2025-05-27
Horseshit
-
The reverse-centaur apocalypse is upon us
A centaur is someone whose work is supercharged by automation: you are a human head atop the tireless body of a machine that lets you get more done than you could ever do on your own. A reverse-centaur is someone who is harnessed to the machine, reduced to a mere peripheral for a cruelly tireless robotic overlord that directs you to do the work that it can't, at a robotic pace, until your body and mind are smashed.
-
Johann Strauss' The Blue Danube to be broadcast into deep space
-
'Adulting 101' programs help Gen Z catch up on key life skills
-
Why Buy a Camper When You Could Build a Stealthier One Out of Pallets Yourself?
-
Texas woman sues state lottery after not receiving controversial $83.5M jackpot
-
His complaint app works better than 311. The city is about to kill it
-
How Graham Hancock became conspiracy theorists’ favourite historian
Obit
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
-
The dystopia of '1984' is already here
For the director, are the oppressed always right, as Orwell argued? “Fundamentally, yes. But that doesn’t mean I endorse all methods. For example, I don’t support Hamas and its policies. I support resistance, because it’s one people occupied by another, but not that way of fighting,” Peck clarifies.
Musk
Electric / Self Driving cars
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
-
Study finds a 50% decline in the use of semicolons over the last two decades
-
In 2023, the Supreme Court rendered a 6-3 decision that effectively outlawed affirmative-action policies in college admissions, finding in favor of groups representing qualified students whose applications were rejected at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. But, as he often does, Chief Justice John Roberts left a loophole. It allows colleges to continue their discriminatory admissions policies if they desire, and Roberts made sure to point at it in the decision. He stressed that universities can still take into account “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” It took Harvard less than a day to signal that it had heard Roberts loud and clear. In the university’s public response to the decision, officials quoted only one line from it: Roberts’s loophole. In the sentence immediately following that quote, Harvard said, “We will certainly comply with the Court’s decision.” Wink wink.
in 2025, the admissions essay has only one purpose: It’s the part of the application where you signify whether you might be due special consideration based on your struggles. How do we know that’s the case? A simple survey of the writing prompts for personal statements at various North Carolina universities underscores that the primary concerns are hardship, victimization, oppression, and identity.
-
A Popular College Major Has One of the Highest Unemployment Rates (CS)
-
Student loan missed payments causes credit score drop for millions - The Washington Post
Credit scores dipped by more than 100 points for 2.2 million delinquent student loan borrowers, and 150 points or more for more than 1 million in the first three months of 2025, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It’s the kind of credit score drop that follows a personal bankruptcy filing. Roughly 2.4 million of those Americans previously had favorable credit scores and would have qualified for car loans, mortgages or credit cards before these delinquencies were reported, researchers said.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
-
Anthropic's hybrid AI model can work on tasks autonomously for hours at a time
-
We develop a new approach that puts users in the role of evaluator, using ecologically valid prompts on 30 political topics and paired comparisons of outputs from 24 LLMs. With 180,126 assessments from 10,007 U.S. respondents, we find that nearly all models are perceived as significantly left-leaning—even by many Democrats—and that one widely used model leans left on 24 of 30 topics. Moreover, we show that when models are prompted to take a neutral stance, they offer more ambivalence, and users perceive the output as more neutral.
-
The cost of AI is being paid in deserts far from Silicon Valley
-
Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would 'kill' AI industry
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
Trump
Democrats
-
Democrats Still Searching for a Path Forward Months After 2024 Election - The New York Times
The Democratic base is aghast at the speed with which Mr. Trump is undermining institutions and reversing progressive accomplishments — and at the lack of resistance from congressional leaders. Primary challenges are on the rise headed into 2026, often along generational and ideological lines.
For now, Democratic donors and strategists have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working-class voters, commissioning new projects that can read like anthropological studies of people from faraway places. The prospectus for one new $20 million effort, obtained by The Times, aims to reverse the erosion of Democratic support among young men, especially online. It is code-named SAM — short for “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan” — and promises investment to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.” It recommends buying advertisements in video games, among other things. “Above all, we must shift from a moralizing tone,” it urges.
-
Despite decades of Democrat health initiatives, Americans are sicker than ever.
Left Angst
-
Record Number of Americans Apply for British Citizenship
- Shouldn't they just go over there, find a house, and start getting public benefits? Isn't that how enlightened immigration is supposed to work in their world?
-
Trump Team's $500M Bet on Old Vaccine Technology Puzzles Scientists
-
Donald Trump and the tortured history of South Africa’s land
Today, white farmers still own roughly half of the country’s land although only 7 per cent of citizens are white. A lack of formal access to land has stopped the Black majority and other historically disadvantaged groups from tapping into the business prospects, including borrowing against collateral, that such ownership brings. A law passed in January opened up the possibility for seizures without compensation, but there has not yet been a single such case. The Democratic Alliance, a party in the governing coalition, has launched a legal challenge arguing it is unconstitutional. Progress towards the redistribution goal has been far slower than the post-apartheid government hoped. The state has to date bought out some 3.9mn hectares, or 2.5 per cent of the country’s landmass.
In the first quarter of 2025, there were six murders on farms, of which one was a white farmer and the rest Black people, according to police figures. Last year, 26,232 people were murdered in South Africa, a rate of 45 per 100,000 against 5.8 per 100,000 in the US. In that period, the Transvaal Agricultural Union, a private agricultural group, said there were 32 murders on farms, affecting both Black and white people.
Trump has repeatedly cited a law enacted in January that allows the government to expropriate privately held land — the vast majority of which remains white owned — for public use. Experts have compared the legislation, passed without a constitutional change, to a US government power known as “eminent domain”.
-
Trump considers giving $3B of Harvard's grants to trade schools
-
Deadly Kentucky Tornadoes Ignite Fears over U.S. Weather Warning Systems
-
Mark Zuckerberg Loves MAGA Now. Will MAGA Ever Love Him Back?
-
Tech's Trump Whisperer, Tim Cook, Goes Quiet as His Influence Fades
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
-
EU plans new mass surveillance law mandating data retention, built-in backdoors
-
About £1B in car loan compensation at risk because data deleted, lawyers warn
Borrowers, banks and the government are anxiously awaiting a ruling from the supreme court that could spark one of the biggest redress schemes since the £50bn payment protection insurance (PPI) saga. But some consumers could miss out because most banks typically purge customer data after six years. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ordered firms to stop deleting car finance documents when it launched its initial investigation in January 2024. But the files relating to customers with contracts that ended more than six years earlier may have already been lost.
-
North Korea detains 3 shipyard officials over the failed launch of a naval destroyer.
-
Keir Starmer reported to watchdog for 'lying to public' about true cost of Chagos 'surrender'
-
German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
-
Ontario judge approves $500M settlement in Loblaw bread price-fixing case
-
Liverpool chaos as car plunges into crowd for their cup celebration
-
Britain’s police are restricting speech in worrying ways
Speech is being restricted, particularly online, in alarming ways and at an increasingly alarming rate. The number of arrests—more than a thousand a month for online posts—shows this is no longer about a few rogue cases. The root cause can be found in the country’s speech laws, which are a mess and ill-suited to the digital age: Brits are prosecuted for the sorts of conversations they would have had in the pub. And things are set to get worse.
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
-
Chinese EV Stocks Tumble After BYD Slashes Prices as Much as 34%
-
China Raises Cross-Border Yuan Use Requirement for Major Banks
-
Xi Mulls New Made-in-China Plan Despite US Call to Rebalance
-
China improves ability to launch sudden attack on Taiwan, officials say
-
China Shifts from Developing World Banker to Debt Collector, Says Lowy Institute