2026-11-06

etc

• The Vanishing Human Presence

  the art of perceiving and adapting to each patient has been replaced by protocols built for a statistical average that few people actually match. This is hidden behind a carefully marketed facade that, once you are inside the system, often gives way to something callous and disorganized. Physicians who still practice medicine as an art are stigmatized yet sought out because they succeed where standardized care fails, while those who reduced themselves to protocols have made themselves replaceable by AI.

Horseshit

• A wave of plastic-free coffee pods and machines

• Italian chef fired after refusing to put pineapple on pizza

• Uranium cubes reveal why the German nuclear project failed

• Russian Man Sues Apple for 'Turning Him Gay'

• What did the Romans ever give Scotland?

• Did the World Just Gain Hundreds of Millions of Alzheimer’s Patients?

• Poulette, the New Potato Chefs Say Tastes Like Roast Chicken

• A barbarian tribe's mythic origin story is true, ancient DNA reveals

  a major shift in ancestry in northern Poland by the time the first Goth-style artifacts appeared there around 50 C.E. The shift, toward what look like Iron Age Swedish lineages, suggests a bevy of migrants—not just a few influential visitors—brought Gothic culture and their now-vanished Germanic language to Northern Europe, though when that happened is unclear. “We see that there’s almost complete population turnover,” says co-author Guus Kroonen, a linguist at Leiden University. “That’s a very strong indication that there was initially a large migration from Scandinavia to Poland.” The shift coincides with linguistic models that show Gothic split off from its sister languages about 2000 years ago.

• An Underrated Reason Boys Aren't Reading

• Batman's bike could be yours, if you have a spare $1.2 million

• Buttons are back and storage is king when it comes to car interiors.

• Excuse my French? The swear words that used to be illegal in Canada

• Is Flying Private Less Safe? How the Rules Differ from Commercial Airlines

• Englishman Karl Bushby returns home after 28 years walking 30k mi around world

• As budgets tighten, people are breaking out their library cards

• The Surf Communities Selling Man-Made Waves to Homeowners

• Why Americans Stopped Throwing Dinner Parties

celebrity gossip

• Bob Dylan comes knockin' on pope's door as Leo welcomes legend to Vatican

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Bluesky Gets a Midterms Bump, Ships Pronouns-in-Bios Feature

  • Bluesky was right all along and will accept your apology any time

• Taylor Lorenz: "I'm once again being offered money promote anti-AI content

• Goodbye from Salon

  Today, after 31 years, we are saddened to announce that Salon is ceasing publication. Over three decades, Salon has brought together politics, culture, criticism and ideas in a way that was distinctly our own. Our journalism examined power and politics, questioned assumptions, surfaced stories that deserved attention and made room for perspectives that were too often overlooked. Our writers and editors helped shape conversations about the forces changing our lives. The work was never simply about keeping up with the news. It was about making sense of it.

  • Founded on the proposition that "politically correct media" was needed, overtaken by the masses that rushed to follow their example.

  • Amateur Clickbait Hate-Site Salon Announces That They Are Shutting Down

  It was a toxic hate site and propaganda mill funded by left-wing partisans but not well-funded by left-wing partisans because left-wing partisans are greedy moneygrubbing cheapskates who obsess about other people's money and therefore will not part with their own. They do not donate to charities or causes they "support," and who "support" things by demanding the government fund their charitable causes rather than themselves. That was never on the table, so eventually you ran out of other people's money.

Musk

• Musk's Colossus DC cluster – what's the storage situation?

• After Texas' blue wave, what happens to Elon Musk and SpaceX?

  • Elon Musk's nearly half a billion dollars in midterms spending was a flop

• Qualcomm Nabs a Big SpaceX Starlink Mobile Nationwide US 5G Network Win

• Anti-Oligarchy Activists Plan to Dox Elon Musk, 100s of Billionaire-Linked Homes

• Shares in Musk's SpaceX plunge as tech and AI stocks fall

• Republicans Learn X Is the Echo Chamber

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Humble Robotics raises $51M to build autonomous electric self-driving truck

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• West Hollywood Approves Ordinance To Let Throuples, Foursomes Register As Couples

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Nintendo's biggest ROM chip supplier is bowing out of the business

• VMware returns to low-end server virtualization with 'vSphere Express'

• The PHP maintainers knew of the recent security bug for two years before it was patched.

• Discord is ditching Electron and its new app uses less RAM

• Is Grand Theft Auto VI the most anticipated video game of all time?

• Google, Meta, TikTok sue to block California youth social media law

• Tobacco company got smoked by leaving secret recipes on a file share

  He listed the recipe files in his security report, but the security people at the tobacco company vehemently denied that the files were real or that he had seen a real recipe. They continued arguing about it for a year and Schloss could not show them the recipe file he had downloaded because he had been forced to erase it.

• Meta Employees 'Interacted' with Pirated Copies of Adult Films, Filing Shows

• Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 Blackwell appears at $17,999 MSRP, higher than RTX PRO 6000

• charger clones phone every time you plug it in, exfils via WiFi

  Claude Code just found a hidden chip inside my Chinese power bank from Guangzhou. Every time I charged my iPhone, it quietly copied the whole phone… It also read our saved Wi-Fi password off my iPhone, got onto our home network and sent everything to a server. I bought it for $19 at an airport kiosk there 3 weeks ago. No brand, 30,000 mAh on the label, and it felt heavy.

• "Remote?" wtf? MS Paint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

• Cuban: Facebook knowingly runs AI deepfake scam ads; docs say $16B fraud revenue

• New York Times Company in Advanced Talks to Acquire Letterboxd

Panopticon / Surveiled State

• Samsung's reply on its TVs spying their owners

• UK government considers smart glasses ban over secret filming concerns

• Ads in popular apps give police a powerful tool to spy on users

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA's 22-year-old Swift satellite telescope falls from orbit

• European orbiter detects fresh hints of volcanic activity on Mars

• Asteroid defense hits a lump in the road

• Blue Origin delays launches until 2027

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI kicks off charm offensive to change voters' view of data centers

  • The blue wave is hammering data-center stocks on the prospect of more scrutiny

  • A tiny Ohio town has a strategy to force data centers to keep their promises

  • Big Tech claims voters' AI backlash is "anti-Trump" not "anti-tech"

  • Midterm Rout for Data Centers: Voters in Nearly 40 Towns Rejected Projects

  • 'There Is One Fight': American Voters Reject Tech Oligarchy

  • The Election Day Revolt That Threatens America's AI Boom

  • The Blue Wave Has Tech Bros Scrambling for Data Centers in Space.

  • Mystery Seller Seeks to Dump $500M of Data Center Loans

  • Hedge Funds Were 'Massive' Sellers of AI Debt, RBC's Skiba Says

  • Microsoft Sours on Neoclouds Amid Data Center Delays, Costs

• Google Will Turn Off Search for Schools That Reject A.I.

  • Google Says K-12 Students at Schools That Turn Off Its AI Tools Will Lose Search

  • Google offers schools AI-boosted search or none at all

• OpenAI Finds 948 Local Privilege Escalation Bugs in the Linux Kernel

  • OpenAI spent $1.2M in API cost to fix 948 Linux vulnerabilities

  • A thousand fewer paths to root

• Amazon tells engineers to stop 'tokenmaxxing' to look productive

  • Apple cuts employee AI budgets in cost-control push

  • Apple Cuts Internal AI Usage Budgets in Move to Reduce Spending

• So, about that Anthropic IPO

  • Major Investors Are Skeptical Anthropic IPO Can Achieve $1.5T Valuation

• Basically no one is using AI agents for their DoorDash orders

• Cat Wu joins OpenAI from Anthropic in product-lead coup

• New Research Tests Whether AI Models Know Their Own Thoughts

• OpenAI Had 'Rough' First Half of Year Before Coding Takeoff

• Siri AI is now open to all developers

• Anthropic buys one-person Kendall Square biotech ahead of IPO. Here's why

• Dropbox's next chapter: moving your work forward with AI in Dropbox

• The Making of Dario Amodei

• Mercedes Gives Its Cars an AI Upgrade

• Japan contractor's AI-guided tunnel boring outperforms human operators

• An AI Fraud Kingpin's Confessions

• Anthropic's models improving nearly twice as fast with help from AI, study finds

• Dept of Justice probes Nvidia over $13B Hugging Face acquisition

• Anthropic engineer warns about 'cognitive surrender'

• Lawsuit: Man introduced his wife to ChatGPT. She used it to plan his murder

• The Cost of AI Code Shows Up 30 Days Later

• China Plans Broad AI Guardrails After Global Security Lapses

• Michael Burry says Anthropic is 'betting its existence' on optimism

• Can Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's Former CEO, Help Fix A.I.'S Gender Problem?

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Ties to Kalshi Throw Gambling Addiction Group into Disarray

• plz no: Could AI give NFTs a second chance?

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Crude oil prices plummet a day after the election.

  • Does the blue wave mean lower gasoline and diesel prices soon? Don’t hold your breath.

• Dow Jones surges 1,500 points in best day of 2026, S&P 500 and Nasdaq rally after historic midterm election

  • Nasdaq plunges into correction territory as Dem wins threaten data centers, AI giants rush to stem fallout

  The Nasdaq plunged 5.1% Thursday, entering into correction territory, as investors and industry leaders braced for a data-center reckoning in the wake of Democrats’ midterms sweep – fearful the new Congress will slow the pace of projects and hit revenue at top AI labs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average turned negative – falling 1,097 points, or 2.1% – after recording its best day in 18 months on Wednesday. The S&P 500 tumbled 3.2% as the Nasdaq dropped over 10% from a recent record set in October.

  • Stocks plunge as midterm results send AI trade into a tailspin

  • Nasdaq Sinks 5% as Investors Retreat from AI Trade After Election

  • Nasdaq plummets 4% into correction territory

  • Wipeout for AI stocks sends Wall Street reeling and S&P 500 tumbles more than 3%

  • Chip stocks get slaughtered as Wall Street in worst post-midterm day since 1896

• CVS to break up $117B business, separating pharmacies from insurance

  • CVS to Split Off Drugstore Business, Ending Its Bigger-Is-Better Era

• AI stock selloffs fuel fears Big Tech's best quarters are over

• KLM sees 1,000 fewer jobs in push to restore profitability

• Google extends voluntary buyout offers to employees in several countries

• Jack Dorsey's Block makes second round of job cuts this year

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• HawaiʻI Green Party Candidate Makes History, Edges Democrat

  For only the fifth time in national history, a Green Party candidate appears to have been elected to a state legislature.

• California’s Billionaires Exhale as Prop 40 Goes Down.

• National Weather Service ordered to resume twice-daily weather balloon launches

  the pullback of weather balloon data in mid-March 2025 directly impacted forecasting in Michigan. At least 13 of nearly 100 balloon sites were cut or reduced when the White House's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, took aim at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that year. Those criticizing the cutback included former NWS agency directors.

• Did Re-Redistricting Actually Hurt Republicans?

Trump

• Trump proclaims 'American space superiority for all eternity'

Democrats

• Raman ousts Bass as Los Angeles mayor

• Hakeem Jeffries Claims Impeachment And Getting Even With Trump Aren't Priorities

  "The American people don't want us to get even," Jeffries claimed on Morning Joe. "They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive. We ran on affordability. We won on affordability. And now it's our job to govern on affordability." Jeffries insisted Democrats had campaigned on lowering prices for groceries, gas, housing, and health care.

  • I'm so old I recall when national abortion law was the most important thing ever... They dropped that issue like a dirty diaper as soon as Biden was elected. I haven't heard a lot about "student loan forgiveness" recently, either.

• Democrats Prepare to Unleash Political Rage in Congress.

• Newsom Commutes the Sentences of California's 548 Death Row Inmates

  • California Gov Newsom commutes death sentences for all 548 people on death row

Left Angst

• Want to Rent an Internet Address at the White House?

  • Residential proxies detected on White House network

• Anti-Monopolists Soared in the Midterms

• A progressive understanding of Christianity won in the US elections

• Data scientist David Shor on how his party won a historic landslide

• Models led prediction markets in forecasting the blue wave

• US Democrats Win Enough Seats Nationwide to End Presidential Electoral College

• Three tax proposals targeting the rich that the new Congress could revive

• ‘We Put You In’: ABC’s The View Admits They’re ‘Celebrating’ With Dems.

• The Tech Bros Who Bet on Fascism Lost. Don't Let the Internet Pay for It

World

• Multiple planes diverted as bomb threats to commercial flights reported

  • Several European flights receive bomb threats, some divert

• Pro-Russian hackers claim responsibility for attacks on refrigerators in EU

  • The hackers who destroyed food in European supermarket freezers for the second time recently also hit blood banks.

  • Cyberattack disrupts blood storage refrigeration systems in France

  • Cyberattack hits French blood bank site but no blood products are compromised

  • French blood storage impacted by freezer hacks

  • French blood banks hit alongside cyberattack on European supermarkets

  • Cyberattack Hits French Blood Banks as Hackers Target EU Refrigeration Systems

• Paraguay bank collapses with half of population's savings

  • Paraguay President Peña resigns under mounting pressure from bank collapse

  • Paraguay seizes major digital bank tied to president, leaving customers in limbo

  • Paraguayan president impeached minutes after resigning following bank collapse

  • President of Paraguay resigns amid crisis over bank collapse

  • Paraguay President Santiago Peña resigns after bank collapse

  • Paraguay's president is impeached following a bank collapse

• French bank Credit Mutuel Arkea says €100M missing after cyberattack

• Vietnam Jails Pirate Football Streamers for Up to a Year, Three Escape Prison

• T-Unit, the Spotify founders' new startup, aims to defend European democracies

• UK to deploy facial recognition in biggest-ever immigration crackdown

• EU deportations: 'Alternatives' to detention include surveillance and coercion

• The Hanoi Lake Where Kids Hustle American Tourists for English Lessons

• Hungary: Communist-era files released, up to 60k former agents revealed

• World Bank: Debt of poorest countries at record $9.4T high

• Protesters across Europe to call for freeze on energy hungry data centres

Iran / Houthi

• Online Maps Lay Bare the US Military Bases Targeted by Iran

China

• The chip talent war: Trade secrets and rising Chinese rivals

• China's 'Sharp Power' Chills Global Free Speech

• Nvidia chips pile up in Hong Kong as China withholds import approval

Health / Medicine

• 'Doctor Peyo': the horse comforting cancer patients in Calais – in pictures

• Private equity is buying up more methadone clinics

• Dropping dairy milk to go vegan is bad for you, study warns.

• Many diagnosed with a peanut allergy don't realize they may not have it anymore

• Infant Bleeding Surged as Parents Rejected Vitamin K Shots, Studies Find

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Moths Keep Evolving Their Genitals Into Anti-Bat Weapons, Again And Again.

• Newly discovered Bacteria uses Acetone for food

• Image of Our Satellite-Choked Night Skies

• This Year's Super El Niño Will Worsen Global Hunger

• The Southwest's extreme flooding foreshadows a wild El Niño winter

• Lab-grown meat was supposed to save the world. What happened?

• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is changing the color of the ocean