2025-10-15

Horseshit

• Marie Antoinette portrait her sister, Oxford study finds

• Kids who use social media score lower on reading and memory tests

• Disney and the Decline of America's Middle Class

• Bursting the EVTOL Bubble

• There's Now a Casino in Everyone's Pocket. For Some Men It's a Near-Fatal Gamble

• Study finds minimal link between smartphone use and adult well-being

• The status symbol? A big family

• Riot That 'Killed' Disco

celebrity gossip

• Before publicly turning on San Francisco, Marc Benioff had privately left

  • Musk calls for federal troops in San Francisco even as Benioff softens stance

Musk

• SpaceX got what it needed from Starship V2

• US Congress committee investigates Musk-owned Starlink over Myanmar scam centres

• Tesla is at risk of losing subsidies in Korea over widespread battery failures

• SpaceX has received unsold Tesla Cybertrucks

• Myanmar scam cities booming despite crackdown–using Musk's Starlink

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Slowing Electric Vehicle Sales Will Cost G.M. $1.6B

• The US Is Adding EV Chargers at a Record Pace

• Unreliable public charging stations deter many potential electric vehicle buyers

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• HighSchool Dances Going Extinct? NJ School Cancels Dance Due to Lack of Interest

• The Numbers Six and Seven Are Making Life Hell for Math Teachers

• University of California sets world record with five Nobel Prizes in one week

• In reading, the nation's students are still stuck in a pandemic slump

  • Funding do not go up if test scores go up...

• What Does the Research Say About the Phonics Advantage?

• America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Windows 10 support ends on October 14, 2025

• Apple's streaming service gets harder to tell apart from its streaming app, box

• Satellites Are Leaking the Secrets

  • Satellites found exposing unencrypted data: phone calls, military comms

• Bose kills SoundTouch: Smart speakers go dumb in Feb

• TiVo Has Stopped Selling DVRs, Exits the Hardware Business

• Chinese gang used ArcGIS as a backdoor for a year – and no one noticed

  Researchers at ReliaQuest say that the espionage outfit, which Microsoft tracks as a China-based state-sponsored actor, modified a legitimate ArcGIS server object extension (SOE) to act as a web shell, giving them long-term, near-invisible access. By exploiting ArcGIS’ extensibility features while avoiding traditional, signature-based malware, Flax Typhoon embedded itself so deeply that even restoring systems from backups simply reinstalled the implant.

• The New York Sun revives print edition

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• How bad can a $2.97 ADC be? - by James Bowman

  what’s going on with the cheap parts? My best guess is that these are either quite good copies, or failed parts that somehow made their way into the hobbyist supply chain. When the more respectable part arrives next week I’ll put it through the same tests and report the result. However I only bought one of these, because it’s 4X the price!

• The OS/2 Display Driver Zoo | OS/2 Museum

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• A.I. Sure Looks Like a Bubble. Watch Out When It Pops

• Former Intel CEO Says Market Is in AI Bubble

• Investors are on edge as talk of an AI bubble gets louder

• AI Avatars Have Been in Politics for a Decade, but Diella Is Different

• AI users sue Microsoft in antitrust class action over OpenAI deal

• OpenAI-Broadcom agreement sends shares of chipmaker soaring

• Why Broadcom's Bet on OpenAI Is a Big Risk

• Google to spend $15B on AI data center in biggest India investment

• Oracle Cloud to deploy 50k AMD AI chips

• 1 in 5 high schoolers has had a romantic AI relationship/knows someone who has

• OpenAI wants to stop ChatGPT from validating users' political views

• AI boom riskier than dotcom bubble, warns IMF

• Walmart Partners with OpenAI to Offer Shopping on ChatGPT

  • You'll soon be able to shop Walmart's catalog on ChatGPT

  • Walmart says customers will soon be able to use ChatGPT to shop

• Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon sext with verified adults

  • Altman teases ChatGPT porn, personality

  • Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon allow erotica

• Microsoft seeding Washington schools with free AI to get kids, teachers hooked

• Intel Announces Inference-Optimized Xe3P Graphics Card with 160GB VRAM

• Oura reaches $11B valuation with new $900M fundraise

Crypto con games

• A Historic Crypto Selloff Erased over $19B, but Two Accounts Made $160M

• Crypto tycoon found dead with gunshot wound to the head inside his Lamborghini

  Konstantin Galich's body was found inside his luxury car, which was parked in Kyiv's Obolonskyi neighbourhood, alongside a gun registered in his name. The 32-year-old, who was also known as Kostya Kudo, had become a well-known figure in the crypto industry and died after the market nosedived to record lows.

• DOJ seizes $15B in Bitcoin from 'pig butchering' scam based in Cambodia

• Americans are losing millions to scammers at crypto ATMs

Economicon / Business / Finance

• The Great Debasement Debate Is Rippling Across Global Markets

• The New York City Office Market Is Roaring Back, and It's Pricier

• Friday's selloff broke something in the stock market

• US Small-Business Optimism Falls to Three-Month Low on Economy

• GoFundMe CEO says economy is so challenged people are raising money to buy food

• Dimon says autocompany bankruptcies reveal 'signs' of excess corporate lending

  • Or the risk of exposing the "everyone does it" fraud that has been indulged for a while in service of "number go up". As long as the suckers don't realize they've been sold air, the market keeps looking great!

• Tricolor Contributed $170M Charge-Off to JPMorgan's Costs

• Dimon's 'Cockroach' Fear Revives Threat of Growing Credit Cracks

• The disparity between how high and low income earners feel about the economy

• What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy

Left Angst

• A Chinese journalist on the US under Trump

• Renewable Energy Is Booming Despite Trump's Efforts to Slow It

• Trump's Chicago Immigration Crackdown Escalated, in 10 Videos

  • People getting together to blockade and fire on the cops is a thing. the local cops refusing to aid feds is another.

• Trust between the U.S. and China is fading fast, analysts say

• NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lay off about 550 workers

  • NASA's JPL faces lowest morale in decades after latest layoffs

• Pentagon retreats from climate fight even as heat and storms slam troops

• The Trump Administration's Increased Use of Social Media Surveillance

  • Have they announced plans to have a Dept of Cognitive Hygiene monitoring mis- and mal-information yet? How many people are dedicated to enforcing Federal guidelines and embedded in the social media companies under this administration vs the previous one?

• A Furious Debate over Autism's Causes Leaves Parents Grasping for Answers

• The Rise of Social Media and the Fall of Western Democracy

• CDC battered by government shutdown firings, while some are rescinded

• ‘The Democrats Still May Not Understand What They're Dealing With’ - POLITICO

  To hear characters like venture capital firm a16z’s Marc Andreessen tell it, much of their current support for Trump has to do with a Joe Biden administration that attempted to throttle tech innovation. In December, Andreessen said in a podcast that he and other tech figures had meetings with Biden officials that were “absolutely horrifying … we came out basically deciding that we had to endorse Trump.” But according to Jacob Silverman, author of the newly released book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, the tech industry flourished under Biden as well, benefitting in particular from increased cooperation with the defense sector. Rather, characters like Musk, Andreessen, Peter Thiel and David Sacks found common ground with Trump on many cultural issues, and realized that if they asked nicely, he would deliver them exactly what they wanted from the federal government.

• Half of America's Voting Machines Are Now Owned by a MAGA Oligarch

• 'I love Hitler': Leaked messages expose Young Republicans' racist chat

  • Leaked Young Republicans Telegram Chat Filled with Slurs and Praise for Hitler

• Key Analyst Says U.S. Is 'Going Broke' Under Trump

• Facebook removes ICE-tracking page after US Government 'outreach'

  • Facebook suspends Chicago ICE-sightings group at Trump administration's request

• Trump and Vought are making this a government shutdown unlike any other

• State Department Revokes Visas over Charlie Kirk Comments

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• New York Times, AP, Newsmax and others say they won't sign new Pentagon rules

  • US news outlets refuse to sign new Pentagon rules to report only official info

• Bessent: Struggling China wants 'to pull everybody else down with them'

World

• Microsoft 'illegally' tracked students via 365 Education, says data watchdog

• 'Your basis to live is checked at every step': India's ID system divides opinion

• The faces and fallout of Australia's historic Iraq War protests

• South Africa's one million invisible children without birth certificates

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's mobile phone number made available online

• EU Considers Forced Tech Transfers for Chinese Investments

• EU Postpones Chat Control Vote

• Riding the Rhine: Europe's first certified long-distance cycle path

• Madagascar's military takes power, fleeing president impeached

• Google may be forced to make changes to search engine in UK

Israel

• Freed Israeli hostages recount brutal beatings, starvation

• A Plan to Rebuild Gaza Lists Nearly 30 Companies. Many Say They're Not Involved

• Hamas carries out public executions — just hours after peace treaty signing

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Behind Russian Drone Surge? Chinese Factories

• Putin Is Not Winning

• Russia Steps Up Assault on Antiwar Exiles, Accusing Them of Terrorism

• NATO boss mocks Russian Navy, which is on the hunt for "the nearest mechanic"

China

• China port fees on U.S. ships set to kick in Tuesday

• China Stands Firm on Trade War Fronts, Targeting Minerals and U.S. Tech

• China Puts Export Controls on Nexperia After Dutch Takeover

  • Dutch Seized Nexperia After US Demanded Ouster of Chinese CEO

  • U.S. Pressured Netherlands to Oust CEO of Chinese-Owned Chip Maker

• Beijing issues documents without Word format amid US tensions

• Europe Seeks Tough Response to China's Minerals Restrictions

• China now leads the U.S. in this key part of the AI race

• Spain the frontrunner for Chinese carmaker BYD's third European plant

• China Hits Back at US on Shipping with Hanwha Curbs, New Probe

• China sanctions five U.S. subsidiaries of South Korea's Hanwha Ocean

• 'Sovereign AI' Has Become a New Front in the US-China Tech War

• Can anything knock China off its mountain?

• Chinese autonomous driving firm WeRide taps banks for Hong Kong listing

Health / Medicine

• Got a cold? Try sucking on a peppermint, say scientists

• A Plea from Doctors: Cool It on the Supplement

• Genes might predict if you'll get hooked on weed

• Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead

• Synthetic kratom is exploding in California

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Unvaccinated students in South Carolina quarantining after measles exposure

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894

• Minnesota towns were clean energy skeptics: Now they're installing solar

• Dolphins wash up on beaches with mutated brains

• Towns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes at risk

• Majestic wild horses are trampling Mono Lake's landscape: Feds plan roundup

• Governor vetoes California bill banning cookware with PFAS

• Bats Catch Migratory Birds and Eat Them in Midair