2025-06-27

Worthy

• Must click for the maps: Why Are Homes in Western States So Expensive?

  The most obvious pattern here is the huge sea of red counties in the western half of the US. In the rest of the country expensive housing is mostly concentrated around major metro areas, outside a few hotspots like South Florida and the Blue Ridge Mountains. But in the West it seems to be everywhere. If we dive into this pattern, the explanation appears to be a simple case of high demand. While there’s high demand and high home prices in major metro areas around the country, western states are unusual for having high demand in rural areas as well.

  western counties have a much higher ratio of median home values to median incomes (4.87) than the US as a whole (3.07). This pattern remains if we restrict it to just rural counties. In counties with 10,000 homes or fewer, the ratios are 4.05 in western counties and 2.59 in the US overall

Horseshit

• The last linen beetler of Ireland

• The Armageddon complex- On R/collapse people are kept abreast of the latest doom

• 'Motherhood Should Come with a Warning Label'

• Sports betting is causing athletes to be abused and harassed online

• An 18-Year-Old Prodigy May Be Darts' First Global Superstar

• Math Enthusiasts Unite to Have Rover Calculate Pi on the Moon

celebrity gossip

• Mary Queen of Scots' scheming revealed in decoded letters

• Peter Thiel and the Antichrist - The New York Times

  Thiel: Maybe a much narrower aspiration was that we could maybe at least have a conversation about this. So when someone like Trump said “Make America Great Again” — OK, is that a positive, optimistic, ambitious agenda? Or is it merely a very pessimistic assessment of where we are, that we are no longer a great country? I didn’t have great expectations about what Trump would do in a positive way, but I thought at least, for the first time in 100 years, we had a Republican who was not giving us this syrupy Bush nonsense. It was not the same as progress, but we could at least have a conversation. In retrospect, this was a preposterous fantasy.

• Marge Simpson isn't dead yet, so everyone can calm down

Musk

• Elon Musk Gives Anti-Semites a Chance to Rewrite History

• Tesla's Robotaxi Launch Shows Google's Waymo Is Worth More Than $45B

• Tesla head of manufacturing Omead Afshar fired by Elon Musk

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Why GM Designed a Gas Exhaust for EVs

  GM’s patent describes a system designed to help prevent thermal runaway from instigating a thermal event. To call it an “exhaust” seems a bit generous; it’s more like an elaborate wastegate.

• Uber in Talks with Its Founder, Travis Kalanick, to Fund Self-Driving Car Deal

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Missing Heritability: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

  This post is the story of how that didn’t happen, of the people trying to rehabilitate the twin-studies-are-wrong hypothesis, and of the current status of the debate. Its most important influence/foil is Sasha Gusev, whose blog The Infintesimal introduced me to the new anti-hereditarian movement and got me to research it further, but it’s also inspired by Eric Turkheimer, Alex Young (not himself an anti-hereditarian, but his research helped ignite interest in this area), and Awais Aftab.

  • Possibly some people develop differently than others; there's not one answer that fits all persons?

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• College graduates face toughest job market in more than a decade

• University of Wisconsin funds student group with $136k to distribute sex toys and ‘interactive’ programming.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Touts employ overseas workers to bulk-buy gig tickets

• Reddit vows to stay human to emerge a winner from artificial intelligence

• Sholay: Bollywood epic roars back to big screen after 50 years with new ending

• Internet of Things devices affect your privacy – even when they're not yours

• BBC website in US launches paid subscription service

  • The BBC is launching a paywall in the US

  • BBC Throws Up Website Paywall for U.S. Users

  • BBC to start charging US-based consumers for news and TV coverage

  • BBC rolls out paid subscriptions for US users

• FTC to give $126M back to Fortnite players who were charged for unwanted items

• Microsoft is moving antivirus providers out of the Windows kernel

• Windows removing the Blue Screen in next update

• DDR4 Module Prices Overtake DDR5

  • DDR3 can be quite reasonable, if you can find anyone who will actually deliver.

• The Washington Post Will Ask Some Sources to Annotate Its Stories

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Mixed DPI and the X Window System

• NREL Map of US Datacenter Infrastructure

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI company wins a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by authors

• Meta Wins Blockbuster AI Copyright Case–But There's a Catch

  • Meta Secures Bittersweet Fair Use Victory in AI 'Piracy' Case

  • Meta wins artificial intelligence copyright case in blow to authors

  • Meta wins AI copyright case, but judge says others could bring lawsuits

  • Meta fends off authors' US copyright lawsuit over AI

  • Book authors made the wrong arguments in Meta AI training case, judge says

• The First Major AI Fair Use Rulings: What the Anthropic and Meta Cases Mean

• Microsoft sued by authors over use of books in AI training

  • Group of high-profile authors sue Microsoft over use of books in AI training

• Can the Gulf buy its way to AI supremacy?

• Japanese company using mee-AI-ow to detect stressed cats

• 34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, about double the share in 2023

• Amazon's Ring can now use AI to 'learn the routines of your residence'

• Bumble's AI icebreakers are mainly breaking EU law

• Meta Poaches Three OpenAI Researchers

  • Meta's recruiting blitz claims three OpenAI researchers

• Meta in Talks to Buy AI Voice Startup PlayAI in Push for Talent

• Microsoft is struggling to sell Copilot to corporations – they want ChatGPT

• Why Does Every Commercial for A.I. Think You're a Moron?

• The End of Publishing as We Know It. Inside Silicon Valley's Assault on Media

• My Couples Retreat with 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them

• Anthropic cut up used books to train Claude

• Tech AI is doing 30%-50% of the work at Salesforce, CEO Marc Benioff says

• ChatGPT and other AI tools are changing the teaching profession

• A real issue: video game developers are being accused of using AI

• AI is ruining houseplant communities online

• AI valuations are verging on the unhinged

  Even well known AI firms are far from turning a profit. Perplexity, which has sought to disrupt a search business long dominated by Google, reportedly generated revenue of $34m last year, but burned around $65m of cash. That has been no hurdle to a punchy valuation. Perplexity’s latest fundraising round reportedly valued it at close to $14bn—more than 400 times last year’s revenue (compared with a multiple of a little under 5 for stocks traded on the Nasdaq exchange). OpenAI, which torched some $5bn of cash last year, is worth $300bn. The willingness of investors to look past these losses reflects their belief that the potential market for AI is enormous and that costs will continue to plummet. In Perplexity’s case, the startup may be a takeover target, too.

• AI returns still a long way from justifying investment mania

  What’s remarkable, though, is how little has changed in generative AI’s broader revenue outlook since the warnings of a year ago. The hope (and hype) is as powerful as ever, but it is still hard to see where the returns will come from to justify the huge capital spending on AI, at least in the short term. On the cost side, the effects of AI mania are all too apparent. The four tech companies leading the charge — Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft — increased their capital spending by nearly two-thirds, or $95bn, in 2024. As this year got under way, they were planning to boost capex by another $75bn.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Astronauts from India, Poland, Hungary blast off on a trip to the space station

• Bezos and Blue Origin Try to Capitalize on Trump-Musk Split

• How do scientists calculate the probability that an asteroid could hit Earth?

Crypto con games

• Crypto exchange Kraken debuts peer-to-peer payments app Krak

• The Bait to Crypto? Credit Cards Entice Users with Bitcoin Rewards

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Shares of NYC real-estate firms tank over fears of Mamdani's rent freeze: 'Zohran effect'

• Intel lays off engineers, including chip design engineers

• Nvidia hits record high as analyst predicts AI 'Golden Wave'

  • The last 3 generations of hardware have been disappointing (to put it kindly) and all their actual innovations come from the marketing dept. Yup, just the company to take Intel's place at the top of the news for another 2 decades.

• FICO Scores to Include a Shopper's 'Buy Now, Pay Later' Loan History

• US economy shrank 0.5% in the first quarter, worse than earlier estimates

• Jane Street's Sneaky Retention Tactic

• Tangled titles are contributing to rural America's housing crisis

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• NASA's acting leadership planning new agency structure

• Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares

Trump

• Trump administration sues every federal judge in Maryland - The Washington Post

  The Justice Department sued all 15 federal district court judges in Maryland on Tuesday over an order that pauses any deportations under legal challenge in the state for 48 hours. Legal experts described the move as an unprecedented attack on judicial independence, while government lawyers said it was necessary to preserve President Donald Trump’s constitutional authority over immigration. Longtime court watchers said they could not recall another instance in which the Justice Department, which usually represents members of the judicial branch in court, sued the entire roster of judges in a district.

• Trump calls for firing of CNN reporter over Iran nuclear damage report.

• Trump says he has ‘3 or 4′ picks in mind to replace Fed’s Powell.

Democrats

• Will the Democrats learn from Zohran Mamdani's victory?

• DoorDash Backed Cuomo, Mamdani Won Primary Anyway | Eater NY

  Turns out if you’re a major corporation dumping millions of dollars behind a candidate, that doesn’t automatically guarantee they’ll win a primary election. That’s what DoorDash found out last night, when disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, the mayoral candidate that the food delivery service put their money behind, was crushed by Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani in a historic victory within the Democratic Party. Mamdani had received the approval of Los Deliveristas Unidos, a group organizing the some 65,000 app-based delivery workers who “transport billions of dollars of goods each year yet do not benefit from minimum wage or workplace safety protections because they are classified as independent contractors,” according to their website.

• Melanie Stansbury Makes Brutal Math Error in DOGE Hearing

  the total of the three categories in the poll added up to 110 percent. Rep. Brian Jack (R-GA) was quick to spot the error. “The poll behind you, behind our ranking member, it adds up to 110 percent,” Jack said. “Just wanted to clarify, is it meant to add up to 110 percent or is that an error?” Stansbury was caught flat-footed. “This is from a Quinnipiac poll that was held two weeks ago, and this is the data that was provided,” Stansbury said. “There’s a wealth of information, including information about Donald Trump’s falling poll numbers. So you should take a look.”

Left Angst

• U.S. will stop funding global vaccine group over 'vaccine safety' issues

• All childhood vaccines in question after first meeting of RFK Jr.s vaccine panel

• Jeff Bezos Courts Trump Amid SpaceX Rivalry to Boost Blue Origin Contracts

• The Trump Admin Is Kicking the National Science Foundation Out of Its Offices

• During a town hall Wednesday, NASA officials on stage looked like hostages

• ICE Is Using a New Facial Recognition App to Identify People, Leaked Emails Show

• Fired, rehired and fired again, some NOAA employees get letters demanding money

• The Supreme Court's disastrous new abortion decision

  The Republican justices just nuked much of federal Medicaid law, in order to spite Planned Parenthood.

• Is DOGE doomed to fail? Some experts are ready to call it

• 'Made in the USA' reference disappears from Trump phone listing

• RFK Jr's new vaccine panel votes against preservative in flu shots in shock move

  • Last year's shots seem to have made people more likely to get the flu. "First, do no harm..."

• Melania Trump releases audiobook version of her memoir. Narrated by an AI voice

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Why DARPA Thinks Stealth Is Obsolete in Future Wars

• Critical hurricane forecast tool abruptly terminated

  The announcement was formalized on Tuesday when NOAA distributed a service change notice to all users, including the National Hurricane Center, that by next Monday, June 30th, they would no longer receive real-time microwave data collected aboard three weather satellites jointly run by NOAA and the U.S. Department of Defense. The permanent discontinuation of data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) will severely impede and degrade hurricane forecasts for this season and beyond, affecting tens of millions of Americans who live along its hurricane-prone shorelines. Though not immediately clear why the real-time data was suddenly discontinued, the decision appears to have stemmed from Department of Defense security concerns. Officials at the National Hurricane Center were also caught off guard by the announcement and are preparing their team for the loss of critical forecast data for the rest of the hurricane season.

  • Hurricane forecasters scrambling after sudden shutdown of key satellites

• Lightning Carriers: The Marines' secret weapon in the Pacific

World

• Pornhub to introduce 'government approved' age checks in UK

  • Major pornography sites to introduce 'robust' age verification for UK users

• Consumer assoc. starts mass claim against Booking.com for keeping prices high

• Canadian telecom hacked by suspected China state group

• UK to buy nuclear-capable F-35As that can't be refueled from RAF tankers

• South Korea banned dog meat. So what happens to the dogs?

  In 2024, the South Korean government implemented a nationwide ban on the sale of dog meat for consumption. The landmark legislation, which was passed last January, gives farmers like Mr Joo until February 2027 to shutter their operations and sell off their remaining animals. But many say that isn't enough time to phase out an industry which has propped up livelihoods for generations – and that authorities still haven't come up with adequate safeguards for farmers or the estimated half a million dogs in captivity. Even those who support the ban, including experts and animal rights advocates, have flagged issues around its enforcement – including the difficulty of rehoming dogs that, having been saved from the kill floor, now face the increasingly likely threat of euthanasia.

• Apple announces sweeping App Store changes in the EU

Iran / Houthi

• Ayatollah Claims 'Victory' Over Israel Which 'Almost Collapsed' In 1st Public Appearance Since Ceasefire | ZeroHedge

  Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday issued his first comments since the Trump-backed ceasefire with Israel took effect, congratulating "the great nation of Iran" for its "victory over the fake Zionist regime." "Despite all that noise, and with all those claims, the Zionist regime almost collapsed and was crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic," he said, according to the national IRNA news agency. He also claimed to have "delivered a slap to America’s face."

• Britain shuns $34B Morocco-UK subsea power project

Israel

• A street in Gaza, a map of dreams, and the people desperate to live

• Netanyahu agreed to end Gaza war within two weeks after US strike on Iran.

  After the US strike on Iran earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump agreed on a rapid end to the war in Gaza and expansion of the Abraham Accords, Israel Hayom reports, citing “a source familiar with the conversation.”

  According to the outlet, Trump and Netanyahu agreed in a phone call that the war in Gaza would end within two weeks. Four Arab states, including the UAE and Egypt, would jointly govern the Gaza Strip in place of Hamas. The terror group’s leadership would be exiled, and all hostages would be released. However, Arab allies have repeatedly asserted that they will not take part in the postwar rehabilitation of Gaza absent Israeli acquiescence to the Palestinian Authority gaining a foothold in Gaza as part of a pathway to a future two-state solution, but Netanyahu has flatly rejected any PA role in the Strip. Moreover, Hamas’s leaders have also long rejected demands to go into exile.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• I Fought in Ukraine and Here's Why FPV Drones Kind of Suck

China

• China breaks more records with surge in solar and wind power

• China is working to undermine UK democracy, British government says

• How China made electric vehicles mainstream

Health / Medicine

• Weight loss and diabetes jab users report pancreas problems

  • Weight loss and diabetes jabs linked to potentially fatal side effect

  • Weight-loss jabs linked to cases of life-threatening illness and 10 deaths

  • Weight loss jabs study begins after reports of pancreas issues

• More time in bed benefits morning and evening-type teens differently

• Semaglutide and Dementia: A 1.7M Patient Study in Off-Label Use

• Why Most Vaccines Don't Contain Mercury Anymore

• Study: 1 in 5 U.S. food, drink products contain synthetic dyes.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Startup's technology hopes to clean up pollution from cargo shipping

• The European wood pigeon helped me appreciate its omnipresent city cousins

• (Jun 2025) Highbrow climate misinformation - by Joseph Heath

  Everyone knows that misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to debate over the climate change issue. The UN just released a major report on the subject. The report, unfortunately, follows the general trend of focusing exclusively on right-wing disinformation, while ignoring completely the possibility of left-wing disinformation. More specifically, it focuses on climate denialism and skepticism (i.e. views that downplay the severity of the problem) while ignoring the opposite tendency toward catastrophism (i.e. views that radically overstate the seriousness of the problem). This is a bit of a tricky issue, of course, since there is a non-zero chance that climate change will produce genuinely catastrophic outcomes. So when I talk about catastrophism I am referring specifically to views that misrepresent the results of existing climate science, in order to make the high-probability scenarios seem worse than they are expected to be. There is a temptation to give the latter a free pass, on the grounds that we (i.e. human beings in general) are not currently doing enough to mitigate climate change, and so erring on the side of overstatement, when it comes to presenting the anticipated consequences, seems harmless. Where this attitude becomes a serious problem, however, is when people start to call for regulation, or criminalization, of climate misinformation. This sort of flirtation with illiberalism is a bad idea on its own merits, but from a purely tactical perspective, anyone who intends to use such a strategy against their opponents should want to make damn sure that their own house is in order first. (Elites should have figured out by now that their attempts to exercise coercive control over public discourse, while exempting themselves from the same constraints, is a good way to discredit themselves in the eyes of the public.)

• Western Canadian glaciers melting twice as fast as they did a decade ago

• Overfishing has caused cod to halve in body size since 1990s

• Malaysian Fryer Oil Arbitrage - Bloomberg

  you can buy fresh cooking oil for $0.60, not use it to fry food any times, and then say “oh yeah we totally used this oil” and sell it to a refiner for $1. The refiner probably isn’t going to taste it. This is in a sense less efficient than cooking with the oil first, but it is also easier to scale, and it seems like a simpler, safer, higher-margin business than actually doing the cooking. Obviously it is worse for the environment: Instead of reusing a product that was previously used for cooking, you are creating incremental demand for palm oil (and incremental deforestation, etc.). You shouldn’t try to pass off fresh cooking oil as used cooking oil. But if the price of used cooking oil is higher than the price of fresh cooking oil, someone will.

• Google Wants to Get Better at Spotting Wildfires from Space

• Extreme heat can impact infrastructure

• How the next financial crisis starts. The climate shocks that trigger turmoil

• Extreme heat is causing roads to buckle in multiple states