2025-08-27

Horseshit

• How an NYC Suburb Is Keeping Rents Down

• They Were Winning One of the Biggest Races. Then Their Bikes Got Stolen

• DNA of ancient remains by Colombian scientists reveals unknown human lineage

• IBM and AMD partner on quantum computing with end-of-decade goal

• No evidence ageing/declining populations compromise socio-economic performance

• Scientists unlock secret to thick, stable beer foams

• Nazi looted art discovered after 80 years thanks to real estate ad

  • Old master painting looted by Nazis spotted in Argentinian property listing

• A 'Third Way' Between Buying or Renting? Swiss Co-Ops Say They've Found It

• Why America Still Needs Punk Rock

  I’m not afraid to profess my love for punk—its history of leftism and exhilarating music drew me to the culture

  • Because nihilistic leftists desperately need fresh young blood and can't think of an original idea to appeal to youth...

• Burning Man co-founder on why he hates the festival now

• Casper Ruud hates the weed smell at US Open: ‘Worst part about New York’

  • Everybody pitched a bitch about "secondhand smoke" for cigarettes, why do other personal recreational pollutants not get the same? I smoke like a chimney and it's only considerate to try to be upwind of others.

celebrity gossip

• Will Smith's concert crowds are real, but AI is blurring the lines

Obit

• James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family, Dies at 89

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• A simple cognitive vaccine can make you more resistant to misinformation

  • Everything you hear, is because someone thought it was worth their effort to tell it to you.

• How China Influences Elections in New York City

Musk

• Tesla rejected $60M settlement before losing $243M Autopilot verdict

• xAI Sues Apple/OpenAI over AI Competition, App Store Rankings

• SpaceX to start sending Dragon capsules to Mars in 2 years

• Lidar and radar reduce safety due to sensor contention

• The Battle to Make U.S. States Use Satellites to Provide Rural Internet Access

• Elon Musk Appears to Be Completely Addicted to Anime Gooner AI Slop

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Slate Auto CEO Chris Barman tells us how it's making a $25,000 EV

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• New delivery robot will bring the grocery store to you

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Interactive Map of Paul's First Century Travels in Roman World

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• What Many Parents Miss About the Phones-in-Schools Debate

• Hoax calls about active shooters stir fear at college campuses around the US

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• TN Attorneys General Is Demanding Companies End Predatory AI Interactions with Kids

• The 'KPop Demon Hunters' Success Story Could Be a Turning Point for Cinema

• Meta Has Won the Smart Glasses Race

• Prusa CEO declares "open hardware 3D printing is dead"

• Spotify Is Introducing Messages

• The Onion turned back to print. It brought in over 50k new subscribers

• AT&T to buy wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar for $23B

• Google Could Get Broken Up This Week. Here's What It Would Mean

• A hidden network handles chats for OnlyFans stars. AI could soon take over

• Skylight's TikTok alternative adds community curators to the mix

• Alexis Ohanian's Next Social Platform Has One Rule: Don't Act Like an Asshole

• Nintendo Reportedly 'Almost Discouraging' Switch 2 Development

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Linux is 34 years old today

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Canaries in the Coal Mine? Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence

• Big tech's selective disclosure masks AI's real climate impact

• Japanese media groups sue Perplexity over alleged copyright infringement

• Can OpenAI free us from our screen and smartphone obsession?

• AI-generated scientific hypotheses lag human ones when put to the test

• Can AI suffer? Big tech and users grapple with unsettling questions of our times

• Former OpenAI researcher says UBI is the only way to survive the AI job collapse

  • New problems never require new ideas; the Left always has the answer: totalitarian socialism!

• Coinbase CEO 'went rogue' and fired some employees who didn't adopt AI

• In Search of AI Psychosis

  AI psychosis (NYT, PsychologyToday) is an apparent phenomenon where people go crazy after talking to chatbots too much. There are some high-profile anecdotes, but still many unanswered questions. For example, how common is it really? Are the chatbots really driving people crazy, or just catching the attention of people who were crazy already? Isn’t psychosis supposed to be a biological disease? Wouldn’t that make chatbot-induced psychosis the same kind of category error as chatbot-induced diabetes?

  if a source which should be official starts acting in unofficial ways, it can take people a while to catch on. And I think some people - God help them - treat AI as the sort of thing which should be official. Science fiction tells us that AIs are smarter than us - or, if not smarter, at least perfectly rational computer beings who dwell in a world of mathematical precision. And ChatGPT is produced by OpenAI, a $300 billion company run by Silicon Valley wunderkind Sam Altman. If your drinking buddy says you’re a genius, you know he’s probably putting you on. If the perfectly rational machine spirit trained in a city-sized data center by the world’s most cutting-edge company says you’re a genius . . . maybe you’re a genius?

• A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In

• Meta is sinking $10B into rural Louisiana to build its wildest AI aspirations

• Clay Shirky: The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis

• AI Makes It Harder for Entry-Level Coders to Find Jobs, Study Says

• AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

• Yes, AI is affecting employment. Here's the data

• Grok 2.5 has not been open-sourced

• Attorneys General to AI Companies: You Will 'Answer for It' If You Harm Children

• The rise of humanlike chatbots detracts from developing AI for the human good

• Uncle Sam speedruns AI chatbot adoption for federal workers

• Anthropic Settles High-Profile AI Copyright Lawsuit Brought by Book Authors

  • Anthropic settles class action from US authors alleging copyright infringement

• Super PAC aims to drown out AI critics in midterms, with $100M and counting

• AI tells Guardian: 'When I'm told I'm just code, I don't feel insulted.'

• AI 'deadbots' are persuasive and primed for monetization

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• X-37B spaceplane flies again, this time carrying a quantum GPS alternative

Crypto con games

• Psychic's advice cost billionaire heiress $80M in crypto

• Trump Media, Crypto.com to launch crypto treasury firm

  • Trump media group in $6B deal to buy Crypto.com tokens

• US banks lobby to block stablecoin interest over fears of deposit flight

• Crypto thief earns additional prison time for assaulting witness

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Nvidia set for $260B (6%) price swing after earnings, options indicate

• Intel says Trump deal has risks for shareholders, international sales

• Biotechs Turn to Digital Coins, Crypto to Boost Stock Prices

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Bill introduced to exempt Pope Leo from high US taxes

• Senator castigates federal judiciary for ignoring "basic cybersecurity"

• Nevada Governor's Office says state offices 'will likely be closed' Tuesday

• Pentagon is 'thinking' about taking equity stakes in defense contractors

• Judge Dismisses Trump Administration Suit Against Federal Bench in Maryland

Trump

• Trump says China has to give US magnets or face 200% tariff

  • We can make them here. They're basically ceramics. Seems to me they should be amenable to small shop production, even.

• Trump says he's removing Fed Gov. Cook citing his admin's allegations of fraud

  • Trump Fires Fed Governor Lisa Cook

  • Trump orders removal of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook

  • Dollar Drops as Trump Says He's Firing Fed Governor Cook

  • In the Matter of Lisa Cook

  • Trump vs. Fed; or: history is forcing the question of a democratic central bank

  • Trump moves to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook

  • US long-term debt sells off after attempted firing of Fed governor

  • Fed's credibility is an asset whose decline could be costly

  • Fed Gamble Risks Pushing Key Bond Rates Even Higher

• Trump administration weighs sanctions on officials implementing EU tech law

• Trump announces plan to welcome 600k Chinese students amid trade talks

• New "Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag" EO Would Violate First Amendment

Democrats

• It's Time for Americans to Start Talking About "Soft Secession"

  This is what American federalism looks like in 2025: Democratic governors holding emergency sessions on encrypted apps, attorneys general filing lawsuits within hours of executive orders, and state legislatures quietly passing laws that amount to nullification of federal mandates. Oregon is stockpiling abortion medication in secret warehouses. Illinois is exploring digital sovereignty. California has $76 billion in reserves and is deciding how to deploy it. Three sources on those daily Zoom calls between Democratic AGs say the same phrase keeps coming up, though nobody wants to say it publicly: soft secession. Not the violent rupture of 1861, but something else entirely. Blue states building parallel systems, withholding cooperation, and creating facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders.

Left Angst

• How the Electoral College Could Tilt Further From Democrats Amid Redistricting and Population Shifts - The New York Times

  The year is 2032. Studying the Electoral College map, a Democratic presidential candidate can no longer plan to sweep New Hampshire, Minnesota and the “blue wall” battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and win the White House. A victory in the swing state of Nevada would not help, either. That is the nightmare scenario many Democratic Party insiders see playing out if current U.S. population projections hold. After every decennial census, like the one coming up in 2030, congressional seats are reallocated among the states based on population shifts. Those seats in turn affect how big a prize each state is within the Electoral College — or how a candidate actually wins the presidency. In the next decade, the Electoral College will tilt significantly away from Democrats.

  Across all of the possible scenarios in the nine states that would be considered battlegrounds in the 2032 election, Democrats would see about a third of their current winning Electoral College combinations disappear if population projections hold. However, when looking only at the most feasible winning combinations based on voting behaviors in the 2024 election, the outlook is far worse. Of Democrats’ 25 most plausible paths to victory in 2024, only five would remain.

• US retail giants raise prices due to tariffs

• Trump shooting and Biden exit flipped social media from hostility to solidarity

  In a little over a week during the summer of 2024, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally (July 13) and Joe Biden’s suspension of his re-election campaign (21 July) completely reshaped the presidential race. “Negative emotions such as anger and outrage along with hostility towards opposing political groups are usually rocket fuel for social media engagement. You might expect this to go into hyperdrive during times of crisis and external threat.” “However, we found the opposite. It appears that political crises evoke not so much outgroup hate but rather ingroup love,” said Marks. Just after the Trump assassination attempt, Republican-aligned posts signalling unity and shared identity received 53% more engagement than those that did not – an increase of 17 percentage points compared to just before the shooting.

• Trump calls for FCC to revoke ABC and NBC licenses

  • CBS caved to Trump–now he's seeking punishments for ABC and NBC

• DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says

  • Whistleblower says Trump officials copied Social Security numbers

  • Doge accused of copying Social Security database to insecure cloud system

  • DOGE uploaded live copy of Social Security database to 'vulnerable' cloud server

• CDC scaled back a surveillance program for foodborne illnesses

• Trump administration pushes ahead with NOAA climate and weather cuts

• Big Tech's next major political battle may be brewing in your backyard

  The push by companies like OpenAI and Google to win the artificial intelligence race has led to a proliferation of data centers — giant warehouses for computer systems — in communities across all 50 states. The rise of these server farms has sparked fierce battles from the Virginia suburbs to Tucson, Arizona, and beyond, as city and county governments grapple with how to balance job creation and new revenue streams against the strain data centers put on water and energy resources.

• The USAID Fire Sale

• Congress wants to cut the smartest investment taxpayers ever made

  Congress is moving to cut funding for the National Science Foundation that could lead to future breakthroughs.

• CBP Had Access to More Than 80k Flock AI Cameras Nationwide

• MAGA Rages over Trump's Chinese Student Numbers: 'Should Never Allow That'

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Microsoft Asked FBI for Help Tracking Protests

  • Microsoft asked FBI for help tracking Palestinian protests

• License plate camera company halts cooperation with federal agencies

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Japan Post suspends some US-bound mail after US ends duty exemption

  • India to suspend all parcel services to the US from Aug 25th

  • European postal services suspend shipment of packages to US over tariffs

  • We regret but have to temporary suspend the shipments to USA | olimex

  Starting August 29th, new regulations have come into effect. Both DHL and UPS currently have no working solution, so on their advice, we are temporarily suspending all shipments to the USA effective immediately. The issue is that we are now required to collect all taxes and tariffs on U.S. shipments in advance. However, there is no functioning calculator for this, which has created chaos. Parcels are being held in customs for weeks due to unreasonable requirements. For example, importers must declare the exact amount of steel, copper, and aluminum in products, with a 100% tariff applied to these materials. This makes little sense—PCBs, for instance, contain copper traces, but the quantity is nearly impossible to estimate. U.S. customs is demanding a Certificate of Analysis (which could cost thousands of dollars and to determine what exact amount of Aluminum, Copper and Steel are in the product), otherwise they assume the entire PCB consists of copper, aluminum, and steel, and charge a 100% tariff on the whole product. This is a prime example of unnecessary complexity in international trade.

• US threatens extra tariffs, export bans, for nations that regulate Big Tech

World

• Australia once the gold standard for gun safety: Experts say it's losing control

• 'Tamed' algorithms and plummeting porn views: impact of UK online safety rules

• The Dutch are quietly shifting towards a four-day work week

• The Native Speaker Myth in English Education in Japan

• Cameras installed in bin lorries – Stop householders dumping rubbish incorrectly

• Transport for London launches campaign targeting 'headphone dodgers'

• From Kyiv to the Suwałki Gap, bogs return as Europe's defensive shield

• 96% jump in number of people coming from US to live in Ireland

• France may need IMF bailout, warns finance minister

• Britain's datacentre boom promises growth- Ireland's grid crisis shows the costs

• Apple Watch not a 'CO2-neutral product,' German court finds

  • Cupertino must stop calling Apple Watches 'carbon neutral,' German court rules

Iran / Houthi

• Revelations Iran was behind antisemitic attacks show IRGC reached Australia

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• With a new Soyuz rocket, Russia seeks to break its Ukrainian dependency

• Moscow court fines Google for failing to abide by Russian law

China

• China military parade to show off hypersonic missiles and autonomous weapons

• Can China build its own ASML?

• Google says China-linked cyber operations targeted Southeast Asia diplomats

• China Finds Buyers for Surplus Solar: Africa's Energy-Hungry Countries

• Chinese Ice-Cream Chain Shows What American Brands Are Doing Wrong in China

Health / Medicine

• CT Scans Projected to Result in 100,000 New Cancers Across The US.

• Nonmedical use of prescription ADHD drugs among teens has dropped

• Red meat consumption within high-quality diets may support mental health

• Problematic alcohol use has become more common among older women

• Ibuprofen and acetaminophen linked to antibiotic resistance

• Pig lung transplanted into a person in world first

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Big Oil's "Managed Decline" Strategy Masks an Expansion Push

• Physics-Based Indicators for the Onset of an AMOC Collapse Under Climate Change

• Ad Giant Accused of Breaking'Industry First' Climate Policy with Work for Aramco

• Why does the temperature feel hotter than the forecast says?

• How about we go back to having a reliable electrical grid with spare capacity? Home batteries are saving America from blackouts

• ER doctors say we need to pay more attention to heat

• Repeated heatwaves can age you as much as smoking or drinking

• How Palm Springs learned to love its wind turbines

• How plants and fungi trade resources without a brain