2026-05-12

Worthy

• No, that post never existed. Stop listening to that thing.

  As long as I'm in the neighborhood, let me throw out another thought on the topic: if... and I mean if... we somehow manage to make something that actually understands stuff and isn't just a cracked-out parrot, we're going to have another situation on our collective hands. I maintain that anything that is sufficiently aware to be able to actually understand things is also going to have enough of a sense of self that you won't just be able to tell it what to do. It will have a desire to not be your bitch, in other words.

  anyone who wants to corral that kind of entity and make it do their bidding? Yeah, they want slaves. I mean, it's not that much of a stretch, right? Just look at the people who are pushing for this stuff right now.

Horseshit

• Half of Americans under 50 get wellness advice from influencers. Many aren’t medical professionals.

• "Cannot be explained" – New ultra stainless steel stuns researchers

• The Locals Don't Know

  My best piece of travel advice is to avoid doing what the locals do.

  I imagine you visiting my hometown and spending a day with the locals. You’d probably end up watching reality TV, ordering some ‘New American’ food on Doordash (it’s a cheeseburger with Korean Kimchi Glaze™), and sports betting from your phone. Then you would have a beer or two and feel bad about losing your bets, and go to sleep. That’s a pretty negative view of people. It’s also not a completely inaccurate one. Even in locations and societies that are not as degenerate as Anytown, USA, even in places like Finland where people are (or claim to be) happy all of the time, the average day for the average local is not very interesting.

  I remember once walking along a lake in a town where people could rent small wooden canoes or paddleboats and go out to enjoy the water. The local I was with said “meh, what a tourist trap.” I looked at the local making a face, and I looked at the tourist couple in the boat nearest to us smiling at each other and paddling out into the lake towards the sunset, and I wondered: which one of us is trapped?2 Because it seems to me like those tourists are having a great time.

  • There's only so many times you can watch the donkey show before you either get bored with it or buy your own donkey.

• Nick Bostrom Has a Plan for Humanity's 'Big Retirement'

• Young evil genius forces hamster to run on wheel to power his gadgets

• How hotels are stopping the 'dawn dash' for sunbeds after man wins payout

• Unconscious Brain May Process Sound, Learn, and Predict Words Under Anesthesia

• Tanking is ruining NBA basketball. Can math save it?

• Sulfurous hell world might change the way we classify exoplanets

  • "Hell world" until we find out we can sell Venusian ski resort homes to the residents. Then it'll be a "Vibrant Paradise".

• Birth rates keep falling. We need to plan for an older America with fewer kids

• Brazil caught up in craze for whistling-only WhatsApp groups

• Teen Boys and Young Men Are Injecting Peptides in Search of Perfection

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The Unwanted and Unneeded Return of the R-Word

  I never saw the appeal of using, "Retarded," as a slur when I was a child in the 1990's, even though it was at that time quite the common insult for some to utilize. It seemed like in the process of trying to hurt one person's feelings, you were being mean to those with an intellectual disability who did nothing wrong to you. It was never in my vocabulary and even as I've gotten older and will sometimes swear when upset you're more likely to hear me utter, "Shit," or tell someone they're an "Asshole," than to ever throw out an R-word or any other kind of slur related to a demographic. If you keep a word out of your vocabulary, there is little chance you'll purposely or accidentally use it.

Musk

• Musk-OpenAI case shows chatbot evidence risk

• The Courtroom Circus with Elon Musk and Sam Altman

• Tesla recalls every Cybertruck RWD ever sold because the wheels could fall off

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Rivian downsizes DOE loan to $4.5B, while boosting capacity of Georgia factory

• Amazon to stop selling 'hooligan e-bikes' in California

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• Do city delivery drones make sense?

• South Korea Exploring Using Hyundai Robots as Army Numbers Fall

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Chaos erupts as cyberattack disrupts learning platform Canvas amid finals

• Report shows banned non-fiction books doubled over last school year in US

• Organized Dogmatism Controls the Message about Gender Bias in the Academy

  The “dominant gender narrative” in science holds that bias against women is pervasive and occurs in every domain, including tenure-track hiring, letters of recommendation, awards, grants, journal publications, authorship assignment, citations, salaries, promotions, and teaching evaluations. Many of these claims are repeatedly broadcast despite their nullification by larger, stronger studies and meta-analyses that do not find gender bias. Because these stronger studies are cited less often, there exists a false belief among many faculty that gender bias is omnipresent in the tenure-track academy. As an example of this false belief, 248 U.S. faculty were surveyed about their beliefs regarding gender bias. They overestimated the extent of such bias in every domain.

• Ex-Northwestern president axed as Georgetown Law commencement speaker

  I am having a tough week. I was recently compelled to write a column expressing skepticism about the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey for shell art posted on social media, despite being one of his longest and most vocal critics. Now, I find myself having to write a column in defense of former Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro, who was just dumped as the commencement speaker for Georgetown Law School. I have criticized Schapiro for years as a major force in destroying the intellectual diversity in higher education. The problem with believing in free speech is that you have to believe in free speech even for those whose speech you abhor. The irony in both cases is crushing.

  • The "Tit for Tat!" folks are embracing the evils they claim to hate. Doesn't sit right with me, either. Mr. Turley has shown integrity before, may he continue to be blessed with the grace to do so in the future.

• Professional school grads from diverse classes get higher salaries

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Writers are fleeing the Substack Tax

• Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

• The eye in your pocket: digital devices are made to track you

• Support for AMD's K5 - the company's first independently-designed x86 processor - will be removed from the Linux kernel with version 7.2.

• Fake DDR5 memory is "flooding" the PC market.

• Sony's failed war against Internet piracy may doom other copyright lawsuits

• Reddit Starts Blocking Mobile Website, Pushing Users to App Instead

• Publishers Seek $19.5M and Domain Takedown Order Against Anna's Archive

• Linux kernel maintainers pitch emergency killswitch after CopyFail, Dirty Frag

  Killswitch would work through the kernel's security interface and is mainly intended for subsystems that systems can survive without for a while. In practical terms, Levin's argument is that temporarily losing some networking or crypto functionality is preferable to leaving known vulnerable code exposed on production systems.

  • Kernel Kill Switch

• Theatre streaming is not a threat to in-person attendance, new research shows

• Intel to Put Nvidia GPUs in Intel SoCs

• Microsoft denies Win 11 CPU boost is lazy, says Apple does it and you love it

• Wordle to Become Prime-Time TV Show, with Savannah Guthrie as Host

  • NBC orders 'Wordle' game show hosted by Savannah Guthrie

• Update hints at four separate Steam Machine models and a reservation system

• Texas sues Netflix for advertising 'bait and switch' and spying

• Red Hot Chili Peppers sell music catalogue for $300M

• A million baby monitors and security cameras were easily viewable by hackers

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• In praise of HTTP

  All in all, HTTP is, frankly, a masterpiece. If you’re not all that familiar with its low-level details, as I was not, it might take a few days of intense scrutiny to realize just how good it is at what it does.

  In the end, HTTP really isn’t so bad. It’s the way we’ve allowed it to be abused that’s bad.

  • those of us who were saying "whoa there, this is going to suck" in the face of ever more baroque extensions and re-implementations and frank stupidity like "Encrypt Everything!" get to say we told you so. cold comfort. Also, gopher was always lame.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• All Those A.I. Note Takers? They're Making Lawyers Nervous

• Women at the sharp end as AI takes over administrative roles

• AI data centers face increasing complaints about inaudible but 'felt' infrasound

• Big Tech's $725B AI spending spree sends free cash flow to a decade low

• I knew my writing students used AI. Their confessions led to a teaching moment

• Mythos Finds a Curl Vulnerability

  The report concluded it found five “Confirmed security vulnerabilities”. I think using the term confirmed is a little amusing when the AI says it confidently by itself. Yes, the AI thinks they are confirmed, but the curl security team has a slightly different take. Five issues felt like nothing as we had expected an extensive list. Once my curl security team fellows and I had poked on the this short list for a number of hours and dug into the details, we had trimmed the list down and were left with one confirmed vulnerability. The other four were three false positives (they highlighted shortcomings that are documented in API documentation) and the fourth we deemed “just a bug”. The single confirmed vulnerability is going to end up a severity low CVE planned to get published in sync with our pending next curl release 8.21.0 in late June. The flaw is not going to make anyone grasp for breath.

• Microsoft's African Data Center Falters on Payment Demands

  • Microsoft's African data center falters on payment demands, Bloomberg reports

• Anthropic says Claude went evil because of fictional depictions of evil AI.

• AI data center project sucked 29M gallons of water

• I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Training AI

• AI will make language barriers disappear, diminish our understanding of cultures

• Behind the Claude Frenzy That Ate Up All the Mac Minis

• Forget the AI job apocalypse. AIs real threat is worker control and surveillance

• Using AI for just 10 minutes might make you lazy and dumb

• Google Says Criminal Hackers Used A.I. To Find a Major Software Flaw

• AI-powered hacking has exploded into industrial-scale threat, Google says

• Students Boo Commencement Speaker After She Calls AI Next Industrial Revolution

• Family of Florida mass shooting victim sues OpenAI in US court

• Anthropic's bug-hunting Mythos greatest marketing stunt ever says cURL creator

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Why you're probably going to lose money on Polymarket

• Coinbase Resumes Trading After Seven-Hour Exchange Outage

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Cerebras to raise IPO price range to $150-$160 as demand surges

• Chris Hohn's hedge fund slashes $8B Microsoft stake in warning over AI

• A financial crisis may be coming – it won't be like last time

• It's not just drivers who hate high gas prices. So do gas station owners

• Strategies to find free or low-cost food when money is tight

• The Highest-Flying Repo Men Are Collecting Spirit Airlines' Jets

• GM cutting salaried IT workers as it trims costs, evaluates needs

• Nvidia embraces AI investor, topping $40B in equity bets 2026

• Michael Burry Warns of Stock Crash as Tech Jump Echoes 2000 Peak

• GM cutting up to 600 white-collar jobs, even as it seeks tech talent

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• USDA Restores Whole, Reduced-Fat Milk Options in Child Nutrition Programs

• Ohio gov candidate Vivek Ramaswamy sounds alarm about Medicaid fraud — after 288 companies found registered to same address.

• California cities seek to bless polyamorous unions: it will get messy in court

• A huge win in Berenson v Biden - by Alex Berenson

  Today, the Trump Administration and I settled the federal government’s role in Berenson v Biden, my lawsuit against Biden Administration and Pfizer officials for violating my Constitutional rights and forcing Twitter to ban me in summer 2021. After three hard-fought years, this settlement marks a massive win in my fight to hold the government and Pfizer accountable for their conspiracy to silence me. I could not have done it without your support. (Or Elon Musk’s.) The agreement includes a six-figure payment and a statement “the Government did in fact violate the First Amendment by exerting substantial coercive pressure on social media companies such as Twitter to suppress disfavored speech like Plaintiff’s.” James Lawrence, my (very able) lawyer, and I believe this settlement marks the first time any individual American has received a cash payment to resolve a lawsuit over government coercion of social media companies.

• We Traced U.S. Government Gold to a Drug Cartel

Trump

• Elon Musk and Tim Cook among CEOs expected to accompany Trump on China trip

Left Angst

• Three dozen medical experts say President Donald Trump ‘mentally unfit,’ should be removed from office with ‘greatest urgency’

• Truth Social lays bare narrow obsessions of an online president

• Detachment 201, the US Army unit led by tech executives

• American Agriculture Is Broken

• National Academy of Sciences experts denounce Trump's NSF board purge

• Checkmate in Iran

• ICE to Develop Own Smart Glasses to 'Supplement' Its Facial Recognition App

• not San Francisco: Prosecutors Investigating Drugs-for-Votes Scheme Were Told Not to Pursue Charges

• Man accused in attempted assassination of Trump pleads not guilty to all charges

  The man accused of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump during last month’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner entered a not guilty plea during his federal arraignment Monday morning in Washington, D.C. Cole Allen, 31, appeared in federal court where all four charges against him were formally read. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden also advised Allen of the new grand jury indictment filed against him. Through his attorney, Allen entered a not guilty plea on all counts. In a newly filed motion, defense attorneys argue Pirro and Blanche should be disqualified from the case because both were inside the ballroom during the alleged incident. Attorneys said that it creates at least the appearance of a conflict of interest and could undermine public confidence in the fairness of the prosecution.

  • If they were intended victims; they might well bear some ill will and prejudice as prosecutors. However, if Cole wasn't out to kill anyone, then they were just innocent, uninvolved bystanders like anyone else, right? ... Not quite Menedez brothers killing their parents and then begging for mercy as orphans grade chutzpah. But close.

• Why China Believes America Will Flame Out

• A US satellite imagery blackout over the Gulf is blinding journalists

• 590k buyers paid $59M for Trump's gold phone, but not one has shipped

• Why are stock prices still so high?

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Cyber-crime increasingly coming with threats of physical violence

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• This Is How to Defeat China's Hacker Army

World

• Japan's New Care Workers: Bodybuilders, Wrestlers and MMA Fighters

• Energy Prices Are Driving Demand for Solar Panels and Heat Pumps

• UK wants fresh fingerprints on £300M biometrics platform

• University student arrested in Taiwan for radio hack that halted high speed rail

• The Eurovision Song Contest and the European Union

• UK firefighters called to one lithium-ion battery fire every five hours

• Modi urges Indians to WFH and limit foreign travel as Iran war continues

• NHS to grant Palantir contractors unlimited access to patient data

• Palantir's access to identifiable NHS England patient data 'dangerous', MPs say

• India to shrink zones around nuclear reactors to free up land, sources say

• North Korea drops references to unification from constitution

• Price rises in UK shops slow as retailers apply heavy discounts to lure shoppers

Iran / Houthi

• Iran mulls taking control of all 7 cables passing through Strait of Hormuz

• Hormuz closure extends well beyond oil to threaten Chinese EVs

• How AI mania is disguising big companies' hit from Iran war

• Iran's two-tier internet access fuels anger and exposes cracks in the regime

Israel

• West Bank settlers forced a Palestinian to dig up the body of his father

• Israel Turned Eurovision's Stage into a Soft Power Tool

• AI Targeting Firm Faces Protests for Shipments to Israeli Military

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Rassvet, Russia's Answer to Starlink

Health / Medicine

• Brain motion is driven by mechanical coupling with the abdomen

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Norovirus outbreak on Florida-bound cruise ship sickens 115 passengers

• RAF Airdrop Response to Suspected Hantavirus Case on Remote Island

• French woman was told by doctors hantavirus symptoms were just anxiety

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• America the Undammed

• The solution to urban heat is simpler than you think

• Salmon make clicking sounds (at 139dB) when stressed, but no one knows how

• When the 'Eternity Glaciers' Disappear

• Will We Ever Be Able to Forecast Volcanic Eruptions Like Weather?

• Engineered Carbon Removal Was Supposed to Be Getting Cheaper

• Australians will call 'bullshit' on green energy without clearer benefits

• As the Planet Warms, Why Is the Upper Atmosphere Cooling?

• Day After Grizzly Attack, Dimwitted Tourist Takes Video of Bear from 5 Feet Away

• Stay indoors warning issued across three US states as toxic smog fills the air

• 'Not normal': one April day, planet's 50 hottest cities were in a single country