2025-08-29

etc

• Ford and the Birth of the Model T

  the Model T’s design also involved significant process improvements. For one, it pushed the machining precision of the Model N even further. In his history of Ford, Douglas Brinkley notes that “in an industry previously unfettered by anything like exacting measurements, the typical tolerance on the Model T was 1/64th of an inch.” Indeed, outside the auto industry, some types of manufacturing were done without even the aid of dimensioned drawings. This precision machining was “the rock upon which mass production of the Model T was based.” Not only did a high level of precision facilitate manufacturing, it also made for a better product—one that was much more reliable than any other car on the market. Because parts were interchangeable, repairs were simpler. And the precision of the machining meant that unlike most other automakers, Ford didn’t need to test the engine before it was attached to the chassis, since “if parts were made correctly and put together correctly, the end product would be correct.” The Model T would ultimately cost around $100 a year to maintain, at a time when the maintenance of other cars cost $1,500 per year.

  Prior to the assembly line, it took a single worker an average of 20 minutes to assemble a flywheel magneto. With the assembly line, it took just over 13 minutes. Ford quickly found even more ways to improve the process. To prevent workers from having to bend over, the height of the line was raised several inches. Moving the work in a continuous chain allowed it to be synchronized, which sped up the slow workers and slowed down the fast ones to an optimal pace. Within a year, the assembly time for flywheel magnetos had fallen to five minutes.

• Global airlines group proposes raising international pilot retirement age to 67

• Gothasauusr: 'Jaw-droppingly weird' dinosaur from Morocco was studded with spikes

Horseshit

• Glow-in-the-dark succulents that recharge with sunlight

• The body parts evolution still can't explain

• Matter Is Finally Ready to Deliver the Smart Home It Promised

• In Boston, Trucks Keep Crashing into Low Bridges

• Seeing infrared: contact lenses that grant 'super-vision'

• Drugs, smuggling and abductions: inside the world of pigeon racing in Taiwan

Musk

• Tesla sales plunge 40% in Europe as Chinese EV rival BYD's triple

  • Tesla's Europe problem just got even worse

• Musk's xAI forays into agentic coding with new model

• Eliza Labs Sues X For Anti-trust

Electric / Self Driving cars

• UMichigan study: EVs are cleaner than ICEs over average vehicle life

• Stellantis shelves Level 3 driver-assistance program

• Back to Gas: School Districts Revert to Diesel Because Biden’s Electric Buses Can’t Be Repaired

  The Biden administration awarded Canadian electric bus maker Lion Electric $159 million to manufacture 435 school buses between 2022 and 2024, making it the third-largest recipient of such funding. The company has since fallen into bankruptcy, failed to deliver hundreds of the buses it promised, and warned school districts that its dire financial straits prevent it from servicing those in circulation. As a result, many of those districts are turning back to diesel.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The Group That's Been Swatting US Universities

• I'm a Stanford student. A Chinese agent tried to recruit me as a spy

• 1 in 4 Texas school districts sign up for Bible-infused curriculum

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Think you own those movies you've been buying digitally? Think again

• Bland,for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm done to our films?

• Some Pixels are bricked and Google apparently won't help revive them

• The New York Times Mini Crossword Is No Longer Free to Play

• Amazon Facing Lawsuit over Prime Video Movie Purchases

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• UK unions want 'worker first' plan for AI as people fear for their jobs

• 911 centers are so understaffed, they're turning to AI to answer calls

• US fighter pilots try taking directions from AI

• AI robots are helping South Korea's seniors feel less alone

• AI comes for the job market, security, and prosperity

• Meta to launch California super PAC backing pro-AI candidates

• Jimmy Wales Says Wikipedia Could Use AI. Editors Call It the 'Antithesis of Wikipedia'

• GM Raided Silicon Valley to Build Its New AI Team. Here's What It's Doing

• Teens are increasingly turning to AI companions, and it could be harming them

• AI startup Lovable receives funding offers at $4B valuation

• The AI correction is here: "We are witnessing the bursting of the AI bubble"

• Japanese media groups sue Perplexity over alleged copyright infringement

• BBC reveals web of spammers profiting from AI Holocaust images

• A Troubled Man, His Chatbot and a Murder-Suicide in Old Greenwich

• OpenAI Says It's Scanning ChatGPT Conversations and Reporting to the Police

Crypto con games

• American Bitcoin, backed by Trump sons, aims to start trading in September

• Bitcoin miners say fee drought poses existential threat to network

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Nvidia still growing, but China uncertainty clouds outlook

• Nvidia's top two mystery customers made up 39% of the chipmaker's Q2 revenue

• TikTok owner set to launch share buyback valuing company at $330B

• "Buy Now, Pay Later" Seduced a Generation–and Trapped It in Debt

• The startup bubble that no one is talking about

  My predictions, based on the above data, and my anecdotal experience is that the amount of venture funding available is about to decrease. This will lead to lower valuations as the supply of funds decreases, inducing relative scarcity. As a result many companies will be left “swimming naked as that tide goes out”. This along with other issues such as (very) newly decreasing expectations of the AI vertical as a whole could lead to a sizable contraction. The decrease in available funding will also put more pressure on companies to actually make money .

• Data centers will cause higher electricity prices, study finds

  • If only it were possible to generate more electricity, somehow..

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• U.S. Government Cracks Down on Organ Transplant System

• With little to show from 10 years of work, WA suspends $292M IT rebuild

• White House fires CDC director Monarez after she refuses to resign

  • CDC officials’ resignation emails

  Moments ago, Inside Medicine broke news that three top career CDC officials have resigned from the agency, hours after the Washington Post reported that newly-confirmed Director Dr. Susan Monarez has been ousted, having run afoul of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Here are the emails that each of the officials sent to their CDC colleagues by Dr. Deb Houry, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, and Dr. Daniel Jernigan.

  • Better luck with the modeling career

  • CDC Implosion Continues as Staff Stage Unprecedented Walk Out

  • CDC director has been ousted just weeks after Senate confirmation

• Intel details everything that could go wrong with US taking a 10% stake

• US to publish economic data on blockchain, Commerce chief Lutnick says

  • U.S. Department of Commerce Brings Macroeconomic Data on the Blockchain

Trump

• How much danger is America's central bank in?

• Zuckerberg Pressed Trump on Digital Taxes Before Tariff Vow

Democrats

• Stop villainizing trans people, Democrat mayor says after school shooting

  The Mayor of Minneapolis told people to stop “villainising our trans community” after gunman Robin Westman sprayed bullets at primary school children. Two children, aged eight and 10, were killed after the gunman, who is trans, stormed Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota on Wednesday. Armed with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol, Westman “sprayed” dozens of rounds of bullets through the stained glass windows of the school’s adjacent church. The 23-year-old changed his name by deed poll in 2019 from Robert to Robin in documents seen by The Telegraph. Speaking at a press conference following the attack, Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis mayor, said those attacking transgender people had “lost their sense of common humanity”. “I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community,” Mr Frey told reporters.

Left Angst

• Does It Matter That Donald Trump Is Confused by Magnets?

  What if the man who has been entrusted by the Republican Party to reshape huge swaths of the national economy and the flow of global trade is suffering from the same sort of cognitive decline that marked Joe Biden's time in office? t's an unsettling question, but one that ought to be pondered in the wake of what happened on Monday in the Oval Office. While hosting South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and taking questions from reporters, Trump went off on a long, nonsensical tangent about magnets and what he apparently believes is a two-decade-long conspiracy orchestrated by the Chinese government.

  • Why haven't American efforts at building rare earth magnets ever come to anything?

• RFJ Jr did it? Autism is on the rise: what's behind the increase?

• Trump Announces New National Design Studio

  Trump appointed Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia as the first governmental chief design officer to run America by Design. The goal: to update federal websites to, as Axios reported, an “Apple Store–like experience.” Other administrations have instituted design initiatives, but an official (I have long imagined a potentially cabinet-level?) position with overarching responsibility to brand American government assets has apparently proved too complex to coordinate until now. Still, attempts to create a uniform American graphic identity are nothing new. Last year, Paula Scher and Pentagram completed a General Services Administration website to anchor the goals of agencies and departments with a consistent visual language—and Scher and Pentagram had also previously proposed a standards guide with a new uniform USA logo.

• The Crazy Comes for Clean Energy

• Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force

• Warnings from Weimar

  Today, this chapter of the Weimar Republic’s history should be revisited. At a moment in which democracy is backsliding in places as varied as Hungary, India, Turkey, and the United States, it is a reminder that democracy often erodes slowly at first, via the gradual surrender of those entrusted to defend it. But with each concession, autocrats become bolder, defenses grow weaker, and reversal becomes harder. Responses that, early on, can feel pragmatic—waiting it out, remaining silent, cutting a deal—only embolden autocrats, leading ultimately to the demise of democracy itself.

  • Yes; that's why it was important not to lie down and accept COVID lock downs and so on... Note the lack of Leftists arrested and silenced from media over their disagreement with today's government, in contrast to the reaction of the Biden administration to disagreements...

• The Curious Case of Steve Bannon's Tactics

• Donald Trump's Big Gay Government

• Derek Lowe: public health and science research agencies are being ransacked

• I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Federal agents arrest firefighters working on WA wildfire | The Seattle Times

  Why the two firefighters were arrested is unclear. But a spokesperson for the Incident Management Team leading the firefighting response said the team was “aware of a Border Patrol operation on the fire,” that it was not interfering with the firefighting response and referred reporters to the Border Patrol station in Port Angeles.

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• FBI, Dutch cops seize fake ID marketplace that sold identity docs for $9

• How's China stealing our stuff? Wonders DoD group responsible for foreign agents

• Two Chinese Nationals Arrested for Allegedly Illegal Shipping AI Chips to China

• US withdraws from UN human rights report

• Chinese Spies Hit More Than 80 Countries in 'Salt Typhoon' Breach, FBI Reveals

  • Thought China's Salt Typhoon was booted off critical networks? Think again

  • FBI cyber cop: Salt Typhoon pwned 'nearly every American'

World

• Rheinmetall opens Europe's largest munitions plant

• More than 10 European startups became unicorns this year

• The UK Tried to Clamp Down on Migration–and Wound Up with an Unprecedented Wave

• for media values of "quiet": The Dutch are quietly shifting towards a four-day work week

• Apple afraid of proposed UK CMA law

• UK banks brace for losses on loans to broadband challengers

• Chat Control is back and we've got two months to stop the EU CSAM scanning plans

• Apple pulls iPhone torrent app from AltStore PAL in Europe

• Brazil Police Crack Down on $9.6B Fuel Scheme

Iran / Houthi

• Iran directed arson attacks in Australia and 'fanned the flames' of antisemitism

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• North Korea's Kim Jong Un to Join Putin at China Military Parade

• How Russia's drone attacks have reshaped the war in Ukraine

• Russian space official: "Stop lying to ourselves" about our industry's health

China

• Defying West, China's Xi Gathers 'Axis of Upheaval' at Military Parade

• I'm a Stanford student. A Chinese agent tried to recruit me as a spy

Health / Medicine

• Burden of informal family care is projected to increase by 50% in Europe

• The Medicine We Thought Was Safe

  How did acetaminophen gain its reputation as untouchably safe? Other painkillers—ibuprofen, aspirin—come with warnings: miscarriage risk, birth defects, bleeding complications. Professional associations reassured patients that acetaminophen avoided these hazards. It became the fallback. Doctors prescribed it reflexively; mothers took it trustingly. This is how medical habits harden. Once a drug becomes the “safe default,” it takes years of contradictory evidence to reopen the case. Institutions prefer stability. But stability sometimes conceals unfinished science.

• Cigarette filters do nothing for health and create plastic pollution – ban them

  • they had to be mandated by law in the first place dint they?

• It’s rude to ask if someone is taking Ozempic. Here’s why.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• FDA Approves Covid Shots with New Restrictions

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• A Beautiful Summer Day on Lake Tahoe Suddenly Turned Deadly

• Robot rabbits the latest tool in FLA battle to control invasive Burmese pythons

  • U.S. Florida deploys robot rabbit to control invasive Burmese Python population

• Bill McKibben's solar advocacy lost the plot on climate change

• There are just two northern white rhinos left

• Eco-driving measures could significantly reduce vehicle emissions