2026-11-09

etc

• Windows Are Absurd (From an engineering standpoint)

  As simple as they seem, windows are a technology of sorts. And like a lot of building science, we’ve slowly been making progress, readjusting those tradeoffs and giving us the benefits without so many of the costs. I love to pick a relatively innocuous part of the built environment and really take a close look. So, I’ve built a few demonstrations in the garage to show you how far the science of glazing has come.

Horseshit

• My parents chose to die together and I was left to grieve alone

• Pinot Noir: inside the criminal gangs making fake wine

• Gossip penalty hits men harder than woman at work

• A Quantum Theorem Has Killed Einstein's Reality

• A lack of male protagonists is making it harder to get young boys into books

• 'Free grand piano': the scam playing on music lovers' heartstrings

• My secret life as a relapsed alcoholic

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

• Dwarf Bread: 5k-year-old bread loaves go on display in Turkey

• Titanic insurance document could fetch £50k

• Fishermen find Royal Caribbean cruise ship employee in water 20 miles off coast

  • Cruise ship pianist rescued after nine hours treading water miles from shore

celebrity gossip

• The NBA player who got hooked on sports betting

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• When Writers Lose Faith in Free Speech

Musk

• SpaceX officially suspended all launch pads, rocket telemetry codes, and orbit integration for European government satellites.

  Elon Musk canceled the launch contracts after the EU slapped X and Starlink with arbitrary billions in fines. The European Space Command labeled it an "act of war" and threatened to freeze bank accounts, prompting Musk to fire back that bureaucracy won't launch a 5-ton defense satellite.

• Tesla Hasn't Had a Successful New Product Launch Since JB Straubel Stepped Down

• There Is No Place in a Functional Society for Elon Musk

Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers

• Why a pink potato-like robot is wheeling around Philadelphia

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Advanced Meditation Alters Consciousness and Our Basic Sense of Self

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• A 55-Year-Old Math Problem Was Solved–This Time by Humans

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Samsung Put Ads on a Refrigerator You Bought

• The Rise of Microdramas

• Microsoft Removes PC-to-PC Migration from Windows 11, Pushes Users to OneDrive

• Roku Retires Fish Tank Screensaver to Reel Viewers into Roku City

• Reddit Founder Says Building Social Media Apps Is 'Not Cool Anymore'

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA is looking for new astronauts to help grow its Artemis program

  • NASA Is Selecting Future Astronauts. Here’s How to Apply.

  • NASA seeks next generation of astronauts to live and work on the moon

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI Companies Want to Buy Your Work Files and Emails

  • AI labs are paying $100K–$2M for internal company workflow data

• 70% of Brits say please or thank you when speaking to AI, some even apologize

• The internet has a human slop problem, and AI is exposing it

• Anthropic warns that it's close to RSI capability, a.k.a. self-building AI

• Why mandating AI use in the workplace can backfire

• Anthropic strikes $3.4B deal to generate gas-fired power for data centres

• Google energy head: space data centers would cost up to 100x more than on Earth

• Mercedes Gives Its Cars an AI Upgrade

• Apple CEO Presses Software Chief to Pursue More Ambitious AI Strategy

• Thinking Machines Lab $5B funding round at a $40B valuation

• One of Classical Music's Biggest Stars Says AI Is Degrading Our Taste

• Canada's AI translation tool keeps making hilarious mistakes

• Silicon Valley Promises AI Will Cure Disease. Drugmaker CEOs Aren't Buying It

• Meta's Charm gadget carries CEO Zuckerberg's big AI ambitions

• What Anthropic's IPO Filing Says About the Future of A.I

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Crypto industry braces for reckoning over Trump ties

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Taiwan sets new short-selling limits to aid beaten stock market

• There's No Such Thing as a Stock-Market Bubble

• Have a 401(k)? Help ProPublica Investigate What's Happening to Your Money

• Sequoia shutting down its Scouts program marks the end of an era

• US Bonds’ Election Rally Skids to Halt After Strong Jobs Data

Trump

• Breaking the Decade-Long Trump Fever

  • "Proper People" hated Trump in the 1980's... The hadn't yet assumed control of all media and didn't insist that everyone in the world must share their attitudes at that point yet.

Left Angst

• Top Astrophysicist Leaves U.S.

• Tech Moguls Are Mistaking Science Fiction for a Political Plan

• Trump Media investors lost 2.2B dollars

• Armed Illegal Arrested Near White House, Says Voices Told Him to Kill Trump.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Drones built to look like birds evaded detection at Air Force tech exercise

• Army cooks are now 'tactical field feeding specialists'

• U.S. Cleared Nvidia Chips to Chinese Firms with Empty Offices and Troubling Ties

• Nvidia launches investigation into CEO's affair with suspected Chinese spy

  • Nvidia's Jensen Huang admits to affair with Chinese spy

  • Nvidia Board of Directors Is Investigating Jensen Huang

  • Nvidia Opens Investigation into Jensen Huang's Relationship with Chinese Spy

  • Nvidia Board to Probe Spying Case After CEO Admits Affair

  • Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's letter to staff about affair

World

• NHS breach helpline left staff carrying a 'significant emotional burden'

• Indians should have higher standards

• Leftwing Alliance Led by Yanis Varoufakis Loses Access to Bank Account

  The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) said on Tuesday that its account was “closed suddenly and without warning” on 8 October, and the group has lost access to tens of thousands of euros. The organisation has not named the bank, citing legal reasons, but spokesperson Erik Edman said the account was held in Belgium. he added, “through conversations with other organisations in Belgium, we have heard accounts suggesting a worrying pattern in which progressive political organisations appear to have been disproportionately affected by debanking.”

• UK House of Lords to propose mandatory CSAM detection software on smartphones

• UK Government 'looking seriously' at banning under-16s from Vinted and eBay

Iran / Houthi

• Ships loiter near subsea cables amid Iran's warnings to Trump

• US offers $20M reward for information about Iran's nuclear programme

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia races to build rival to Elon Musk's Starlink

• Space become critical to balance of the war

• Russian spymaster claimed to have toppled Austrian leader

China

• We Visited China's Stargate in Inner Mongolia

• Pakistani astronaut to become first foreigner on China's space station

• BYD's electric hypercar hits 312 MPH, first production car over 500 km/h

• Less coal, less oil: China's emissions fall sharply

Health / Medicine

• This implant burns up excess blood sugar with electricity

• U.S. Obesity Rate Drops as Use of GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs Surges

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• More Than 30M Years Ago, Monkeys Rafted Across the Atlantic to South America

• The Maya used so much red paint that they poisoned their water with mercury

• 35 by 35 electrification is the agenda for COP31

• Earth's Rocks Have a Missing Layer Spanning Up to a Billion Years

• Crows Make Decisions Twice as Fast as Humans

• Trump's war in Iran driving shift from fossil fuels