2026-10-16

Horseshit

• The 'leap second' could disappear

  • Timekeepers rethink leap seconds to avoid a "negative second"

  • An accelerating Earth led experts to adopt the leap hour

  • Scientists vote to end leap seconds

  • October 15, 2026: The world has decided to get rid of leap seconds

• Mini organs launching to space may help future astronauts

• Sign of the Apocalypse: Coke Plus — 'It's made with fiber..."

  "Coke Plus has 5 grams of indigestible dextrin fiber, which it says can 'suppress the absorption of fat from food.'"

• What longevity experts wish people would stop saying

• The inconvenient truth about convenience culture

• I designed a nose guard for my dog and gave it away. Now 500 dogs wear one

• The Solar System could die one billion times earlier than thought

• L.A. nonprofit rented luxury Santa Monica apartment, BMW for CEO living in Hawaii

• Eel Smuggling Is the Organized Crime Racket You've Never Heard Of

Obit

• William Draper, Pioneering Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist, Dies at 98

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• NPR CEO Katherine Maher gets First Amendment award despite past criticism

  "As president and CEO of NPR, Katherine Maher has guided one of America’s most important public media institutions through a period of extraordinary political, legal, and financial scrutiny, reaffirming journalism’s essential role in a democratic society," the magazine said in a press release earlier this year about Maher receiving the James C. Goodale First Amendment Award on Oct. 26. Harper's Magazine also claimed that Maher led NPR "through a period of heightened scrutiny and challenge" along with "successfully battling" President Donald Trump's efforts to defund NPR, though Congress still rescinded $1.1 billion in federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2025.

Musk

• The Tesla Roadster could have stayed vaporware

• Could the New SpaceX-Assisted Tesla Roadster Actually Fly? A Closer Look at What It May Actually Do.

• Tesla's 'Security Protocols' Stopped DHS from Installing a Tracking Device

• X purges 13,000 accounts linked to suspected meddling ahead of US midterms

• Elon Musk's Texas rescue mission

• Tesla confirms Autopilot/FSD was on when car crossed a median and killed a man

• Starlink's Entry into Wireless Is Being Overhyped

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Gas-Only Cars Fall Below 50% of Global New Car Sales for the First Time

Robot uprising / Humanoid Helpers

• For Walmart, Replacing Humans with Robots Is a Multibillion-Dollar Struggle

• German police launch investigation after robot allegedly gropes teenage girl

  • German authorities investigate robot's alleged harassment of teen

  German authorities opened an investigation into possible sexual harassment after a robot controlled by two young men touched the buttocks of a 16-year-old girl and made thrusting movements toward her, police said. Police in the western city of Cologne responded after the incident overnight Saturday to Sunday in which the robot’s suspected 16-year-old owner and a 19-year-old companion were said to have filmed the alleged assault.

  • dipshit kids define "Doing it Wrong"

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Automattic Applies for a .php Top-Level Domain

• Sony shutdown Overdrive store for pirated PS5 games,clones appeared within hours

• Qualcomm's lengthy legal battle with Arm nets it $2 (not a typo) in damages

• Epic says its new vibe-coded Epic Games Launcher is faster than Steam

• New motherboards, old RAM, plenty of life left in yesterday's PCs

• Schools across US protest FCC plan that could disconnect kids from Internet

  Schools and libraries from around the US pleaded with the Federal Communications Commission to drop the idea of ending E-Rate, a $2 billion-a-year program that connects students and library visitors to the Internet.

• Microsoft says Windows 11 is now 'more responsive' and runs better on 8GB of RAM

Panopticon / Surveiled State

• Meta's Smart Glasses May Have Been Recording People Without Their Knowledge

• How Should Flock Cameras Be Regulated Under the Fourth Amendment?

• Flock CEO: If you want a crime-free society, be ready to give up your privacy

  • Flock CEO: We haven't 'fired' any police departments as customers

  • Flock CEO defends surveillance technology amid national backlash

• Georgia man sues Flock, sheriff's office over alleged ALPR-fueled retaliation

• The Battlefield Has No Perimeter: Smart Cameras Become Military Reconnaissance

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Something is falling apart at GNOME, and it's not subtle

  People inside GNOME are fighting each other publicly over politics, over whether to use AI, over Charlie Kirk and J.K. Rowling. Long-time contributors are getting blocked on Discord. Board members are resigning and the Foundation sits on the news for weeks.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Things are finally looking up for NASA's first missions to Venus in a generation

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI Safety Is Not a Corporate Plot

  Maybe some people are so venal that they can’t imagine anyone truly caring about the welfare of humanity, but they should stop projecting this on everyone else. The experts are warning you that AI could kill you because they think AI could kill you. Many of them have made personal sacrifices to get the message out. Stop adding thumbtacks to your conspiracy corkboard and take their message seriously.

  • It would help their credibility if they were to stop trying to make the BadThingAI (tm) real; and even more if they weren't standing to profit from the fear they're selling. I still say they're trying to shift blame for the bubble. "Oops all those profits got taken by the government, so sorry, not our fault we sold you a dime of stock for $100k"

  • Bill Gates returns to wage war on AI risks

  • A.I. Companies Say They Aren't Responsible for Their Unpredictable Products

  • FTC probes Anthropic, OpenAI after Trump dismissed AI fears as "hoax"

• Anthropic's Quarterly Revenue Jumped 45% to Nearly $17B

  • Anthropic flags revenue surge to investors ahead of stock market debut

  • Anthropic spent $7.33B on compute to earn $4.6B in 2025, per its IPO filing

  • Anthropic Stands Alone as Rest of US IPO Market Slows to a Crawl

• Eight states sue OpenAI, saying ChatGPT isn't safe for kids

  • Bipartisan coalition of states sues OpenAI over user safety

  • Eight states accuse OpenAI of coaching children to harm themselves in lawsuit

• Arrested OpenAI Engineer Booked a One-Way Ticket to Saudi Arabia

  • US arrests Saudi employee of OpenAI for allegedly bugging its offices

  • Recording device hidden in toilet paper found in top-secret OpenAI meeting room

  • Arrest of OpenAI worker triggers debate over Silicon Valley spying

  • OpenAI engineer booked one-way Saudi flight before arrest

• Anthropic warns of AI 'worms' spreading across smart gadgets

  • Escaped AI Agents Polluted the Web with Self-Replicating Code

• Character.ai files for bankruptcy following suits alleging ties to teen suicides

• Bloomberg Doubles Down on Conversational AI

• Teachers Using AI Say It Frees Up Time for What Matters Most

• AI Companies Play Cat-and-Mouse with Secret-Stealing Spies

• AI-powered law firms draw lawyers from big firms

• Nvidia CEO Says He Would Cut Off Buyers Who Build Unsafe AI

• State attorneys general seize on AI as Washington stalls

• Linux kernel devs drop obligatory confession of AI tool usage

• Ricursive Intelligence bets on AI-designed chips to solve the compute crisis

• The AI boom's next bottleneck is money, not chips

• AI Data Centers Cost Billions to Build. This Is Why

• OpenAI's average basic pay for British staff hits £794,000

• Cookie Monster Tries to Meet His A.I. Mandate

• Scientists are finding AI may make us remember things that never happened

• Market selloff, rising rates test AI data centre deal boom

• OpenAI, Google pushing new AI models easily tricked into making nudes

• What Are Data Centers Doing? A Mind-Boggling Amount of Math

• Chinese Users Find Little Money in 'Selling' Their Faces to AI

• Investors dump data centre bonds as AI borrowers face 'Darwin moment'

• CNN Announces AI Partnership with Google

• Will Universities Respond to the AI Moment?

• To Get This Job at McKinsey, You'll Need to Survive a Debate with AI First

• Apple and Meta team up to make Muse AI model run on Mac computers

• When A.I. Comes for Your Purpose in Life

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Kalshi CEO says state-led oversight of US prediction markets would push them out

Economicon / Business / Finance

• America Needs More Capital

  Economic growth will solve the debt problem and keep us ahead in AI. That will require new investors.

• Asia chip stocks fall, AI funding worries

• Expedia Rigs Travel Markets and Raises Your Hotel Price

• Fintech startup Ramp hits $60B valuation after $1.85B funding round

• Apple Joins Nvidia in the $5T Valuation Club

• Chasing China's Monazite Monopoly

• Netflix to lay off about 1k employees in biggest cuts since 2022

  • Netflix is laying off 6% of its workforce

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• US Federal budget deficit hits $2T in 2026 as national debt costs surge

• 11th Circuit Says Cliffhangers Are Not Speech; Greenlights Social Media Age Gate

Democrats

• Ilhan Omar investigation seeks to denaturalize and deport congresswoman

Left Angst

• Biden DOJ, Jack Smith obtained data on 639K donors in Arctic Frost probe: Grassley

  the donor and potential voter data ranged from 2005 to 2021, which Grassley described as “well outside Smith’s scope of purported review.” At the time, Smith was probing President Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. This is further evidence, the Iowa senator said, “that the Special Counsel operation was designed to map out the Republican Party.”

• Banks closed accounts of MAGA, pro-life and other conservative groups disfavored by Biden admin

  JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO Bank were found to have discriminated against American consumers, citing “reputation risk” as a reason to deny service between 2020 and 2025.

  • OCC Releases Report on Large Banks' Debanking Activities

  the OCC found that broad reputation risk policies—which lacked clear standards and objective, risk-based criteria—disadvantaged certain Americans based on their political, religious, or social views or based on their lawful business activities. The OCC also found that banks maintained public and nonpublic policies restricting certain industry sectors’ access to financial services, including those in oil and gas exploration, coal mining or coal-powered plants, firearms or ammunition manufacturing or distribution, construction or operation of detention facilities, the manufacturing, distribution or online retail of tobacco or e-cigarettes, and digital asset activities.

• Starlink Suspicions and a Frantic Warning: Inside Trump's Turn on Zelensky

  • White House Denies Restricting Starlink in Ukraine

• Trump calls off livestream of execution

  • Hegseth church allies backed plan for 'public' execution of Fort Hood shooter

• Serbian ruler's role in 'illegal' effort to help Trump business

• Federal Agents Detained over 500 US Citizens in Trump's Immigration Crackdown

• Why Is Tech Billionaire Marc Andreessen So Mad?

• Secret documents reveal donors behind $330M for Trump's ballroom

  • Nvidia, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta gave Trump $92M for his ballroom

• ICE's Lies About a Man Officer Ran over Undone by Footage from CCTV Camera

• "I'm a Lawyer." Said the White House Press Secretary. Florida Would Like a Word

  The new White House Press Secretary keeps telling national TV she’s a lawyer, and no bar in America has her on file. In Florida, that’s a felony. Tonight I filed UPL complaints with The Florida Bar and the State Bar of California and sent copies to two DAs.

• Anti-Trump protesters torch Albanian government buildings

  Violent student protests have gripped Albania with government buildings torched, petrol bombs launched and calls for the prime minister to resign. Riot police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse crowds in the capital, Tirana, on Thursday - the third day of unrest. Protests started because of plans by Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, to build a multi-billion-dollar luxury marina and tourism development on an uninhabited island and unspoilt stretch of coastline in the south of the country. But the largely peaceful protests of the past few months widened this week to include tens of thousands of students who are furious with the poor state of the education system and a lack of jobs. On Wednesday, demonstrators set fire to the education ministry and attacked other government buildings, including the prime minister's office and interior ministry.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Canadian ransomware negotiator arrested amid FBI hacker crackdown

• FBI disrupts North Korean 'laptop farm' used to infiltrate US companies

• Bend Oregon elementary school active shooter killed; Multiple victims reported

  According to police, officers received the first call just before 1 p.m. about a shot fired into a car. Officers arrived minutes later, at which time they received another report that the shooter was down. Police said multiple 911 calls were placed during this time regarding an active shooter inside the school. The suspected shooter has been shot and killed, according to police. At this time it is unclear who shot the suspect. Police confirmed that there are multiple victims, including children. At least two people have been taken to a local hospital in unknown condition.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• SK Hynix conditions new US factory on more US chip equipment exports to China

• US Air Force pilots used malware-laden USB drives to plan Afghanistan missions

• US floats unfreezing some Russian assets to restart Ukraine peace talks

• Data Centers Are War Targets Now

• Amsterdam server seized at request of U.S. authorities after Antifa allegations

World

• No kidding: Fridge hack costing millions and sparking fires stemmed from poor security

  French authorities say the systems, made up of entire fleets of refrigerators and freezers throughout a store, were hacked. More specifically, Internet-connected controllers that allow technicians to remotely administer the store-wide systems were compromised. The unknown attackers responsible then activated defrosters long enough for the fridges to reach temperatures as high as 50° Celsius (122° Fahrenheit). By the time the mass compromise was discovered, food was spoiled, and in some cases their electrical systems caught fire.

• No timeline for lifting Land Registry paywall as ownership remains opaque

• EU negotiates sanction swap with China to rescue critical ASML supplier

• Meta AI in Brazil: Lula Posters Blocked, Flávio Posters Generated

• Saudi Arabia: Death Penalty for Facebook Comment

• BBC licence fee to be extended with 'YouTube tax' to force more to pay

Israel

• 'Nightmare Scenario': Zero-Click Spyware Is Infecting Phones via Targeted Ads

  • Israeli firm's digital ads enabling installation of 'zero-click' spyware

  • Israeli Firms Placed Spyware at Al Jazeera via Ads, Report Says

  • New 'zero-click' spyware hacked phones using targeted ads

  • An Israeli firm is sending zero-click spyware through online ads

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Eutelsat shares jump as Ukraine flags curbs on Starlink military-grade service

• Germany Puts Ukrainian Ex-Officer On Trial For Nord Stream "War Crime" As Defense Says Pipelines Were Fair Game

  Four years after the largest act of infrastructure sabotage in postwar Europe, Germany finally has a defendant. Just one. Serhii Kuznietsov, a 50-year-old former Ukrainian army officer, went on trial Wednesday at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, accused of leading the seven-person team that blew up three of the four Nord Stream lines on September 26, 2022. Prosecutors charge him as a co-perpetrator of a war crime, namely an attack on civilian objects, along with causing an explosion, destroying structures and disrupting public utilities. Around 30 hearing days are scheduled, running into February.

• Ukraine strikes fourth Russian data center Sberbank's Balakovo in Saratov region

China

• China is turning trash into treasure on a scale

• Has China lost 130M people?

• China solar giants shed another 40,000 jobs last year as overcapacity persists

Health / Medicine

• New Cancer Drugs Are Revolutionary. Why Don't More Patients Get Them?

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Even Without AI, the Risk of a Biological Attack Is Terrifying

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• A perfect storm: how the super El Niño is devastating the fishing industry

• Desperate to clear toxic haze, Indonesia to douse its skies with dry ice

• How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?

• Microplastics interact with water to create highly reactive molecules

  • Microplastics in water aren't inert and make damaging chemicals on their own

• Nine-Inch Snails

• How a ‘Miracle’ Vine from Japan Became an Invasive Species 100 Years Ago After American Farmers Were Paid $8 Per Acre to Plant It.

  • Kudzu does stop erosion, even in gullies too steep for goats, i have to admit.

• How Climate Change Is Causing 'The Gentrification of Seafood'