2025-07-24

etc

• (Mar 2025) The rise and fall of the Hanseatic League - Works in Progress Magazine

  The Hanseatic system lasted for nearly 500 years. Like any governing system, it struggled with division, factionalism, and defection – and eventually, it would succumb to these forces. While Hansa alliances proved impermanent, their impact was enduring. They made Northern Europe’s trade routes secure and grew European state capacity to support commerce.

• Smartwatch helps find plane crash near Yellowstone

• Humans, not glacial transport, brought bluestones to Stonehenge, new research

Horseshit

• How to Catch a Wily Poacher in a Sting: A Thermal Robotic Deer

• Magic at the Heart of Quantum Computers Has Worked

• OK, if you say so: Martin Van Buren responsible for the tiny word that punches above its weight?

• The Death Of Industrial Design And The Era Of Dull Electronics | Hackaday

• California Forever changes its plans from a startup city to a startup Foundry

• Biggest Chess Site in the World Bans 100k Cheaters a Month

• Homeless people visited ER less after moving into King County's hotels

• You first: Yes, It's Possible to Safely Jump into a Black Hole

• For the Privileged Few, Airport Food Hits a New Height of Luxury

• War on hidden motors goes undercover

  The International Cycling Union (UCI) has intensified its fight against mechanical doping, employing intelligence-driven methods to combat increasingly sophisticated alleged cheating in professional cycling. Once, inspectors relied on random X-rays and magnetic scans to catch offenders. Now, the UCI is borrowing tactics from law enforcement – building confidential sources, mapping risk profiles and monitoring bike changes in real time – to stay ahead in what officials call a technological arms race.

Obit

• Tamiya chairman Shunsaku Tamiya dies at 90

  Tamiya was instrumental in shaping the global popularity of the company’s scale models and RC kits.

• Jack McAuliffe, craft beer pioneer, has died

• Julian LeFay, "the father of The Elder Scrolls," has passed away at 59

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• YouTube wipes out propaganda channels linked to China

• From Canada to Finland, a US neo-Nazi fight club is spreading across the globe

• Scapegoating the Algorithm – epistemic challenges run deeper than social media

• Founders Films Aims to Remake Hollywood with Patriotism, Palantir and Ayn Rand

Musk

• Musk is messing with Cosmic Dawn. Will alien hunters save the day for mankind?

• SpaceX Warns Investors Elon Musk Could Return to US Politics

• Battery-powered Starlink Mini is here

• T-Mobile's Starlink Satellite Service Officially Launches with iPhone Support

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Volvo Issues Urgent Brake Failure Warning for EVs and Plug-In Models

• Rider on electric scooter hits, kills pedestrian in San Francisco

• Beyond BYD vs. Tesla: Six of the 10 best-selling EV brands are Chinese

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Uber will let women drivers and riders request to avoid being paired with men

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Researchers value null results, but struggle to publish them

• Viral paper on black plastic kitchen utensils earns second correction

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Microsoft servers hacked by Chinese groups, firm says

  • Microsoft software flaw gave hackers access to U.S. nuclear weapons agency

  • Microsoft SharePoint victim count hits 400 orgs in ongoing attacks

• Google users less likely to click links with an AI summary in results

• Palmer Luckey considering entering laptop market with US-made model

• Who-Fi: Humans can be tracked by how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals

• Are we witnessing the final days of Mozilla?

  According to multiple sources within Mozilla — who have spoken to The Lunduke Journal on the condition of anonymity — employees have deep concerns about the future of the company, the leadership currently in power, and the stability of their jobs through the end of this year.

  • (2023) Investigating the bizarre finances of Mozilla

  The Lunduke Journal spent some time with Mozilla’s financial disclosures and came away with some wild observations — bizarre expenditures (including to companies that don’t even seem to exist) and political organizations with no relationship to Mozilla’s core business.

  During 2021, Mozilla paid $387 Thousand dollars to someone called “MCKENSIE MACK GROUP.”

  “a change management firm redefining innovation in the white-dominant change management industry.”

  From their LinkedIn page, Mckensie Mack Group describes itself thusly: “Black-led and nonbinary-led, MMG is a global social justice organization”. Mckensie Mack is a public speaker who regularly discusses her anger at “White Colonialism” and her dislike of “CIS” men and women. The “Mckensie Mack” company website blog primarily discusses abortion and Trans related issues. Why would a company that develops a web browser want to pay her close to half a million dollars (in one year)? That remains unclear. It is, however, worth noting that this is a far larger expense than any of the executive team of Mozilla earn in salary (other than the CEO).

• Cops say criminals use a Google Pixel with GrapheneOS – I say that's freedom

• Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse

• Surveillance Firm Bypasses SS7 Protections to Retrieve User Location

• $380M lawsuit: intruder got Clorox's passwords from Cognizant simply by asking

• Leading 3D printing site bans firearm files; home gun makers have better options

• Meta Unveils Wristband for Controlling Computers with Hand Gestures

• Mastodon begins raising funds with new in-app donation feature

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Teens say they are turning to AI for advice, friendship 'to get out of thinking'

• New research says AI Overviews cause drop in search clicks

• Websites used to fine-tune Anthropic's AI models

• OpenAI agreed to pay Oracle $30B a year for data center services

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Warns of an AI 'Fraud Crisis'

• Microsoft poaches more Google DeepMind AI talent as it beefs up Copilot

• Humans beat AI at international math contest despite gold-level AI scores

• OpenAI CEO tells the Fed that entire job categories will disappear due to AI

• Al could be hiding its thoughts: Tech giants warn of 'Chain of Thought'

• Delta plans to use AI in ticket pricing draws fire from US lawmakers

• FDA's artificial intelligence is supposed to revolutionize drug approvals

• What's next for Meta's giant Louisiana data center project?

• Anthropic researchers: Thinking longer makes models dumber

• Stop flooding us with AI-based grant applications, begs Health Institute

• Proton is launching a privacy-focused AI chatbot

• Clowns to the left of me

  every day I’m flooded with articles that are ludicrously positive and ludicrously negative. But what I’m seeing doesn’t match either.

  • The problems solves if you stop paying so much attention to the flood of media.

• OpenAI Seeks Additional Capital from Its Investors as Part of Its $40B Round

• AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

• SoftBank and OpenAI's $500B AI Project Struggles to Get Off Ground

• The dark horse of AI labs

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Harvard Physicist Claims New Interstellar Comet Is Alien Probe

  Despite being officially classified as a comet, theoretical physicist professor Avi Loebof Harvard University, has argued that the object could have been sent by an alien civilization. Loeb explained that the object's trajectory, size and behavior suggest it could be something far more advanced than a natural occurrence—and could instead be some form of alien craft or probe. 3I/ATLAS is expected to pass unusually close to Venus, Mars and Jupiter this fall, an alignment Loeb calculates as having a probability of just 0.005 percent if the arrival time were random. The comet is expected to reach its closest point to the Sun on October 29, when it will be hidden from Earth's view, a detail Loeb finds suspicious. "This could be intentional to avoid detailed observations from Earth-based telescopes," he said.

  • Is the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Alien Technology?

  • The Interstellar Squid have been here for millennia already...

• Why spotting cosmic visitors is harder than you think

Crypto con games

• Bitcoin Miner Revenue Drops to 2-Month Low, but Selling Pressure Remains Absent

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Railroad Operator Union Pacific Exploring Deal for Norfolk Southern

• Private equity firms flip assets to themselves in record numbers

• Higher electric bills are coming for NJ following energy auction

• Meme Stocks Are Back

• Airfare Discrimination as a Service: Airlines' Favorite New Pricing Trick

• Why 24/7 trading is a bad idea

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• US House speaker shuts down chamber to block Epstein vote

  US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has announced an early adjournment of the chamber, stalling efforts to force the release of documents related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The move delays a politically fraught vote on the matter until September amid growing bipartisan pressure for transparency. It followed a key committee vote to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's longtime associate, to testify before Congress. Calls to declassify Epstein-related files have intensified recently, including from supporters of President Donald Trump. Earlier on Tuesday, the US justice department requested a meeting with Maxwell to ask: "What do you know?"

• San Francisco to ban homeless people from living in RVs with new parking limit

• Congress Must Investigate, Expose the Left’s Taxpayer-Funded NGO Complex

  "Just in the first month of the current administration, 15 groups who had received federal cash from the previous administration sued the current administration, mostly to protest cuts in their receipt of tax dollars, which totaled $1.6 billion,” Walter told the subcommittee.

• FBI Releases 230,000 Pages of Documents on the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. – PJ Media

  What the King children fail to mention is that the U.S. was at war with international communism at the time and that American communists, beholden to the Soviet Union, had infiltrated the Civil Rights Movement (sometimes with King's knowledge), seeking to use civil rights as a weapon to bring down the American government. Hoover was paranoid about communism, but in this case, he was justified in his concerns. Still, the level of surveillance went far beyond anything relating to national security and bordered on a pathological obsession with "exposing" King as a womanizer.

  Those who criticize King for hobnobbing with communists fail to note that King hated communism for its atheism and the oppressive nature of the ideology. He used communists to achieve his ends, never agreeing with them or their methods.He was a complicated man. His children fear that people will cherry-pick evidence to buttress whatever case they're trying to make about King's personality and personal peccadillos, which will only obscure the real man.In the internet age, this is inevitable.

• Supreme Court allows Trump to fire 3 Democrats on consumer safety panel

Trump

• Top Intel Officials Contradicted Brennan On Key Russia Hoax Claim

• Coca-Cola to relaunch with cane sugar in US this autumn

  • Now that we have mandated Ethanol in fuels, ADM can relinquish the revenue from the corn syrup.

  • The big winner from Coca-Cola's Trump-inspired sugar push

  The sugar endorsement by Trump might seem unusual on its face from a man famous for his preference for Diet Coke, which is sugar free. But it was just the latest example of his support for the industry, which has been known in Washington for decades for its outsize political donations, ability to get the White House on the phone and legendary lobbying operations. "Don't [expletive] with sugar", former Republican House Speaker John Boehner noted in his memoir. The sector has long benefited from government policies, including high tariffs that have propped up the sugar prices in the US, which often run double the world price, yielding billions of extra dollars a year for producers. Under the Trump administration, the US has expanded those supports, tightening restrictions on imports and increasing its price guarantees for sugar farmers as part of the Trump-backed "Big Beautiful Bill". Meanwhile, Trump's Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has taken aim at the industry's biggest competitor, threatening a ban on corn syrup, which he has called "poison".

• Trump unveils his plan to put AI in everything

• Trump administration to vet AI for 'ideological bias'

  • Executive Order – Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government

• Justice Dept. Told Trump in May That His Name Is Among Many in the Epstein Files

Democrats

• Vladimir Putin kept claims Hillary Clinton had physical, 'psycho-emotional' problems under wraps

  Russian intelligence obtained damaging information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s health amid her 2016 presidential campaign — including evidence that she had “psycho-emotional problems” that were being treated with severe sedatives — but Vladimir Putin chose not to release it before that year’s election because he thought the Democrat would win. The astounding revelations were contained in a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report that reviewed Russia’s influence on the 2016 contest and was declassified and made public Wednesday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, “possessed DNC communications that Clinton was suffering from ‘intensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression. and cheerfulness,’” the report stated. “Clinton was placed on a daily regimen of ‘heavy tranquilizers’ and while afraid of losing, she remained ‘obsessed with a thirst for power.’” By September 2016, some of those communications showed then-President Barack Obama and Democratic party bosses found the state of Clinton’s health “extraordinarily alarming” and fretted that it could have a “serious negative impact” on her ability to beat Trump that November.

  • Hillary Clinton was on ‘daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers’ in 2016

Left Angst

• 'Report' of ICE Deporting an 82-Year-Old Legal Immigrant Gets a Bombshell Update, Press Left in Shambles – RedState

  As it turns out, not only did Guatemala have no record of Leon entering the country, but the hospital he was claimed to be at had no record that he was ever there either. An even bigger bombshell dropped, though. Chilean authorities are now saying that a man with the name Luis Leon, who had the same birth date as the Luis Leon from this story, died in their country in 2019.

• Nearly 3k people are leaving NASA, and this director is one of them

• EPA Is Said to Draft a Plan to End Its Ability to Fight Climate Change

• Funding for program to stop next Stuxnet from hitting US expired Sunday

• Lobby giants cash in on Trump tax bill as Brownstein hits record

• 'cuz spending billions on NASA ain't getting shit done: Why are we abandoning our research on Mars?

• Optimizing to Remove Political Bias from AI Models Removes Other Types of Bias

  Optimizing AI models to reduce political bias can also reduce other forms of systemic bias, making responses more aligned with real-world distributions across domains like climate, education, and energy.

  • It turns out that Soft Headed Consensus Leftism isn't just the True Politics, its the True Religion in all other areas of life too!

• RFK Jr.’s Vaccine-Safety Analyst Has Already Disqualified Himself - The Atlantic

  When the Geiers were first allowed into this trove of millions of anonymized health records, they were supposed to be carrying out a safety study of the DTaP vaccine. But the CDC found that they were instead conducting unauthorized analyses to hunt for a link between the vaccine and autism, and risked breaching patients’ confidentiality in the process; the agency revoked their access. (At the time, the Geiers disputed the charge that they had endangered anyone’s personal information, writing in a 2004 letter to an institutional-review-board administrator that they held the “utmost regard” for patient confidentiality.) Even after they were ousted, the Geiers used information they’d apparently held on to from that database to publish a series of scientific papers advancing the widely discredited theory that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once common in childhood vaccines, is linked to autism, among other conditions.

• Why U.S. dominance at sea is shrinking

• IRS has lost one-quarter of its IT staff since Trump took office

• Trump grants two years of regulatory relief to polluting industries

• Trump administration ramps up its campaign against colleges

• Hard hitting political journalism: Here Are the Piles of Used Bedding and Children’s Play Sets Left Near DOGE’s Old Offices | WIRED

  Near rooms where DOGE once operated, a seemingly abandoned children’s wooden kitchen set sits next to a rainbow climbing arch and an easel covered in crumpled paper, according to photos obtained by WIRED. Other children’s toys are within reach, with colorful books and other playthings neatly organized in white plastic bins. A few related items are strewn about the floor. Nearby, trash bags full of pillows and five mattresses, some with sheets and mattress toppers still on them, are stuffed in a corner. It looks like a scene out of a zombie movie, where villagers had to flee in the middle of the night to avoid a raid. But it’s not a movie; it’s the aftermath of DOGE’s wholesale assault on the GSA and the federal government writ large. DOGE isn’t gone, but as it morphs into its new phase, post-Musk’s chain-saw-style leadership, the children’s toys have been left behind.

• Whistleblower scientists outline Trump's plan to politicize and dismantle NSF

• U.S. Drafts Plan to End Program That Saved Millions from Aids

  • The Left's reaction to AIDS vs COVID illustrates their values.

• ICE block founder's wife fired by DOJ in retaliation for the app

  Carolyn Feinstein said that she had been dismissed from her auditing job as a "retaliation" for her husband, Joshua Aaron's activism, which ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have condemned as putting federal agents' lives at risk. The DOJ told Newsweek: "For several weeks, the Department of Justice inquired into this former employee's activities and discovered she has a sizable interest in All U Chart, Inc., the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock. ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture while endangering the lives of ICE officers by disclosing their location. This DOJ will not tolerate threats against law enforcement or law enforcement officers."

• US taxpayer-funded vaccine doses may expire, lawmakers say

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• New York Man Charged For Making And Attempting To Use Improvised Explosive Devices In Manhattan

  In or about May 2025, GANN ordered approximately two pounds of potassium perchlorate and approximately one pound of aluminum powder—precursor chemicals—online, along with over 200 cardboard tubes and over 50-feet worth of fuses. In or about early June 2025, GANN received his packages containing the precursor chemicals and other supplies, mixed the precursor chemicals together, applied a flame to the mixture, and caused an explosion. GANN subsequently assembled at least seven IEDs using the precursor chemicals, cardboard tubes, and fuses. GANN stored the precursor chemicals and at least five IEDs, pictured below, on the rooftops of residential apartment buildings in SoHo. The pictured black device contained approximately 30 grams of explosive powder—approximately 600 times the legal limit for consumer fireworks.

• Man is Wrongfully Jailed For Heinous Crime Due To Facial Recognition Technology | PetaPixel

  Investigators then showed two witnesses a photo lineup that included Dillon and several similar-looking individuals. Both witnesses identified Dillon as the suspect, which led to his arrest — nine months after the incident occurred. The case was later dropped entirely, and the arrest will be removed from Dillon’s record. The Jacksonville Beach Police Department has refused to comment on the incident.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Space Force begins testing of first OCX software blocks for GPS sats

World

• Has Brazil Invented the Future of Money?

• The New Hot Topic in European Politics Is Air Conditioning

• Niall Ferguson: Milei's Man-Made Miracle

• We Need a European Sovereign Tech Fund

• 2 hour screen time limit and curfews for children being considered by government

  A two-hour cap per platform is being seriously considered after meetings with current and former employees of tech companies. A night-time or school-time curfew has also been discussed. Children would be blocked from accessing apps such as TikTok or Snapchat once they have hit the limit, rather than just reminded of how long they have been scrolling, it is understood. An announcement on screen time is expected this autumn. Mr Kyle said: "I'll be making an announcement on these things in the near future. But I am looking very carefully about the overall time kids spend on these apps.

• Czech president signs law criminalising communist propaganda

• Police take pro-migrant protesters to asylum hotel

  Police have admitted escorting pro-migrant protesters to an asylum hotel at the centre of days of volatile demonstrations. Essex Police initially denied that it had brought activists from the group Stand up to Racism to the Bell Hotel amid claims by anti-migrant protesters that the arrival of counter-demonstrators sparked the violence on July 17. However, the force backtracked after being shown footage of the protesters being escorted by officers from a nearby station to the hotel. On Wednesday, Essex Police will hold a press conference, at which is expected to explain its policing of the demonstrations.

  “In terms of bringing people to the hotel, the police have a duty to facilitate free assembly. We would only ever take people away from protest if we felt there was an immediate threat to people or property, to free up police resources, to protect others, or to prevent additional violence. “In Epping, officers took all three of those into account before making their decisions.” Residents said the decision to escort counter-protesters, some of whom were masked, towards the hotel had made violence inevitable. Footage shared on social media suggested the confrontation escalated shortly after the arrival of the counter-demonstrators, with objects reportedly thrown and minor injuries sustained.

• Apple and Google have 'effective duopoly' in UK says regulator

• UK will back down over its demands on Apple for an encryption backdoor.

• Wikipedia threatens to limit UK access to website

• Mexico makes biometric identifier mandatory for all citizens

• Millet mystery: Why staple crop failed to take root in ancient Japanese kitchens

• Volkswagen case in Brazil exposes suffering in rush to develop Amazon

• Brazil Supreme Court's Legal War with Truth Social, Rumble Escalates

• Top UN court says countries can sue each other over climate change

  • In landmark opinion, World Court says countries must address climate change

Israel

• More than 100 NGOs warn Israel's forced 'mass starvation' stalks all Gaza

• Eleven-minute race for food: how aid points in Gaza became 'death traps'

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• In Ukraine's bombed out reservoir a forest has grown

• What is MAX, the state-owned app Russia is trying to replace WhatsApp with?

China

• Chinese Car Giants Rush into Brazil with Dreams of Dominating a Continent

• China Flexes Muscles at U.N. Cultural Agency, Just as Trump Walks Away

• China launches first robot that can run by itself 24/7 and change own batteries

• China's Working-Age Population Shrinking from 900M to 250M

• Qianfan satellite network – China's Starlink rival – is facing serious delays

Health / Medicine

• Could body piercing be a cause of rheumatoid arthritis?

• Sweet spot for daily steps is lower than often thought, new study finds

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Capturing anesthetic gases could prevent global warming, new study shows

• US faces alarming firefighter shortage during peak wildfire season, data reveals

• Lightning kills 320M trees each year

• Earthquake Causes 2.5-Meter Ground Slip in First-Ever Footage

• Marine biologist for a day: Ars goes shark tagging

• 'Total infiltration': How plastics industry swamped vital global treaty talks

• Return of wolves to Yellowstone has led to a surge in aspen trees

• Seaweed powder lowers concrete's carbon emissions without sacrificing strength

• Trump did it!: About 700M years ago, the Earth froze over – now we may know why