2025-06-14

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• Nitpicking Gladiator's Iconic Opening Battle, Part II

• One of the Dreamliners That Gave a Boeing Manager Nightmares Just Crashed - The American Prospect

• The 'miracle' of the sole passenger who survived the Air India flight

Horseshit

• The world must escape the manufacturing delusion

  Around the world, politicians are fixated on factories. President Donald Trump wants to bring home everything from steelmaking to drug production, and is putting up tariff barriers to do so. Britain is considering subsidising manufacturers’ energy bills; Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, is offering incentives for electric-vehicle-makers, adding to a long-running industrial-subsidy scheme. Governments from Germany to Indonesia have flirted with inducements for chip- and battery-makers. However, the global manufacturing push will not succeed. In fact, it is likely to do more harm than good. Today’s zeal for homegrown manufacturing has many aims. In the West politicians want to revive well-paying factory work and restore the lost glory of their industrial heartlands; poorer countries want to foster development as well as jobs. The war in Ukraine, meanwhile, shows the importance of resilient supply chains, especially for arms and ammunition. Politicians hope that industrial prowess will somehow translate more broadly into national strength. Looming over all this is China’s tremendous manufacturing dominance, which inspires fear and envy in equal measure. Jobs, growth and resilience are all worthy aims. Unfortunately, however, the idea that promoting manufacturing is the way to achieve them is misguided. The reason is that it rests on a series of misconceptions about the nature of the modern economy.

• How was the wheel invented? Computer simulations reveal its unlikely birth

• Social media is a threat to my psychological sovereignty

  Every user on Twitter, Mastodon, or Bluesky acts like they’re running for political office, or engaged in a moral crusade that will decide the fate of the world. Their pet causes, no matter how trivial, are the most important things in the world. Anybody who is not talking about the exact thing they care about today is willfully being literally Hitler. They take it upon themselves to try and change the minds of anybody who will listen, and to berate anybody who holds even slightly different beliefs, resorting to ever more extreme tactics in order to make their point.

• Popularizing the Past

• Dyson Has Killed Its Zone Air-Purifying Headphones

• US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

  It is hard to determine the exact cause without dissecting one of the defective lights, but scientists have a hypothesis: bright purple light suggests the phosphor layer around the lights has been “delaminated”—peeled off—exposing the blue LED light underneath, Brgoch says. Although blue LED lights are, in principle, deep blue in color, they do naturally have a bit of a purple and violet tint, he explains.

• Swimming world body will banish participants in pro-doping Enhanced Games

• Couple steals back their own car after tracking an AirTag in it

• First Fossil Proof Found That Long-Necked Dinosaurs Were Vegetarians

• The Stress of Wall Street Is Sending Men to Pelvic Floor Therapy

  • ... and the monkeypox outbreaks will be "stress induced" too

• Wing and Walmart are bringing drone delivery to 100 new stores

• FIFA 'more poorly governed today than 10 years ago'

celebrity gossip

• Who was the real Andy Warhol?

Musk

• xAI accused of pollution over Memphis supercomputer

• Tesla sues ex-Optimus engineer alleging theft of robotic trade secrets

• Anti-Tesla demonstration highlights safety concerns with self-driving vehicles

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Thermal Runaway: Why Waymo Cars Burned So Completely in the Los Angeles Protests

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Harvard researcher charged with smuggling frog embryos released from custody

• Chicago's Refusal to Deal with Its Nearly Empty Schools

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• The Billionth Repository On GitHub Is Really Shitty

  • Milestone one billionth GitHub Repo is just the word 'shit'

• Google to reduce Pixel 6A charging performance after fire reports

• Attorney General Bonta Urges Action by Meta to Prevent Investment Scam Ads

• Taylor Swift now owns all the music she has ever made

• An Experimental New Dating Site Matches Singles Based on Their Browser Histories

• Google Cloud outage brings down a lot of the internet | TechCrunch

• Anker is recalling over a million power banks because they catch fire.

• Steam Beta Adds Native Apple Silicon Support for Mac

• Here come the glassholes, part II

  One of the most important elements of Mark Zuckerberg’s mid-life glow up has been the addition of a pair of thick-framed Ray-Ban spectacles. A decade on from Google’s Glass debacle, Meta’s stylish smart glasses are the surprise hit of 2025. The fandom is a broad church. I have a pair of the sunglasses. So does Nigel Farage. No one has yet called me a glasshole (not out loud). Getting the aesthetic right seems to have soothed the privacy concerns that scuppered Google Glass. Early adopters (aka the glassholes) were accused of being creeps because they could record people without their knowledge. Meta’s $299 Ray-Bans are artificial intelligence-powered and their capabilities are comparable. Give a “Hey Meta” prompt and they can take photos, record videos, answer queries and identify objects. Yet because they look like regular Wayfarers instead of weird sci-fi gadgets no one seems to mind. What the glasses can’t yet do is identify people. But that doesn’t mean they won’t.

• Discord lures users to click on ads by offering them new Orbs currency

• Google rejects app store age verification for online content

• When pop music went supernova

  In this post, I’m going to make a few comments about the pop music revolution that took place over a 14-month period in 1965-66. It’s a sort of follow-up to an earlier post I did on Renaissance painting. it’s been 60 years since the period I’m about to consider, and 14 months is a very narrow window. Why not be obsessed with 1963, or 1968? Furthermore, if it were just a generational thing then with each passing decade the pivotal period would keep shifting into the future. By the mid-1980s, the music of the mid-60s seemed like ancient history, but it was already looked back on as a pivotal period in pop music. As far as I can tell, music critics have roughly the same view of the mid-1960s pop explosion today as they had in the 1980s. And they aren’t the same critics.

• Signalgate proves there's no such a thing as "Backdoor for the Good Guys Only"

• I Convinced HP's Board to Buy Palm for $1.2B. I Watched Them Kill It in 49 Days

  This isn't just another tech failure analysis. I was the HP Chief Technology Officer who led the technical due diligence on Palm. I presented to Mark Hurd and the HP board, making the case for moving forward with the acquisition. I believed we were buying the future of mobile computing. Then I watched it all fall apart from the worst possible vantage point—lying in bed during a eight-week recovery, helpless to intervene as everything I'd worked to build got dismantled in real time. This is the story of how smart people destroyed $1.2 billion in innovation value in just 49 days. It's about the brutal personal cost of being blamed for a disaster that happened while you're recovering from surgery. And it's about why I still believe in HP despite everything that went wrong.

• Hit songs are getting shorter

• Vox Media Union Reaches Agreement on Three-Year Contract

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• jemalloc Postmortem

  As far as I am concerned, “upstream” jemalloc development has concluded. Meta’s needs stopped aligning well with those of external uses some time ago, and they are better off doing their own thing. Were I to reengage, the first step would be at least hundreds of hours of refactoring to pay off accrued technical debt. And I’m not sufficiently excited by what would come after to pay such a high upfront cost. Perhaps others will create viable forks, whether from the dev branch or from the 5.3.0 release (already three years old!). jemalloc was an odd diversion for me, since I have been a strong proponent of garbage collection over manual memory management for over 25 years. Personally I’m happy to be working again on garbage-collected systems, but jemalloc was a tremendously fulfilling project. Thank you to everyone who made this project so worthwhile, collaborators, supporters, and users alike.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling

• The case against vibe coding

• Andrew Ng says vibe coding is a bad name for a real and exhausting job

• Vibe Coding Is Coming for Engineering Jobs

• Meta buys Scale AI in a $14.3B deal

  • Meta is paying $14B to catch up in the AI race

• Meta offered one AI researcher at least $10M to join up

• Apple's Spin on the Personalized Siri Apple Intelligence Reset

• Barbie-maker Mattel partners with OpenAI to make AI child's play

• AI Has Already Run Us Over the Cliff

• The Dream of a Gentle Singularity

• "Yuck": Wikipedia pauses AI summaries after editor revolt

• The Same Old Fantasies Behind AI and New Technology

• AI needs more books to learn from. These libraries are opening their stacks

• Mechanize is building AI tools to automate white-collar jobs

• Is Google about to destroy the web?

• Tech Giants' New AI Ad Tools Threaten Big Agencies

• Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity's future

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Isaacman's bold plan for NASA: Nuclear ships, seven-crew Dragons, Artemis

• NASA indefinitely delays private astronaut mission for Russian module air leak

• There's another leak on the ISS, but NASA is not saying much about it

• New delay for Europe’s reusable rocket; SpaceX moves in at SLC-37 - Ars Technica

Crypto con games

• Walmart and Amazon Are Exploring Issuing Their Own Stablecoins

• James Wynn Goes Long on PEPE Hours After Losing $100M on Leveraged Bitcoin Bet

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Amazon's Return-to-Office Mandate Sparks Disability Complaints

• How to Help Your Kid Who's Struggling to Find a Job

• Private Equity, UnitedHealth Take Loss as Oregon Bans Corp Control of Doctors

• OFAC Discloses Massive Penalty Against Venture Capital Firm

  U.S. officials fined an “early-stage” venture capital firm in San Francisco $216 million on Thursday for knowingly handling tens of millions of dollars for blacklisted Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov from April 2018 to May 2021, and failing to comply with a subpoena. The venture-capital firm, GVA Capital, which holds registration in the Cayman Islands, approached Kerimov about investing in an unidentified U.S. company in 2016, more than a year before the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated the Russian billionaire over his links to the Kremlin.

• What does the Air India crash mean for the plane maker?

• Gen Z Shoppers Are Loving Google. That Could Be Bad News for Amazon

• Americans are losing spending power, say researchers

• Palmer Luckey aims to revive tech banking with crypto-friendly 'Erebor' startup

• Anne Wojcicki Wins Bidding for 23andMe

  • Anne Wojcicki is taking back control of 23andMe

• GameStop CEO Says the Company's Future Isn't in Games

• Messing with Texas: Big Homebuilders and Private Equity Made Cities Unaffordable

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• AFL-CIO receives more from federal grants than it receives from membership dues

• I’m a legal immigrant — don’t you dare lump me in with border-jumpers.

• Numerous US politicians appear to have bought war stocks before Israel vs. Iran

Mostly Peaceful Protests

• Want To End The Riots? Hit The Mob Where It Hurts

• LA riots are descending into ethnic conflict.

  Consider the numerous photos and videos of balaclava-clad rioters waving the flags of Mexico and other Latin-American nations and shouting slogans such as “Viva La Raza!” — long live the race. Rightly understood, these symbols and watchwords evoke not progressivism, but instead nationalism and reactionary cultural revanchism, with Mexico and Hispanic identity as their objects of devotion. What we’re dealing with, in other words, is a scenario more akin to banlieue riots in France, in which a subset of the population feels little to no attachment to their country of citizenship and is bent on claiming — or reclaiming — space for other national or civilisational identities. Every few years, rioters claim the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis for Algeria or Islam. Likewise, LA is being claimed for the spiritual geography of Hispanidad. If that seems a fanciful line of thought, bear in mind that there’s nothing stopping the activists from waving US flags while demanding humane treatment for migrants or opposing Donald Trump’s deportation policies. They could even forgo flags altogether.

• Far-Right Groups Buzz with Violent Talk on How to Respond to 'No Kings' Protest

  • NoKings Federal Grant Links | DataRepublican

• Social media algorithms boost L.A. protest misinformation

• US Marines carry out first known detention of civilian in Los Angeles

• Ahead of Protests, Waymo Scales Back Robotaxi Service Nationwide

Democrats

• Sen. Alex Padilla is forcibly removed from Kristi Noem's news conference

  "I am Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary," Padilla told Noem, which prompted several men dressed in plainclothes to push him out of the room. A top FBI official later said bureau personnel and Secret Service agents were involved in his removal. Padilla's office shared a video of the incident with NBC News. The video shows Padilla being taken into a hallway outside and pushed face forward onto the ground as officers with FBI-identifying vests tell him to put his hands behind his back. The officers then handcuff him.

Left Angst

• This is fascism - De Correspondent

  Trump takes it to the next level: anyone who accuses him of being fascist gets called fascist right back. It’s a tried and true tactic to sap language of meaning: If everyone calls their adversaries “fascist,” the word loses its power to warn people about actual fascism. Instead of continuing to debate whether or not Trump can be called a fascist, it’s better to understand why experts are alerting us. To do that, it’s essential we understand how fascism works, so we can recognize today’s variants, in the US and beyond.

• Big Tech sponsors Trump's military parade party

• Climate.gov will stop publishing new content on July 1

• Innovation takes a backseat at small companies as tariffs become a full-time job

• Home appliances swept up in expansion of Trump steel tariffs

• Trump gives data of immigrant Medicaid enrollees to deportation officials

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The Army's Newest Recruits: Tech Execs from Meta, OpenAI and More

• Trump Drops an All-Time Troll on Iran, As What Happened Behind the Scenes Comes Into View

  • In Twist, U.S. Diplomacy Served As Cover for Israeli Surprise Attack

• Pentagon pizza monitor predicted 'busy night' ahead of Israel's attack on Iran

• I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army

  Later today, on the eve of the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, I will raise my right hand, take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve’s newly formed Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps.

  Receiving their commissions at my side will be some of the most impressive minds from the world of technology: Kevin Weil, the chief product officer of OpenAI; Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, the chief technology officer of Meta; and Bob McGrew, formerly the chief research officer of OpenAI and engineering director of Palantir Technologies, where I work as chief technology officer.None of these men need to pad their résumé. None have free time between fatherhood, demanding day jobs, and a dozen other demands. But all feel called to serve.

  A decade ago, it would’ve been unthinkable for so many tech heavyweights to openly align with the U.S. military. Equally, it would’ve been out of character for the military to enlist the support of the nation’s business elite—much less to create a special corps so they could deploy their technical talents in service of the government. But a sea change has taken place in both places because of the urgency and seriousness of the moment.

  • Army Launches Detachment 201: Exec Innovation Corps to Drive Tech Transformation

  • Silicon Valley tech execs are joining the US Army Reserve

  • U.S. Army bringing in big tech executives as lieutenant colonels

• Microwave blasters can down even jam-proof drones

  • Even more problematical than high power lasers. Delivering energy through atmosphere at range is a hard problem.

World

• UK dumps £2.5B into fusion pipe dream that's cost millions

• 'We're done with Teams': German state hits uninstall on Microsoft

• Denmark Wants to Dump Microsoft Software for Linux, LibreOffice

• Thousands of Koreans were banned from Instagram this week. I was one of them

• Why is 11A Europe's most hated airline seat?

• Five ways to stem the exodus from London's stock markets

• UK unis cough up £10M on Java to keep Oracle off their backs

• British pubs have their own set of rules. Here's what you need to know

Iran / Houthi

• IAF launches major strike on Iran's nuclear program; PM: Israel at decisive point in its history | The Times of Israel

  Israel is at a “decisive point” in its history, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says in a video address. “Our brave pilots are attacking a large number of targets across Iran,” he says. The goal of the operation, says Netanyahu, is “to strike Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Iran’s ballistic missile factories, and Iran’s military capabilities.”

• Israel launches preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear sites, military targets

• Israel attacks Iran's capital with explosions booming across Tehran

• Israel Launches Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities

• Israel struck bases and nuclear sites across Iran multiple times overnight

• Israel Launches Operation Rising Lion to Destroy Iran's Nuclear Program

• Israel launches air strikes on Iran's nuclear program: 'As many days as it takes'

• Israel Tests Out a Decapitation Strike | Frontpage Mag

  A decapitation strike, in theory, bypasses conventional battles to take out the leadership of a regime. It’s the sort of thing that the United States explores in theory, but is careful about in practice. And that’s reason 412 why we never win wars anymore. On paper, decapitation strikes, depending on how they’re implemented may violate international law. And so rather than take out Saddam, we spend years and countless lives to usher in democracy. You’re not supposed to target officers. Too bad the other side doesn’t play by those rules or care about them. Israel however went after element of Iran’s shadow government, including its terrorist apparatus. Operation Rising Lion is in theory somewhat similar to Beepergate, but applied to a state. Infiltrate and then eliminate its key figures.

• Israel-Iran Conflict Could Trigger Bitcoin Volatility and Push U.S. Inflation 5%

• Israeli Commandos Attacked Iranian Air Defenses

• Israel "had clear U.S. green light for Iran strike"

• Iran Vows To Continue Nuclear Activities Amid Threat Of More Israeli Strikes | ZeroHedge

• Iran retaliates with missile attacks on Israel

• Israel's Strike on Iran Causing Radioactive Contamination—IAEA Chief - Newsweek

  International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi told the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council on Friday that Israel's strike on an Iranian nuclear facility was causing "radioactive and chemical contamination." "Israel destroyed the above-ground part of the Natanz nuclear facility. There are no indications of damage to the underground enrichment facilities at the site, but the power outage may have affected the centrifuges. There is radioactive and chemical contamination at the site," Grossi said.

China

• Chinese AI Companies Dodge USA Chip Curbs with Flying Suitcases of Hard Drives

• China demands sensitive information for rare earth exports, companies warn

Health / Medicine

• How the Alzheimer's Research Scandal Set Back Treatment 16 Years

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Supernova Explosions Changed Earth's Climate and Shaped Humanity's History

• Scientists rush to stop mirror microbes that could threaten life on Earth

• Journey into a Prehistoric Cave That Trapped and Entombed Animals for Millennia

• Some of the Oldest Living Creatures Are Getting Crushed by Cruise Ship Anchors

• Radio pulses detected coming from ice in Antarctica

  Rather than reflecting off the ice, the signals — a form of radio waves — appeared to be coming from below the horizon, an orientation that cannot be explained by the current understanding of particle physics and may hint at new types of particles or interactions previously unknown to science, the team said.

• Part of Alaska is under a heat advisory. That's a first

• After millions of years, why are carnivorous plants still so small?