2025-07-23

etc

• There's plenty of water for data centers

  Water is really important. We use it to cook, to wash dishes, and to wash ourselves. Water matters. But across the country, people are using water every day for things that have nothing to do with sustaining human life. They’re watering the lawn. They’re going to water parks or filling up a Super Soaker. If you go to a bar, water is used to make the liquor you consume there. And if you order a cocktail, it very well may be made by pouring a few different things into a vessel that contains frozen water, shaking it up, straining the mixed beverage into a glass, and then throwing the ice cubes away. It’s easy to jump from “people need water or they die” to “here comes this evil corporation using water for greed!” But in fact, tons of water is being used for more frivolous (and less economically valuable) reasons than AI.

• How Things Stand 6 Months After Palisades Fire | ZeroHedge

Horseshit

• When a meteor smashes into your driveway

• You could cook while on the toilet: a night in one of Tokyo's micro-apartments

• The Trouble with Wanting Men

• How a blacksmith thinks about her job

• Marathon Fusion Unveils Method to Mass-Produce Gold from Fusion Reactors

• Optimists Are Alike, but Pessimists Are Unique, Brain Scan Study Suggests

• Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how bodies block WiFi

• Portland pays nearly $1M to boy and babysitter, who strapped hammock to lamppost

• Startup (Quaise) wants to use beams of energy to drill geothermal wells

  • removing material as vapor is fine, but it interferes with the energy going down hole, regardless.

• Disconnecting phone from internet creates mood boost on par with antidepressants

celebrity gossip

• Zuckerberg Expanding His Hawaii Compound. Part of It Sits Atop a Burial Ground

• Mike Lynch's estate faces bankruptcy over £700M fraud ruling in favour of HP

  • Mike Lynch estate and business partner owe HP Enterprise £700M, court rules

  • HP owed over $940M by Mike Lynch's estate, ex-business partner, UK court rules

• Justice Department official plans meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell

  • DOJ Announces Imminent Meeting With Ghislaine Maxwell - modernity

  “This Department of Justice does not shy away from uncomfortable truths, nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced in a statement shard by Bondi.

Obit

• RIP Ozzy: (youtube) Never Say Die

  • Ozzie Osbourne Dies

  • Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne dies aged 76

  • Ozzy Osbourne dies just weeks after farewell show

  • Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal dies

  • Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath singer has died

  • Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne dies at 76

  • Ozzy Osbourne Dead: Black Sabbath Frontman Was 76

  • Ozzy Osbourne dead at 76

  • Ozzy Osbourne Has Died

  • Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath Singer and Heavy Metal Pioneer, Dead at 76

  • Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne dies aged 76

  • Ozzy Osbourne Dead at 76

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• YouTube removes thousands of propaganda channels linked to China, Russia, others

• Conspiracy theorists don't realize they're on the fringe

Musk

• "This is how the world ends": internet reacts to Musk teasing "Grok" for kids

• X refuses to cooperate with French probe into algorithm bias

• Did Tesla's Robotaxi Launch Backfire?

• A big problem for Tesla isn't getting much attention

• Struggling to sell EVs, Tesla pivots to slinging burgers

  • Tesla opens diner and drive-in movie theater in Hollywood

• Musk Allies to Raise Up to $12B for XAI Chips

Electric / Self Driving cars

• What happened to Jaguar and why are they delaying their soulless EV?

• $11,000 Chinese EV with solid state batteries is coming soon

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• All But the Clergy Believe

  • Does the butcher eat the sausages he sells?

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Oklahoma Pre-K teacher allegedly calls being left-handed 'evil' and 'sinister'

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Debian to release Trixie on August 9th

• Could the Next Netflix or Spotify Be an Artists-Owned Cooperative?

  • You mean a community comes together to build a profitable resource? Like IMDB and Goodreads? Then someone comes along and gets the community to pay for access to the resource they've gathered and groomed.

• Workers at Snopes.com win voluntary union recognition

• Microsoft has released an emergency patch for the Sharepoint severs that were being exploited all over the world.

  • Global hack on Microsoft Sharepoint hits U.S., state agencies, researchers say

  • Microsoft Says Chinese Hackers Are Exploiting SharePoint Flaws

  • China behind global hack involving multiple US agencies

• Why is Ironmouse leaving VShojo? Popular VTuber alleges $500,000 charity money withheld

• AI summaries reduce user link clicks on Google search: Pew

• T-Mobile is bringing low-latency tech to 5G

• Jack Dorsey Unveils Bitchat: Offline, Encrypted Messaging Inspired by Bitcoin

• Citizen will share crime videos with the NYPD

• Burning Man Festival Is Burning Through Cash

• A power utility is reporting suspected pot growers to cops. EFF says illegal

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Projects can't be divorced from the people involved in them

  • "We can work together even tho we disagree" has become this.

• More than Two Hard Disks in DOS | OS/2 Museum

  This bug is present in every DOS version with hard disk support before 5.0, that is, in DOS 2.0 up to and including DOS 4. In my experiments, all these DOS versions hang when booting on a machine that exposes four BIOS drives. MS-DOS 4.01 from April 1989 still hangs, and so does Russian MS-DOS 4.01 from February 1990. It is clear that the bug went unnoticed or at least unfixed for a number of years simply because PCs with more than two hard disks were extremely rare to nonexistent.

• Why you can't color calibrate space photos

  Once you leave the familiar world of broadband light and pigments, of light bulbs and color charts, the premise of color calibration falls apart. There’s simply no way to covert the colors seen by a camera to the colors that would be seen by the eye. Even something as simple as white balance is problematic. In space, nothing is lit by a uniform light source or with a uniform brightness, and most objects emit light of their own. Most photographers use “daylight” white balance, but the objects we photograph are well outside of the sun’s domain.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI jumps gun on International Math Olympiad gold medal announcement

• The 'hallucinations' that haunt AI: why chatbots struggle to tell the truth

• Anthropic CEO Says the Company Will Pursue Gulf State Investments After All

• Bill to Restrict AI Companies Unauthorized Use of Copyrighted Works for Training

• Sam Altman says OpenAI could own 100 million GPUs by the end of the year, estimated at $3 trillion worth of silicon — ChatGPT maker to cross 'well over 1 million' AI GPUs by end of year | Tom's Hardware

  we will cross well over 1 million GPUs brought online by the end of this year!very proud of the team but now they better get to work figuring out how to 100x that lol

• The Emerging Problem of "AI Psychosis"

• Replit's CEO apologizes after its AI agent wiped a company's code base

• Why Are We Pretending AI Is Going to Take All the Jobs?

  I find the policy discussion about AI to be… incomplete. I’m reminded a bit of Presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s assertion in 2020 that America would soon run out of jobs, and therefore we need universal basic income or some sort of fiscal transfer approach, to the furrowed nods of the policy discourse wonks. Just a year later, we experienced a huge “labor shortage,” with all those who had discussed the end of work pretending they never said anything of the sort. Now it seems we’re back to the Yang days. It’s not that there won’t be a significant transformation in the nature of many jobs, or a productivity boost that displaces jobs or industries. But a job is just a problem we give people green pieces of paper to solve. Will we run out of problems? I don’t think so. If we choose not to solve problems, it will be just that, a choice.

  I had an interesting conversation with a very good corporate leader that I respect, who is running a small business involving packaging and selling research, one with some market power because it’s in a particular niche. Generative AI, he told me, is a capital-friendly technology, not a labor-friendly one. He’s doing less hiring, because generative AI takes “the tedium” out of some of his employee workflow, reducing task time required by 40% or so. So he needs fewer workers. I asked him, are you lowering prices? Are you investing more in other products? The answer to both questions was no. He was not passing through the productivity gains to customers, because he didn’t have to.

  Here’s what’s really going on. AI as a technology is transformational, but the “AI conversation” is just the latest excuse to pay people less money or engage in other forms of unfair business conduct. The answer isn’t an AI-specific response, it’s to promote competition, expand labor rights, including intellectual property protections for artists and engineers, protect consumers, provide financing for farming and small business, while taxing and otherwise creating friction for the movement of financial capital. That’s not just good policy because of AI, it’s good policy if you want any form of democracy!

  If you are seeing AI transform your work or some aspect of your life, please let me know over email or in the comments. Here’s how I use it. When I have a bunch of documents, I’ll put them into a database and use an LLM to search through them. I also use them to transcribe interviews and as a supplement to search. On occasion, I’ll do image generation, though I’m not a big fan of the art they produce.

  • Whatever the new problem, however over-hyped; "anti-capitalism" is the solution... And they embrace AI enshitification themselves so you know they understand the problem fully.

• It's "frighteningly likely" many US courts will overlook AI errors, expert says

• AI Could Have Written This: Birth of a Classist Slur in Knowledge Work

• UK government swoons over OpenAI in legally meaningless love-in

• OpenAI and Oracle ink deal to build Stargate data center, SoftBank not involved

• Microsoft poaches more Google DeepMind AI talent

• Why I'm Suing OpenAI, the Creator of ChatGPT

• Is Spotify Streaming Unauthorized AI Knockoffs of Dead Musicians?

• Mistral reports on the environmental impact of LLMs

• Amazon buys Bee AI wearable that listens to everything you say

• One in six US workers pretends to use AI to please the bosses

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

South Korea Plans to Build a Moon Base by 2045

Crypto con games

• JPMorgan considers offering loans backed by cryptocurrency holdings

  • JPMorgan explores lending against clients' crypto holdings

• Trump Media Makes $2B Bitcoin Bet

Economicon / Business / Finance

• AstraZeneca plans to invest $50 billion in America for medicines manufacturing and R&D.

• Tech disruption hitting US manufacturing could hit healthcare next

• New federal data show H-1B and H-4 visas now capture 82% of all new US tech jobs

• The U.S. Economy Just Got Its Mojo Back as Consumers Brush Off Tariff Trauma.

• There's a GameStop Treasury Company

• As the Dollar Slides, the Euro Is Picking Up Speed

• Hershey to increase candy prices by double digits amid rising cocoa costs

Trump

• Trump Aides Discussed Ending Some SpaceX Contracts, but Found Most Were Vital

• Coca-Cola will roll out cane sugar Coke in US after Trump push

  • Multiple stores (even Lowe's hardware) around here sell "Mexican Cokes" at a hefty premium.

• White House pulls WSJ from Trump's Scotland press pool over Epstein reporting

• Trump deflects questions about Epstein probe with accusations about Obama

• Newly discovered photos and shed fresh light on Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein

  Photos from 1993 confirm for the first time that Epstein attended Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples. Epstein’s attendance at the ceremony at the Plaza Hotel was not widely known until now. In addition, footage from a 1999 Victoria’s Secret fashion event in New York shows Trump and Epstein laughing and chatting together ahead of the runway event. CNN’s KFile uncovered the raw footage during a review of archival video of Trump at events in the 1990s and 2000s. Trump and Epstein appeared together in at least one video among the limited archival footage reviewed.

Democrats

• AOC’s Bronx HQ vandalized with red paint after Israel vote: ‘F–K AOC!’

• Democrats are desperately trying to revive the click-to-cancel rule

Left Angst

• Trump admin wants to curtail 'gain-of-function' research

• NASA Goddard director to step down

• Win for chemical industry as EPA shutters scientific research office

• The anti-immigration backlash comes to Japan

  For a long time, mainstream Japanese politics was essentially devoid of the type of xenophobic, conspiratorial, nativist populism that has defined the MAGA movement in America and parties like AfD in Europe. The late Abe Shinzo, Japan’s prime minister from 2012 to 2020, had the reputation of being a rightist. But in fact, he governed as much more of a Reaganite conservative, or sometimes even a liberal; he opened the country to immigration and supported women in the workplace. When an anti-Korean hate group arose in the early 2010s, Abe passed Japan’s first law against hate speech and put the hate group on a watch list, ultimately demolishing it as a political force.

  • Japan has been famous for its embrace of racial harmony and universal equality .. ever since this person needed history to be something different to make their point about how bad Trump is.

• Killing the Mauna Loa observatory over irrefutable evidence of increasing CO2

• 19th-century land program linked to sharp rise in Native American mortality

  When Congress passed legislation in 1887 that allotted individual American Indians pieces of land while also granting them citizenship, proponents of the Dawes Act argued it would give them greater independence to farm their own land and help them assimilate into white American culture. But the Act had devastating consequences. By the time it was repealed in 1934, American Indians had lost two-thirds of all their native land and two-thirds of them had become landless or unable to meet subsistent needs. "It's difficult to understate the importance and role of allotment in ending American Indians' traditional way of life and serving the interests of others."

  • Note this research is already notable enough to be featured in Wikipedia: Dawes Act - Wikipedia

• Firing Colbert

  In a normal world, another network would immediately scarf up Colbert, he’s the ratings victor. But will competitors hold back for fear of pissing off Trump? And don’t depend on the law to save you, there’s the aforementioned bogus, biased Supreme Court and the lawyers settled with Trump… It ain’t about what is right or wrong, but the MONEY! Trumpers think they’re immune. But Trump can turn on a dime, suddenly the Epstein files are a Democratic hoax perpetrated on the Republicans. You’re just grist for the mill, you don’t matter, freedom my ass.

  • "Deplatforming" was good until it wasn't.

• Americans Are Paying for Tariffs, Not Foreign Companies

• Video Taken by Migrant Shows Overcrowded ICE Holding Cell in Manhattan

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Like outlaws from the Old West: Sinaloa Cartel accused of robbing US trains

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The United States Withdraws from UNESCO

  • Trump pulls US out of UN cultural agency UNESCO for second time | Reuters

  President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the U.N. culture and education agency UNESCO on Tuesday, repeating a move he had already ordered during his first term, which had been reversed under Joe Biden. The withdrawal from the Paris-based agency, which was founded after World War Two to promote peace through international cooperation in education, science, and culture, will take effect on December 31, 2026.

• Many traditional US allies now see the US as more of a threat than China

• Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War?

• oooo spendy: Space-Based Missile Interceptors for Golden Dome Being Tested by Northrop

• How Silicon Valley is becoming militarized

World

• Netherlands rations electricity to ease power grid stresses

• Flight heads back to Paris after being denied landing clearance in Chicago

• A Populist Party That Began on YouTube Helped Disrupt Japan's Ruling Coalition

• American teen pilot detained on small island in Antarctica

• EU eyes 3rd retaliatory strike against Trump that would hit services

• No Country Ever Got Rich from Tourism

• Apple set to stave off daily fines, EU to accept App Store changes, sources say

• Police officers in Denmark are tackling crime by playing online games with kids

Israel

• From Gaza to Amman, how UNRWA's family archives were rescued under fire

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia using children to design and test its military drones investigation finds

  Russian authorities have systematically involved children in the design and testing of drones for the country’s war in Ukraine through nationwide competitions that begin with innocent-seeming video games and end up with the most talented students headhunted by defence companies, an investigation has found. The revelations, part of an investigation by the exiled Russian news outlet the Insider, are the latest to show just how much Russia’s leaders are dragging the country’s youth into the war effort in Ukraine, with “patriotic” and militarised education often spilling over into outright participation.

  • Contrast to Palestinian kids with the AK's and the Hamas insignia, which is healthy social engagement.

China

• China Curbed Its Oil Addiction–and Blunted a U.S. Pressure Point

• China begins building largest dam

• Chinese Officials Helped Cover Up Lead Poisoning of Children, Report Says

• What are China's 'dark factories'?

• China's abandoned buildings draw urban explorers despite risks

Health / Medicine

• A New Obesity Pill May Burn Fat Without Suppressing Appetite

• Do You Need to Drink Electrolytes?

• Active but still gaining weight? Duke scientists reveal why

• Landmark study flips decades of cholesterol panic aimed at eggs

• Many Lung Cancers Are Now in Nonsmokers. Scientists Want to Know Why

• Oral delivery of mRNA for intestinal disease

• Mary Had Schizophrenia–Then Suddenly She Didn't

• Extremely severe obesity is on the rise in kids—along with a barrage of health problems.

• US begins organ-transplant reform as ‘signs of life’ found before some retrievals.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Brains aged faster during the Covid pandemic – even the uninfected

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Paying to pollute: How carbon offsets raised emissions in China

• July 22 Will Be Second Shortest Day

  • Earth will spin faster July 22 to create second-shortest day in history

• Metal bottle caps 'surprising' source of microplastic contamination, study finds

• China's clean-energy exports in 2024 alone will cut overseas CO2 by 1%

• The Influence of Topography on the Global Terrestrial Water Cycle

• To combat climate change, Norway wants to be Europe's carbon dump

• Protect young secondary forests for optimum carbon removal

• AI simulates billions of atoms, proves feasibility of carbon-neutral concrete

• Banks bet big on fossil fuels, boosting financing in 2024, report finds

• French petition against return of bee-killing pesticide passes 1M

• France Doubles Renewables Curtailment on Supply-Demand Mismatch

• In Indonesia, a startup captures coolants to stop global warming

• Wild Vanilla and pollinators at risk of spatial mismatch in a changing climate

• Abrupt climate shifts likely as global temperatures keep rising