2026-07-27

etc

• Most Likely Future Filter: World Govt

  The great filter (a term I coined) is all the things that block simple dead matter from evolving into an advanced civilization easily seen from far away. Given that we see a vast universe of simple dead matter (~10^24 planets) not so evolved, this filter must be enormous. A few years ago I helped worked out a better math model of it. A key question is: how much of this filter remains ahead of us. And my best guess is: a substantial amount. It is not a try-try type step like many prior hard steps, as that would take hundreds of millions of years. It is more of a try-once step, that we either pass or fail within a cosmically short time. And that filter is mainly: the risk of a stable confining world govt.

  creating better governance mechanisms might help us to fix cultural drift and speed us to the first endpoint of robust interstellar colonization. If such better governance was directed by relatively adaptive values. But directed by other values, it might instead speed us to that last endpoint of an entrenched Earth govt that blocks such expansion. The fate that likely befell the aliens behind UFOs, if some UFOs have actually been aliens.

Horseshit

• The South Carolina town in turmoil over a $545,000 email phishing scam

• What Love Island tells us about the changing face of dating

• Transit advocates mourn Boston transportation planner killed while biking

• Humans haven't stopped evolving

• Poor Countries Are Aging Fast but Can't Keep Up with the Cost

• Welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure

• Not sure about having kids? There's a coach for that

• When Middle Age Starts

• Anne Hathaway’s ‘buzzer beater’ pregnancy feels so relatable—I’m expecting my first baby at 44.

• Girl's death in China reveals human cost of unregulated science

Epstein

• The Woman Who Stands to Inherit Much of Jeffrey Epstein's Fortune

celebrity gossip

• 'Weird Al' Yankovic Turned Down Million-Dollar Offer to Perform in Saudi Arabia

Obit

• Charles Gaines, author of "Pumping Iron," dies at 84

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The tech revolution is stress-testing democracy

  This week, Britain installed its seventh prime minister in barely a decade. France has churned through almost as many in just a few years. Its next president may well be the once-outcast Marine Le Pen. In Germany, the far-right AfD, tiny just a few years ago, now polls in first place. Even East Asian democracies — often viewed as stable, cautious, even boring — have seen governments in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan struggle in the midst of growing public anger. And where populists are in power, the situation doesn’t seem that different. Donald Trump now hovers near the lowest approval rating of any modern American president at this point in their term. Can today’s democracies function?

  The larger explanation is that we are living through one of history’s great technological revolutions. And these transformations always produce deep anxiety and fear. The last technological transformation on this scale came between roughly 1880 and 1920. Electricity, the telephone, railroads, the automobile and movies overturned entire industries and ways of life. Millions left farms for cities. Global trade disrupted local economies. New fortunes appeared overnight, while old occupations disappeared. In this turmoil, frustration and anger found political pathways. The left turned to communism, the right to fascism. What followed were new mass movements, cultural upheavals and world war.

Musk

• SpaceX eyes tower catch for next Starship after auspicious end to 13th flight

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Multiple people injured in collision involving Waymo near downtown Los Angeles

Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers

• Teachers decry plan for humanoid robot in New York high school

  • Sally the Robot Was Coming to a New York School. Then the Plug Was Pulled

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• WTA to require all players to undergo genetic sex testing

  The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is to require all players to undergo genetic sex testing in order to compete on the WTA Tour. The WTA's previous policy, last updated in 2024, allowed transgender women to compete on the Tour if they had lowered their testosterone levels to below 2.5 nmol/L continuously for the previous two years.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• MIT to become hotbed of AI video surveillance

• Clinical failure rates over the decades: yikes

  let’s think about that 91% failure rate for a moment. When I bring this up in presentations, I invite the audience to consider what the auto industry would look like of 91% of new car designs proved unable to roll out of the factory, or if 91% of new airliner models were unable to leave the ground - and if you only found that out after spending all the R&D money to build them at full size and trying to fly them. No cutting-edge restaurant could survive if 91% of its innovative dishes proved inedible or outright poisonous.

• What comes after book bans? One school district questions traditional libraries

• Concerns rise as volume of research soars and quality drops

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Discord Must Verify Texas Users' Age Under Judge's Ruling

• LA Social Media Trial Dismissal Leaves Vast Landscape of Cases

• Microsoft responds to LG monitors installing McAfee ads on Windows

• The Creator Economy Has a New Middle Class

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• House AI 'kill switch' bill unveiled as OpenAI hack raises alarms

  • Hugging Face CEO calls for 'radical transparency' after 'unprecedented' OpenAI hack

  • So-called 'Skynet Day' came too close to SF after rogue agent hacked a startup

• Should you use AI for a task? Here's a simple way to decide

• Anthropic should learn from those cotton-picking socialists

• AI Can Now Design Drugs in Seconds; We Still Can't Tell You If They Work

• AI Chatbots Know How to Make Deadly Biological Weapons. Some Will Teach You

• What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

• Running a 28.9M parameter LLM on an $8 microcontroller

• Why workers are nostalgic for life before AI

• What Sam Altman will tell the White House this week

• Court Reporter Submitted AI-Generated Errors in Official Court Transcript

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Shoppers rewire grocery routines while digesting biggest price jump in 50 years

• What a $15 pint of ice cream says about the economy

• US tech groups cut 140k jobs despite AI spending boom

• Google's AI Spending Spree Has Investors Nervous

• One of the Busiest Shipping Ports Wants to Go Nuclear

• Moody's says AI spending threatens credit of Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, others

• Bond market anxiety is growing over AI capex budgets

• The Story Behind This Viral Toyota Hiring Test With Ropes And A 6-Second Time Limit

• 105M Americans Are Not Working – More Than Covid or the Great Recession

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Hawaii Lt. Gov. Is Indicted in Corruption Investigation

• CBP intercepted biological materials tied to US–China virus network before COVID, new documents show

  • Dr. Anthony Fauci, January 2020: 'Now We Know the Market Was Not the Source, It Was the Amplifier'

Left Angst

• Crypto Bill Mired in Debate over Rules to Stop President from Selling Coins

• New funding rules will make US research slower, costlier and harder to share

World

• Berlin Pride attack latest news: At least one dead after van rams into crowd

  At least one person was killed and 16 others were injured in Berlin on Saturday night after a van mowed down a crowd of people at the city’s Gay Pride festival. German police are hunting the driver of a white vehicle which onlookers say crashed into a group of people at the event at around 10pm at high speed. The driver allegedly attacked people with a knife after the collision, which occurred at Berlin’s Tiergarten park. The suspect later fled the scene on foot and remains at large.

  • Suspect in Berlin Pride attack identified as ‘Islamist.’

  "Based on the investigators' initial findings, we have already identified a suspected perpetrator," Florian Nath, a spokesman for Berlin police, said, adding that the force's search for the suspect was "proceeding at full speed". "He is known to us as a member of Islamic circles here in Berlin ... we still have no information whatsoever regarding his specific motives, the exact sequence of events, or his role in the crime itself." There was no immediate confirmation from German authorities as to whether the incident was terror-related.

  • Islamist terrorist attack in Berlin Pride event

  Interior Minister Dobrindt said that the suspect in the car ramming attack had been convicted by a Berlin court in the past. The minister said that he had been handed a prison sentence of one year and 10 months, which was then suspended on probation.

  Interior Minister Dobrindt said that the suspect had used a cutting weapon — presumably a machete — to attack more passersby after the car ramming, causing additional severe injuries. He said the attacker had been known to authorities, adding he had committed several criminal acts. The suspect had gone through "radicalization" and belonged to the "Islamist scene," Dobrindt said. The suspect was born in Germany in 2005, had German citizenship at birth and a Lebanese family background, Dobrindt said.

  • Abdul Ballout: Berlin Pride suspect tried to join Islamic State

  • Car Plows into Crowd at Berlin Pride Event in Suspected Terror Attack

  • Vehicle plows through LGBTQ+ event in Germany

  "If you encounter the suspect, immediately dial 110! Do not approach him, he may be armed and dangerous!" Berlin police warned the public on Saturday, adding he was believed to be wearing a black hoodie and white pants.

  • Suspect in deadly Berlin Pride attack is killed in a confrontation with police

  The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said. Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin.

  In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted Ballout of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, as well as publishing Islamic State propaganda on his Instagram account and other charges, prosecutors said. The court handed down a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months in youth custody, which Berlin prosecutors had appealed. The court said it took Ballout’s months of pre-trial detention in Germany and Lebanon into account. It also said it considered that Ballout had confessed to the crimes, appeared to distance himself from the militant group and no actual threat had ever materialized. He was released from detention pending the appeal.

  The attack did not occur at the festival, along its route or at the closing party. Rather, the violence took place a few hundred meters (yards) away on a track in the Tiergarten park. The van drove into a crowd that was likely a mix of festivalgoers and other locals or visitors.

• France and Spain wildfires: more than 300k people displaced

  • Wildfire Forces Evacuation of NASA's Deep Space Network Complex in Spain

  • Bordeaux considering 'total evacuation if needed' as wildfires rage nearby

  • French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

• How Arsonists used cats to spread Italy's wildfires

• Syria's ancient sites face widespread looting and systematic bulldozing

• India's 'Cockroach' Protesters Declare Rare Victory over Government

• Scottish tax hike for high earners backfires with loss of £22M

• Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight

• Canada remains anti-nuke, but its potential path to the bomb is getting shorter

• Romania shoots down drone entering country's airspace for third day in a row

  A Romanian fighter jet on Sunday shot down the third drone flying into the country's airspace in as many days, the defence minister said. A government investigation reportedly identified the first of the three drones as a Shahed model used by Russia in its war with Ukraine

• Nigeria: Cancer rates are rising faster here than anywhere else

• Deadly storm in Chile disrupts copper mines and raises AI supply concerns

• This year, EU will again fine US tech more than it taxes public tech firms

• New data suggests Scotland's 48% tax rate may be losing money

• Gatwick Airport left without running water at both terminals

• More UK Deaths Than Births Expected Every Year from Now On, ONS Projects

Iran / Houthi

• Scientists warn of possible invasive species superspreader event due to stalling near Strait of Hormuz

• Trump ordered military not to conduct strikes in Iran Friday

  President Trump directed the U.S. military not to conduct new strikes in Iran on Friday, breaking a nearly two-week streak of daily attacks, two sources with knowledge of the decision said. The president's directive came after he approved daily strikes over the previous 13 days. It is unclear if Trump's order on Friday was a one-off or whether the lull will continue.

• Iran calls Ukraine's strikes on Iranian vessels 'hostile and criminal'

  Iran summoned a Ukrainian diplomat in Tehran on Sunday to protest an attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, as the war in the Middle East threatened to overlap with the Ukraine conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that his country’s forces “also achieved very strong results with long‑range strikes in the Caspian Sea – including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship.”

  the latest attacks by Ukraine, combined with Saudi military strikes on Iran-backed Houthi targets in Yemen following the rebel group’s attacks on Red Sea shipping in recent days, represent a widening of the Middle East conflict.

• Oil tanker explodes after hitting naval mine in Strait of Hormuz

• Iran used roaming systems, ad tech to track US troops in Gulf: Report

Israel

• Lebanese displaced by war turn to satellites to check their homes

  Israel prevents the displaced from returning, even to visit. And residents of neighboring villages fear Israeli retaliation for taking video or photos. So residents of Yaroun and other communities are pooling their money to buy commercial satellite images to determine if their houses are still standing.

• Hamas admits some Journalists were Hamas soldiers

• Israeli settlers set fire to mosques, cars and farm land in West Bank

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• In a Ukrainian bomb shelter, Laura Loomer explains shift on Russia's war

China

• U.S. and China Are Jockeying for Drone Supremacy on Mount Everest

• China considers tighter export controls on AI models and chips

Health / Medicine

• Midwest Poultry Services recalls over 1.5 million eggs

  The eggs were produced and distributed from farms in Texas between June 6, 2026, and July 3, 2026, with sell-by or best-by dates ranging from July 20, 2026, to August 17, 2026. They were shipped to foodservice and retail customers in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. Consumers could find the eggs at Kroger stores in Texas and Louisiana, Brookshire Grocery stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mississippi, as well as other smaller retail outlets.

• Scientists link oral bacteria to heart disease and cognitive decline

• Coffee Company Recalls More Than 3,000 Gallons of Cold Brew Concentrate Over Botulism Risk.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Measles Cases Hit New Record in U.S., as Vaccination Rates Wane

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• French beekeepers' fury at lifting of pesticides ban

• 'Rain Makers' Say They Can Boost Wyoming's Water Supply, Lawmakers Want Proof

• Typhoon Noul forces more than 715,000 from homes and cancels flights

• Eastern Pacific Ocean about to get its first major hurricane of the year

• Canada must prepare for bigger wildfires, every summer – forever

• Climate change is now threatening a pillar of childhood: summer break

• Jimothy the raccoon has a rare spinal condition. Here's what that means