2026-03-29

etc

• New power bank restrictions will safeguard international aviation

  Following the improvements agreed today, these devices will now be limited to two per passenger, and passengers will be prohibited from recharging them during flights. Importantly, crew will however be able to continue to carry and use these power banks in line with the operational requirements of the aircraft. The new specifications will address emerging risks and become effective on 27 March 2026.

• The Age of the Amplifier

  some of AT&T’s most important technological contributions — namely, the vacuum tube, the negative feedback amplifier, the transistor, and the laser — were (in whole or in part) the product of efforts to make new, better amplifiers for boosting electromagnetic signals. Amplifiers played a crucial role in the Bell System, making it possible to (among other things) connect telephones over long distances, but the value of these four amplifiers extended far beyond telephony. The vacuum tube became a crucial building block for electronics in the first half of the 20th century, used in everything from radio to television to the earliest computers. The negative feedback amplifier helped spawn the discipline of control theory, which is used today in the design of virtually every automated machine. The transistor is the foundation of modern digital computing and everything built on top of it. And the laser is used in everything from fiber-optic communications to industrial cutting machines to barcode scanners to printers. It’s worth looking at why AT&T was so motivated to build better and better amplifiers, and why those efforts produced so many transformative inventions.

• Seattle opens first light rail across floating bridge

Horseshit

• The underrated benefits of always having oatmeal at lunch

• 400 cuckoo clocks go on display as time springs forward

• The toughest new sport in Japan is street-racing office chairs

• Ancient bones show dogs have been woven into human life for nearly 16,000 years

• There's a Good Reason You Can't Concentrate

• The Panic over 'Tech Neck'–and Race for a Cure

• The Science Behind Being One of a Kind

• The inner life we're trading away

• Brewers are turning Coca-Cola into a boozy wine

• Synesthesia isn't just in your mind. The body reacts as if the colors were real

• Columbus-style pizza gains national recognition as a favorite food destination

Obit

• Robert Trivers, Eccentric Scientist Who Probed Human Nature, Dies at 83

Musk

• Musk has a plan to make human labor obsolete. Billionaires are joining in.

• Tesla Stock Falls. Why SpaceX IPO, Sales Estimates Aren't Helping

• Elon Musk's lawsuit against X advertisers thrown out by US judge

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Rivian Made Car Dealers Back Down in Washington. More States May Be Next

• New EV sales drop 28% in Q1 2026, but used EVs surge 12% to near-record levels

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Roman Catholic Churches See a Surge of New Converts

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Social media trials usher in Big Tech's latest moment of reckoning

  • Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

  • Meta and Google face a reckoning over social-media addiction

  • Meta's legal defeat could be a victory for children, or a loss for everyone

• Apple Says No iPhone in Lockdown Mode Has Ever Been Hacked

• AV1's open, royalty-free promise in question as Dolby sues Snapchat over codec

• AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition crams 208MB of cache into a single chip

• What Is YouTube's Dominance Doing to Us? We Asked Its CEO

• Sony temporarily suspends memory card sales due to shortages

• Apple's last tower topples and the others will follow

• Exceptional fake SSD clone of Samsung 990 Pro is almost impossible to spot

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Is the Recent Surge in Meteor Fireballs on Earth Related to 3I/ATLAS?

  • They're seeding the next round of the terraforming viruses

• He suddenly couldn't speak in space. NASA astronaut says his medical scare remains a mystery

  The astronaut who prompted NASA's first medical evacuation earlier this year said Friday that doctors still don't know why he suddenly fell sick at the International Space Station. Four-time space flier Mike Fincke said he was eating dinner on Jan. 7 after prepping for a spacewalk the next day when it happened. He couldn't talk and remembers no pain, but his anxious crewmates jumped into action after seeing him in distress and requested help from flight surgeons on the ground. Fincke, 59, a retired Air Force colonel, said the episode lasted roughly 20 minutes and he felt fine afterward. He said he still does. He never experienced anything like that before or since. Fincke said he can't provide any more details about his medical episode. The space agency wants to make sure that other astronauts do not feel that their medical privacy will be compromised if something happens to them, he said.

  • Mystery medical episode left astronaut unable to speak—1 of NASA's biggest risks

  • He suddenly couldn't speak in space

• No one is happy with NASA's new idea for private space stations

• Can humans have babies in space? It may be harder than expected

• NASA scientist backs evidence of non-human intelligence in Earth's skies

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Alex Karp says only trade workers and neurodivergents will survive in the AI era

• Does A.I. Need a Constitution?

• Adults Lose Skills to AI. Children Never Build Them

• The AI Boom Is Missing the Secret Sauce of the 1990s

• The Worst-Case Scenario for AI and the News Is Here

• The Decadelong Feud Shaping the Future of AI

• Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite

• OpenAI is narrowing its focus on things that make money

• AI Can Fuel Overconfidence in Bad Relationship Decisions

• AI chatbots are "Yes-Men" that reinforce bad relationship decisions, study finds

• Anthropic's Claude popularity with paying consumers is skyrocketing

• Folk are getting dangerously attached to AI that always tells them they're right

• Leaked Anthropic Model Presents 'Unprecedented Cybersecurity Risks'

• The People Who Are Using AI at Home to Free Up Their Time

Economicon / Business / Finance

• The media isn't busy telling us its not happening and that its GOOD THING: Why This Jump in Gas Prices Feels Different

• Tech stocks suffer worst week in nearly 1yr due to war worries, Meta legal woes

• Cybersecurity stocks fall on report Anthropic is testing a powerful new model

• SK Hynix, the third of the big three memory manufacturers, is planning a US IPO this year to raise funds for expansion.

• Microsoft Set for Worst Quarter Since 2008

• WTO members to introduce first baseline digital trade rules

• China's intervention on Meta's Manus rattles founders, VCs eye 'China shedding'

• Goldman Sachs now reckons that oil could take out the 2008 record of $147

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• EPA Plans to Start Diluting Gasoline This May

Democrats

• Ilhan Omar married her brother.

Left Angst

• Treason in the Futures Markets

  But in any case, Trump’s sudden climb-down was startling. Who could have seen this coming? The answer is, the person or people who bought large quantities of stock market futures and sold large quantities of oil futures around 15 minutes before Trump’s announcement.

• Mysterious Trading Patterns Follow Trump into War

• Americans can 'directly text Donald Trump' with new White House app

• Trump Said This Policy Would Make Manhattan a 'Ghost Town.' He Was Wrong

• Canadian man says U.S. border officers made him give DNA sample

• The Rise and Fall of ICE-Tracking Apps

• Judge won't block meeting that could exempt drilling from Endangered Species Act

• Trump Has Detained the Parents of More Than 11,000 U.S. Citizen Kids

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Camden, N.J., Cut Its Murder Rate to a 40-Year Low

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Building Tanks While the Ukrainians Master Drones

• U.S. Ambassador to EU: Stop Fining Big Tech

• Iran images appear to show land mines scattered by U.S. forces, a first in years

• Russia took satellite images of U.S. base before Iranian attack, Zelensky says

World

• Spanish woman dies by euthanasia after long legal battle with father

• Australia's Social Media Ban Runs into a Wave of Teen Workarounds

• European country vows to give homeowners 'free electricity'

• EU agrees to fine online platforms importing unsafe products

• 'Changing a city is complicated': Anne Hidalgo on 12 years as Paris mayor

• Italian Americans moved to Italy. Then Italy said they couldn't stay

• UK government to trial social media ban for teens

• How a Bill Gates-Backed Company Landed in a Fight Between Congo and Belgium

• The First Post-Reality Political Campaign

• Twelve metric tons of KitKat chocolate bars stolen

  • Thieves make off with 12 tons of KitKat chocolate bars

• Woman visiting ER for back pain shocked after doctor suggests euthanasia

• Saudi Pipeline to Bypass Hormuz Hits 7M Barrel Goal

Iran / Houthi

• Gulf Countries' Frustration with the US Grows as War Wears On

• Solving the Strait of Hormuz Blockage

Israel

• Palestinian toddler returns injured after IDF detention in Gaza

  • Gaza toddler released from Israeli custody with 'cigarette burn' wounds

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Ukraine's military brings exoskeletons to the front line

Health / Medicine

• Depression is linked to a pessimistic bias, not a realistic view of the world

• Erythritol linked to brain damage and stroke risk

  A widely used sugar substitute found in everything from keto snacks to diet drinks may not be as harmless as it seems. New research shows that erythritol can disrupt brain blood vessel cells, reducing their ability to relax, increasing harmful oxidative stress, and impairing the body’s ability to break down clots. These changes create conditions that could raise stroke risk, even at typical consumption levels.

• Why does cannabis give people 'the munchies'?

• UVB in sunlight prevents heart disease

• A woman's uterus has been kept alive outside the body for the first time

• Outbreak linked to raw cheese grows; 9 cases total, one with kidney failure

• New discoveries are showing how human anatomy is far from settled

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Public Health Officials Lied, Hypocrisy Ruled, Trust Died: Brutal X Thread Conor Friedersdorf Walked Into

  "survey data suggests that by the end of the Covid-19 emergency trust in public health institutions had decreased significantly. If you are among the people who reacted that way, why specifically? I'm hoping for long, diverse, individualized answers."

• Thousands risk of deadly complications recent exposure to measles in 11 states

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Scientists uncovered the nutrients bees were missing

• Scientists film whale giving birth while other whales work together to help her

• Explanation for why we don't see two-foot-long dragonflies anymore fails