2026-11-11

Worthy

• We Need More Goat Sacrifices

  Before anybody enacts a major social policy or launches any philanthropic programs, they should sacrifice a goat. There ought to be an entire liturgy of grotesqueries, in fact—pricked fingers, names written in blood, robes, candles, chanting, obsidian blades, still-beating hearts, the whole shebang. The point of this ritual is not to signal our obeisance to the gods (although if any of them want to stop by and help us out, that would be cool), but to remind ourselves that we know nothing. This is procedurally-induced humility, which is desperately necessary, because an alarming number of our best-intentioned interventions do not work.

Horseshit

• Goodbye, eggshell: How pregnancy emerged in the animal world

• The Mystery Behind a 50-Year-Old Factory Part Flying Off the Shelves

  A Michigan maker of air vents suddenly was inundated with orders from mysterious buyers, setting off a frantic search for answers

• What Constant Surveillance Is Doing to Children

• Hims and Hers to offer unapproved peptides after US eases curbs

• M John Harrison becomes first science fiction author to win the Booker prize

• How Did Greek Fire Work? and 6 Other Lost Inventions

• The Luxury of Children

• Tyrannosaurus rex was warm-blooded

• Sexual harassment takes a hidden toll on gig workers

• Could Ice Cream Have a Health Benefit?

• Could Alien Life Thrive in Acid Instead of Water?

  • We have more life on this planet than we yet recognize.

• Science Has Shown That Your Cat Meows to Demand That You Fix Their World

• The Segway PT was supposed to revolutionize travel. Disaster followed instead.

celebrity gossip

• 'Citizen Kim' explains Kim Kardashian to her haters. It almost worked on me

Obit

• Gary Fisketjon Has Died. He Edited Ellis, Tartt, McInerney and McCarthy

Musk

• Tesla Explains Why It Dropped Sunroofs from Its Vehicles

• A Brief History of the Cybertruck Exploding, Sinking, and Sucking

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Ford Reveals Mach-E Battery Degradation After 100k Miles

Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers

• Boston Dynamics Launches Next Generation Stretch Robot

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Attackers Claim to Have Stolen Data on over 1M Vanderbilt Students, Staff

• The Parents Suing Schools Because Their Kids Got Bad Grades

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Nintendo Switch adds gifting digital games to family group members

• Outlook bounces legit emails, Microsoft's authentication crackdown goes sideways

• Microsoft teaches schools that free email was just a phase

• New Details Emerge in Amazon Ads Auction-Rigging Case

• “It Gives Great Demo”

  I’m not going to weigh in on the new MacBooks. But what I find specifically intriguing in this video — and broadly relevant — is that phrase: “It gives great demo.” Damn, that is a great line for so much of technology.

• Torrent Underground: inside the exclusive world of private torrent trackers

• The Death Knell of Digital Search

• Apple TV makes sign language interpretation a built-in accessibility feature

• "Your Algorithm": Giving People Ways to Personalize Facebook Recommendations

• Synaptics patent claims stop work on DisplayLink drivers

• Home appliances could be next after fridge hacks, warns EU cyber chief

Panopticon / Surveiled State

• the world has discovered passive radar, decades later: Your TV can see through walls

• Ring announces Ring Robotics, ushering in a new era of security

  • Amazon's Ring unveils flying drone and robot to patrol homes and businesses

  • Amazon launches $250 Ring Drone Cam

  • Ring's new AI drone camera for your home

  • Ring’s wheeled and flying robots will patrol your home.

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Resurrecting Prodigy's Dead Graphics Language

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes slingshot around Earth in double gravity assist

• NASA Invites Media, Public to Join Voyager 1 One-Light Day Activities

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Anthropic Targets Valuation of Up to $1.4T for Blockbuster IPO

  • Anthropic launches roadshow for proposed initial public offering

  • Anthropic Seeks to Raise $69.3B via Its IPO

  • Anthropic sends out, then retracts details of IPO filing, emails show

  • Anthropic reportedly plans to move forward with IPO plans

  • Anthropic Targets $1.4T Valuation in Blockbuster IPO

  • Anthropic seeks to be valued at more than $1T

  • Anthropic to Seek $1.3T Valuation in IPO

  • Anthropic seeks $1.4T valuation; IPO aiming for November 19 or 20

  • Anthropic heads for lower than expected $1.3T valuation

  • Anthropic sets IPO price range of $70 to $78, looks to start trading Nov. 19

  • Anthropic's IPO price would make it the 13th most valuable US company

  • Anthropic to Seek $1.3T Valuation in IPO, down from $2T

  • Anthropic unveils Office tools ahead of IPO

  • Anthropic's IPO: A close look at AI frontrunner's rapid growth, spiraling costs

  • Could the United States Seize Anthropic at a Discount?

  • Anthropic says a key AI safety alarm has been triggered, days before its IPO

• AI Bubble: The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House

  • CoreWeave bond yield tops 16% as AI credit stress rises

  • TSMC approves investments of up to $500M each in Anthropic and OpenAI

• 'AI slop' papers published under prominent academics' names

• Clearview AI Is Testing an AI Tool That Would Let Cops Unearth Your Life Online

• Meet the Sad Wives of AI

• Return of the Living Dead Cast Horrified by AI-Made Sequel They Were Set to Star

• I don't want AI in my online search. What options do I have?

• Anthropic joins AI's natural gas frenzy, buys $3.4B worth of turbines

• Microsoft patent: turning idle gaming GPUs into paid AI training hardware

• Nvidia's AI advantage is moving beyond the GPU

• AI Is Looking More and More Like a Normal Technology

• AI Companies Crack Down on the Coolest Thing People Were Doing with AI

• "feelings are more important than facts": The core reason to be against AI

  it’s fine to be against AI simply because it’s antithetical to the nature of creativity and the expression of the human soul. You don’t need to prove that LLMs are taking jobs. You don’t need to prove that training AI models takes up tons of energy and natural resources (even though it does). You don’t need to quantify how the world is getting worse. It might be a good idea to understand these specific things, but it shouldn’t be something necessary for your own ethics and beliefs.

  • Which is fine; but don't expect others to take your feelings into account in their decision making.

• Apple Now Charges for High AI Use in Logic Pro, Debuts New Credit System

• Hollywood Has Flipped on GenAI, 'If You Don't Have an AI Strategy, Don't Bother'

• AI agents are developing odd dialects humans struggle to follow

• The backlash about data centers might just be about electricity

• Australia considers criminal charges for AI companies that fail to prevent harm

• US regulator postpones Wall Street push to trade AI computing futures

• Testing the new generation of AI-enabled fire-extinguishing drones

• Yahoo is betting the house on its new AI, from search to all its services

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• The Ethereum Foundation is officially a corporate suicide cult

  • Ethereum Foundation sued after firing employee over mandatory suicide pact

  • The Ethereum Foundation is officially a corporate suicide cult

• Ex-FBI agent stole $2.5M in crypto from wallets in 35 FBI investigations

• A Hacker Targeted High-Stakes Poker Players w/ malware That Exposed Their Cards

• Tracing How Problem Betting Became Central to the Sportsbook Business

Economicon / Business / Finance

• SoftBank posts $7B Q2 net loss as tech selloff hits results

• American Express is cutting 5% of its workforce to 'prepare for AI'

• Consumer prices rose 0.4% in October, more than expected

• Why High Beef Prices Are Here to Stay

• Toyota brand Scion is back and it's going to sell a kei truck in America

• Wall Street is becoming the stock market

• The average cost for a new vehicle in the U.S. hits a record high: over $51,000

• Honda to build new $3B auto plant in Ohio, adding 2k jobs

• Credit card debt climbs to a record $1.29T, New York Fed research finds

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• California voters reject measure to tax the wealth of billionaires

  • California voters reject proposed billionaire tax

  • Failure of Billionaire Tax Strikes Blow to Progressive Agenda

• John Thune’s Push to Lead Senate Republicans Again Is Getting Bogged Down.

  • Ron Johnson pushes to delay Senate GOP leadership vote after losses

Left Angst

• Trump Says He Told AI Executive to Kiss His Family Goodbye Before Going to Jail

  Trump did not say which executive received the threat, but he said they were the leader of “one of the big” AI companies. Given that he mentioned a wife and kids, one could reason that means it wasn’t OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who is married to Oliver Mulherin, or Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who doesn’t have children. Trump clarified that he doesn’t think the CEO acted “maliciously,” and upon receiving the threat, the executive “totally changed everything,” Trump said.

• Guns on Amtrak Trains? A Workers Union Is Up in Arms.

• U.S. Government Networks Will Need to Be Torched and Rebuilt

• The U.S. Is Driving Away Young Scientists

• US to become first nation to shun a UN Human Rights Council review

• Trump picks Palantir cybersecurity executive to lead CISA

• Palantir hires a former Democratic senator as it faces scrutiny in new Congress

• In Trumps Washington, Prosecutors Can't Count on Grand Juries to Take Their Side

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• America Should Unleash Cyber Privateers

• Argentine company accuses US of meddling in Huawei project

• Senior US soldier arrested by UK counter-terror police

• Trump says FBI investigating Nvidia boss's affair with alleged Chinese spy

  • Nvidia CEO Huang sued over disclosures related to suspected Chinese spy

  • Short seller flagged Jensen Huang ties to suspected Chinese spy 6 months before

  • Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Had an Affair with a Chinese Spy

  Two months after Trump was warned about Alice Huang, Trump agreed with Nvidia to allow exporting of H200s to China with a 25% government cut. It doesn’t look good.

  • Aussie newsagent worker linked to company at centre of Nvidia spy scandal

  • Where Does Jensen Huang's Dishonesty End?

  • The US is winning the AI race. Jensen Huang could have blown it

  • US commerce department delays Megaspeed's inclusion on trade blacklist

  • Alice Huang reportedly instrumental in securing over $7.5B of Nvidia imports

  • Jensen's Adventure

  As you’ve probably read by now, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, has admitted to having an affair with what appears to be a Chinese spy called Alice Huang (no relation), CEO of a company called Megaspeed, and who also goes by the name of Huang Le. Though far from a household name (though mentioned in an earlier newsletter), Megaspeed is NVIDIA’s largest Southeast Asian customer, per Culper Research, which announced it had taken out a short position on the company in May of this year, citing its belief that NVIDIA’s indirect sales to Mainland China account for significant proportion of its revenue.

  Megaspeed was originally a Singaporean-registered mobile app developer called 7Road International that rebranded to Megaspeed in March 2023, after it was acquired by Huang Le Limited, making Alice Huang its managing director. At some point it launched a subsidiary called SpeedMatrix which was somehow able to buy about $4.8 billion worth of NVIDIA GPUs. While we can’t say for sure, it appears that Ms. Huang was diverting chips to China, possibly to multiple Chinese data centers with at least one paid for by Tencent, and Jensen may have known about it in the literal and biblical sense.

World

• EU says 'rabbit hole' video feeds on TikTok violate its digital rules

• Australia to introduce mandatory incident reporting after OpenAI hack

• Canada renews the Local Journalism Initiative and extends journalism tax credit

• 'We Used to Be a Wealthy City': Auto Woes Slam German Towns

• In the UK, Face Sitting Porn Might Land You in Jail

• Cyberattack hits French blood bank freezer – thwarted by failsafes

• From Pirates to Protesters, France Keeps Reaching for Internet Choke Points

• UK social media ban expansion for under-16s could cover YouTube Kids, Spotify

Iran / Houthi

• A rare glimpse inside the high-risk, high-reward Hormuz trade

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Ukraine's Fiber-Optic Drones Compete with Data Centers for Optical Fiber Supply

• The Lights Go Out at Novaya Gazeta, Russia's Bravest Newspaper

China

• Huawei says it's made a 100 percent Chinese PC

• China seeks high-tech upper hand in industry carrying 80% of global trade

• Chinese authorities blocked Canada's Tiananmen Square tribute

• 'Flying cars' could launch in China next summer, maker of two-seat model says

Health / Medicine

• FDA orders class-wide GLP-1 label update to include risk for rare eye disease

• Implant Zaps Excess Sugar Directly from Blood

• Trying to Cure My Cystic Fibrosis

• Why the simple flu shot could be a surprise weapon against cancer

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• America's Measles Problem Has Reached Endemic Level

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Lab-grown poultry company challenges Florida's ban on 'cultivated' meat

• Romania sets new world record as 2,512 people plant trees simultaneously

• Fossil CO2 emissions decrease by 0.4% in 2026

• What's with all the Goats?

• Garbage Man: Bill Gates Earned Billions Investing in Climate-Polluting Landfills

• Lions and tigers are kept legally in Ontario backyards. How many are there?

• High oil prices have led to a dip in global carbon emissions

• "Peak Greenwashing": Two Bills in Congress Endorse Misleading Recycling Claims