ohio Congressman abused his daughter and granddaughter

  Sen. Bernie Moreno told CNN that he sent his daughter, Emily Moreno, his granddaughter and his wife “out of state to a secure place” as GOP Rep. Max Miller, Emily’s ex-husband, faces heightened scrutiny over abuse allegations, which he denies. “I sent my daughter, granddaughter, and wife out of state to a secure place until such time as they feel safe,” Moreno told CNN on Thursday.

• Mamdani Backs Proposal to End Amazon's Delivery Model in NYC

• Holiday-hating Francesca Hong loses to David Crowley in Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary

  Crowley’s campaign said the 37-year-old state legislator and member of the Democratic Socialists of America called Crowley early Wednesday to concede the race. Hong trailed her rival by more than 3,200 votes out of more than 787,000 ballots cast as of 6 a.m. ET., a margin of 0.41 percentage points. Under Wisconsin law, Hong could have requested a recount since she trailed by under one percentage point, but would have had to pay for it since her deficit was greater than 0.25 percentage points. State law does not provide for automatic recounts in close races.

  • Voter Data Was Missing From 5 Milwaukee USB Sticks — Then WI’s Election Night Got Even Weirder

  • USB sticks missing results from the Milwaukee primary election

Left Angst

• ICE to spend up to $20M on gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks

• The dark underbelly of “Paw Patrol”

  Of the core gang of six pups, some critics note, only one is a girl, whose outfit and even eyes are pink. Worse, the top dog, Chase, is a police pup, so the whole thing is pro-police “copaganda”. Actually, since the patrol are unaccountable freelancers to whom a ditzy mayor defers, it is a sly advert for privatised state services. (Their funds come from merchandising, runs a winking joke—which may grate with those forking out for it.) In short, fulminated a Guardian commentator, “Paw Patrol” is “authoritarian neoliberal propaganda”. An academic reckoned it “encourages complicity in a global capitalist system that (re)produces inequalities”. Rallying to the show’s defence, a former White House spokesperson wrongly claimed it had been cancelled. It is very tempting to dismiss the whole debate as killjoy hogwash and culture-war lunacy.

• Ninth Circuit Rewrites Section 230 To Remove The Part That Actually Mattered

• ICE equipping agents with gloves that deliver electric shocks

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Will failure in Iran reshape how the US fights?

• The U.S. military needs tungsten, but pristine NASA site may stand in the way

• Taxpayers Funded a $533M Artillery Plant That Made Nothing

  It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week. Only weeks earlier, defense officials and executives had touted the factory’s innovative new machinery, imported from Turkey, at a gala opening ceremony. But employees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.”

  The U.S. Army, which funded the factory, ordered work halted on two of its three production lines in August 2025. By then, General Dynamics had blown eight deadlines. Work on the third production line continued, but the facility never produced a single usable shell, according to a report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general in July. The fiasco has cost American taxpayers $533 million, according to the Army. But the Army has not held General Dynamics or a key Turkish subcontractor — which provided the factory’s much-hyped but little-proven equipment — publicly accountable for the failures. Nor has it made General Dynamics pay a penny back.

• Canadians call for U.S. Ambassador Hoekstra to be expelled

  The petition accuses Hoekstra of making statements that undermine the Canada-U.S. diplomatic relationship and of "making repeated interventions in Canadian political discourse inconsistent with diplomatic protocol."

• Multiple USS Abraham Lincoln sailors have tried to go overboard amid extended deployment, families say

  Lincoln’s roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines remain on a deployment that began Nov. 21. The carrier has been deployed for more than eight months while supporting U.S. military operations in the Middle East against Iran. The deployment, which was anticipated to end in May, has been extended with no publicly announced return date.

  • USS Abraham Lincoln sailors tried to jump overboard amid extended deployment

World

• Colombia quake death toll tops 250 as rescuers race to find survivors | Reuters

• UK extreme heat prompts Cobra emergency meeting

• Thailand suspends gun licences as teen shooter's victims are cremated

• The Institute Behind Taiwan's Chip Dominance

• Survey: Norwegian skepticism toward the US reaches record high

• Spy cameras on Royal Navy drones sent data to China

• "Body" found in suitcase sex doll. How did NSW police get it so wrong?

• Brit rail cops bring live facial recognition to the London Underground

• Delivery drivers to be paid minimum $31.30 an hour in Australia

• Europe Has a New Passport System and It's Driving Travelers Crazy

• Brazil Suspends Discord Livestreaming After Teenager's Death

• Apple billboard featuring toddler with iPhone causes controversy in Italy

Iran / Houthi

• Trump floats ‘easy, relaxed’ Iran war phase focused on hurting regime’s economy: ‘I’m their banker.’

• Top adviser to Iran's Revolutionary Guard leader sits down for rare interview

Israel

• Israel deliberately starting wildfires in southern Lebanon, firefighters say

China

• China bypasses shipping chokepoints with 'Ice Silk Road' through Arctic

• China bans AI companions, forcing millions to break up with virtual partners

• China-linked hackers hit Taiwan in unprecedented 'autonomous' AI cyber attack

• The West has given China the keys to the medicine cabinet

Health / Medicine

• also dehumanizing and ineffective: 92 percent of US adults are not going to the doctor – too expensive

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The lifesaving secret hidden inside a horseshoe crab's blue blood

• Jellyfish force shutdown of three reactors at French nuclear plant

  • Jellyfish-hit French nuclear plant shuts down three reactors

• Beef and dairy drive 41% of biodiversity damage linked to global farmland

• Europe is the fastest warming continent. What is to blame?

• The shock revelation that light bulbs are wrecking your metabolism

• 85% of personal care products contain unlabeled suspected hazardous chemicals

• Male redback spider's dramatic death somersault during sex coded in its DNA

• It's been a revelation: how heat pumps can cool your home as temperatures soar

• Tracking extreme heat by the hour makes climate change seem worse

• Nuclear power push ramps up uranium mill – and tribal health concerns

• Did poop enable the evolution of complex animals?

• A 'super' El Niño could transform the Amazon. Is the biggest rainforest doomed?

• Report Exposes Foreign Funds Behind Climate Activism

  Foreign funding does not necessarily change the priorities or goals of climate activist groups. Even so, it may raise questions about the forces assisting the climate activist movement. Critics claim that China benefits from climate activism in the U.S., and have pointed to ties between climate groups and Chinese entities. Climate activists say they work with China because China emits a large percentage of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

• The 108-Degree Eviction

• Footage Shows Dolphins Hunting with Shells Off the East Coast of Australia

• Hungary to sink barges and build a sill on Danube to keep nuclear plant running

• Hurricanes didn't care about a super El Niño