2026-07-06

etc

• Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July

Horseshit

• Scientist who cleaned space toilet on work experience now leading Mars exploration teams

  Cleaning a space toilet while on work experience was Claire Parfitt's first introduction to a career away from Earth's orbit. But she never imagined her time at the National Space Centre in Leicester, when she was 14, would one day see her lead a team exploring future Mars missions.

• The '1776 Diet': What Americans ate during the nation's founding

• New DNA technology leads to identification of Revolutionary War soldier

• Fitness influencer banned from flight for attempting to board ‘naked’ amid record-breaking heatwave.

  Airing out her grievances from the airport, the siren, sporting a sporty athleisure two-piece, made complete with a pair of black biker shorts and a V-cut sports bra, claimed the Lufthansa staffer, “looked at me and said, ‘You can’t board like that…You’re not wearing anything. You’re naked.’” Elisa argued that she’d “never once heard anything about a dress code on a plane,” but representatives for Lufthansa say their wardrobe rules are plain and simple. The airline stated that passengers must wear clothing “appropriate to the character of a public journey” that does not impair the well-being of fellow travelers from diverse backgrounds, according to reports.

• The missing 500 million: Cosmic bombardment melted Earth's first crust

• Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

• Moving Back Home Used to Be a Sign of Failure. Now It Shows Financial Savvy

• Large planets lighter than cotton candy

• You May Not Need 8 Hours of Sleep

• Pioneer of 'extreme male brain' theory of autism now says phrase unhelpful

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Wikipedia Is Battling for the Soul of the Internet

  • The Tides Foundation must control the narrative!

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• All Your Favorite Gadgets Are Getting More Expensive Again

• Solo Dev's Train Sim Created Is Being Called The Best Ever Made

  This extraordinarily realistic sim made by one-person development team Novatetsu Games is in fact set in a fictional region of Japan, but is created so lovingly that you’ll believe it’s real life.

• New Android security setting spots bad networks and fake cell towers

• Retail memory price increases are set to slow for the simple reason that nobody can afford it anymore.

• Dupes (product clones) took over the world

• Xbox is a disaster

• Orchestra Locks Horns with Copyright Cops over Works by Long-Dead Composers

• Hollywood's spent 25 years chasing the wrong lessons from The Lord of the Rings

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Disk Polishing Goes Open Source

• megawatts by microwave

  the electrical industry adopted microwave communications technology alongside the telephone industry, and for much the same reasons. The high bandwidth of microwave links allowed for multiplexing huge numbers of channels, and the lack of wireline infrastructure (especially shared with the actual transmission lines) promised increased reliability. In my previous article on passive repeaters, I noted that they were especially popular with electrical utilities. Now, we learn why: utilities throughout the country built microwave communication systems that carried a fraction of the traffic of the Bell System, but often carried it to more remote locations and with higher reliability requirements.

• Run Windows 2000 on a DEC Alpha with a new es40 fork

• Composite Video on the NES: Why's it so wobbly?

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA is looking for volunteers to live in a space simulator for a year.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI's apparent failure to visit key site raises questions over UK investment

• U.S. Policies Unintentionally Accelerated China's Open AI Ecosystems

• Google commercial imagines Declaration of Independence written with help from AI

• New California study finds highly educated workers most harmed by AI

• US and Chinese companies train almost all of the most-used AI models

• China's LongCat-2.0 Becomes the Biggest AI Model Without Nvidia Chips

• Would You Let A.I. Michael Caine Read You the 'Odyssey'?

• NHS to use AI on its app to direct patients to appropriate services

• Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed enough

• Tripadvisor AI summaries give glowing reviews to dangerous hotels

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Prediction Markets Offer Bets on Wildfires

• Prediction Markets Let You Bet on Whether a Wildfire Will Burn Down Your Town

Economicon / Business / Finance

• The New 'Bootstrap' to the American Dream: Deep Cleaning Cars

• Job descriptions got longer than CVS receipts

• Nuclear Startups Hit a Big Milestone. Why It Matters–and Why It Doesn't

• Bending Spoons built a $23B tech empire from struggling brands

• Is The Economist Always Wrong?

• Jim Keller's startup is building a factory to mass-produce small chip fabs

• EasyJet reaches 'agreement in principle' over potential takeover

• Egg companies made $1.22B in profit off $6 carton

• Highest-paying jobs in America? Doctors, doctors, more doctors

• The Bureaucratic Hell of Getting a Job in 2026

Trump

• President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'

Democrats

• Paul Pelosi in hit-and-run in Napa County wine country, police say

  The husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was involved in a hit-and-run in California that left a parked car with “major” damage authorities said Saturday, and he could face misdemeanor charges. Paul Pelosi was driving his brown convertible Friday in Yountville, a town in the heart of wine country, when he struck a legally parked car on the side of the road, briefly stopped and then drove away, the Napa County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. No injuries were reported.

  • Nancy Pelosi's Husband Faces Hit-and-Run Charge

  According to the Napa County Sheriff's Office, an eyewitness in Yountville called 911 around 2:30 p.m. Friday after watching a convertible strike a parked car, pause for a moment, then take off. Pelosi drove the convertible, which was later found a short distance away, disabled at the exact intersection where Napa County busted him for driving under the influence in 2022. An alcohol screening device found no booze in his system this time, and he wasn't arrested.

Left Angst

• Trump’s Mount Rushmore Speech Outrages the Media Like Nothing Since the Days of Reagan.

• Educators disciplined over Charlie Kirk posts are securing big payouts

• White House deletes web pages about energy conservation as heatwave slams US

• Chemical Accidents Rise as Trump Administration Proposes Weakening Safety Rules

  The number of accidents involving releases of dangerous chemicals rose by 57 percent between 2021 and 2025, from 83 to 131, according to an analysis released Monday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit that works with former government officials.

• FIFA makes U-turn following call from Trump

  • Trump Asked FIFA to Review U.S. Player's Suspension. Now He's Eligible to Play

• What J. D. Vance Once Knew

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Wars are blurring lines between corporate and national security

World

• Google: Earthquake early warning system did not work properly in Turkey

• India seeks to quell public backlash on ethanol-mixed fuel

• 'It's whack-a-mole': how Europe's smart border melted down

• EU Council forces Chat Control via fast-track

• UK plans to give established media more visibility on YouTube

• French wildfires force officials to ban public from Tour de France's third stage

• Fines doubled as teens outsmart Australia's world-first social media ban

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Ukraine striking Russian energy infrastructure at unprecedented rate

China

• After hooking China on coffee, Starbucks ramps up consumer strategy

• Has China obtained the most important machine?

• the largest destruction of household wealth in recorded history, executed deliberately by the state that owned it.

• 'Chinese Dreamcore,' Where Gen Z Relives a Brighter Past

Health / Medicine

• Egg consumption inversely correlated with Alzheimer's

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• A Parasite That Causes “Explosive Diarrhea” Is Spreading Across The US.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Europe's air conditioning culture wars heat up

  • Europe's new climate in seven charts

  • "Stop Moralizing AirCon": How Institutions Shift Responsibility onto Individuals

  Rather than asking how we should collectively organize to reduce suffering, we ask whether those who suffer deserve relief in the first place. The result is a culture that blames individuals for suffering that civilization has already acquired the capability, and thus the responsibility, to prevent.

  It isn’t about whether or not people should buy a window unit or save more energy. It is about asking our governments why hundreds of thousands of heat deaths become our problem rather than a failure of preparation. It is about why we must feel guilty for needing help from the very institutions we forged to help us.

  • France: Multicultural crowds brawl over discount Lidl air conditioners as heatwave looms

  • Researchers find ways to keep homes cooler in summer

• Mysterious debris could be 'space balls'– may contain toxic rocket fuel

  • Australia probes mystery space balls that washed up on beach

  • Strange Balls found on Queensland beaches could be toxic 'space debris': experts

• “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

• The biggest iceberg has melted away, aged 40 or so

• New World screwworm is disgusting. How could it not be a food safety issue?