2025-09-12

etc

• Why do some gamers and laparoscopic surgeons use inverted y-axis controls?

• The newly discovered desert city that's rewriting the history of the Americas

• Group finds and publishes previously unseen images of 9/11

Horseshit

• Mosquitos seem to like beer drinkers who recently had sex

  • They hit me so bad others at the party go "what happened tot he bugs?" when i show up... I never drink beer...

• How 'BMX in a wheelchair' became an online sensation

• How Is This Teen Able to Revisit Every Day of Her Past?

• Rob Reiner on Spinal Tap II: 'Paul McCartney has a real good sense of humour'

• Christie's Will Auction the First Calculating Machine in History

• Does Society Have Too Many Rules?

• Almost all German pilots admit to napping during flights in union survey

• What brain surgery taught me about the fragile gift of consciousness

• Social Media Is Navigating Its Sectarian Phase

• The Mysterious Object That Has Baffled Archaeologists for Centuries

• They Created a Streetwear Line from Scratch. In High School

• David Foster Wallace on 9/11, as Seen from the Midwest

• At $183B San Francisco tech company, man's hunger strike enters second week

• I boiled my wooden spoons – and what emerged from them will haunt me for

celebrity gossip

• Daniel Day-Lewis says he 'never intended to retire, really'

• How Bloomberg News Vetted the Epstein Emails

  • UK fires ambassador to US Peter Mandelson over Epstein links

  • A trove of emails reveals Ghislaine Maxwell's secrets

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The Rise of 'Conspiracy Physics'

• How Bill Gates's fellowship program is adapting to global uncertainty

• Critical ignoring when information abundance is detrimental to democracy

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Slate Auto's sub-$30k EV pickup is due next year–here's the factory

• US EV sales smash records in August as Tesla loses ground

• I Rode Honda's Uni-One 'Mobility Device.' It's Coming to the US for Lease-Only

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• The obstacles to scaling up humanoids

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Chess.com co-founder discusses growing up in a religious cult

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Most school hacks carried out by their own pupils, watchdog says

• Teens are adjusting to the smartphone ban

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Vimeo to be acquired by Bending Spoons for $1.38B

• Court rejects Verizon claim that selling location data without consent is legal

• Bending Spoons Buys Video Platform Vimeo for $1.38B

• $142 upgrade kit and spare modules turn Nvidia RTX 4090 24GB to 48GB AI card

• Apple paying $95M in a Siri eavesdropping settlement. How to file a claim

• TV cooking shows are dying out

• Samsung taking market share from Apple in U.S. as foldable phones gain momentum

• AirPods Live Translation Blocked for EU Users with EU Apple Accounts

• The US is now the largest investor in commercial spyware

• Paramount Skydance Preparing to Buy CNN Parent Company In Major Media Consolidation, Report

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• BCacheFS is being disabled in the openSUSE kernels 6.17+

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• AI Is Coming for YouTube Creators

• AI's $344B 'Language Model' Bet Looks Fragile

• ChatGPT may start alerting authorities about youth considering suicide, says CEO

• AI pricing is currently in a state of 'pandemonium' says Gartner

• AI will consume all of IT by 2030–but not all IT jobs, Gartner says

• California bill that would regulate AI companion chatbots close to becoming law

• Albania puts AI-created 'minister' in charge of public procurement

• Peak Bubble

  I won’t say that it is all make-believe, but, well, you do the math. (Did people promising to build potential future greenhouses for tulip-growers in 1636 ever have it so good?) If Oracle actually collects its $300 billion, I will truly be astounded. Quoting investor Vinod Khosla from yesterday, “Most [AI] valuations are bonkers”. Oracle’s new market cap, near a trillion dollars, up nearly 50% this week, driven largely by this one apparently non-binding deal with a party that doesn’t have the money to pay for the services, seems more bonkers than most.

• Mistral's Three Founders Become First AI Billionaires in France

• Walmart's bet on AI depends on getting employees to use it

• Sal Khan is hopeful that AI won't destroy education

• OpenAI Restructuring to Give Nonprofit $100B Stake

• OpenAI Takes Big Steps Toward Its Long-Planned Reorganization

• OpenAI and Microsoft sign preliminary deal to revise partnership terms

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• New video at UFO hearing appears to show missile striking and bouncing off orb

  • Congress probes UFOs in hearing on whistleblowers, transparency.

Crypto con games

• Shares in Bitcoin hoarders sink as 'crypto treasury' mania sours

• Wall Street's Race for Stablecoin Talent Sends Pay Soaring

Economicon / Business / Finance

• ATM fees are at a record high, a new survey finds. Here's why

• No Alpha Left in Public Markets

• Oracle stock gains 36% to post best day since 1992, adding $244B in value

  • Oracle soars 30% on cloud growth projections even as earnings miss estimates

• Klarna employees roast return-to-office plan with emojis as IPO hits the market

• Affordability Crisis Sends Americans Packing From Big Cities.

• CPI for all items rises 0.4% in August, 2.9% YoY; shelter and food up

• The Silent Mental Health Toll of Predatory Loan Apps

• Private equity execs warn of industry failures

• Paramount Skydance Prepares Ellison-Backed Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery

• Firm Inflation, Soft Jobs Data Pull Fed in Opposing Directions

• Gold Surpasses Inflation-Adjusted Record High Set in 1980

• Health Insurance Costs for Businesses to Rise by Most in 15 Years

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• SEC Moves to Dismiss Case Against Former Nikola CEO Milton

• US Senate Republicans trigger 'nuclear option', changing rules to speed nominees

Left Angst

• Ghoulish Dems, liberals are blaming Trump, Charlie Kirk for his own assassination

  • Canadian Man Falsely Named as Charlie Kirk's Shooter on Social Media

  • Bluesky Issues Warning to Any Users Celebrating Charlie Kirk Assassination

  • Graphic video of Kirk shooting shows how media gatekeeper role has changed

  • Opinion | Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way - The New York Times

  You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.

  • The Murder of Charlie Kirk Didn't Help Anyone

  Sure, Kirk is dead, and he will never again spread his brand of vile rhetoric anywhere. But now Kirk is being turned into a martyr to a cause and a party for which he likely didn’t intend to die; those who believe in the MAGA movement will use his death as a rallying cry for going after the “enemies” of that movement (and its leader). His murder is likely to beget more violence, which will cause more pain and more strife, which will further fracture our already fragile society. No social good is served by him being murdered in an act of political vigilantism. Charlie Kirk is dead and nothing will bring him back. We are all a little worse off for his death—not because he was a good person, but because his death is likely to inspire more violence. That will cause far more problems than murdering him could ever hope to solve.

  • Ammunition in Charlie Kirk Shooting Engraved With Transgender, Antifascist Ideology: Sources

  • Trump's video about Charlie Kirk is being accused of using AI

  • Thats a stretch: Bluesky Isn't Celebrating the Death of Charlie Kirk

  • The Age of Assassination - The Atlantic

  Donald Trump’s speech last night about Kirk’s murder, in which the president vilified his political enemies, should frighten any American who rejects political violence, cares about civil liberties, and dislikes government interference.

• Trump offered to let detained Korean workers stay, but almost all heading home

  • US crackdown leaves 'deep scar' on economic ties, possible delays in investments

  • Firms will hesitate to invest in US after raid – S Korea president

  • Seoul says US must fix its visa system if it wants Korea's investments

  • How about (actual) reciprocity? What's it take for an American to work in Korea? We'll just have the same requirements vice versa.

• Angry Leftists Spam Restaurant Where President Trump Dined With One-Star Reviews.

• NASA blocks Chinese nationals from working on its space programs

• The consequences of John Roberts' latest pronouncement will be felt after Trump

  On Monday, the Supreme Court turned a blind eye to President Donald Trump’s unlawful termination of a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission. In doing so, the court further strengthened the hand of an administration intent on tightening its grip on every aspect of the federal government. Once again, the nation’s highest court used its shadow docket to overturn two lower court rulings with minimal explanation — or, in this case, with no explanation at all. Once again, Trump asked a highly partisan Supreme Court to rubber-stamp a blatantly political action, one that clearly violates the spirit and letter of the law — and the court obliged.

• AI can't be woke and regulators should be asleep, Senator Cruz says

• Trump Claims the Power to Summarily Kill Suspected Drug Smugglers

• If its wrong now, was it wrong last year? White House Exerts Enormous Influence over FBI, Lawsuit Says

• Totalitarianism Can Be Terrifying. It Can Also Be Thrilling. He Taught Us Why.

• Revealed: Apple is teaching its AI to adapt to the Trump era – POLITICO

• Appeals court blocks Trump bid to ax top copyright official in AI spat

• Commerce Sec. Wants Half of University Patent Money

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The Beginning of the End of NATO

• An Engineering History of the Manhattan Project

• Pentagon begins deploying new satellite network to link sensors with shooters

World

• Big clouds scramble as EU Data Act brings new data transfer rulesBig clouds scramble as EU Data Act brings new data transfer rules

• Germany is not supporting ChatControl – blocking minority secured

• The controversial sweet that fuels Norwegians

• The biggest chat app in Korea is a roleplaying bot

• 'Block Everything' protests sweep France, intensifying pressure on Macron

  Protesters set fires as they blocked highways and gas stations across France early Wednesday as part of a new nationwide movement. Authorities deployed 80,000 police, who made hundreds of arrests and fired tear gas to disperse crowds. The "Block Everything" movement was born online over the summer in far-right circles but spread on social media and was co-opted by left-wing, antifascist and anarchist groups. It now includes France’s far-left parties and its powerful labor unions.

• Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part

• Bosses can reject applicants who support rival football team to existing staff

• Brazil's Supreme Court finds Bolsonaro guilty of plotting military coup

  • Brazilian Supreme Court Convicts Bolsonaro for Coup Attempt

  • Bolsonaro found guilty in attempted coup, assassination plot

  • Bolsonaro Convicted of Attempting a Coup in Brazil

Israel

• Israeli airstrikes 'killed any hope' for hostages in Gaza

• Maps: Israel has attacked six countries in the past 72 hours

• Netanyahu is an unhinged narcissist who has sabotaged world peace

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Poland Moves Military to Belarus Border Following Overnight Drone Strikes and NATO Alert.

China

• China went to 'EggStreme' lengths to attack Philippines

• Taiwan increases defensive patrols around 24 undersea cables

• China's auto regulators eye ban on retractable door handles, report says

Health / Medicine

• CRISPR Offers New Hope for Treating Diabetes

• The importance of process, organ harvesting edition

• Why the magic mushroom anti-aging claims are overblown

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• The 16th Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Scientists tap 'secret' fresh water under the ocean

• The rewilding milestone Earth has passed

• Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds

• Heatwaves linked to carbon emissions from specific companies

• Is Earth's climate in a state of 'termination shock'?

• A 'smiling' bear is LA's latest superstar

• 'Biomining' seaweed explored for critical minerals to improve domestic supply

• The Myth of Peak Fossil-Fuel Demand Is Crumbling

• 'Robber bees' invade apiarist's shop in attempted honey heist

• Tiny forests: The overlooked benefits of these miniature urban woodlands

• New Vaccine Could Help Save Australia's Beloved Koalas from Chlamydia