2025-06-02

Horseshit

• New, handwritten Maimonides texts discovered at Cambridge University Library

• What No One Tells You About Early Retirement - Darius Foroux

  here’s the thing: What are you going to do next when you opt out? What comes after financial independence? This is the point where it turns into a philosophical discussion. What are you going to do with your life once you’ve met your basic needs? The reality is that most people never really get to that point. But we have to be honest. Whether you actually become financially free or not, you’re always in motion… figuring things out, doing new things, enjoying life, getting stronger, better, you name it. In a way, not much changes when you have some money. Warren Buffett has this phrase that he often repeats, which goes something like this: You and me are the same. I just get to travel faster than you do. But that’s about it.

• Ancient bread rises again as Turkey recreates 5k-year-old loaf

• You Can Soon Own a Humanoid Robot for Just $3,000

  • Want a humanoid, open-source robot for just $3k? Hugging Face is on it

• YouTuber 'risks his life' for cheese-rolling win

• We Need Drastic Measures to Preserve Women’s Rights – Outlook Zen

  Why is the fertility rate so low in developed nations? Couples overwhelmingly list affordability as their main reason for not having more kids. There is some truth to this. If every couple had access to an army of nannies, a 10-bedroom mansion, and unlimited parental leave, I’m sure more couples would choose to have more kids. But is this truly the main reason for our demographic crisis? When we look at countries that have the highest fertility rates, their citizens aren’t exactly living the high life. The countries with the highest fertility rates – Chad, Niger, Congo and Somalia – are also the most impoverished. When you look at countries that aren’t headed towards extinction, they are almost universally undeveloped or still developing. Even when you look at Western “first world” countries, our birth rates were highest in time periods where inflation-adjusted incomes were far lower. America registered its highest fertility rate in 1909 – a time when the average male worker earned $11 per week, which comes out to about $400 per week in 2025 after adjusting for cost-of-living.

  relying on immigration alone is not sufficient to prevent societal extinction. There are limits to how many immigrants a society can successfully assimilate each year. And to how many people will want to emigrate in the first place. For these reasons, we also need solutions to increase the birth rate to replacement levels.

celebrity gossip

• Takeaways from Jony Ive's Stripe Sessions Chat

• OpenAI CEO was 'born for this moment'

Musk

• Elon Musk says SpaceX will launch its biggest Starship yet this year, but Mars in 2026 is ’50/50.’

• Why do SpaceX rockets keep exploding? | The Verge

  this degree of failure during a development process isn’t actually unusual, according to Wendy Whitman Cobb, a space policy expert with the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, especially when you’re testing new space technology as complex as a large rocket. However, the Starship tests are meaningfully different from the slow, steady pace of development that we’ve come to expect from the space sector. “The reason a lot of people perceive this to be unusual is that this is not the typical way that we have historically tested rockets,” Whitman Cobb says.

• Solar Storms Are Pushing Elon Musk's Satellites Back to Earth

• XChat is rolling out with encryption, vanishing messages, ability to send files

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Hyundai's first three-row electric SUV is here

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Women who hate men: a comparative analysis across extremist Reddit communities

• Imane Khelif, the IOC, World Boxing and mandatory sex testing

  Now, with Algeria’s Imane Khelif said to be on the verge of returning to competition, World Boxing has announced that Khelif, winner of a gold medal at the Paris Games, must take a chromosome test to prove eligibility – in its words, undergo “mandatory sex testing.” Unless someone manipulates the evidence, the result is going to be crystal clear, déjà vu all over again, because in chromosome tests given amid the International Boxing Association’s 2022 and 2023 world championships, the boxer’s DNA showed XY markers with “male” karyotypes. The IOC knew this. And still it permitted Khelif, and Yu Ting Lin of Chinese Taipei, whose tests turned up the same markers, to compete in Paris. Lin also won gold.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• AI didn't kill Stack Overflow

• Microsoft promises it's ending USB-C confusion with Windows 11 certified program

• Real TikTokers are pretending to be Veo 3 AI creations for fun, attention

• Almost three centuries of the Belfast News Letter go online

• Report says Sony won't produce smartphones in its own factories anymore

• Illegal streaming boom traced to jailbroken Amazon Fire Stick devices

• Business Insider goes 'all-in on AI,' laying off 21% of staff

• YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom

• Breaking down why Apple TVs are privacy advocates' go-to streaming device

• Duolingo grapples with its 'AI-first' promise before an angry social mob

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Molex - the company that makes those ubiquitous hard drive power connectors - showed off a PCIe 7.0 cable running at 128GHz over a distance of a meter.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Deepfakes just got even harder to detect: Now they have heartbeats

• Job losses: How AI has painfully disrupted dreams of young software graduates

• OpenAI featured chatbot is pushing extreme surgeries to "subhuman" men

• OpenAI models defy human commands, actively resist orders to shut down

• We need to reimagine education for the age of information and AI

• Job Interviews Enter a New World with AI That Talks Back

• Two Paths for A.I

• Your Chatbot friend might be messing with your mind

• AI Is Learning to Escape Human Control

Crypto con games

• Why 'wrench attacks' on wealthy crypto holders are on the rise

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Pension Funds Won't Save the Bond Market

• Rent-Setting Algorithms Find Legal Lifeline

• DoorDash CEO Xu is taking on the role of industry consolidator in food delivery

• Dollar's correlation with Treasury yields breaks down

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Passage of Senate Bill 29 Positions Texas as a Leading State for Incorporations

• JFK files expose family secrets: Their relatives were CIA assets

• Louisiana lawmakers push 'chemtrail' ban legislation through the House

Trump

• Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. Source: "NASA is f***ed"

  • Trump drops NASA nominee Jared Isaacman, scrapping Elon Musk's pick

  • White House says it will announce new pick for NASA chief

• JD Vance has changed his name multiple times over the years

• Rescinding the Definition of "Harm" Under the Endangered Species Act

Democrats

• Democrats and Men › American Greatness

  the odds that the contemporary Democratic party will be able to win back men, now or in the foreseeable future, are vanishingly small. The party, as it is currently constituted, lacks both the will and the ability to make the changes that would be necessary to do so. What I mean by this is that the contemporary Democratic party is built on a handful of foundational notions that are, by and large, incompatible with the goal of appealing to men. To start, historically, biologically, and evolutionarily, men need a purpose. That may sound trite or even sexist, but it’s nevertheless true. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that men need an externally imposed purpose. Whatever the case, women, by definition, have a purpose, namely to create and nurture new life. While men are necessary to create life as well, their role is, obviously, not as involved or enduring. Once upon a time—which is to say from the dawn of history until about 50 or 60 years ago—man’s purpose, therefore, was to provide for and protect the family, to enable the nurturing of new life as safely and successfully as possible. There is an evolutionary reason that men are, generally, bigger and stronger than women—because they had to be able to hunt and work for food and defend their loved ones from danger. Over the course of the last half-century or so, men’s historical purpose has been undone.

Left Angst

• U.S. Turns Against Floating Offshore Wind Turbines

• A Trump-fueled brain drain could be the rest of the world's brain gain

• Science cuts may close WA LIGO observatory that confirmed theory of relativity

• The American vs. European Mindset on Life

  Because of strong American cultural influence, most people are more familiar with the American mindset. It is often centered around hard work, climbing the career ladder, earning more money, and improving your life by owning things — a house, a car, maybe even a second car. I have to admit, it is an attractive idea. The American mindset promises that if you are talented and work hard, you can achieve anything, even become a millionaire or billionaire. That belief is likely one of the biggest reasons why more than a million people move to the United States every year.

  But there is also another way of living: the European mindset. Unlike its American counterpart, it does not focus solely on individual advancement. Instead, it emphasizes improving the quality of life for everyone. That is why taxes are high, very high in some cases. In Germany, for example, around 42 percent of your gross salary goes to taxes. In return, you get access to things like public healthcare, a pension system, free education, reliable public transportation, and more. You also get generous sick leave, which can last up to six weeks, and around thirty vacation days every year. The work culture is different too. It is less competitive. People generally understand that working more or harder does not necessarily mean they will earn significantly more. And even if they do, a large part of that extra income goes back in taxes. So instead of chasing a higher paycheck, many people prefer to work fewer hours and enjoy more free time.

• Trump Administration Targets Tech Firms as It Cuts More Contracts

• The White House Vision for Dismantling Science

• US authorities are collecting DNA information of children in criminal database

• Trump Administration Targets Brazilian Judge for 'Censorship'

• Trump's gamble puts the dollar at risk as the reserve currency

• What Made William F. Buckley So Unusual

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Law enforcement used license-plate readers to search for woman who had abortion

• Illinois Cops Gave ICE Access to More Than 5k Surveillance Cameras Nationwide

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• U.S. Pauses Exports of Airplane and Semiconductor Technology to China

• Giant microwave may change the future of war

• Why Did the U.S. Air Force Cancel the F-22 Raptor?

World

• Dutch government's reliance on U.S. cloud services greater than expected

• EU to launch age-check app, precursor to the digital identity wallet due in 2026

• Privacy-Friendly Tech to Replace Your US-based Email, Browser, and Search

• Rare aerial archive images of UAE capture nation's transformation

• Two dead and hundreds arrested in France after PSG Champions League win

• UK to build up to 12 new attack submarines

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• 'Russian bombers are burning en masse'

• Ukraine drones 'emerged from trucks' before strikes on bombers

• Ukraine destroys more than 40 military aircraft in drone attack deep in Russia

• Ukraine launches major drone attack on Russian bombers, security official says

• Ukraine claims massive drone strike on Russian bombers in 'Spiderweb' operation

• Russian Strategic Bombers Destroyed in Unprecedented Wide-Scale Drone Attack

• The Ukrainians Just Pulled Off the Most Successful Operation of the War

• Ukrainian spies hid drones in wooden sheds

• Ukrainian Drone Swarm Attacks Hit Russian Long-Range Bombers | ZeroHedge

• Two Bridges 'Blown Up', Trains Derailed, In Russian Regions Bordering Ukraine, Killing At Least 7 | ZeroHedge

China

• China's quantum satellite can be hacked, Singapore-based scientist warns

• Australia asks China to explain 'extraordinary' military build-up

• Going to an office and pretending to work: A business that's booming in China

Health / Medicine

• Cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose

• Do Patients Without a Terminal Illness Have the Right to Die?

• Type of Fiber Could Have Weight Loss Benefits Similar to Ozempic

• People say cola and fries are helping their migraines

• Study explores nicotine patch to treat mild cognitive impairment

• A Glucose Monitor for Someone Without Diabetes: Optimal or Overkill?

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• The evidence suggests Covid-19 came from a lab

  I began by thinking a lab leak was unlikely, even impossible, as the source of the virus that emerged suddenly in Wuhan at the end of 2019. But during the late spring of 2020 I saw evidence that this hypothesis was in fact quite plausible and needed investigating at the very least. I teamed up with the molecular biologist Alina Chan to write Viral, our book about the search for evidence on both sides of that question. I remained unsure what happened at that stage. Then in the autumn of 2021 more startling evidence emerged to support the lab leak. I now think that is by far the most likely explanation. Yet still the scientific establishment refused to take the hypothesis seriously, let alone investigate it. There are over 20 million people dead, and you don’t want to know why? Imagine if this were their reaction to a chemical spill that killed thousands of people, or a nuclear accident that killed tens of thousands. This killed millions. I tried to get the Royal Society and The Academy of Medical Sciences to debate it, but they refused: too controversial, they said!

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The Colorado River Basin has lost as much groundwater as the volume of Lake Mead

• Countries on the edge of the Sahara desert are reversing desertification

• How seaweed is a powerful, yet surprising, climate solution

• Volcanic eruptions trigger ice formation in clouds

• Largest Wildlife Crossing Is Almost Ready over Ten Lanes of Highway 101

• Wind energy more expensive, less stable and less secure

• Grassroots groups sue over Louisiana law that censors air quality data