2026-04-18

etc

• Recall issued for power banks after explosion kills woman

  Casely Wireless Portable Power Banks (Model E33A)

Horseshit

• Monumental ship burial beneath ancient Norwegian mound predates the Viking Age

• (2010) Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same photo

• 'How do I end a call?': the elderly Japanese determined to master smartphones

• How to make buffet breakfasts less wasteful

• 3D-Printed Homes, an Abandoned $590k Deposit, the FBI

• AI boom is city's weirdest tech boom, says S.F.'s chief economist

• You Are What You Consume

  Why should what you produce, rather than what you consume, be the most important thing about you? Why shouldn’t the fact that you race boats or watch anime or drink matcha lattes be what defines your identity? Why should I call myself a “writer” rather than a “science fiction fan” or a “rabbit dad”? Just imagining introducing myself as the latter makes me cringe a little. But why? One seemingly obvious answer is that the market values production over consumption. In fact, this is almost the definition of the two terms — work is what you get paid to do, while consumption is what you have to give up something in order to enjoy. But this doesn’t explain why culture and society should give additional accolades to production over consumption. You already get paid for going to work; why should you get praised for it too?

• Briefly, before the neurons liquefy Researchers Induce Smells with Ultrasound

• Beanie Is Designed to Read Your Thoughts

• Smithsonian secrets most likely to blow your mind

• As helium-3 runs scarce, researchers seek new ways to chill quantum computers

  Gunnarsson opens a closet hiding a stack of scuba tanks filled with the fridges’ precious fuel: helium-3, a rare isotope of the gas that fills birthday balloons. This exotic ingredient is both the technology’s secret sauce and its Achilles’ heel. Helium-3 is primarily sourced from the decaying components of nuclear weapons, making it one of the most expensive substances on the planet. A full-blown helium-3 crisis is unlikely in the next decade. But some quantum researchers say they are already feeling the pinch of rising prices.

• Neanderthal infants were enormous compared with modern humans

• Older Women Are in Demand by Younger Men

• The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden's Surveillance Machine

• Shakespeare owned a house in London. We know where it was

• From Vivaldi to Van Halen, classical and heavy metal are a natural pairing

• Recent advances push Big Tech closer to the Q-Day danger zone

• The Watch Expert Catching Multimillion-Dollar Counterfeits

• 3-D Model Shows Firefighters Had Limited View in LaGuardia Crash

• Airline adds bunk beds for economy travelers but bans snacks, smells and cuddles

• If You Want a Better World, Act Like You Live in It

• Our Longing for Inconvenience

• The Narrative Crisis of Modern Baseball

• Why eldest siblings are brainier

• Healing the Invisible Scars of Gen Z's Over-Sanitized World

• New German search engine lets people check whether their relatives were Nazis

Obit

• Inventor of Heelys Dies at 71

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Gen Z is 10 times more accepting of violence against speakers than Boomers

Musk

• Tesla is facing up to $14.5B in lawsuits – and it's only getting worse

• Investors salivate over SpaceX's mega IPO, the company reportedly lost $5B

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Norway Launches First Driverless Bus in Regular Traffic

• Average new UK electric car price is now lower than petrol vehicles

• Tesla Cybertruck sales inflated: SpaceX bought 1,279 units

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Editors resign from math journal, former Elsevier publisher a mini-dictator?

• The Accidental Winners of the War on Higher Ed

• How Silicon Valley Is Turning Scientists into Exploited Gig Workers

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• 'Middle Class' Actors Are Getting 'Squeezed Out' of Hollywood

• Engineer open-sources radar system that's 95% cheaper than $250k offerings

• Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

• Billionaire Andrew Forrest takes Meta to court over scam ads using his likeness

• Bluesky has been dealing with a DDoS attack for nearly a full day

• Not so good for others: Counterfeit Samsung 990 Pro SSDs are showing up in new markets.

• The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

• iPhone Loyalty Hits 96.4% as Android Users Four Times More Likely to Switch

• Netflix plans to add a vertical video feed

• Who will maintain the web when PHP's veterans retire?

• Apple's Mac Mini Went Viral. Why Can't You Buy One?

• Amazon won't release Fire Sticks that support sideloading anymore

• Age verification is a mess but we're doing it anyway

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• After a saga of broken promises, a European rover has a ride to Mars

• Interstellar invader 3I/ATLAS is spraying tons of water into space every second. Jupiter-bound spacecraft JUICE discovers.

• SETI may have been tuned to the wrong frequencies

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• DARPA builds AI to investigate China's claim it can break military encryption

• Data centre delays threaten to choke AI expansion

• AI images are being used in insurance scams

• Don't Use A.I. To Do This

• Finance ministers and top bankers raise serious concerns about Mythos AI model

• The $10B Startup Training AI to Replace the White-Collar Workforce

• Anthropic in talks to give US Government access to its Mythos model

  • White House Works to Give US Agencies Anthropic Mythos AI

  • Anthropic's Dario Amodei to Meet with White House about Mythos

• Anthropic chief Dario Amodei: 'I don't want AI turned on our own people'

• Bernie Sanders: AI is coming for the working class. We must fight

• Sam Altman's Side Hustles Blur the Line Between OpenAI's Interests and His Own

• Data centre electricity use soared by 17% in 2025 - IEA

• Why having "humans in the loop" in an AI war is an illusion

• AI agents hire meatbags as the perils of chaos thrive in Silicon Valley

• The Allbirds Pivot Is a Terrible Idea... Right?

• How Dangerous is Mythos? Why Did Anthropic Decide Not to Release the New Model?

• OpenAI to spend more than $20B on Cerebras chips, receive stake

• Finance ministers and top bankers raise serious concerns about Mythos model

• Kevin Weil and Bill Peebles exit OpenAI as company continues to shed side quests

Neo Gambling / Crypto con games

• Crypto Faces Increased Threat from Quantum Attacks

• What Are Stablecoins Used for Today? Estimating the Distribution of Stablecoins

• Billionaire John Arnold Warns of Debt, Addiction in Online Sports-Betting Boom

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Netflix Cofounder Reed Hastings Is Leaving the Company

  • Reed Hastings to step down from Netflix board

• Taiwan Market Cap Tops $4T on AI Boom, Overtaking UK

• DExit: The Three Trillion Dollar Corporate Exodus Almost No One Is Talking About

  When I was a 20-something startup founder, the rule was simple. You incorporated in Delaware, full stop. Every lawyer said so. Every investor demanded it. Every term sheet assumed it. A company incorporated in Nevada or Montana was not merely unusual, it was suspect, the kind of detail that made a sophisticated investor wonder what you were hiding. Delaware was the default not because anyone had compared jurisdictions carefully, but because Delaware had built, over roughly a century, a reputation for something genuinely valuable: predictability. Its Court of Chancery was staffed by specialists in corporate law. Its General Corporation Law was the most studied statute in American business. Its decisions were, if not always correct, at least reliably the kind of decisions a reasonable judge applying settled doctrine would make. That reliability had a dollar value, and for decades investors, founders, and boards paid for it gladly. That world is ending. It is ending faster than most corporate lawyers are willing to admit in print. And a small, mostly unknown organization called Leave Delaware has quietly become one of the most consequential forces in American corporate governance. Its thesis is straightforward. The Delaware Court of Chancery, once the crown jewel of American business adjudication, has drifted from neutral arbiter into activist gatekeeper. Leave Delaware does not litigate. It does not lobby. It documents, publishes, and informs.

• Michael Burry found a $1.7T 'earnings illusion' hiding in tech stocks

• Oil prices plunge as Iran says Strait of Hormuz 'open' during ceasefire

• Uber will now pick up your returns from your doorstep

• Meta targets May 20 for first wave of layoffs; additional cuts later in 2026

• Cerebras Files for IPO as Demand Surges for More Efficient AI Chips

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• House punts on FISA, extends spy powers program for two weeks

  • Congress voting to potentially extend warrantless surveillance

  • Congress extends controversial surveillance powers for 10 days

  • Controversial FISA program extended by House but only until April 30

• FCC exempts Netgear from ban on foreign routers, doesn't explain why

• Concern Grows Over 10 Missing or Deceased NASA, Nuclear, and Defense Researchers

  • White House Investigating Wave of Missing or Dead Scientists

  • Who Is Amy Eskridge? Scientist's Death Queried Amid US Expert Mysteries

  • Missing general, scientist deaths tied to secret US work prompt White House probe.

• Gov. Lee signs joint resolution to change ‘Pride Month’ to ‘Nuclear Family Month’ in Tennessee.

  “Resolutions like this do more to reveal the cluelessness of elected officials whose own families and those of their constituents have various family dynamics and structures,” a spokesperson for GLAAD said

• Our Tax System Should Make You Furious

• Justice Thomas Speaks in Honor of 250th Anniversary of U.S.

• Court unanimously sides with oil and gas companies in suit over damage to coast

Democrats

• Carville Lays Out Democratic Plan to Add States and Pack the Court To Retain Power

  Various Democrats have been openly discussing their plans after retaking power to change the system so they never lose power again. Democratic strategist James Carville has been one of the most vocal and returned to the subject this week in laying out how they will make D.C. and Puerto Rico states and pack the Supreme Court with a liberal majority. On his podcast with Al Hunt, Carville explained, “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should make Puerto Rico [and] D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F— it. Eat our dust.” However, Carville (curiously on a national podcast) seriously suggested that Democrats should keep the plan quiet: “Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”

  “I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. A Democrat is going to be elected in 2028. You know that. I know that. The Democratic president is going to announce a special transition advisory committee on the reform of the Supreme Court. They’re going to recommend that the number of Supreme Court justices go from nine to 13. That’s going to happen, people.”

• Eric Swalwell donors footed $500K in hotel bills, including rooms where alleged rapes happened

  The nearly $500,000 in expenses were all charged during Swalwell’s time in Congress, his term started in 2013. The Democratic ex-congressman charged his congressional campaign for a hotel room at the Montrose West Hollywood on July 18, 2018, which aligns with the date and location of an alleged rape incident reported Tuesday to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department by Lonna Drewes. Drewes, a 50-year-old model, publicly accused Swalwell of sexually assaulting her during a 2018 encounter inside a West Hollywood hotel room.

• WaPo Mystified About Why No One Ever Noticed That Swalwell Was a Creeper.

Left Angst

• Penis Costume Protester Prevails in Court

  Fairhope Municipal Judge Haymes Snedeker acquitted Renea Gamble Wednesday of all remaining misdemeanor charges stemming from her decision to wear a inflatable 7-foot penis costume at an anti-Trump “No Kings” protest in October 2025. Gamble walked out of the courtroom after three hours of testimony cleared of any wrongdoing, but her attorney said her arrest was traumatizing and she may consider legal recourse.

• Why is this a government function at all? NIST gives up enriching most CVEs

• FAA Scraps Civil and Criminal Penalties for Flying Drones Near ICE Vehicles

• American farmers bet on solar. Then Trump changed the rules

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Drivers sue San Jose over nearly 500 police cameras used to track drivers

• Two US citizens sentenced for running North Korean laptop farms

• Altman attack suspect suggested 'Luigi'ing some tech CEOs' in online chat

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Pentagon Seeks Help from Ford and G.M.

World

• Indonesia Threatens to Block Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons Access

• How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres' environmental toll

  • Microsoft ghostwrote EU policy that keeps data centers' energy use secret

  • US tech firms lobbied EU to keep datacentre emissions secret

• Labour and Lib Dem MPs demand 'shameful' Palantir NHS contract be scrapped

• A Stunning New Verdict Rewrites the Rules of Corporate Morality

  For the first time in France, and possibly for the first time ever, anywhere, an entire corporation had been put on trial and found criminally liable for enabling terrorism.

• Australia's Fiscal Point of No Return

• France: Afghan man arrested for series of rapes of goats and sheep, animal protection organization vows to 'take this barbarian to court'

  The suspect was taken into custody by the anti-crime brigade (BAC) on the night of April 9-10, 2026, after local sheep and goat owners alerted police. Since early 2026, several owners had discovered their animals injured, with incidents reported in both February and March. The animals had their legs tied and showed clear signs of rape, according to French newspaper La Provence.

• Robbers hold 25 hostage at Naples bank before fleeing through hole in floor

• The EU's Digital Gulag Is (Apparently) Ready to Roll

• Brussels launched an age checking app. It took 2 minutes to hack it

• Suspects used smart glasses, other AI tools to commit 'organized' retail fraud

• Australia's startup scene is thriving at last

• Japan's Cherry Blossom Database, 1,200 Years Old, Has a New Keeper

Iran / Houthi

• The Conflict in Iran Is Changing How Engine Oil Is Made

• The Strait of Hormuz is now open

• Middle East Energy Infrastructure Damage Close to $60B

China

• China has nearly erased US lead in AI & the flow of experts moving to US is slowng

• Chinese carmaker patents voice-controlled 'in-vehicle toilet'

• Device found identified as Chinese undersea monitoring system

• Chinese fabs import US chipmaking equipment via Singapore and Malaysia

Health / Medicine

• Why scientists are nervous about fungi

• Living With Roommates Might Be Changing Your Gut Microbiome Without You Knowing.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Global warming is making the strongest hurricanes stronger

  • Usually we have dire predictions of "the worst hurricane season ever" at this point.

• Mammals cannot be cloned infinitely, Japanese mouse study shows

• A third of Americans don't drive. So why is our transportation so car-centric?

• Smoglandia: Smog was killing L.A., and a Caltech chemist found the murder weapon

• Century-Old Cleaning Chemical Linked to 500% Increased Risk of Parkinson's Desea

• Up to 8M Bees Are Living in an Underground Network Beneath This Cemetery

• The Arctic's growing mosquito problem