2025-08-03

etc

• Oasis Fans Set Beer Record at Wembley by Downing 250k Pints per Night

• Thousands of Hot dogs spill across busy highway

  Crews mustard up the courage to dispose of thousands of sausages, with a fire chief saying: "I can tell you personally, hot dogs are very slippery. I did not know that."

Horseshit

• US-based company developed a modified wood it claims is stronger than steel

• French startup selling strangers invitations to weddings

• Rise of ARFID, childhood disorder that shuts off the basic human instinct to eat

• The Quintessential Urban Design of 'Sesame Street'

• What Makes an Individual More Likely to Consent to Sex They Do Not Want?

• Durability of clothes is by no means correlated with price, study finds

• The Louder the Monkey, the Smaller Its Balls, Study Finds

• Why there are so few new cars for under $30k

• What The Salt Path scandal means for the nature memoir

  Harrison is not the only writer I speak with to bring up the issue of publishers’ responsibilities. Indeed, the post-Salt Path conversation has included criticism of Winn’s publisher, Penguin Random House, and its perceived failure to carry out due diligence on her manuscript. While the more trenchant comments seem tinged with a post-hoc lack of realism – can editors really be expected to play detective and, for example, interview a prospective writer’s wider circle to establish veracity? – there is more justification for the feeling that the industry will publish relentlessly into an area it deems likely to achieve mainstream success, even if that means green-lighting repetitive or imitative work.

• America's Development Boom Meets a Smelly Reality

• US Army tests robot coyotes to prevent catastrophic bird strikes

celebrity gossip

• The Story Behind Michael Jackson Buying The Beatles’ Catalog

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• From presses to feeds: What witchhunts have in common with misinformation crises

Musk

• Tesla Found Partly Liable in 2019 Autopilot Death

  • Tesla loses Autopilot wrongful death case in $329M verdict

  • Tesla to pay $243M in deadly Autopilot crash: 'This will open the floodgates'

  • Jury orders Tesla to pay more than $240M in Autopilot crash

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Universal Orland EV buses caught fire

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Shroud of Turin image matches low-relief statue–not human body, study finds

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• US Physics Team Wins International Olympiad

• Rising heat is causing students to underperform across the globe

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Windows 11 SE is dead – Microsoft pulls plug on special school edition

• Microsoft's trying to force OneDrive on us yet again – this time for moving

• GOG hit back at censorship by making notable NSFW games free-to-own for few days

• Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

• What Happened to AltaVista? The Rise and Fall of a Search Pioneer

• Google has filed an emergency motion in its failed case against Epic, arguing that it needs more time to make the changes ordered.

• Mastercard Denies Pressuring Steam to Censor NSFW Games

  To be clear, Mastercard doesn’t say it hasn’t been involved at all, just that it’s gone no further than enforcing its existing guidelines against “unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.” But a renewed crackdown on those requirements, which can be vague in practice, has resulted in Valve and itch.io delisting anywhere from hundreds to thousands of games they worry could get it in trouble with Mastercard and others.

• Did Craigslist decimate newspapers? Legend meets reality.

• Verify Your Age to Use the Internet

• Gigabyte removes PCIe 5.0 support from B650 motherboards in latest BIOS update

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• How to reverse engineer an analog chip: the TDA7000 FM radio receiver

  In this article, I explain my reverse engineering process, using the Philips TDA7000 FM radio receiver chip as an example. This chip was the first FM radio receiver on a chip.1 It was designed in 1977—an era of large transistors and a single layer of metal—so it is much easier to examine than modern chips. Nonetheless, the TDA7000 is a non-trivial chip with over 100 transistors. It includes common analog circuits such as differential amplifiers and current mirrors, along with more obscure circuits such as Gilbert cell mixers.

  The TDA7000 has seven on-chip capacitors but most of the capacitors in this design are larger, external capacitors: the chip uses 12 of its 18 pins just to connect external capacitors to the necessary points in the internal circuitry.

  The TDA7000 almost didn't become a product. It was invented in 1977 by two engineers at the Philips research labs in the Netherlands. Although Philips was an innovative consumer electronics company in the 1970s, the Philips radio group wasn't interested in an FM radio chip. However, a rogue factory manager built a few radios with the chips and sent them to Japanese companies. The Japanese companies loved the chip and ordered a million of them, convincing Philips to sell the chips. The TDA7000 became a product in 1983—six years after its creation—and reportedly more than 5 billion have now been sold. (I'm a bit skeptical since that is more than the world's population at the time.) Among other things, the chip allowed an FM radio to be built into a wristwatch, with the headphone serving as an antenna. Since the TDA7000 vastly simplified the construction of a radio, the chip was also popular with electronics hobbyists. Hobbyist magazines provided plans and the chip could be obtained from Radio Shack.

  • TDA7000 FM receiver

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Tim Cook holds company-wide meeting to address Apple's AI woes

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

• European Union Unveils Rules for Powerful A.I. Systems

• At $250M, top AI salaries dwarf the Manhattan Project and the Space Race

• AI is already replacing jobs per month, report finds

• 'What am I falling in love with?' Human-AI relationships no longer fiction

• What'll happen if we spend nearly $3T on data centres no one needs?

• Zuck's $1B Offer for Thinking Machines Person Revealed

• Thanks for Your $1 Billion Job Offer, Mark Zuckerberg. I'm Gonna Pass.

• Anthropic CEO in email to employees on $1B signing bonus by Mark Zuckerberg

• Texas AI centers use 463M gallons, residents asked to cut back on showers

• Creating realistic deepfakes is getting easier, motivating even more AI in reply

Crypto con games

• ETH Surges Past $3K as Glassnode Flags Rare Flip in Futures Volume over Bitcoin

• Ethereum turns 10: From scrappy experiment to Wall Street's invisible backbone

Economicon / Business / Finance

• The myth of work–life balance is dead, and employers aren't afraid to say it

• Natural Gas Inventories Rise but Heat Wave Could Fuel Strong Demand

• A Day at Two San Francisco Malls, One That Died and One That Thrived

• U.S. Homes Are Not Selling, and Prices Continue to Rise

• US labor market adds 73,000 jobs in July while unemployment rate hits 4.2%

• Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• NYC housing lottery applicants' personal info exposed online in data breach

Trump

• Trump, Claiming Weak Jobs Numbers Were 'Rigged,' Fires Labor Official

• Jack Smith under investigation over Trump prosecutions

Democrats

• Forget the 2024 autopsies. Democrats need to be bold — and ruthless - Salon.com

  As the shock has worn off following former Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump in November, and Trump’s inauguration in January, disillusioned Democrats have been searching for someone or something — anyone or anything — to solve their entrenched messaging and branding failures. Some have even called on former President Barack Obama to fill the void by speaking out forcefully and consistently against Trump. (For his part, Obama has urged Democrats to stop “navel-gazing” and “toughen up.”) Their fruitless search for a solution has revealed a party not just in disarray, but in denial. A recent poll by the Wall Street Journal found only 33% of voters hold a favorable view of Democrats, with 63% expressing an unfavorable view of the party — the most unpopular Democrats have been in 35 years of WSJ polling.

  In a scene worthy of satire, Democratic elites — so-called limousine liberals — are also holding meetings at luxury hotels to solve the riddle of how to speak authentically to “working-class” (white) men. This new strategy even has an acronym, “SAM” — short for ‘Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan.’”

  The Washington Post recently reported the “growing consensus” among some party leaders is “that shifting away from a cautious and carefully scripted image is crucial.” Their plan to “project a raw authenticity” seems to be to follow in Trump’s footsteps by lobbing more insults toward Republicans and cursing more, going on more podcasts and recording videos to be broadcast on their social media channels.

  But while the Democrats keep conducting autopsies and churning out plans to be authentic, curse more and find the next Joe Rogan, Trump and his MAGA supporters are rapidly destroying the country’s democratic life. In the face of these threats and autocratic actions, Democrats need to return to fundamentals in their messaging. Trump and his MAGA supporters have spent years — and in some cases, decades — refining their brand, and telling a consistent and superior (if untrue and offensive) story about it. The MAGA movement sees their battle as existential, with Trump as their Christ-figure, a hero and savior, and Democrats as the enemy. This has left Democrats at a serious disadvantage.

• Ex-CIA Whistleblower: "The NSA Audited the 2024 Election, Kamala Harris Won"

Left Angst

• AMA and medical associations are kicked out of CDC vaccine workgroups

• RIP Corporation for Public Broadcasting: 1967–2026

  • (Video) May 1, 1969: Fred Rogers testifies before Senate Subcommittee on Communications

  • Why wasn't all the "Public Broadcasting" in the public domain? Why can't we share Mr Rogers' shows freely today?

• Enough of billionaire's big tech. 'Frugal tech' will build us all a better world

• US Government turmoil stalls export approvals, sources say

• The Smithsonian removes a Trump impeachment reference from an exhibit

• NASA Employees Subject to Random Searches as Agency Becomes AI Police Mini-State

• Ex-CISA chief slams MAGA 'manufactured outrage' • The Register

  When asked why Driscoll rescinded Easterly's appointment, and whether it was related to Loomer's attacks on social media, a US Army spokesperson emailed The Register the following statement:

  The Secretary of the Army took immediate action to direct West Point to terminate the service agreement with Jen Easterly, pause outside groups from selecting Academy employees or instructors, and has requested a review of West Point's hiring practices. Ahead of the upcoming academic year, we are crafting a deliberate approach to ensure that our future officers are best prepared to meet the demands of the modern battlefield.

  The statement doesn't answer either of our questions. But if we had to guess, we'd say Easterly was fired because as CISA director, she advocated for election security, which includes securing voting infrastructure and fighting online disinformation, both the kind that originates from Russian troll farms and the home-grown kind.

• California affordable housing programs on the chopping block after SCOTUS rules

• Partisan hostility, not just policy, drives U.S. protests

  Warner matched survey questions to these movements' core grievances—for example, beliefs about racial inequality for BLM and distrust of government for the Tea Party. He then collected survey responses about people's feelings toward the major political parties. In all three analyses, hostility toward the opposing party was a major factor, often as large or larger than issue concern. For climate protests, animosity toward the Republican Party was an even stronger predictor than concern about climate change itself. "Partisan animosity isn't just background noise, it's a key reason people show up to protest," says Warner. "People are mobilized by anger at the other side, not just by passion for an issue."

• Immigration officers smash car windows to speed up arrests

• In Trump's Washington, Palantir is winning big

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• The Great Crime Paradox

• CISA roasts unnamed critical national infrastructure body for shoddy security

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The military's squad of satellite trackers is now routinely going on alert

• How the US Weaponized Pakistan Against India

World

• North Korea sent me abroad to be a secret IT worker. My wages funded the regime

• Airbnb guest says images were altered in false £12,000 damage claim

• Fathers plan legal action to get smartphones banned in England's schools

• India approves 10 new nuclear reactors

• Blood taken from Danish babies ended up in huge genetic study–without consent

• Police officers ‘also abused’ Rotherham grooming gang victims - BBC News

  Five women who were exploited by grooming gangs in Rotherham as children say they were also abused by police officers in the town at the time. One says she was raped from the age of 12 by a serving South Yorkshire Police (SYP) officer in a marked police car. He would threaten to hand her back to the gang if she did not comply, she says. "In a world where you were being abused so much, being raped once [by a police officer] was a lot easier than multiple rapes [by the gang] and I think he knew that," she tells the BBC. We have seen written accounts from these women, plus testimony from 25 other victims of grooming gangs, with some of those women saying that corrupt police officers worked alongside the gangs or failed to act on child sexual exploitation. At least 1,400 children were abused by men in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 - the landmark report from Prof Alexis Jay found in 2014.

• How Pakistan shot down India's cutting-edge fighter using Chinese gear

• German police expands use of Palantir surveillance software

• UK gets first female Astronomer Royal in 350 years

• Satellites Track Poppy Production in Afghanistan

Israel

• Hamas Kicks Sand in the Face of Its Eurotrash Supporters, Releases Grotesque Video of Hostage – RedState

  Hamas has released a new hostage video, and this is the most grotesque one yet. Evyatar David, who has been held since October 7th, 2023, can be seen digging his own grave in an underground tunnel. The signs of intentional starvation are unmistakable, with the hostage's body severely emaciated.

  That comes amid a rash of claims of mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza by government leaders and the international press. So far, though, every piece of photographic evidence offered (that I have seen reported on) has turned out to be false. On Wednesday, The New York Times was forced to offer a correction because it had run a picture of a child as proof of starvation taking place. In reality, he had a preexisting genetic condition that caused his appearance, and his siblings and mother appeared to be well-fed.

• 'We are dying slowly, save us': starvation takes hold in Gaza

• Rare aerial imagery shows displacement and destruction in Gaza

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• They escaped Ukraine's front lines. The sound of drones followed them

China

• Patents by Silk Typhoon-linked co hint at China's offensive hacking capabilities

• China claims Nvidia built backdoor into H20 chip

• China state media says Nvidia must provide 'security proofs' to regain trust

• Beijing's hackers are playing the long game

• Chinese LLMs talk freely about Tiananmen massacre and Taiwan

Health / Medicine

• Op-ed: Donor Organs Are Too Rare. We Need a New Definition of Death

  • Solve the problem of people being harvested before death by changing the rules to allow that... After all, donors are mostly poor people who don't read the NYT anyhow.

• Separated men are nearly 5x more likely to take their lives than married men

• What's So Bad About Nicotine?

• Hospital food proven bad scientifically – and may undermine health

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• The First Widespread Cure for HIV Could Be in Children

  • Africa has had this opinion for a while now

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Nordic countries hit by 'unprecedented' heatwave

• Lots of thriving life, 30k feet deep

• Artificial sweeteners in wastewater treatment plants

• Ivermectin could help control malaria transmission by killing the mosquitoes

• Vikings grew barley in Greenland – climate was mild when they landed

• Spotted lanternflies love grapevines that's bad for Pennsylvania's wine industry

• Black goo was oozing from a ship on the Great Lakes – and teeming with life