2025-07-18

etc

• Inside a lab making the advanced fuel to power growing US nuclear ambitions

• Beware of 'Swiper,' a Fox at Grand Teton Park with a Penchant for Footwear

Horseshit

• Largest chunk of Mars on Earth sells for $5.3M

• Ex-Waymo engineers launch Bedrock Robotics to automate construction

• Why Jane Austen is definitely not just for girls

• Drones, AI and Robot Pickers: Meet the Autonomous Farm

• 'magic state' breakthrough after 20 years, quantum computers can be useful

• These Remote control racers aren't hobbyists. They're pros

  • The chance of injury is much lower than full scale racing; but not zero.

• The $340K Cadillac Celestiq Has Sensors in Its Ball Joints

• NYC's office-to-residential conversions could create 17,000 new homes

• The best and worst countries to be a woman

• Stop Hertz's AI Rental Car Damage Scanners from Screwing You

• Oldest known dog breed reveals hidden human history

• People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

celebrity gossip

• Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and Sexual Blackmail Networks

  Perhaps the biggest elephant in the room of American politics is the existence of a pedophilic blackmail network that involves some of the most powerful people in the country and the world. Despite efforts to get to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein case, which saw the trafficking and sexual exploitation of thousands of children, justice continues to be evaded and the cabal associated with Epstein — President Donald Trump notwithstanding — continues its conspiracy.

• Jack Dorsey invests 10M dollars in a non-profit organization

• Steve Miller Band Cancels All Tour Dates Due to Recent Weather Disasters

• Woody Allen to publish his first novel

Obit

• Felix Baumgartner, who jumped from edge of space, dies in paragliding accident

  • Stratospheric skydiver Felix Baumgartner dies in paraglider crash

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• How to avoid nuclear war in an era of AI and misinformation

  Amid this fraught landscape, scientists are working to prevent the world from annihilation. At a three-day conference in Chicago that started on 14 July — almost exactly 80 years after researchers and the US military tested the first atomic weapon — dozens of scientists, including Nobel laureates from a wide array of disciplines, met to discuss actions to prevent nuclear war. They released a fresh warning about its risks, as well as recommendations for what society can do to reduce them, including calling on all nations to speak transparently to each other about the scientific and military implications of AI.

• The Sad Fate of Yandex: From Independent Tech Startup to Kremlin Propaganda Tool

Musk

• Elon Musk's xAI permits challenged by NAACP, environmental groups

• I spent 24 hours flirting with Elon Musk's AI girlfriend

• OpenAI and Anthropic researchers decry 'reckless' safety culture at Musk's xAI

• Royal Society suggested Elon Musk resign science fellowship

• Elon Musk's plan to rain SpaceX's rocket debris over Hawaii's pristine waters

• How Did Elon Musk Turn Grok into MechaHitler?

• Elon Musk Wants to Turn AI into a Cosmic Religion

• Musk's xAI introduces anime companions, willing to pay engineers up to $440k

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Lucid, Nuro, and Uber Partner on Next-Generation Autonomous Robotaxi Program

  • Uber to invest in Lucid and Nuro in robotaxi deal

  • Uber agrees multibillion-dollar deal with Lucid for electric robotaxi fleet

• Volkswagen's Electric Bus Went from American Flagship to Flop

• Rivian restarting work on its Georgia factory, emails show

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Texas has banned talking on college campuses at night. Seriously

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Scandal-Ridden Fyre Festival Is Sold for $245,000 on eBay

• Nvidia's new consumer desktop PC chip reportedly delayed well into 2026

• Internet-safe iPhone for children goes on sale for £99 a month

• Google finds custom backdoor being installed on SonicWall network devices

• Disney's spent 70 years funneling IP into its theme parks. Here's why it works

• Thirty Years After New York Newsday, There's Never Been Another Paper Like It

• Meta investors, Zuckerberg reach settlement to end $8B privacy litigation trial

  • Investors, Zuckerberg reach settlement to end $8B trial over Facebook privacy

• When Is Cosplay a Crime?

• Slow Motion Became Cinema's Dominant Special Effect

• Steam cracks down on some sex games to appease payment processors

• Roblox New AI Feature Will Estimate Teenager's Age Through Video Selfies

• News publishers take paywall-blocker 12ft.io offline

• Mercedes-Benz will let you use an in-car camera in Microsoft Teams while driving

• Ad Blockers for Real Life Are Now a Thing, Thanks to AR Glasses

  • See also the "Peril Sensitive Sunglasses" from Douglas Adams' HHGTTG

• Nintendo Switch 2 account bans continue: warning after buying old copy of Bayo 3

• Netflix is entering a new era of growth

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Anthropic Draws Investor Interest at More Than $100B Valuation

• Anthropic Hires Back Two Coding AI Leaders from Cursor

• Anthropic could soon be worth $100B – thanks to Claude Code

• US authors suing Anthropic can band together in copyright class action per judge

• The companies laying off staff for AI today will regret it in five years

• The King and AI: A humanoid robot painted a picture of Charles. How did it do?

• LLM Benchmarking Shows Capabilities Doubling Every 7 Months

• Where Are All the AI Drugs?

• A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That's a Problem

• Headlong into our glorious AI-powered future, are we on the road to Idiocracy?

• Meta, Google AI Talent Grab May Spur a Silicon Valley Rethink

• People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into “ChatGPT Psychosis.”

• A Top Engineer Reveals OpenAI's Culture of Secrets and Chaos

• OpenAI says it will use Google's cloud for ChatGPT

• The AI Replaces Labour Myth

• Delta moves to eliminate set prices, use AI to set your personal ticket price

• OpenAI's New ChatGPT Agent Tries to Do It All

• ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries, study finds

• Anthropic tightens usage limits for Claude Code without telling users

• Meta Hires Two Key Apple AI Experts After Poaching Their Boss

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• NASA’s DART Mission Deflected an Asteroid – But Unleashed a Swarm of Space Boulders.

• The ISS is nearing retirement, so why is NASA still gung-ho about Starliner?

• Bollinger Shipyards converting barge into landing platform for returning rockets

Crypto con games

• Ex-NCA officer jailed for theft of 50 Bitcoin now worth £4.4M

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Canada's oil sands transformed into one of North America's lowest-cost plays

• Economists made a model of the U.S. economy. Our debt crashed the model

• Tiffany Angers Rich Clients Who Wanted to Buy Rare Patek Watch

• Are Diamonds Even a Luxury Anymore? De Beers Reckons with Price Plunge

• TSMC profit jumps 61% as AI chip demand breaks records

• Amazon's AWS cloud computing unit cuts jobs

• Virginia is for data centers? Residents are increasingly saying no

• The Patterns of Elites Who Conceal Their Assets Offshore

• Americans Are Side-Hustling Like We're in a Recession

• Substack raises $100M at $1.1B valuation

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Trump administration pulls $4B in federal funding for California's bullet train

• Senate approves cuts to NPR, PBS and foreign aid programs

  • Senate Republicans Vote to Cut $9 Billion in Foreign Aid, Public Broadcasting | National Review

  • Trump's war against NPR and PBS notches win as Senate votes to kill funding

  • PBS, NPR Set to Lose Federal Funding as Senate Passes Doge Cuts

• Feds tell automakers to forget about paying fuel economy fines

  • US tells automakers they face no fuel economy penalties for last three years

• Termination of Regional Food Business Centers Programs

• FDA to end dozens of ‘obsolete’ rules for U.S. food items.

Trump

• Missouri Harasses AI Companies over Chatbots Dissing Glorious Leader Trump

  • State Attorney General is investigating why AI chatbots don't like Trump

• How Nvidia's Jensen Huang Persuaded Trump to Sell A.I. Chips to China

• Trump Executive Order to Help Open Up 401(k)s to Private Markets

• Trump Getting More Done with Smaller, Less Costly White House Staff

  Trump “spent just $44.1 million paying 404 employees in 2025, making it the least costly payroll since at least 2009when adjusting for inflation,” OTB said in a July 8 report. “The new dollar total is also a 29 percent reduction from the White House payroll in 2024, when Joe Biden spent $62.2 million. “The Biden White House employed 565 people that year, the most since Richard Nixon was President. In total, White House payroll cost taxpayers $230.1 million during the four years Biden was in office, or an average of $57.5 million per year. President Obama never spent less than $51 million on the White House payroll during his eight years in office.”

• President Trump Diagnosed With 'Benign and Common' Condition – PJ Media

  The president underwent a comprehensive examination, including diagnostic vascular studies. Bilateral lower extremity venous Doppler ultrasounds were performed and revealed chronic venous insufficiency, a benign and common condition, particularly in individuals over the age of 70. Importantly, there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease. Laboratory testing included a complete blood count, comprehensive metabolic panel, coagulation profile, D-dimer and B-type natriuretic peptide and cardiac biomarkers.

• Secret Meeting Opens Document Floodgates on Trump/Russia Hoax

  A U.S. intelligence official alleged the outgoing administration weaponized the Russian intelligence to sabotage President-elect Trump in the weeks before he took office in January 2017. “Obama ordered the ICA to set Trump up and knock him off balance before he could even get started,” said the senior official, who asked to remain anonymous. “This was an influence operation far more consequential than anything [Russian President Vladimir] Putin cooked up. Obama and Hillary [Clinton] schemed the op, and the CIA and FBI ran it.” At the time they drafted the ICA in December 2016, this official noted, the CIA and FBI knew that Clinton had approved a plan by her then-foreign policy adviser, Jake Sullivan – who would later become President Biden’s National Security Advisor – to “stir up” a scandal on Trump about Russia. They also knew then that the dossier they referenced in the intelligence assessment was opposition research underwritten by the Clinton campaign.

• White House Prepares Executive Order Targeting 'Woke AI'

Democrats

• This Is Why a Top PR Firm Turned Down $20 Million to Boost Anti-Trump Protest

  During the interview, Swart confirmed that “interests aligned with the organizers of the July 17th Movement have approached us” and that “we rejected an offer that probably is worth around $20 million.” The CEO clarified that “the value of the contract would have been worth around that amount nationwide to organize huge demonstrations around the country.” However, Swart said he declined because he didn’t believe it would be effective. “I'm not trying to call myself virtuous for rejecting it,” he explained. “What I'm saying is I'm saying I'm rejecting it not because I don't want to take the business, but because, frankly, this is going to be ineffective. It's going to make us all look bad.”

• Hunter Biden blames Dems' disloyalty to his father for their defeat

  The younger Biden argued that Democrats squandered their advantages of incumbency and “an incredibly successful administration” — despite its record-low approval numbers — when they turned against his father in dramatic fashion last summer. “We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party,” Hunter Biden said on former Democratic National Committee boss Jaime Harrison’s new podcast, according to excerpts. Hunter Biden also fended off speculation that he held a pronounced role in his father’s administration, telling the former DNC boss that he “stayed as far away as I possibly could — which, by the way, broke my heart.”

Left Angst

• Republicans Supersized Silicon Valley's Favorite Tax Break

• Rising Wealth Inequality and Democratic Backsliding Across U.S. States

• NASA won't publish key climate change report online, citing no legal obligation

• Doge Put Free Tax Filing Tool on Chopping Block After One Meeting with Lobbyists

• NSF cancels $1.1B in grants, most tied to DEI programs.

• ICEBlock Isn't 'Completely Anonymous'

• Trump's defunding of NASA would be catastrophic

• "Even God Cannot Hear Us Here": What I Witnessed Inside an ICE Women's Prison

• Fascism for First Time Founders

  Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump train. Yes, there are the big name folks who everyone knows about and who didn’t really surprise anyone—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Elon Musk (pre-fallout)—but the more troubling trend has been watching younger entrepreneurs and VCs listen to their podcasts, read their posts and books, and slowly nod along to the idea that democracy is holding back innovation.

  • "oh noes the heresy is spreading!"

• Third countries where Trump administration is deporting migrants: Locations

• CBS Reporter Claims He Got ‘PTSD’ After Trump Assassination Attempt – The Reason Is Mind-Boggling – RedState

  The CBS reporter somehow found a way to make the trauma his own, not because of the actual shooting that nearly killed the President, but because MAGA supporters were going to kill him. “For those of us there, it was such a horror because you saw an emerging America," the melodramatic guest recalled. "And it wasn’t the shooting, Chuck." "I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because I think of the shooting, but because you could — you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us," MacFarlane continued to quiver. "If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us.”

• Trump's Impact on International Student Enrollment

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• DOJ Fires James Comey's Daughter, Who Handled Epstein And Maxwell Cases | ZeroHedge

  • Maurene Comey removed from Diddy, Epstein case prosecutor role in Manhattan | Fox News

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Chinese hackers breached National Guard to steal network configurations

  • National Guard hacked by Chinese 'Salt Typhoon' campaign for nearly a year

• FCC dives in to sink Chinese grip on undersea internet cables

World

• As democracy in Georgia collapses, Russia, China and Iran see an opening

• Does the UK video games industry have a class problem?

• Voting age to be lowered to 16 by next general election

  • 16 Year olds to be given right to vote through election reforms

  • Voting age to be lowered to 16 in UK elections

  • UK to lower voting age to 16 by next general election

• Tomorrowland Is Burning

• Afghans relocated to UK under secret scheme after data leak

• Foreign YouTube stars secretly paid by UK Government for propaganda

• German Social Democrat Party Scrambling to Get AfD Banned.

• Millions Wiped Off UK Debt as 239-Year-Old Agency Buys Gilts

• Oldest president to seek eighth term

  The world's oldest head of state, Cameroon's President Paul Biya, 92, has said he will run once more for re-election in October aiming to extend his 43 years in power. "Rest assured that my determination to serve you matches the urgency of the challenges we face," he said in a post on X.

Iran / Houthi

• Exiled Yemen government claims to seize 750 tons of Iran-supplied Houthi weapons.

Israel

• Is 'Superman' About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? Sure, Maybe

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• New Russian law criminalizes online searches for controversial content

China

• Big Brother gets new powers in China with digital ID system

• China Puts New Restrictions on E.V. Battery Manufacturing Technology

• Chinese authorities are using a new tool to hack seized phones and extract data

• Chinese Students Flocked to Central Illinois. Their Food Followed

• China’s Shipbuilding Market Share Plummets as U.S. Port Fees Loom.

• Electric scooters are driving China's salt battery push

• Robots in China are riding the subway to make 7-Eleven deliveries

Health / Medicine

• Eggs: Healthy or Risky? A Review of Evidence from High Quality Studies

• Eight healthy babies born after IVF using DNA from three people

  • Researchers announce babies born from a trial of three-person IVF

  • Three-person IVF technique spared children from inherited diseases

  • Healthy babies born after scientists used DNA from three people

• Why your eye surgeon wants you to get a multifocal lens that Medicare won't cover for your cataracts

  There’s nothing illegal about any of this. But pushing seniors to spend several thousand dollars to implant lenses that offer a marginal improvement over the ones Medicare will provide for free is a dubious game. Multiplied across every specialty, every drug, every hospital, it helps explain how the United States now spends roughly double per-capita what other rich countries do on healthcare yet winds up with a shorter life expectancy.

• Exercise science is not science

  Neither is computer science, political science, economics, nutritional science or anything else with the word “science” in the name. I tire of internet weight lifting dorks talking about “science based lifting.” None of these faggots know what they’re talking about, and the “science” they base their assertions on isn’t even pre-scientific. All of the “studies” they do are bullshit. There are no meaningful control groups. There is no way of making everyone do the exercise the same way. There is no way of controlling what they put in their gobs afterwords. There is no way of controlling the vast genetic differences in the groups of exercisers. The closest anyone came in all of human history to turning this sort of thing into science was the communist countries, as they did control some of these things. Soviet exercise science has some interesting ideas, it really just represents another shade on coaching. One which is absurdly confounded with the drugs they were pumping into people, and the fact that they were dropping the non-drug-responders off the training programs to go back to glorious people’s nickel smelting plant. These guys bug me because they all have their One True Way; do this number of sets and reps, pre stretch your whatever, do keto, don’t do keto, weigh your food, eat broccoli, go in the Sauna, don’t go in the cold plunge, take african beans that cannibals use to make their junk bigger, take X Y Z amino acids. They publish videos criticizing people more successful at sports than they are. Oh noe if only Sam Sulek had done a slower eccentric he would be n% huger. Or something. “Exercise science” is a cult, like veganism, keto-tardism, HIT-jedis, people who take follostatin gene therapy: it’s all cult bullshit.

• FDA Authorizes Juul E-Cigarettes

  • Juul can continue selling its tobacco and menthol e-cigarettes, FDA says

• The world is winning the war on cancer

• Humans used to have straighter teeth – what changed?

• No vegan milk is equivalent to dairy, nutritionists conclude

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• DOJ drops charges against Utah doctor accused of destroying Covid vaccines

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Mysterious 'ship goo' contains new life forms

• Why Do Iceland's Volcanoes Keep Erupting, and How Dangerous Are They?

• California is about to roll back a landmark environmental law

• Oh Good, Screwworms Are Back

  have you heard that the Newworld Screwworm is threatening to infect our livestock supply? This sounds bad. Fortunately, I was able to research this and discover that it is very bad and there is a whole fascinating story about this horrific creature, how we eradicated it, and how Covid, open borders, and a stunning and frankly inexcusable amount of institutional incompetence has managed to take a solved problem and allow it become a fresh danger.

• Heat wave duration is accelerating faster than global warming, researchers find

• Mammals Evolved into Ant Eaters 12 Times Since Dinosaur Age, Study Finds