2025-07-04

Worthy

• Declaration of Independence

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

etc

• America Builds to Resist Disasters. The Global South Builds to Recover

• Neanderthals operated "fat extraction factory" 125,000 years ago

Horseshit

• Why the superyachts are getting bigger and bigger

• Is that a Lululemon Scuba hoodie or Costco dupe? No one has to know

• The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages

• First complete ancient Egyptian DNA genome reveals his occupation

• Do blue-blocking glasses improve sleep?

  If those effects are real, do they warrant wearing stupid-looking glasses at night for the rest of your life? I guess that’s personal. But surely the sane thing is not to block blue light with headgear, but to not create blue light in the first place. You can tell your glowing rectangles to block blue light at night, but lights are harder.

• A robot in a cowboy hat is walking around Austin

• Remember the point-and-shoot digital cameras? Gen Z wants them

• The 'Arbitrage Consultants' Promising Risk-Free Sports Betting

• Cars Are Caught in an Endless Cycle of Bigger Screens Nobody Likes

Obit

• Michael Madsen Has Died

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Far-Right Extremists Use Minecraft to Gamify Radicalisation

  This Insight will analyse how far-right extremist networks have turned Minecraft, one of the world’s most popular online games, into a tool for ideological grooming and radicalisation. By creating immersive, gamified spaces that embed hateful narratives into familiar gameplay mechanics, extremists are turning gaming culture into recruitment infrastructure. This refers to how extremists use popular and widely accessible cultural activities, such as video games, as tools to subtly introduce and reinforce their beliefs among users. This Insight focuses on Minecraft specifically because of its unique blend of accessibility, community-driven content, and low moderation thresholds that make it particularly vulnerable to abuse by ideologically motivated actors. While direct attribution remains difficult due to the short-lived nature of servers, researchers and OSINT communities have documented the circulation of Minecraft-themed extremist content within far-right Telegram groups and fringe forums. These include recreations of ideological texts, violence-themed missions, and meme-based propaganda. One example includes a widely circulated server that used Minecraft’s redstone, the game’s version of electrical wiring, to simulate ‘detonations’ at symbolic targets.

Musk

• XAI data center gets air permit to run 15 turbines, but imaging shows 24 on site

• Tesla Is in Disarray. Musk Has Moved Beyond Caring About Cars

• Tesla bounces back in Norway and Spain, as EV market surges across Europe

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Coulda Had a V-8: Dodge Charger EV Recalled for Being Too Quiet.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Dalai Lama vows he won't be the last leader of Tibetan Buddhism

  • Why a Struggle Is Brewing over Dalai Lama Succession

• The Death and Life of the Straight White Man's Novel

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• 'There is a problem': Meta users complain of being shut out of their accounts

• Hundreds of Brother printer models have an unpatchable security flaw

  The most serious security flaw, tracked under CVE-2024-51978 in the National Vulnerability Database, has a 9.8 “Critical” CVSS rating and allows attackers to generate the device’s default admin password if they know the serial number of the printer they’re targeting. This allows attackers to exploit the other seven vulnerabilities discovered by Rapid7, which include retrieving sensitive information, crashing the device, opening TCP connections, performing arbitrary HTTP requests, and exposing passwords for connected network services. While seven of these security flaws can be fixed via firmware updates detailed in Rapid7’s report, Brother indicated to the company that CVE-2024-51978 itself “cannot be fully remediated in firmware,” and will be fixed via a change to the manufacturing process for future versions of affected printer models.

• Apple is reportedly working on a cheaper MacBook with an iPhone processor

• Dumb phones are a dumb idea that don't live up to the 'digital detox' hype

• G/O Media Sells Kotaku as It Winds Down Operations

• What's wrong with AAA games? The development of the next Battlefield has answers

• What happens to your brain when you watch videos online at faster speeds

• AT&T rolls out Wireless Account Lock protection to curb the SIM-swap scourge

• Google Wipes 350 Android Apps Tied to Ad Fraud Driving 1.5B Daily Bid Requests

• AirPods 4

• ICEBlock is incredibly false privacy claims for marketing

• 'The film wouldn't even be made today' the story behind Back to the Future at 40

• "The Xbox Project Has Failed"

  All in all, it's been quite a kick in the teeth for Xbox and its fans, but some believe it signals more than just a cost-cutting exercise in reaction to a flagging industry – it means the Xbox brand as we know it is changing. "The Xbox project has failed," says The Games Business' Chris Dring. "And as a result, Xbox is now a third-party publisher. One with a console and a subscription service, but a third-party publisher all the same. It is committed to hardware, but its partnership with Asus on the Xbox handheld, and the news of a Windows-focused future for its platform, suggests a different commitment to the one we’re used to."

• Even before the Xbox layoffs, there was 'tension' at Halo Studios

• Xbox Invites Developers to AI Roundtable the Same Day It Does Mass Layoffs

• Crunchyroll ran embarrassingly bad ChatGPT subtitles on its new anime series

• Why Duolingo switched from Hearts to a battery

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Wayback: A Wayland replacement for the whole X11 server

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Marginalized Americans are highly skeptical of artificial intelligence

• Workers training Meta's AI in Ireland speak out

• Perplexity joins Anthropic and OpenAI in offering a $200 per month subscription

• AI job predictions become corporate America's newest competitive sport

• CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs

• Baidu to join open-source movement with Ernie 4.5 models publicly available

• Data Ecofeminism

  Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is driving significant environmental impacts. The rapid development and deployment of larger algorithmic models consumes substantially more energy than traditional models, contributing to rising carbon emissions, water withdrawal, and e-waste generation. To mitigate these impacts, big tech companies are developing different strategies such as turning to nuclear energy to meet the demand for GenAI electricity and avoid carbon emissions, an approach that could have profound social and environmental implications beyond carbon reduction. This paper proposes a critical rethinking of GenAI’s proliferation through an ecofeminist framing, which has historically interrogated the role of science and technology in the context of gender and environmental justice. To do so, it introduces seven data ecofeminist principles delineating a pathway for developing technological and just transition alternatives within the AI research context, emphasising a critical examination of this technology’s role in the current socio-ecological crisis. The paper calls for an urgent reassessment of the GenAI innovation race, advocating for ecological and feminist technological projects that prioritise and respect life, people, and the planet.

• Natasha Lyonne reveals David Lynch was a supporter of AI

• Swedish AI startup Lovable nears $2B valuation

• Karen Hao on how the AI boom became a new imperial frontier

• Ok, AI Can Write Pretty Good Fiction Now

• Ford CEO: Blue-Collar Workers 'Safe' but AI Will Replace Half of White-Collars

• Free Lunch Is over for the AI That Broke the Web

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Project West Ford: Cold War Plan to Solve Radio Problems with 480M Space Needles

  In 1963, for several glorious weeks, Earth wore a necklace of 480 million copper needles arranged in perfect orbital formation. Not for aesthetic purposes, mind you, but because the U.S. military was absolutely terrified they wouldn’t be able to call Europe if the Soviets cut a few underwater cables. The solution, naturally, was to redecorate the entire planet with precisely-cut copper wire needles deployed using technology originally designed to protect winter sweaters from moths. This is the story of how America’s response to a communication crisis involved gift-wrapping Earth in cosmic haberdashery—and accidentally created the foundation of modern space law in the process.

• $88M pollution-tracking satellite missing in space

• US plans to shut down Mauna Loa Observatory

• Astronomers may have found a third interstellar object

  • Scientists tracking 'interstellar' object that's come from another solar system

  • Astronomers discover 3I/ATLAS – Third interstellar object to visit Solar System

  • It Came from Outside Our Solar System, and It Looks Like a Comet

  • It's official! An interstellar object is visiting our solar system

  • Astronomers track object that may have originated outside the solar system

Crypto con games

• US rural communities bearing the brunt of Bitcoin mining

• The Salvadoran beach town that became a Bitcoin testbed

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Microsoft will lay off 9k employees, or less than 4% of the company

  • Microsoft to Lay Off About 9k Employees

  • Microsoft to cut about 4% of jobs amid hefty AI bets

  • Microsoft to cut up to 9k jobs as it invests in AI

• Payroll employment increases by 147K in June; unemployment rate at 4.1%

  • Economy adds 147K jobs, unemployment down to 4.1%

  • U.S. payrolls increased by 147,000 in June, more than expected

  • Strong jump in US jobs as economy defies expectations

  • US economy blasts through expectations to add 147,000 jobs

  • US Job Growth Picks Up

• Uber drivers in Victoria, B.C. (Canada), vote to unionize

• A Nasdaq Stock Surges More Than 100% After Unveiling $1B BNB Token Buying Plan

• How Health Care Remade the U.S. Economy

• US founder calls out Indian techie for 'scamming' multiple startups

• Dow jumps over 300 points, S&P 500 sets new record after strong June jobs report

• Detroit sues blockchain real estate firm that owns rentals with many violations

• Samsung delays $44B Texas chip fab – sources: 'there are no customers'

• UPS Offers Buyouts to Drivers, a First in Its 117-Year History

• Wall Street hedge funds are gambling millions on Eaton fire insurance claims

• Nvidia briefly on track to become most valuable company

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Finnish hacker Harri Hursti hacks U.S. voting machine on live podcast

• Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Cases Involving Transgender Athletes

Trump

• An Analysis of Links from the White House's "Wire" Website

  Here’s the top 10 domains that the White House Wire links to (by occurrence), from May 8 to June 24, 2025:

  • youtube.com (133)
  • foxnews.com (72)
  • thepostmillennial.com (67)
  • foxbusiness.com (66)
  • breitbart.com (64)
  • x.com (63)
  • reuters.com (51)
  • truthsocial.com (48)
  • nypost.com (47)
  • dailywire.com (36)

• Obama's Trump-Russia collusion report was corrupt from start: CIA review

  A bombshell new CIA review of the Obama administration’s spy agencies’ assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump was deliberately corrupted by then-CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who were “excessively involved” in its drafting, and rushed its completion in a “chaotic,” “atypical” and “markedly unconventional” process that raised questions of a “potential political motive.” Further, Brennan’s decision to include the discredited Steele dossier, over the objections of the CIA’s most senior Russia experts, “undermined the credibility” of the assessment.

• Johnson Muscles Prelim Vote on Reconciliation Bill, Tees Up Victory.

• House passes Trump's signature budget bill

• Trump Claims Power to Nullify Laws, Letters on TikTok Ban Show

  • The letters that convinced Google and Apple to keep TikTok online

Democrats

• Democrats Should Become the Pro-Porn Party | The Nation

  Democrats must be the party of free speech and artistic expression. That is the liberal position. Republicans have hijacked the free speech issue, but the only free speech conservatives actually believe in is the “freedom” to shout racist and sexist crap online. That argument works on certain types of men—men who think using slurs makes them “edgy” and counterculture. Men who get uncomfortable when they don’t know the right thing to say. Men who don’t know how to talk to women. But using a person’s preferred pronouns or swallowing a racial insult in your throat is not actually a free speech issue: It’s a human decency issue. The government does not fine you if you say the n-word, nor does it prevent you from getting a date just because you talk like a dude who is one rejection text away from becoming a mass shooter. Republicans are not protecting incels from government overreach; they’re protecting them from the social consequences of their beliefs.

  • Republicans "hijacked" the speech issue? By Forcing Democrats to pursue punishments for "things you can't say" since Reagan was in office? "Political Correctness" was not brought upon us by anyone on the Right.

Left Angst

• A Non-Partisan U.S. Military Is Essential

• Why They Hate Education - Robert Reich

  Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism, and transgender athletics are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities. Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power? They’re following Hungarian President Viktor Orban’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy” — an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this: First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you. Check. Next, intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.) Check. Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with. Check or in process. Then focus on independent sources of information. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews. Check. Then go after the universities.

• Trump tries to kill the most indisputable evidence of climate change

• Abrego Garcia Was Beaten and Tortured in El Salvador Prison, Lawyers Say

  • Kilmar Abrego Garcia describes beatings and psychological torture in CECOT

  • Mr. Abrego's Account of Torture at CECOT in El Salvador

• RFK Jr.'s plan to put 'AI' in everything is a disaster

• US agencies' science journal subscriptions canceled

• Trump officials want to prosecute over the ICEblock app

• There's No Undo Button for Our Fallen Democracy

• EPA puts 139 employees on leave after they sign a 'declaration of dissent'

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• The FCC delays enforcement of prison call rate caps

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Gone in 40 days: US drops ban on export of chip design tools to China

• That'll stop all the "chair force' jokes: The Air Force fitness test may soon increase with 2-mile runs, twice-a-year

World

• New front door to House of Lords cost £9.6M but doesn't work

• France and Switzerland shut down nuclear power plants amid scorching heatwave

  The Beznau nuclear power plant's reactors are located directly on the River Aare, where temperatures have reached 25 degrees Celsius in recent days, leading Axpo to curtail its activities to prevent "excessive warming of the already warm water" which could strain local biodiversity. Although Switzerland has decided to phase out nuclear power by 2033, existing plants are able to continue to operate as long as they are safe. Meanwhile, on Monday French electricity company EDF shut down the Golfech nuclear power plant, located in the southern department of Tarn-et-Garonne, amid extreme heat warnings in the region and concerns that the local river could heat up to 28 degrees, even without the inflow of heated cooling water.

  • 28C = 83F

• Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England – executive summary

• Ticketmaster threatened with legal action over way Oasis tickets were sold

• Italy to issue half million non-EU work visas over next three years

• Nearly 1k Britons will keep shorter working week after trial

• Spain arrests hackers who targeted politicians and journalists

• Pornhub and other porn sites to introduce 'government approved' age checks in UK

Iran / Houthi

• Atefe Asadi: "We, the people of Iran, have always been alone"

Israel

• IDF confirms probing troops' fire on aid-seeking Gazans

• How Microsoft became a hub for Israeli intelligence

• Gaza aid contractor tells BBC he saw colleagues fire on hungry Palestinians

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Calling Out Russia: France's Shift on Public Attribution

China

• Are China’s universities really the best in the world?

• China's Evolving Industrial Policy for AI

• How China's new auto giants left GM, VW and Tesla in the dust

• Foxconn mysteriously tells Chinese workers to quit India and return to China

• China Bans Some Portable Batteries from Flights as Safety Concerns Grow

• Under China's Threat, Taiwan Needs Its Own Power Sources More Than Ever

• China's Mosquito Drone Has Tiny Cameras for Spying

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Mount Everest's Trash-Covered Slopes Are Being Cleaned by Drones

• Flint, Michigan replaces most lead pipes 10 years after Michigan water crisis

• Dutch authorities: Almost every Dutch citizen has too much PFAS in their blood

• US to breed billions of flies to dump from aircraft, to fight flesheating maggot

• NIH Scientists Link Air Pollution and Lung Cancer Mutations in Non-Smokers

• European summers are getting brutally hot. So why is air conditioning so rare?

• To Save Nature, Make It Sacred

• Last summer: Mysterious life form found on ship that docked in Cleveland

• High-latitude peat and forest fires could shape the future of Earth's climate

• Himalayan Glaciers Are Surging

• CO2 sequestration through accelerated weathering of limestone on ships

• 'Thirstier' atmosphere is making droughts more severe

• Octopuses' 8 Arms Sample Microbiomes