2025-08-08

Cool

• Perseid meteor shower set to peak Aug. 12-13.

etc

• Budget Car Buyers Want Automakers to K.I.S.S

Horseshit

• Millionaire big game hunter gored to death in ambush by "Black Death" buffalo

  A big game hunter has been fatally gored by the buffalo he was pursuing for a trophy kill in South Africa.

• Feeling unstimulated and apathetic at work? You might be experiencing rustout

• The Pain of Perfectionism

• What Kids Told Us About How to Get Them Off Their Phones

• What unrestricted internet access did to Gen Z's love life

• Maglev train researchers may have solved 'tunnel boom' shock waves

• Viral TikTok Challenge Leaves 9-Year-Old with Burns: Police

• Sophie Cunningham Pelted By Third Sex Toy In A Week, WNBA Enters Crisis Mode

  • WNBA enforces ‘no bag policy’ to stop dildo throwers

• Ultra-Processed Foods Make Up More Than 60% of US Kids' Diets

• 77% of Gen Z job seekers have brought a parent to an interview, survey finds.

• Nuclear reactors fit on a flatbed truck. How safe are they?

• Generation X is officially old - by John Ivison

• The death of east London's most radical bookshop

• Asimov, Musk and the replacement of humans by robots

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Rigid and negative thought patterns linked to political polarization online

Musk

• Elon Musk to introduce ads to X's AI chatbot

  • Musk Embedding Ads into X's Chatbot

• Musk pay goes up, Tesla results go down

• Tesla Cybertrucks Wanted by Air Force as Missile Targets

  • US Air Force wants Tesla Cybertrucks for target practice

• Microsoft is cautiously onboarding Grok 4 following Hitler concerns

• The lawyer who beat Tesla is ready for 'round two'

• Doctor Strange: The curious life of Elon Musk's Canadian grandfather

• Tesla Disbands Dojo Supercomputer Team in Blow to AI Effort

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Eugenics is back, baby! The Next Parenting Trend Starts Before Conception

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Tennessee school book bans include Calvin and Hobbes and The Magic Tree House

  Calvin and Hobbes, the well-known comic strip series that often deals with topics like nature and bullying, was also banned—though officials have not publicly explained why.

• Reams of fake scientific papers are getting into literature

• Fighting coordinated publication fraud is like ‘emptying an overflowing bathtub with a spoon,’ study coauthor says – Retraction Watch

• Low standards have devalued non-STEM study

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Home Depot and Lowe's Share Data from AI Cameras with Cops

• Network scans find Linux is growing on business desktops, laptops

• Flickering lights could help fight misinformation

  The watermarking technique, called “noise‑coded illumination,” hides verification data in light itself to help investigators spot doctored videos.

• Atlassian's Trello redesign may be 'worst in tech history' say frustrated users

• New York Times Revenue Jumps 9.7% from Subscriptions and Ads

• Nvidia security boss pledges 'no backdoors'

• Google denies AI search features are killing website traffic

• KLM, Air France latest major organizations looted for customer data

• Google TV's Uncertain Future

• Encryption Made for Police and Military Radios May Be Easily Cracked

• Intel's Alleged 18A Chip Manufacturing Struggles Put Panther Lake Launch at Risk

• HBO Max to shut down password sharing "aggressively"

• Brazil movie: as prescient as ever, 40 years later

• Instagram's map feature spurs user backlash over geolocation privacy concerns

• The Browser Company's AI browser now has a $20 subscription

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Leonardo Chiariglione

  I closed MPEG on 2 June 2020 when I left because obscure forces had hijacked it. Even before it has ceased to exists, the MPEG engine had run out of steam – technology- and business wise. The same obscure forces that have hijacked MPEG had kept it hostage to their interests impeding its technical development and keeping it locked to outmoded Intellectual Property licensing models delaying market adoption of MPEG standards. Industry has been strangled and consumers have been deprived of the benefits of new technologies. From facilitators of new opportunities and experiences, MPEG standards have morphed from into roadblocks.

• VRML And The Dream Of Bringing 3D To The World Wide Web | Hackaday

• Ask HN: Source-available license with political stipulations? | Hacker News

  I have friends in a country that has an ascendant religious-regressive party that threatens to strip away their rights, if not their freedom altogether. They feel like they’re at the end of their rope. There is no practical way for them to resist electorally anymore, but they’d like to throw as big a wrench in the works as they are able with the limited power that they have. I realize this no longer qualifies as open source or free software; but is there a license in use today that has political stipulations, e.g. financial supporters of X are prohibited from using this software?

  • If I did not want (for example) Muslims to use my software or other knowledge I have codified I would not share it in public. Dipshits.

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• The AI industry is going after students

• Grok's 'Spicy' Mode Makes NSFW Celebrity Deepfakes of Women (But Not Men)

• "I met a founder who writes 10k lines of code a day thanks to AI"

• Why AI Heralds a New Age of Stupidity

• Noyb survey: only 7% of users want Meta to use their personal data for AI

• Apple hit by string of departures in AI talent war

• Meet the AI Vegans

• Emerson, AI, and The Force - by Neal Stephenson

  It’s unquestionably the case that anyone with an Internet connection can now learn things that they could not have had access to before. But as we now know, many people would rather watch TikTok videos eight hours a day. And many who do use the Internet to “do research” and “educate” themselves are “learning” how Ivermectin cures COVID, the sky is full of chemtrails spewed out by specially equipped planes, and vaccinations plant microchips in your body.

• Schools are using AI surveillance to protect students. Sometimes arresting them

• OpenAI's open LLMs can't believe that Trump is president

• Roblox rolls out open-source AI system to protect kids from predators in chats

  • Open Sourcing Roblox Sentinel: Roblox's Approach to Preemptive Risk Detection

• OpenAI in Talks for Share Sale at $500B Valuation

• OpenAI adds mental health safeguards to ChatGPT, as chatbot fed user 'delusions'

• ChatGPT giving teens dangerous advice on drugs, alcohol and suicide: new study

• AI’s Overlooked $97 Billion Contribution to the Economy - WSJ

• Improving 9-1-1 Operations with Artificial Intelligence

• Anthropic says they've found a new way to stop AI from turning evil

• OpenAI is practically giving ChatGPT to the government for free

• The AI Boom's Hidden Risk to the Economy

• Open AI Announces $1.5M Bonus for Every Employee

• GPT-5 and the new era of work

• After using ChatGPT, man swaps his salt for sodium bromide–and suffers psychosis

  • Once "IRC" was the babble engine somehow responsible for individual stupidity.

• Is an AI backlash brewing? What 'clanker' says about growing frustrations with emerging tech

  It’s a slur for the AI age. “Clanker,” a word that traces back to a Star Wars video game, has emerged in recent weeks as the internet’s favorite epithet for any kind of technology looking to replace humans. On TikTok, people harass robots in stores and on sidewalks with it. Search interest for the term has spiked. On X, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., used the term last week to tout a new piece of legislation.

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Why the US Is Racing to Build a Nuclear Reactor on the Moon

• NASA changes rules of game for commercial space stations

  • NASA’s new chief has radically rewritten the rules for private space stations.

• Global fight over who governs communications satellites heats up

Crypto con games

• Mistrial in Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's money laundering case

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Cognition CEO offers buyouts to let workers flee 'extreme' work culture

• America may be copying the worst part of Europe's real estate market

• Does the Stock Market Know Something We Don't?

• Amazon's bid to overturn BC ruling granting unionization to its workers rejected

• Duolingo stock skyrockets 30% on boosted guidance as AI powers user growth

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Why Is Gov. Gavin Newsom Blocking Rooftop Solar in California?

• Federal court filing system hit in sweeping hack

• Baltimore Assessments Accidentally Subsidize Blight–and How We Can Fix It

  we uncovered a fundamental flaw in how Baltimore’s vacant land is valued for tax purposes. Baltimore’s vacant lots are systematically underassessed to a degree that may amount to as much as half a billion dollars in undervaluation. This flawed methodology not only actively encourages blight, but also punishes development and unfairly shifts the tax burden onto ordinary homeowners and businesses.

  This consistent undervaluation sends a powerful economic signal: keeping land vacant is cheap. It creates a massive tax advantage for owners who do nothing with their property, effectively subsidizing the speculative land banking that fuels blight. If you spend money developing a lot, your assessment and your tax bill suddenly jumps to match the neighboring lots, wiping out the tax break.

• Senators are trying to force ISPs to block all foreign pirate sites

• CA May Ban Lyft and Uber from AI Price Gouging Users with Low Phone Batteries

Trump

• Apple announces $100B US manufacturing plan after pressure from Trump

  • Apple made a 24k gold and glass statue for Donald Trump

  • Apple CEO gifts Trump glass statue with 24-karat gold base

  • Is this blatant corruption by Tim Cook?

  • Trump wanted a US-made iPhone. Apple gave him a gold statue

• Trump calls on Intel CEO to resign

  • Trump demands Intel CEO resign, alleging conflicts over China ties

  • Intel shares drop after Trump calls for CEO to resign immediately

  • Trump calls on Intel CEO to resign

  • Trump calls on 'highly conflicted' Intel CEO to resign over China ties

  • US lawmaker questions Intel CEO's ties to China in letter to company board chair

  • Trump calls for Intel CEO's head over alleged China links

  • Trump demands resignation of Intel CEO over China ties

  • Trump says Intel's new CEO "must resign immediately"

  • Trump Calls on Intel CEO to Resign over China Ties

  • Politics Aside, Intel Owes Us Answers About Its CEO

  • Intel's CEO, Under Attack from Trump, Is Already at Odds with His Board

• Trump Orders New Census to Fix 2020’s Rigged Count Favoring Democrats

  • Trump calls for a new census to exclude undocumented immigrants | CNN Politics

  “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS,” the president added. Trump’s proposal marks a dramatic shift from longstanding census practices. The survey has historically counted all residents regardless of immigration status.

  The Constitution mandates a national census every ten years to determine congressional representation, and the census website states it is “designed to count every resident in the United States.”

  • Trump orders new census that does not count illegal immigrants

  • Enumeration Clause and Apportioning Seats in the House of Representatives

  Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

  • this seems to be pretty clear language, "all other Persons" are counted as 3/5 of a "free Person, including those bound." this was complicated by the 14th amendment (as footnoted above):

  • Overview of Apportionment of Representation

  Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.

  No serious effort was ever made in Congress to effectuate Section 2, and the only judicial attempt was rebuffed. With subsequent constitutional amendments adopted and the use of federal coercive powers to enfranchise persons, the section is little more than a historical curiosity. It should also be noted that the provision relating to "Indians not taxed" is apparently obsolete now in light of an Attorney General ruling that all Indians are subject to taxation in 1940

• Trump to Sign Order Easing Path for Private Assets in 401(k)s

  • Trump to sign executive order allowing cryptocurrencies, private equity in 401k

  • Trump to sign order opening way for alternative assets in 401(k)s, official says

• White House prepares order targeting banks for "unbanking" for political reasons

Democrats

• Can Jon Stewart be the 2028 Democratic nominee? Given the competition, why not?

Left Angst

• Green card holder, walking dog: deported

• Citizen Lab director warns cyber industry about US authoritarian descent

• In response to Trump's tariffs, Sonos devices are about to get more expensive

• Wary of sticker shock, retailers clash with brands on price hikes

  Caught between rising costs from tariffs and belt-tightening consumers, big retailers are clashing with the producers of consumer brands such as Nivea-maker Beiersdorf and brewer Heineken as they look to avoid sticker shock that could hurt sales. The disputes - which have dented some brands' sales - underscore the challenge for consumer goods makers and sellers, with inflation and tariffs pushing up input costs and price spikes in commodities such as coffee. Beiersdorf CEO Vincent Warnery said on Wednesday that retailers in key markets, including Germany and France, had pushed back strongly in price talks last quarter, not only refusing price increases but asking for price reductions, and pulling products from shelves. Beiersdorf eventually agreed to a 2.6% rise, Warnery said, but delistings of some products by retailers knocked two percentage points off its sales growth in Europe in the second quarter.

  • In Europe but blaming Trump tariffs.

• Terrence Tao Loses Funding

• DHS Turns South Park Smear of ICE Agents Into Epic Recruiting Ad

• The Emperor's New Trade Deal – Paul Krugman

  Trump apparently believes that the European Union has agreed to provide him with a personal $600 billion slush fund. In fact, as I pointed out after the “deal” was announced, the EU agreed to no such thing. In fact, it literally couldn’t have made such an agreement. European nations aren’t command economies in which government can tell the private sector where to invest, and in any case the European Commission, which negotiated with Trump, can’t tell the governments of member states what to do.

• ICE Raids Broke Los Angeles’ Economy. Shouldn’t ICE Pay for That?

• Library of Congress explains how parts of US Constitution vanished from website

  “The online Constitution Annotated is an educational tool which includes discussions of the Supreme Court’s latest opinions linked to the text of the Constitution. When updating the site to reflect our constitutional scholars’ analysis of the impact of the latest cases on Article I, Sections 8-10, the team inadvertently removed an XML tag,” Bill Ryan, the director of communications for the Library of Congress, told TechCrunch. “This prevented publication of everything in Article I after the middle of Section 8. The problem has been corrected, and our updated constitutional analysis is now available. We are taking steps to prevent a recurrence in the future,” said Ryan.

• The 24-year-old Canadian software engineer who runs MAGA bots

• What Happens to Public Media Now?

  • I will bet "being available for any taxpayer to use to broadcast their own ideas" isn't on the board anywhere...

• Truth Social's new AI search engine basically just pushes Fox News

• Amazon Web Services gives the Trump admin $1B coupon

• How Apple could send democracy to the spam folder

• Trump administration is altering previously published climate reports

• Hackers mock Trump's education secretary with song

• (Jul 2025) The US Economy Was Supposed to Be in a Recession by Now. What Happened?

  I think it’s alright for folks who are deeply critical of Trump and his neo-mercantalist policies to allow for a bit of curiosity and humility here. Disaster was predicted. Disaster isn’t here. Not yet, at least. So, how do we explain the US economy’s resilience if Trump’s economic ideas are as bad as economists say they are?

  • (Non) Shockingly, "Trump might be right," isn't an answer found worth consideration.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Once-Secret Police Records Are Now Public. How You Can Use Them

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Rubio orders US diplomats to launch lobbying blitz against Europe's tech law

• Victims of CIA-linked Montreal brainwashing experiments cleared to sue

• What is it? White balloon object spotted over Anchorage

World

• The EU Parliament is pressing for new mandatory scanning of your private chats

  • EU Revives Plan to Ban Private Messaging

• Faced with £40B budget hole, UK public sector commits £9B to Microsoft

• The Royal Navy has the biggest force of 5th-gen carrier planes off China

• People returned to live in Pompeii's ruins, archaeologists say

• LG ordered to pay £150k after phone defect caused Scotland house fire

• Terrorism and Voting: The Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Germany - American Economic Association

  We document that right-wing terrorism leads to significant increases in vote share for the right-wing, populist AfD (Alternative fur Deutschland) party in Germany. To identify causal effects, we exploit quasi-random variation between successful and failed attacks across municipalities. Using the SOEP, a longitudinal panel of individuals, we find successful terror leads individuals to prefer the AfD and worry about migration. Political parties—the AfD in particular—adjust their messaging in election manifestos in response to terror. Overall, and in contrast to previous work, we find terrorism is consequential to the rise of right-wing populism in a Western, multiparty democratic system.

  • (2023) Right-wing terror in Germany: A timeline

  For years it was debated whether the incident was a lone wolf shooting spree or a right-wing extremist attack. One thing is for sure: On July 22, 2016, an 18-year-old man killed nine people, many of them teenagers, in a mass shooting at the Olympia shopping mall in northern Munich before ultimately turning the gun on himself. It was not until the fall of 2019 that state police said the case was "politically motivated" because the shooter's "racist motives."

  • If they can't find any "right wing terror" they'll call bank robbers political and make up motives for the rest.

• UK interest rates cut to lowest level in more than two years

• Japan Law Will Require Apple to Allow Non-WebKit Browsers on iPhone

• Nearly a million more deaths than births in Japan last year

• BA Owner: Heathrow's third runway 'is going to be empty' if it means high fees

Iran / Houthi

• Forbidden fruit We uncover the secret food trade that corrupts Iran's neighbours

• Predatory Sparrow Hacks Iran's Financial System

Israel

• BCG models relocating Gazans to Somalia

• China asks Israel to lift siege on Gaza, renews push for independent Palestinian

• Israel is reportedly storing Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft servers

• Arab States Call for Hamas to Disarm Amid Push for a Palestinian State

• The secret system Hamas uses to pay government salaries

• Canada airdrops aid into Gaza, says Israel violating international law

• Fears for Palestinians and hostages as Netanyahu plans full Gaza occupation

• What makes Israel's starvation of Gaza stand apart

China

• Shopping for a robot? China's new robot store in photos

• China Revives Covid-Era Health Measures to Prevent Mosquito-Borne Virus

  • With Drones and 'Elephant Mosquitoes,' China Wages All-Out War on a Virus

• UK Deputy Prime Minister asks China to explain blanked-out embassy plans

• China Is a Nation of Savers. Many Are Drowning in Debt

• India PM Modi to visit China on Aug 31 for SCO summit, Indian TV channels report

• China's Export Machine Powers Ahead but Trade with US Slumps

• Weekend Warriors Are Prepping for a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

Health / Medicine

• FDA approves eye drops that fix near vision without glasses

• Eli Lilly's Obesity Pill Shows Promising Weight Loss in New Results

• In trial, people lost twice as much weight by ditching ultraprocessed food

• Eggs are off the hook–study reveals bacon's the real heart risk

  • The Bacon Cheeseburger with fried egg on donut bun is the Perfect Foodstuff. and extra mayonnaise.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Plastic water bottle left in a hot car? Think twice before sipping from it

• Scientists try new way to limit invasive carp in Mississippi River: feeding them

• Coral on Great Barrier Reef at Fifth Highest Level Since Records Began

• Turbulence is getting worse. Here are the planet's bumpiest flight routes